Realpolitik / Literature

• The T'au in the Ciaphas Cain novel For the Emperor use this as their justification for occupying sections of the planet. Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!) points out that the Imperium have used exactly the same rationale to then seize said planets soon after.
• Cardinal Moldeen Ogus Gyunei from Dances with the Dragons is the mastermind behind the series events. All of it for the sake of preventing the disastrous Holy War from occurring by uniting the Alshok Territory with the Seven-Cities Alliance and to create a prosperous world.
• John 'Gentleman Johnny' Marcone, later Accorded Baron Marcone of Chicago in The Dresden Files is a typical example of the Kingpin type — he's the head of Chicago's underworld, and a ruthless criminal... but after his takeover of the Chicago underworld, he went about a ruthlessly efficient clean-up, doing what Dresden terms, "Putting the 'civil' back in 'civil offender'", cutting collateral damage to a minimum and personally executing anyone who tries to involve or victimise children. As Dresden notes, there's enough decency in him that, to Dresden's irritation, he can't just file him under pure villain and call it a day. However, this relative decency, tight control of Chicago's underworld, and considerable resultant power mean that Dresden winds up saving him on several occasions, and helping him expand his power by becoming an Accorded Baron under the Unseelie Accords, simply because he is far better than the alternative and, in the latter case, Dresden can't be everywhere and Marcone will defend Chicago out of pure pragmatism (it's his turf) if given the opportunity.
  • Lara Raith of the White Court is a similar case, with her and Dresden repeatedly using each other as catspaws to achieve their own ends, and both are willing to make alliances to deal with mutual enemies. This is despite the fact that she's perfectly happy to admit that she's a monster, if an Affably Evil one, and Dresden has made it bluntly clear that she is "on his list", as is Marcone.
  • Mab, Queen of the Winter Court, is basically the Queen of Realpolitik too, being the most purely pragmatic character in the Dresdenverse. She's also absolutely terrifying.
• One of the post-Asimov Foundation Series authors claimed that aliens never showed up because robots killed them to protect humans.
• In Have Space Suit – Will Travel, the Three Galaxies organization of many alien races puts Humanity on Trial. Our hero Kip says this is unjust. The alien moderator responds that the Three Galaxies don't bother trying to understand "justice" but are a defence organization that destroys any race that will be a threat.
• In Heavy Object, the four supernations were created based on a core ideology, but despite this they make concessions in order to avoid open war with one another. A number of antagonists are extremists who refuse to accept this trope and want to stay true to the ideology, no matter the cost.
• This crops up occasionally regarding Ratings Games in High School D×D. Rias mentions early on that since Riser can regenerate from any attack legal in the Games, he functionally can't lose; however, there are still losses on his record where he threw the match out of respect for a greater house being his opponent. Much later, Issei's own peerage with a couple of loaner pieces win the first match of a Tournament Arc by using dirty tricks to distract the enemy ace, nuking the entire field once to remove all cover, then doing it a second time to take out the exposed enemy. Grayfia has to take Issei aside and explain that yes, according to the rules he won. But it's boring to watch and bad sportsmanship, so more performances like that aren't going to endear him to the other Kings.
• The Andermani Empire in the Honor Harrington series is known for determining all foreign policy by realpolitik, which is unsurprising, since they model themselves after Prussia. In a subversion of how this trope is usually portrayed, they are just as famous for expanding their empire by rescuing planets in trouble, for entirely pragmatic and selfish reasons — a tradition that started with Gustav Anderman's rescue of Kuan-Yin, now known as Potsdam.
• The Journey to Chaos series dips into this whenever Eric steps in to help his surrogate little sister, Queen Kasile of Ataidar. Such occasions are slandering a neighboring ruler on her behalf but in his own name in order to shape public opinion to her liking and spying on visiting diplomats. These are commonly played for laughs but it happens more seriously during the Mana Mutation Summit of its third entry. Here, Prince Lunas of Latrot tries to sway this gathering of world leaders by appealing to their self-interest when all he's really interested in is Latrot's interest (or rather, that of Order). Annala Enaz seeks to undermine his plan not by exposing it as a veiled attempt at work conquest (which it is) but by how it is not in their interest to follow it and how her mother's plan helps them so much more. The delegates themselves care less about the Order Versus Chaos war going on between them than about the interests of their country, the ruling part, and their own careers.
