753272

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IRE0010.1177/0047117817753272International RelationsWalt

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International Relations
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US grand strategy after © The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0047117817753272
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explain it? Should realism journals.sagepub.com/home/ire

guide it?

Stephen M Walt
Harvard University

Abstract
This article uses realism to explain past US grand strategy and prescribe what it should be today.
Throughout its history, the United States has generally acted as realism depicts. The end of
the Cold War reduced the structural constraints that states normally face in anarchy, and a
bipartisan coalition of foreign policy elites attempted to use this favorable position to expand the
US-led ‘liberal world order’. Their efforts mostly failed, however, and the United States should
now return to a more realistic strategy – offshore balancing – that served it well in the past.
Washington should rely on local allies to uphold the balance of power in Europe and the Middle
East and focus on leading a balancing coalition in Asia. Unfortunately, President Donald Trump
lacks the knowledge, competence, and character to pursue this sensible course, and his cavalier
approach to foreign policy is likely to damage America’s international position significantly.

Keywords
Donald Trump, E.H. Carr, grand strategy, Kenneth Waltz, offshore balancing, realism,
unipolarity, United States

For someone who has long admired E.H. Carr’s scholarship, it is both a great pleasure
and an honor to be invited to deliver the 2017 E.H. Carr Memorial Lecture. Of course,
every International Relations scholar is familiar with Carr’s The Twenty Years’ Crisis, a
classic work that offers a powerful statement of the realist perspective and a sharp-eyed
critique of its limitations.1 My admiration for Carr increased after I read his masterful A
History of Soviet Russia – and especially the volumes dealing with Soviet foreign rela-
tions – and came to appreciate how well these books had stood the test of time.2

Corresponding author:
Stephen M Walt, Harvard Kennedy School, 79 John F. Kennedy St. Cambridge, MA 02138 USA.
Email: Stephen_Walt@ksg.harvard.edu
2 International Relations 00(0)

Carr is an inspiring figure for another reason: his prose is crystal-clear and his books
are a pleasure to read. This quality is rapidly vanishing from our discipline, I fear, and if
I may offer a word of advice to students in the audience: you will do yourselves and the
world a great service if you learn to write well and you strive to be both clear and some-
times entertaining. Clear writing requires clear thinking, and to think clearly is some-
thing we all strive to achieve. Some scholars think being hard to understand makes them
sound profound, but I urge you not to succumb to that temptation. In reality, poor writing
can make a smart person sound stupid, just as crude public speaking or the indiscreet use
of Twitter can make an American president sound like an ignorant and hateful buffoon.
Carr is worth imitating because he was an independent thinker – even when he was mis-
taken – and his writing was always a model of clarity.
I shall try to emulate his example in the remainder of this essay. My topic is ‘Realist
Theory and US Grand Strategy’, and I will focus on two main questions.
First, can realism explain the strategies and policies that the United States has pursued
on the world stage? Americans often portray their country as an exceptional nation, and
a diverse array of scholars have explained US foreign policy by focusing on its liberal
ideology, capitalist system, divided system of government, partisan divisions, tradition
of interest group influence, bureaucratic politics, and other supposedly distinctive fea-
tures.3 ‘Unit-level’ analyses of this sort are often insightful, but they inevitably focus
attention on America’s special features and downplay the broader environment in which
the United States is set.
Realism, by contrast, is a general theory that is supposed to apply to all great powers.
If its claims have any validity, therefore, they should tell us a lot about US behavior. To
be specific, to what extent does US grand strategy conform to a realist blueprint, and to
what extent does it depart from it?
In fact, realism has a great deal to say on this topic. US leaders often insist their
actions are driven by deep idealistic convictions, but their actual behavior is often strik-
ingly consistent with realist predictions. Yet at the same time (and somewhat paradoxi-
cally), the realist perspective can help us understand why these same leaders sometimes
neglect the lessons of realism, as they have repeatedly done over the past 25 years. As
realism warns, ignoring those lessons has had unfortunate consequences for the United
States and for many others.
Second, if realism can help us understand why the United States acts as it does, can it
also prescribe what US grand strategy should be? If US foreign policy has gone badly off
the rails since the Cold War ended – and I think it has – could a greater reliance on realism
get it back on track? Here, I will outline the strategy of ‘offshore balancing’ proposed by
John Mearsheimer and myself (and a number of other scholars), show why it is consistent
with realist principles, and argue it would be better for the United States and for others.

Realism and foreign policy

One of the strengths of the realist school is its deep commitment to engaging with the real
world, rather than focusing primarily on arcane academic disputes.
This commitment is obvious in Thucydides, for example, who describes his history of
the Peloponnesian War ‘not as an essay which is to win applause of the moment, but as
Walt 3

a possession for all time’.4 It is evident in Carr, who was a veteran diplomat and deeply
engaged by real-world issues throughout his long career.5 It was true of George F.
Kennan, who began his career in the Foreign Service and continued to write and speak
out on issues ranging from Vietnam to arms control to North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) expansion until the end of his long life. Engagement in public life was central to
Hans J. Morgenthau, whose books include several volumes prescribing what US foreign
policy should be and who once participated in a televised debate with the then National
Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy over the wisdom of the Vietnam War.6 Although he
is something of an outlier within the realist school, a deep engagement with public affairs
was obviously central to Henry Kissinger’s career as academic, policymaker, and public
figure.7 And it was certainly true of Kenneth Waltz, although he had no interest in a gov-
ernment career. In addition to his landmark theoretical works, Waltz also wrote important
articles on military strategy, US foreign policy, the folly of the Vietnam War, and the pros
and cons of nuclear proliferation.8 Indeed, Waltz’s last published article – published
shortly before his death in 2013 – was a typically provocative essay explaining why Iran
should get nuclear weapons.9 A profound concern for real-world issues has inspired other
realists as well, from Stephen Krasner to John Mearsheimer to William Wohlforth to
Barry Posen and others.
Nonetheless, scholars disagree about the ability of realist theory to explain a state’s
foreign policy behavior. In Theory of International Politics, Waltz drew a sharp distinc-
tion between his realist theory of international politics and what he called ‘theories of
foreign policy’. In his mind, a theory of international politics – such as balance of power
theory – described the qualities of the system and offered only general hints about the
behavior of individual actors. In his words:

the theory makes assumptions about the interests and motives of states, rather than explaining
them. What it does explain are the constraints that confine all states. The clear perception of
constraints provides many clues to the expected reactions of states, but by itself the theory
cannot explain those reactions.

