Word: realist
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Those who know Gates consider him a realist in the mold of his mentor Brent Scowcroft, which is why it was surprising to hear such an idealistic answer. But American exceptionalism can signify many things. Its assertion of America's historical uniqueness can suggest that the U.S. has special global obligations and privileges. Exceptionalism can be a dangerous faith because of how much it can extenuate and excuse. Gates is not a philosopher, and it is hard to know what he means by his profession of the exceptionalist faith. It may be just a fancy way of expressing the more...
...certain kinds of psychological or realist fiction,” he says, “peoples’ inward states appear to be determined mostly by who they fall in love with or how their families work. But when you read science fiction attentively you see how much of an individual’s life is guided not by psychology, and not by the unconscious so much as by technological and material circumstances—the difficulty of obtaining information, the availability of transport fuel, the speed of communications...
...Until now, the Administration has made its case for a troop increase by focusing on narrow national-security aims: deterring another terrorist attack against the U.S., denying al-Qaeda a safe haven and preventing further destabilization in Pakistan. That approach reflects the realist bent of much of the Obama team, which believes that foreign policy should be guided more by interests than by ideals. There are two problems, however, with trying to sell a troop surge solely on national-security grounds. The first is that it is almost impossible to prove that sending more troops to Afghanistan will make Americans...
...realist like Obama, that may not seem like a particularly grievous omission. Since taking office, Obama has consciously avoided the sweeping, Wilsonian rhetoric that became the hallmark of George W. Bush's foreign policy after Sept. 11. Unlike Bush, Obama almost never talks about the goals of securing freedom for Afghans or building democratic institutions or liberating women. When it comes to Afghanistan, the liberal President has abandoned the language of liberalism...
...Republic of Korea (D.P.R.K.). Representatives of the latter have been "in conversation" with APT6 lead curator Suhanya Raffel via an intermediary - the Beijing-based British filmmaker Nicholas Bonner. His connections with the Pyongyang-based Mansudae Art Studio helped secure 70 works: paintings, prints and mosaics influenced by the socialist-realist styles of Russia and China. Raffel says their inclusion recognizes "different, parallel art histories that have developed in the region in local specific ways...