Introduction: sustainable critique and the lost vocation of international relations -- "For we born after:" the challenge of sustainable critique -- Sustainable critique and critical IR theory: against emancipation -- The realist dilemma: politics and the limits of theory -- Communitarian IR theory -- Individualist IR theory: disharmonious cooperation -- Conclusion: toward sustainably critical international theory.

Responding to renewed interest in political rhetoric among contemporary International Relations –realists, this article advances three main claims. First, it suggests that tragedy—the dominant...