To explain why a particular state acted as it did, he insisted, you need a separate ‘theory
of foreign policy’.10
Here I think Waltz was being unnecessarily ambiguous, if not ambivalent, and I am
not alone in finding his position somewhat unsatisfying.11 In particular, the position
quoted above is at odds with some of Waltz’s other statements, including some key pas-
sages from Theory of International Politics itself. In that book, and his subsequent clari-
fications, Waltz repeatedly insists that ‘international structures’ powerfully influence the
behavior of units that make up the system. Indeed, that is the central point of his entire
theory: to show how system-level forces affect what states actually do. As he put it in a
‘Response to Critics’ published in 1986, ‘structures shape and shove’, which can only
mean that they alter the behavior of the units that make up the system in important ways.
In Waltz’s own account, therefore, the system is partly determining the foreign (and
domestic) policies of the units.12
Moreover, in Theory of International Politics (and other works), Waltz makes many
predictions about how states will behave. He argues they will align with the weaker
4 International Relations 00(0)

side when threatened, for example, thereby creating a tendency toward balance within
the international system as a whole. In a competitive realm, he maintains, states will
also tend to emulate successful behavior over time, further encouraging a rough equi-
librium. He acknowledges states will trade with one another and cooperate in various
ways, but says they will also remain sensitive to how the gains from mutual coopera-
tion are distributed and be wary of becoming too dependent on others. Although Waltz
insists one needs a separate theory of foreign policy to explain exactly what a particu-
lar state chooses to do at different moments, he also maintains that his structural theory
explains ‘many big and important things’ about the conduct of the units that comprise
the system.13
As John Mearsheimer pointed out a few years ago, Waltz is led to this ambiguous
position because he rejects treating states as rational actors.14 That decision is also some-
what puzzling because Waltz’s reasoning frequently relies on analogies and insights
from classical microeconomics, where the rational actor assumption reigns supreme.
Waltz was pulled in this direction, I believe, by his mordant and consistently skeptical
views about US foreign policy. Waltz thought the United States often exaggerated for-
eign dangers and reacted to them unwisely, at considerable cost to itself and to others.15
But if his theory had rested on the assumption that states were rational and making intel-
ligent responses to the environment in which they were embedded, then how could it
have accounted for what he regarded as foolish behavior by his own country, especially
when its follies persisted over time?
Waltz squares this awkward circle by constructing a structural theory whose central
predictions focused on the nature of the system itself (i.e. was it bipolar or multipolar,
stable or unstable, etc.) and by treating all anomalies in state behavior as the product of
factors lying outside his theory. But this solution is not entirely convincing, because his
predictions about characteristics of different international systems require him to draw
inferences about the foreign policy behavior one should expect in different structures. He
deems states more likely to miscalculate in multipolar systems, for example, and sug-
gests great powers in bipolar orders are better able to control their allies and avoid being
dragged into unnecessary wars.
Moreover, Waltz never identifies where system-level effects end and unit-level fac-
tors take over. In other words, what percentage of the variance in state behavior can be
accounted for by structure, and what percentage arises from the characteristics of the
units themselves? Waltz never offers a clear answer to this admittedly difficult question
(and I am not sure a clear answer can be given), and it remains a vexing lacuna within in
the realist tradition.16
Despite this limitation, structural realism does offer one important insight into this
issue. Both the offensive and defensive variants of structural realism imply that unit-
level elements – which Waltz would label ‘reductionist’ and place within a ‘theory of
foreign policy’ – will loom larger when states are safer and the constraining effects of
anarchy are weaker.17 It follows that states placed in especially challenging interna-
tional environments will be ‘shaped and shoved’ quite powerfully; by contrast, unit-
level forces will exert greater weight in states whose external circumstances are more
favorable. As we shall see, applying this insight to the history of America’s foreign
relations is revealing.
Walt 5

Explaining US foreign policy: a realist perspective

What is realism?
There are many variations within the broad realist tradition, but most versions include
most, if not all, of the following elements.18
First, at the most basic level, realism seeks to explain the world as it is, not the world
as we might like it to be. It is a positive theory rather than a normative one. Scholars
working in the realist tradition do have moral preferences (and some even claim realism
is a more moral approach than some of its rivals), but moral improvement is not its objec-
tive.19 One might say that realism is amoral but not intrinsically immoral.
Moreover, as the discussion below makes clear, realists also have clear policy prefer-
ences. If they are consistent, these preferences should follow from their core beliefs
about the forces that define the nature of world politics and the behavior of the actors
within this realm. Unlike some idealists, in short, realists are more interested in identify-
ing effective courses of action within the present world than in transforming the present
order into something radically different.
Second, for realists, power is the centerpiece of political life, a view famously cap-
tured in the Athenians’ famous challenge to the Melians: ‘the strong do what they can,
while the weak suffer what they must’. This position does not imply that altruism, affec-
tion, mercy, and other emotions play no role in human affairs, only that the question of
who has power is the most critical factor that explains how politics proceeds.
Third, realism highlights the role of international anarchy – that is, the lack of a cen-
tral authority that can protect states from each other. The lack of a central authority
makes all states less secure (because they cannot count on not being attacked) and also
makes cooperation more fragile because there is no agency to enforce agreements or
penalize states that cheat.
Fourth, because no state can count on others, they must rely on their own resources
and strategies in order to survive. For realists, foreign policy is not a philanthropic activ-
ity; even if some governments might prefer to act generously toward others, living in a
world of anarchy does not afford them that luxury.
Fifth, it follows that security will be a major concern for states and they will worry
about relative power. Other things being equal, it is better to be strong than weak, and
states will look for opportunities to improve their power or security at the expense of
rivals.20 Cooperation can and does occur but tends to be fragile, both because states fear
being cheated by dishonest partners and because they fear the gains from cooperation
will not be evenly distributed.
Finally, when a threat emerges, states will first try to pass the buck to others so that they
do not have to bear the costs and risks of containing a potential aggressor. If that approach
does not work, however, then they will try to balance against the threat, either by building
up their own arms or by seeking allies. Most realists believe major powers rarely ‘band-
wagon’ with powerful or threatening states, but especially weak states may bandwagon if
they cannot find effective partners and thus are at a powerful neighbor’s mercy.21
In short, most varieties of realism depict a bleak world where insecurity is rife, com-
petition endemic, and open warfare sometimes occurs. But the real question is, ‘Is this
depressing vision an accurate view, and can it explain US foreign policy?’ To ask the
6 International Relations 00(0)

question is to pose a demanding test, insofar as Americans believe they inhabit a highly
moral and idealistic country and that their foreign policy is shaped by powerful ethical
impulses. Thus, former president Bill Clinton called the United States a ‘beacon of hope
to peoples around the world’, and the late Samuel P. Huntington believed US primacy as
‘central to the future of freedom, democracy, open economies, and international order’.
Not to be outdone, former president George W. Bush claimed America’s ‘great and guid-
ing goal’ was ‘to turn this time of American influence into generations of democratic
peace’. Or as journalist Michael Hirsh once declared, ‘the role played by the United
States is the greatest gift the world has received in many, many centuries, possibly all of
recorded history’.22
Might this self-congratulatory picture be wrong or at least incomplete? Is it possible
that the United States is not as principled as its leaders maintain, but consistently self-
interested, often ruthless, and occasionally brutal? In other words, does the United States
act as realism leads us to expect?

