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
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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).
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Cuius ad naturam apta ratio vera illa et summa lex a philosophis dicitur. Levatio igitur vitiorum magna fit in iis, qui habent ad virtutem progressionis aliquantum. Nos paucis ad haec additis finem faciamus aliquando; Universa enim illorum ratione cum tota vestra confligendum puto.
Superiores tres erant, quae esse possent, quarum est una sola defensa, eaque vehementer. Sed tu istuc dixti bene Latine, parum plane. Sed tamen enitar et, si minus multa mihi occurrent, non fugiam ista popularia. Qua igitur re ab deo vincitur, si aeternitate non vincitur? Consequens enim est et post oritur, ut dixi. Itaque et manendi in vita et migrandi ratio omnis iis rebus, quas supra dixi, metienda. Voluptatem cum summum bonum diceret, primum in eo ipso parum vidit, deinde hoc quoque alienum; Se dicere inter honestum et turpe nimium quantum, nescio quid inmensum, inter ceteras res nihil omnino interesse. Respondent extrema primis, media utrisque, omnia omnibus. Si mala non sunt, iacet omnis ratio Peripateticorum.
Quid, cum fictas fabulas, e quibus utilitas nulla elici potest, cum voluptate legimus? Quod autem satis est, eo quicquid accessit, nimium est; Nos vero, inquit ille; Commoda autem et incommoda in eo genere sunt, quae praeposita et reiecta diximus; Huic ego, si negaret quicquam interesse ad beate vivendum quali uteretur victu, concederem, laudarem etiam; Ergo infelix una molestia, fellx rursus, cum is ipse anulus in praecordiis piscis inventus est? Aut haec tibi, Torquate, sunt vituperanda aut patrocinium voluptatis repudiandum. Ea possunt paria non esse.
Sed tamen est aliquid, quod nobis non liceat, liceat illis. Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Quae enim adhuc protulisti, popularia sunt, ego autem a te elegantiora desidero.
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Beatus autem esse in maximarum rerum timore nemo potest. Et quidem saepe quaerimus verbum Latinum par Graeco et quod idem valeat; Quae diligentissime contra Aristonem dicuntur a Chryippo. Iam doloris medicamenta illa Epicurea tamquam de narthecio proment: Si gravis, brevis; Atque ab his initiis profecti omnium virtutum et originem et progressionem persecuti sunt. Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Haec para/doca illi, nos admirabilia dicamus. Addebat etiam se in legem Voconiam iuratum contra eam facere non audere, nisi aliter amicis videretur.
Dempta enim aeternitate nihilo beatior Iuppiter quam Epicurus; Sed quae tandem ista ratio est? Hoc loco tenere se Triarius non potuit. Summae mihi videtur inscitiae. Oratio me istius philosophi non offendit;
Itaque hic ipse iam pridem est reiectus; Sapientem locupletat ipsa natura, cuius divitias Epicurus parabiles esse docuit. Esse enim quam vellet iniquus iustus poterat inpune. Nihil opus est exemplis hoc facere longius. Hoc est dicere: Non reprehenderem asotos, si non essent asoti. Cur id non ita fit? Quae cum essent dicta, finem fecimus et ambulandi et disputandi. At cum de plurimis eadem dicit, tum certe de maximis. Non elogia monimentorum id significant, velut hoc ad portam: Hunc unum plurimae consentiunt gentes populi primarium fuisse virum.
Sin tantum modo ad indicia veteris memoriae cognoscenda, curiosorum. An hoc usque quaque, aliter in vita? Effluit igitur voluptas corporis et prima quaeque avolat saepiusque relinquit causam paenitendi quam recordandi. Sit enim idem caecus, debilis. In omni enim arte vel studio vel quavis scientia vel in ipsa virtute optimum quidque rarissimum est. At coluit ipse amicitias. Deinde disputat, quod cuiusque generis animantium statui deceat extremum. Se dicere inter honestum et turpe nimium quantum, nescio quid inmensum, inter ceteras res nihil omnino interesse. Videamus animi partes, quarum est conspectus illustrior;
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Cave putes quicquam esse verius. Septem autem illi non suo, sed populorum suffragio omnium nominati sunt. Piso igitur hoc modo, vir optimus tuique, ut scis, amantissimus. Ut placet, inquit, etsi enim illud erat aptius, aequum cuique concedere. An potest cupiditas finiri? Honesta oratio, Socratica, Platonis etiam. Sin tantum modo ad indicia veteris memoriae cognoscenda, curiosorum. Mihi, inquam, qui te id ipsum rogavi? Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Nemo nostrum istius generis asotos iucunde putat vivere.
In eo enim positum est id, quod dicimus esse expetendum. Quantum Aristoxeni ingenium consumptum videmus in musicis? Stoici scilicet. Murenam te accusante defenderem. Sed nunc, quod agimus; Quae cum dixisset paulumque institisset, Quid est?
