Okay, somebody who knows Walt offline really needs to make fun of him at this point. Man actually wrote "Why the Tunisian Revolution Won't Spread" in January. Yep.
Goes to show that you have to be very, very careful about the predictions of International Relations experts, and ESPECIALLY of the Realists. They talk a good game, but the end of the Cold War showed that they can get it majorly, majorly wrong. Considering this is a similar case study, well...
Edit: Also, it shows that you need to be incredibly careful about pundits' track records. They don't exactly admit their mistakes much.
Re-Edit: Don't get me wrong. I like a lot of what Walt has written. I think that, when he gets away from wearing the "Realist" hat, he has a lot of good points to make.
But it's becoming harder and harder to conclude that Realism is anything but a creaky, decrepit doctrine—and that the only reason that it perseveres is because of the paucity of decent alternatives.
Realism = Establishment sanctioned bullshit.
ReplyDelete"Realism" is anything but. It's hilarious that it should even bear the name. While there's some truth that working for national interest will help a people survive and even thrive, it drives out any other possible course of action that does not lead to that specific gain. It advocates selfishness on the national level. It is, in short, unrealistic. Oh, the irony....
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