A realist history of US foreign policy

The United States began life as 13 small and weak English colonies. After gaining inde-
pendence, its leaders for the most part opted to stay out of European conflicts and to
forswear ‘entangling alliances’.23 US leaders briefly succumbed to temptation and tried
to conquer parts of Canada in the War of 1812, but this adventure did not go well and the
new republic was lucky to escape with only limited damage. Henceforth, advised John
Quincy Adams in 1821, the United States should ‘go not abroad in search of monsters to
destroy’.24
But America’s ambitions expanded as its power grew, and Adams’ warning was grad-
ually forgotten.25 The United States expanded steadily across North America, in the pro-
cess eliminating most of the original population, violating the treaties it had signed with
native American tribes, and eventually confining the survivors of its predations on reser-
vations, in what we would now regard as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing. As part
of this campaign of ‘Manifest Destiny’, the expanding republic also seized Florida from
Spain; took Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California from Mexico; and eventually
pushed Great Britain out of the Pacific Northwest.
The steady growth of American power eventually allowed it to make good on the
‘Monroe Doctrine’, a unilateral American declaration that the European great powers
were not welcome in the Western hemisphere. It took many decades before this aspira-
tion became a reality, but by 1900 Britain and France no longer had a significant strategic
role in ‘America’s backyard’. With that goal achieved, the United States had become the
world’s only ‘regional hegemon’.
During the first half of the twentieth century, the United States used its power and
influence to keep other states from dominating their regions in the same way that
Washington dominated its own. Woodrow Wilson eventually took the United States into
World War I to prevent Germany from winning the war and dominating Europe, and
Franklin Roosevelt maneuvered the United States into World War II in order to prevent
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan from dominating Europe and the Far East, respec-
tively. The strategic logic in all three cases was identical: a regional hegemon in Europe
Walt 7

or Asia would not have to worry very much about neighboring rivals and would be free
to project power elsewhere, including (if it wished) the Western hemisphere.
It is also worth recalling that the United States was the last great power to enter both
world wars. Instead of intervening at the start, it ‘passed the buck’ to the other great pow-
ers; let them do most of the fighting, dying, and paying; and thus left itself in the best
position to shape the postwar peace. Getting in late may not have been noble, but it was
in America’s interest.
The United States could not ‘pass the buck’ after World War II, however, because the
major powers in Europe and Asia were not strong or cohesive enough to stand up to the
Soviet Union on their own. So the United States took the lead in organizing a balancing
coalition and deployed substantial forces in both regions to deny the USSR any possibil-
ity of a quick and decisive victory. Accordingly, Washington spent the next 40+ years
containing the expansion of Soviet power and doing whatever it could to bring the USSR
to its knees while avoiding World War III. That effort bore fruit from 1989 to 1992, when
the Warsaw Pact disintegrated and the Soviet Union finally collapsed.
Contrary to its idealistic self-image, the United States paid little attention to legal or
moral niceties either during its rise to superpower status or in its long competition with
the Soviet Union. Expansion across North America was a bloody business, and the
United States deliberately bombed civilian targets in Germany and Japan during World
War II (including dropping atomic bombs on two Japanese cities).26 Washington backed
an array of thuggish dictators during the Cold War – provided they were anti-communist
– and directly or indirectly caused the deaths of several million people in Indochina and
elsewhere. The United States never spent much money on foreign aid or human rights –
unless there was a clear strategic rationale or a powerful domestic lobby pushing it – and
declined to intervene when mass killings occurred in Cambodia, Rwanda, and several
other places.
Realism also predicts that competing states will tend to emulate each other and that
the pressures of anarchy will force even very different regimes to act in strikingly similar
ways. US and Soviet behavior during the Cold War confirms this: despite profound dif-
ferences in ruling ideology and governmental institutions, the two superpowers built
massive nuclear arsenals, recruited allies of various sorts around the world, and spied,
assassinated, and intervened with military force on numerous occasions. Both countries
tried to export their own political system to other countries and actively sought to weaken
the other in different ways. Their behavior was not identical, of course – especially at
home – but the similarities in their foreign policy conduct were more striking than the
differences.27
To be sure, not all US actions during the Cold War were consistent with realism, most
obviously the long and costly war in Vietnam. As realists like Morgenthau and Waltz
emphasized, the war made little sense because Vietnam was not a vital strategic asset,
dominos were unlikely to fall far if at all, and the United States was unlikely to win no
matter how long it tried.28 But on the whole, US foreign policy during the Cold War
focused laser-like on the Soviet challenge; used America’s favorable geopolitical posi-
tion, economic clout, and military strength to lead a coalition of major powers that
proved stronger and more resilient than the Soviet bloc; and eventually emerged
triumphant.
8 International Relations 00(0)

When the Cold War ended, the United States did not take a victory lap, dismantle its
military establishment, and draw down its global military presence. On the contrary,
Washington sought instead to maintain a position of dominance that would deter poten-
tial rivals from even contemplating a direct challenge and to spread a ‘liberal’ world
order as far as it possibly could. While maintaining a large and sophisticated arsenal of
nuclear weapons, it either sanctioned or invaded any other countries it thought might be
trying to obtain them. It expanded NATO eastward despite strenuous Russian objections
and invaded Iraq in 2003 as part of a misguided attempt to transform the Middle East into
a sea of pro-American democracies. Since then, the United States has intervened in at
least a dozen countries with drones, aerial bombings, or Special Forces, in part to deal
with perceived threats from international terrorism but also as part of a broad effort to
spread or bolster liberal institutions.

The puzzle
But is this recent behavior consistent with realism? Instead of moving carefully and cold-
bloodedly to improve its relative power position, hasn’t the United States wasted trillions
of dollars trying to spread democracy, expand its alliances, overthrow other governments,
and threaten or sanction regimes it doesn’t like? The results of this policy have been dis-
mal: the United States has made itself less popular, poisoned relations with Russia, desta-
bilized the Middle East, fostered a new and persistent wave of international terrorism, and
facilitated China’s rise to great power status. Not surprisingly, therefore, most prominent
realists opposed these actions wholeheartedly.29 Among those commonly regarded as real-
ists, only Henry Kissinger supported most of these recent missteps.30
Is it possible to reconcile such behavior with realism? The answer is yes, but only in
part.
One could argue, for example, that US leaders were trying to improve their relative
power position or at least to prevent other states from improving theirs, and they simply
miscalculated the likely outcome of their efforts. Every president has sought to maintain
America’s position of primacy, and even the ill-fated invasion of Iraq could be seen as an
attempt to prevent a rogue state from acquiring nuclear weapons (which it could use to
deter the United States) and to transform the Middle East into a sea of pro-American
democracies and thus enhance America’s overall strategic position.
But even if one sees US foreign policy since the end of the Cold War as a more ideal-
istic effort to spread democracy and other liberal values, realism can help us understand
why that ambitious attempt was made. At its core, realism is a theory about the con-
straints anarchy imposes on states, largely due to the pervasive need for security.
Individual leaders, their associates, and even most members of a society may genuinely
want to act morally, perform good works, cooperate with others, and avoid competitive
power politics, but they cannot afford to take the risk lest other powerful actors take
advantage of their vulnerabilities.
In modern history, however, one great power has been partly exempt from these con-
straints. By 1900, the United States had become a continent-sized superpower, with a
large population, the world’s largest economy, a modern industrial base, arable land, and
abundant natural resources.
Walt 9

