Desert Shield of the Republic? A Realist Case for Abandoning the Middle East

Abstract

Political realists disagree on what America should "do" and "be" in the Middle East. All are skeptical towards extravagant geopolitical projects to transform the region. Yet they differ over whether hegemony in the Gulf and its wider environs is worth the substantial investment of blood and treasure. Hegemonic "primacy realism" finds the commitment effective and affordable, and that Washington should stay to stabilize the region to ensure a favorable concentration of power. There is an alternative "shield of the republic" realism, however, which views the Middle East as an unruly place that entangles and corrupts, involving interests that are either manageable from a remove or only generated by being there in the first place. In this article, we lay out the latter position, arguing that the Gulf is increasingly peripheral to U.S. national interests while imposing high costs. The region is losing its salience grand strategically, entanglement has damaged republican liberties, and the calculus of whether continued hegemony is "worth it" has shifted decisively towards the downside. The time for abandonment has come.

Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment

“…Kuru ignores the various strands of Salafism, from the quietist to violent and everything in between (Bubalo and Fealy;Liow 2009;Salae 2017;Anjum 2016). Blagden and Porter (2021) similarly produce such narratives. For Kuru, drawing particular ire is the figure of Ibn Taymiyya, one of the most illustrious and misunderstood figures in history.…”

Roleplay, realpolitik and ‘great powerness’: the logical distinction between survival and social performance in grand strategy

“…But since no unipolar moment is assuredly timeless – and especially when faced by the most economically potent rising peer-competitor since its own great-power emergence (Layne, 2012) – realpolitik prescribes prudent husbandry of national capabilities, avoidance of gainless escalation, and retrenchment of commitments peripheral to the great-power balance (MacDonald and Parent, 2011). Instead, the United States has spent the last two decades wasting lives, treasure, and materiel on blowback-provoking, escalation-risking military efforts to police strategically peripheral regions – undermining domestic cohesion and thus strategic effectiveness in the process (Blagden and Porter, 2021) – motivated by notions of its indispensable ordering role. In short, despite its still-unmatched wherewithal, the United States is observably conflicted between realpolitikal imperatives to concentrate its power on balancing an ascendant peer-competitor (e.g.…”