John Perry — The True Nature of US Interventions

‘Make America Great Again’: Trump’s slogan seems both to yearn for a time when the United States had more influence, and to call for its pre-eminence to be restored. In its own way, it asserts that the US is – or should be – different. In fact it was only Trump’s predecessor, Obama, who was the first president to talk regularly about American exceptionalism, yet to Trump it is something that is long lost and it is his job to recover it. Yet belief in the US’s exceptional nature has been a constant feature of the country’s history, whoever has been president, and continues right up to the present day.

Its starting point in the early nineteenth century was the ‘Monroe doctrine’, the assertion of the US’s pre-eminent power in the western hemisphere, replacing the old colonial powers such as Spain and Portugal. Its domestic counterpart was the US’s God-given ‘manifest destiny’, which justified settlement of the whole North American continent, regardless of the presence of the people to whom much of the land already belonged. Whereas the Monroe doctrine at first reflected a degree of respect for the then newly emerging Latin American nations, by the end of the century it only thinly disguised a new kind of imperialism which justified US intervention anywhere in the hemisphere.

Soon after the end of the second world war, the former ‘great powers’ began to give up those colonies that had not already been returned to their rightful owners. But, fuelled by the cold war, the US began a new phase of imperialism. Dan Kovalik, in his new book The Plot to Control the World, quotes a report, which he says is almost certainly an underestimate, that the US interfered in 81 foreign elections between 1946 and 2000. And even that number omits more serious interventions such as US-provoked coups, assassinations and invasions. Yet, as Kovalik says, ‘American exceptionalism’ requires a belief that the US is a unique force for democracy and freedom in the world. This enables the New York Times to justify US interference in the affairs of other countries because the US is unique in using its power to challenge dictators or otherwise promote democracy, whereas Russia (say) more often intervenes to disrupt democracy or promote authoritarian rule... 

Counterpunch
The True Nature of US Interventions
John Perry

Martin Sieff — Woodrow Wilson Goes to Europe: One Hundred Years of Delusional American Madness

We are now in the dubious position of “celebrating” – if that is the word – the 100th anniversary of US President Woodrow Wilson’s departure on December 4, 1918 on the liner SS George Washington for the Versailles Peace Conference where he was confident he would dictate his brilliant solutions that would end war in the world for all time.

Historians and psychiatrists – including Dr. Sigmund Freud himself who co-authored a book on Wilson – have endlessly debated whether Wilson was sane and just deluded or raving mad. Freud clearly inclined to the latter view. And he had ample evidence to support him. What is most alarming is that, as Henry Kissinger – significantly not born an American at all – points out, all US presidents either share Wilson’s ridiculous messianic fantasies or feel they must pretend to....

Wilson is the father of liberal internationalism in international relations, and it's progeny, liberal interventionism and US global hegemony because American exceptionalism. I am not sure that delusion madness is the only factor, although it is a chief factor. The other chief factor is tying this madness to neo-imperialism and neocolonialism as concomitants of capitalism American-style.

Liberal internationalism is also called liberal idealism in foreign policy, and both liberal internationalism and liberal idealism are called Wilsonianism.

Wilsonianism is opposed by foreign policy realism, which sometimes equated with Realpolitik, although foreign policy realism is a broader category than Realpolitik. Realism focuses on national interest as the criterion in foreign policy and international relations. It is conservative in the political tradition of Thomas Hobbes and Niccolò Machiavelli. Its chief proponent recently is Henry Kissinger. Of course, in speaking of "national interest" the question arises over exactly whose interests, since nationals are not homogenous.

Martin Sieff offers an appraisal of the insanity of some US Wilsonian presidents.

Strategic Culture Foundation
Woodrow Wilson Goes to Europe: One Hundred Years of Delusional American Madness

Martin Sieff, senior fellow of the American University in Moscow, former chief foreign correspondent of The Washington Times, and former managing editor, international affairs, for United Press International

Graham E. Fuller — Global Disorder- What Are the Options?

Global disorder is on the rise. What can the US do about it? There are two fundamentally different approaches one can take—it all depends on your philosophy of how the world works.

