The theoretical case against offshore balancing: Realism, liberalism, and the limits of rationality in U.S. foreign policy
| Author | Eric Fleury |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/17550882221099553 |
| Published date | 01 February 2023 |
| Date | 01 February 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/17550882221099553
Journal of International Political Theory
2023, Vol. 19(1) 49 –63
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/17550882221099553
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The theoretical case against
offshore balancing: Realism,
liberalism, and the limits of
rationality in U.S. foreign policy
Eric Fleury
Connecticut College, USA
Abstract
Certain realist critics of U.S. foreign policy put forth an alternative model of “offshore
balancing” as a definitively rational alternative to what they regard as the current,
and utterly disastrous, policy of “liberal hegemony.” They predict that the public will
eventually recognize the hollowness of liberalism and demand a foreign policy rooted
in hardnosed realism. They also promise that this rational outline will also be a positive
good, maximizing national interests and moral values with no tradeoffs between them.
I argue that offshore balancing packages realist arguments in an idealist framework,
whereby the good is both self-evident and bound to triumph. This inhibits the actual
realist task of revealing the harsh facts of politics, which inevitably interfere with
preferences. Offshore balancing traps itself between its claim of inevitability, which
undercuts the need for advocacy, and desirability, which pushes against its inevitability.
The only way they can resolve this contradiction is with an increasingly caustic account
of liberalism as so utterly wrong and immoral that its opponents earn the mark of reason
and goodness by sheer virtue of their opposition. Offshore balancing subordinates its
account of the world as it is to a demand of how the world must not be.
Keywords
Christopher Layne, John Mearsheimer, offshore balancing, realism, Stephen Walt, U.S.
foreign policy
Introduction
The realist tradition of international politics has defined itself around a particular under-
standing of rationality. By gathering together the objective facts of politics, independent
of their own preferences, realists develop a “rational outline” which “imposes intellec-
tual discipline upon the observer,” equipping them with a set of assumptions and
Corresponding author:
Eric Fleury, Connecticut College, 270 Mohegan Avenue, New London, CT 06320, USA.
Email: efleury@conncoll.edu
1099553IPT0010.1177/17550882221099553Journal of International Political TheoryFleury
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