Lišanin, Mladen (2021) Transcending the Rift? Realism, Transatlantic Relations, and American Grand Strategy. In: World Order Transition and the Atlantic Area. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 143-155.

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Abstract

Realism has earned many friends and foes by being focused on international relations as they really are, and not as they ought to be. However, confronted with failures of the US in aspiring to steer international system of the post-Cold War era, it has become increasingly normative and, in spite of all the theoretical disputes among its main proponents, seems to speak almost with one voice in this regard: advocating the grand strategy of restraint, or offshore balancing, for America. Great powers tend to act in ways entirely conceivable from the theoretical point of view of realism, while at the same time being, paradoxically, at odds with realist policy prescriptions. American long-pursued grand strategy of primacy, or deep engagement, is a vivid example. Strongly embracing Layne’s proposition that structural and neoclassical versions of realism are not only far from incompatible, but necessarily employed together if one is to properly understand great powers’ grand strategies; and drawing from contemporary realist literature on strategy of restraint and offshore balancing (from Waltz and Posen, to Mearsheimer and Walt, to Ashford and Porter), the author explores possible developments of transatlantic relations in case the US adopts a more restrained strategic posture. It is argued that this might be an unexpected incentive to revitalize international institutions, most notably the UN and the OSCE, as well as defense component of the EU, in order to restore great power confidence, thus mitigating the consequences of the incoming struggle for spheres of influence.

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