Well, it is the boss that says do "Empowerment." The President put it in his comments in the NSS, and uses it in virtually every forum. By sitting down and considering what he means by that and coming back with a proposal for how that concept might be employed in a new grand strategy/focus to foreign policy, I believe I am merely doing due diligence.

I know for a fact that within the Chairman's strategy team they are drilling into very similar concepts.

No one's calling anyone stupid, but I do sometimes question the motivations of those who ignore specified and implied tasks given to them by their boss if favor of continuing to do what they are comfortable doing. Particularly when it is fairly clear that what they are doing is not working very well.

As to the Realist/Idealist I put that in to make people stop and think. "Containment" has a very "realist" name; but in execution, every since 1950 it has been focused on the containment of ideologies we disagree with. Communism, Islamism. Very Idealistic. "Empowerment" on the other hand has a very Idealistic name, but as I envision it (there is no doctrine or historic experience) it is implemented in a very realist way. Only applying it where national interests exist; and then building coalition and identifying competitors on any given issue by the relative shared and conflicting interests of other parties in regards to that issue.

As an example, the US may only have 20% match on national interests with Iran, but as applied to stability in Afghanistan we may well have an 80% match. A NATO ally such as Germany may have an 80% match with the US in general, but only a 20% match in regards to this issue of Afghan stability. Logic then dictates that the more effective partner for this issue is Iran. This is in concert with Washington's caution on enduring friends and enemies. Containment demands enduring enemies and friends alike. Not very realistic. Empowerment realistically realizes that such issues vary by issue.

As one British leader once said "Britain has no enduring allies, only enduring interests." (or words to that effect).