By Eric Vandenbroeck
and co-workers
Realist theorists of international
relations
Although many
prominent realist theorists of international relations correctly predicted the
war in Ukraine, their focus on great-power politics over the rights of small
states and their warnings about the risks of escalation has not been popular
among the foreign policy commentariat. The insistence of some realists, chief
among them John Mearsheimer, that the war is almost entirely the result of the
structural factor of NATO’s expansion rather than the bellicosity of Russian
President Vladimir Putin has not endeared realism to a broader public audience,
either.
Although the school
of thought comes in various flavors, nearly all realists agree on a few core
notions: that states are guided primarily by security and survival, that states
act based on national interest rather than principle, and that the
international system is defined by anarchy.
None of these notions
are pleasant or popular. All too often, pointing out the harsh realities
of international life or noting that states often act in barbaric ways is seen
as an endorsement of selfish behavior rather than a simple diagnosis. As one of
the school’s founding fathers, Hans Morgenthau, put it, realists may see
themselves as simply refusing to “identify the moral aspirations of a
particular nation with the moral laws that govern the universe.” But their
critics often accuse them of having no morals, as the Ukraine debate has shown.
Matthew
Specter’s The Atlantic Realists explores the development of
classical realism in the period after World War I, with a particular focus on
the cross-pollination between German and American intellectuals and on the
deeper and more malevolent historical roots of the concepts underlying this
philosophy. By contrast, Jonathan Kirshner’s An Unwritten Future seeks to
rehabilitate classical realism as a frame for understanding modern geopolitics,
particularly in opposition to more modern structural versions of realism.
Whereas Kirshner seeks to praise classical realism, Specter has come to bury
it. But both authors draw on a central truth about realism, which
the political scientist William Wohlforth has
put this way: “The most important point is that realism is not now and never
has been a single theory.” Instead, it comprises a variety of models for
thinking about the world, each characterized by pragmatism and the art of the
possible rather than grand and often doomed ideological crusades suggested by
other schools of thought.
The Kremlin on the couch
Realists have been at
the forefront in criticizing the United States' disastrous foreign policy in
recent decades, highlighting the folly of trying to remake the world in its
image. As a result, public and even elite views have begun to swing in a more
pragmatic and realist direction over the last decade. In failing to explain
adequately and respond to the war in
Ukraine, however, realists may face a potential backlash to that shift.
Ukraine has long been
a flash point for realist thought. Many realists argue that in the post–Cold
War period, the United States has been too focused on an idealistic conception
of European politics and too blasé about classic geopolitical concerns, such as
the enduring meaning of borders and the military balance between Russia and its
rivals. Policymakers who subscribed to liberal internationalism—the idea that
trade, international institutions, or liberal norms can help build a world
where power politics matter less—presented NATO’s expansion as
a democratic choice for smaller central and eastern European states. Realists,
in contrast, argued that it would present a legitimate security concern for
Moscow; no matter how benevolent NATO might seem from the West’s perspective,
they would argue no state would be happy with an opposing military alliance
moving even closer to its borders.
These disputes became
more rancorous after Russia’s 2008 war in Georgia and its 2014 annexation of Crimea, with liberal
internationalists arguing that these wars revealed Putin to be an imperialist,
revisionist leader seeking to reconquer the Soviet empire. Many realists
maintained that these conflicts were Moscow’s attempts to prevent its closest
neighbors from joining NATO. Both arguments are plausible; the Kremlin’s
reasoning is hard to discern. Yet as diagnoses, they point to very different
policy conclusions: if Putin is acting out of ambition, then the West
should bolster deterrence and take a hard line against Russia, but if he is
acting out of fear, it should compromise and accept limits on future expansion.
Since the February 24
invasion, there has been a new dimension to this criticism. The more thoughtful
critiques of realism in the months after the war began noted that many realist
analyses of the conflict are relatively unhelpful because they focus almost
entirely on relations between the United States and Russia and ignore the
internal and ideational factors that explain Putin’s decision
to invade and his conduct during the conflict. Realists are probably correct
that NATO’s expansion into the post-Soviet space contributed to the war, but
that is, at best, a partial explanation. Other factors appear to have also
loomed large in Russia’s prewar decision-making: the prospect of NATO armaments
or bases in Ukraine (with or without its formal membership), Western training
for the Ukrainian military, Kyiv’s corruption crackdown on oligarchs close to
Putin, and Ukraine’s increasing economic ties to the EU.
