A Realist Appraisal of US Foreign Policy

An evenhanded realist appraisal of US foreign policy going back to the end of the Cold War.

Topics addressed: Should we have extended NATO to the east of Germany, despite promises made to Gorbachev by GHWB? Should we have supported PRC WTO accession? Should we have invaded Iraq after 9/11? Hasn't Obama openly admitted that what we did in Libya and Syria (thanks, Hillary!) recently was a tragic disaster? Trump's trade war, Populism and Democracy, Why are our foreign policy elites so stupid -- is there no penalty for being wrong again and again? (He doesn't really answer the last question -- it's mine.)

Wikipedia: Stephen Martin Walt (born July 2, 1955) is an American professor of international affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He belongs to the realist school of international relations.

Walt was born in Los Alamos, New Mexico, where his father, a physicist, worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory. ... Walt pursued his undergraduate studies at Stanford University.  ... After attaining his B.A., Walt began graduate work at UC Berkeley, graduating with a M.A. in Political Science in 1978, and a Ph.D. in Political Science in 1983.

Walt and University of Chicago political scientist Stephen Mearsheimer endured significant blowback for their too-realistic 2007 book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.