Professor Stephen Walt of Harvard University is supposedly a leading exponent of the doctrine of "foreign policy realism." No one knows what exactly that means because everybody wants to be thought of as a "realist." Who wants to be thought of as a wide-eyed, wet-behind-the-ears "idealist"?

What "realism," as articulated by the likes of Walt, usually means is espousal of the same goals as the U.S. foreign policy establishment espouses but mixed with a healthy dose of skepticism. It's the perfect position to take. You can never be wrong. If the U.S. interventionist venture succeeds, you are on the winning side of the argument since you are on record as having supported its goals. If it ends in disaster, you are again on the winning side of the argument since you are on record as having pointed to possible pitfalls very early on.

What you will never get from the "foreign policy realist" is any clear statement on whether the U.S. should do something or not do it. Was the Biden administration's decision to use Ukraine to wage a proxy war against Russia the right policy for the United States? Or should the Biden administration have realized that, as Ukraine is an existential matter for Russia but not for the United States, it was the height of recklessness to wage a war against Russia in its backyard on behalf of a country that is not a U.S. military ally?

One would have thought that a "foreign policy realist" would address those questions to the exclusion of every other consideration. But no.

In this article in "Foreign Policy," Walt weighs in on the war in Ukraine. But the most important matter that he wants to convey is that he has been conversing intimately with decision-makers. He can't help boasting of his having been invited to take part in the Munich Security Conference. He attended all sorts of private dinners with all sorts of frightfully important people. So, he wants to assure us, he knows what's what and what the power-brokers and the movers and shakers are really thinking.

There is little here of any interest. His observations on the lack of interest among the Global South in NATO's war objectives in Ukraine are scarcely new. It was obvious a year ago that no one outside NATOLand was much interested in NATO's obsession with Ukraine. If Walt were a little more courageous, he might have wondered why the general public the countries of NATOLand is also a little puzzled about this obsession with Ukraine.

Typically enough, Walt inserts standard liberal pieties about "climate change," Covid vaccines and immigration restrictions, along with familiar and "safe" observations about U.S. double-standards. What about the 2003 Iraq invasion? What about Israel and the West Bank? What about Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights? All perfectly correct but hardly earth-shattering. Iraq is by now as much ancient history as Vietnam is. Missing from the list are more apt analogies to what's going on in Ukraine: the bombing of Yugoslavia and Libya, regime-change in Syria. In any case, no one really cares. Of course the U.S. is hypocritical and of course the U.S. practices double-standards. That's what the U.S. does.

What's striking are Walt's concluding sentences. The most dire possible outcome of the growing, direct US military involvement in the war in Ukraine is not nuclear conflagration but Trump's return to power.

Just as long as we get our priorities right. https://archive.md/KLVKA