The Greek historian Thucydides, in his account of the Peloponnesian War, gave classic expression to the eternal conflict between ideals and interests in international relations. According to Thucydides, the Athenian leader Pericles proclaimed that only Athens governed its affairs on the basis of the highest morality. “We alone do good to our neighbors,” he said, “not upon calculation of interest, but in the confidence of freedom and in a frank and fearless spirit.”
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But during the fifteen years of the Peloponnesian War, Athenians saw their original goal of ensuring that all of Greece would be free from the threat of Persian conquest turn into a blatant struggle for dominant power over other states. When the Athenian ambassadors approached the magistrates of Melos, it was expediency, not morality, that governed their words: “You and we should say what we really think, and aim only at what is possible, for we both know that … the weak grant what they may.”
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The conflict between moral values and amoral national interests is as much a part of the diplomatic history of the United States as it was of ancient Athens. In fact, the conflict between morality and self-interest is a fundamental part of all human relations. One’s conscience may be geared to ideal aspirations, but selfishness can prevent their realization. Yet because conscience, as well as ego, demands satisfaction, we try to reconcile ideals with self-interest. The fact that we never completely succeed in doing so usually does not stop us from trying.
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In foreign policy, as in personal relations, the problem of reconciling national interests with ideals held sacred by the nation has always been a central theme of American foreign relations, and it is one that is never completely resolvable. Generally, statesmen or stateswomen, like individuals, blend both philosophies. Indeed, no statesman professing to be a realist who is concerned primarily with the nation’s interests can completely forsake its ideals, nor can anyone subscribing to idealism proclaim that he or she is not acting in the nation’s best interest. Historian Felix Gilbert believed that America’s “great historical moments have occurred when both were combined.”
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In the same vein, historian Adrienne Koch attributes the success of the Founders to their reliance upon power as well as morals.
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However, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger believes that the interplay of American idealism and realism helps to explain the ambivalence of America’s approach to the world. “No nation,” Kissinger writes in reference to the United States, “has been more pragmatic in the day-to-day conduct of its diplomacy, or more ideological in the pursuit of its historic moral conviction. No country has been more reluctant to engage itself abroad even while undertaking alliances and commitments of unprecedented reach and scope.”
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Still, one philosophy always takes precedence in the thinking of statesmen, even if it is disguised. Realists usually use idealistic language to conceal the realistic character of their policies, while idealists, in promoting their values, usually claim to be defending a “higher realism.”
The realism–idealism binary is also useful in understanding the motives and objectives of statesmen as well as the wisdom, or folly, of their policies. The debate over the George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 is just one example of the perennial clash between realism and idealism. Realists asked, should the United States have invaded Iraq? Were vital US interests at stake? Was Iraq a threat to US security? To which neoconservatives responded, the United States must promote democracy in the Middle East if America is to be safe from radical Islamists. Echoing this debate, Gideon Rose, the managing editor of the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs, argued that it was time for some “old fashioned realism again.” Praising the realism of George H. W. Bush, Rose argued that he was succeeded in office by a “left-wing idealist (Bill Clinton) and then a right-wing one (George W. Bush), who both dedicated themselves to moralism in foreign policy and [as a consequence] had more than their share of failures.”
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Defining Realism and Idealism
It is difficult to make generalizations about realism and idealism. Neither term comprises a single, all-encompassing theory. Both realists and idealists can be internationalists. And, throughout the history of US foreign relations, isolationists have been found in both schools. Nevertheless, the human mind needs to categorize facts in broad generalizations in order to better understand them. And, in spite of the intrinsic limitations of generalization, realism and idealism are useful categories for understanding how and why US foreign policy has been conceived and implemented. What, then, is meant by realism and idealism?
In their purest forms, realists emphasize the nation’s interest above all other concerns, while idealists insist that certain universal values transcend purely national interests. Realists claim to see the world as it is, not as idealist would like it to be. And the world realists see is a “jungle,” one characterized by competition between nations for territory, markets, increasingly scarce natural resources, and the like, all of which they believe contribute to national security and prosperity. Accordingly, realists hold that the national interests, and particularly national security, must be the paramount consideration in the conduct of a nation’s foreign policy. And it is the application of power, whether military, economic, or in support of diplomacy, that is the ultimate guarantor of a nation’s interests.
