Conference: What is Realist Foreign Policy?

Friday, March 1 – Saturday, March 2, 2019

Mershon Center for International Security Studies
1501 Neil Avenue
Columbus, Ohio 43210

Organizer
Randall Schweller
Director, Program for the Study of Realist Foreign Policy
Editor-in-Chief, Security Studies
Professor of Political Science, The Ohio State University

Overview
Realism is the oldest theory of international relations. From the sophists and Thucydides, Machiavelli and Hobbes, to E. H. Carr, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Hans Morgenthau, to Kenneth Waltz, Robert Jervis, and John Mearsheimer, realism as an intellectual construct has dominated the study of international relations. Given the primacy of the realist approach and its compelling explanations of state behavior and the dynamics of the international system, does realism consistently provide the most reliable guidance for statecraft? More fundamentally, what precisely is realist foreign policy? How do we know it when we see it? For instance, in his State of the Union address delivered this month, President Trump called himself a “principled realist.” What does he mean?

The purpose of the conference is to assemble a “dream team” of realists to hammer out the elements we should expect to see in realist foreign policy. The ultimate goal is to develop a set of baseline expectations on a range of important issues (alliances, coercive diplomacy, economic statecraft, ethics/morality, deterrence, nuclear politics, etc.) for realist foreign policies that distinguish them from the liberal alternatives.

See Participant Bios and Abstracts

Participants
David Blagden, University of Exeter
Michael Desch, University of Notre Dame
Colin Dueck, George Mason University
Kelly Greenhill, Tufts University and Harvard Kennedy School
Mohamed Helal, The Ohio State University
Richard Herrmann, The Ohio State University
Robert Jervis, Columbia University
Sean Kay, Ohio Wesleyan University
Jonathan Kirshner, Boston College
John Poreba, Charles Koch Foundation
Patrick Porter, University of Birmingham
Brian Rathbun, University of Southern California
William Ruger, Charles Koch Foundation
Randall Schweller, The Ohio State University
Joshua Shifrinson, Boston University

Program

Friday, March 1, 2019

9 a.m. Welcome

9:15 p.m. Robert Jervis, Opening Remarks

10 a.m. Coffee Break

10:15 a.m. Richard Herrmann, “Realist Foreign Policy: Containing the Romance of Nationalistic Universalism”
Discussant: Colin Dueck

11:30 a.m. Lunch

12:30 p.m. Patrick Porter, “Desert Shield of the Republic? Realism and the Middle East”

1:45 p.m. Sean Kay, “21st Century Realism and the Transatlantic Security Relationship”

3 p.m. Coffee Break

3:15 p.m. Brian Rathbun, “A Realistic Morality: Consquentialist Ethics in a State of Anarchy”

4:30 p.m. Michael Desch and William Ruger, “Conservatism, Realism, and Foreign Policy”

Saturday, March 2, 2019

9 a.m. Kelly Greenhill, “Perceiving Wolves in Sheeps’ Clothing: Unintended Consequences of Coercive Humanitarian Interventions”

10:15 a.m. Coffee Break

10:30 a.m. Mohamed S. Helal, “Law as an Instrument of Realist Foreign Policy”

11:45 a.m. Lunch

12:45 p.m. David W. Blagden, “Roleplay versus Realpolitik: Societal and Structural Pressures in States’ Strategic Postures”

2 p.m. Coffee Break

2:15 p.m. Joshua Shifrinson, “It’s a Trap! Realism, Polarity, and Entrapment Debates”

3:30 p.m. Coffee Break

3:45 p.m. Jonathan Kirshner, Takeaways from the Conference

5 p.m. Randall Schweller, Concluding Remarks

This conference is sponsored by the Program for the Study of Realist Foreign Policy at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, Ohio State University, and the Charles Koch Foundation.

