Joe Funderburke, Ad Godinez, Andy Whiskeyman and Bryan Groves recently teamed up to post a short article on Tom Ricks’ Foreign Policy blog, “The Best Defense.” In the article, this sagacious team of doctoral students offers readers the foundation of what appears to be a cogent argument that the U.S. has taken its eye of the proverbial international relations ball by allowing misfocused, meandering Liberal ideology to supplant a more pragmatic, grounded Realist approach to the formation and execution of foreign policy since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
