Realism: A Path to Peace
By Jason Sibert
The foreign policy school of realism has much to teach us in the current political environment.
Realist thinkers, such as Hans Morganthau and George Kennan, taught that nation-states pursue their own interest on the international stage. It doesn’t matter the form of government the nation-state follows – Islamic (Iran), Communist (China), democratic-republic (United States) or Monarchy (Saudi Arabia) – states pursue their self-interest! Leaving motivations to self-interest might seem like a downer to those who want to leave their children and grandchildren a better world.
However, the school of realism needs to be reexamined in terms of what it means for peace. The school accepts that all forms of government have something in common, self-interest. Searching for common ground is important in the pursuit of peace. Invading a nation-state to create a democracy, which occurred in the administration of George W. Bush, has no place in the school of realism.
Realism also sees the drive of states to dominate their region, or the world, as a key tenant of the way states behave. The drive for power is necessary for a state’s survival. Again, this seems foreign to some who work for peace. However, the balance of power, when state’s check another state’s power, is also a facet of realist thinking. States may want to dominate the world or region but another state, or states, will work to balance that power. Dominating the world is an impossibility in this school. World domination doesn’t appeal to peace-mined people.
Does the balancing have to occur through war? No. There are ways that states project power that has nothing to do with the projection of military force. States can project power through their culture, their powerful economies, foreign aid, and through treaties which make a world with fewer arms possible. Working for a world with less arms and war makes a state’s system more attractive and more powerful.
President Donald Trump’s foreign policy consists of leaving treaties and accords and acting as if other powers don’t exist or are not important. Trump is doing little to increase our power in any way, as he’s decreasing our power!
International relations thinker Hedley Bull advocated a school of policy called liberal realism. The school agrees that states pursue their own self-interest, like all forms of realism, but it also sees treaties or international agreements as possible – making it similar to the foreign policy school of liberalism that advocates international law between nation-states.
In Bull’s theory, states have to find a common self-interest to make treaties, or international law. His liberal realism demands that states find that common interest. In a world of rising right-wing nationalism, represented by President Donald Trump in the United States, there is a tendency to view some within our country (immigrants and Muslims) and outside our country (other countries) as something to be afraid of.
Right-wing nationalists also play on emotion, the emotion of fear. Liberal realism means that we methodically seek common ground on the subject of self-interest, regardless of the form of government or the nationality of the people that make up that government. How does our country become less emotional?
Jason Sibert is the executive director of the Peace Economy Project.
