Donald Trump Should Embrace a Realist Foreign Policy

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/donald-trump-should-embrace-realist-foreign-policy-18502

Donald Trump Should Embrace a Realist Foreign Policy

But can he take on the infamous Washington “Blob”?

John J. Mearsheimer

November 27, 2016

There are many reasons to be deeply worried about a Donald Trump presidency. But if he makes the right choices, he could fundamentally alter U.S. foreign policy for the better.
Trump campaigned against America’s powerful foreign policy community—what one of President Obama’s advisors derisively labeled “the Blob.” Its members include prominent Democrats and Republicans with similar views on foreign policy. He accused them of producing “one foreign policy disaster after another,” and promised to “develop a new foreign policy direction for our country.” This was precisely the message many voters wanted to hear, and the president-elect now has the opportunity to change how the United States deploys its power around the world.
Over the past twenty-five years, American leaders have pursued a policy of liberal hegemony, which calls for the United States to dominate the entire globe. This strategy assumes every region of the world matters greatly for American security, and it calls for extending the U.S. security umbrella to nearly any country that wants protection as well as trying to spread democracy far and wide. In practice, this objective means toppling regimes and then doing nation building. Small wonder the http://nationalinterest.org/feature/donald-trump-should-embrace-realist-foreign-policy-18502United States has been at war for two out of every three years since the Cold War ended.