{"id":87055,"date":"2016-02-02T07:49:32","date_gmt":"2016-02-02T15:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=87055"},"modified":"2016-02-02T07:50:14","modified_gmt":"2016-02-02T15:50:14","slug":"so-when-will-realists-endorse-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=87055","title":{"rendered":"So when will realists endorse Donald Trump?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professor Daniel Drezner writes for the Washington Post<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The big story, however, is that Trump and his advisers think of themselves as stone-cold realists<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Trump\u2019s narrow definition of \u201cnational interest\u201d does not include things like democracy promotion, humanitarian intervention, the responsibility to protect people from atrocities or the advocacy of human rights abroad. Trump believes that economic engagement will lead to political opening in the long run. He doesn\u2019t think the U.S. government should spend blood or treasure on trying to change other countries\u2019 systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a long game; it\u2019s not a short game,\u201d Clovis said. He faulted neoconservatives who \u201cthink you can go out there and in three weeks after Iraq collapses you can create a constitutional democracy over there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trump campaign thinks of this approach as pragmatic and realistic. Like classical realists, Trump wants to deal with states and governments, not non-state actors or international organizations. That, according to his advisers, is why he sometimes seems to praise strongmen who lead their states as executives with absolute power. Trump sees Putin and other dictators as businessmen doing what any CEO would do, fighting for their organization.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So would, say, respected academic realists such as John Mearsheimer<\/a> or Stephen Walt<\/a> or Barry Posen<\/a> approve of these sentiments?<\/p>\n

If they\u2019re being intellectually honest, they would. Trump\u2019s team hits on the major realpolitik talking points with respect to American foreign policy in these sentiments: a reluctance to expend U.S. blood and treasure overseas, an assumption of other states as rational unitary actors maximizing their interest defined as power, a reluctance to export American values, and a deep disdain for neoconservative approaches to the world. We also know from Tom Wright<\/a> that Trump evinces a strong relative gains view of great power politics, checking another realist box. And a lot of what Trump is saying resonates with American attitudes on this subject<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s my question to academic realists: After reading complaint<\/a> after complaint<\/a> after complaint<\/a> that realism has been marginalized, it turns out that the leading candidate for the GOP nomination for president this year is a budding realist. He certainly sounds more realist than, say, Marco Rubio or Hillary Clinton. And yet questions have been raised about his foreign policy gravitas.<\/p>\n

This is the perfect moment for realists to intervene in the marketplace of ideas and publicly endorse Trump. Sure, he\u2019s not a perfect realist, but that candidate doesn\u2019t exist (much like the perfect neoconservative or perfect liberal internationalist doesn\u2019t exist). Sure, he has said some controversial things<\/a>, but academic realists have not shied away from controversial pronouncements<\/a> either. If realists really want to have some skin in the American foreign policy game, they will not find a better vessel than Trump.<\/p>\n

For all I know, academic realists are<\/em> secretly advising Trump. But this is about the marketplace of ideas and speaking truth to power. The public, particularly the GOP public, is anxious about American national security<\/a>. They deserve to know whether what Trump is saying is consistent with a viable foreign policy worldview. For a school of thought that believes it lacks influence, this is the perfect moment to marry its rigorous, severe logic with the emotive language<\/a> of a flesh-and-blood candidate for president, and possibly help to reduce that candidate\u2019s massive unfavorables<\/a> in both the country and the foreign policy community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor Daniel Drezner writes for the Washington Post: The big story, however, is that Trump and his advisers think of themselves as stone-cold realists: Trump\u2019s narrow definition of \u201cnational interest\u201d does not include things like democracy promotion, humanitarian intervention, the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21791],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87055"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87056,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87055\/revisions\/87056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}