Episode 93
Stephen Walt | America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy
Episode 93
Stephen Walt
Stephen Walt | America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy
summary
In this week’s episode of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Harvard University’s Professor of International Affairs Stephen Walt, about the arch of American foreign policy and the decline of U.S. primacy.
The conversation begins by addressing the major arguments made by America’s foreign policy elite in favor of US engagement and American military leadership abroad. Before the end of World War II, there was no foreign policy “community” in the United States, as there was in the United Kingdom or France. The US was still largely an isolationist country, and the expectation was that it would return to isolation after the allies signed the Paris Peace Treaties in 1947, just as it had after the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Though demobilization started in earnest shortly after the conclusion of the war, the process was arrested soon after it began as the allies came to realize that the Soviet Union presented an altogether new type of threat to Western countries. In 1946, George Kennan, the American charge d’affaires in Moscow, sent what would become arguably the most important telegram in American foreign policy history, rivaled only by that dispatched on behalf of Arthur Zimmermann in 1917: an 8,000-word telegram to the Department of State detailing his views on the Soviet Union and U.S. policy toward the communist state. Known as “The Long Telegram” or “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” George Kennan’s analysis provided one of the most influential underpinnings for what became America’s Cold War policy of containment. With the Soviet Union’s detonation of its first Atomic weapon on August 29th, 1949, the Cold War was off to the races.
If the Cold War began with a bang, it ended with a whimper. Forty years after the Soviet’s tested their first atom bomb, the Berlin Wall was torn down by Eastern Europeans and Russians tired of living under totalitarian communism. And yet, rather than demobilize or ramp down America’s military presence abroad, the United States doubled down on it. In the thirty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United States has invaded, occupied, bombed, and sanctioned more countries than almost any American can find on a map. Why this aggression? What are the assumptions that underlie American foreign policy? What has been the arch of international relations since the end of World War 2 and is there a better way forward? These are just some of the questions Stephen Walt and Demetri address in this phenomenal, seventy-minute episode on the past and future of American foreign policy.
As always, subscribers to our Hidden Forces Patreon page can access the Overtime to this week’s episode, which includes a discussion about Trump’s foreign policy and how the populist forces unleashed by his election in 2016 are shaping the field of Democratic candidates in 2020. You can access all of our subscription content by supporting the podcast at https://hiddenforces.supercast.com
Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas
Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou
Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.supercast.com
Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
bio
Stephen Walt (born July 2, 1955) is the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He previously taught at Princeton and at the University of Chicago, where he served as Master of the Social Science Collegiate Division and Deputy Dean of Social Sciences. He has been a Resident Associate of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace and a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution, and he has also served as a consultant for the Institute of Defense Analyses, the Center for Naval Analyses, and the National Defense University. He presently serves on the editorial boards of Foreign Policy, Security Studies, International Relations, and Journal of Cold War Studies, and he also serves as Co-Editor of the Cornell Studies in Security Affairs, published by Cornell University Press. Additionally, he was elected as a Fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in May 2005.
Professor Walt is the author of The Origins of Alliances (1987), which received the 1988 Edgar S. Furniss National Security Book Award. He is also the author of Revolution and War (1996), Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy (2005), The Israel Lobby (2007), and most recently The Hell of Good Intentions (2018).
transcript
content locked
or Subscribe to Access Premium Content
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Disserendi artem nullam habuit. Sed tamen est aliquid, quod nobis non liceat, liceat illis. At tu eadem ista dic in iudicio aut, si coronam times, dic in senatu. Vide, ne etiam menses! nisi forte eum dicis, qui, simul atque arripuit, interficit. Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Nec enim, dum metuit, iustus est, et certe, si metuere destiterit, non erit;
Graece donan, Latine voluptatem vocant. Gloriosa ostentatio in constituendo summo bono. Expectoque quid ad id, quod quaerebam, respondeas. Bonum patria: miserum exilium. Paria sunt igitur.
Et nemo nimium beatus est; Laelius clamores sofòw ille so lebat Edere compellans gumias ex ordine nostros. Sed tamen enitar et, si minus multa mihi occurrent, non fugiam ista popularia. Certe non potest. Cur ipse Pythagoras et Aegyptum lustravit et Persarum magos adiit? Tum Torquatus: Prorsus, inquit, assentior;
Conferam tecum, quam cuique verso rem subicias; Si stante, hoc natura videlicet vult, salvam esse se, quod concedimus; Aliter enim explicari, quod quaeritur, non potest. Consequens enim est et post oritur, ut dixi. Odium autem et invidiam facile vitabis. Bonum negas esse divitias, praeposìtum esse dicis?
Full Episode
content locked
or Subscribe to Access Premium Content
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Duae sunt enim res quoque, ne tu verba solum putes. Quod autem satis est, eo quicquid accessit, nimium est; Cum autem in quo sapienter dicimus, id a primo rectissime dicitur. Quis suae urbis conservatorem Codrum, quis Erechthei filias non maxime laudat? Idem etiam dolorem saepe perpetiuntur, ne, si id non faciant, incidant in maiorem. Duo Reges: constructio interrete.
