This Is Why Empires Fall: Tom Bilyeu Breaks Down Realpolitik, Why History Will Repeat & the Brutal Truth About War | Deep Dive

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: [Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu]
Episode: This Is Why Empires Fall: Tom Bilyeu Breaks Down Realpolitik, Why History Will Repeat & the Brutal Truth About War | Deep Dive
Date: June 30, 2025
Host: Tom Bilyeu

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Overview:

Tom Bilyeu delivers a hard-hitting, no-nonsense exploration of the philosophy of Realpolitik—the idea that nations act not based on ideals or morality, but on ruthless, pragmatic self-interest. Tom argues that to truly understand and thrive in a chaotic, dangerous world, you must embrace the reality of how power shapes global events, historic and current. Across five structured parts, Tom lays out the essence of Realpolitik, its predictive power, its grounding in human nature, the role of culture as a moral check, and how this lens explains current global conflict. He concludes with practical advice for navigating personal and political life amid these relentless forces.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction – The Ruthless Reality of Power

[01:00–06:00]

• Tom sets the tone by underscoring the frequency and predictability of major wars: “That means, on average, humanity unleashes a major conflict every five months. And every single one was predictable. If you understand the ruthless logic of realpolitik.” (Tom, 01:02)
• He cautions against wishful thinking and urges listeners to view history and the modern world as they are, not as we wish them to be.
• Central thesis: “To thrive in a chaotic world, you must accurately predict how nations will act and how their actions shape markets, freedoms, and your personal safety. And the mental model that most accurately maps the ruthless logic of power, money and human nature is known as Realpolitik.” (Tom, 05:14)

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2. What Is Realpolitik? – The Nine Tenets

[06:01–13:50]

• Tom outlines the philosophy through vivid historical examples (Genghis Khan, John Mearsheimer’s Godzilla vs. Bambi metaphor).
• Key Tenets:
  1. National Interest and Sovereignty Over Everything: Nations act from pragmatic self-interest, not morality.
  2. Power Centrality: Acquiring and wielding power is the driving force.
  3. Assumed Rational Self-Interest: Leaders’ decisions, though imperfect, are generally rational.
  4. Anarchic International System: No global ruler; nations operate in self-help.
  5. Balance of Power by Force/Resistance: Expansion halts only at credible resistance.
  6. Skepticism Toward International Law: Laws are tools of power, not real constraints.
  7. Acceptance of Human Nature: Leaders and masses are self-interested, competitive, power-seeking.
  8. Pragmatism Trumps Ideology: States flex beliefs/alliances for practical gain.
  9. Military Power/Deterrence: Strength prevents as well as provokes war.
• Quote: “It is a distinction between is and ought that is incredibly important.” (Tom, 08:40)
• Applications range from ancient conquests to the digital age (TikTok called out as “cultural warfare”).

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3. History as Proof – Realpolitik's Predictive Power

[13:51–22:45]

• Tom launches a tour through bloody history—Alexander, Genghis, Napoleon, Cyrus, colonialism, Mao, World Wars—showing how Realpolitik repeatedly predicts reality.
• Notable Analysis: Even atrocities have their logic: “Being pragmatic over ethical works.” (Tom, 17:53)
• Modern analogues: North Korea’s nukes (MAD logic), Iran, and the strategic realism of U.S. actions.
• Key point: Atrocities consistently emerge when power and resource interests override morality. Peace is always provisional.
• Quote: “History is a never ending string of violent conquest and forced acquisition of land and people…” (Tom, 19:14)

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4. Realpolitik and Human Nature

[22:52–28:50]

• War and competition are biologically baked in: “The world is a chessboard on which nations fight over scarce resources, driven by the cold logic of survival embedded in our brains over millions of years of evolution.” (Tom, 23:51)
• Human cooperation and aggression are two gears in evolutionary survival.
• Experiments like Tajfel’s minimal groups demonstrate how effortlessly humans split into “us vs them.”
• Even equality is unreachable without force; inequalities drive both civil and international conflict.
• Quote: “We have so much variability across traits that are extremely consequential. There's just no way other than force and brutality to even approximate equal outcomes.” (Tom, 26:55)

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5. The Moral Tether – Cultural Restraints on Realpolitik

[30:12–38:27]

• Despite our predatory nature, culture acts as an internal governor. Real-world goodness exists—rescuers during genocide, or a Soviet officer refusing to launch nukes in 1983.
• Slavery’s decline is proof culture can counterbalance our darker drives.
• Tom introduces Machiavellianism (via James Burnham): wherever there’s society, there’s an elite and the masses, regardless of government type.
• Realpolitik + Machiavellianism provide a complete toolkit for analyzing both nations and leaders.
• Quote: “Culture provides the moral bounding box that tempers our most savage instincts and ensures that the long arc of history does indeed bend towards justice.” (Tom, 33:45)

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6. Modern Examples – Ukraine, Israel-Palestine, U.S.-Iran Tensions

[38:27–46:51]

• Russia’s invasions (Georgia, Crimea, Ukraine) perfectly map onto Realpolitik. NATO expansion predictably provoked Russian aggression.
• John Mearsheimer’s analysis: NATO’s moves threatened Russia’s “margin of error,” triggering intervention. “It’s a perfectly rational and therefore predictable move on the part of Russia, because countries will always do what they can to ensure their security against perceived threats.” (Tom, 41:10)
• Tom stresses that understanding predictability does not mean condoning atrocities: “Something can be both predictable and wrong.” (Tom, 43:47)
• Israel-Hamas: Cycles of inequality, power asymmetry, and retaliation. “Humans are wired to despise extreme inequality, and I mean despise. We cannot stand it when life isn’t fair…” (Tom, 44:05)
• U.S.-Iran: Strategic competition, proxy wars, the drive for influence and security—not ideology—explain the rivalry.

