ABSTRACT
The purpose of this paper is both to ask how well non-realist approaches to international politics serve us and to show how realist theory helps one to understand international-political events and changes. One of the charges hurled at realist theory is that it fails to explain the failure of a new balance of power to form since the end of the Cold War. Another charge is that the survival and flourishing of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) defeats realists' expectations.
