In international relations, ethical considerations are often subjugated to the strategic interests of nation-states. Discuss this from an ethical perspective.

Concede the description first

The claim is largely accurate as description. States sanction some invasions and not others, court some autocracies and isolate others, and speak of human rights selectively. Any answer that denies this is unserious. The interesting question is not whether it happens but why, and whether it is defensible.

Three positions on why

• Realism. The international system is anarchic — no authority above states — so survival is the first duty and a state that indulges morality at the cost of security fails its own citizens. Morgenthau argued that the state has no right to sacrifice its people for an abstract principle. Our note on key concepts in international relations covers this.
• Liberal institutionalism. Cooperation, treaties and reputation change the calculus, so ethical behaviour is often also strategically rational over time.
• Constructivism. Interests are not fixed and given; they are shaped by identity and norms. What a state counts as its interest today was constructed by earlier normative argument — the abolition of the slave trade and the taboo on chemical weapons being the clearest cases.

Why the dichotomy is overstated

• Reputation is a strategic asset. A state seen as unreliable pays for it in every subsequent negotiation.
• Ethical positions can be interest-serving. India's opposition to apartheid cost little and bought lasting standing in Africa.
• Norms constrain even the powerful — not absolutely, but the need to justify shows the constraint is real. States lie about compliance rather than announcing indifference.
• Global public goods — pandemic response, climate, sea lanes — cannot be secured by narrow self-interest, and the interest itself becomes collective.

India's record, honestly

India illustrates both sides and pretending otherwise weakens an answer. On the ethical side: leadership of the anti-apartheid movement, non-alignment as a refusal to be instrumentalised, Vaccine Maitri, and consistent championing of the Global South's development claims. On the interest side: continued oil purchases from Russia after 2022 despite Western pressure, abstentions at the UN on Ukraine, and a calibrated position on Myanmar's junta driven by border and connectivity concerns. Our note on the foundations of India's foreign policy covers the doctrinal basis.

What disciplines the trade-off

• Consistency. Not perfect consistency, which is impossible, but the avoidance of nakedly opposite positions on identical facts.
• Transparency about the reason. Saying "this serves our energy security" is more honest, and more defensible, than dressing it as principle.
• Red lines. Some acts — genocide, chemical weapons use, targeting of civilians — should not be traded for advantage, and a state gains by being known to hold them.
• Proportionality. The interest served should bear some relation to the ethical cost imposed.

Conclusion

Ethics in international relations is neither sovereign nor irrelevant. It functions as a constraint that raises the cost of certain choices rather than forbidding them — and a state that is honest about when it is paying that cost, and holds a small number of genuine red lines, is both more credible and, over time, more secure.