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7. Conclusion – Thriving in the Realist World

[46:51–51:45]

• The lesson from Vlad the Impaler: projection of ruthless strength can avert disaster.
• Realpolitik is alive, seen now in trade wars, cyber attacks, sanctions, nuclear deterrence. Power moves the world—not ideals.
• Practical Recommendations:
  1. Don’t Pick Political Teams: Focus on cause/effect, not allegiance.
  2. Navigate “Is vs Ought”: Know your values. Resist cynicism. Recognize politicians serve people.
  3. Study History: Avoid being the fool who never learns.
  4. Apply the Lens to Economics: Understand power/money dynamics.
  5. Be Ready to Defend Your Freedoms: In a power-driven world, protect your rights.
• Book recommendations: John Mearsheimer’s The Tragedy of Great Power Politics; James Burnham’s The Machiavellians.
• Memorable closing quote: “The key to navigating the world well is to have a mental model that accurately maps real world cause and effect. And while I wish we lived in a moral universe, the reality is that trying to map outcomes by assuming people are following clear ideology that they're going to be consistent with is going to leave you consistently scratching your head.” (Tom, 50:29)
• Final charge: Understand the logic of power to see—and profit from—what others miss.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the brutal calculus of power:
  “In the anarchic world of international politics, it is better to be Godzilla than Bambi.” — Paraphrased from John Mearsheimer, cited by Tom (06:41)

• On viewing history honestly:
  “Do not blame the people who point out the truth. I'm not saying this is what they want, they're just saying this is how it is. This has the highest predictive validity.” (21:40)

• On biology and conflict:
  “We didn't just outlast the Neanderthals, we absorbed them. We outperformed, conquered, and even interbred.” (25:11)

• On the role of culture:
  “Every time humanity has edged closer to the brink of total annihilation, somehow self preservation has kicked in and allowed us to back off.” (31:23)

• On political tribalism:
  “Don’t allow politicians to artificially limit your option set. Never lose sight of the fact that politicians work for the people, not the other way around.” (49:36)

• On learning from the past:
  “A fool never learns. A smart man learns from his mistakes and a wise man learns from the mistakes of others. Be wise.” (51:00)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [01:00–06:00] Introduction, Realpolitik thesis
• [06:01–13:50] Defining Realpolitik and nine core tenets
• [13:51–22:45] War, conquest, and historic proof—Realpolitik’s pattern
• [22:52–28:50] Human evolutionary drives and group psychology
• [30:12–38:27] The restraining force of culture and morality
• [38:27–46:51] Modern case studies (Russia, Ukraine, Israel-Palestine, Iran)
• [46:51–51:45] Takeaways—How to use Realpolitik to navigate life and politics

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Tone and Approach

Tom delivers a blunt, sometimes dark but always pragmatic assessment, often referencing pop culture, scientific studies, classic philosophers, and current events. His style is clear, approachable, and demands listeners abandon comforting illusions for hard realities—while still holding onto hope and striving for personal and cultural improvement.

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Summary for New Listeners

This episode is essential for anyone seeking to understand why international conflict keeps recurring, what really motivates nations, and how to position themselves wisely in an unstable world. Tom Bilyeu synthesizes history, psychology, and contemporary geopolitics to show that while the world runs on power and interest, individuals and cultures can and do choose to bend the arc towards justice—if they’re clear-eyed and resolute.

