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Thucydides is considered to be the founder of political realism. Even in those times he determined the basic premises of realism - security and survival. He made an impact on subsequent development of realism embodied in the works of Machiavelli, Hobbes, Morgenthau, Car, Niebuhr, Aaron, Waltz etc. They will call the system of international relations as anarchical one since there is no supreme arbitrator which will force states to adequate behaviour. His views of realism were given in the volume 'The Peloponnesian War' where he had determined the anarchy of the relationships among states. Such system did not rely on justice and morale, but force and power were the predominant facts. He also introduces the category of just wars by claiming that Sparta led a just war against the increased power of Athens, and observed morale principles. Nevertheless, Thucydides faces contradictory, since Sparta itself as the largest land force of that time had to use force in order to beat Athens. He went ahead since he considered force and power as a necessary condition to achieve other objectives, which was later on adopted by Raymond Aaron. Following the example of the war between Athens and Sparta, he successfully analysed bipolar system of balance of power in which the conflict between the leading members of the two opposite blocks was possible in the end, while beforehand there should have been conflicts among weaker members of both blocks. Thucydides explained the manifestation of force and power using example of the Melian dialogue between the envoys of Athens and Melos. It was about the pure politics of force of Athens regardless of the fact that Melos had its independence.

This article discusses the recent debate between Jürgen Habermas and Wolfgang Streeck on the relationship between capitalism and democracy in Europe. The article recounts Streeck's analysis of the financial crisis, the transformation of the tax state into the debt state, and the development of the EU towards an international consolidation state, which informs Streeck's call for a retreat from Europe to the nation-state as the last line of defense against neoliberal capitalism. The article proceeds to sketch Habermas's criticism of Streeck's argument, and it illustrates how Habermas' proposal for a reconstitution of the EU as a supranational democracy is motivated by foundational concerns in his critical theory of society. Finally, the article argues that the debate results in an unresolved dilemma: while only a democratized EU can reestablish the supremacy of politics over globalized markets, the EU is more likely to become further entrenched as an international consolidation state.