Hans Joachim Morgenthau (February 17, 1904 – July 19, 1980) was a German-American jurist and political scientist who was one of the major 20th-century figures in the study of international relations.

Morgenthau's works belong to the tradition of realism in international relations theory; he is usually considered among the most influential realists of the post-World War II period.

He knew and corresponded with many of the leading intellectuals and writers of his era, such as Reinhold Niebuhr,[3] George F. Kennan,[4] Carl Schmitt[5] and Hannah Arendt.

He received his doctorate in 1929 with a thesis entitled International Jurisdiction: Its Nature and Limits, and pursued postdoctoral work at the Geneva Graduate Institute, in Switzerland.

In the early 1950s, Morgenthau was a visiting professor at Harvard, teaching a graduate seminar; at that time he met Henry Kissinger, who was working on his dissertation.

[14] On October 8, 1979, Morgenthau was one of the passengers on board Swissair Flight 316, which crashed while trying to land at Athens-Ellinikon International Airport.

Morgenthau died on July 19, 1980, shortly after being admitted to Lenox Hill Hospital in New York with a perforated ulcer.

[20] By the late 1920s Schmitt was becoming the leading jurist of the rising Nazi movement in Germany, and Morgenthau came to see their positions as irreconcilable.

[33][34] His realism was infused with moral considerations—though not always acknowledged as such—and during the last part of his life he favored supranational control of nuclear weapons and strongly opposed the U.S. role in the Vietnam War (see below).

The book presented a "pessimistic view of human nature"[36] centered on a universal lust for power and the inevitability of selfishness.

[37] Scientific Man versus Power Politics also argued that, in Robert Jervis's words, "much of modern Liberalism fails to understand the contingent nature of its own knowledge.

He wrote that "the balance of power and policies aiming at its preservation are not only inevitable, but an essential stabilizing factor in a society of sovereign nations.

[46] The reason is partly that the relative strength of countries can be difficult to calculate, since key elements of national power, such as "the quality of government," are elusive and frequently change.

Among other things, he sought to rebuild the center’s resources on “China Studies,” after many experts on the country had been publicly discredited during the Second Red Scare.

[49] In a 1955 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Morgenthau quoted others speaking about a "dual state" existing in the United States: the democratic façade of elected politicians who operate according to the law, and a hidden national security hierarchy and shadow government that operates to monitor and control the former.

[54] When the Eisenhower administration gained the White House, Morgenthau turned his efforts towards a large amount of writing for journals and the press in general.

[57] Morgenthau's dissent concerning American involvement in Vietnam, which he viewed mainly as a civil war whose "global significance" was "remote,"[58] brought him considerable public and media attention.

"[60] Bundy then brought up a statement Morgenthau made in 1956, praising President Diem of South Vietnam for creating a "miracle."

[62] He remarked in the journal Christianity and Crisis that "no such radical qualitative transformation of the structure of international relations has ever occurred in history.

Morgenthau's book Truth and Power, published in 1970, collected his essays from the previous decade dealing with both foreign policy, including Vietnam, and U.S. domestic politics, e.g. the civil rights movement.

Morgenthau's last major book, Science: Servant or Master, was dedicated to his colleague Reinhold Niebuhr and published in 1972.

[67] In summer 1978, Morgenthau wrote his last co-authored essay titled "The Roots of Narcissism," with Ethel Person of Columbia University.

[84] In a 1975 essay, Morgenthau criticized Kissinger's approach toward internal upheaval in the Third World, arguing that the root of "instability" was not "Communist subversion" but popular dissatisfaction with the status quo.

[86] In addition to addressing current political issues, Morgenthau also wrote about the philosophy of democratic theory[87] when faced with situations of crisis or tension.

On the other hand, some theorists working within a realist framework, such as Kenneth Waltz and John Mearsheimer, took issue with aspects of Morgenthau's approach even while sharing some of his basic assumptions.

One scholar has suggested that Morgenthau erred in thinking that "the 'rational core of the national interest' can be ascertained by objective analysis.

"[97] The conceptual distinction between political and military power may not always have influenced Morgenthau's views on specific policy issues, but it probably did so in the case of nuclear weapons.

[99] Morgenthau saw many aspects of the nuclear arms race as a form of irrationality requiring the attention of responsible diplomats, statesmen, and scholars.

[100] However, Morgenthau's view that a world state would be required to solve the problem of nuclear weapons is in tension with the skepticism about global governance that his realist perspective implies.

[103] John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago has contrasted Morgenthau's political realism to the neo-conservativism prevailing during the Bush administration in the context of the 2003 Iraq War.