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Transcript

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In just the last 100 years, there have been over 260 major wars and armed conflicts worldwide, resulting in more than 150 million deaths. That means, on average, humanity unleashes a major conflict every five months. And every single one was predictable. If you understand the ruthless logic of realpolitik. Many people look at the world and see it as they wish it were, but remain blinded to how it actually is. And in a moment marked by hyperpolarization and global instability like the one we're living in right now, that is a blind spot that is far too costly to have. To study history is to be a student of the patterns that arise out of the fact that humans have a nature. If we were truly blank slates, we wouldn't see such stark patterns in history repeating themselves. But the but the reality is, in the last century alone, nearly half of all existing nations have either disappeared from the map entirely or had their borders dramatically redrawn by conquest, collapse or revolution. If history is our guide, no country, including ours, is safe from the ruthless calculus of power. And if you're trying to build a worldview that will help you navigate this moment well, you need to see the world as it is, in all of its beauty and horror. There's no sense in looking away when the equivalent of 75 tons of TNT was just dropped on Iran by the US to stop them from developing nuclear weapons. We live in a world moderated by the cold expression of power. History tells us that humans are driven by knowable but often ignoble impulses. And to understand the world around you, you have to stare nakedly at how Physics and human nature, shaped by millions of years of fighting for survival, have created a warring class of apex predators that have spent millennia dominating and enslaving each other. We are capable of startling acts of kindness and beauty. But to make those moments structurally possible, we have to understand how nations find balance through military, economic, cultural and cyber force. I don't want to paint a bleak picture, but I have a guiding principle in life. Never fight against what's true. So here's the thesis that I'm going to attempt to prove today. To thrive in a chaotic world, you must accurately predict how nations will act and how their actions shape markets, freedoms, and your personal safety. And the mental model that most accurately maps the ruthless logic of power, money and human nature is known as Realpolitik. Realpolitik is not popular, but that doesn't mean that it's not true. And in five easy parts, I going to walk you through what it is, how it works, and how you can use it to your advantage. My goal is to help you lead a beautiful life full of friends, family, health, wealth and safety. But to get us there, we have to have the guts to look at how an animal as dangerous and wonderful as humans actually are creates a stable world through kinetic economic and cyber warfare that constantly changes borders and world orders. Buckle up, because this one gets real. And make sure that you do not skip part four. That is the part that's full of hope and beauty. But we've got to earn our way there. So welcome to part one. What is realpolitik? Genghis Khan ushered in Pax Mongolica, an era of relative stability that saw massively increased trade via the Silk Road. But he had to kill roughly 40 million people to do it. In fact, he killed and conquered so many people that some scholars claim you can see a reduction in the global carbon emissions. While not everyone agrees that the dip can be entirely attributed to Genghis Khan, DNA evidence proves that 0.5% of Earth's entire population is descended from him. This is somebody who had a massive impact, and he understood what famous realist John Mearsheimer has said. In the anarchic world of international politics, it is better to be Godzilla than Bambi. As Khan would approach a city, he would famously make a simple surrender and prosper, or resist and be annihilated. In one infamous siege, the city of Nishapur refused the terms of killing one of Khan's favorite generals. Khan's response? He ordered the execution of every living soul, man, woman and child, stacking their skulls into pyramids as a stark warning to others. Gruesome though this is, this is how the world works even today. And don't worry, I'm going to have plenty of modern examples of just how far some people will go to gain and maintain power in the West. Since World War II, we have grown confused about how the politics of power plays out, and you can see this all over the Internet when you look at what's going on between the US and Iran under Pax Americana. Things have been good for some, but Pax Americana is getting long in the tooth and challengers are starting to rise, most obviously China. More and more we can expect to see the harsh realities of Realpolitik stepping into the global spotlight, whether in the form of economic warfare, which we see in spades, cyber warfare, which is coming our way, cultural warfare TikTok, I'm looking at you. Or outright kinetic warfare. So what exactly is Realpolitik? Simply said, Realpolitik is about how nation states actually act with each other, not what they say they're going to do or how they posture how they actually act. It's the unsentimental lens through which to understand international dynamics, predicting actions based on power calculation and pragmatic self interest rather than as the expression or protection of moral or ideological aspirations. Realpolitik attempts to describe international politics as it is. It is a distinction between is and ought that is incredibly important, and we'll go through it more in detail later. Realpolitik forces you to realize that before you can cheer for the diplomatic solution to things like the Cuban missile crisis that averted nuclear war, you have to understand that we only ended up there because 18 months earlier, the CIA botched a bloody attempt at regime change in Cuba during the Bay of Pigs incident. What Realpolitik attempts to make clear, though, is that despite what people may tell you, diplomacy is often the last resort. Great powers collide and is only tried when naked aggression fails. The whole world is a prison yard with no prison guards, and only the most powerful win. Here are the nine core tenets that make up real 1. National interest and sovereignty over everything. Countries don't make decisions based on morality, ethics, or lofty ideals. Instead, every decision is made with national interests at its core. Specifically, interests focus on security, wealth, and power. If ideals and ethics align with those interests, great. If they don't, they get pushed aside without hesitation. 2. Power is the central focus. Power is the lifeblood of international politics. Everything nations do revolves around acquiring, maintaining and exercising power. Countries constantly measure themselves against their rivals Always assessing who has more strength, influence and leverage. This ongoing assessment dictates their strategic choices because power isn't just a means, it's the end goal in itself. 3. Rational self interest is assumed as a baseline. Realists typically put forth that states, and by extension their leaders, act rationally in pursuit of national interests. Usually again, security, wealth and power. Rationality does not imply flawless calculation, but rather a broadly consistent logic of self interest. Realists deliberately simplify things to achieve analytical clarity. They know humans are complex, but they argue that over time and spread across the large groups required to run a country, individual irrationalities smooth out into largely predictable patterns. Even a personality driven leader like Kim Jong Un is constrained by the realities of power international sanctions, deterrence by larger powers, and internal regime survival concerns. He may make dramatic decisions, but systemic constraints limit how far irrationality can carry him. While realists simplify, they're well aware of human cognitive biases, emotions and irrational tendencies. Some realists, like Morgenthau, explicitly discussed human nature's inherent irrationality. However, the realist models suggest that these quirks do not drastically undermine the theory because the leaders who repeatedly fail to adhere to rational behavior are eventually punished by the system. For instance, war, economic collapse, or just plain being overthrown. Over time, rational actors and rational policies are going to prevail because the country either dies off or. Or they discover that rational behaviors enhance their survival and power. 4. The world is in a state of anarchy. Realpolitik recognizes that there's no global government to call when things go wrong. If the US and China collide, each state has to look after itself, relying on its own resources, military strength and diplomatic skill to survive. Alliances happen, there's no doubt, but they're always temporary, always strategic. States are fundamentally on their own, and cooperation only lasts as long as allies have aligned interests. 5. Only force and power create balance. This is known as balance of power. It is a simple yet critical concept. States take as much as they can until they encounter meaningful resistance from another great power or from an alliance of other countries. Or they reach the limits of their culturals or moral bounding box. We're going to talk more about that later. Power is constantly shifting as alliances and advantages change. These shifts can happen quickly. And the stark reality of this balancing act keeps states in check, ensuring no single nation can dominate entirely, and certainly not without paying the high cost of empire. 6. Realpolitik is skeptical that people adhere to international law and institutions. These are viewed as tools rather than constraints. Powerful countries, as I'm sure you guys have noticed often use international laws and organizations to further their own agendas, while weaker states find these institutions easily ignored or worked around. Compliance with international agreements happen only when it aligns with the country's own interest, not because the country feels a sense of moral or even legal obligation. This is why five countries are allowed to block UN resolutions, regardless of merit or majority vote. We'll be right back.

