Realism has a lot of advantages over other schools of thought on international relations.  If, for example, you find yourself in an ardent debate over Russia, you can easily dismiss the competing approaches as being “unrealistic” – or naively optimistic – thus winning the point by the simple title of your paradigm.

The truth is that realism is making quite the comeback, and that is a negative trend.  All summer long, we braced ourselves for Henry Kissinger’s brand of realism to dominate throughout the presidential campaigns – but his sudden interest in Russia disappeared rather promptly after the invasion of Georgia (perhaps so as to not complicate McCain’s bid for the White House).  But if anything, the war brought the return of the R-word to the mainstream.

A realist argument for Russia’s invasion of Georgia was recently presented by Dmitri Simes of the Nixon Center in the National Interest.