That's the question Robert Kagan asks in this new essay. Today's so-called "realists," Kagan argues, have inverted the lessons of their predecessors:
Leading realists today see the world not as Mr. Morgenthau did, as an anarchic system in which nations consistently pursue "interest defined as power," but as a world of converging interests, in which economics, not power, is the primary driving force. Thus Russia and China are not interested in expanding their power so much as in enhancing their economic well-being and security. If they use force against their neighbors, or engage in arms buildups, it is not because this is in the nature of great powers. It is because the United States or the West has provoked them. The natural state of the world is harmonious; only aggressive behavior by the United States disturbs the harmony. ... The original realists had no patience for such Candide-like optimism about the inevitable upward progress of mankind. "Whoever thinks the future is going to be easier than the past is certainly mad," wrote Mr. Kennan in 1951, six years after the most destructive war in history, five years into the Cold War, and one year into what was widely seen at the time as disastrous and seemingly hopeless American intervention in Korea. Mr. Kennan's provocative assertion aimed to jolt Americans out of their yearning to believe that the future would be different. But now it is leading realists who embrace The End of History, with an unshakable faith in the inevitable convergence of humanity around shared values and common interests. These were exactly the hopes and dreams Mr. Morgenthau set out to vanquish decades ago.
Want an example? Read Richard Haas in Newsweek. Haas says punishing Russia for its invasion of an independent democracy would be counterproductive. No, Haas argues, we should actually reward Russia, by lowering "U.S. barriers to Russia's joining the World Trade Organization, not rais[ing] them." Because "[a]utocratic Russia is more likely to evolve into something more open if it is integrated into modern institutions than if it is left outside." No it isn't. But such is today's "realism," which has eschewed considerations of power in favor of Rodney-King style, "Can't we all get along" claptrap. WWMD: What would Morgenthau do?