When Relative Power Misleads
Requisite Realism’s Prior Ontology and the Future of Realist Theory
Requisite Realism vs Offensive Realism:
“Tacit knowledge and intergenerational learning form the primordial axiom of material replenishment. The forge where the atelier becomes factory, sustaining the flows that define durable power. Offensive Realism weighs only depleted residue once this prior ontology is ignored, leaving anarchy’s scales to crack under exhausted stocks.”
Why Requisite Realism Offers a More Parsimonious Realist Theory
By Alan Koch April 16 2026
In the study of international relations, few concepts carry the axiomatic weight of anarchy. For more than two decades John Mearsheimer’s Offensive Realism has offered one of the most parsimonious accounts of great-power behaviour by treating anarchy as an immutable structural prior: a self-help system in which states must maximise relative power or face elimination (Mearsheimer 2001). The theory’s elegance stems from its refusal to interrogate the origins of that anarchy. Yet elegance is not explanatory completeness. Requisite Realism advances a more fundamental challenge. It declares a single, immutable ontological prior—the continuous material reproduction of energy, infrastructure, logistics, industrial capacity, and the tacit knowledge that sustains them—as the condition of possibility for any durable power (Koch 2026). Anarchy, on this view, is not primordial but derivative: a human-constructed realm whose character and intensity are shaped by success or failure in replenishing those flows. This essay argues that Requisite Realism’s derivative ontology delivers superior explanatory and predictive power. By grounding theory in a prior that Offensive Realism brackets, Requisite Realism renders intelligible outcomes that appear puzzling under conventional realist assumptions, most notably the quiet erosion of material power under liberal globalisation and comparative advantage.
Offensive Realism achieves theoretical economy by accepting anarchy as given, much as Kenneth Waltz had done before it (Waltz 1979). From that single assumption Mearsheimer derives a clear behavioural imperative: states pursue hegemony because the structure leaves them no choice. Capabilities are treated as relatively static endowments whose distribution can be measured at any moment. The result is a model whose forecasts hold only so long as the underlying regenerative flows remain intact. When they degrade, relative-power calculations become misleading precisely because the prior condition the theory assumes has already been violated (Koch 2026).
Requisite Realism corrects this by moving one level deeper. Material reproduction is not a background variable but the fixed axiom against which all else is judged. Energy security, logistical networks, industrial ecosystems and crucially the tacit intergenerational learning that turns an atelier into a scalable factory are not resources states possess; they are flows states must continuously replenish. Once this prior is declared, anarchy ceases to be an unexamined given. It becomes derivative: a realm whose stability or brutality depends on humanity’s collective capacity to sustain the material substrate that makes organised political life possible. From one simple axiom flows a cascade of derivative phenomena: the durability of alliances, the reliability of deterrence, the limits of power projection, and the very intensity of anarchic competition itself.
The theoretical payoff is greater parsimony in application. Offensive Realism requires analysts to accept its foundational assumption without reserve; any erosion of the material base is treated as exogenous. Requisite Realism, by contrast, begins with a single testable condition. When regenerative capacity falls below threshold, apparent operational strength, fleets at sea, aircraft aloft and sanctions imposed can persist for a time on depleted stocks. Yet each such action accelerates underlying depletion rather than restoring it. Strategic misreads therefore arise not from miscalculation of relative power but from reading the wrong layer of reality. Bureaucratic politics and organisational processes (Allison and Zelikow 1999) compound the problem: parochial interests and standard operating procedures delay the transmission of regenerative signals from the material “root” to decision-making “branches.” The system projects vigour while quietly exhausting the conditions that make vigour possible.
This explanatory advantage becomes concrete when applied to the political economy of globalisation. Susan Strange long ago identified the structural tension between production and financial structures in the global system (Strange 1988). Under liberal globalisation, the financial structure gained ascendancy. Capital flowed to wherever labour or regulatory costs were lowest, offshoring industrial capacity in pursuit of short-term profit. What appeared as efficient specialisation according to comparative advantage delivered lower consumer prices and higher shareholder returns. Yet it simultaneously exported not merely factories but the tacit learning, supplier networks, and regenerative capacity that transform artisanal skill into industrial-scale reproduction. Without this living substrate, relative power becomes a mirage sustained by depleted stocks rather than renewable flows.
