TO WHOM should the next president turn for advice on foreign policy: realists or neoconservatives?

Given the disastrous results that neoconservative policies have produced since 2001, the answer seems obvious. Yet despite their repeated failures, prominent neoconservatives are now advising GOP candidate John McCain, and they remain a ubiquitous presence on op-ed pages and TV talk shows and in journals of opinion (along with their close cousins, the liberal interventionists). By contrast, realists have become an endangered species inside the Beltway and a muted voice in contemporary policy debates.

This situation would make sense if neoconservatives had proven to be reliable guides to foreign policy and if realists had been consistently wrong. But the truth is the opposite: neoconservatism has been a road map to disaster while realism’s policy insights remain impressive. If the next president wants to avoid the blunders of the past eight years, he must understand why neoconservatism failed, steer clear of its dubious counsel and rediscover the virtues of realism. To see why, one need only examine the core principles and track record of each perspective.

 

AS THE LABEL implies, realists believe foreign policy must deal with the world as it really is, instead of relying on wishful thinking or ideological dogmas. Realism sees the international system as a competitive arena where states have to provide security for themselves. Realists know that states get into trouble if they are too trusting, but that problems also arise when states exaggerate external dangers, misjudge priorities or engage in foolish foreign adventures.

Thus, realists keep a keen eye on the balance of power and oppose squandering blood or treasure on needless military buildups or ideological crusades. They know military force is the ultimate guarantor of security, but they recognize that it is also a blunt instrument whose effects are unpredictable. Realists are therefore skeptical of grandiose plans for global social engineering and believe that force should be used only when vital interests are at stake.

Realists appreciate the power of nationalism and understand that other states usually resist outside interference and defend their own interests vigorously. Thus, realists discount the possibility that adversaries will form a tightly unified monolith and favor undermining opponents through “divide and conquer” strategies. Realists also recognize that successful diplomacy requires give-and-take and that the pursuit of U.S. interests sometimes requires cooperating with regimes whose values we find objectionable. In short, realists know that successful statecraft requires strength, cold-eyed calculation, flexibility and a keen sense of the limits of power.

Yet realists are neither moral relativists nor disinterested in values. Realists are aware that all great powers tend to think that spreading their own values will be good for others, and that this sort of hubris can lead even well-intentioned democracies into morally dubious ventures. Realists do cherish America’s democratic traditions and commitment to individual liberty, but they believe these principles are best exported by the force of America’s example and not by military adventures. They also know that prolonged overseas meddling is likely to trigger a hostile backlash abroad and force us to compromise freedoms at home.

 

HOW WELL has realism performed? The strategy of containment that won the cold war was the brainchild of realists such as George Kennan. Containment focused first and foremost on preventing Moscow from seizing the key centers of industrial power that lay near its borders, while eschewing attempts to “roll back” Communism with military force. Just as Franklin Roosevelt allied with the murderous Joseph Stalin to defeat Nazi Germany, realism dictated that the United States rely on both democratic and nondemocratic allies in the long struggle against Soviet power. Kennan and other realists also recognized that the supposedly “monolithic” Communist bloc actually contained deep tensions, which the United States exploited through its rapprochement with Maoist China in the 1970s.

During the 1960s, realists like Kennan, Walter Lippmann, Hans Morgenthau and Kenneth Waltz opposed the escalation of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. They understood that the war was a foolish diversion of American power and that the fear of falling dominos was exaggerated. This view was confirmed when the United States withdrew and Vietnam fought its fellow Communists in China and Kampuchea. Hanoi then distanced itself from its former allies, embraced free markets and normalized relations with Washington.

Realists also understood that the Soviet Union was a Potemkin colossus and that its backward empire was no match for America’s wealthier and more cohesive alliance network. When neoconservatives sounded false alarms about Soviet dominance in the 1970s, realists like Kenneth Waltz correctly argued that the real question was whether Moscow could possibly keep up. Other realists showed that Soviet conventional-military superiority was a myth, and that a Soviet attack against the West was unlikely to occur and even less likely to succeed.¹

Neoconservatives greeted the end of the cold war by proclaiming the “end of history” and imagining a long era of benign hegemony, while realists correctly foresaw that it would simply unleash new forms of security competition. When neoconservatives like Edward Luttwak warned that the United States would suffer thousands of casualties in the 1991 Gulf War, realists like Barry Posen of MIT and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago wrote articles correctly predicting America’s easy victory. Realists like Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft also argued that replacing America’s traditional balance-of-power approach in the Persian Gulf with “dual containment” was a strategic blunder that would make it harder to protect U.S. interests in that vital region, a warning that subsequent events have vindicated.² Although realists recognized that U.S. primacy could have stabilizing effects on great-power relations, they also warned that overly bellicose policies would encourage anti-Americanism around the globe. The past eight years confirmed these forecasts as well.³