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7. Realists accept human nature as it truly is Realpolitik doesn't pretend humans are naturally peaceful or altruistic. It recognizes that people, and therefore nations are inherently competitive, self interested and power seeking leaders prioritize their survival and advantage first and foremost. And this realistic view of human nature sets Realpolitik apart from basically every other idealistic framework. 8. Pragmatism always outweighs ideology. Realpolitik dictates that states will always adapt to circumstances. They're flexible, changing strategies, partners and even beliefs if it serves their natural interests. Ideological purity is not useful if it compromises effectiveness or power. This is why leaders seem to contradict themselves all the time. If you understand, though, what's actually driving them, it all becomes predictable. Pragmatic outcomes matter far more than abstract principles. 9. Military strength and deterrence are paramount. A nation's military isn't just about fighting wars, it's about avoiding them. Military power creates a credible threat. Incredible threats provide leverage. If your rivals know you can hurt them, they are far less likely to act against you. And this is exactly why Trump bombed the life out of the Iranian nuclear power plants. Realpolitik emphasizes that military strength is critical both to deter and to coerce. These nine principles might sound harsh, but they describe how states actually behave, not how we wish they would behave what they actually do. And understanding realpolitik means recognizing this uncomfortable truth and preparing ourselves accordingly. So welcome to Part 2. Realpolitik's predictive power in history Historian and political scientist R.J. rommel clocked the 20th century death by government toll to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 million. Over 200 million actually, by his estimates. But even if he's off by more than 50%, that's still over 100 million deaths caused by governments in a single century. As you build a mental model of the world, remember this the ultimate test for any model is whether or not it accurately predicts the past. If it doesn't reliably predict historical events, it's worthless now, much to my dismay. Realpolitik accurately predicts a past that is absolutely soaked in blood. Because the west has largely been internally peaceful, though, we have lost sight of just how brutal the world can be. Now, if you're tempted to say that I'm over dramatizing things or indulging in fear mongering, let's take a quick walk through history to see if that's actually true. Now I'm sure you've all heard of the famous quote attributed to Alexander the Great. Alexander wept for there were no more worlds to conquer. He didn't weep for the dead that.

[E]

Lay at his feet.

[C]

He wept that there were no more worlds to violently strip of autonomy. There were no more enemies left to slaughter. Now admittedly the quote is almost certainly apocryphal, but it captures the sentiment of the balance of power. Nations will conquer until some opposing force stops them. We have this inherent drive. The people that end up filling power vacuums are the most ambitious, bloodthirsty, aggressive people that you're going to find. Take Napoleon. He harnessed the madness of the French Revolution into a lethal fighting force that in just 16 years conquered or defeated armies from the Middle east to the Caribbean. I'm talking Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, Portugal, the Ottoman Empire, the Kingdom of Naples, the Papal States, Bavaria, Netherlands and Sweden. He finally got checked at Waterloo after being weakened by the Russians. But God damn, that was someone who was not going to stop because conquest isn't a nice thing to do.

[E]

Napoleon was declared himself Emperor because he could.

[C]

And then he went for absolute broke. If you ask Realpolitik, Alexander, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, they're not the exception, they're the rule. Take ancient Persia under Cyrus the Great. He strategically exploited rivalries and formed alliances to rapidly dominate the near east, clearly prioritizing power and stability over moralistic ideals. After taking the city of Babylon, Cyrus ordered the execution of Nabonidus who the last Babylonian king and systematically eliminated the key members of the Chaldean aristocracy who poised a potential threat to Persian control. This act ensured the swift consolidation of power by removing opposition, securing Babylon and actually making it stable. His pragmatic approach allowed him to build and maintain one of history's first truly expansive empires. And that is the horror that Realpolitik brings into clear focus that being pragmatic over ethical works. If you want to be a little more modern but see the same idea, take a look at the European colonial expansion. It certainly wasn't a fun time to be Mexican. Hernan Cortez slaughtered and enslaved his way through modern day Mexico, forever changing North America. And let's not forget the Europeans did something similar to the native Americans. What Smallpox didn't get the settlers and later US government did. And don't get me started on US President Polk, whose own brass is condemned his actions after he crushed the Mexican military taking over half a million square miles of territory. And of course all of that territory had been taken from someone else. Before that, history is a never ending string of violent conquest and forced acquisition of land and people as far and.

[E]

As long as the eye can see.

[C]

That is what humans do. And that's why nation states, when viewed through the cold lens of historical reality, become predictable. Look at the scramble for Africa driven by the thirst for resource acquisition and economic dominance.

[E]

Who would have thought?

[C]

Oh wait, realists did. Because Realpolitik understands ethics are often shoved aside in favor of brutal actions such as these when power and wealth can be extracted. Still not convinced? Take Mao's China. Mao managed to reunify China after nearly 40 years of bloody division. But he also tried to kill his opposition so hard they fled to modern day Taiwan and to establish and maintain power within his own party. During the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, he killed at least 45 million people through murder and famine. The Japanese are not blameless. They also had their imperial expansion. Pre World War II, they aggressively ran through China and much of Southeast Asia, driven by a desire for more resources and a hunger for better strategic positioning in the region, showcasing the exact kind of amoral, ruthless decision making that Realpolitik would predict. The only thing that stopped Japan's expansion was a miscalculation of power and resistance, highlighting once again Realpolitik's insights about the natural limits of the expansion of power. It'll go, but it eventually gets checked. All empires eventually fall, usually because of debt and the rise of a challenger. And if you want to hear all about the role that debt and money printing plays in the realist saga, watch this video here.

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Now I could go on and on.

