ABSTRACT
A proper understanding of idealism begins with the recognition that ideologies matter, and that the foreign policy of a state is an outgrowth of the values embodied in its domestic institutions. In Democratic Ideals and Reality, which was first published in 1919, Sir Halford Mackinder argued that Woodrow Wilson's democratic idealism might be noble but failed to deal with world realities. Idealism provides a fundamental challenge to realism and geopolitics. Throughout the postwar era, American foreign policy has been dominated by a philosophy of realism, which views international politics as a struggle for power in which the interests of the great powers must be in conflict. What is so revolutionary about the changes in the Soviet Union is that they are based on the acknowledgement that the guarantee of world peace lies not in the spread of socialism, but in parliamentary control over war-making power.
