The (Ex) Washington Realist

Jonathan Rauch's column in National Journal regrets that, in his opinion, realism in foreign policy is confined to the crackpot extremes of the right and left and he laments that no public figure is articulating a foreign policy strategy based on realism.

Of course, my first reaction is to take issue with that--after all, what is TNI itself trying to do? Senator Hagel is a leading proponent of principled realism and in our summer issue discusses what that means; he used his realism to guide his thinking on Iran. Kissinger certainly is continuing to make the case (see our conversation with him in the summer issue). Anatol Lieven and John Hulsman, two leading contributors, are about to release "Ethical Realism: A Vision for America's Role in the World". And so on ...

But Rauch raises a much more fundamental point--that right now neither major political party really wants to embrace the label "realism" or formulate their foreign policy positions on a realist basis, even though its propositions resonate with the majority of Americans.

It speaks to the fact that realism has an "idealism gap"--a point I myself made several years ago when I wrote that "Lofty aims--however unrealistic--rather than practical objectives are what stir the blood of the citizenry, right?"

It also points to the extent the maximalist rhetoric has replaced analytical thinking. In theory and in the abstract, as I said at the Saltzman Forum last fall, no one disagrees with the proposition that, in the long run, people are better off living under democracies. From John Mearsheimer to David Rieff, one would find little dissent with the proposition. But, as Dov Zakheim wrote for us (and will speak this Friday at the magazine), strategy is moving from the aspiration to realization. And in the current climate of debate, it is far easier to be labeled an enemy of freedom than to be appreciated for providing cautionary advice.