So solly.

by: pootie

Mon Apr 27, 2009 at 15:20:05 PM EDT

Realism means recognizing that international relations are ruled by a sadder, more limited reality than the one governing domestic affairs. It means valuing order above freedom, for the latter becomes important only after the former has been established. It means focusing on what divides humanity rather than on what unites it, as the high priests of globalization would have it. In short, realism is about recognizing and embracing those forces beyond our control that constrain human action-culture, tradition, history, the bleaker tides of passion that lie just beneath the veneer of civilization.

This poses what, for realists, is the central question in foreign affairs: Who can do what to whom?

And of all the unsavory truths in which realism is rooted, the bluntest, most uncomfortable, and most deterministic of all is geography.

Is he wrong, in this age of drones with globe-spanning range? http://www.airforce-technology...

(A ten pound model airplane flew across the Atlantic on autopilot in 2003, on less than a liter of fuel. 1,615,546 meters/litre or about 4000 miles per gallon.)

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/s...