The True Meaning of Power
What the godfather of realism can teach Trump… Read More Here
Tag: realism
What Is Trump’s “New Realism” in Foreign Policy?
Trump’s new foreign policy leans toward recognizing spheres of influence, departing from past interventionism and potentially avoiding future great power conflicts, especially with China, if handled with restraint and clarity. Read More Here
The Legacy of Henry Kissinger
The passing of America’s preeminent foreign-policy thinker and practitioner marks the end of an era. Throughout his long and extraordinarily influential career, Henry Kissinger built a legacy that Americans would be wise to heed in this new era of great-power politics and global disarray. Read More Here Also Read: The World According to Kissinger Henry […]
Realism About Foreign-Policy Realism
In a world of sovereign states, foreign-policy decisions naturally should account for national interests and the broader balance of power. But unlike the World War II era, when this realist perspective gained greater purchase, today’s international politics call for a much more nuanced approach to power. Read More Here
Biden The Realist
In ending the two-decades-long war, Biden rejected every “liberal internationalist” premise of the enterprise, including the notion that building a democratic Afghanistan and transforming the region served U.S. interests or advanced universal values. Read More Here
America’s Return To Realism
It was already clear that former President Donald Trump repudiated the humanitarian or quasi-humanitarian motives that underpinned US military interventions after the Cold War. But Joe Biden’s forceful renunciation of foreign-policy idealism is somewhat surprising. Read More Here
The Plight Of The Foreign Policy Realists
Ideas won’t matter if the reigning hegemon is overstretched and collapses like the British Empire or the Soviet Union. The instinct of a realist and a restrainer is to avoid a scenario that might result if one keeps following failed prescriptions of the last quarter-century. And that is why restraint is on the rise. Read More […]
Standing Up For Realism
Realism, long associated with authoritarian European statesmen such as Otto von Bismarck and Klemens von Metternich, has been consistently portrayed as antithetical to American democratic traditions. During the Cold War, statesmen such as Kissinger or Zbigniew Brzezinski were depicted as amoral or even harbouring, in the case of the latter, loyalties to Poland rather than […]
Game of Thrones As Theory
As a foreign policy story, Martin’s tale is far less conservative and far more transformative than meets the eye. A parable about the consequences of unchecked realpolitik, it does not celebrate power and the powerful but challenges and interrogates them. Society is complex, roles and identities are varied and contingent, and division risks disaster. Hic sunt dracones indeed. […]
Conservatism, Realism and Foreign Policy: Kissing Cousins If Not Soulmates
Realists understand that nationalism is the most consequential-ism in world politics. While sometimes it manifests itself in ugly xenophobia it can, ironically, also work to make the international system more benign. It is the engine for balancing behaviour among states, which helps maintain an equilibrium of power and ensures that most states will make provision […]