[C]

From Pol Pot and the killing fields of Cambodia and the Vietnam War to the Opium wars and state sponsored terror. All of these things have happened and will happen because anarchy rules and only force can create balance. If you really want to freak yourself out, consider this. North Korea, one of the most repressive regimes on the planet, has nuclear weapons that can strike the us and the only reason that they don't is because of something called MAD Mutually Assured Destruction. Think about that for a second. The same is true for Russia, China, India, Pakistan, a whole bevy of countries that hate each other. The only reason they don't nuke each other is because they're worried they'll get nuked back. Ukraine gave up their nukes. Russia invaded. Gaddafi gave up his nukes and got sodomized to death with a giant knife. True story, but please don't look it up. It's horrifying. Most pundits in the chattering class moralize when they hear this stuff. And I get it. My instinct is to turn inward and just focus on the beautiful things in my life. And trust me, that's where I spend the vast majority of my time. And I encourage you to do the same. But history tells me that this moment is uniquely tenuous. Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, us, Iran, all in some state or other of open conflict or uneasy tension. And that's not even to mention the ongoing Cold War between the US and China, the conflict that is likely to dominate the next decade. Each of these historical episodes highlights Realpolitik's predictive strength. Leaders and nations consistently place pragmatic outcomes power, wealth, security above moral and ethical considerations. Realpolitik is not a lens born of cold hearted or evil men. Do not blame the people who point out the truth. I'm not saying this is what they want, they're just saying this is how it is. This has the highest predictive validity. It is simply a hyper pragmatic lens designed to predict what is coming based on how the world is and not their projection of how the world ought to be. Now, hopefully we can all agree that the world ought to be a friendly place where each country is allowed to pursue their well being of its own citizens within the confines of human freedom and dignity.

[E]

But alas, that's not how humans work.

[C]

Just check my YouTube comments. We won't even be able to agree.

[E]

On what constitutes human freedom and dignity.

[C]

So welcome to part three. Realpolitik is rooted in human nature. In 1973, OPEC choked off the world's oil supply. Gas prices in America quadrupled overnight. Car lines went on for miles, economies around the world tanked and nations scrambled to protect their citizens. Energy drives the cost of everything, and when everything becomes too expensive, countries go to war. The world is a chessboard on which nations fight over scarce resources, driven by the cold logic of survival embedded in our brains over millions of years of evolution. Every war, every trade deal, every border dispute boils down to one securing the resources a country needs to maintain its way of life. When OPEC's embargo slashed global fuel supplies, the US didn't negotiate with kindness. They bullied allies, courted enemies, and rewrote trade deals to get the oil flowing again. That's realpolitik in action.

[E]

Power over principle.

[C]

You don't have to look any farther than human DNA to understand why things.

[E]

Play out this way.

[C]

In Tanzania's Gombe Stream National Park, Jane Goodall watched in horror in As a chimpanzee tribe Split into two factions. What followed was not harmony and peace talks, baby, it was a brutal war.

[E]

The stronger group hunted and killed every.

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Member of the weaker ones, Smashing skulls, tearing them limb from limb. This is the kind of environment that humans came up in. We went up against the most ferocious animals on the planet and won. Nature is truly red in tooth and claw. Do you think that we came up through all of that bathed in kindness? It's a gear we have. But baby, it is not the only gear. We became the most dominant apex predator the world has ever seen by understanding how to use both alliances and diplomacy with extreme violence and aggression whenever necessary. Just 40,000 years ago, we faced a rival Neanderthals. Stronger, possibly smarter. They ruled Europe. Yet we won. Why? Archaeological evidence shows humans used projectile weapons to kill from a distance, outplaying the Neanderthals brute strength and even potentially better intelligence. Our social groups, up to 150 people compared to their 20 to 30, let us coordinate in ways that also allowed us to just overwhelm them. We didn't just outlast the Neanderthals, we absorbed them. We outperformed, conquered, and even interbred. DNA evidence proves that 1 to 2% of our own genes come from Neanderthals. We don't have a history of just erasing competing countries. We have a history of erasing entire competing species. Simply put, humans have a nature built on two dueling cooperation and conquest. Brain architecture for raw intelligence and abstract unifying principles like religion give us the ability to cooperate flexibly in large groups. But it also lays the groundwork for the concept of us versus them, in group and out group. And God help anyone that winds up in the out group. Take Tajfel's minimum group paradigm experiments from the 1970s. Henry Tajfeld conducted a series of experiments to explore how minimal arbitrary group distinctions could lead to in group favoritism and out group discrimination. In these experiments, participants were divided into groups based on trivial criteria. For instance, preference for abstract art or actually just being randomly assigned to a group. They were then asked to allocate resources or rewards to members of their own group or the other group. Guess what they found. Even with no prior interaction or meaningful group differences, participants consistently favored their in group, allocating more resources to in group members and and discriminating against outgroup members. I'm going to guess that feels so obvious to you that you don't even question it. But what this demonstrates is that mere categorization into groups could trigger biased behavior. Laying the groundwork for understanding out group hostility. Wonder why the US is slapping China with tariffs? Or why the Chinese are trying to build a global sphere of influence through the Belt and Road Initiative? Look no further. Another key element bakes into our DNA that drives strife is inequality. But sadly, humans are just built that way. From wild swings in intelligence to levels of aggression and discipline, to the ability to delay gratification and be strategic. Humans have so much variability across traits that are extremely consequential. There's just no way other than force and brutality to even approximate equal outcomes. And so, even within a society, the dueling impulses of cooperation and confiscation take hold, driving both internal and external conflict among people and nations. Now, given the obviousness of this, even inside of an individual household, let alone between countries, it begs the question, why are people so resistant to the philosophy of Realpolitik? It seems to come down to this deeply embedded aversion to unfairness. Realpolitik hurts because it forces us to face the ugly truth the world isn't fair and power trumps kindness. Not that kindness isn't useful in building alliances, but if an alliance can't stop the stronger country from running over them, the alliance doesn't matter at all. So from an evolutionary perspective, it's just not going to be selected for. Take Russia. They've been gobbling up former USSR territory since 2008, and they would have kept going had Ukraine not sufficiently fought back. Ultimately, we're all up against physics and human nature. Resources are not yet unlimited, so people divide the world into in group and out group. And then they fight for and attempt to divvy up those scarce resources in a way that advantages their country. That's what we're hardwired to do.