During the 1950s, a prominent realist, the political scientist Hans Morgenthau, wrote an essay entitled “Forget and Remember!” which brilliantly sums up the credo of classical realists:
FORGET the sentimental notion that foreign policy is a struggle between virtue and vice, with virtue bound to win. FORGET the utopian notion that a brave new world without power politics will follow the unconditional surrender of wicked nations. FORGET the crusading notion that any state, however virtuous and powerful, can have the mission to make the world over in its own image REMEMBER that the golden age of isolated normalcy is gone forever and that no effort, however great, and no action, however radical, will bring it back. REMEMBER that diplomacy without power is feeble, and power without diplomacy is destructive and blind. REMEMBER that no nation’s power is without limits, and hence that its policies must respect the power and interests of others. … And, above all, remember always that it is not only a political necessity but also a moral duty for a nation to follow in its dealings with other nations but one guiding star, one standard for thought, one rule for action: THE NATIONAL INTEREST. 8
Idealists, on the other hand, are concerned with building a better world, one based on values that they hold dear. In general, American idealists desire to spread what they perceive as the benefits of American democratic capitalism. They also advocate the application of an international moral code (based to a great extent on the values of Judaeo-Christianity), international cooperation, and the transcendence of universal human interests—such as peace, freedom, justice, self-government, and the innate dignity and worth of every human being—rather than narrow national self-interests.
Realists argue that, while an international moral code based on these values may sound good, its realization is a pipe dream. Realists associate idealism with naiveté that they believe is damaging to the national interest and, insofar as these virtues are disassociated from power, bound to be ineffective in application. To base a nation’s security on international law, or some innate moral code, realists believe, is the ultimate folly.
Idealists rejoin by arguing that it is naïve to believe that the pursuit of national interests that are not related to universal ideals can maintain the popular support that is necessary for its achievement. Realists reply that ideals that ignore national interests will make diplomacy appear hypocritical as well as be ineffective. Policies conceived in careful consideration of long-range national interests, realists argue, may be more genuinely moral than hypocritical idealism.
Rather than international law or morality, realists view the balance of power as the most effective way of restraining the behavior of states. Today, realists insist, the United States, as the world’s strongest nation, has the primary responsibility for maintaining the global balance of power, not only to prevent war but also to preserve and advance America’s global interests.
Idealists, on the other hand, have no use for the balance of power, which they insist causes wars, not prevents them. Instead of relying primarily upon power to keep the peace, idealists put their trust in international law and multinational agencies, like the United Nations, as well as such methods as negotiation, meditation, and arbitration.
President Woodrow Wilson’s effort, at the end of World War I, to create a League of Nations, is a classic example of idealistic internationalism. Wilson insisted that the security of states should depend not on the balance of power but on a collective security system established and maintained through the League of Nations. A universal grouping of largely democratic nations, he believed, could act as the “trustee of peace,” thereby precluding the need for military alliances. League members would employ negotiation, meditation, and arbitration, rather than war, to resolve international disputes. Aggressors would be confronted with economic sanctions, rather than military action. Diplomacy would no longer be conducted in secret but on the basis of “open agreements, openly arrived at.”
To the hardened veterans of a European diplomacy that was based on the balance of power, Wilson’s views about the ultimately moral foundations of foreign policy appeared naive and hypocritical. To American realists, like Theodore Roosevelt, basing world peace, let alone the security of the United States, on a league of nations was the height of folly. Rather than Wilson’s League, Roosevelt insisted that the peace of the world, and US security, would best be served by the continuation of America’s wartime association with Britain and France. Nor did Roosevelt and other American realists like ideological crusades. They insisted that the United States did not go to war with Germany in 1917 to “make the world safe for democracy,” as Wilson had proclaimed, but rather to restore the European balance of power, which had been threatened by German militarism.
However, while Wilson lost the battle to win the Senate’s approval for US participation in the League of Nations, his philosophy, which has been termed “Wilsonianism,” has been a major influence on US foreign policy ever since.
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Indeed, some have charged that the administration of George W. Bush engaged in Wilsonian diplomacy by trying to promote the spread of democracy in the Middle East. Others say that Wilson would not have used military force against Iraq—certainly not without the approval of the United Nations—but instead would have continued to apply economic and diplomatic pressure against Iraq. This debate, of course, is beyond resolution. Nevertheless, it illustrates the continuing relevancy of the realist–idealistic duality.
Notes
- 1.Thucydides, The Peloponnesian Wars, 2: 40.
- 2.Thucydides, 5: 89, 105.
- 3.Robert E. Osgood, Ideals and Self-Interest in America’s Foreign Relations (1953), 1.
- 4.Felix Gilbert, To the Farewell Address: Ideas of Early American Foreign Policy (1961), 136.
- 5.Adrienne Koch, Power, Morals, and the Founding Fathers: Essays in the Interpretation of the American Enlightenment (1961), 89.
- 6.Henry A. Kissinger, Diplomacy (1994), 18.
- 7.Gideon Rose, “Get Real,” New York Times, August 18, 2005.
- 8.Hans Morgenthau is quoted in H. W. Brands, “The Idea of the National Interest,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Spring 1999), 250.
- 9.See Frank Ninkovich, Wilsonianism: U.S. Foreign Policy Since 1900 (1999).