Realism
Realism: not quite as good as it could be...Realism is a powerful theory that tries to but ultimately cannot be successfully applied to foreign policy. Realism place too much focus on power alone. This by itself is the fatal flaw of the theory. Realism does not take into account such things as non state actors, ideas instead of focusing explicitly on power, and units below the state, which is regarded as the smallest unit in realism. These short comings illuminate the superiority on constructivism in these aspects. Both theories are strong in there own right, but if combined and made so that their strengths compliment each other could be the best ideology to make foreign policy from. By adding some constructivist aspects to realism one can differentiate between a nation's power relative to itself from a nation's relative threat. It is the leaders that implement foreign policy and their beliefs will affect the way they want their nations to interact with others. Because leaders can choose their own actions it is good to be able to take into account the leaders perception and ideologies. With realism one would not be able to accomplish this by just looking at the state. The state has no feelings and no perception. On
Power will always be a major determinate in allocating threat but the idea that goes along with the power determine the perceived threat. The nation can gain this rank of the highest threat because of the simple fact that one nation could, in an attack lower the power of the nation it is attacking, lowering the relative power of the state thus causing the nation to reconsider its survivability. One must put the balance of real power before the elimination of potential threats. It is because states can identify threats to their power whether is be another nation or a smaller non- state group that they can take proper action in maintaining relative power compared to other nations. Bush's axis of evil list, the countries on the list are all non democratic. These types of ideological changes stem from change perception on the part of the leader. They will have to factor in the leaders of other nations and their ideologies, potential power shifts that could occur due to nations with lesser power attempting to gain more power. The best theory to use in foreign policy is one that incorporates the strengths of the two into one. This allows for nations that are allies to appear lower on the "threat list" than nations that do not have nearly as much power. There are international government agencies like the UN which attempt to establish rules to which states should abide. In order to do this realism must allow for non state actors to acquire power. If a state miscalculates its own power then overextension can become a problem causing the state to hemorrhage even more power, if not remedied quickly this can end a nation by itself. Realism fails to explain and account for changes that occur due to these organizations operating. In the process of making foreign policy one must first look at the intentions or actions of another country and discern from that information whether that nation can be considered a friend or foe.
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Acceptance Essays