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But we are not only hardwired for greed and resource acquisition, we're also wired for love, kindness and sacrifice. Hold tight.

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We're going to take a quick break.

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All right, let's pick up where we left off.

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So welcome to part four. The restraining force of culture aka the moral boundaries on realpolitik in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, extremist Hutus, including government officials and members of the military, hacked roughly 800,000 Tutsis to death with machetes in just 100 days. But in those same blood soaked streets, Hutu moderates risked their lives to hide Tutsi families just as many Germans hid Jews from the Nazis. Once again proving humanity's capacity for courage and compassion. Just as whatever mental model you use to map the world must explain the horrors we see throughout history, it must also explain the depth of kindness and compassion. Once again, the pragmatic lens of Realpolitik explains this seeming contradiction. Humans aren't just predators. Evolution has given us an internal governor that tempers our most egregious impulses. The capacity for genuine connection that helped us cooperate in large groups and overcome competitors like the Neanderthals, and the capacity for deep empathy and compassion that we need for self sacrifice and the raising of children gives us the ability to step outside of ourselves and see, even if only temporarily, how we are all connected. Even just looking at the world through an entirely pragmatic, rational lens, the human propensity for violence and aggression is bound to be checked by these restraining influences. It's how we've gotten as far as we've gotten as a species. We need that level of cooperation for all of our flaws. Every time humanity has edged closer to the brink of total annihilation, somehow self preservation has kicked in and allowed us to back off. It's 1983, the Cold War is at its peak, and a Soviet officer gets a chilling alert. Five US nuclear missiles are headed straight for Moscow. This actually happened. His orders were to launch a counter strike. One push of a button, we have nuclear Armageddon. But he refused. Asked years later why he didn't follow orders, and he simply said he didn't want to make a mistake. His name was Stanislav Petrov, and he was willing to face charges of treason in a country where people were routinely Whisked away in the dead of the night simply for knowing someone who did something wrong. He knew it could be a personal death sentence, but he went with his gut and reported it as a false alarm. Listen, while it's true that, as Alfred Henry Lewis said, there's only nine meals between mankind and anarchy, when things are stable, we're creators, dreamers, and philosophers who can imagine a world better than this? And we are often willing to then fight to make that imagined world real. This is not all abstract. This restraining mechanism that keeps humanity in check is culture itself. Culture is evolution's secret weapon for making our species what it is. Unlike, effectively, every other animal that is born already knowing how to do the vast majority of things it will ever do. Humans are born born helpless. We have a prolonged adolescence where our brains are still developing. We are sponges, soaking up everything we will need to survive from first our parents and then from culture at large. Which means all of us have to be imbued with this desire to help. Culture is the medium through which humans propagate our wisdom, our morals, and our values. It's how we define what we celebrate and what we condemn. It's how we learn from our mistakes and attempt to correct course. And this culture, this way of us connecting to each other, is the thing that comes to our rescue. Culture provides the moral bounding box that tempers our most savage instincts and ensures that the long arc of history does indeed bend towards justice. Take slavery. Despite its overwhelming economic advantages, countless people have sacrificed both blood and treasure to ensure its eradication. While the absolute number of slaves remains shockingly high, the percentage of the population living as a slave has plummeted. In ancient rome, somewhere between 10 and 20% of the population was enslaved. In some African and Middle Eastern countries at the peak of the slave trade, up to 50% of the population was enslaved. Now, globally, the number is only a little over a half of of a percent. Slavery hasn't just been reduced, it's been nearly eradicated. Again. There's no doubt human nature is paradoxical. It gave us both the Nazis and Oskar Schindler. It gave us both world wars and the universal declaration of human rights. But unlike other animals that will rape without remorse or kill the children of their new mates when they take over a group so they can mate and ensure the resources go to their children, humans, at least have a profound restraining impulse that acts like a leash on our most horrifying impulses. Now, despite the complexities of human nature, realpolitik still maps the downstream patterns with A high degree of accuracy. Now, having said all of that, there is one addition I would add to Realpolitik. It's an idea that lurks in the shadows of the philosophy riding on the back of human nature itself. But I think it warrants a distinction. It's James Burnham's interpretation of Machiavellianism. Like Realpolitik, Burnham's analysis is of how humans behave as a political animal, and it emphasizes realism and pragmatism, rejecting idealistic interpretations of politics. But he goes a little bit further, arguing that there is an inevitability to how societies form. They will always divide into ruling elites and the masses. They govern a division that remains constant regardless of who's in charge or what economic system they employ. Democratic or authoritarian, capitalist or communist, it really doesn't matter. You will always have a small group of elites that rule the country, and then the masses that just want to get on with their lives. Burnham's focus on how individuals rise to power inside of their own countries is extremely useful for trying to understand how the dynamics of power work. Different kinds of people will rise to power at different times, and this is why regime changes are so dangerous. The type of person that comes to power in populist moments or moments of extreme disorder tend to be strong men who are gifted at using force to get their way. Where Realpolitik diverges from classical Machiavellianism is primarily in scope and method. Machiavelli focused on individual rulers and internal power struggles, whereas Realpolitik expands this thinking to the international stage, analyzing states and their interactions through diplomacy, alliances, geopolitical strategy, and force. Machiavellianism, on the other hand, fills in those gaps, showing what individuals are like inside the game of politics. Realpolitik then broadens these principles to global power dynamics and systemic stability across the globe, integrating diplomatic nuance and the institutional frameworks that govern a country's behaviors. But you put them together, the nation state level and the individual, and the two ideologies working together provide insights at every level of analysis. And to back up that claim, let's see if our special brand of Realpolitik combined with Machiavellianism can explain the global instability that we're all living through right now. Welcome to part five. Realpolitik explains the current state of geopolitics. In 2008, Russia struck Georgia, seizing the south in a blitz of tanks and gunfire. A warning to the west, stay out of our sphere. But they didn't listen. So in 2014, Russia snatched up Crimea Grabbing it in a lightning strike to secure a naval stronghold and shove the west back. Sensing Ukrainian weakness and a chance to fortify their position, they then took the Donbas and finally launched a full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. While many seem surprised, students of realpolitik like John Mersheimer saw it as a predictable pattern from history, just repeating and repeating and repeating. NATO's eastward creep lit a fuse, and Putin's aggression was the inevitable explosion.

