The national interest, often referred to by the French term raison d'état, is a country's goals and ambitions whether economic, military, or cultural. The notion is an important one in international relations where pursuit of the national interest is the foundation of the realist school. A country, a land, or a state, is a geographical area that connotes an independent political entity, with its own government, administration, laws, often a constitution, police, military, tax rules, and population, who are one anothers countrymen. ... Economics (in Greek Οικονομικά) derives from the Greek word Eco(οίκω=house) and nemo(νέμω=distribute) is the social science that studies the allocation of scarce resources through measurable variables. ... International relations (IR) is an academic and public policy field, a branch of political science, dealing with the foreign policy of states within the international system, including the roles of international organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and multinational corporations (MNCs). ... Realism is commonly defined as a concern for fact or reality and rejection of the impractical and visionary. ...

The national interest of a state is multi faceted. Primary is the state's survival and security. Also important is the pursuit of wealth and economic growth and power. Many states, especially in modern times, regard the preservation of the nation's culture as of great importance.

In early human history the national interest was usually viewed as secondary to that of religion or morality. To engage in a war rulers needed to justify the action in these contexts. The first thinker to advocate for the primacy of the national interest is usually considered to be Niccolò Machiavelli. The practice is first seen as being employed by France in the Thirty Years War when it intervened on the Protestant side, despite its own Catholicism, to block the increasing power of the Holy Roman Empire. The notion of the national interest soon came to dominate European politics that became fiercely competitive over the next centuries. States could now openly embark on wars purely out of self-interest. Mercantilism can be seen as the economic justification of the aggressive pursuit of the nation interest. Detail of the portrait of Machiavelli, ca 1500, in the robes of a Florentine public official Niccolò Machiavelli ( May 3, 1469 – June 21, 1527) was a Florentine statesman and political philosopher. ... The victory of Gustavus Adolphus at the Battle of Breitenfeld (1631) The Thirty Years War was a conflict fought between the years 1618 and 1648, principally in the central European territory of the Holy Roman Empire, but also involving most of the major continental powers. ... Protestantism is a general grouping of denominations within Christianity. ... This article considers Catholicism in the broadest ecclesiastical sense. ... The crown of the Holy Roman Empire (2nd half of the 10th century), now held in the Vienna Schatzkammer. ... Mercantilism is the economic theory that a nations prosperity depended upon its supply of gold and silver, that the total volume of trade is unchangeable. ...

A foreign policy geared towards pursuing the national interest is the foundation of the realist school of international relations. The realist school reached its greatest heights at the Congress of Vienna with the practice of the balance of powers, which amounted to balancing the national interest of several great and lesser powers. Metternich was celebrated as the principal artist and theoretician of this balancing but he was simply doing a more or less clean copy of what his predecessor Kaunitz had already done by reversing so many of the traditional Habsburg alliances and building international relations anew on the basis of national interest instead of religion or tradition. The Congress of Vienna (October 1, 1814 - June 9, 1815) was a conference between ambassadors from the major powers in Europe that was chaired by the Austrian statesman Klemens Wenzel von Metternich and held in Vienna, Austria. ... Klemens Wenzel von Metternich Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar Fürst von Metternich-Winneberg-Beilstein (May 15, 1773 - June 11, 1858) (sometimes rendered in English as Prince Clemens Metternich) was an Austrian politician and statesman and perhaps the most important diplomat of his era. ... Wenzel Anton Graf (Count) von Kaunitz-Rietberg (February 2, 1711 - June 27, 1794), born into Germanized Moravian family, was an Austrian statesman. ... Habsburg (sometimes spelled Hapsburg, but never so in official use) was one of the major ruling houses of Europe. ...

These notions became much criticized after the bloody debacles of the First and Second World Wars. New schools of international relations were developed stressing multilateralism. Mercantilism, which had earlier been discarded, was replaced with a focus on free trade and economic cooperation. Many consider these liberal international systems to have had limited successes and the realist school still has many adherents. Perhaps most notable is the former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who was a great fan of Metternich. Missing image Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ... Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... Multilateralism is an international relations term that refers to multiple countries working in concert. ... Free trade is an economic concept referring to the selling of products between countries without tariffs or other trade barriers. ... The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. ... Henry Kissinger The neutrality and accuracy of this article are disputed. ...