Does Steve Walt love international law?

Steve Walt argues that NATO’s Libya overreach was critical to the Syria diplomatic stalemate:

[I]t is both ironic and tragic that some of the most enthusiastic defenders of multilateralism and international law seem all too willing to ignore them when they get in the way of other things they want to do, however laudable the latter goal might be. But a commitment to multilateralism and international law is not something you can invoke when it suits you and ignore when it doesn’t, at least not without paying a price. Powerful states like the United States can (and do) act with impunity on occasion, but they shouldn’t be surprised when such behavior backfires later on. 

I agree with some of this and argued as much early in the Libya campaign, when it became apparent that the West was going to use its UN authorization to protect civilians as a lever to pursue regime change. I even wondered whether abusing Council authorization wasn’t worse in the long run than simply bypassing the Council.

But there is something profoundly disorienting about a self-proclaimed realist making this kind of argument. Is Walt saying that the West should have not pursued its strategic goal of ousting Gaddafi out of deference to the fine points of a Security Council resolution? (From a narrow national-interest perspective, the Libya campaign seems to be a model: a limited investment to secure the ouster of  a troublesome national leader without any committment to prolonged nation-building in the aftermath.) And since–from Walt’s perspective–international relations is all about interests, why can’t one simply turn on and off the rhetoric about multilateralism and law? It’s all rhetoric in any case, isn’t it? Surely Walt doesn’t believe that uber-realist Russia and China are actually offended by the abuse of multilateral institutions? 

I demand that Steve Walt rise and tell us whether he is actually, in some secret chamber of his heart, a believer in international law and institutions.

More: A reader writes this:

Why can’t it simply be the case that they recognize that the defence of multilateral institutions from abuse at the hands of the world’s sole superpower is a vital national interest for them both?

After all, this is a truism: even together [Russia and China] are not The Biggest Bruisers On The Block.

It is therefore in their national interest that the rule of the jungle does not prevail in international relations, precisely because there are Much Bigger Brutes Than Them lurching around the foliage.

Bosco seems to be quick to laud the USA’s willingness to pursue its own national interest, yet he seems to be remarkably reluctant to consider that other countries might consider it to be in THEIR national interest to remind Uncle Sam – just occasionally – that he is at risk of getting drunk with power.

My point here was not really about the merits of pursuing the national interest. It’s about realism and the role that realists assign to international organizations and international law. From a realist perspective (and here you can see this classic article by Walt’s co-author, John Mearsheimer) international organizations and law are all but irrelevant. They are either entirely cosmetic or mere reflections of state power. They certainly do not alter the way that states exercise that power. So it is passing strange for someone from this theoretical tradition to argue that that there would be any significant "blowback" due to alleged abuse of Security Council authorization. 

My own guess (maybe more of a hope) is that Walt may be tiptoeing toward making a realist case for international institutions and law. The argument might run like this: in a world where damaging and potentially catastrophic conflict is always possible, the primary political virtues are prudence and restraint (something classical realists have long argued). International law and institutions in many respects attempt to build up habits of prudence by requiring that action–particularly military force–clear certain procedural hurdles, notably the Security Council veto. The realist will never believe that political leaders would follow organizational rules or international law out of any sense of obligation.  But maybe leaders can be convinced that following the rules is almost always the most prudent course.