Realism and Restraint: America's New Foreign Policy

The United States has been the dominant global power for over a quarter of a century, yet it has struggled to realize its lofty vision for a more peaceful and prosperous world. Relations with China and Russia have soured, the European Union is wobbling, and violent extremism continues to spread, all in the face of US efforts to maintain international stability. The reason, Stephen Walt argues, lies in America’s sense of omnipotence, which has encouraged successive administrations to pursue ambitious, risky, and often unnecessary foreign policy adventures. Is it time for the United States to develop a more restrained foreign policy outlook? Or would this only invite greater instability?

[@60yoself-taught]

Simply Brilliant !!

[@NimbleStretch]

I like comparing this book presentation at the Chicago Council with Walt's earlier discussion (also on you-the-tube) entitled "Why does US foreign policy keep failing?" at the Harvard Kennedy School. It's a 'before' & 'after,' book conception to book complete, comparison. It's interesting, as Walt narrates at the Kennedy School, how the idea for the book manifested itself after a talk at the DoS. At minute 17:35 in this Chicago Council video, he talks about policymaker accountability, and he struggles with it openly during his Kennedy School talk: that is, at the moment, assigning responsibility for foreign policy failures is likely much much too lax, but you certainly don't want to overreact & swing the pendulum too far in the other direction; a too heavy-handed approach to addressing leadership errors would petrify decision-making in the blob. And so, what do you do? It seems you gotta find a velvet gloves approach, especially with the foreign policy elite who consider themselves quasi-nobility doing noble things. I would suggest the universities (just as they do when a corporate CEO commits fraud for instance) take away their advanced degrees, "degree-clip" someone whose foreign policy decisions have led to disaster & thus are intellectually bankrupt, clip that person "down" to their BA. Of course, if, say, Harvard did that, the policymakers would cry foul (indeed, the entire blob would cry foul) and retort that the university is the source of the error for installing ill-tested theories in their heads; you would hear, "democratic peace theory, econ interdependence theory, institutionalism--these ideas are swimming around in my thoughts, embodied in my character, because of y-o-u Harvard." Yet, if Harvard really wanted to exert powerful influence on Washington despite the repercussions, it would strip the degrees anyway, knowing it would annihilate the policymaker's credibility, and say in response, "yeah, sure, we fed you the theories you then chose to deploy in policy, we at Harvard admit that, but we did not teach you to be a theoretical automaton, did we? Rather, we ultimately taught you to think for yourself, and this means when you noticed the theories were failing, you needed to seek out new theories; otherwise, you are merely a clog in a blob." A. Blinken, for instance, could have read J. Mearsheimer's Tragedy of Great Power Politics in the early 2000s, and perhaps realized he was heading for intellectual bankruptcy years before he had to declare Chapter 13, but instead--and this is Walt's entire point at minute 17:35--he melted into the sidelines for awhile, and then got promoted, whereas the guys who wanted to be fiscally responsible about policymaking decisions got hammered. The only way you get rid of bureaucrats is by stripping them of what gives both them & the public the sense that that deserve their position ontologically (ie, in essence) and that is invariably advanced degrees. Just an idea.

[@aslampervez2294]

Thanks

[@stefanemanuelsson2201]

4 years later and it's still very much more of the same.

[@kooisengchng5283]

Obama promised not to do stupid things, but he did them anyway.

[@tommyodonovan3883]

Libya

[@martinjanecek4950]

year?

[@originalideas9617]

This guy is a master. I hope Trump can replace John Bolton with him.

[@truthaboveall7988]

He’s an idiot/

[@truthaboveall7988]

Trump was restrained by generals who later in tell all books speak of his idiocy & they stayed to ensure he wouldn’t take us to war

[@johnmarshall504]

Armchair quarterbacks aren’t always wrong.

[@politicallyunreliable4985]

These people still speak in a way that means we should be FAR more watchful and critical of them. This is cynical arrogance almost at it's worst.

[@dubjay111]

This is like listening to a boring version of mearshimer

[@Lmeza-2121]

Mearshimer isn’t boring? 🤣

[@phill6159]

Mearsheimer is a brilliant speaker, of course if your not apt, then I could see boredom setting in.