The war
in Ukraine thus suggests that some realist theories are simply not as
helpful as they could be during a time of global geopolitical upheaval;
realists have the broad contours of the war in Ukraine right but get many of the details wrong. This is particularly
unfortunate, as other approaches to the world—notably the variants of liberal
internationalism that dominated so much of the post–Cold War period—have also
been found wanting. Proponents of primacy or liberal hegemony, for example, who
argued that the United States could maintain its outsized military edge and
prevent the rise of other powers, have been proved wrong by the rise of China.
Liberal internationalists who endorsed wars of regime change in Afghanistan and
Iraq or humanitarian interventions in Libya have seen their grand projects
falter and fail. The realist theories presented in Specter’s and Kirshner’s
books may not offer new insights precisely. Still, they revise and update our
understanding of a classical realist model whose pragmatism is, in many
ways, a better fit for our newly multipolar world.
Let’s get real
What today is called
“realism”—the school of thought most undergraduates are taught in their
International Relations 101 class—is structural realism or neorealism, a
version of realism outlined in the 1970s by the scholar Kenneth Waltz.
Neorealism is further divided into “defensive” and “offensive” variants,
depending on whether one believes that states primarily seek security through
defensive means, such as military fortifications and technology, or through an
expansion that acquires power and territory. Both versions focus heavily on
structural factors (how states interact at the global level) and effectively
ignore domestic politics, the quirks of bureaucratic decision-making, the
psychology of leaders, global norms, and international institutions. Neorealism
thus stands in stark contrast to the older school of classical realism, which
counts Thucydides, Machiavelli, and Bismarck among its earliest practitioners.
It has strong roots in philosophy and includes factors such as domestic
politics and the role of human nature, prestige, and honor. It also contrasts
with classical realism’s more modern counterpart, “neoclassical realism” (a
term coined by Gideon Rose, a former editor of this magazine), which seeks to
marry the two variants by reincorporating domestic and ideational factors into
structural theories.
Specter’s and
Kirshner’s books both concern themselves with classical realism, particularly
its role as the fount of all later realist theories. As if in a comic book,
Specter seeks to unearth realism’s origin story, focusing on the intellectual
underpinnings and biographies of key players such as Morgenthau and the German theorist
Wilhelm Grewe. In doing so, he intends to prove that
the genesis of realism is a much darker tale than previously understood. In the
commonly told story of classical realism, German-American émigrés such as
Morgenthau reacted to the bloody wars of the early twentieth century by
rejecting the unfounded idealism of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and returning
to the classic notions of realpolitik espoused by such thinkers as Machiavelli
and Thucydides. This narrative, as presented most famously by the British
historian Edward Hallett Carr, attributes the rise of
the Nazis and the outbreak of World War II to the failure of Wilson’s
idealistic efforts to create a League of Nations that would resolve
conflict through laws and norms instead of through realpolitik and force.
But classical
realism, Specter argues, is not a descendant of Bismarckian Realpolitik.
Instead, it is an offshoot of the pursuit of Weltpolitik,
the imperialist school of thought put into practice by the bumbling imperialist
Wilhelm II in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Where the
former emphasized skillful balancing between adversaries to avoid unnecessary
conflict, the latter was driven more by social Darwinist notions that great
powers have the right to expand and dominate. To make his case for realism’s
nefarious roots, Specter looks at the origins of central concepts of classical
realism, exploring terms such as “the national interest” and “geopolitics.” He
finds that some of these terms originated decades before the mid-twentieth
century, in debates about imperialism and the claims of politicians such as
Wilson that rising powers like the United States and Germany were
exceptional.
Polish soldiers during a NATO exercise in Orzysz, Poland, July 2022
Likewise, Specter
makes a solid case that the classical realists, in many ways, invented a noble
lineage for themselves, identifying great historical philosophers whose work
fit in with their notions of the world (such as Hobbes) while eliding or
avoiding their more questionable historical antecedents altogether. He spends
significant time exploring the linkages between the German philosopher Carl
Schmitt’s notions of Grossraum—more
infamous in its later incarnation as Lebensraum, the doctrine that Hitler’s
Nazi government used to justify its conquests in eastern Europe—and the later
realist thinkers’ focus on geopolitics.