Equally important, the United States was the only great power in modern history with
no great powers nearby. As French Ambassador Jules Jusseraud remarked early in the
twentieth century, the United States ‘is the most favored of all nations. To the north it has
a weak neighbor. To the south, another weak neighbor. To the east, fish; to the west,
fish’.31 France, Russia, China, Japan, Germany, and Italy have all been invaded more
than once in the past 200 years, and even Great Britain lost more than 40,000 killed on its
home soil during World War II. By contrast, the American homeland has not been
attacked by a foreign power since 1812. What historian C. Vann Woodward called
America’s ‘free security’ has had a profound impact on the conduct of US foreign policy
and remains relevant even in the age of nuclear weapons, Al-Qaeda, and the Internet.32
In particular, geographic distance allowed the United States to ‘pass the buck’ before
the two world wars and spared it the enormous damage the other great powers suffered.
During the Cold War, the combination of vast power and geographic distance made the
United States the ideal partner for Eurasian states on the periphery of the USSR and
China. Its power ensured that its voice would be heard and its actions would be felt, but
it did not pose a significant threat to invade or conquer its allies in Europe or Asia.
America’s favorable geographic location made it easier to create and lead the vast coali-
tion that contained the Soviet Union during the Cold War and eventually drove it into
the ground.33
Furthermore, the protection afforded by the vast Pacific and Atlantic moats helped
insulate the United States from the consequences of its own mistakes. When US foreign
policy went awry – as it did in Indochina and as it has more recently in the Greater
Middle East – the United States had the luxury of being able to cut its losses and with-
draw, leaving the victims of these follies to their fates. And while intercontinental bal-
listic missiles (ICBMs) and cyber-attacks can now cover vast distances, the two oceans
that separate North America from many of the world’s trouble spots still attenuate many
other international dangers.34
When the Soviet Union collapsed and the ‘unipolar moment’ began, the constraints
emphasized by realism mattered even less. As President George H.W. Bush later recalled,
the United States found itself ‘standing alone, at the pinnacle of power, with the rarest
opportunity to remake the world’. Not only did the United States not have to worry about
powerful neighbors, it did not even have to be concerned about peer competitors far
away. During the 1990s, in fact, America’s only rivals were a group of weak and isolated
‘rogue states’ whose actions were of some modest concern but in no case posed a serious
threat to US security.
At the same time, victory in the Cold War and the economic successes of the 1990s
convinced many Americans it had found the magic formula for success in a globalized
world. Over time, US leaders expected other countries to converge toward the US model
of democratic government, competitive markets, rule of law, and other liberal principles,
with a helping hand from Uncle Sam. As Secretary of State Warren Christopher put it in
1993, the way was clear to a ‘new world of extraordinary hope and possibility’. But he
also warned that ‘the new world we seek will not emerge on its own. We must shape the
transformation that is underway’.35
Instead of retrenching, therefore, both Republicans and Democrats embraced a new
grand strategy of ‘liberal hegemony’. The United States would no longer use its power
10 International Relations 00(0)

as it generally had in the past: to protect its own territory and uphold the balance of
power in a few key regions. Now, the United States would use its privileged position to
expand a liberal world order to every corner of the world, peacefully if possible but if
necessary by force. This was the ultimate goal of the Clinton Administration’s National
Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement, the Bush Administration’s ‘Freedom
Agenda’, and the Obama administration’s fetishizing of US ‘global leadership’. Although
each of these administrations pursued this broad goal in somewhat different ways, the
core objective of promoting an ever-expanding liberal world order remained the same.36
The United States, in short, was not a ‘status quo’ power.
Realism does not tell us why the three post–Cold War presidents pursued this ambi-
tious goal, but it does identify the permissive conditions that made it seem feasible.
Absent a rival superpower or even an emerging peer competitor, the United States was
free to pursue an ambitious global strategy without having to worry very much about
costs or risks. It is hard to imagine the United States committing itself to open-ended
NATO expansion, to invading and occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, to toppling Muammar
Gaddafi in Libya, and to engaging in drone wars and various forms of covert action in
countless other places, had it faced a geopolitical rival of roughly equal capabilities. At a
minimum, the presence of a peer competitor would have forced Washington to set priori-
ties and focus on how its actions would shape the long-term balance of power.
At the same time, realism also helps us understand why the attempt to shape local
politics around the globe failed. As the United States pursued this revisionist agenda,
friendly states indulged in free-riding or in some cases ‘soft balancing’ against it, while
hostile states moved to check US power by forming tacit coalitions, supporting terror-
ists, or pursuing weapons of mass destruction.37 Beginning with the Clinton adminis-
tration’s strategy of ‘dual containment’, greater US involvement in the Middle East led
to the emergence of Al-Qaeda and eventually to even more radical groups such as
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). US-led regime change in Iraq, Afghanistan,
Libya, Yemen, and elsewhere did not lead to liberal democracy but rather to failed
states or costly occupations. Instead of moving steadily toward a more liberal future,
the strategic missteps that followed the Cold War and the financial crisis of 2008 even-
tually sparked a powerful backlash against liberalism itself and played no small role in
the emergence of Donald Trump.
To be clear, realism provides only part of the explanation for these various phenom-
ena. As noted above, as a unipolar power, the United States had enormous latitude in
conducting its foreign policy and had the option of demobilizing its vast overseas com-
mitments and focusing on domestic issues or adopting even more ambitious international
goals.38 It chose the latter, however, largely because the foreign policy establishment in
both the Democratic and Republican parties was committed to liberal hegemony.
In particular, both the neoconservatives in the Republican Party and the liberal inter-
nationalists that dominated Democratic foreign policy circles were convinced the United
States had the right, the responsibility, and the wisdom to create a liberal world order.
Pursuing that task also enhanced their own power and status and gave them plenty to do.
In effect, adopting a grand strategy of liberal hegemony was a full-employment policy
for America’s foreign policy elite, and almost all the think tanks, lobbies, interest groups
(and one might add, faculty at prominent schools of public policy) were in favor of it. To
Walt 11

