Analysis

Why Everyone in Washington Is a ‘Realist’ Now

What’s emerging is not yet a new consensus. But neither is it as incoherent as current rhetoric would have you believe. August 8, 2025, 3:00 PM Comment icon View Comments ( )

An illustration shows the United States map on a globe stand with the world shattered around it. The stand is in blue and red.

If there is one thing that both political parties can agree on, it’s that traditional U.S. foreign policy lies in ruins—or, at least, the idea of America-as-globocop that prevailed in the post-World War II and post-Cold War eras.

And as strategists from both sides sift through the rubble—trying to piece together some kind of coherent vision for the United States’ future global role—they’re finding that they agree on more th

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