Conference Participants and Abstracts

Robert Jervis (Keynote Speaker)
Robert Jervis is the Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Affairs at Columbia University. Specializing in international politics in general and security policy, decision making, and theories of conflict and cooperation in particular, his Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War was published by Cornell University Press in April 2010. Among his earlier books are American Foreign Policy in a New Era (Routledge, 2005), System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life (Princeton, 1997); The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution (Cornell, 1989); Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, 1976); and The Logic of Images in International Relations (Columbia, 1989). Jervis also is a co-editor of the Security Studies Series published by Cornell University Press. He serves on the board of nine scholarly journals, and has authored over 100 publications.

David W. Blagden (Exeter, UK)
David Blagden joined Exeter as lecturer in international security and strategy in March 2015. He was previously the Adrian research fellow in international politics at Darwin College – where he remains an associate member – and a research associate at the Centre for Rising Powers, both at University of Cambridge. Blagden’s scholarly publications have appeared in International Affairs, International Security, and International Studies Review, among other outlets; he has also provided commentary for the BBC, been quoted in the UK and U.S. national press, and written for The Guardian, The Spectator, New Statesman, and War On The Rocks. He obtained his doctorate at University of Oxford, where he was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), having previously completed his master’s (with distinction) at University of Chicago and having read philosophy, politics, and economics at Oxford as an undergraduate.

“Roleplay versus Realpolitik: Societal and Structural Pressures in States’ Strategic Postures”
How do states’ desires to perform an international-societal role interact with the imperative to safeguard their security in an anarchic international system structured by relative power? This paper investigates the tensions between roleplay and realpolitik – that is, gaining social recognition as a particular kind of state, driven by both foreign and domestic societal pressures, while doing what it takes to survive. Role-based approaches to international standing set different thresholds on capability than the requirement to undertake survival-essential military missions, independent of potentially unreliable allies’ charity – realists’ understanding of relative position. Theoretically, therefore, the paper demonstrates that roleplay and realpolitik remain separate incentive structures underlying states’ foreign policy choices, pulling against each other in the shaping of strategic posture. Empirically, meanwhile, the paper shows – through opportunity-cost force-posture analysis – that contemporary second-tier major powers are particularly prone to finding themselves torn between these competing logics.

Michael Desch (Notre Dame)
Michael Desch is director of the Notre Dame International Security Center (NDISC) and professor of political science at University of Notre Dame. He specializes in international relations, U.S. foreign policy, American national security policy, political thought, and world politics. His most recent monographs include Power and Military Effectiveness: The Fallacy of Democratic Triumphalism (2008), Civilian Control of the Military: The Changing Security Environment (1999), and When the Third World Matters: Latin America and U.S. Grand Strategy (1993), along with numerous scholarly articles and chapters and many broader-interest publications. He is a member of the editorial board and associate editor of International Security and served as editor-in-chief of Security Studies.

“Conservatism, Realism, and Restraint: Kissing Cousins If Not Soulmates”

Colin Dueck (George Mason University)
Colin Dueck is a professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. He studied politics at Princeton University, and international relations at Oxford under a Rhodes scholarship. He has published three books on American foreign and national security policies, The Obama Doctrine: American Grand Strategy Today (Oxford, 2015); Hard Line: The Republican Party and U.S. Foreign Policy since World War II (Princeton 2010); and Reluctant Crusaders: Power, Culture, and Change in American Grand Strategy (Princeton, 2006.) He has provided congressional testimony and published articles on these same subjects in journals such as International Security, Orbis, Security Studies, Review of International Studies, Political Science Quarterly, and World Policy Journal, as well as online at RealClearPolitics, National Review, Foreign Affairs, The National Interest, and The New York Times. His current research focus is on the relationship between party politics, presidential leadership, American conservatism, and U.S. foreign policy strategies. Dueck is the faculty adviser for the Alexander Hamilton Society at George Mason University, a non-resident fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He has worked as a foreign policy advisor on several Republican presidential campaigns.

