Stephen Walt thinks that he has finally understood Obama’s approach to foreign policy. He thinks that Obama is a “buck-passer”, a technical word in realism that refers to great powers that pass the buck to other powers instead of a balancing a rising power. Walt notes with approval, Obama’s recognition of the fact that – as an immediate consequence of unipolarity – the US faces no significant threats at all. Obama has thus calculated that the United States has no real interests in Syria: what happens there is mostly irrelevant as far as the US is concerned.
Realism, Unipolarity, and Morality
Realism, Unipolarity, and Morality
Realism, Unipolarity, and Morality
Stephen Walt thinks that he has finally understood Obama’s approach to foreign policy. He thinks that Obama is a “buck-passer”, a technical word in realism that refers to great powers that pass the buck to other powers instead of a balancing a rising power. Walt notes with approval, Obama’s recognition of the fact that – as an immediate consequence of unipolarity – the US faces no significant threats at all. Obama has thus calculated that the United States has no real interests in Syria: what happens there is mostly irrelevant as far as the US is concerned.