The first school thinks primarily in terms of law, order and authority: it accepts the need for a global policeman. The second school is more willing to let regional nations take the initiative to eventually work things out among themselves. Both schools possess advantages and disadvantages. Something called Balance of Power politics lies halfway between the two....

Graham E. Fuller
Global Disorder- What Are the Options?
Graham E. Fuller | adjunct professor of history at Simon Fraser University, formerly vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA, and a former senior political scientist at RAND

Also

With words unprecedented for a US president, Trump called out Pakistan for harboring and supporting terrorist groups that target and kill US citizens and said there would be a radical change in policy toward the South Asian nation. Trump indicated the US would work to increase ties with India, Pakistan's neighbor and greatest enemy, a move sure to both enrage as well as frighten Pakistani elites.…

Trump said the US will work to increase ties with India, Pakistan’s neighbor and greatest enemy, as part of the “change in approach in how to deal with Pakistan.”

Pushing Pakistan into China's arms.

In what must have sent shockwaves all the way to Islamabad and Rawalpindi – the home of Pakistan’s military and intelligence service – Trump followed up his harsh words for Pakistan with a call for greater American cooperation with India.

Trump said the US will seek to “develop its strategic partnership with India” and described the country as “a key security and economic harbor of the United States.” He called for India to play a greater role in Afghanistan “especially in the area of economic assistance and development.”….

FDD's Long War Journal

Trump takes hard line on Pakistan for supporting terrorist groups
Bill Roggio | Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal

Also

RussiaFeed
Russian expert says Trump’s new Afghanistan policy aimed at China`

UPDATE

The Duran
China tells Trump not to allow India to interfere in regional interests
Adam Garrie

Robert Parry — Neocons Leverage Trump-Hate for More Wars

The enactment of new sanctions against Russia and Iran – with the support of nearly all Democrats and Republicans in Congress – shows how the warmongering neocons again have come out on top, reports.

It's really amazing how a relatively small number of people can capture US policy and use propaganda to convince the American public that it is in their interest even though the public is largely fed up with foreign adventurism.

Slouching toward war, or rushing?

Consortium News
Neocons Leverage Trump-Hate for More Wars

Robert Parry

Richard Sakwa — Putin and Trump Establish Bilateral Channel to Move Forward

Richard Sakwa is one of the few Russian experts, along with Stephen F. Cohen, not affected by Russophobia. Russophobes denigrate these experts being Russophiles. The actual conflict is not so much between Russophobes and Russophiles, although it is present, but between foreign policy idealists — liberal interventionists and neoconservatives — and foreign policy realists like Sakwa and Cohen. The difference is between equating American leadership and American exceptionalism with US global hegemony and viewing international relations through the prism of pragmatism and promoting US national interests in a multipolar world.

A diplomatic triumph for Russia was viewed as a defeat for Washington – so much for the liberal international order’s vaunted win-win dynamic. For the knavish alliance of liberal internationalists and neo-conservative globalists, this would represent a fundamental challenge to US primacy and its universal ‘leadership’, and could never be allowed. It is clear that Trump has decided otherwise, and quite sensibly Russia and the US are begin to cooperate in Syria to put an end to the suffering of that tragic nation.…

All post-Cold War American leaders from George H. W. Bush to Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have asserted a triumphal reading of American victory in the Cold War, accompanied by the assertion of American leadership in a unipolar world order. This of course has encountered the resistance of Russia, and increasingly also from Beijing (although China’s relationship to the end of the Cold War is rather different and is seen through a different prism). The liberal internationalists and neoconservatives since the 1990s have allied to assert America’s position as the ‘indispensable’ nation, an ideology of exceptionalism to which all other great powers have taken exception, especially since it means that by definition they became the subjects of various soft containment strategies to ensure that they do not challenge American supremacy....