be blunt, the foreign policy apparatus that was created to wage the Cold War was not
going out of business without a fight.
Domestic forces such as these lie outside the realist paradigm, but realism does help
us understand why and how these elites were able to convince their fellow citizens to
support this quixotic quest. Even when facing a ‘clear and present danger’ from the
Soviet Union and its communist allies, the American foreign policy establishment still
had to work hard to convince US citizens to take on costly global burdens all over the
world. As Bill Clinton told one of his aides, ‘Americans are basically isolationist’.39 Nor
is this tendency surprising, because the United States was extremely secure when com-
pared to most great powers in history, and especially when one takes the deterrent power
of its massive nuclear arsenal into account. In order to convince ordinary Americans to
take on the mantle of global leadership, the Washington foreign policy elite had to exag-
gerate dangers, over-state the benefits, and disguise the costs as best they could.40
This problem has gotten worse since the Cold War ended.41 In the absence of a serious
rival (at least until China becomes even stronger), US elites have justified the goal of
liberal hegemony by portraying third-rate powers like Iraq or Libya as if they were mor-
tal dangers and pretending that security at home depends on chasing terrorists all over the
world, although the actual risk Americans face from international terrorism is tiny com-
pared with other dangers.42
The bottom line is that realism tells us a great deal – but not everything – about why
the United States has acted as it has in foreign policy. It also helps us understand why US
foreign policy was more successful (though not perfect) during most of the twentieth
century than it has been since the end of the Cold War, although the challenges faced
during the World Wars and the Cold War were vastly greater.
The next question is, ‘Can realism also tell us what foreign policy it ought to have?’
If the United States were to follow a consistently realist foreign policy, what would it
look like? I believe it would be a strategy some realists have termed ‘offshore
balancing’.43

Offshore balancing: a realist grand strategy44

Offshore balancing begins by recognizing that the United States is the luckiest and most
secure great power in history, for the reasons discussed above. Its primary goal, there-
fore, is for the United States to remain the only great power in the Western hemisphere
so that its citizens do not have to worry about being attacked, blockaded, or coerced by a
nearby rival with comparable capabilities. For the foreseeable future, this goal will be
easy to achieve.
Second, unlike isolationists, offshore balancers believe three distant regions are worth
fighting to defend: Europe, East Asia, and the Persian Gulf. In Europe and Asia, the main
concern would be the emergence of a regional hegemon that dominated its region much as
the United States dominates the Western hemisphere. Such a state would have an economy
as big as that of the United States, and if it wished, a comparable ability to project power
around the globe – and even into the Western hemisphere. Moreover, as long as Europe and
Asia are divided among rival great powers, they will tend to worry more about each other
than about the United States and may even be eager to compete for US backing.
12 International Relations 00(0)

The United States also seeks to prevent any single power from dominating the oil-rich
Persian Gulf because such a state might be in a position to block the flow of oil and gas
to world markets. Such a step could have a catastrophic impact on the world economy
and threaten US prosperity. For this reason, US leaders have sought to preserve a balance
of power in the Middle East and make sure that neither a local state nor an outside power
is able to control the region’s energy resources.

How would offshore balancing work?

If there is no potential hegemon in sight in Europe, East Asia, or the Persian Gulf, there
is little reason to deploy US ground or air forces in these regions and little need for a vast
military establishment here at home. Under these circumstances – which do not obtain
today – a policy of military disengagement but continued economic intercourse would be
feasible.45
When a potential hegemon is present, the United States should rely on regional actors
as the first line of defense because they have the greatest interest in preventing any state
from dominating them. If possible, in other words, Washington should ‘pass the buck’ to
them. But if the local powers cannot contain the potential hegemon on their own, then the
United States must do more, deploying enough firepower to shift the balance in its favor.
The advantages of this strategy are obvious: it limits the number of areas the United
States is committed to defend and encourages allies to pull their own weight, reducing
US defense burdens and putting fewer American lives at risk. And by eschewing regime
change and large-scale interference in other societies, it puts a halt to the damage past US
interference has caused and removes much of the impetus behind today’s anti-American
terrorism. When the United States does intervene to halt or reverse a clear act of aggres-
sion – as it did against Iraq in 1991 – it would be seen as a protector rather than as an
occupier. And once the threat has been removed, the United States would head back
offshore and not wear out its welcome.
This strategy may sound radical, but it provided the guiding logic for US foreign
policy for decades and on the whole served the country well. America was the last great
power to enter the two world wars, but it went ‘onshore’ in Europe and Asia during the
Cold War in order to contain Soviet power. In the Middle East, however, the United
States remained ‘offshore’ because there was no potential hegemon, and it relied first on
Great Britain and later on regional allies such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel to uphold
the regional balance of power. When the Shah fell in 1979, the United States created the
Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) but did not park it in the region; instead, it kept the RDF
offshore and over-the-horizon until the first Gulf War in 1991.
It is also worth remembering that when the United States abandoned this core princi-
ple – as it did in Vietnam and its more attempts to remake the Middle East – the result
was a costly failure.

Offshore balancing today

There is no potential hegemon in Europe today. Russia and Germany have aging popula-
tions that are likely to decline dramatically over the next few decades, and no other
Walt 13

country could possibly dominate the continent.46 Some experts fear a resurgent and
revanchist Russia (especially in the wake of the Ukraine crisis), but Europe has more
than 500 million people and a combined economy in excess of US$17 trillion, whereas
Russia has only about 140 million people (many of them elderly), and its gross domestic
product (GDP) is less than US$2 trillion. Moreover, NATO’s European members spend
roughly four times more each year on defense than Russia does.47 The European states
do not spend their defense resources efficiently and thus are less capable than they could
be, but they clearly have the latent capacity to meet any military challenge Russia might
pose. The cohesion and will are presently lacking, however, because the United States
was willing to bear most of the burden itself and generally opposed European efforts to
develop an autonomous defense capability. NATO’s European members can certainly
afford to defend themselves against any conceivable external danger; if the United States
gradually does less, they will have the incentive to do more.
The situation in Asia is different because China is a potential regional hegemon. Ideally,
the United States would rely on local powers to contain it, but they may not be able to do
so without substantial US help. In addition to maintaining a robust military presence in
East Asia, Washington should take the lead in coordinating a countervailing coalition while
striving to keep relations with Beijing as tranquil as possible. Needless to say, this effort
will be a complicated diplomatic, economic, and military endeavor, and all the more so
given the self-inflicted wounds the United States has suffered over the past year.48
In the Middle East, the United States should return to the strategy that served it so well
in the past. It does not need to control the region but merely to keep others from control-
ling it, and the Middle East is about as divided and uncontrollable as it has ever been.
Washington should let local powers deal with the aftermath of the collapse of ISIS and
let Russia deal with Syria (if it can). Nor should the United States take sides in the pre-
sent struggle between the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam or the related rivalry between
Saudi Arabia and Iran, unless one of these countries is on the verge of dominating the
region. Despite the current hype about Iran’s regional ambitions and rising influence,
that day is a long way off and may never arrive.
In the end, the only solution to the many problems afflicting the Middle East would
be the creation of more effective local institutions, and that is something the United
States cannot provide. Fortunately, it does not need to try because the problems presently
roiling the Middle East do not in fact pose a large or immediate threat to vital US inter-
ests. Moreover, its recent efforts to mold regional politics have repeatedly made things
worse; a more detached posture would be less costly for the United States and arguably
better for the region as well.49
The strategy just outlined is wholly consistent with realism. The primary focus is the
balance of power, rather than regime type, religious affinity, or political ideology, and it
carefully avoids any sort of social engineering in foreign lands. Mindful that force is a
crude instrument that always creates unintended consequences, it cautions against too
much zeal or hubris. It takes advantage of the tendency for others to balance in their own
self-interest and it avoids (to the extent possible) provoking other states into balancing
against the United States.
Critics of offshore balancing typically claim this approach would make war more
likely. Perhaps, but would it be worse than the strategy of liberal hegemony, which has led
14 International Relations 00(0)

