By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

The War with Iran

Throughout U.S. President Donald Trump’s most recent campaign and second term in office, he and his team have attempted to spin his foreign policy as pragmatic, disciplined, and strategic. They counter accusations that his global approach is impetuous and reckless with professions of “flexible realism”- a nod to an intellectual tradition often traced back to Greek historian Thucydides, who famously observed that “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Though a diverse school of thought, realism generally holds that power is the currency of international politics. It eschews idealism and counsels a ruthless focus on defending national interest. The seeming resonance of this worldview with Trump's early-second-term foreign policy has led prominent analysts to embrace realism as the unifying framework for the president’s heterodox approach. The New York Times even proclaimed it “the theory that gives Trump a blank check for aggression.”

But the United States’ new war with Iran makes clear that Trump is not a realist. In fact, realism, when properly understood, reveals the profound dangers of the Trump administration’s careening approach to foreign policy. Unleashing regional war in the Middle East with neither a compelling justification nor a theory of how best to advance U.S. interests is profoundly at odds with the core tenets of realism. Indeed, with his war with Iran, Trump has permanently ceded his claim to represent a clear-eyed and pragmatic approach to U.S. foreign policy, opening new space for other political leaders to take up that mantle.

 

Real Realism

In search of an intellectual framework to explain Trump’s worldview, the administration and commentators alike have turned to realism. The realist tradition has roots that run through U.S. presidents as diverse as John Quincy Adams, Dwight Eisenhower, and George H. W. Bush, as well as prominent thinkers including Hans Morgenthau, Kenneth Waltz, and John Mearsheimer. Academic realists have spent decades questioning whether states seek security or maximum power, under what conditions alliances are beneficial or entangling, and whether the post-World War II liberal international order was anything more than window dressing for American hegemony. They also readily acknowledge that intellectual realism doesn’t easily translate into clear prescriptions for U.S. foreign policy.

Realists of all stripes also counsel a certain national security pragmatism: secure a favorable balance of power and avoid peripheral conflicts that drain blood and treasure. Tied in is the importance of prioritizing national interest and a wariness of unintended consequences, particularly in times of war. Across his two terms as president, analysts have labeled Trump a realist for different reasons at different times. One wave of commentary, prevalent in his first term, anointed Trump a realist precisely because of his perceived restraint. Trump claimed to reject prolonged and costly conflicts in the Middle East, and this anti-interventionism helped propel him to the White House in 2016. Under the tagline of “principled realism,” the first Trump administration was unapologetic in its pivot away from the Middle East and toward competition with China - a focus on great-power dynamics that most realists would expect to see from the United States facing a peer competitor. Anticipating a second Trump presidency, the prominent realist scholar Randall Schweller (writing with Andrew Byers) predicted in Foreign Affairs that Trump’s realist impulses would result in “the most restrained U.S. foreign policy in modern history.” These early assertions of Trump as a realist assumed a judiciousness and focus on great-power politics that many scholars and analysts believed had been missing from U.S. foreign policy for some time.

Trump’s second-term foreign policy quickly defied these expectations. In abandoning both military restraint and the strategy of great-power competition, the current Trump administration has pivoted to what it calls “flexible realism.” Anchored in the principle that might makes right, this new approach seems designed to justify the president’s expansive use of coercion. After the 2025 National Security Strategy put forth flexible realism as a basic principle, Trump called his January snatch-and-grab of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro an expression of “the iron laws that have always determined global power.” White House adviser Stephen Miller picked up on this theme, telling CNN that “we live in a world, in the real world . . . governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.” Later that month, the 2026 National Defense Strategy heralded the president’s flexible, practical realism. “Out with utopian idealism,” it boldly proclaimed, and “in with hard-nosed realism.” By March, in the early days of the war with Iran, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth attempted to justify the conflict in realist terms: "Our ambitions are not utopian; they are realistic, scoped to our interests and the defense of our people and our allies."

