open Democracy News Analysis - US foreign policy: a progressive-realist union?, Michael Lind - Comments

Kuri on "The US foreign-policy future: a progressive-realist union? "

Kuri — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 18:09:21 +0100

Interesting discussion. I always find it odd when Kissenger is included in the canon of Realists. He's classically associated with them, yes, but his political career doesn't really accord very well with their prescriptions. I think the author's criticism of Realism is only partially founded. The chief problem is a seeming inability to recognize any kind of liberal imperialism. Lefty Realists recognize that this is possible.

hari_1 on "The US foreign-policy future: a progressive-realist union? "

hari_1 — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 15:53:52 +0100

Michael Lind is right and wrong to use such categorial derivatives to explain realist and realpolitk vs. liberal/internationalist school of thinking when dealing with current perspectives on US foreign policy. I'm +70 and may have a bit different take on the same - having digested ALL (and sundry) socalled authorities Lind quotes in his essay in order to find "his" rational to what tics today's US foreign policy. To begin with, I accept the sovereignty of nation-state system based on normative international law and codified under UN Charter. I also accept US policy is out to pre-empt the historical nation-state. This is principally a consequence of its war on terror - the EU might find it, in the final analysis, unacceptable. In the meanwhile, the US, has developed its strategy of pre-emptive war! The nation-state has been more or less denigrated or de-stabalized by not only official rhetorics but manifest direction of international politics. We saw that in the Balkans and now in mideast. Using WMD and human rights, as an excuse, this unilateral intervention in the sovereign rights of the nation-state has now catapulted us into the quagmire of Iraq war and its aftermath! What next? Iran? Syria? Having studied/written about the Russian and Chinese Revolutions, I'm following PRC policy developments more closely, since US policy is most likely to be confronted by mainland Chinese emerging power on the international arena (not only in GDP terms!). The nation-state is central to PRC policy perspective. I suggest a return to the UN instrument, after 1938-1945 war, which delivered international rule of law, as long as all members accepted its authority. The same instruments - with a bit of political modernization - can carry us into the new century and beyond to deal with new power realities. A realist may not believe in the UN and its ability to order a peaceful world order. Yet, the UN can only function with the mandate of its members, including the security council. My hope and prayer is that a newfound EU External Relations Commissioner will have the legal mandate to enforce the authority of the UN irrespective of US policy. It's also predictable that Russia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa would support such an attempt to foreclose pre-emptive warfare by US command/control powers, etc. It's happening on the currency market (right now!) with Euro taking over implicitly the role of a global reserve currency! My reading is that this is just the beginning of the historical decline of American imperial power...

johnevans7 on "The US foreign-policy future: a progressive-realist union? "

johnevans7 — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 14:03:43 +0100

You say "Such methods short of war brought down apartheid in South Africa and inspired Libya's rapprochement with the international community". Tell that to the Marines! Or more accurately to the thousands of Cubans who died in South Africa, while the intelligentsia were heroically digging up cricket pitches. While you are about it tell it to the pilots of the 45 or so aircraft who blasted Libya on April 14th 1986, just missing Ghadaffi in his tent. Causing him to change his foreign policy nearly as fast as his underpants.

US foreign policy: a progressive-realist union?, Michael Lind

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:49:41 +0100

During the George W Bush years, two great currents of thinking about United States foreign policy - progressive and realist - have shared a critique of a third - neo-conservative. Both liberal internationalists and proponents of hard-nosed Realpolitik have rejected a US foreign policy that aims to achieve indefinite US global hegemony - but from quite different perspectives. Indeed, most realists have been as contemptuous of the liberal-internationalist alternative as of neo-conservatism.

Recently, some thoughtful observers of foreign policy have proposed that progressives and realists move beyond a shared critique of neo-conservatism in the direction of a commonly-held philosophy. Robert Wright has proposed that this be called "progressive realism", while the British writer Anatol Lieven and the American conservative foreign-policy analyst, John Hulsman (both openDemocracy contributors), have called for "ethical realism". (The need for apologetic adjectives implies - correctly, in my view - that there is something wrong with unmodified realism).

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