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Because Burke's analysis and strategy for dealing with the American problem were so thoroughly rooted in practicalities, it comes as no surprise that in giving them expression he articulated the prudential guidelines that shaped so much of his political life. In the justly famous 1777 Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, Burke defends the 1766 Rockingham "plan of pacification" for the colonies as "being built upon the nature of man, and the circumstances and habits of the two countries, and not on any visionary speculations." This was, in fact, a plan of prudence, a quality that Burke characterizes "as the god of this lower world."

Unlike those beating the "sovereign rights" drum, Burke pleaded for "rational, cool endeavours" to bring the colonies back into line. He urged that government from London "ought to conform to the exigencies of the time, and the temper and character of the people with whom it is concerned, and not always to attempt violently to bend the people to their theories of subjection." Against those who saw no problem in unleashing force against the colonists to uphold sovereignty, Burke was nearly contemptuous: "A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood." Consistent with that approach, Burke was not afraid to shift his tactics or his positions as the need arose and as circumstances changed. When challenged on such changes, Burke answered: "Because a different state of things requires a different conduct."

Handling the American question in Burke's way might not have saved the colonies for Britain, but King George III could hardly have done worse than he did. Burke's approach was grounded in the political reality of his time, addressed to the vital national interests of England, and utilized practical, commercial, non-coercive means. George and his ministers stood on their absolute, abstract, sovereign rights, and lost the best part of their Empire forever.

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We have argued for an approach that makes its commitment to realism explicit as opposed to secreting an implicit realism. Though such a recovery of realism the “problem-field” of IR may be transcended. The positivism/postpositivism dichotomy that replaced the interparadigm debate seems so natural now. It is as if we have always though in this way and always will. Yet this debate itself is a construct of those engaged in it and is a product of the “problem-field” of IR. Mapped onto the “problem-field” of IR this dived mirrors Kant’s dualistic world view. The positivists concern themselves with Kant’s phenomenal realm and the postpositivists with the noumenal. Critical realism suggests a different theory/problem solution field. One, no doubt, that will contain the seeds of its own destruction, for we make no claim to finitude or ahistorical knowledge. The “problem-field” of IR constitutes the present day conditions of possibility for thinking about, hence acting in, the realm of international relations. And as such at blocks the development of a more ethically aware body of scholarship oriented towards emancipation.