Stephen Walt
Stephen Martin Walt is an American political scientist serving as the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of international relations at the Harvard Kennedy School. A member of the realist school of international relations, Walt has made important contributions to the theory of neorealism and has authored the balance of threat theory. Books that he has authored or coauthored include Origins of Alliances, Revolution and War, and The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.
Early life and education
Walt was born in Los Alamos, New Mexico, where his father, Martin Walt, a physicist, worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. His mother was a school teacher. The family moved to the San Francisco Bay Area when Stephen was about eight months old, and he grew up in Los Altos Hills.Walt pursued his undergraduate studies at Stanford University. He first majored in chemistry, as he was planning to become a biochemist, but he then shifted to history and finally to international relations. After earning his BA, Walt began graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, graduating with an MA in political science in 1978, and a PhD in political science in 1983.
Career
Walt taught at Princeton University and the University of Chicago, where he served as master of the Social Science Collegiate Division and deputy dean of social sciences. As of 2015, he holds the Robert and Renee Belfer Professorship in International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School.Other professional activities
Walt served on the board of directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists from 1992 to 2001. He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in May 2005.Walt is frequently invited to speak about foreign policy issues at universities. He spoke at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University in 2010. In 2012, Walt took part in a panel during the "one-state solution" conference on Israel and Palestine at the Kennedy School, along with Ali Abunimah and Eve Spangler. Walt delivered the Harrington Lecture at Clark University in April 2013, as well as the 2013 F. H. Hinsley Lecture at Cambridge University. On December 20, 2013, he gave a talk at the College of William & Mary entitled, "Why US Foreign Policy Keeps Failing".
Views
American power and culture
On the twentieth anniversary of the war against Iraq, Walt characterized the rules-based world order as "a set of rules that we had an enormous role in writing, and of course which we feel free to violate whenever it's inconvenient for us to follow them." In the comprehensive 2005 article "Taming American Power", Walt argued that the US should "make its dominant position acceptable to others—by using military force sparingly, by fostering greater cooperation with key allies, and, most important of all, by rebuilding its crumbling international image." He proposed for the US to "resume its traditional role as an 'offshore balancer, to intervene "only when absolutely necessary", and to keep "its military presence as small as possible." In a late 2011 article for The National Interest, "The End of the American Era", Walt wrote that the US was losing its position of world dominance.Walt gave a speech in 2013 to the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, "Why does US foreign policy keep failing?" The institute later described him as seeing "an overwhelming bias among US foreign policy institutions toward an activist foreign policy" and "a propensity to exaggerate threats, noting the chances of being struck by lightning have been far greater since 2001 than death by terrorist attack." He also characterized the US as lacking "diplomatic skill and finesse" and advised Europeans "to think of themselves and not rely on the US for guidance or advice on solving their security issues." Ultimately, he argued that "the United States is simply not skilled enough to run the world."
In 2013, Walt asked "Why are Americans so willing to pay taxes in order to support a world-girdling national security establishment, yet so reluctant to pay taxes to have better schools, health care, roads, bridges, subways, parks, museums, libraries, and all the other trappings of a wealthy and successful society?" He said that the question was especially puzzling given that "the United States is the most secure power in history and will remain remarkably secure unless it keeps repeating the errors of the past decade or so."
Foreign policy
A critic of military interventionism, Walt stated:Europe
In 1998, Walt wrote that "deep structural forces" were "beginning to pull Europe and America apart". Walt argued that NATO must be sustained because of four major areas in which close co-operation is beneficial to European and American interest.- Defeating international terrorism; Walt saw a need for cooperation between Europe and the United States in managing terrorist networks and stopping the flow of money to terror cells.
- Limiting the spread of weapons of mass destruction; Walt argued that anti-proliferation efforts are most successful when Europe and the US work in concert to bring loose nuclear material into responsible custody. He cited the case of Libya's willingness to abandon its nascent fission program after being pressured multilaterally as evidence of this.
