ABSTRACT
A revolution is sweeping the world-a revolution of democracy. In Democratic Ideals and Reality, which was first published in 1919, Halford Mackinder argued that Woodrow Wilson's democratic idealism might be noble but failed to deal with world realities. The changes in Eastern Europe go to the heart of the debate between realism and idealism. A proper understanding of idealism, therefore, 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. Idealist analysis provides criteria for assessing whether a military buildup is the result of perceptions of insecurity or the product of a drive for military supremacy to achieve political objectives by the threat or use of arms. In the meantime, recognizing the dangers of the world as it exists, idealism provides a mechanism for assessing the degree of threat posed by hostile regimes, in particular the threat posed by a military buildup.