The consequences for great-power durability are now visible. The United States retains formidable operational military assets and financial dominance, yet repeated official assessments document vulnerabilities in the defence industrial base: single-source foreign dependencies (often adversarial), eroded surge capacity, and atrophied lower-tier suppliers in machine tooling, rare-earth processing, and precision components (Department of Defense 2018; GAO 2025). Offshoring for profit has left logistics and munitions production exposed to disruption, precisely the regenerative shortfalls that Requisite Realism treats as violations of the ontological prior. Quarterly earnings and stock valuations register success, yet the threshold of replenishment is quietly crossed. Apparent stability persists while the material root degrades.
Offensive Realism struggles to explain or predict this dynamic because it brackets the material substrate, treating anarchy as given and capabilities as static. Requisite Realism, by declaring replenishment prior, reveals how comparative-advantage-driven globalisation constructs a more brittle anarchy: one in which financial power masks industrial erosion until conflict or coercion exposes the gap. States that subordinate production to finance risk rendering their relative-power advantages transient. Those that deliberately reconfigure flows through reshoring, investment in tacit-knowledge pipelines and alignment of incentives with regenerative imperatives will better satisfy the unchanging ontological demand.
Clausewitz observed that “theory becomes infinitely more difficult as soon as it touches the realm of moral values” (Clausewitz 1976/1984, p. 136). Requisite Realism embraces this difficulty where Offensive Realism evades it. By treating anarchy as given, Offensive Realism can present power-maximisation as tragic necessity. By defining anarchy through its material prior, Requisite Realism restores accountability: leaders are responsible not only for their position within the system but for whether they sustain the flows that constitute the system itself. Industrial hollowing-out ceases to be mere policy error; it becomes a violation of the conditions that make durable power possible.
The contemporary relevance is immediate. Great-power competition today turns on supply-chain resilience, energy transitions, critical minerals, and semiconductor sovereignty. Offensive Realism can describe the rivalry but struggles to explain why some competitors maintain durability while others erode beneath surface metrics of strength. Requisite Realism offers a clearer predictive lens: the decisive variable is not the current distribution of capabilities but whether each actor continues to reproduce the material substrate that will sustain future capabilities. States or coalitions that reconfigure flows under stress preserve their ontological foundation. Those that cannot discover that relative-power logic eventually loses traction.
In sum, Requisite Realism does not supplant Offensive Realism; it grounds it. By engaging the prior condition that defines anarchy itself, Requisite Realism restores theoretical accountability without sacrificing parsimony. It explains both why competitive logics endure and why they suddenly fail when regenerative flows are exhausted. For scholars and practitioners navigating an era of material strain and perceptual lag, this derivative ontology is not an academic refinement but a necessary corrective. Theory that refuses to interrogate its own foundations risks becoming elegant yet irrelevant. Requisite Realism insists that the foundations must be declared and thereby makes international-relations theory once again accountable to the material reality that sustains it.
References
Allison, G. T. and Zelikow, P. (1999) Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. 2nd edn. New York: Longman.
Clausewitz, C. von (1976/1984) On War. Edited and translated by M. Howard and P. Paret. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Department of Defense (2018) Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States. Washington, DC: DoD.
GAO (2025) Defense Industrial Base: Actions Needed to Address Risks Posed by Dependence on Foreign Suppliers. GAO-25-107283. Washington, DC: Government Accountability Office.
Koch, A. (2026) ‘Requisite Realism: A Material Ontology of Power and Enforcement in Contemporary International Relations’. Working Paper. Available at: https://alkoch55.substack.com/p/requisite-realism (Accessed: 15 April 2026).
Mearsheimer, J. J. (2001) The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: W.W. Norton.
Strange, S. (1988) States and Markets. London: Pinter.
Waltz, K. N. (1979) Theory of International Politics. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Very interesting argument, especially the idea that relative power can mislead strategic judgement.
I tend to agree, although I would argue that purely structural readings (in a Mearsheimer sense) can become too mechanical, overlooking how perception and adaptation shape outcomes over time.