(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



Trump's Realist Agenda is a doorway for untold evils [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-06-08

Realism is a grotesque theory that Trump wants to bring back in a major way. He has expressed his fascistic disgust for our modern world many times as Putin has expressed his desire for a New Yalta Conference in which America and Russia split the world in half. It is thus important that we examine this theory and what such a plan would entail.

Realism is not a theory that has anything to do with reality or philosophy, but a theory about International Relations and the actions of Nation States. It has two main assumptions and two main prescriptions worth covering. Realism assumes first, that all Nation States are rational actors (that there are fundamental logical principles to foreign policy that can therefore be predicted or controlled) and second that war is inevitable so much so that though a long peace is always the goal it must be propped up by violence elsewhere and even then, peace is just a fleeting moment of rest between two wars. As for their prescriptions, realists propose that the best methodology to securing peace is by a balancing of great powers (ensuring that all major competitors are equal is military might) and the establishment of each power's sphere of influence that must never be trifled with by other powers.

Let us look at this theory in practice. Realism, most infamously through Henry Kissinger who advised US foreign policy since at least 1969 right up until his death in 2023, dominated American foreign policy for the entirety of the Cold War and thus this era should be our primary time period to which we ought to look to see what realist policies actually do. And do things they did. In the name of the containment of Russia to stop the expansion of their sphere of influence we carpet bombed Cambodia (100,000+ dead), sold 90% of the weapons used in the invasion of East Timor (2 million+ dead), supported Pakistan's Genocide in Bangladesh (300k to 3 million dead), invaded Vietnam, invaded Korea, Conducted Operation Iron Condor in which many South American Governments were toppled in exchange for far right fascistic surveillance States where 10s of thousands were murdered to uphold the regimes. I hope I have made my distaste for the evil genocide enabling lackluster excuse for a theory that is realism obvious and clear: it is evil.

America has been on again and off again using realist policies since its peak in the Cold War. Perhaps most important to the conversation of today is Obama. When Russia invaded Crimea, Obama did nothing because of the belief that Ukraine (and all of Eastern Europe) is under the Sphere of influence of Russia and thus cannot be interfered with. This inaction is what directly led to the empowerment of Putin to feel confident in invading Ukraine. Kissinger's justification of the Tiananmen Square massacre and US inaction when China invaded Tibet is what has empowered them to invade Taiwan. Compromising our values at any point has had disastrous consequences and Trump wants to do just that.

Trump has been moving to carve the world into three spheres of influence: America's, China's and Russia's. This is the worst possible foreign policy platform Trump could have adopted. First of all, even by realism principles, this plan is stupid. Russia isn't the great power of Europe the European Union is, if Trump wanted to do realism properly East Europe (and perhaps even Russia) would be carved out as the EU's sphere of influence. Trump, however, hates democratic institutions and has been paid millions by Russia and has been proven many times to be a KGB compromised Kremlin asset so he will do what his puppet masters want.

This plan will justify American genocides and interventions, Russian genocides and invasions, and Chinese genocides and expansions and that's exactly the point. Trump, Putin and Xi are all evil men leading evil empires and a corrupt Realist deal to upend the Liberal World Order is exactly what all of them need to advance their genocides of slaughter and corruption.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/6/8/2326684/-Trump-s-Realist-Agenda-is-a-doorway-for-untold-evils?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/