I assess the Trump-Putin meeting even more positively than Sakwa. The two men came to an understanding, which is the most important outcome. The reports emphasize "good chemistry," but coming to an understanding is more significant. Trump and Putin acknowledged political difficulties in their way on both side, including a lot of distrust and a history of adversarial relationship extending back at least to the Bolshevik commandeering of the Russian Revolution. But they agreed to work together to surmount those difficulties as best they could in view of the opposition they face. As a result, they can say what the need to for domestic politics without endangering their personal relationship and communications. This channel at the highest level of government is a very big deal, and it is a win-win, which is why it enrages the zero-sum cohort.

Valdai Discussion Club
Putin and Trump Establish Bilateral Channel to Move Forward

Richard Sakwa | Professor of Russian and European politics at the University of Kent

See also

US foreign policy realism without the Russophobia or Russophilia. It's pro-American but cautions against doing stupid stuff that undermines genuine US national interests in the foolhardy pursuit of nationalistic or globalist unrealistic aspirations.

The Hill— Opinion
Time for the U.S. to modernize its approach to Russia

James Durso | Opinion Contributor

Akhilesh Pillalamarri — The Bitter Fruits of Wilsonianism

Theodore Roosevelt's nationalist realism opposed to Woodrow Wilson's internationalist idealism. Historical backgrounder.

The American Conservative
The Bitter Fruits of Wilsonianism

Akhilesh Pillalamarri, editorial assistant at The American Conservative

Robert David English — Russia, Trump, and a New Détente

This was originally published at Foreign Affairs, an organ of the Council on Foreign Relations. Foreign Affairs is behind a paywall, so the venue here is US-Russia.org.

Foreign Affairs has generally taken the idealistic approach to foreign policy and suppressed the realistic. The publication of this article is counter to trend. Observers wonder if it signals a reversal, or at least a modification.

US-RUSSIA.ORG
Russia, Trump, and a New Détente

Robert David English | Associate Professor of International Relations, Slavic Languages & Literature, and Environmental Studies at the University of Southern California

Originally published at Foreign Affairs

Gordon M. Hahn — REPORT: Towards a Realist American Russia Policy (Revised Final Edition, Parts 1 and 2)

American foreign policy, especially its Russia policy, is a runaway train without rails, driven by a troubling confluence of hubristic ideological influences and bureaucratized sectoral interests networked through Washington. These two kinds of influence too often are neither disinterested, nor in the American interest, and deprive U.S. foreign policy of a strategic imperative. The former influence consists of American democratic messianism and revolutionism that push for regime change on a far too broad basis, weakening our foreign policy’s realist component while simultaneously discrediting its idealist component. Bureaucractic influences is made up of out-of-control bureaucratic, military, military-industrial, think tank, and ideological interests that manipulate or sincerely foster American messianism and revolutionism. The combination of uncontrolled messianism and sectoral interests and imperatives have resulted in an ‘imperial overstretch’ that far outstrips America’s declining capacity and power in the world. This growing gap between American ambitions and capacity is compounded by China’s rise, Russia’s resurgence, and the Sino-Russian strategic partnership. This paper focuses on problems in U.S.-Russian relations and their possible solutions....

Russian and Eurasian Politics
REPORT: Towards a Realist American Russia Policy (Revised Final Edition, Parts 1 and 2)
Gordon M. Hahn, analyst and Advisory Board member at Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation, member of the Executive Advisory Board at the American Institute of Geostrategy, a contributing expert for Russia Direct, a senior researcher at the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies, Akribis Group, and; and an analyst and consultant for Russia – Other Points of View

Mike Whitney — The Trump Speech That No One Heard

Contrasting visions of US foreign policy. Will Trump's foreign policy realism and a focus on US national interests prevail in the coming years, or will it be more of the same foreign policy idealism based on liberal interventionism and attempted global Americanization — because American exceptionalism? The battle is joined, with the US deep state on the attack even before the inauguration.

Counterpunch
The Trump Speech That No One Heard

Mike Whitney

See also

It is an extraordinary situation. The ruling class seems by and large quite shocked by the election result. Donald Trump is surely a representative of the class—in that he’s a billionaire for god sake—but, for the majority of the richest and most powerful, not their preferred choice as chief executive of the USA. This is apparent by Trump’s treatment at the hands of the corporate media (that he continues to insult), by the foreign policy establishment, by the intelligence agencies (which he sometimes disparages), by Congressional leaders of both parties who generally regret that he won. The Deep State seems to have its knives drawn for him.