This intellectual genealogy
of realism is an impressive contribution. But the lessons that Specter draws
from it are less convincing. Although he is correct that the classical realists
of the 1950s took concepts and ideas from earlier, less ethical theories of
international relations, it is not clear why such borrowing undermines their
later arguments. Specter proposes that, because of these nefarious ties,
realism should be viewed not as “a storehouse of accumulated historical
‘wisdom,’ but rather a historical artifact—and one that has, tragically,
exerted too much power over world politics.” Yet all philosophers and scholars
reach to the past for inspiration and support. So what if the classical
realists looked backward for similar perspectives to bolster their case? They sought
a longer, more diverse lineage for their ideas than the troubled history of the
early twentieth century. It is hard to blame them for that.
Indeed, much of
Specter’s overall argument amounts to guilt by association. It is undoubtedly
true that the classical realists couched their arguments in terms that would
have been familiar to early-twentieth-century imperialists. But they added to
that legacy, as Specter himself notes, “ethical seriousness” and “caution.”
These elements reacted against the ideas and events they had witnessed over the
preceding decades. The darker variants of realism in history should not tarnish
its more modern incarnations. Indeed, the same could be said for today’s
foreign policy debate. There are undoubtedly realist approaches to the
world that espouse power-seeking and U.S. military primacy. But there are
also more ethical and defensive variants that take the core insights of realism
but do not accept the amorality or imperialist principles of realism’s earliest
roots. Some realists are heartless hawks who would sell their mothers; others
are thoughtful doves who regret the necessity of difficult choices. For every
Henry Kissinger, there is a George Kennan.
It’s complicated
Kirshner’s targets
in An Unwritten Future are closer to the present day. Kirshner
savages the theories of structural realists, which he argues are excessive in
their devotion to rationalist causes of war and cannot explain anything other
than stasis in the international system. Kirshner argues that the structural
realists have gone too far, producing a theory of little value in stripping
down realism to a more parsimonious model, one in which the only significant
variable is power. In proposing what he sees as a more helpful way to assess
the world, he draws on a wave of recent scholarship by academics who are
agnostic about paradigms such as realism and liberalism. Instead, these
scholars study the role of honor and prestige in international affairs, factors
central to classical realism. Kirshner argues that contemporary thinkers should
resurrect the classical realist models of the world, bringing in domestic
political and ideational factors and avoiding what he sees as the pitfalls of
neorealism’s “hyper-rationalist” view of the world.
In Kirshner’s view,
clashes between states may sometimes arise from misperceptions or the security
dilemma. One state’s attempts to make itself secure unintentionally make a
neighboring state less secure. But in addition to these causes, which
structural realists would accept as relevant, he believes that war may as often
arise from differing worldviews or hierarchies of interests in different
states, factors that structuralist realists tend to ignore. Kirshner also
correctly identifies many of the core problems that structural realists have
faced in recent years: how to reconcile morality with a fundamentally amoral
theory, the malleability of the notion of the national interest, and the limits
of realism as a guide to purposeful action rather than as a guide to what not
to do.
Kirshner argues
bluntly that structural realism is often better at pointing out the errors in
others’ approaches than suggesting solutions. This criticism will ring true for
anyone who has followed the debates over the causes
of the Ukraine invasion. Indeed, An Unwritten Future is at
its strongest when arguing that war is a plunge into radical uncertainty. (It
is weakest when playing inside baseball, pointing out internal contradictions
in the ways structural realists have borrowed their models from economics.)
Structural neorealism cannot fully explain why and when wars happen or how
leaders and populations will react. Six months ago, who would have believed
that an actor whose primary claim to fame had been playing a president on
television would have pulled Ukrainians together in defiance of an invasion,
spurring the creation of a new and unified national identity? War, as Kirshner
underscores, can be understood only by incorporating human factors into the
analysis.
Kirshner’s problem
with later generations of realists stems from their response to the challenge
of liberalism. Liberals believe that states can rise above conflict and power
politics, although they differ on whether that can be achieved through trade, international
institutions, or international law; realists simply do not believe
transcendence is possible. In the face of this disagreement, rather than
accepting that the two schools were based on entirely different ideological
assumptions, neorealists adopted social scientific language and framing, hoping
to make their own beliefs seem scientific, rather than ideological, in nature.
Kirshner says realism and liberalism have ideological bases, and contemporary
realists should stop pretending to be scientists and return to the messier but
more analytically rich terrain of classical realism.
