Critique of the critique: why realist opponents of liberal hegemony miss the target?

Abstract

There is an intense debate within the United States on whether it should continue with its current grand strategy of liberal hegemony or replace it with a more restrained foreign policy. Among the opponents of liberal hegemony, four prominent realist international scholars distinguished themselves: Christopher Layne, Barry Posen, Stephen Walt, and John Mearsheimer. However, their critique is flawed on two accounts: (1) they do not define liberal hegemony properly, and (2) liberal hegemony is actually a far more realist strategy than they argue. In this paper, the author criticises the realist critique in three steps. First, he points out that the critics do not answer the question of what hegemony as a state’s status in the international system is, and consequently, whether the U.S. is a hegemon or wants to become one. Second, he shows that the critics fail to deliver a convincing argument that the current U.S. grand strategy is liberal in its content as it is in its source. Third, he applies the critics’ own theories to the U.S. foreign policy case to show that liberal hegemony is in fact a realist grand strategy. The author’s ultimate goal is to make space for a better critique of liberal hegemony, which would still be realist but with the addition of some moderate liberal arguments.

Keywords

• liberal hegemony
• grand strategy
• realism
• liberalism
• the united states