I just finished reading Paul Wolfowitz' article on ForeignPolicy.com titled, "Think Again: Realism" and concluded that he is completely wrong. His argument continues to argue that realism, as an International Relations theory, is a "misguided doctrine."
Read it here. I'll wait: Paul Wolfowitz -- Think Again: Realism
Ok. Did you see that throughout the article, Mr. Wolfowitz continues to claim that "the realists" were wrong? However, this is a flawed argument. Realism, as a theory, is not someone's opinion, per se. Realism, very simply, states that a state is interested in its own power and the preservation of that state's power relative to other powers. Since state's do not trust each other, it is imperative that a state not lose power relative to other states that they deem as threats to their own power. Make sense?
So it is not realism as a theory that Mr. Wolfowitz should be criticizing, it is the person's interpretation of realism that should be questioned.
For example, Brent Scowcroft and other prominent realists like Kenneth Waltz, who is widely hailed as the founder of neorealism, and Stephen Walt thought that the Iraq War was not in our country's best interest because it would diminish the United States' power economically, would bog down our military, and hurt our reputation, all of which would lessen our ability to influence other nations to do our bidding and diminish our power relative to other near competitors.
The bottom line was not whether something was a threat to national security or not. Or whether something is morally right or wrong. Mr. Wolfowitz has the wrong Measure of Effectiveness.
In realism, the bottom line is whether something increases or decreases our power relative to other powers. Period.
Now that we've identified that it is not the actual theory that is misguided, we can start to identify actual policies put forth by individuals and debate on whether they actually increase or decrease America's power relative to other nations.