{"id":25704,"date":"2017-09-15T19:06:37","date_gmt":"2017-09-16T00:06:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=25704"},"modified":"2017-09-15T19:06:37","modified_gmt":"2017-09-16T00:06:37","slug":"the-neoconservatives-have-declared-war-on-the-realists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=25704","title":{"rendered":"The Neoconservatives Have Declared War on the Realists"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"page-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mises.org\/blog\/neoconservatives-have-declared-war-realists\">The Neoconservatives Have Declared War on the Realists<\/a><\/h3>\n<h2 class=\"page-title\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"color: #333333; font-size: 16px;\" draggable=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/mises.org\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/slideshow\/public\/1280px-F-16_June_2008.jpg?itok=Ge0RrWwD\" alt=\"1280px-F-16_June_2008.jpg\" \/><\/h2>\n<div id=\"slideshow\" class=\"group-image-wrapper field-group-html-element pull-left\">In recent years, I&#8217;ve increasingly suspected that when it comes to foreign policy, the realists offer some of the most sane observations.<\/div>\n<div class=\"body-content clearfix\">\n<p>These suspicions were confirmed earlier this year when after the election of Donald Trump, John Mearsheimer, one of modern realism&#8217;s current standard bearers, <a href=\"http:\/\/nationalinterest.org\/feature\/donald-trump-should-embrace-realist-foreign-policy-18502\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wrote in <\/a><em><a href=\"http:\/\/nationalinterest.org\/feature\/donald-trump-should-embrace-realist-foreign-policy-18502\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The National Interest<\/a> <\/em>that Trump should &#8220;adopt a realist foreign policy&#8221; and outlines a far better foreign policy agenda that what we&#8217;ve seen coming from Washington.<\/p>\n<p>And what is this realist foreign policy? For Mearsheimer, some main tenets include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Accepting that the US attempt at nation building in Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen &#8220;has been an abject failure.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Washington [should] respect the sovereignty of other states even when it disagrees with their internal policies.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Spreading democracy, especially by force, almost always fails.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Understanding that &#8220;America\u2019s terrorism problem &#8230; is fueled in part by the U.S. military presence on Arab territory as well as the endless wars the United States has waged in the greater Middle East.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Trump administration should let local powers deal with ISIS.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Recognizing\u00a0that Russia poses no real threat to the United States: &#8220;Even if Russia modernizes its economy and its population grows in the years ahead \u2014 big ifs \u2014 it will still be unable to project significant military power beyond eastern Europe.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;A\u00a0Syria run by Assad poses no threat to the United States&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The new president should also work to improve relations with Iran.\u00a0&#8220;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Encourage the Europeans to take responsibility for their own security, while gradually reducing the remaining U.S. troops there.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>Against Liberal Hegemony<\/h4>\n<p>There are some specific recommendations, but in a\u00a0larger context,\u00a0Mearsheimer is reflecting what has been building for years among realists\u00a0led by Barry Posen, Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, and Harvey Sapolsky, among others:\u00a0an opposition to so-called &#8220;liberal hegemony&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Neoconservatives Have Declared War on the Realists In recent years, I&#8217;ve increasingly suspected that when it comes to foreign policy, the realists offer some of the most sane observations. These suspicions were confirmed earlier this year when after the election of Donald Trump, John Mearsheimer, one of modern realism&#8217;s current standard bearers, wrote in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[7617,16018,562,8844,14776,1174],"class_list":["post-25704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-mises-institute","tag-neoconservatism","tag-neoconservatives","tag-realism","tag-ryan-mcmaken","tag-us-foreign-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25704"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25705,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25704\/revisions\/25705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}