Most DA contributors, with an eye out for their prospects in an Obama administration, have been at pains for months to demonstrate their enthusiasm for Sen. Obama, their awe at his sagacity, and their conviction that any criticism aimed in his direction must be the product either of malice or of mental illness. This approach to job-seeking never worked for me; perhaps I just wasn't very good at it.

In any event, we may doubt analyses that claim someone like Richard Lugar has "endorsed Obama's approach" to diplomacy, when what evidence we have suggests the flow of ideas on this subject has run in the other direction. Those five Secretaries of State are unlikely to have been inspired by Obama's thought, either. And as for the division between the GOP elder statesmen who have either endorsed or "endorsed" (in the sense of not having said publicly that Obama is completely wrong) the Illinois Senator, and the neoconservatives, I thought it was interesting that a shared passion of the neocons and an important organized interest in the Democratic Party somehow didn't come up in the DA commentary.

That passion, of course, involves Israel, on behalf of which every Republican Secretary of State before Colin Powell was regularly abused by Congressional Democrats as well as neoconservatives. The neoconservatives, led in this case by President Bush, got to run that area of foreign policy over the last eight years, encountering remarkably little opposition from the Democratic side of the aisle as they embraced everything the Israeli government decided to do. We'll see if that changes in an Obama administration -- if it doesn't, maybe we'll be able to say that the neoconservatives endorsed Obama's approach to foreign policy.

here's some realism for you.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/pollak/39261

Doesn't it all depend on how you define those terms? If you define the split between neoconservatism and realism as you do in the piece you wrote and linked to above, I think you could argue that neoconservatism didn't survive that far into Bush's second term. We certainly don't hear much these days about the transformational power of democracy. In fact, I think you could argue that outside the McCain-Lieberman crowd (along with a few on the far left like Hitchens), that belief system has largely been dumped.

I'm not sure how one defines Obama's foreign policy as realist, though; recall that he was one of the big backers of dumping Musharuff (a relationship that was at its roots realist) in favor of democracy for Pakistan, which would somehow make it more stable and a closer ally in the war on terror. Also, there was a point when Obama supported the war in Iraq. At the same time, he's embraced the realist view of talking to our enemies, so there seems to be a bit for everyone in his views.

Hmm. Obama 'the realist' is the guy who said our troops in Afghanistan are just air raiding villages and killing civilians. Let's analyze that

1) yes, I realize it was him making an argument to increase number of troops there, which in itself shows bad judgement (just ask the Soviets or the British Empire)
2) add to that the terrible and demoralizing judgement effect of the choice of words, which choice probably stems from ...
3) a left view of our military, if not our power. He see them as incompetent and careless and, despite the fact that he visited Afghanistan (I believe) on his world triumph tour this summer ...
4) shows he learned nothing of the mission there. I haven't been, but having served in Bosnia and following casually from afar I know there are civil affairs guys there, military police doing training and patrols, engineers building powerplants and schools etc. etc.
5) oh, and does he still want to attack Pakistan?

So maybe these pragmatics have much in common with tactical prescriptions Obama has suggested (maybe), I don't really think they share a worldview at all.

yes but how is Obama a realist? Surrealist possibly - but the hallmark of realism is skepticism, and that's not Obama, not even close - at least if one goes by his rhetoric, and when it comes to Obama, that's all there is to go by.

As has been pointed out for some years now, it's not so much "realism" that's dead in the Republican Party, it's reality. It's notable that someone like Ross Douthat is now referring to the "Republican cocoon" and linking this explicitly to the denial of reality in relation to, among other things, the failure of the Iraq war.

The problem with the neocons and most other core GOP constituencies isn't the privileging of goals like democracy promotion, or support for (their perceived view of the interests of) Israel, over narrowly defined national interest (the abiding passion of "realists"). It's the fact that their policies are made on the basis of wishful thinking rather than reality. The same is true in relation to global warming, evolution, economic policy, sex education etc etc

"the failure of the Iraq war."

what failure? the surge seems to be succeeding now.

If you care about simple competence, and the appropriate execution of policy, then it is very hard to support a Republican candidate who, in personality, seems to share with the current White House denizen a tendency to shoot from the gut, and gamble big. This is not a very "conservative" approach to living, and I think Jeff Hart, one of the original Republican apostates, had it right when he indicated his thought that Neoconservatism, in practice, had been more akin to Rousseau and Robspierre, then to Burke.