Finally, realists were among the most visible opponents of the misadventure in Iraq, and their warnings were strikingly prescient. Neoconservatives were disappointed that the United States did not topple Saddam in 1991, but George H. W. Bush and his main advisor, Brent Scowcroft, correctly judged that ousting Saddam Hussein would

have forced [the United States] to occupy Baghdad, and in effect rule Iraq. The coalition would have instantly collapsed. . . . There was no viable “exit strategy”. . . . Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.⁴

In light of what has happened since 2003, their judgment seems sound.

Realists offered similar—and equally sound—warnings before the second Iraq War began. In late September 2002, thirty-three international-security scholars (about half of them prominent realists) published an antiwar ad in the New York Times. It cautioned: “Even if we win easily, we have no plausible exit strategy. Iraq is a deeply divided society that the United States would have to occupy and police for many years to create a viable state.” Other realists wrote articles before the war explaining why it was both unnecessary and unwise.⁵ On the most consequential foreign-policy decision of the past eight years, realists had the right analysis and offered the best advice.

 

WHERE REALISTS see a world of states with both competing and intersecting interests, neoconservatives see a stark clash between virtuous, peace-loving democracies and aggressive, evil dictatorships. They imagine enemy forces to be tightly grouped in hostile movements like “international communism,” the “axis of evil” or “Islamofascism” and routinely portray them as a vast and growing danger, even when these forces are in fact deeply divided and their actual capabilities are but a tiny fraction of America’s economic, military and political strength. Nonetheless, neocons argue that it is imperative for the United States to topple this potpourri of minor-league adversaries and convert them into pro-American democracies.

Neoconservatives extol the virtues of American hegemony and believe that other states will welcome U.S. leadership so long as it is exercised decisively. They attribute opposition to American dominance to deep-seated hostility to U.S. values (rather than anger at specific U.S. policies) and believe that enemies can be cowed by forceful demonstrations of American power. Thus, neoconservatives downplay diplomacy and compromise and routinely charge anyone who endorses it with advocating “appeasement.” To the neocons, every adversary is another Adolf Hitler and it is always 1938.

Steadfast support for Israel is a key tenet of neoconservatism, and prominent neoconservatives openly acknowledge this commitment. Most neocons favor the hawkish policies of the Israeli right, and this affinity shapes much of their thinking regarding the Middle East. Specifically, neocons tend to see U.S. and Israeli interests as identical and are convinced that Arabs and Muslims only understand superior force. As a result, they generally oppose diplomatic efforts to resolve regional problems (such as those proposed by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group) and, like hard-line Israelis, tend to favor solutions based on the mailed fist instead.

In short, neoconservatives see military force as a powerful tool for shaping the world in ways that will benefit America, Israel and other democracies. Thus, neoconservatism offers two starkly contrasting visions for U.S. foreign policy: either the United States grasps the sword and uses it to transform the world in America’s image, or it will gradually succumb to a rising tide of aggressive radical forces.

So what happens when the United States bases its foreign policy on this worldview? The answer: nothing good.

 

NEOCONSERVATISM HAS been around since the 1970s, but its impact on U.S. foreign policy was modest until 2001. Neoconservatives like to portray Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy as epitomizing their ideas, but it was only Reagan’s rhetoric that echoed the neocons’ Manichean worldview. Reagan’s policies were closer to the realist ideal: he lifted the grain embargo on the Soviet Union in 1981, sold advanced weaponry to Saudi Arabia, supported authoritarian states provided they were anti-Communist, withdrew U.S. troops from Lebanon in 1983 when he saw a quagmire looming and sought a balance of power in the Persian Gulf by backing Saddam Hussein’s Iraq against revolutionary Iran. Even the vaunted “Reagan Doctrine” was really just a cost-effective way to pressure Soviet clients rather than a genuine attempt to export democracy. After all, many of the warlords and rebels that Reagan backed (such as the Afghan mujahedeen) were hardly apostles of freedom and liberty.

Reagan’s reaction to glasnost and perestroika departed from neoconservatism too. Wedded to an exaggerated view of Soviet power and convinced that Communist regimes could never change, the neocons were caught flatfooted by Mikhail Gorbachev and among the last to realize that the Soviet Union was unraveling. In fact, leading neocons were deeply disappointed when Reagan stopped condemning the “evil empire” and engaged Moscow in constructive diplomacy. They were equally upset by the realist foreign policy of George H. W. Bush, despite his skillful handling of the Soviet collapse and his wise restraint in the 1991 Gulf War. Thus, reports of neoconservatism’s earlier influence have been greatly exaggerated, and the neocons deserve little or no credit for America’s cold-war victory.

