University of Wisconsin-River Falls
Why Realism and Liberalism Made the Single-Biggest Impact on the Foreign Policy Decisions
by the Bush and Obama Administrations, Respectively
Travis Koester
Dr. Sooh-Rhee Ryu
POLS 260: Introduction to International Relations
15 December 2017
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Since their origin centuries ago, the two core theories within the study of international
relations, realism and liberalism, have influenced many of the decisions made by political
leaders. Although both theories acknowledge the existence of major issues in the international
system, the two theories’ viewpoints on the ways each individual state should overcome these
issues are complete opposites. Realism has a more pessimistic view of the world and believes
that states are the central actors in the international system. According to a realist, the
international political system is an anarchy, which means all states must seek to maximize their
power in order to survive against the anarchical world. Even though pursuing self-interests and
power maximization are important under realism, states must be rational, which means they must
weigh all costs and benefits before making a decision. On the other side, liberalists hold a more
optimistic and complex view of the international system. They argue that states are only a small
part of the system that also includes international organizations and nongovernmental actors.
Liberalists reject the ideas of power politics and military force as the only possible solutions to
international issues. Although these two theories hold completely different worldviews, they
have one major similarity. Throughout much of history, both theories have had a similarly large
impact on the foreign policy decisions of political leaders across the globe. However, have these
two theories made the single-biggest impact on the foreign policy decisions made by leaders? Or
do other factors such as interest groups, powerful multinational corporations, or public opinion
have a bigger influence in the minds of leaders? Through extensive analysis of the major foreign
policy decisions made by the last two U.S. presidents, it can be determined that realism and
liberalism made the single-biggest impact on the global agendas of President George W. Bush
and President Barack Obama, respectively.
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Under the Bush administration, the 2002 decision to withdraw the United States from the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty is the first major example of realism’s influence on the former
president. Ratified in 1972 between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty was an arms control treaty that was designed to limit the deployment of missile
systems used in defending areas against ballistic missile-delivered nuclear weapons. After being
in effect for thirty years, the withdrawal by the United States in 2002 terminated the treaty and
marked the first time in history that the United States has withdrawn from a major arms control
treaty. Former UN employee, Dr. Andrew Thomson, has coauthored a book entitled Emergency
Sex and Other Desperate Measures: True Stories from a War Zone, which perfectly sums up the
realist perspective on the ineffectiveness of international organizations. In the book, Thomson
criticizes the United Nations inability to fulfill its goal of peacekeeping with the following line:
“If blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers show up in your town or village and offer to protect you,
run” (Thomson. et al 221). President Bush’s decision to pull the United States out of the Anti-
Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia is a direct example of this exact realist sentiment, which
believes that cooperation through treaties is a futile endeavor. Although much of the public and
experts on foreign policy supported the treaty, the influence of realism that led to withdrawal far
outweighed all the other factors in President Bush’s mind.
The 2003 invasion that started the war in Iraq is another example of the magnitude of
realism’s influence in George W. Bush’s foreign policy decisions. The Bush administration
based its rationale for the invasion of Iraq on the claim that the Iraqi government possessed
weapons of mass destruction that posed a serious threat to the safety of America. Although the
American public favored a diplomatic approach towards Iraq over a military invasion, the U.S.
Congress passed a resolution in 2002, which authorized President Bush to use military force
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against Iraq. In his 2010 memoir entitled Decision Points, George W. Bush reflects on what he
feels should be the top priority of any president: “I believe the most solemn duty of the American
president is to protect the American people” (Bush 287). This belief in the importance of strong
national security, which was magnified after the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks in September of 2001,
is another one of the core principles of realism. This emphasis on strengthening the security of
one state, while inadvertently causing security reactions from other states is called a ‘security
dilemma’. This belief in increased protection is caused by a realist’s preexisting belief that all
states are inherently egocentric and competitive. In his original 1651 book Leviathan, one of the
founders of modern political philosophy, Thomas Hobbes, provides realism’s logic behind this
pessimistic viewpoint. According to Hobbes’s theory called the ‘State of Nature’, without a
world government, the international system is in a state of total anarchy, which causes “a war as
