The days when Russians marvelled at the West are long gone,” said Alexei Venediktov, one of Russia’s most liberal journalists. “Now, as in Soviet times, most people here think they are surrounded by enemies who want Russia to be weak. Democracy, western-style, has become a dirty word.”

An American Foreign Policy That Both Realists and Idealists Should Fall in Love With

With such crossover potential, this paradigm might even help Democrats win a presidential election. But Democrats can embrace it only if they’re willing to annoy an interest group or two and also reject a premise common in Democratic policy circles lately: that the key to a winning foreign policy is to recalibrate the party’s manhood — just take boilerplate liberal foreign policy and add a testosterone patch. Even if that prescription did help win an election, it wouldn’t succeed in protecting America.

First, the word signifies a belief in, well, progress. Free markets are spreading across the world on the strength of their productivity, and economic liberty tends to foster political liberty

Oddly, this progressive realist faith in markets seems to be stronger than the vaunted neoconservative faith in markets. After all, if you believe that history is on the side of political freedom — and that this technological era is giving freedom an especially strong push — your approach to fostering democracy isn’t to invade countries and impose it. And if you believe that the tentacles of capitalism help spread freedom, you don’t threaten to disrupt economic engagement with China for such small gains as the release of a few political prisoners.

• dc: I think this whole apprach needs dissassembly.

In the economic realm, progressivism means continuing to support the World Trade Organization as a bulwark against protectionism — but also giving it the authority to address labor issues, as union leaders have long advocated. Environmental issues, too, should be addressed at the W.T.O. and through other bodies of regional and global governance.

The Nation points to the illogic of the Bush administration in having pushed Syria out of Lebanon and now demanding that it rein in Hizbullah. If Syria has been reduced to having almost no influence in Lebanon, how exactly would it do that?