The true test of neoconservatism began after the 9/11 attacks, when it became the intellectual blueprint for U.S. foreign policy. Although there were a handful of realists in the George W. Bush administration, neoconservatives occupied key positions in the Defense Department and in the influential office of Vice President Dick Cheney. Prominent neoconservatives inside the Bush administration included Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, vice-presidential Chief of Staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Assistant Secretary of State (and later UN Ambassador) John Bolton, Defense Policy Board chair Richard Perle, as well as aides like Elliott Abrams, John Hannah, David Wurmser, Michael Rubin, Abram Shulsky, Aaron Friedberg and Eric Edelman. Other neoconservatives served as cheerleaders and enablers from their vantage points at the Weekly Standard, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal editorial pages. This situation led Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer to declare that “what neoconservatives have long been advocating is now being articulated and practiced at the highest levels of government . . . it is the maturation of a governing ideology whose time has come.” Similarly, Weekly Standard editor William Kristol proudly proclaimed in 2003 that “our policy . . . is now official. It has become the policy of the U.S. government. . . . History and reality are about to weigh in, and we are inclined simply to let them render their verdict.”

Not since Neville Chamberlain has history delivered such a swift and crushing judgment.

Their chief failure, of course, is Iraq, which columnist Thomas Friedman termed “the war the neoconservatives wanted, the war the neoconservatives marketed.” The neocons were wrong about Iraq’s WMD, wrong about its alleged links to al-Qaeda and above all wrong about what would happen after the United States ousted Saddam. Kenneth Adelman announced the war would be a “cakewalk,” and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz dismissed Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki’s estimates that the occupation would require several hundred thousand troops as “wildly off the mark.” Wolfowitz also told Congress that the war and reconstruction would cost less than $95 billion. Wolfowitz was “off the mark” by just a hair: the price tag for the war already exceeds $500 billion and will probably exceed several trillion by the time we are finished.

Neoconservatives also loudly, naively and wrongly predicted that Saddam’s ouster would yield far-reaching benefits in the region. Fouad Ajami reportedly told Vice President Cheney that the streets in Basra and Baghdad would “erupt in joy the same way the throngs in Kabul greeted the Americans,” and Kristol foresaw a “chain reaction in the Arab world that would be very healthy.” Joshua Muravchik predicted that the invasion “will set off tremors that will help rattle other tyrannies including the mullahs of Iran and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez,” Richard Perle thought Syria and Iran would “get out of the terrorism business,” and Michael Ledeen claimed “it is impossible to imagine that the Iranian people would tolerate tyranny in their own country once freedom has come to Iraq.” None of these rosy scenarios has come to pass.

The most consistent source of dubious forecasts was Kristol himself, who predicted the occupation would require only seventy-five thousand troops and that U.S. forces “could probably be drawn down to several thousand soldiers after a year or two.” On the eve of the invasion, he reassured readers that “very few wars in American history were better prepared or more thoroughly than this one by this President.” One month later, he announced that “the battles of Afghanistan and Iraq have been won decisively and honorably.” Kristol also derided warnings of a Sunni-Shia conflict as “pop sociology” and claimed there was “almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq’s always been very secular.”

The war dragged on, and the Kristol ball remained cloudy. He and coauthor Robert Kagan greeted the first anniversary of the Iraq invasion by announcing that Iraqis “had made enormous strides” toward liberal democracy, smugly deriding prewar predictions “that a liberated Iraq would fracture into feuding clans and unleash a bloodbath.” Nine months later, Kristol judged the Iraqi elections of January 2005 to be “a genuine turning point.” Wrong again: Iraq spiraled ever deeper into sectarian violence in 2006 and 2007, and the bloodbath Kristol had dismissed became a reality.⁶

This string of failed forecasts flowed directly from the neocons’ naive belief that democracy would be easy to establish and from their ignorance about Iraq and the broader region. These beliefs also made them easy prey for the blandishments of unscrupulous individuals like Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi. Because they assumed the occupation would be easy and cheap, they saw no need to prepare for protracted war and dismissed the realists’ warnings that establishing a stable political order would be a long, expensive and uncertain undertaking.

Neoconservatives now proclaim that the “surge” is working and that victory is within reach. Unfortunately, this is not true. There was never any question that the United States could dampen the violence by increasing troop levels. The key issue, however, is whether the surge will enable Iraqis to create a workable political system and an effective military that can disarm powerful local militias. That has not happened, which is why the United States will remain stuck in Iraq for the foreseeable future, trying to prop up a government that still cannot stand on its own.

