The highest task given to political ethics is the interpretation of the meaning of power. But to acknowledge that power is the fundamental category of political understanding is only to utter what has been the platitude of “realists” since Machiavelli. To define power is simple enough: it is the capacity to realize goals. But to grasp the configuration of components in any person's or organization's or nation's capacity to realize goals is a task of transcendent difficulty: it is to approach something like theological understanding itself. Moreover, to prescribe norms for the management of power is not simply a “political” assignment: it is ethics.