Chapter 2 - Theories, Approaches and the "current paradigm."

Remember last week when I started by quoting Hans Morgenthau:

"This being a world of competing moral principles and conflict among them, absolute good can never be attained. Moral principles can never be fully realized. But at best, must be approximated through the ever temporary balancing of conflicts and the ever precarious settlement of disputes…(thus)…politics is always the choice of the lesser of evils."

He is called the father of the School of Realism, so I think you know he would be considered a "Realist." Simple, right?

Realism, like "love" and "Christianity" can be defined very differently by different people at different times and in different situations.

And its counterpart,"idealism" has that same problem, but let's start with realism.

Again, we take as a starting point the end of World War Two and the preeminence of the US as, in many ways, the only country that left world war two in a better position than it entered.

Sure, England, France and the USSR were all allies and victors in the war, but the US was the only country with atomic (nuclear) weapons.

The Cold War, many would argue, started even before the peace of world war two as it became clear to both sides where the next struggle was to be. Do not underestimate the impact of the forty plus year long cold war on our current international reality. Along with the colonialism of the earlier centuries, the cold war is probably the most dominate factor in creating the current realities.

In the West, most "cold warriors" sought to frame their argument of fear of the Soviets in terms of being "realists." And thus they could dismiss opposition as "idealistic."

Realism involves an assumption about human behavior that can be characterized as "pessimistic" or negative. But of course a realist would only saying realists are just being realistic. Humans have done and continue to do great harm to each other (and everything else). The assumption that "life is cruel, brutish and short," that people are (as in Gone with the Wind): "No damn, good" seems to be an accurate assessment of humans.

The fundamental question as to whether people, as individualism or a groups, can and do really change is, after all one of the central questions of life. I believe we each have to decide for ourselves what we believe about those truly fundamental questions.

But being a realist in international relations has less to do with assumptions about humans and more to do with how one proceeds in looking for questions to ask and answers for them. It is an academic path, if you will allow a lame methaphor.

Realists look for examples of "power." They look at human relations at all levels and see that power seems to be a part of all human activity. The old definition of politics: "deciding who gets what when and how" applies at all levels of human interaction. At the international or global level it is sometimes easier to see the power interaction as states are complex actors who only rarely change direction.

There's a great new book out on US foreign Policy and the limits of power:

Amazon.com: The Limits of Power : The End of American ...

Amazon.com: The Limits of Power : The End of American Exceptionalism (American Empire Project): Andrew Bacevich: Books.

Don't make the mistake of thinking about power in terms of military power alone. You can also call it strategic power and it has its limits. The search of Bin Landen is a wonderful example of how all our expensive military technology has brought us nothing except more enemies.

The Invasion of Iraq is a great example of the limits of military or strategic power. How do nuclear weapons help us in Iraq? We have the most technologically advanced and well trained military ever and still we have a heap of problems. It only took 21 days to invade and conquer the country but we still have not yet secured its borders. And it has taken how long to get a sense of some day we might be able to pull our troops out without the country falling apart into civil war.

There are many kinds of international power, but they are harder to identify and agree upon than military power but they are just as important.

One is economic power, but like all power, it can cut both ways. In the oil industry, food, any commodity, the biggest problem, in the long run, is not prices but stability or volatility of prices. Its not just roads or the lack of trucks, but all those things that impact upon transportation (borders, fees, inspections, etc).

Another is diplomatic power. The Obama administration now has a great opening to increase the US's diplomatic power simply because they are a new administration and they can re-engage folks the W. Bush administration has not, they can reach out to those the previous administration would not reach out to, etc. But notice, they won't make many major foreign policy changes. They will be small and over time. We call that incremental change.

Another type of power may be emerging from the free exchange of ideas and the rise of activism your text discusses. The real changes that the web (and other global communication changes) will bring has yet to appear. Just as an example. we now have more satellites in orbit than ever before and the number goes up every month.

I'm not sure if you have figured it our yet, I consider myself a firm member of the realist school.

It is Idealism that gets the bad rap most of the time. Not because people have done the hard thinking about their own assumptions, but because it is easy to attack idealism as some how being not founded in reality.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Idealism is an assumption about humanity but it is also a process to study humanity and to act on what one sees.

Idealism simply reminds us of the progress of humanity and the promise of the bounty and security that could be found with great cooperation and less conflict. One who calls ones self an idealist is not simply saying they are optimistic and hopeful. they are pursuing a line on inquiry which seeks to discover methods to process more cooperation and less conflict. They are following an intellectual path seeking to "make things better." How is that bad or wrong or stupid?

You book puts forth the Ecological paradigm as some third alterative or path and I'm not quite sure that is the case.

It seems to me one can be either a realist or an idealist but one could be an ecological realist and and ecological idealist. The view that we have only one planet; That it is a finite and limited ecosystem; That all resources are limited..

To me, that is not a set of assumptions, nor a path of understanding. It's just the facts. The is only one world, although we divide it up in an unfair way. There is only one ecosystem and all 6.5 billion of us are ruining it.

As you move through the semester, keep in your mind this realism verses idealism perspectives debate and of course don't forget which planet you live on and how there are limits to everything.

So what is the current paradigm? Who knows.

View a brief video by me on The Cold War Policies of Containment and Deterence.

During the "good old days" when we knew the Soviets were the source of all evil life seems understandable and the bi-polar nature of the world (West v East, Capitalism v Communism, etc) that all seemed rational and manageable if if it was some how not sustainable, it still was stable.

Now the world seems like an even more chaotic place yet we have more people, goods, and everything else traveling around the world. The cliche that the world is shirking in many ways is true (even if it is a little annoying).

The US is the remaining super-power. For whatever that is worth. I have seen my country and its foreign policy change in my life time. In many ways I have seen the US become and empire. with all the glory, costs and horror that entails, but we'll talk more about that through the semester.