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Why?

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Because in an anarchic world, only strength can check strength. So Putin had to push back against NATO's expansion. You don't need to believe that Putin is an innocent bystander in all of this, though. Everyone wants to be the top dog. But when you're playing a game of thermonuclear chess, you better understand that your adversary will counter differently if you're attacking their queen than they will if you're attacking their pawn. No one on the global chessboard is playing in isolation. Everything is move, counter, move, going back forever. That's why when Tucker Carlson asked Putin why he invaded Ukraine, his answer wasn't simple. He started back in the 9th century. For John Mearsheimer, Russia's aggressive actions from the 2008 invasion of Georgia through the ongoing Ukraine conflict are just logical, predictable consequences of Western, particularly NATO, policies towards Eastern Europe. His analysis, grounded in the realist concept of offensive realism, goes something like 1. NATO expansion is a provocation from the West. In 2008, NATO announced at the Bucharest summit its intentions to eventually admit Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, which is designed specifically to push Russia back. This, according to Mearsheimer, directly threatened the Russian strategic interests. And honestly, how could it not? NATO is designed to keep Russia at bay. Russia then responds by invading Georgia later that year. For Russia, this was meant to be punishment, essentially for the Western attempt to move Georgia into NATO's sphere of influence and away from Russia's. Mearsheimer's view is that this was not an imperialistic move. It's a perfectly rational and therefore predictable move on the part of Russia, because countries will always do what they can to ensure their security against perceived threats. Then matters got worse when Ukraine's 2014 Euromaidan revolution ousted a pro Russian government in Kyiv and established a pro Western orientation. According to Mearsheimer, there is no evidence of a dangerous direct US conspiracy to topple the government in Ukraine, but nonetheless, they encouraged Ukraine to embrace Western influence and move away from Russian influence. Russia responded predictably by snatching up Crimea and supporting separatist rebellions in Eastern Ukraine. If you're trying to encircle them, they are going to push back. They are going to move to increase their margin of error. Mearsheimer famously criticized the west for leading Ukraine down the primrose path, as he says said saying that the West's push for Ukrainian integration into NATO and the EU provoked Russia into action. You can disagree with them, but it makes sense that that's how they would see these moves. According to Mearsheimer, Crimea's annexation was entirely predictable, as Russia was never going to tolerate NATO advancing right up to its borders. Imagine there's an organization whose job it is to essentially use force to keep you chill. Eventually you're going to have a problem as that encroaches closer and closer and closer. According to Mearsheimer, you could watch the buildup to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine happening in real time. The west continued to offer vocal support for Ukraine's desire to join NATO. And by offering military aid and training, NATO only fueled Russia's insecurity. Rather than sit back and take it, which is just not what major powers do. Russia launched their full scale invasion in February of 2022. Absolutely none of that excuses Putin for invading Ukraine. They're a sovereign nation. Something can be both predictable and wrong. And that's the key thing to understand about Realpolitik. It's not saying this is how the world ought to be, as I have hopefully said many times throughout this thing. It is simply describing the world the way that it is so that you can predict how people are going to react. And given that the US has just bombed the life out of a sovereign nation that we didn't want to get nuclear weapons, I hope we can all see that if a nation is strong enough, it will do whatever the hell it wants in order to protect its national interests. Realpolitik isn't about mapping right and wrong. It's about mapping cause and effect. Russia's easy. What about Israel versus Hamas? Realpolitik, I think, perfectly explains what's going on there as well. If Palestinians perceive Israel as occupying land they believe is rightfully theirs, imposing blockades, maintaining what critics call an open air prison, and perpetuating a glaring inequality that is hypervisible to anybody living along the border, the groundwork for resentment is unavoidable. Humans are wired to despise extreme inequality, and I mean despise. We cannot stand it when life isn't fair and resentment is inevitably going to follow. Given those circumstances, it was pretty predictable, almost inevitable, that Hamas would eventually strike with or without Iranian backing. To be clear, understanding this predictability does not justify the horrific events of October 7th. It merely highlights how power dynamics play out logically in a deeply unequal context. And once Hamas attacked on October 7, it became instantly predictable that Israel would respond forcefully with overwhelming military superiority. There was virtually nothing other than culture and international opinion to even possibly restrain Israel's response. In short, the fuse to a perfect powder keg had been lit. Rialpolitik shows exactly how and why such explosive conflicts emerge and escalate what about the US versus Iran? From a realist perspective, Iran's actions stem largely from its rational desire to secure itself in a hostile neighborhood. Iran sees the US's presence in the Middle east, including military bases, alliances with Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Gulf states, as fundamentally threatening. Thus, from Iran's perspective, developing robust defense capabilities, including possible nuclear deterrence, makes rational strategic sense. Iran supported proxy forces such as Hezbollah, Houthis, and various militias in Iraq and Syria represents classic realpolitik balancing behavior. Given its comparative weakness against US and Israeli military might, Iran leverages asymmetric warfare tactics and alliances with non state actors to deter aggression and project power regionally. America, on the other hand, is in pursuit of hegemony. America's goal in the region is to maintain strategic dominance. Containing Iran is important to ensuring we continue to deepen our alliances through mutual economic gain. We keep that oil flowing, which keeps energy costs low, and we prevent Iran from challenging American and Israeli interests in the region. And we stop a country who screams death to America while burning the American flag in parliament from getting nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles capable of eventually reaching the US or any of our allies. For the us, the ideal scenario under Rialpolitik is ensuring Iran cannot become a regional hegemon capable of destabilizing American interests or threatening our allies like Israel. These conflicting goals made conflict inevitable. It's sobering to look at this exchange.