The Extraordinary Array of Those Questioning Trump’s Legitimacy (and Their Various Reasons)

Gary Leupp | Professor of History at Tufts University, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Religion

US geostrategy under Obama and Trump

How the US is setting up at the beginning of the Trump administration.

The major difference is that the foreign policy establishment apparently wants to take on Russia first and then China, and Trump wants to take on China first which would isolate Russia.

Both are dangerous games for high stakes, no less than world domination, and the people in charge of US policy are high rollers. Apparently their only disagreement is over strategy. Brzezinski/Rubin versus Kissinger/David Rockefeller.

Fort Russ

US tanks pour into Eastern Europe: What can Putin and Trump do?

SvPressa - translated by J. Arnoldski

Can Russia stand by as Trump goes after China?

Rostislav Ishchenko, RIA Analytics - translated by J. Arnoldski

NEO

Is Trump the Back Door Man for Henry A. Kissinger & Co?
William Engdahl

Reuters
U.S. intelligence study warns of growing conflict risk
 Jonathan Landay

Two calls for US foreign policy realism

The National Interest
Three Steps to Set the Tone on Russia

Thomas Graham | Managing Director at Kissinger Associates, Inc. and Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs of Yale University

Russia Is Neither Friend Nor Foe

Nikolas K. Gvosdev |contributing editor at the National Interest and senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute

John J. Mearsheimer — Donald Trump Should Embrace a Realist Foreign Policy

There are many reasons to be deeply worried about a Donald Trump presidency. But if he makes the right choices, he could fundamentally alter U.S. foreign policy for the better.

Trump campaigned against America’s powerful foreign policy community—what one of President Obama’s advisors derisively labeled “the Blob.” Its members include prominent Democrats and Republicans with similar views on foreign policy. He accused them of producing “one foreign policy disaster after another,” and promised to “develop a new foreign policy direction for our country.” This was precisely the message many voters wanted to hear, and the president-elect now has the opportunity to change how the United States deploys its power around the world....

The National Interest
Donald Trump Should Embrace a Realist Foreign Policy

John J. Mearsheimer | R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago

Zero Hedge — War Breaks Out Between Neo-Cons And Libertarians Over Trump's Foreign Policy

"These figures [necons and foreign policy idealists] all generally believe that the United States needs to take an active role in the world from the Middle East to East Asia to deter enemies and reassure allies."

In short, should this group prevail, it would be the equivalent of 4 more years of HIllary Clinton running the State Department.

The outsider group [Libertarians and foreign policy realists] sees things differently.

They want to revamp American foreign policy in a different direction from the last two administrations. Luckily, this particular camp is also more in line with Trump’s views questioning the value of NATO, a position that horrified many in the establishment camp....

Trump realizes that the populist mood is America First and forget the foreign adventurism and attempts at state building — based on demonstrated results that have been clear failures.

Zero Hedge
War Breaks Out Between Neo-Cons And Libertarians Over Trump's Foreign Policy

Submitted by Tyler Durden

John J. Mearsheimer — Two Worlds, Two Playbooks: Why Moscow and Washington Don’t Understand Each Other

John J. Mearsheimer is a US foreign policy realist, who is opposed to idealism such as neoconservatism and liberal internationalism.

This week, Mearsheimer, a living classic of political realism, attended a discussion at the Valdai Club Conference Hall in Moscow, which brought together scholars, diplomats and journalists.

During the debate, Mearsheimer outlined the ongoing tensions as a conflict between the two perspectives of international relations, the realist and the liberal internationalist, with the latter still dominating in the western world. Liberal interventionism has the upper hand in academic debates in the United States because of the unprecedented might and influence that Washington gained after the end of the Cold war, and with it, the commitment of the US political establishment to global dominance, according to Mearsheimer.