In other words, it is not surprising that many Republicans are peeling themselves off from the current GOP. I think the mistake is in the assumption they will stay peeled off. For example, I think our current host will resume his Republican ways some time next year. Obama, in personality, is fairly calm and collected, and -- in this respect -- the comparisons to Jack Kennedy are appropriate. But it is definitely clear that his worldview was formed in some very left-wing places. There are going to be policy consequences from that, and one whose core is more Kissinger -- Baker -- Schultz is not going to have much enthusiasm with those choices.

4- Except that isn't really what he said. CONTEXT MATTERS!

Why do people think comments sections are a perfect place for political conspiracy theories?

Dan:

About your main point -- almost everyone on the list has served in government. The Bush administration has not been a place where one builds a foreign policy reputation. When you go back to Bush Sr, you are talking 16 years ago.

A new group of GOP realists will show up. Who knows, one might even come from the blog world.

The question where Realists will end up has a lot to do with where the GOP ends up. We might see some sort of neo-conservatism in reverse where Realists leave the Republican Party and head to the Democrats.

Bye bye, so long, farewell, realists. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out!

Oh, and you realists can take your Pinochet-loving, Shah-supporting ideology with you! We here on the neo-conservative side will continue to support democracy.

We here on the neo-conservative side will continue to support democracy.

As long as it's safely confined to other countries, of course. Oh, and also as long as the people in those countries don't vote for leaders that neocons don't like.

If Obama is elected--and even if he's not--I hope the split will muffle the neocon agenda in the new administration, finally moving us away from using American empire and military might to "aggressively spread American values around the world," as Goldenberg says. Enough with the messiah complex, and if foreign policy is better off in the hands of Obama and his tribe of liberal illuminati, I commend those who are able to recognize that and align themselves with it, friend of McCain or not.

"As long as it’s safely confined to other countries, of course."

But of course that precisely wrong. It's the Democrats who are pushing the fascist card-check law that would eliminate secret ballots for union members. Let's face it, if there anything that Democrats fear, it's a secret ballot.

"Oh, and you realists can take your Pinochet-loving, Shah-supporting ideology with you! We here on the neo-conservative side will continue to support democracy."

Yes, heaven forbid that we actually have a foreign policy based on solid, concrete financial, military, and political interests regardless of the internal situations of other regimes, as opposed to going on long, badly-choreographed crusades for democracy in whatever country we can take a swing at.

Oh, and also as long as the people in those countries don’t vote for leaders that neocons don’t like.

Weird, because I thought it was the realists (along with Democrats) slamming Bush for "allowing" the Palestinians to vote for Hamas. Since for some reason it's much better to not let the Palestinians vote than to let them vote but then refuse to deal with their chosen government (but not overthrow it.)

The dirty little secret is that all of these pragmatic conservatives have more in common with Obama’s world view

Really? They've called for military strikes in Pakistan without the Pakistani government's position?

Except for Kissinger (who did endorse McCain, in fact) the list of "realist" Republicans cited is meaningless. Powell's endorsement will not give Obama much headway. It probably HAS given Powell a cabinet post should Obama win the White House. The RINO Powells are not the real face of the GOP, and certainly not of the military establishment. This is just a bunch of elitist, illuminati, one-world hooey.

@Balok: I think you're talking about the philosophical position of realism, and not realism as a defense theory. Realism and pragmatism are both philosophical theories about the metaphysical nature of reality and how we come to know that reality; both are used as terms for theories of defense policy that are probably more appropriately called "Just War Theory."

I take this locus of terms to basically entail
1) Don't enter wars that don't directly protect US Interest or prevent massive genocide
2) Enter wars with an eye to efficiency in terms of A) life and B) finances in that order.

Defined as such, how is it reasonable to disagree as a philosophy? Really, I'm curious....

[...] October 24, 2008 by bklunk danieldrezner.com :: Daniel W. Drezner » Realist Republicans, R.I.P.? [...]

Obama's top advisors (e.g., Susan Rice) aren't realists. Rice continually talks about the importance of transnational threats (global warming, infectious disease, etc.), and she did so even during the Georgia crisis this summer. (Admittedly, if she had added "financial contagion" to that list, she might have been onto something!) Hopefully all the realists flocking to the Obama camp will mitigate this somewhat.