- Managing the world economy; lowering barriers to trade and investment particularly between the US and the EU would accelerate economic growth. Notable differences in trade policy stem mainly in areas of agricultural policy.
- Dealing with failed states; failed states are breeding grounds for anti-Western movements. Managing failed states such as Afghanistan, Bosnia and Somalia require a multinational response since the US has insufficient wealth to modernise and rebuild these alone. In this area, European allies are especially desirable because they have more experience with peacekeeping and "nation-building".
Eastern Europe and Russia
In 2023, after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Walt condemned Russia's actions as illegal, but called the morality of the war "murky" in an article for Foreign Policy. Taking a similar stance to that of his co-author John Mearsheimer, Walt has called for an end to military aid to Ukraine and claimed that NATO expansion is partially at fault for the conflict. In 2025, in an interview on NPR's Morning Edition, Walt criticized the second Trump administration's handling of the war, stating that Ukraine's sovereignty and security should be ensured in any negotiated settlement.
Middle East
Walt said in December 2012 that America's "best course in the Middle East would be to act as an 'offshore balancer': ready to intervene if the balance of power is upset, but otherwise keeping our military footprint small. We should also have normal relationship with states like Israel and Saudi Arabia, instead of the counterproductive 'special relationships' we have today." An article by Walt entitled "What Should We Do if the Islamic State Wins? Live with it." appeared on June 10, 2015, in Foreign Policy magazine. He explained his view that the Islamic State was unlikely to grow into a longlasting world power on Point of Inquiry, the podcast of the Center for Inquiry in July 2015.Israel
Walt has been a critic, along with his co-author John Mearsheimer of the offensive neorealism school of international relations, of the Israel lobby in the United States and the influence he says that it has on its foreign policy. He wrote that Barack Obama erred by breaking with the principles in his Cairo speech by allowing continued Israeli settlement and by participating in a "well-coordinated assault" against the Goldstone Report.Walt suggested in 2010 that State Department diplomat Dennis Ross's alleged partiality toward Israel might make him give Obama advice that was against US interests. Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, defended Ross and criticized Walt in a piece published by Foreign Affairs, which had published Walt's piece a few days earlier. Satloff wrote that Ross's connection to WINEP is innocuous and that Walt mistakenly believes that the US cannot simultaneously "advance strategic partnership both with Israel and with friendly Arab and Muslim states."
After the Itamar attack, in which a Jewish family was killed on the West Bank in March 2011, Walt condemned the murderers but added that "while we are at it, we should not spare the other parties who have helped create and perpetuate the circumstances." He listed "every Israeli government since 1967, for actively promoting the illegal effort to colonize these lands," "Palestinian leaders who have glorified violence," and "the settlers themselves, some of whom routinely use violence to intimidate the Palestinians who live in the lands they covet."
Walt criticized the US for voting against a Security Council resolution condemning Israel's West Bank settlements and called the vote a "foolish step" because "the resolution was in fact consistent with the official policy of every president since Lyndon Johnson."
Iran
Walt has frequently criticized America's policy with respect to Iran. In 2011, Walt told an interviewer that the American reaction to an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in the United States "might be part of a larger American diplomatic effort to put Iran on the hot seat." In December 2012, Walt wrote, "Washington continues to insist on a near-total Iranian capitulation. And because Iran has been effectively demonized here in America, it would be very hard for President Obama to reach a compromise and then sell it back home."Walt said in November 2013, "Americans often forget just how secure the United States is, especially compared with other states," thanks to its power, resources, and geography, and thus "routinely blows minor threats out of all proportion. I mean: Iran has a defense budget of about $10 billion... yet we manage to convince ourselves that Iran is a Very Serious Threat to US vital interests. Ditto the constant fretting about minor-league powers like Syria, North Korea, Muammar al-Qaddafi's Libya, and other so-called 'rogue states.'" Therefore, whatever happens in the Middle East, "the United States can almost certainly adjust and adapt and be just fine."