“We wanted to dominate the entire globe,” Mearsheimer said. “The United States was the indispensable nation, which stands taller and sees further.”

According to the Mearsheimer, this position is based on three premises: the country is incredibly rich, incredibly secure and its military force allows it to intervene around the world without alienating society.

This almost unlimited use of military force, leading to local wars every two-three years is foolish, Mearsheimer said. Political realists like him and Stephen Walt from Harvard call for restraint, but so far to no avail.…

While liberal internationalism remains the dominant school of thought in the United States, Western Europe and countries like Japan and South Korea, political realism has long ago taken hold in Russia and China, according to Mearsheimer.

“As a realist in a liberal internationalist world, you’re a fish out of water. Intellectually, I’m much more at home in China than I am in the United States […] and, by the way, I’m much more at home here in Russia. Culturally, I don’t speak a word in Russian, it’s a foreign culture to me, just like the Chinese culture, but intellectually, most Russians, like most Chinese, speak realpolitik,” Mearsheimer said.…

“Russia operates according to a realist playbook. The United States operates according to a liberal interventionist playbook.”

The key question for the realist paradigm is what the United States’ strategic interests are, Mearsheimer posited.…

Valdai Club
Two Worlds, Two Playbooks: Why Moscow and Washington Don’t Understand Each Other
John J. Mearsheimer | R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago.

Robert D. Kaplan — The Real War of Ideas

Robert Kaplan proposes that geopolitics-policy is a more relevant distinction than realist-idealist in delineating different approaches to foreign affairs and international relations.

However, to label the first mindset as realist and the second mindset as idealist is much too facile. So, too, is to label the first mindset determinist and the second anti-determinist—with those often opposed to humanitarian intervention usually in the first camp and those often in favor of it usually in the second camp. And yet all of these dichotomies do capture elements of a certain division in the battle of ideas. Indeed, because these are wholly different sensibilities and worldviews that I am talking about—which, among other things, undergird differences of opinion on specific issues—there is something deeper going on here that explains many of the disputes in Washington, and that causes some people, for example, to admire the prescient wisdom of the arch-realist Brent Scowcroft and others to admire the sheer energy of the do-gooder John Kerry.…

In fact, I am talking about those who are drawn to geopolitics—the eternal battle of space and power played out in a geographical setting, among states with specific and often intractable historical and cultural tendencies—and those who are drawn to policy, in which human agency actively tries to forge solutions to international problems based on specific actions of the U.S. government. The first group is more or less drawn to reading and studying history and literature; the second is more or less drawn to reading and studying political science. The first is attracted to narrative; the second to graphs and tables. The first is attracted to deep-rooted cultural essences; the second to the commonality that unites individuals across cultural boundaries in an age of globalization.

As imperfect as these generalizations are, they do convey a truth, I believe. That truth being: where people stand on the big questions of foreign policy is subjectively related to their intellectual tastes and proclivities. But it gets more complicated. For while the idealistic policy types, as I’ve noted, are drawn generally to political science, neoconservatives (a subset of idealists) are drawn to philosophy whereby they apply the same abstract principles the world over. The realist geopolitical types, on the other hand, are drawn to area expertise, which requires the kind of intimate cultural and historical knowledge of specific geographical terrains: terrains that turn out, in many instances, not to be amenable to those general philosophical principles neoconservatives and liberal internationalists, too, revere.

The National Interest
The Real War of Ideas
Robert D. Kaplan | senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security

Graham E. Fuller — What is Eurasianism?

In short, the new Eurasianism is no longer about nineteenth century land and sea power. It is an acknowledgment that the era of western (and especially US) global dominance is over. Washington can no longer command (or afford) a longer-term bid to dominate Eurasia. In economic terms no state in the region, including Turkey, would be foolish enough to turn its back on this rising “Eurasian” potential that also offers strategic balance and economic options.

There are, of course, huge fault-lines across Eurasia—ethnic, economic, strategic, and some degree of rivalry. But the more Washington attempts to contain or throttle Eurasianism as a genuine rising force, the greater will be the determination of states to become part of this rising Eurasian world, even while not rejecting the West.

