Why is it useful to think like a realist?

Speaker: Professor Stephen Walt

Please join us for a talk by Professor Stephen Walt on why it is useful to think like a realist. He argues that realism does a better job of explaining recent world events than the main alternatives, and suggests that the world would be more peaceful in general if more genuine realists were in charge. 

This is a fantastic opportunity to hear from one of the leading scholars of realism. Professor Walt's new book,The Hell of Good Intentions: America's Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of US Primacy (2019). In this book Professor Walt dissects the faults and foibles of recent American foreign policy—explaining why it has been plagued by disasters like the “forever wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan. He argues that the US should return to the realist strategy of “offshore balancing,” which eschews regime change, nation-building, and other forms of global social engineering. Such  shift will require abandoning the futile quest for liberal hegemony and building a foreign policy establishment with a more realistic view of American power.