Illum mallem levares, quo optimum atque humanissimum virum, Cn. Quis animo aequo videt eum, quem inpure ac flagitiose putet vivere? Hoc loco discipulos quaerere videtur, ut, qui asoti esse velint, philosophi ante fiant. Primum cur ista res digna odio est, nisi quod est turpis? Potius inflammat, ut coercendi magis quam dedocendi esse videantur. Conferam tecum, quam cuique verso rem subicias;
Quacumque enim ingredimur, in aliqua historia vestigium ponimus. Illa sunt similia: hebes acies est cuipiam oculorum, corpore alius senescit; Satisne ergo pudori consulat, si quis sine teste libidini pareat? Quantum Aristoxeni ingenium consumptum videmus in musicis? Quae sequuntur igitur? Quis est tam dissimile homini. Ergo hoc quidem apparet, nos ad agendum esse natos. Respondent extrema primis, media utrisque, omnia omnibus. Nos quidem Virtutes sic natae sumus, ut tibi serviremus, aliud negotii nihil habemus. Mihi enim satis est, ipsis non satis.
At, illa, ut vobis placet, partem quandam tuetur, reliquam deserit. Rhetorice igitur, inquam, nos mavis quam dialectice disputare? Ut id aliis narrare gestiant? Plane idem, inquit, et maxima quidem, qua fieri nulla maior potest. Atque hoc loco similitudines eas, quibus illi uti solent, dissimillimas proferebas.
intelligence report
content locked
or Subscribe to Access Premium Content
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Equidem, sed audistine modo de Carneade? Quod dicit Epicurus etiam de voluptate, quae minime sint voluptates, eas obscurari saepe et obrui. Luxuriam non reprehendit, modo sit vacua infinita cupiditate et timore. Itaque a sapientia praecipitur se ipsam, si usus sit, sapiens ut relinquat.
Tu vero, inquam, ducas licet, si sequetur; Vadem te ad mortem tyranno dabis pro amico, ut Pythagoreus ille Siculo fecit tyranno? Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Ergo hoc quidem apparet, nos ad agendum esse natos. Illa argumenta propria videamus, cur omnia sint paria peccata. Itaque et vivere vitem et mori dicimus arboremque et novellan et vetulam et vigere et senescere. Atque haec ita iustitiae propria sunt, ut sint virtutum reliquarum communia. Tum ille timide vel potius verecunde: Facio, inquit.
Ex quo intellegitur officium medium quiddam esse, quod neque in bonis ponatur neque in contrariis. Istam voluptatem, inquit, Epicurus ignorat? Quae cum dixisset paulumque institisset, Quid est? Quod autem in homine praestantissimum atque optimum est, id deseruit. Itaque hic ipse iam pridem est reiectus; Quae autem natura suae primae institutionis oblita est? Luxuriam non reprehendit, modo sit vacua infinita cupiditate et timore. Videamus animi partes, quarum est conspectus illustrior; Illis videtur, qui illud non dubitant bonum dicere -; Iam in altera philosophiae parte.
Nunc de hominis summo bono quaeritur; Bestiarum vero nullum iudicium puto. Philosophi autem in suis lectulis plerumque moriuntur. Multoque hoc melius nos veriusque quam Stoici. Quarum ambarum rerum cum medicinam pollicetur, luxuriae licentiam pollicetur. Qua ex cognitione facilior facta est investigatio rerum occultissimarum. Audeo dicere, inquit. Parvi enim primo ortu sic iacent, tamquam omnino sine animo sint. Paria sunt igitur.
related episodes
Video
content locked
or Subscribe to Access Premium Content
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Mihi vero, inquit, placet agi subtilius et, ut ipse dixisti, pressius. Illis videtur, qui illud non dubitant bonum dicere -; Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Quo modo autem philosophus loquitur? Cur id non ita fit? Roges enim Aristonem, bonane ei videantur haec: vacuitas doloris, divitiae, valitudo; Ecce aliud simile dissimile. Isto modo, ne si avia quidem eius nata non esset.
Tu vero, inquam, ducas licet, si sequetur; Estne, quaeso, inquam, sitienti in bibendo voluptas? Quorum sine causa fieri nihil putandum est. His singulis copiose responderi solet, sed quae perspicua sunt longa esse non debent. Haec bene dicuntur, nec ego repugno, sed inter sese ipsa pugnant. Ita relinquet duas, de quibus etiam atque etiam consideret. Videmusne ut pueri ne verberibus quidem a contemplandis rebus perquirendisque deterreantur? Non enim, si omnia non sequebatur, idcirco non erat ortus illinc. Nam bonum ex quo appellatum sit, nescio, praepositum ex eo credo, quod praeponatur aliis. Qui autem esse poteris, nisi te amor ipse ceperit? Indicant pueri, in quibus ut in speculis natura cernitur.
Quis istud possit, inquit, negare? Ita enim se Athenis collocavit, ut sit paene unus ex Atticis, ut id etiam cognomen videatur habiturus. Quod ea non occurrentia fingunt, vincunt Aristonem; Ne amores quidem sanctos a sapiente alienos esse arbitrantur. Hoc ne statuam quidem dicturam pater aiebat, si loqui posset. Et hunc idem dico, inquieta sed ad virtutes et ad vitia nihil interesse. Gracchum patrem non beatiorem fuisse quam fillum, cum alter stabilire rem publicam studuerit, alter evertere. Quasi ego id curem, quid ille aiat aut neget.
Quae cum praeponunt, ut sit aliqua rerum selectio, naturam videntur sequi; Itaque in rebus minime obscuris non multus est apud eos disserendi labor. Quis enim confidit semper sibi illud stabile et firmum permansurum, quod fragile et caducum sit? Vide ne ista sint Manliana vestra aut maiora etiam, si imperes quod facere non possim. Vos autem cum perspicuis dubia debeatis illustrare, dubiis perspicua conamini tollere. Illa videamus, quae a te de amicitia dicta sunt.