Ethical Realism: A Vision for America's Role in the World

by Anatol Lieven, John Hulsman

America today faces a world more complicated than ever before, but both political parties have failed to envision a foreign policy that addresses our greatest threats. As a result, the United States risks lurching from crisis to crisis. In Ethical Realism , Anatol Lieven and John Hulsman, two distinguished policy experts from different political camps, have joined forces to write an impassioned manifesto that illuminates a new way forward.

Rather than blindly asserting a mixture of American power and the transformative effects of democracy, Lieven and Hulsman call for a foreign policy that recognizes America’s real strengths and weaknesses, and those of other nations. They explain how the United States can successfully combine genuine morality with tough and practical common sense.

To achieve these goals, Lieven and Hulsman emphasize the core principles of the American tradition of ethical realism, as set out by Reinhold Niebuhr, Hans Morgenthau, and George prudence, patriotism, responsibility, humility, and a deep understanding of other nations. They show how this spirit informed the strategies of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower in the early years of the Cold War and how these presidents were able to contain Soviet expansionism while rejecting the pressure for disastrous preventive wars a threat that has returned since 9/11.

Drawing on this philosophy and these historical lessons, Lieven and Hulsman provide a set of concrete proposals for tackling the problems we face today, including the terrorist threat, Iran, Russia, the Middle East, and China. Their arguments are intended to establish American global power on a more limited but much firmer basis, with greater international support. Both morally stirring and deeply practical, this book shows us how to strengthen our national security, pursue our national interests, and restore American leadership in the world.

Genres: Politics, Philosophy, History, International Relations, Nonfiction

224 pages, Hardcover

First published September 26, 2006

About the author

Anatol Lieven currently reports from Central Europe for the Financial Times. In 1996-97 he was visiting senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. He is the author of The Baltic Revolution: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence, published by Yale University Press.

Reviews

[Daniel Simmons · Rating 2 out of 5]

An impassioned 2006 critique of the neoconservative worldview, this book advances a vision of foreign policy that straddles the divide between Kissinger-style realpolitik and Wilsonian idealism. A nice idea, but the thinking and the writing in this book were too woolly (for me, at least) to know how to actually apply the principles they identify, short of relying on "common sense" (in a world where your common sense and mine often have little in common). I empathized with these authors' frustrations, but I'm doubtful of their book's value as a practical corrective to the problems plaguing the world today. Let Russia take care of the Iranian nuclear controversy? Rely on Europe to finance a massive revitalization of the Middle East? Withdraw entirely from South Korea and let China sort out responses to North Korean provocations? Wishful thinking, all this seems to me.

[Paul D. Miller · Rating 1 out of 5]

The United States is in need of a rethink of it foreign policy. This book is not it. The authors rely on sloppy argumentation. They knock down straw men on every page, viciously damning the wildest ideas that no one advocates. They should be embarrassed.

They damn efforts to foster democracy abroad, saying it it the United States' effort to achieve total global domination--which would be surprising to, say, the peoples of Eastern Europe. Worse, they cite Truman as an inspiration for their brand of Ethical Realism. The authors have apparently never heard of the Truman Doctrine, which they never cite and is not in the index, and thus they are unaware that Truman promised that the United States would stand with democracies against tyranny anywhere in the world.

In truth, U.S. support for democracy goes back much further than the Iraq War and it has been supported by nearly every administration since McKinley's. In their monomania the authors forgot to do their homework and thus have written a terrible book.

[The American Conservative]

'The authors resurrect and seek to revive an alternate philosophy—one radically different and yet seemingly close at hand—the kind of centrism embodied in the foreign-affairs leadership of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower and represented philosophically by such realists as diplomat George Kennan, theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, and scholar Hans Morgenthau. It is sad to recognize that this style of thinking about and acting in the world—one that guided the stunningly successful American reconstruction of the West after World War II and led to victory over communism without a nuclear cataclysm—is about as far removed from today’s Washington as the Han Dynasty.'

Read the full review, "Reconnecting With the Reality-Based Community," on our website:
http://www.theamericanconservative.co...

[Max · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tough because I agree with much of the sentiment, but the framing and commentary are too flimsy and stale, respectively. Leiven and Hulsman rightly point out the moral inconsistencies in the dominant alliance between of the neo-cons and the liberal hawks, but frequently rely on Manichaean formulations of their own in rebutting them. The Truman-Eisenhower foundation is a bit forced, and the ever present denunciations of the War in Iraq is justly righteous but renders the argument quite out of date / of its time (obviously they couldn't know what was going to happen in the region and how much more complicated it would get). The section on Developmental Realism was the richest chunk.

[Nate Ackerly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ethical Realism is very vague and doesn't have a good point, it touts a foreign policy that it doesn't explain and lacks serious objectivity.

That said it does address the growing Messaianism of american foreign policy and it points out a few faults in our current policy that are very interesting.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in 2006 to argue against the US invading Iran. Yet holds some important foreign policy precepts that have been overlooked in the emotionalism following 9/11 and the heavy momentum of the military industrial complex's influence on foreign policy.

[Kevin Bell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a brave book that made a number of good points. It's worth reading even though I wish that they had made more concrete proposals.

[Elizabeth Bettys · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wrote a seven page paper on this for school. I hated it. (I'm very proud of the paper though)

[Damir Marusic · Rating 3 out of 5]

A reaction to the neoconservative excess of the past near-decade, it's more an impassioned pamphlet for a sane foreign policy than a deeply thought-out book. The prescriptions feel good, but there's not much to recommend them apart from "you know in your heart they're right". The section on the Middle East, which offers a convoluted multi-step plan for success, seems particularly naïve—"of course, had we only been as smart as these two think-tankers, everything would be solved!"

That said, it's a quick and spirited real. Anatol Lieven's prose is never boring, and reading the book will make you want to read more deeply about figures such as Niehburh and Kennan.

[Dsanford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still reading - I think this is the right approach to foreign policy - applying our ideals consistantly and inexorably - but slowly and with our eyes open to unintended consequences

[Brenden]

Ethical Realism: A Vision for America's Role in the World by Anatol Lieven (2006)