David Edelstein (Georgetown University)
David M. Edelstein is Vice Dean of Faculty in Georgetown College and an associate professor in the Department of Government, the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, and the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University. He is a scholar of great power politics, military intervention, and the causes of war and peace. His most recent book, Over the Horizon: Time, Uncertainty, and the Rise of Great Powers (Cornell University Press, 2017) examines how states have responded to the rise of new great powers. He is also the author of Occupational Hazards: Success and Failure in Military Occupations (Cornell University Press, 2008). His work has also been published in International Security, Security Studies, Foreign Affairs, and Survival. He has held fellowships at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is currently researching the implications of the rise of China for the prospects of peace and security, the ways in which states exit unsuccessful military interventions, and alliance dynamics in contemporary international politics.

“Entrapment Revisited: Strategic and Structural Dynamics”
In what ways and under what conditions are states entrapped in their allies’ foreign conflicts? Over the last two decades, a wide-ranging literature has challenged the idea that states can be entrapped into foreign disputes; after all, not only can states craft “escape clauses” to their alliance treaties, but states – so this logic goes – are rarely so irrational as to dash off to war simply for the sake of an ally. In this paper, we challenge this emerging scholarly consensus by advancing three inter-related arguments. First, we argue that existing studies have biased their results by both narrowing the definition of entrapment and assessing its frequency when existing theories predict low rates of entrapment. Second, and relatedly, we propose that entrapment is rarely a simple and obvious choice between going to war or not on behalf of a partner. Rather, it manifests in more fine-grained allied debates than existing studies allow over the timing, tools, and strategy to be employed against real or potential adversaries that probabilistically increase the risk of undesired conflict. Finally, although the risk of entrapment is never negligible, it is most directly affected by the number of other great powers present in the international system and – critically – trends in the overarching distribution of power. Applied to U.S. grand strategy today, this framework provides room for worry: not only do U.S. policymakers seem to be downplaying entrapment risks today, but the distribution of power implies that these risks may be growing as U.S. power wanes.

Kelly Greenhill (Tufts University)
Kelly M. Greenhill’s research focuses on foreign and defense policy; the politics of information; the use of military force; and what are frequently called “new security challenges,” including civil wars, (counter-) insurgencies, the use of migration as a weapon, and international crime as a challenge to domestic governance. In addition to her doctorate from MIT, Greenhill holds a master’s from MIT, a C.S.S. from Harvard University, and a bachelor’s (with distinction and highest honors) from University of California at Berkeley. Outside of the Department, Greenhill serves as research fellow and as chair of the Conflict, Security and Public Policy Working Group at Harvard University’s Belfer Center and as associate editor of the journal International Security.

“Perceiving Wolves in Sheeps’ Clothing: Unintended Consequences of Coercive Humanitarian Interventions”
Security dilemma logic posits that actions taken by a state to increase its own security may prompt reactions from other states that lead to a decrease rather than an increase in the original state’s security. But what about actions undertaken not to enhance a state’s own security, but rather in pursuit of moral objectives, such as protecting another state’s citizens against human rights depredations? Drawing upon evidence from post-Gulf War I Iraq, Kosovo and Libya, in this memo, I show how and why even foreign policy actions that are largely “non-realist” by design and in intention can inadvertently trigger more threatening (re-)assessments of the intentions and/or capabilities of an intervening state. I argue that this is the case for two key reasons. First, in security environments where state-to-state combat engagements are rare, humanitarian military missions can provide valuable intelligence, not otherwise readily attainable, about new capabilities and their uses. Second, because coercive humanitarian interventions are frequently marked by mission creep, over time gaps between stated rationales for—and objectives of—military action and observed in-theatre behaviors are increasingly lain bare, raising fundamental questions both about an intervener’s current credibility and future intentions. Moreover, because of the self-exculpatory and attribution error-fraught manner in which states tend to view their own behavior, intervening states may fail to comprehend the magnitude (or even the existence) of the reassessments their actions have precipitated, with further deleterious effect.