• Kentucky Fried Politics:
  • When the US intervenes against the Soviet-backed Military Coup in Ethiopia, President Mondale convinces the Soviets to back off from further involvement by offering to sell them millions of tons of wheat at a discount. Facing a potentially starving population due to poor agricultural resources, the Soviets begrudgingly accept the deal.
  • After Syria invades Israel on a quite thin pretext (a rogue Israeli national assassinating a Lebanese official with Syrian business ties), the rest of the Arab nations side with Israel in order to preserve the prosperous economic connections that have come from twenty-or-so years of peace in the Middle East.
• Magic, Metahumans, Martians and Mushroom Clouds: An Alternate Cold War:
  • Despite distrusting Mao, Stalin still provides aid to the PRC in the Chinese Civil War in order to avoid having an American ally right on his borders.
  • Both the US and Israel cut deals for material support with Ramses XI's takeover of Egypt — for the Americans, it's the standard "as long as he's not communist" philosophy, while for the Israelis it's because he only wants to rule Egypt as it existed in his time (which doesn't include the Sinai territories Israel took from modern Egypt), and also because he doesn't care either way about Jews and is outright hostile towards the surrounding Muslim countries.
  • The Soviets are also happy to support Subhas Bose's attempts to take over India, in the hopes of bringing it into their fold.
  • For a time, Nationalist China refrains from annexing Tibet due to not wanting to anger the Yuzhou de fangshi monks. Eventually, however, they feel that it's better to risk it than let Tibet fall under India's sway.
  • During the East African War, nations like Israel and South Africa send material support to Kenya and Tanzania to fight off Uganda's aggression. And after Uganda wins, Rwanda and Ethiopia make concessions to Amin to keep him from invading them too, Rhodesia sends him extravagant gifts to keep him from supporting rebellions against their white minority rule, and both the USA and USSR compete to get him in their respective camps.
  • During the Spanish Civil War that breaks out after Franco digitizes his consciousness in order to stay in power forever, NATO supplies aid to Luis Blanco's reformist forces, due to being more amenable to their interests. The Soviets, meanwhile, support left-wing guerrillas in Catalonia for the same reasons.
  • Once the Iraqi civil war breaks out, the western powers, Soviet bloc, and the various members of the Non-Aligned Movement all start funneling material support to whichever of the various factions is most in keeping with their respective agendas.
  • When the Americans and Soviets unilaterally decide to evenly split the rest of the solar system between the two of them for colonization, most of the rest of the nations with space programs retaliate with diplomatic and economic pressure that eventually forces the two superpowers to agree to UN arbitration on how much of each planet they can colonize.
  • While Rhodesia is able to maintain white minority rule for several more years than in reality, several factors — the total lack of foreign aid, the eventual retirement, death, or defection of all their local metahumans, and the fact that the dinosaur hybrids provided by Mengele aren't a long-term tactical solution to the black militants — causes them to eventually submit to the inevitable and agree to transition to equality to avoid being overthrown.
• New Deal Coalition Retained:
  • Somalia defects from the African Socialist Alliance to the Entebbe Pact in order to nab territory from Ethiopia.
  • Iraq switches its allegiances from the Soviets to the Americans after Iran goes Communist, and the Americans eagerly accept them as a strong ally in the region.
  • China is allied to the Soviets, but stays neutral in World War III in order to maintain the security of its own sphere of influence in Asia. They only get directly involved when Japan enters the war on NATO's behalf and invades Siberia, and even then it's just because a Soviet collapse would allow Japan to claim massive territory claims; China makes sure everyone knows it's only fighting Japan, to avoid getting dragged into the larger war. And they sue for a separate peace as soon as it becomes clear the Soviets are losing.
  • Libya sits out most of WWIII, but keeps a neutrality that is clearly communist-friendly, no doubt because the Soviets and their allies seem to have the upper hand. Near the end of the war, however, when it becomes clear that the Allies are winning, they declare war on the Warsaw Pact and help defeat the last remaining communist countries in Africa.