the United States to launch costly wars in several places and to intervene at more modest
levels in many more? Given the configuration of power in the world today, offshore bal-
ancing is likely to save US lives, the lives of citizens in countries we might otherwise
attack or sanction, and the lives of allies whom we might drag into foolish wars.
Other critics warn that withdrawing US protection in some areas might fuel nuclear
proliferation. No grand strategy is likely to be completely successful at preventing pro-
liferation, however, and it is worth remembering that India, Pakistan, and North Korea
tested nuclear weapons and expanded their arsenals during the heyday of liberal hegem-
ony, and Iran made considerable progress in this direction until the signing of the Joint
and Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015. Moreover, by eschewing regime change,
offshore balancing reduces other states’ fears of a US attack, which is the main reason a
few states have pursued weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the past. One cannot
rule out the possibility that a few more states will join the nuclear club if the United
States opts for offshore balancing, but it will do no worse than liberal hegemony and may
well do better.

Conclusion
To sum up, the realist perspective explains a great deal about recent US foreign policy
(but not everything); it can help us understand why US policy has mostly failed; and it
points the way toward a better solution. But is a major strategic adjustment likely, espe-
cially under the erratic leadership of Donald Trump?
At first glance, one might have expected Trump to move in this direction given the
positions he took during 2016. He called US foreign policy a ‘complete and total disas-
ter’, promised to ‘get out of the nation-building business’, accused longstanding US
allies of free-riding on American protection, and said his foreign policy would be guided
first and foremost by what was in America’s self-interest.50
These positions sound like a crude caricature of realism, and a few observers ini-
tially saw him in this light.51 Over time, however, it has become clear that Trump is
neither a realist nor a skilled and knowledgeable statesman. Far from steering the ship
of state onto a new course, his handling of foreign policy appears to offer the worst of
both worlds.
For starters, a realist would not have torn up the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an ambi-
tious multilateral trade agreement that was central to the Obama administration’s ‘pivot’
to Asia. Nor would a realist have taken sides in the escalating tensions between Sunnis
and Shi’ites in the Persian Gulf or attacked the multilateral agreement that has success-
fully capped Iran’s nuclear program. A realist would not have quarreled with US allies
in Europe and Asia to no good purpose or acted so erratically that they began to doubt
US competence and leadership. On that score, a true realist would understand the
importance of diplomacy, would not have left dozens of top foreign policy posts unfilled,
and would not be gutting the Department of State. Most realists would not have agreed
to send additional US troops to Afghanistan in another fruitless attempt to prolong an
unwinnable war.
In short, there is no reason to believe Trump has a sophisticated understanding of
foreign affairs, let alone a ‘realistic’ one. Instead, his foreign policy is essentially a
Walt 15

chaotic, confusing, and inept version of his predecessors’ approach. The United States is
still engaged all over the world, still spending far more than any other state on its mili-
tary, and still conducting combat operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other coun-
tries. Its global burdens have not decreased, but the ship of state is now being steered by
an impulsive captain lacking accurate charts or even a clear destination. It is therefore
unsurprising that the percentage of foreign populations with ‘confidence in US leader-
ship’ has declined from an average of 64 percent at the end of Obama’s second term to
only 22 percent today.52
The good news (such as it is) is that the United States is still very powerful and
remarkably secure. Trump can say and do a lot of foolish things and the country will not
be at immediate risk. If the United States can survive 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, and
the long and costly Iraq and Afghan Wars, it can probably survive Donald Trump too.
But not without paying a stiff price. As realism reminds us, international politics is a
deadly serious business and states whose leaders conduct foreign policy in an incompe-
tent or cavalier way eventually suffer for it. As confidence in the United States wanes, it
will open new avenues of influence for China and encourage other major powers to
hedge their bets and make arrangements that exclude the United States. Trump may have
promised ‘America First’, but he seems more likely to achieve ‘America Alone’.
The tragic irony is that the American people would almost certainly support a more
realistic and prudent grand strategy.53 Getting out of the nation-building business, reduc-
ing our military footprint in Europe and the Middle East, seeking a realistic rapproche-
ment with Russia, and focusing more attention on our partnerships in Asia would all
make sense and would free up additional resources that could be spent at home. Had
Donald Trump implemented this approach in a systematic and disciplined and explained
the logic behind it in clear and simple language, his foreign policy would be more suc-
cessful today and his popularity would be higher than it is.
Unfortunately, it is increasingly clear that Trump lacks the temperament or wisdom to
pursue this sensible course. Barring a complete change of personality, he will continue to
pick fights to no purpose, encourage instability in areas that the United States should
prefer to be tranquil, fuel anti-Americanism in many places – even Great Britain – and
act so erratically that longtime US friends lose confidence in our steadiness. None of
these developments are in America’s national interest.
As we contemplate the next 3 years, therefore, we may take comfort in a quip often
attributed to Otto von Bismarck: ‘there appears to be a special providence that looks after
drunkards, fools, and the United States of America’. As a realist and an American, I can
only hope Bismarck was right.

Acknowledgements
This article is an edited version of the 2017 E.H. Carr Memorial Lecture, delivered at Aberystwyth
University’s Department of International Politics on 6 October 2017. I am grateful to Ken Booth
and to two anonymous reviewers for suggestions that greatly improved this written version.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.
16 International Relations 00(0)

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.

