The Trump Doctrine and the Realist Tradition

Abstract

The article’s initial motive is the recent controversy among contemporary realists, who questioned the supposed realism of US president Donald Trump’s foreign policy doctrine. The author argues that the polemic is a consequential outgrowth of outdated, tautological, and yet still actual binary discourse, that divides international theory and foreign policy practice on Realism and Liberalism. Referring to the established critique of Neorealism, the article argues that Neorealism does not in epistemic terms belong to the tradition of Realism, to which it is a self-proclaimed successor. On the contrary, with its notions of power, state and international system it is established in political idealism: the tradition of thought that is conventionally attributed to Liberalism, and to which “classical” Realism was fundamentally opposed. By analyzing evident congruence between principles of Neorealism and Trump’s America First doctrine, the article concludes that Trump is not a realist, but illiberal idealist. His idealistic nationalist world-view, when translated into foreign policy objectives, is in stark contrast to the professed principles of Realism. Furthermore, the concept of illiberal idealism offers an analytical framework for further analysis of present US foreign policy in the context of its hegemonic position in the Liberal International Order.