  • Slobodan Milošević is placed in charge of Yugoslavia by the Soviets to try and shore up Communist control of what territories they still have. However, unlike the increasingly delusional hardliners in the Politburo, Milošević realizes that the Allies are going to win, so abandons communism in favor of Serbian nationalism, reaching out with an offer of working with the Allies in exchange for control of a Greater Serbia carved out of Yugoslavia post-war. And while the Allies are hesitant (due to wanting to divide Yugoslavia along ethnic lines) they're more desperate to weaken Warsaw Pact forces in the Balkans, so they accept Milošević's proposal.
    • And when NATO realizes post-war what a horrible mistake was and start putting sanctions on Serbia in response to its human rights violations, Milošević responds by forming close ties with various former Allied or neutral nations (primarily the Entebbe Pact, Iraq, India and China) which are seeking increased influence to counter that of the major powers.
  • In the 90s, the CIA backs coups of narco-friendly regimes in South America that are fueling the drug crisis in America. They specifically state that they don't care if the new rulers they install become dictators, as long as they don't continue that trend.
  • During the Great Southern War, the Entebbe Pact finances separatist militant groups in Freyist and Concordat nations, with them doing the same to such groups in Pact nations, to weaken their enemies' war efforts.
• In Operation Massacre, that is the excuse for the political violence of Aramburu's regime. This book, too, was used as a proof for Aramburu's execution by the left-wing guerrilla Montoneros.
• Herhor in Pharaoh is completely ruthless. Pentuer, his understudy, gives up politics in disgust.
• This is what The Prince is actually about — not about tyranny and cruelty, but about unfettered pragmatism whereby the title character protects and advances his interests (and that of the princedom, of course, but they're basically the same).
• The Scholomance:
  • This is the entire reason why the enclaves opened up the school to children of independent wizarding families in the first place. By doing so and giving these children a quality education, they increased the potential number of recruits to help enrich their enclaves — and more importantly, provided Cannon Fodder for the mals that reside at the school to chomp at while keeping their own children safe. When El realizes this for herself, it puts her off the idea of ever joining an enclave, just like her mom.
  • As the Scholomance was built by western enclaves and has only ever been maintained by them, a disproportionate amount of seats are allocated towards wizards in the western world, to the point the nearly every indie kid in the UK gets a seat at the school. Compare that to the east, where the enclaves only have just enough to send their own children (and even that is a recent development) and a handful of seats for their own indie kids to compete viciously over. As there is a stark divide between the western and eastern wizards with minimal overlap, that means the eastern enclavers have less potential allies and recruits to choose from for graduation and thus lower survival rates than their western counterparts. This has become a major point of contention in the recent decades and drives much of the conflict of the second book.
• Doorstopper Medieval European Fantasy and Realpolitik met one night, both got seriously drunk on History... and A Song of Ice and Fire is their surprise baby. Yes, you get dragons, magic, kings, queens, assassins, guards, "faeries", taverns and bards: but, what you mainly get is a whole zoo full of political shenanigans (national, international, personal and interpersonal) played out quite cynically, pragmatically and violently. People find themselves working together when they hate each other's guts, refuse to work with others they personally admire because of differing goals; they'll support, set up or kill off anybody in the way to get ahead, shift alliances and target swap all to keep their group's heads above water or to get ahead themselves... the whole enchilada. Consequences for the smallest actions produce massive, unpredicted (not necessarily unpredictable) repercussions. Agendas and counter-agendas tighten around each other in the Game of Thrones. The best players play with cleverness and pragmatism (which often works for quite some time, barring the odd Spanner in the Works), some try to use it with a dash of cruelty (newsflash: it tends to work... until it very seriously doesn't), some try to mix in some idealism (iffy: often backfires when they get the mix wrong, or other players misread the moves): but, ultimately, luck has the final say on how the game plays out thanks to the sheer number of factors involved — some quite outside the known board layout.
• The Traveler's Gate: Enosh is an apocalypse cult that controls a small city-state, and is dedicated to destroying the Damasca Kingdom. Damasca could easily have conquered Enosh centuries ago, but having a powerful nation of Travelers nearby, even an enemy one, had its advantages. Enosh helped keep the Territories in check, they occasionally shared knowledge, and even had a few trade treaties.

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