Description
This article presents a postcolonial critique of the neo-realist strategy of offshore balancing. It argues that offshore balancing is an inconsistent imperial strategy that allows regional hegemons to pursue policies of imperialism, by presenting them as ‘rational’ states merely seeking survival. To interrogate this assumption, the article draws on Edward Said’s contrapuntal reading of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In contrast to Walt and Mearsheimer who assume that Israel is a ‘rational’ state whose goal is ‘survival’, Said’s reading takes seriously the enduring imperial past in Israel’s reality as a settler colonial state. The events in Ukraine showed that Said’s reading is relevant beyond Palestine. The failure to take Russian imperialism seriously repeated the problem that Said raised with Palestine: it presented the aggressor as a ‘great power’ with legitimate security concerns. The article concludes that this inconsistency is present throughout Walt and Mearsheimer’s works and undermines the strategy’s usefulness to policymakers.
