Stephen Walt, a professor of international affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, is one of the world’s leading scholars of the realist school in international relations, having authored a series of seminal works building upon the theory of defensive realism. […]
The JoongAng Ilbo spoke to Walt at its office in central Seoul on Tuesday, discussing South Korea’s place in the United States-led regional order in Asia amid a confused list of policies that is the Donald Trump Doctrine.
You’ve written before that the United States should pay greater attention to Asia rather than Europe or the Middle East. Can you tell us more about that?
[…] The United States needs to focus most of its attention on Asia. What’s happening in Europe is not unimportant, but the United States doesn’t need to be there to protect Europe. The Middle East has been a disaster for the United States. The more heavily involved we get there, the more trouble we get into. We shouldn’t be doing that at all and focus our attention on Asia. […]
What do you think about the Donald Trump administration’s policy in Asia?