Notes
1. Edward Hallett Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis: 1919–1939: An Introduction to the Study of
International Relations, reissued with a new preface from Michael Cox (London: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2016).
2. See Edward Hallett Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917–1923, vol. 3 (New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1953).
3. Illustrative examples from this vast literature include the following: Louis J Hartz, The Liberal
Tradition in America (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1955); Michael H Hunt, Ideology and U.S.
Foreign Policy, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009); William Appleman
Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, revised ed. (New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, 2009); Peter Trubowitz, Politics and Strategy: Partisan Ambition and American
Statecraft (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011); Noam Chomsky, Hegemony
or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance (New York: Henry Holt, 2003); Tony
Smith, America’s Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy
in the Twentieth Century, expanded edition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2012); Tony Smith, Foreign Attachments: Ethnic Group Power and the Making of American
Foreign Policy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005); Helen V Milner and
Dustin Tingley, Sailing the Water’s Edge: The Domestic Politics of American Foreign Policy
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015); Paul Pillar, Why America Misunderstands
the World: National Experience and Roots of Misperception (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2017); Michael Glennon, National Security and Double Government (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2015).
4. Thucydides adds that if his work ‘be judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact
knowledge of the past as an aid to the understanding of the future, … I shall be content’.
See Robert B Strasser (ed.), The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the
Peloponnesian War (New York: Touchstone, 1996), p. 16.
5. After resigning from the Foreign Office in 1940, Carr became an editorial writer for The
Times of London and chaired a study group on Anglo-Soviet relations during World War II.
He opposed imposing a ‘Carthaginian peace’ on Germany after the war and remained skepti-
cal of capitalism to the end of his life.
6. See Hans J Morgenthau, A New Foreign Policy for the United States (New York: Pall
Mall Press, 1969); Hans J Morgenthau, In Defense of the National Interest (Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press, 1951). On the Morgenthau-Bundy debate, see Louis B Zimmer,
The Vietnam War Debate: Hans J. Morgenthau and the Attempt to Halt the Drift into Disaster
(Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 2011), chap. 2.
7. Unlike most realists, Kissinger believed states were prone to ‘bandwagon’ with powerful
adversaries rather than balance against them. As he told a Congressional committee in 1977,
‘if leaders around the world … assume that the US lacked either the forces or the will …
they will accommodate themselves to what they regard as the dominant trend’. See House
Committee on Foreign Affairs, The Soviet Union and the Third World: Watershed in Great
Power Policy? 97th Cong., 1st session (1977), pp. 157–8. For this reason, Kissinger consist-
ently favored military actions that other realists opposed and was alarmed by ideological
trends (e.g. Eurocommunism, third world socialism) which he feared might gain momentum
if not actively countered.
Walt 17

8. See Kenneth Waltz, ‘The Politics of Peace’, International Studies Quarterly, 11(3), 1967,
pp. 199–211; Kenneth Waltz, ‘A Strategy for the Rapid Deployment Force’, International
Security, 5(4), 1981, pp. 49–73; Kenneth Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May
Be Better (The Adelphi Papers 171) (London: International Institute of Strategic Studies,
1981).
9. Kenneth N Waltz, ‘Why Iran Should Get the Bomb’, Foreign Affairs, 91(3), 2012, pp. 2–5.
10. See Kenneth N Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley,
1979), pp. 121–3 (emphasis added).
11. See Colin Elman, ‘Horses for Courses: Why Not Neorealist Theories of Foreign Policy?’
Security Studies, 6(1), 1996, pp. 7–53; James Fearon, ‘Domestic Politics, Foreign Policy,
and Theories of International Relations’, Annual Review of Political Science, 1, 1998, pp.
289–313.
12. See Kenneth N Waltz, ‘Reflections on Theory of International Politics: A Response to My
Critics’, in Kenneth N Waltz (ed.) Realism and International Politics (New York: Routledge,
2008), pp. 37–54.
13. Moreover, in his response to Colin Elman’s suggestion that neorealist theory was both a
theory of international politics and a theory of foreign policy, Waltz acknowledged:
the theory explains why states similarly placed behave similarly despite their internal differ-
ences. The explanation of states’ behavior is found at the international, and not at the national,
level. That is why the theory is called a theory of international politics.
See Kenneth N Waltz, ‘International Politics is Not Foreign Policy’, Security Studies, 6(1),
1996, pp. 54–7.
14. John J Mearsheimer, ‘Reckless States and Realism’, International Relations, 23(2), 2009, pp.
241–56.
15. As Waltz put it in a 1991 essay:
The powerful state may, and the United States does, think of itself as acting for the sake of
peace, justice and well-being in the world. But these terms will be defined to the liking of the
powerful, which may conflict with the preferences and the interests of others … With benign
intent, the United States has behaved, and until its power is brought into a semblance of bal-
ance, will continue to behave in ways that annoy and frighten others.
See Kenneth N Waltz, ‘America as a Model for the World’, Realism and International
Politics, 24, 1991, pp. 667–70, especially p. 348.
16. ‘Neo-classical’ realists tried to address this problem by bringing unit-level elements back into
their framework, but the results are mostly a richer description of events rather than an elegant
or parsimonious explanation of them.
17. This observation is true for both offensive and defensive realism. The former places more
weight on purely structural imperatives than the latter does, but in either version unit-level
factors are believed to exert more influence when states are more secure.
18. See Stephen M Walt, ‘The Enduring Relevance of the Realist Tradition’, in Ira Katznelson and
Helen Milner (eds), Political Science: State of the Discipline III (New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, 2003), pp. 197–234.
19. See Michael Desch, ‘It is Kind to Be Cruel: The Humanity of American Realism’, Review of
International Studies, 29(3), 2003, pp. 415–26.
20. Offensive realists such as John Mearsheimer see the competition for power among major
states as unremitting; for them, great powers are ‘opportunistic aggressors’ that are con-
stantly seeking to improve their relative power position. See his The Tragedy of Great Power
Politics, 2nd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011). By contrast, Waltz, Charles
18 International Relations 00(0)

Glaser, and other ‘defensive realists’ believe states maximize security rather than power and
that deliberate policy choices (such as the development of defensive military postures) can
make all states more secure. This position implies that cooperation is more feasible than
offensive realism allows. See Charles Glaser, Rational Theory of International Politics: The
Logic of Competition and Cooperation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010);
Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 126.
21. On these points, see Stephen M Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1987), especially chap. 5; Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great Power Politics, chaps 5 and
8; Glenn H Snyder, Alliance Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997).
22. See William J Clinton, A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement
(Washington, DC: The White House, 1995), p. i.; Samuel P Huntington, ‘Why International
Primacy Matters’, International Security, 17(4), 1993, pp. 68–83; George W Bush, ‘A Distinctly
American Internationalism’, Speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley,
CA, 19 November 1999; Michael Hirsh, At War with Ourselves: Why America Is Squandering
Its Chance to Build a Better World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 39–40, 254.
23. In his Farewell Address, George Washington argued:
Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course … Why
forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign
ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace
and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?
See George Washington, ‘Farewell Address’, 1796, The Avalon Project, available at: http://
avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp
24. John Quincy Adams, ‘Address to the U.S. House of Representatives on Independence Day’,
4 July 1821.
25. My account in this section follows that of Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great Power Politics,
chap. 7.
26. The commander of the Army Air Forces in Asia, General Curtis Lemay, later admitted that
he expected to be tried for war crimes had the United States lost the war. See his interview
in the documentary ‘Race for the Superbomb’, American Experience, Public Broadcasting
System, 2009.
27. US and Soviet foreign policies were not identical: the United States favored an open world
economy, while the USSR preferred autarky, and US leaders placed a higher priority on basic
human rights, freedom of speech, and other liberal principles, although they ignored or down-
played them when strategic interests interfered.
28. See Hans J Morgenthau, ‘We Are Deluding Ourselves in Vietnam’, The New York Times
Magazine, 18 April 1965, pp. 61–73; Waltz, ‘The Politics of Peace’.
29. In September 2002, for example, a group of international security scholars – including many
prominent realists –published a quarter-page ad in the New York Times declaring, ‘War with
Iraq Is Not in the US National Interest’. The text of the ad can be found at http://mearsheimer.
uchicago.edu/pdfs/P0012.pdf
30. On Kissinger’s support for the Iraq War, see Mark Danner, ‘Words in a Time of War’, Los
Angeles Times, 1 June 2007, available at: http://www.latimes.com/la-oe-danner1jun01-story.
html.
31. Quoted in Thomas A Bailey, A Diplomatic History of the American People, 10th ed. (New
York: Prentice Hall, 1980), p. 4.
32. C Vann Woodward, ‘The Age of Reinterpretation’, American Historical Review, 66, 1960,
pp. 1–19; also Fredrik Logevall and Campbell Craig, America’s Cold War: The Politics of
Walt 19

Insecurity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), especially chap. 1.

