The most prevalent form of decisionism today is not concerned with domestic politics. It is rather centered on the all-important realm of foreign policy. The realism of the moment is no longer legal, but political. This realism has as its main theme the notion that power is, or at any rate ought to be, the central concept of politics, especially of international politics. Without this notion, it is argued, intellectual disorder and practical failure are bound to occur. Considering the vagueness of such favorite realist conceptions as “power” and the “national interest,” the great professional and popular appeal of this neo-Machiavellian doctrine might seem astonishing. It is only when its negative impulses are understood that realism, as an ideological reaction, becomes comprehensible. For power as the central concept of political thought makes sense, even as an ordering device, only if it is understood as a negation. Power politics is the antithesis of legalistic and moralistic politics.