Listen now | I am not a realist, classical or otherwise. A pragmatist? Perhaps, depends what you mean. But not a realist. Still, unlike most IR scholars today, I was trained in a classical realist perspective because of the nature of my PhD program. I have some sympathies for classical realism, but just as many critiques of it. Basically, I would love for my political opponents to be classical realists but I see nothing but tragedy in leftists and progressives outsourcing their judgments about world politics to it.