Progressive realism is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 foreign policy

Foreign policy

A country's foreign policy, also called the foreign relations policy, consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve its goals within international relations milieu. The approaches are strategically employed to interact with other countries...

 paradigm largely made popular by Robert Wright

Robert Wright (journalist)

Robert Wright is an American journalist, scholar, and prize-winning author of best-selling books about science, evolutionary psychology, history, religion, and game theory, including The Evolution of God, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, The Moral Animal, and Three Scientists and Their Gods:...

 in 2006 which focuses on producing measurable results in pursuit of widely supported goals. It supports stronger international institutions, free trade, and US national interests. Progressive realists' beliefs are similar to neoconservatives in that foreign interests, such as national defense and participation in the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

, serves national interests. They feel that economic interdependence

Economic interdependence

Economic interdependence is a consequence of specialization, or the division of labor, and is almost universal. The participants in an economic system are dependent on others for the products they cannot produce efficiently for themselves. This physical interdependence implies corresponding...

, the environment

Environmental policy

Environmental policy is any [course of] action deliberately taken [or not taken] to manage human activities with a view to prevent, reduce, or mitigate harmful effects on nature and natural resources, and ensuring that man-made changes to the environment do not have harmful effects on...

 and global security makes international governance serve national interest. The policy emphasizes the need to convert"hard" military power

Hard power

Hard power is a term describing political power obtained from the use of military and/or economic coercion to influence the behavior or interests of other political bodies...

 and "soft" attractive power

Soft power

Soft power is the ability to obtain what one wants through co-option and attraction. It can be contrasted with 'hard power', that is the use of coercion and payment...

 into "smart" power

Smart power

Smart power is a term in international relations defined by Joseph Nye as "the ability to combine hard and soft power into a winning strategy." According to Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela R...

.