Democracy, Freedom, and Apple Pie Aren’t a Foreign Policy -Foreign Policy

A short critique of liberal idealism’s influence on American foreign policy by Stephan Walt.

“The central problem is that liberalism does not tell us how to translate its moral absolutes into clear, effective strategies for bringing them about. Liberalism identifies a set of moral objectives — a blueprint that all societies are supposed to follow — but says little about what a liberal state should do if some foreign country or leader refuses to “do the right thing.”