# Posted 9:09 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

POLISCI JUNKIES RESPOND: Among its readers, OxBlog is fortunate enough to have a number of experts on the theory of international relations. Thus, when I begin to ramble about the theoretical implications of current events, there is an informed audience waiting to challenge my arguments.

In this instance, PS writes that

...the second claim you make is that realists have become essentially pacifists who don't want the US to use its 'massive firepower'. I think realism has always been quite cautious about the use of force, going back to Morgenthau's opposition to Vietnam. Defensive realists look back at world history and see that the use of force often leads to self-encirclement, balancing, and eventually defeat. The Second and Third Reichs and Napoleon are their key examples.

Offensive realists like Mearsheimer are quite happy to make arguments about using force when necessary, but prefer an offshore-balancing role for the US. And defensive realists love Bismarck, who used force but in a way that didn't attract a backlash. Machiavelli only counseled the use of force under specific conditions, not indiscriminately.

So institutions can sometimes be helpful and relevant (realists don't discount the utility of NATO in the Cold War), and force is a good way to get yourself 'smacked on the snout' (as Mearsheimer puts it) if used improperly. A state is most successful if it doesn't need to use its armed might. Caution and pragmatism - sounds like realism to me. . .

My response to PT ran as follows:

Thanks for the comments, almost all of which I agree with. You're very right to point out that caution is an integral aspect of realism, one that I did not mention in my post but am well aware of. Yet rather than undermine my point, examining this caution demands that I broaden it.

Is it not ironic that realists from Morgenthau on have described force as the ultima ratio yet almost always argued against using it? Moreover, think of how many realists admired the Soviet Union for their supposedly judicious-yet-bold use of force. (Not that such gambits were succesful, mind you. The Realists figured that one out in hindsight.)

Rather, the fact is that realists have always admired force in others yet counseled against the United States using it suggest that there is something fundamentally disingenuous about the application of Realism to 'real life'. And now, with the United States more powerful than ever -- the first unipolar power since Imperial Spain, perhaps Imperial Rome -- the Realists are once again arguing against the use of force. Seems to me that if they took their own principles seriously, they would have to argue that this is the optimal time for the United States to use force, i.e. when no balancing coalition even has the potential to exist.

As critics have long pointed out, Realism fails as a practical doctrine because it has no ethical foundation. I am liberal hawk who believes that the use of force must be consistent with democratic principles. There are also liberal doves who argue for prioritizing the construction of international institutions above all else. While I disagree with the doves on that point, I acknowledge that their argument has a serious ethical foundation. In contrast, what Realism has is a disposition: self-critical pessimism. While this sort of disposition often plays a valuable role by provoking challenges to the reigning conventional wisdom (think Morgenthau on Vietnam), it cannot, in the final analysis, stand on its own.

Finis. (1) opinions -- Add your opinion