Respondent extrema primis, media utrisque, omnia omnibus. Quamquam id quidem licebit iis existimare, qui legerint. Sine ea igitur iucunde negat posse se vivere? An dubium est, quin virtus ita maximam partem optineat in rebus humanis, ut reliquas obruat? Sic enim censent, oportunitatis esse beate vivere. Est enim effectrix multarum et magnarum voluptatum.
Tamen a proposito, inquam, aberramus. Restinguet citius, si ardentem acceperit. Et ille ridens: Video, inquit, quid agas; Non est ista, inquam, Piso, magna dissensio. Quid censes in Latino fore? Faceres tu quidem, Torquate, haec omnia; Negat enim summo bono afferre incrementum diem.
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Quamquam te quidem video minime esse deterritum. Aliena dixit in physicis nec ea ipsa, quae tibi probarentur; Familiares nostros, credo, Sironem dicis et Philodemum, cum optimos viros, tum homines doctissimos. Praeterea sublata cognitione et scientia tollitur omnis ratio et vitae degendae et rerum gerendarum. An tu me de L. Quam si explicavisset, non tam haesitaret. Duo Reges: constructio interrete.
Ad eas enim res ab Epicuro praecepta dantur. Illa tamen simplicia, vestra versuta. Vitiosum est enim in dividendo partem in genere numerare. Inde igitur, inquit, ordiendum est. Ut non sine causa ex iis memoriae ducta sit disciplina. At miser, si in flagitiosa et vitiosa vita afflueret voluptatibus. Audax negotium, dicerem impudens, nisi hoc institutum postea translatum ad philosophos nostros esset. Quamquam haec quidem praeposita recte et reiecta dicere licebit. Itaque hoc frequenter dici solet a vobis, non intellegere nos, quam dicat Epicurus voluptatem. Quis animo aequo videt eum, quem inpure ac flagitiose putet vivere?
Cum audissem Antiochum, Brute, ut solebam, cum M. Nec vero intermittunt aut admirationem earum rerum, quae sunt ab antiquis repertae, aut investigationem novarum. Inscite autem medicinae et gubernationis ultimum cum ultimo sapientiae comparatur. Tria genera bonorum; Iis igitur est difficilius satis facere, qui se Latina scripta dicunt contemnere.
Cur id non ita fit? Cum id fugiunt, re eadem defendunt, quae Peripatetici, verba. Ex quo intellegitur officium medium quiddam esse, quod neque in bonis ponatur neque in contrariis. Nihilo beatiorem esse Metellum quam Regulum. Nummus in Croesi divitiis obscuratur, pars est tamen divitiarum. Mihi enim satis est, ipsis non satis. Nec vero pietas adversus deos nec quanta iis gratia debeatur sine explicatione naturae intellegi potest. Sit hoc ultimum bonorum, quod nunc a me defenditur;
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Graecis hoc modicum est: Leonidas, Epaminondas, tres aliqui aut quattuor; Quid enim ab antiquis ex eo genere, quod ad disserendum valet, praetermissum est? Ego quoque, inquit, didicerim libentius si quid attuleris, quam te reprehenderim. Quod iam a me expectare noli. Idcirco enim non desideraret, quia, quod dolore caret, id in voluptate est. Tum Torquatus: Prorsus, inquit, assentior; Tria genera bonorum; Et hunc idem dico, inquieta sed ad virtutes et ad vitia nihil interesse. Non dolere, inquam, istud quam vim habeat postea videro;
Scio enim esse quosdam, qui quavis lingua philosophari possint; Atque hoc loco similitudines eas, quibus illi uti solent, dissimillimas proferebas. Deinde disputat, quod cuiusque generis animantium statui deceat extremum. Illud dico, ea, quae dicat, praeclare inter se cohaerere. Vulgo enim dicitur: Iucundi acti labores, nec male Euripidesconcludam, si potero, Latine; Hanc in motu voluptatem -sic enim has suaves et quasi dulces voluptates appellat-interdum ita extenuat, ut M.
Nihil acciderat ei, quod nollet, nisi quod anulum, quo delectabatur, in mari abiecerat. Si enim ita est, vide ne facinus facias, cum mori suadeas. Mihi enim satis est, ipsis non satis. Est enim effectrix multarum et magnarum voluptatum.
Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Etiam inchoatum, ut, si iuste depositum reddere in recte factis sit, in officiis ponatur depositum reddere; Aliter homines, aliter philosophos loqui putas oportere? Atque his de rebus et splendida est eorum et illustris oratio. Itaque hic ipse iam pridem est reiectus; Hoc tu nunc in illo probas. Quae quo sunt excelsiores, eo dant clariora indicia naturae. Minime vero istorum quidem, inquit. Tibi hoc incredibile, quod beatissimum.
