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RUDY AND REALISM. Dan Drezner calls out one of Rudy's ghostwriters:
You know, you can slam realism for not caring much about human rights, or for advising a hard-hearted approach to world politics. What you can't do is claim that realism "exaggerate[s] America's weaknesses and downplay[s] America's strengths" because it doesn't pay attention to economics.But in fairness, that's not quite what ersatz Rudy is saying; the relevant text is this...
Our economy is the strongest in the developed world. Our political system is far more stable than those of the world's rising economic giants. And the United States is the world's premier magnet for global talent and capital....which seems to include more than just a consideration of economics. Indeed, I'd say that neoconservatives have been fairly consistent in their contempt for the limitations that traditional realism would put on US foreign policy. Realists, after all, assert that hegemony is ephemeral and that the intrinsic nature of the international system cannot be changed. Neoconservatives deny both of these propositions, insisting that it is within the capabilities of a perpetually hegemonic United States to fundamentally transform the international system. The neocons have certainly adopted Rudy as their candidate, as the remarkably clumsy Foreign Affairs article demonstrates. I do have to wonder how much Rudy has internalized this nonsense, and to what degree he's just playing the neocons for saps. Unlike with some issues, on foreign policy a president has enough freedom that he doesn't need to "dance with the ones that brung him." Let's dearly hope, though, that we never find out. --Robert Farley