Mohamed Helal (Ohio State)
Mohamed Helal is an assistant professor of law at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He specializes in public international law and has considerable policy and academic experience in that field. Prior to coming to Moritz, Helal was a lecturer-on-law at Harvard Law School where he obtained his S.J.D. and LL.M. degrees. He also taught international criminal law as a visiting assistant professor at the Section Française of the Ain Shams University Faculty of Law and taught international human rights law at the American University in Cairo. Helal’s experience in the field of public international law also includes many years of service as a diplomat and as an international civil servant. After serving on the cabinet of the secretary general of the League of Arab States during 2002 and 2003, he joined the Egyptian diplomatic corps, and became a member of the cabinet of the minister of foreign affairs of Egypt from 2005 until 2009. During that period, he worked on issues relating to multilateral diplomacy and international organizations, with a focus on human rights and humanitarian affairs at the United Nations, the non-aligned movement, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. In 2011, Helal joined the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry as the commission’s legal officer, and he also served as the legal counsel to the deputy minister of foreign affairs of Egypt for most of 2016.

“The Norms of Anarchy”
Realism is not a monolithic theory of international relations. It includes a broad range of approaches, such as classical and neo-realism, that provide different explanations and predictions of state behavior. Despite the theoretical diversity within the family of realist international relations theory, all realist theorists share some basic assumptions about the nature of the international system and the determinants of state behavior. For realists of all persuasions, the objective of foreign policy is the pursuit of the national interest – generally defined as the preservation of the security and survival of the state – without regard to considerations of morality. The principal instrument that states employ in the pursuit of their national interests is military power. International relations theorists have also recognized the role of economic and soft power as tools of statecraft.

Richard Herrmann (Ohio State)
Richard K. Herrmann (Ph.D., Pittsburgh, 1981), professor and chair of political science at The Ohio State University, concentrates on international relations, international security, and political psychology. He was previously director of the Mershon Center for International Security Studies. He has written on the role of perception and imagery in foreign policy as well as on the importance of nationalism and identity politics in world affairs. His areas of interests include American foreign policy and the politics of the Middle East and Russia. He has served as a Council on Foreign Relations fellow on the secretary of state’s policy planning staff in Washington, D.C., and is the author of Perceptions and Behavior in Soviet Foreign Policy. He has published numerous articles in journals including American Political Science Review, World Politics, International Organization, International Security, International Studies Quarterly, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Conflict Resolution, The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Political Psychology. From 1989-1994 he served as co-editor of International Studies Quarterly.

“Realist Foreign Policy: Containing the Romance of Nationalism and Nationalistic Universalism”
Realism is an approach to formulating foreign policy. It does not prescribe which goals should receive priority but provides a way to evaluate the prudence of actions taken to achieve them. Expecting tradeoffs between competing goals, realism anticipates the political and psychological routes likely to be taken to avoid and ease the pain of these tradeoffs. Two of these run through nationalism and nationalistic universalism. Both provide people with a sense of significance and lead to constructions of reality characterized more by taboo tradeoffs, moral self-righteousness, and stereotypes than compelling analyses and estimates of likely outcomes. To work against these inclinations, Hans Morgenthau suggested ways both to infer the motives driving foreign policies and to estimate relative power the strategic judgments he argued were most important. Parts 2 and 3 in this paper focus on those two tasks respectively, using U.S. policy as an illustration. Part 4 turns more directly to strategies designed to countervail against the predictable political and psychological distortions introduced by nationalism and nationalistic universalism, focusing in particular on recognizing stereotypes, keeping track of predictions, spelling out downstream scenarios, and containing the romance in heroic narratives.

Sean Kay (Ohio Wesleyan University)
Sean Kay is Robson Professor of Politics and Government at Ohio Wesleyan University, where he also is director of the International Studies Program. He is Mershon associate at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at The Ohio State University. Kay specializes in American and international environmental policy, American foreign and national security policy, international relations, and the study of Europe. He has held previous positions as visiting assistant professor of government at Dartmouth College, at the Institute for National Strategic Studies (U.S. Department of Defense, Washington, D.C.), and at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Brussels, Belgium. Kay has been a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of State, and National Intelligence Council.

