The history of Western diplomacy alternates between periods of “realism” and ideology. In the first, regimes maneuver for marginal advantage, their conflicts tempered by shared beliefs and interests. In the second, they seek to destroy or transform one another, with much less concern for means. Warfare occurs in both, but it is more limited, easily settled, and fluid with respect to coalitions in the former. In the latter, intervals of “neither war nor peace” and relatively rigid alliance systems punctuate few-holds-barred combat. One setting is a theater for worldly and cynical statesmen; the other for zealots, adventurers, and tyrants. Far …read more
Source: The American Conservative
