International relation is basically a study which talks about how all the countries across

the globe interact with each other on the international front and is the reflection of foreign affairs

and global aspects. There are three main approaches that define international relations i.e

liberalism, constructivism, and realism; they view international relations from their own lens.

Their perspectives do differ from each other, but they do not deviate so much from one another;

as the approaches widely used to define international relations are liberalism and realism, as they

both have targeted the same goal of achieving peace in the countries; but the way they think it

can be achieved is different.

Now, let’s look at the strength and weaknesses of the two approaches, we will first

discuss the strength and weaknesses of liberalism simultaneously and then go on to talk about

realism and highlight their strengths and weaknesses. Liberalism’s first strength is they are more

optimistic in their approach because they are of the view that people from countries across the

globe have the tendency to highlight and incorporate the element of cooperation between them,

whereas the weakness of this point of view is that they lack to highlight the importance of the

power; it is widely used by realism, which in simple words mean that countries use this concept

of power in order to achieve the status and power within their countries. One of the important

examples is the Arab League which had been established to deal with the middle eastern issues

like Syria and the civil war going on there.

Another strength of this liberalism approach is that they talk about the openness in

between the states, this means that all the individuals of these countries have the same interest

and therefore they gather together and work for it; whereas the weakness is that all the other

countries can incorporate their own domestic problems there and also not all the countries accept

the interference of international communities, and therefore this is the weaknesses. One of the
major examples of these are, China accepted this openness through free-market trade and their

economy grew as well, however countries like Syria where the civil war is going on they are not

fond of the intervention of foreign countries.

Liberalism is also of the view that countries can attain less chaos and they can stay in the

peace as well, it is well defined by the terms they use the cooperation and coordination and

element of diplomacy and they say economic ties like these will bring peace to the counties, the

weakness of this will be they cannot account for the terrorism going on in countries. Lybian civil

war was ended on the subject of diplomacy, and they are continuing to be better and retaining

that peace within their countries, while on the other hand the war brought by fundamentalist in

different countries, or colonizing them and leaving them on their pattern is the downside of it

which liberals don’t account for in their approach; the biggest example of it is British

colonization.

Liberalism is very famous among the counties which are democratic and it also gives the

other countries a chance and opportunity to upraise, because of their point of view they argue

and hints at the fact that concept of war is so unpopular due to this view, this can be achieved by

convincing them to let go of the selfish behavior of attaining short term gain, and instead relying

on and enduring cooperation behavior, however, what they fail to address here is it can reflect

the construct of imperialism or cultural imperialism; a major example of its strength is the IMF

working towards putting counties out of the crisis.

Lastly, the strength of liberalism is that it talks about the possibilities of collaboration in

relation with countries, however, the weakness of it can be defined as the fact that liberalism

itself can also be the reason for the downfall of the countries itself. One cannot completely

remove the war factor from the equation, but liberalism suggests that through economic, social,
and diplomatic factors, one can achieve the international objective and not opt for the war

options, as Shell has in Nigeria or BMW in Britain for political reasons, but hardly in real life it

can completely define this point. All of these were the strengths and weaknesses of liberalism,

now let’s look at realism.

Realism strength is it talks about the benefits which they give to their own states, and the

weakness here is it rejects the view of cooperation; realists believe that they can achieve the

international objectives and their self-interest through the power in this case war, whereas

liberalism believes in the view of cooperation, coordination and mutual interest. One of the

prime examples of this is the dutch colonization back in the day, however, it also gained enemies

because of its contradictory views about coordination and cooperation as suggested by liberals.

The strength of realism is that it responds to international issues faster than realism does,

and the weakness of this is that it is preoccupied with the self-interest idea of the country.

Realism bests define the power struggle, and policy of self-preservation and dominance of a

country, whereas realism fails to account for all the other factors for the state which are not ideas

of security or struggle. Realism is better able to explain the war of terror and fundamentalism as

it widely defines the concept of attaining power through war; while liberalism fails to do so.

Realism strength is also that by using the concept of power it might make people

discourage science achievement, due to the competition created based on the self-interest realism

point of view, these countries also compete with each other to increase their countries prosperity.

For instance, nuclear invention during the world war reflected this, however, during the cold war

it was more of a factor for countries to be ahead of each other. Another strength of realism is that

it is good when it’s dealing with the powerful states; the idea is that all these countries work for

their national interests, and it is very good for the superpower countries because they can be self-
sufficient and completely fulfill their own self-interest, however, what realism fail to talk about

is that they are stuck in the past for their revenge, as one of the examples are the United States

and the Soviet Union, which are till date enemies of each other; its the weakness of realism

factor.

Lastly, the term used by the fundamentalists regarding war is actually useful for the

believers of realists or realists; however weakness of this factor is that it can be misinterpreted by

some countries and can even result in chaos, due to realism, is very crucial to convince others of

the perspective to attain the peace through the balance of power; however, some people can also

misuse it, the major example of which can be seen as terrorism and realism till date cannot

explain the notion of war on terror, which has states on one hand and other actors excluding

states on the other side. This realism view might be good like it benefited the countries those

were colonized by Dutch and British and those colonized countries were led onto the path of

development, however, it can prove to be harmful as well as in the case of 9/11, till date the

terrorism has been widely spread and it is not only affecting the image but also for people who

are their kind; for instance, it has given rise to islamophobia.

Now let’s look at these approaches and how some of the issues in the world can best be

described through these.