In any case, the tactical success of the surge hardly vindicates the neoconservatives’ larger strategic blunders. Not only did they get us into a quagmire in Iraq, but their war helped increase Iran’s power in the region. Pro-Iranian leaders now govern in Baghdad, and U.S. threats have given Tehran additional incentives to acquire nuclear weapons. Remarkably, the neocons could hardly have done more to help Iran and hurt the United States had they been on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s payroll.

But Iraq is hardly the neocons’ only failure.

By marching us into Baghdad while refusing to negotiate seriously with “evil” North Korea, they made it possible for Kim Jong Il to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, recycle nuclear material and test a nuclear weapon. Efforts to contain Pyongyang’s program made progress only after Bush abandoned the neocons’ approach to North Korea and engaged in patient diplomacy.

By insisting on elections in the Palestinian territories while impeding any genuine effort toward peace, neoconservatives helped Hamas win a parliamentary majority in 2006 and made a two-state solution that would preserve Israel’s Jewish character even more elusive. The subsequent refusal to recognize Hamas then exposed the hypocrisy of the Bush administration’s alleged commitment to spreading democracy in the Arab world. And by backing Israel’s ill-conceived strategy during the summer 2006 Lebanon war, neoconservatives undermined the pro-Western Siniora government, prolonged a conflict that cost Israeli lives and strengthened Hezbollah. They claim to be committed to Israel’s well-being, but the neoconservatives’ policies have in fact been deeply harmful to the Jewish state.

The neoconservative approach to foreign policy has driven America’s global image to new lows and given millions of people reason to doubt our commitment to the rule of law, justice and basic human rights. And while the United States has floundered, a rising China has quietly expanded its power, prestige and influence.

This record is not simply a run of bad luck; only policy makers committed to a deeply flawed worldview could achieve results so far from their declared objectives. In each case, failure occurred because neoconservatives inflated threats, exaggerated what military force could accomplish, eschewed diplomacy and blithely ignored facts that didn’t fit their preconceived notions.

It is also instructive that one of George Bush’s only foreign-policy successes occurred when he ignored the neocons’ advice. Building on the Clinton administration’s earlier efforts, the Bush team convinced Libya to abandon its WMD programs in 2003. A key step was the decision to forego “regime change” and leave Muammar el-Qaddafi in power. Had Bush listened to the neoconservatives who opposed this compromise, Qaddafi might still have WMD today.

 

NEOCONSERVATISM’S inadequacy as a guide to policy is no longer debatable: we have run the experiment and the results are in. If a physician misdiagnosed ailments with the regularity that neoconservatives have misread world politics, only patients with a death wish would remain in their care.

Yet politicians like John McCain and media outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post continue to treat neoconservatives as fonts of wisdom, while giving only occasional space to the realists whose track record has been far superior. However disappointing this may be to those who hope for better, realism offers one consolation: a country as powerful as the United States can afford to make lots of mistakes and still survive. But that is small comfort when one contemplates the array of problems the next president will inherit from the neoconservative moment. Until politicians and media organizations consign neoconservatism to the same ash heap reserved for Leninism, Lysenkoism, phrenology and other failed beliefs, anyone who wants a more effective U.S. foreign policy had better get used to disappointment.

 

Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Relations at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

 

¹See Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), chap. 8; Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979), pp. 179–180; John J. Mearsheimer, “Why the Soviets Can’t Win Quickly in Central Europe,” International Security, vol. 7, no. 1 (Summer 1982).

²See Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft and Richard Murphy, “Differentiated Containment,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 76, no. 3 (May/June 1997).

³See William Wohlforth, “The Stability of a Unipolar World,” International Security, vol. 24, no. 1 (Summer 1999); Stephen M. Walt, Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005).

⁴See George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), pp. 489.

⁵See Brent Scowcroft, “Don’t Attack Saddam,” Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2002; John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, “An Unnecessary War,” Foreign Policy, vol. 134 (January/February 2003); Andrew J. Bacevich, “The Nation at War,” Los Angeles Times, March 20, 2003.

⁶The Iraq Body Count database, which is based on published death reports, estimates that there have been between eighty-five thousand and ninety-two thousand violent deaths since the U.S. invasion in March 2003. Estimates by the Iraqi government, the World Health Organization and others are significantly higher, in some cases well over five hundred thousand dead. The United Nations reports that nearly 5 million Iraqis had fled their homes by 2007, and that 2.5 million Iraqi refugees had left the country.

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