After reading this chapter students should be able to understand:

• What types of threats the United States faces in a unipolar international system
• How power balancing and power transition realists differ in the way they view the world and the policies they advocate
• How (and to what degree) the George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Barack H. Obama administrations have taken a realist perspective in policymaking
• How realist perspectives apply idea that groups struggle over power to international institutions, ethnic conflict, domestic politics, and foreign policymaking