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Progressive realism

American foreign policy paradigm focused on producing measurable results in pursuit of widely supported goals

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ7248861
Source-derived summary

Progressive realism is a centre-left foreign policy paradigm largely made popular by Robert Wright in 2006 which focuses on producing measurable results in pursuit of widely supported goals. It supports stronger international institutions, free trade, and national interests. The UK Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, suggested that Progressive Realism will underpin his foreign policy in a speech to the Fabian Society.

Progressive realists' beliefs stand in stark contrast to those of neoconservatives. Unlike neoconservatives, progressive realists assert that international security and economic interdependence enable international governance to advance national interests. They highlight the importance of strong participation in the United Nations and acquiescence to international law. The policy emphasizes the need to convert "hard" power and "soft" power into "smart" power.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Progressive realism” is american foreign policy paradigm focused on producing measurable results in pursuit of widely supported goals. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Progressive, realism and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2006—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Progressive, realism and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american foreign policy paradigm focused on producing measurable results in pursuit of widely supported goals” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7248861. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2006.

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The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Progressive realism” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.