The desirable and the possible
The debates over
Ukraine, and U.S. foreign policy more broadly, are in many ways simply
rehashing long-running criticisms of realist or restraint-minded thinkers. As
Kirshner highlights, because most realists emphasize prudence above all else,
it is much easier to criticize than to offer a different affirmative policy as
a replacement. As a result, there is no one realist policy. For example,
realists were clear and united in their criticisms of the war on terrorism—they
nearly unanimously opposed the invasion of Iraq—but far less so on the question
of what they believe should replace it. Some call for a new crusade against
China, others for a U.S. drawdown in many regions. This division makes it hard
for realists to shape the policy process in this or future
administrations.
Yet even if realism
is present mainly in today’s policy debates as a foil, pushing U.S. foreign
policymakers to justify their choices and adopt slightly more pragmatic options
may be the best realists can hope for. As Specter points out, realists have had
a complicated relationship with policymaking. Kennan, who served as the U.S.
State Department’s director of policy planning, and Morgenthau, who worked
under him, are among the best-known realist policymakers. Their influence has
waxed and waned over time. Presidents Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush's
most realist administrations had notable policy triumphs: ending the Vietnam
War, managing the peaceful breakup of the Soviet Union, and winning the Gulf
War. But they also had mixed legacies, from Nixon’s troubled domestic political
record to Bush’s 1992 electoral loss. That is still more than one can say for
realist influence in the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama administrations
when unchallenged U.S. power allowed idealists to drive most policy. Yet
as the world continues its shift toward multipolarity, realist insights will
once again become more important for the conduct of U.S. foreign policy.
This makes Specter’s
and Kirshner’s books particularly valuable. That both consider realism’s
antecedents and insights without using some variant of liberalism as a straw
man is equally impressive. “Paradigms are inescapable,” Kirshner writes.
“Paradigm wars are largely vacuous.” Neither book wastes time in irresolvable
philosophical disputes. Yet it is also ironic that both books are in some ways
guilty of the very charge they level at realist theories: Specter and Kirshner provide
excellent critical overviews of the problems with these theories but fall short
in providing alternatives.
On this front,
Kirshner’s book performs notably better. With chapters on the rise of China,
how to meld political economy questions into classical realist theories, and
even exploring the potential weaknesses and shortfalls of classical
realism, An Unwritten Future thoughtfully assesses the
question of what it would mean in practice to reinsert classical realist
perspectives into ongoing policy debates. Classical realism suggests that the
United States should be extremely wary of China’s rise and that Chinese
ambition will rise with Chinese power. It also means that Washington should
seriously consider ways to come to terms with and accommodate this rise within
limits, lest it accidentally provokes an earth-shattering great-power war like
those in 1815, 1914, or 1939.
Despite these
insights, Kirshner’s conclusions are not earth-shattering. Although arguing
that “after three-quarters of a century, it is more than appropriate for any
great power to reassess the nature of its global commitments,” he ends by
advocating that the United States maintain the status quo in foreign policy,
contending that a leap into the unknown—in effect, any significant changes—does
not comport with realism’s emphasis on prudence. This is a frustrating
conclusion, as it suggests a level of stasis in the international system that
the book itself belies when discussing the rise of China.
On the other hand,
Specter largely punts on the question of the future of U.S. foreign policy. In
arguing that realism is too deferential to imperial approaches, too
undemocratic, and too rooted in ethically questionable philosophy, he makes
clear that he doesn’t regard realism as a reasonable path forward, at least not
until it incorporates postcolonial, feminist, and critical theoretical
insights. This distaste mirrors much of the progressive unease with pragmatism
and moderation in foreign policy when those notions conflict with universal
values. At times, this tension has produced uncomfortable internal debates
among progressives over humanitarian intervention—for example, in Syria—pitting
those who argue that the United States has a responsibility to protect human
rights around the world with those who argue that such interventions would do
little but drag the country further into endless Middle Eastern wars.
But the realists have
never been blind to this tension. As Morgenthau wrote in his classic
treatise Politics Among Nations, “Political realism does not
require, nor does it condone, indifference to political ideals and moral
principles, but it requires a sharp distinction between the desirable and the
possible indeed.” Realists accept that foreign policy is often a choice between
lesser evils. Pretending otherwise—pretending that moral principles or values
can override all constraints of power and interest—is not political realism. It
is political fantasy.
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