33. See Stephen M Walt, ‘Keeping the World “Off-Balance”: Self-Restraint and U.S. Foreign
Policy’, in G John Ikenberry (ed.), America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of Power
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002), pp. 121–54.
34. On this point, see Patrick Porter, The Global Village Myth: Distance, War, and the Limits of
Power (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2015).
35. Warren Christopher, ‘The Shifting Priorities of U.S. Foreign Policy: Peacekeeping
Downgraded’, Testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 4 November 1993,
Department of State Bulletin, 4(4–5), 1994, p. 43.
36. See Clinton, A National Security Strategy; George W Bush, ‘Second Inaugural Address’, 20
January 2005; Barack Obama, National Security Strategy 2015: Strong and Sustainable U.S.
Leadership (Washington, DC: The White House, 2015).
37. On ‘soft balancing’ and these other responses, see Stephen M Walt, Taming America Power:
The Global Response to U.S. Primacy (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2005), espe-
cially pp. 126–32.
38. Nuno Monteiro emphasizes the latitude that a unipolar power enjoys in his Theory of Unipolar
Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
39. Quoted in George Stephanopolous, All Too Human: A Political Education (Boston, MA:
Little Brown & Company, 1999), p. 214.
40. See Craig and Logevall, America’s Cold War; Samuel B Wells, ‘Sounding the Tocsin: NSC 68
and the Soviet Threat’, International Security, 4(2), 1979, pp. 116–58; Jane Cramer, ‘National
Security Panics: Overestimation, Misperception and Threat Inflation as Sources of Public
Fear’ (PhD dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 2002);
Benn Steil, The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018).
41. On the persistent gaps over foreign policy between elites and the public, see Benjamin I Page
with Marshall M Bouton, The Foreign Policy Disconnect: What Americans Want from Their
Leaders But Don’t Get (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2006).
42. See A Trevor Thrall and Jane K Cramer (eds), American Foreign Policy and the Politics
of Fear: Threat Inflation since 9/11 (New York: Routledge, 2009); Christopher A Preble
and John Mueller (eds), A Dangerous World? Threat Perception and U.S. National Security
(Washington, DC: CATO Institute, 2014); John Mueller, Overblown: How Politicians and the
Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them (New York:
Free Press, 2009).
43. For earlier statements of this strategy, see Christopher Layne, The Peace of Illusions:
America’s Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
2007); Walt, Taming American Power, chap. 6. See also Barry R Posen, Restraint: A New
Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016).
44. This section is based on John J Mearsheimer and Stephen M Walt, ‘The Case for Offshore
Balancing: A Superior Grand Strategy’, Foreign Affairs, 95(4), 2016, pp. 70–83.
45. To be clear, the United States could not disarm completely even under this scenario because it
would want to preserve the capacity to mobilize superior military forces rapidly if geopoliti-
cal conditions changed.
46. According to the United Nations Population Division, Russia’s population will decline from
143 million in 2020 to 132 million in 2050 and Germany’s population will drop from 82 mil-
lion to 79 million. See World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision, available at: https://
esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/
47. These figures are drawn from The Military Balance, 2017 (London: International Institute for
Strategic Studies/Taylor & Francis, 2017).
48. On these points, see Stephen M Walt, ‘What I’m Telling the South Koreans’, ForeignPolicy.com,
20 International Relations 00(0)

5 October 2011, available at: http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/10/05/what-im-telling-the-south-

koreans/; Stephen M Walt, ‘The Worst Mistake of Trump’s First 100 Days’, ForeignPolicy.
com, 26 April 2017, available at: http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/04/26/the-worst-mistake-of-
trumps-first-100-days. This position reminds us that offshore balancers are not isolationists,
insofar as they believe that the United States should remain actively engaged economically and
diplomatically in many places, and militarily committed in Asia.
49. See Stephen M Walt, ‘Do No (More)Harm’, ForeignPolicy.com, 7 August 2014, available at:
http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/07/do-no-more-harm/
50. See ‘Transcript: Trump’s Foreign Policy Speech’, The New York Times, 27 April 2016, avail-
able at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/us/politics/transcript-trump-foreign-policy.html
51. See Rosa Brooks, ‘Donald Trump Has a Coherent, Realist Foreign Policy’, ForeignPolicy.
com, 12 April 2016, available at: http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/12/donald-trump-has-
a-coherent-realist-foreign-policy/
52. See Pew Research Center, ‘U.S. Image Suffers as Publics around World Question
Trump’s Leadership’, 26 June 2017, available at: http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/26/
u-s-image-suffers-as-publics-around-world-question-trumps-leadership/
53. According to Page and Bouton, ‘official US foreign policy often differs from the policies
most Americans want’ (i.e., a less costly, less ambitious, and less burdensome foreign policy).
See Foreign Policy Disconnect, pp. 201–2, 240. A 2016 survey by the University of Maryland
found that 64 percent of Americans felt ‘the United States is playing the role of world police-
man more than it should be’, and Pew Research Center poll in April 2016 reported that 57 per-
cent believed the United States should ‘deal with its own problems and let other countries deal
with theirs the best they can’. Only 37 percent took the opposite view. See Program on Public
Consultation, Americans on the U.S. Role in the World: A Study of U.S. Public Attitudes
(College Park, MD: University of Maryland, 2017), p. 3; Pew Research Center, ‘Public
Uncertain, Divided over America’s Place in the World’ (5 May 2016), available at: http://www.
people-press.org/2016/05/05/public-uncertain-divided-over-americas-place-in-the-world/

Author biography
Stephen M Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Harvard
Kennedy School of Government. His books include The Origins of Alliances, which received the
1988 Edgar S. Furniss National Security Book Award, and Taming American Power: The Global
Response to U.S. Primacy, which was a finalist for the Lionel Gelber International Affairs Book
Award and the Arthur Ross Book Prize. His most recent book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign
Policy (co-authored with John J. Mearsheimer) was a New York Times bestseller and has been
translated into more than 20 foreign languages. His weekly Foreign Policy column can be found
at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/voices/walt.