Realism And The End Of The Cold War Wohlforth Analysis

Realism and the End of the Cold War by William C. Wohlforth argues that Modern realism began in a reaction to the breakdown in the post-World War One international order. Wohlforth’s main ideology is realism and states how the rise and fall of realism has taken place, but stresses that international world events cannot weaken or destroy the realist ideology. The collapse of the great power cooperation helped emerge realism to be a dominant position in international relations. The central question presented in this article looks to seek to ask, did the rapid decline and peaceful collapse of the Soviet State, along with the postwar international order, discredit the realist approach? However, Wohlforth believes that. Realist theories were not …show more content…
He discusses the intellectual challenges by the post 1989 changes in world politics, What we should expect these series of changes to tell us about international relations theories? How much do these theories tell us about these events? Second he outlines the realist explanation of recent changes in world politics. Third he examines the critiques of the realism theory based on the Cold War and Soviet collapse. Last, Wohlforth brings up some important lessons brought up from these post 1989 …show more content…
The Soviet Union failed to challenge American hegemony. Wohlforth says that structural or neorealism was so popular to the Soviet Union because it seemed to explain the state of affairs. The end of the Cold War international system was caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Regardless of the cause, the global transformation of the collapse of the Cold War was realized when a great power abandoned territory, which this . This statement greatly represents realism. The explanation of the fall of the Soviet Union would be to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of Gorbachev and other central decisions that were made in the state such as the strengths and weaknesses of socialism, and national sentiments of the Soviet Union, but to understand the events in world politics we must understand the theories as weak as they may be. It gives us implications to help us understand the wide variations of interactions that occur among states, and how fast nations and how much other nations are able to undergo change from past earlier eras. Wohlforth says that a casual analysis is important to realism in order to save it. Critics of realism understand the weaknesses of realism,