In the famous fable “The Scorpion and the Frog,” a frog reluctantly agrees to carry a scorpion across the river on his back, despite his reservations that the scorpion will sting him. The scorpion convinces the frog by arguing that it would not be in his interest to harm the frog, as it would cause them both to drown. But halfway across, the scorpion stings the frog anyway. “I could not help it,” he ruefully remarks. “It is my nature.”
This parable highlights an often-overlooked aspect of foreign policy. For while there is a perennial debate over whether we should prioritize “interests” or “values,” the real distinction between a strong and a weak foreign policy is how one understands human nature.
Interests and values are, after all, not mutually exclusive. Policymakers cannot decide what to do in a specific instance without also considering, even implicitly, what they morally should do. The primary objective of statesmen is to secure the interests of their nation as determined by the values that animate and shape those interests, including how they are defined, prioritized, and pursued.
There is no escaping some form of values-driven foreign policy, even as the values which guide us may sharply diverge. For example, in Walter Russell Mead’s taxonomy of American foreign policy traditions, even the two most associated with realism are still clearly influenced by values considerations. Jacksonianism is shaped by a code of honor that prioritizes respect, equality, and individualism. Meanwhile, Hamiltonianism is firmly rooted in appreciation for freedom of navigation, trade, and the free flow of capital necessary for global commerce.
Beyond American or even democratic traditions more broadly, Henry Kissinger noted in Diplomacy that the peace achieved at Metternich’s Congress of Vienna in 1815, often cited as the paradigmatic example of a successfully engineered balance of power based on realism, worked because of a “sense of shared values” between the nations of Europe. Cardinal Richelieu’s understanding of France’s raison d’état in the 17th century was not values-neutral but instead prioritized the unity of a centralized nation-state over subsidiarity and religious affiliations. And it is not merely structural issues driving Xi Jinping’s belligerence—his Marxist-Leninist worldview clearly shapes his perceptions of China’s interests.
So why is it so common to hear that we must reject a values-driven foreign policy in favor of interests only? The problem is that “values” in foreign policy have for decades been coopted by Wilsonian liberal internationalism. This Wilsonianism overemphasizes aims such as democracy and human rights promotion, often distorted by a progressive worldview, and always insists upon multilateralism. As a result, many have come to perceive an inherent utopianism to any values-driven foreign policy. From Wilson’s League of Nations, to Roosevelt’s belief that Stalin would be a reliable partner for peace, to the post-Cold War belief in the inevitability of democratic capitalism, Wilsonian liberal internationalists have been convinced that mankind could transcend conflict and establish a permanent peace.
As the unrealistic nature of this utopian framework has been realized, there has been a backlash in the other direction. At this year’s Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Secretary Pete Hegseth stated that “the bedrock of a durable partnership is not based on idealistic values, but on the concrete alignment of national interests,” a not-so-subtle dismissal of the Biden administration’s failed “values-based foreign policy.” But while it’s true that excessive idealism leads to bad outcomes, we must acknowledge there is no such thing as a foreign policy understood entirely apart from moral considerations.
So, to borrow from Augustine of Hippo, how can our foreign policy be guided by rightly ordered interests and values? We must start with a correct understanding of human nature, one that recognizes both mankind’s inherent dignity and capacity for darkness.
As our founding fathers understood, humanity was created in the image of God, meaning each person possesses an intrinsic dignity that affords them a fundamental set of unalienable rights and a capacity for goodness. This, of course, is broadly accepted by liberal internationalism – but it is only half the equation. Because just as we accept the classical Judeo-Christian understanding or virtue, we must also accept the Judeo-Christian understanding of vice.
That is where the second element enters – the darkness. Utopian foreign policies fail to recognize the limitations imposed by the darkness innate to man’s fallen nature—our inherent tendency towards egoism at the expense of others. Whether one is religious or not, the fallenness of man is beyond dispute. As Senator Arthur Vandenberg remarked of those who would try to use politics to promise a utopia, “Have we not already seen enough of the fallacy and extravagance of those idle theories which have amused us with promises of an exemption from the imperfections, weaknesses and evils incident to society in every shape?”
Senator Vandenberg understood what our founding fathers had recognized nearly 150 years earlier. Unlike Marxist revolutionaries, whose bloodshed in pursuit of utopia has stained so much of the Earth, the signatories of the Declaration of Independence and framers of the Constitution were clear-eyed about human nature. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and others recognized the need for a system of government that, while rooted in the belief that “all men are created equal,” accounted for the reality that mankind’s ambition and pride would be a constant, unavoidable source of conflict. They did not seek to change that nature; the best they could hope to do was to develop frameworks to contain and mitigate its worst effects.
This sober pragmatism, however, was inherited from a still older tradition of Christian statecraft. Today, the foreign policy perspective that appreciates man’s both the dignity and darkness of man is appropriately termed “Christian realism.” Reinhold Niebuhr, the most famous expositor of Christian realism, recognized mankind as both made in the image of God and capable of good while also fundamentally corrupt and predisposed towards horrific evil. A rightly ordered foreign policy must always account for both sides of human nature, uniting what Niebuhr called “the wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove.” Niebuhr decried both the “Children of Light,” meaning idealists who, in pursuit of idealistic visions, ultimately precipitate worse outcomes, and the “Children of Darkness,” cynics who, having abandoned notions of moral equality and the universal brotherhood of man, instead believe that dominance by one group or another, defined in terms of class, race, or religion, is the only truth to be apprehended. Both extremes lead to disaster, undermining the security, freedom, and prosperity our founders bequeathed us.
In practice, Christian realism is a flexible framework whose application can be expected to look different depending on the circumstances. This is not a critique but rather a recognition that statecraft is ultimately more art than science. Yet even as the future remains unknowable, we can say with certainty that war and conflict will always plague humanity, and so military power, used with both strategic and moral considerations in mind, will always be necessary. We will always face enemies seeking to manipulate and undermine our free markets and free societies. And while our nation was founded on universal principles that should inform how we identify and pursue our interests, these principles will never be universally accepted by all nations and civilizations. The evidence of the antagonism some feel toward our western values—September 11, 2001—is after all about to see its 25th commemoration.
As Hans Morgenthau remarked in The Purpose of American Politics, “In order to be worthy of our lasting sympathy, a nation must pursue its interests for the sake of a transcendent purpose.” The United States should pursue its national interests in accordance with its values, which in turn must be informed by the truth of human nature. Recognizing the truth of human nature will avoid the pitfalls of utopianism and ensure interests and values are the mutually reinforcing foreign policy pillars they were always intended to be. This is the secret formula of U.S. policy. It must be driven equally by a pessimistic view of the human being—what the realists get right – and optimistic hopes for the human race—where the Wilsonians thrive. If you remove either side of the equation, the whole thing falls apart.
