If you are a politics wonk and really enjoy international relations, take a look back at my post on Kenneth Waltz' "Man the State and War", one of the most important Politics 101 books.
There are Idealists, Globalists, Realists, Marxists (far fewer now but still popular in Western universities) and many other paradigms of political thought. Let us take two polar opposites, Idealism and Realism.
- Realists [Realism] believe in classical views of state power being predominant in deciding international relations between states. This Machiavellian approach is often completely divorced from moral attitudes and is focused more principally on what a state can impose on other states. In US politics, former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger is credited as a Realist.
- Idealists [Idealism] believe in the strength of values and ideas. Idealists tend to think that human nature can improve and that the darker nature of humankind can be tempered by a spreading of values based on certain moral assumptions. President Woodrow Wilson, supporter of the League of Nations and his Fourteen Points on freedom, is a classical Idealist.
This summary is helpful background for a recent Q & A between Secretary Rice and reporters on a recent trip (2.11.05) to Ireland:
"REPORTER: You used to be known or labeled as a "realist" in foreign policy. I think some of us on the plane went back and re-read your February, I’m sorry, your 2000 piece in Foreign Affairs. The foreign policy vision that you outlined on this trip was very ambitious, idealistic, even Wilsonian. I was wondering, first of all, could you sort of explain the evolution of your thinking? And secondly, there's a school of argument that says spreading democracy is a good thing, but there are risks in terms of more chaos, more civil conflict, that those sorts of things could be unleashed by what you're proposing.
These are two very good questions that frame the argument of where Dr. Rice stands between Realism and Idealism. Secretary Rice was a Kremlinologist and was considered apart of the Realist camp. President Bush, who was not interested in the 2000 campaign with "nation building" and who had Dr. Rice as his foreign policy advisor on the campaign trail, could rightfully be characterized as a Realist as well. Her response is very interesting: [I have coded her responses between the Realist argument in red and the Idealist argument in blue.]
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I don't think that you could be completely a realist and be a Soviet specialist because one had to recognize that it was the character of the Soviet state that was a lot at fault for the threat that the Soviet Union posed to the international system. And if you didn't believe that values mattered in the balance of power, just imagine what the world would have been like if the Soviet Union had won the Cold War. We would not be talking about the spread of freedom and liberty."
Secretary Rice admits the bias of leaning towards the Realist paradigm in her opening, but makes a rather Idealist argument about why opposing the Soviet Union was important to freedom.
So, I think in my own orientation in international politics, international policy, I think I've always had a healthy respect for the importance of values when one is talking about power... balance of power is going to play out. One of the most enduring memories for me and one of the most gratifying periods of time in my life was the period from '89 to '91 when we were seeing the collapse of the Soviet Union and the re-emergence of those values. And I was very much a part of the team, along with Bob Zoellick and Dan Fried
And some others, Steve Hadley, that were pushing very hard for U.S. engagement with Poland as it was emerging from the Soviet shadow, well before the Soviet Union collapsed.
To be a realist only means that you also recognize that there is a balance of power and that that matters, and that power does matter. And not just military power, but economic power and indeed cultural power, so-called soft power, as well. So, yeah, there's been an evolution for all of us after September 11th, which is a pretty seminal event in everybody's experience. And to those who say that the spread of liberty and democracy might result in chaos I would say: What do we think happened on September 11th from the freedom deficit that existed in the Middle East which then produced those ideologies of hatred that led directly to September 11th? So, I don't think that one wants to trade the false stability of dictatorship for the admittedly fragile and difficult process of getting to democratic development. I would far rather have the latter than the former."
Condoleezza Rice beautifully argues the convergence of these two paradigms of thought:
- Power matters. Without it, the values a side holds cannot be protected or expanded.
- 9-11 finally fundamentally changed international relations theory.
- Non-free governments create a short term "false stability" to US security.
- New democracies, while "fragile and difficult," in the long run are the best hope for long-term US security.
The US, faced with the potential of mass civilian casualties (especially with biological agents or WMD) could no longer view the world through a "balance of power" Realist system. The Idealism approach to spreading values of liberty and freedom, coupled with a Realist regional approach by using "not just military power, but economic power and indeed cultural power, so-called soft power, as well," is the bold new paradigm of the Bush administration.
It well may take a generation to find out if this convergence of thought will prove victorious. Unfortunately, France, Germany and the liberals are not doing an effective job of arguing an alternative method for preserving Western security and promoting freedom in the world.
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