All countries like to have alternatives. They don’t like to lie beholden to a single global power that tries to call the shots. America’s narrative of what the global order is all about is no longer accepted globally. Furthermore it is no longer realistic. It would seem short-sighted for Washington to continue focus upon expanding military alliances while most of the rest of the world is looking to greater prosperity and rising regional clout. (China’s military expenditures are about one quarter of US spending.)

Division in the US deep state. If Trump wins, he will apparently have foreign policy realist allies against the neocons and liberal internationalists/interventionists and their pursuit of foreign policy idealism.

Graham E. Fuller
What is Eurasianism?
Graham E. Fuller, former senior CIA official

Pepe Escobar — Could Trump Pull Off a Post-Party Coalition?

Teaser: 

This all implies Trump should become well versed in the national economy ideas of Friedrich List – whose tariff-protected Zollverein League was essentially the founding method of Prussia to build the German nation.

This election is potentially turning into a battle between the financial and industrial elites. Whatever the outcome, this is only the beginning of it.

Disraeli’s Coningsby was never more appropriate; “So you see, my dear Coningsby, that the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.”

Sputnik
Could Trump Pull Off a Post-Party Coalition?
Pepe Escobar

Safe Arnoldsi — What Putin Says and What Putin Does

Putin the IR (international relations) realist. Short and informative.

Fort Russ
What Putin Says and What Putin Does
Jafe Arnoldsi

Zaid Jilani — Neocon-Bashers Headline Koch Event as Political Realignment on Foreign Policy Continues

In the latest example of how foreign policy no longer neatly aligns with party politics, the Charles Koch Institute — the think tank founded and funded by energy billionaire Charles Koch — hosted an all-day event Wednesday featuring a set of speakers you would be more likely to associate with a left-wing anti-war rally than a gathering hosted by a longtime right-wing institution.

At the event, titled “Advancing American Security: The Future of U.S. Foreign Policy,” prominent realist and liberal foreign policy scholars took turns trashing the neoconservative worldview that has dominated the foreign policy thinking of the Republican Party — which the Koch brothers have been allied with for decades.

Most of the speakers assailed the Iraq War, nation building, and regime change. During a panel event also featuring former Obama Pentagon official Kathleen Hicks, foreign policy scholar John Mearsheimer brought the crowd to applause by denouncing American military overreach.…

Still unresolved is whether the institute intends to take on neoconservative orthodoxy on a regular basis. “Part of what the Charles Koch Institute can do is to help increase the range of arguments on the table, have that marketplace of ideas, so the best ideas can win so that our country can flourish,” said William Ruger, the institute’s vice president for research and policy. Ruger told The Intercept that numerous additional foreign policy-centric events are planned.

“I certainly think we’re uneasy with the status quo. It doesn’t seem like the status quo is making us safer, especially given the cost of this to our soldiers, especially given the high expense in terms of our fiscal situation. Also in terms of some of the ways it affects our civil liberties as well as our standing in the world. We want to make sure that we’re not missing opportunities for ideas to be added to this conversation.”

Sanders and Trump have broken the ice. Now American business interests are putting their foot down, except the defense industry, of course.

Tim Cook's eight trip to China sends a similar message as does Mark Zuckerberg's constant wooing of China even though FaceBook continues to be shut out there.

"Thar's gold in them there hills."

The Intercept
Neocon-Bashers Headline Koch Event as Political Realignment on Foreign Policy Continues
Zaid Jilani

Lord Keynes — Trump versus the Neoconservatives

Finally, this point is crucial: the victory of Trump (even with his gung-ho, loud-mouth views on some aspects of foreign policy such as Iran or Ukraine) is a savage blow to Neoconservatism. Trump will return to a more traditional, realist US foreign policy. As bad as that might be, it is not as bad as the unhinged Neoconservative policy agenda that has been highly influential in the US government since 2001.

Social Democracy For The 21St Century: A Post Keynesian Perspective
Trump versus the Neoconservatives
Lord Keynes

The downside:

The US Republican Front Runners: All in Favour of Torture!