Introduction
Given Realism’s continuing prominence, students and analysts of East Asian security must be concerned with the question of the usefulness of this paradigm in understanding the behavior of states in a region of immense and self-evident global importance. The argument to be made here is that Realism has three major holes that weaken its ability to comprehend international relations in East Asia. I will discuss and illustrate each of these weaknesses of Realism with examples drawn from the region. I make no claim that these shortcomings of Realism are relevant only to East Asia; indeed, they could probably be applied to other regions well, but such an exercise would exceed the scope of this paper. The ultimate purpose of this inquiry is not to lend support to a campaign for banishing Realism to the scrap heap of social science. My own view is that no other paradigm explains so much with such a simple framework. The goal, rather, is to clearly demarcate Realism’s limits, and to make the case that Realism must be supplemented by other approaches if analysts are to have a chance of fully comprehending their subjects of study.
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