Dan Drezner thinks Donald Trump is a realist and that therefore academic realists should endorse him for President of the United States. There are only two problems with this. First, Donald Trump is not realist. Second, no one with a shred of decency or good sense should endorse Trump, regardless how closely one’s foreign policy foundations resemble his latest ravings.
Drezner thinks Trump is a realist because he has at times articulated policies that accord with realist principles, as Drezner documents, largely based on the claims of Trump’s team to Josh Rogin. This would indeed be huge, but calling him a realist implies more than occasional support for policies consistent with realist principles. It implies that his world view consistently accords with those principles. So academic realists can, I suppose, cheer Trump’s disinterest in exporting democracy. But they can hardly be thrilled with his proposal to “bomb the shit” out of ISIL-controlled oil fields in Iraq and Syria and then surround them with a “ring” of American troops.
Indeed, inconsistency is the real Trump doctrine, not realism. Many candidates struggle to explain away the apparent hypocrisy in, say, claiming to be careful in committing American lives, yet simultaneously advocating wild, testosterone-fuelled military schemes to defeat America’s enemies. But Trump embraces the idea that moral purity, and even the dictates of logic, end at the nation’s shores. Regardless of the contradictions, he will voice unapologetic pride in America and his foreign policy— then just as forcefully accuse China of stealing American jobs, while outsourcing his own clothing line to that country.
Does this celebration of hypocrisy make Trump a realist? Maybe, but in this view, realism can be most anything as it can absorb any sort of inconsistency. Drezner verifies this in his subsequent retort to his (realist) critics when he manages to associate realism with both the very internationally-oriented foreign policy of Richard Nixon and nativism and even isolationism.
Drezner’s impressive demonstration of realism’s flexibility shows that the question of whether Trump is a realist is just yet another iteration in the perennial academic debate about what realism really is. This debate has become—after many, many decades—spectacularly boring and you should pay no attention to it even if you are an academic realist. Honestly, a marathon session watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer would give you greater insight into international relations than plunging into that tired dispute.
And regardless of what realism is, the more important point is that Trump’s foreign policy beliefs alone don’t and shouldn’t dictate how academic realists feel about him. They might quite reasonably feel that even if the philosophical foundations of his foreign policy foundations are solid, the fact that he is a racist, megalomaniacal neophyte with the emotional maturity of a 13-year-old girl might nonetheless disqualify him from the presidency. Nobody, even the much-maligned academic realists, have to endorse someone just because he shares their foreign policy priorities. Now back to Buffy.
Jeremy Shapiro is the Research Director at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, he was a fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy and the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution. Prior to Brookings, he was a member of the U.S. State Department’s policy planning staff, where he advised the secretary of state on U.S. policy in North Africa and the Levant.
Image: DonkeyHokey, Flickr, CC
Another poorly placed rant against the next President. Embrace the reality of what is the best thing ever about to happen to America – A real President.
13 year old girl? How about an average Republican voter! Just kidding, it is amazing to watch this fiasco from Canada. Really though I find that American foreign policy meddlesome and narrow. Most nations will never be Western nor should they be. Save the trillions of dollars and take care of our own home.
Before I begin I wish to make clear that nothing I say here should be construed as derogatory or in any way denigrating to the abilities and devotion to duty of the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces / Forces Armées Canadiennes. The people of Canada have every right and requirement to be intensely proud of, and take great pride in, the men and women who wear Canada’s coat. Deployments overseas and exercises in Comox, Edmonton and Bagotville have convinced me of the professionalism and elan of Canada’s military establishment.This on top of the fact that my grandfather fought alongside Canadians in Flanders Fields and my father alongside Canadians at Normandy.
For Mr. Blaauw, I would find your comments more compelling were you not sitting behind two oceans, and the vast Arctic, guarded to a great extent by the ships of the United States Navy and the aircraft of the United States Air Force, all provided through the auspices of the American foreign-policy that you hold in such contempt. The Canadian government has seen fit to provide their own forces with a budget .03% that of the United States, and a total military structure little over half that of the United States Marine Corps. Speaking of 13-year-olds, how’s that new prime minister working out for you.
For Mr. Shapiro, I should be much more sanguine about attributing value to your comments were it not that you held a senior position in the US State Department team that formulated the debacle in Syria that has rapidly become a catastrophe, and the catastrophe in Libya that has every earmark of becoming another war in which US troops will be deployed. Perhaps this piece would have fit somewhat more precisely printed in the Washington Post.
Mr. Richmond.i completely agree with you. I just wrote what I did out of a cynicism that has come from living in this country and watching the farce of our government and it’s foreign policy. The Schrade that is played with our armed services is pathetic. Burdens are placed upon them without any material support. I grew up in Halifax and watched the Seakings fly about wondering if they would drop from the sky. I don’t even think they have been replaced to this day. F18s, tanks, ships everything in shreds. When the boys were sent to Afghanistan they were deployed with northern woodland camo and had to paint it over.
Appreciate your comments about Mr Shapiro. This bumbling in Syria and Lybia are exactly what makes me cynical. In Iraq they had the country in the palm of their hands and should have left Saddam’s military intact with small arms and vehicles, confined them to the barracks, paid their wages and re-integrate them.
As for our adolescent PM, I did not chose him but he is there and being just the PM I thought he would be…throwing money about. I believe in a strong military, but have never seen one here. For sure Canada spends nothing on her security because of its isolation and America’s might. We would make a fantastic battle ground for a war with Russia though.
No offense was intended, I just think if we need to pursue our interests and security it needs to be more full on: ‘a wise prince would recognize that he “must do not what is beautiful to say, but what is necessary in practice.”’ from the article ‘History Restarted’
I thank your for your comment Mr. Blaauw, and for your understanding. We can both wonder at the lack of capacity and capability currently extant in our political leaders. I think we can agree on many things, among them that offense was not part of this discussion. Bon chance et a bientot!
While I sympathize with Mr Moore’s dissatisfaction with the current state of government, one does not elect a nazi because the trains are running late. Nr. Trump’s personality is ill-suited to the position of responsibility we are talking about.
Just watching the campaign to date, he would have deployed my son, recalled my son or sent my son into a radiation hot zone DEPENDING ON WHO HE IS TALKING TO.
In the bigger picture, when is the last time you asked a billionaire to give a hoot about working (or serving) men and women? And you thought that would work why?