There may be echoes of realism in Trump’s muscular approach, such as his focus on exercising military might and securing economic resources. But a penchant for power, unmoored from strategy or a clear definition of the national interest, does not qualify a leader as a realist. And a proper reading of realism proves that this description of Trump has not held up over time.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaking to the media in Florida, March

Trump’s second-term foreign policy quickly defied these expectations. In abandoning both military restraint and the strategy of great-power competition, the current Trump administration has pivoted to what it calls “flexible realism.” Anchored in the principle that might makes right, this new approach seems designed to justify the president’s expansive use of coercion. After the 2025 National Security Strategy put forth flexible realism as a basic principle, Trump called his January snatch-and-grab of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro an expression of “the iron laws that have always determined global power.” White House adviser Stephen Miller picked up on this theme, telling CNN that “we live in a world, in the real world . . . governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.” Later that month, the 2026 National Defense Strategy heralded the president’s flexible, practical realism. “Out with utopian idealism,” it boldly proclaimed, and “in with hard-nosed realism.” By March, in the early days of the war with Iran, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth attempted to justify the conflict in realist terms: "Our ambitions are not utopian; they are realistic, scoped to our interests and the defense of our people and our allies."

Above Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth

There may be echoes of realism in Trump’s muscular approach, such as his focus on exercising military might and securing economic resources. But a penchant for power, unmoored from strategy or a clear definition of the national interest, does not qualify a leader as a realist. And a proper reading of realism proves that this description of Trump has not held up over time.

 

Land Of Opportunity

Debunking Trump’s claim to realism is more than an academic exercise. His critique of so-called globalist elites, his professed foreign policy restraint, and, above all, his opposition to U.S. military interventions overseas have always been intrinsic to Trump’s political brand. The “Make America Great Again” movement has long claimed noninterventionist foreign policies, and Vice President JD Vance pledged his fealty to Trump on the basis that he would not begin any new wars. Across multiple campaigns, that orientation proved remarkably popular with the American electorate.

Herein lies the opportunity for those who oppose Trump’s war as well as for the politicians and policymakers who come after him. There is a genuine public demand for a more disciplined, pragmatic approach to U.S. foreign policy. Trump’s war is not merely reckless because it ignores congressional war powers, international law, or the value of allied cooperation. It is reckless because it exemplifies the warmongering excesses that Americans have consistently decried because of their wasteful effects on American power.

Making this case to the American people, especially as Trump raises the realist mantle, requires resisting the pull toward the extremes. It might be tempting to reject Trump’s might-makes-right fixation in favor of a U.S. foreign policy that centers on idealism and virtue. But an overly ideological foreign policy risks ensnaring the United States in the same trap it found itself in after the Cold War: when the United States acted primarily to advance its values and had no natural limits or disciplining boundaries.

On the other end of the spectrum, Trump’s national security excesses are leading some critics to amplify calls for a dramatically more restrained approach to U.S. foreign policy. Reckoning with fiscal and political constraints on foreign policy is a good thing, especially for a collection of political leaders and policymakers who grew accustomed to a U.S.-led unipolar era that has now passed. But in their enthusiasm to curb the U.S. military’s global reach and cut potentially entangling ties overseas, those who favor dramatic retrenchment could accelerate Trump’s thoughtless dismantling of U.S. power.

Instead, there is a more pragmatic and, indeed, realist path forward - one that leads toward a United States that is powerful, globally engaged yet disciplined, and, eventually, respected once again. And there is a good reason to expect public support for it. According to Chicago Council surveys from 2024 and 2025, large majorities of Americans want the United States to have a strong global role with a foundation of close cooperation with allies. They recognize that, in an increasingly perilous world, there are opportunities the United States cannot afford to squander and threats it cannot afford to ignore. Realism after Trump, then, must meet that appetite with something Trump never offered: a coherent, affirmative vision for how American strength can be exercised with purpose, restraint, and strategic clarity to advance U.S. interests. With Trump’s Iran war at odds with each of these virtues, a more sensible and sober pathway is open for the taking.

 

 

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