“21st Century Realism and the Transatlantic Security Relationship”
This paper examines what a new realist policy approach to the U.S.-European security relationship will look like in the 21st century. The analysis surveys how realists have viewed the transatlantic relationship as institutionalized in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) at its founding, during the Cold War, and in NATO’s period of postwar adaptation. The paper shows that realism has offered a persistent critique of institutional assumptions about NATO and played a dominant role during the Cold War period of deterring Soviet aggression. It also demonstrates that in the period after the Cold War, realists were not influential in helping decision-makers understand the costs-benefits of conducting security operations and community building via the institutional assets of NATO. The paper demonstrates the value of a realist perspective that challenges assumptions of warfighting and liberal institutional order-building via NATO while also helping America to better evaluate its roles and responsibilities in Europe while achieving more equitable burden sharing. This paper offers a return to one of the most pivotal debates about security institutions in international relations theory while laying out how a revitalized realist approach moving forward can yield better returns on this important strategic relationship.

Jonathan Kirshner (Boston College)
Jonathan Kirshner is professor of political science and international studies at Boston College. His research and teaching interests focus on international relations, political economy (especially macroeconomics and money), and politics and film. He is currently pursuing projects on classical realism, the international political implications of the financial crisis and its aftermath, and the politics of mid-century cinema. His CV can be accessed here and links to many of his publications can be found here. Recent books include American Power after the Financial Crisis, and Hollywood’s Last Golden Age: Politics, Society and the Seventies Film in America. His first book, Currency and Coercion: The Political Economy of International Monetary Power, explored how states manipulate international monetary relations to advance security-related goals. Another book, Appeasing Bankers: Financial Caution on the Road to War, illustrated how financial interests (such as banks) and international financial markets can shape and constrain states’ grand strategies and influence decisions about war and peace. Appeasing Bankers won the best book award from the International Security Studies Section of the International Studies Association.

John Poreba (Charles Koch Foundation)
John Poreba is a program officer at the Charles Koch Foundation, where he builds university research centers that further our understanding of the ideas and institutions that make free societies possible. He focuses primarily on foreign-policy research, as few national policies have greater influence on the safety and well-being of the American people. Poreba works with university leadership, professors, and students to develop programs that: 1) stretch the boundaries of foreign-policy research, inquiry, and debate, and 2) explore how to best defend our territorial integrity, promote free trade, and peacefully engage with the world. Poreba previously served in communications, management, and development roles with Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce and the Leadership Institute. In addition, he’s trained more than 2,210 leaders and activists from 26 countries on the topics of leadership and development. His writings have been published in the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, The Daily Caller, and Human Events. In 2013, he successfully completed Atlas Network’s Think Tank MBA. John is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University and the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., where he studied statecraft and national security affairs.

Patrick Porter (University of Birmingham, UK)
Patrick Porter is professor of international security and strategy at University of Birmingham. He is also senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, London. He researches the interaction of power and ideas in the making of foreign and defense policy in the United States and United Kingdom, and in shaping their conflicts. He has written three books: Blunder: Britain’s War in Iraq (Oxford University Press, 2018); The Global Village Myth: Distance, War and the Limits of Power (Georgetown University Press, 2015) and Military Orientalism: Eastern War through Western Eyes (Columbia University Press, 2009). He has also written articles in International Security, Journal of Strategic Studies, International Affairs, Security Dialogue, Diplomacy and Statecraft, and War in History. He writes regularly for The National Interest online. And he has appeared as an expert witness before the parliamentary Defence Select Committee, Foreign Affairs Select Committee, and Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy.

“Desert Shield of the Republic? Realism and the Middle East”
Political realists disagree on what America should “do” and “be” in the Middle East. While they are united in their skepticism towards extravagant geopolitical projects such as the “Global War on Terror” and attempts to transform the region along democratic, capitalist lines, they divide over other fundamental questions: how important is the Middle East to US national interests? Is America’s patronage of Israel prudent? What military posture and how much military presence is needed, and for what purpose? This paper surfaces these disagreements, and identifies two competing strands of American realism that can be found in both government and academia. Hegemonic “primacy realism”, that looks to stabilize the region conservatively and ensure a favorable concentration of power in its favor, and which presupposes great capacity to bend the neighborhood to its will. Realists of this persuasion argue over the relative merits of large and light footprints, but agree what the footprint is for. By contrast, there is an alternative with deep roots in American political traditions, a “shield of the republic” realism, which views the region as an unruly place that both entangles and corrupts the republic, and which views the Gulf as increasingly peripheral to national interests. American presidents since World War Two have generally favored the former school, but have recognized the logic of the second tradition in periods of turmoil. This paper offers a genealogy of these intramural arguments within realism. And it makes the case for the second tradition, arguing that the region is losing its salience grand strategically, that entanglement has damaged republican liberties, and makes a realist case for abandonment.