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From both sides and see the U.

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S Iran conflict as having emerged naturally from different strategic calculations rather than primarily from different ideological stances. This isn't about theocracy versus democracy, even though I often find myself overindexing on that. This is about how countries desire power and control far more than ideology. They want influence and access to resources. They want to be the king of the castle, at least in their own region, if not the whole world. Ideology plays a role, to be sure, but it's more of a post hoc rationalization than the core reason for the conflict. Human nature tells us ideology plays a role as the human psyche is complex, but. But historical patterns are much clearer when we realize that people will justify just about anything, and I mean anything that their culture allows and that aligns with their strategic goals. This is why religions evolve and modernize over time. This is why alliances change as the balance of power shifts. And this is why the west has failed so miserably in spreading democracy around the world. Ideology just isn't what drives things. It's in the car, but it's not the driver. What drives the world is power. All right, now that we understand the nature of nation states and how countries battle for power in an anarchic world, let's talk about how we use that knowledge to win. Welcome to the conclusion.

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What do we do now?

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Dracula was a real man. He was the 15th century ruler known as Vlad the Impaler. And he offers one of the most distilled examples of devoid of ideology that history has ever seen. When staring down an invasion from the far more powerful Ottoman empire, Vlad took 20,000 captured Ottoman soldiers that he had impaled them all on greased spikes so they would die more slowly and lined them up along the road to the city as a warning to the invading army. The gruesome message was worked and the Ottoman Empire stopped, turned and left. While today's world may not feature literal forests of impaled enemies, nations still operate according to the same ruthless calculus of power and self interest that Vlad the Impaler so viscerally understood. Realpolitik is not ancient history. It is alive and well and manifesting itself in trade wars, cyber attacks, nuclear programs, geopolitical conflict, conflicts, ethnic cleansing and economic sanctions. Nations continue to project power and pursue self interest, often at the expense of morality. This matters because understanding how the world works is necessary to position yourself well to stay safe and even profit off the madness. I made my money in part by understanding how sugar impacts the body and how the government subsidizing corn of all things, was impacting manufacturing. Ray Dalio generated historic returns through his hedge fund Bridgewater, largely by understanding the cause and effect relationship between debt and market movements. Cause and effect is the name of the game. Cause and effect is what you want to understand in your own life. Your odds of seeing things other people miss go up dramatically when you understand just how the world works. We live in a time of instability and accelerating global disruption and the next one to five years are poised to reshape our entire world. Your choices are going to matter and being clear eyed about politics and using the lens of Realpolitik is going to Help to keep this video from being an international relations trauma dump. Here are concrete actions you can take immediately. Number one, don't pick political teams. Whether you're registered under a party or not. Track the cause and effect policies rather than always siding with your team. Identify the North Star that you're trying to move to towards. And only champion policies that can prove that they're actually moving us towards that goal in a way that we can measure.

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2.

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Navigate the is versus ought tension in your own life. Map your value system. Write it down. People rebel against Realpolitik so hard because they are grossed out by the cold, logical way that it looks at the world. Just because the world is amoral doesn't mean mean you have to be amoral. Realpolitik simply acknowledges a difficult truth. Nation states don't act based on how the world ought to be. They act based on how power struggles in an anarchic world work. Don't allow politicians to artificially limit your option set. Never lose sight of the fact that politicians work for the people, not the other way around. If you don't know your own values or the North Star that you're steering towards, you're going to blow with the wind. Resist cynicism. Politics is downstream of culture. We are all part of the larger culture. Spend most of your time focused on the beautiful things in your life. The people you love, the things you're trying to create. Vote for politicians that understand the world as it actually is. And please learn the lessons of history. History loops because people refuse to learn the obvious lessons. As I say, a fool never learns. A smart man learns from his mistakes and a wise man learns from the mistakes of others. B wise. Apply the realistic lens to economics as well. Money is a man made system and it has gotten very dysfunctional. Be ready to fight for your freedoms in a world governed by power. Yours will be stripped away from you if you're not strong enough to defend yourself. Read John Mearsheimer's the Tragedy of Great Power Politics and James Burnham's the Machiavellian's Defenders of Freedom. Alright, the key to navigating the world well is to have a mental model that accurately maps real world cause and effect. And while I wish we lived in a moral universe, the reality is that trying to map outcomes by assuming people are following clear ideology that they're going to be consistent with is going to leave you consistently scratching your head. Now, as I hope I've shown here, nations are driven by the cold logic of self interest, power projection and survival. Whether it's economic warfare, cyber attacks, or kinetic conflicts, the underlying evolutionary forces that make humans the way we are remain unchanged. Therefore, looking at the world through the lens of realpolitik will have the highest predictive validity. It's not a crystal ball, but it certainly removes all of the distraction of what politicians say and focuses everyone on what power and self interest tell you they will actually do. Without the confusing layer of morality, the behavior of nation states becomes far easier to predict. The patterns of history become far easier to see. That's not an endorsement of immoral behavior, it's merely an observation with a lot of predictive power. Alright guys, if you want to watch me explore ideas like this live, make sure you join me for my lives Wednesday and Friday at 6am until then my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace. Most healthy habits are hard.

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