Brian Rathbun (University of Southern California)
Brian Rathbun received his Ph.D. in political science from University of California, Berkeley in 2002 and has taught at USC since 2008. He has written four solo-authored books on humanitarian intervention, multilateral institution building, diplomacy and rationality. His articles have appeared or are forthcoming in International Organization, International Security, World Politics, International Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Politics, Security Studies, European Journal of International Relations, International Theory, and Journal of Conflict Resolution among others. He is the recipient of the 2009 USC Parents Association Teaching and Mentoring Award. In 2019 he will be recognized as a distinguished scholar by the Diplomatic Studies Section of the International Studies Association. In his free time, he rescues kittens from trees. Brian Rathbun has interests in integrating insights from political, social and cognitive psychology into the study of international relations, in particular how ideology influences foreign policy decision-making. His primary substantive areas of concern are international cooperation, negotiation and human rights. He employs a variety of research methods, including archival-based case studies, surveys of public opinion, elite interviewing, and laboratory experiments.

“Pulling Punches: Realism’s Requisite Restraint”
Realism and ethics are often thought to be antithetical, even by realists themselves. However, many maintain that realism has a distinct ethical basis premised on consequentialism. A realist ethics therefore requires that we come to terms with what moral consequentialism entails. Contrary to prominent understandings in the literature, consequentialism is not the same as egoism. Rather consequentialism implies that state leaders must often make tough choices based on structural constraints that they cannot control. State egoism, essential to a realist foreign policy, is ethically justifiable to the extent that states cannot simultaneously realize their own interests in self-defense and avoiding harm to others based on factors beyond their control, such as the anarchic nature of the international system. It is this difficult tradeoff that a realist does not deny, but rather admits, and whose demonstration is at the heart of realist ethics.

William Ruger (Charles Koch Foundation)
William Ruger is a research fellow in foreign policy studies at Cato Institute. He is also vice president for research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute and vice president for research at the Charles Koch Foundation. Ruger was previously an associate professor of political science at Texas State University and an adjunct assistant professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin. His most recent scholarship appeared in International Studies Quarterly, Civil Wars, and Review of Political Economy. Ruger is the author of Milton Friedman, and co-author of two books on state politics including the new 4th edition of Freedom in the 50 States: An Index of Personal and Economic Freedom, published by Cato in August 2016. He is a frequent guest on television and radio, and his op-eds have appeared in several national publications, including Time, USA Today, Investor’s Business Daily, and the New York Daily News. He is on the executive council of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society.

“Conservatism, Realism, and Restraint: Kissing Cousins If Not Soulmates”

Joshua Shifrinson (Boston University)
Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson’s teaching and research interests focus on the intersection of international security and diplomatic history, particularly the rise and fall of great powers and the origins of grand strategy. He has special expertise in great power politics since 1945 and U.S. engagement in Europe and Asia. Shifrinson’s first book, Rising Titans, Falling Giants: How Great Powers Exploit Power Shifts (Cornell University Press, 2018) builds on extensive archival research focused on U.S. and Soviet foreign policy after 1945 to explain why some rising states challenge and prey upon declining great powers, while others seek to support and cooperate with declining states. He has additional related projects on U.S. grand strategy, the durability of NATO, U.S. relations with its allies during and after the Cold War, and the rise of China. His work has appeared with International Security, Journal of Strategic Studies, Foreign Affairs, and other venues. His next major project examines American foreign policy in the 1990s and early 2000s to explain how great powers try to stop challengers from emerging.