Robert Kagan

This episode unpacks the history of 250 years of U.S. foreign policy and examines patterns of the United States’ engagement with the world. Host: James M. Lindsay , Mary and David Boies Distinguished Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy, CFR Guest: Robert Kagan , Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution; Author, Dangerous Nation: America’s Place in the World From Its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the Twentieth Century and The Ghost at the Feast: America and Collapse of World Order, 1900-1941 We Discuss: Why Robert Kagan argues that Americans misunderstand their own history and have long been a “dangerous nation” rather than an insular one. How American foreign policy debates have always been entangled with domestic politics, and what the polarized fights of the founding era reveal about the true norm of American political life. Which forces have consistently pulled the United States outward, producing an oscillation between intervention and retrenchment. Why the era of American imperialism following the Spanish-American War, including the humanitarian motives behind U.S. intervention in Cuba, is among the most misunderstood chapters of U.S. history Why Americans tend to enter wars with enthusiasm only to sour on them afterward. Whether the United States is forgetting the lessons of the postwar order. What the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence should teach Americans about the fragility of liberal democracy. Mentioned on the Episode: Robert Kagan, Dangerous Nation: America’s Place in the World From Its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the Twentieth Century , Knopf Robert Kagan, The Ghost at the Feast: America and the Collapse of World Order, 1900–1941 , Knopf Robert Kagan, The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World , Knopf Walter Lippmann, U.S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic , Little, Brown Norman Angell, The Great Illusion , G.P. Putnam’s Sons Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man , Free Press James A. Field Jr., “ American Imperialism: The Worst Chapter in Almost Any Book ,” American Historical Review “ Declaration of Independence ,” National Archives George Washington, “ Farewell Address ,” 1796 For an episode transcript and show notes, visit The President’s Inbox at: https://www.cfr.org/podcasts/presidents-inbox/lessons-from-250-years-of-us-foreign-policy Opinions expressed on The President’s Inbox are solely

The Washington Roundtable is joined by Robert Kagan, a historian and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, for a conversation about the pressures facing American democracy, the security of elections, and how these domestic tensions interact with the collapse of international norms. Nearly a decade after his prescient 2016 column for the Washington Post, “This is How Fascism Comes to America,” Kagan contends that the U.S. has moved beyond the warning and into a full democratic crisis. “There is no chance in the world that Donald Trump is gonna allow himself to lose in the 2026 elections, because that will be the end of his ability to wield total power in the United States ,” Kagan says . This week’s reading: “ The Minnesota War Zone Is Trump’s Most Trumpian Accomplishment ,” by Susan B. Glasser “ What It’s Like to Be Trump’s Closest Ally Right Now ,” by Sam Knight “ A D.H.S. Shooting Puts Portland Back Under the Microscope ,” by James Ross Gardner “ Jay Powell, the Prepster Banker Who Is Standing Up to Trump ,” by John Cassidy “ How Donald Trump Has Transformed ICE ,” Isaac Chotiner “ How Colombia’s President Reached an Uneasy Détente with Donald Trump ,” by Jon Lee Anderson “ Iran’s Regime Is Unsustainable ,” by Robin Wright “ The Supreme Court Gets Back to Work ,” by Amy Davidson Sorkin “ The Lights Are Still On in Venezuela ,” by Armando Ledezma “ How Marco Rubio Went from “Little Marco” to Trump’s Foreign-Policy Enabler ,” by Dexter Filkins The Political Scene draws on the reporting and analysis found in The New Yorker for lively conversations about the big questions in American politics. Join the magazine’s writers and editors as they put into context the latest news—about elections, the economy, the White House, the Supreme Court, and much more. New episodes are available three times a week. Tune in wherever you get your podcasts . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There's rarely a week in which Donald Trump doesn't make the headlines but the last few have been particularly potent with the former US president having been served justice in a US courtroom. One voice who has been vocal in lamenting the transformation of the Republican Party into a vehicle for Trump's agenda is Robert Kagan. He's a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a historian and contributing columnist at The Washington Post. He has advised on policy for the US State Department for both Republican and Democrat administrations. and some of the Republican party's most prominent voices in recent decades. His latest book is Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart—Again; a reflection on the increasing radicalisation of the Republican Party. Joining Kagan in conversation to talk about it for this episode is Edward Luce, chief US commentator for the Financial Times, based in Washington DC, and author of books including The Retreat of Western Liberalism. We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to Indeed.com/IS for £100 sponsored credit. If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all of our longer form interviews and Members-only content, just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. For £4.99 per month you'll also receive: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared episodes, wherever you get your podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series - 15% discount on livestreams and in-person tickets for all Intelligence Squared events - Our member-only newsletter The Monthly Read, sent straight to your inbox ... Or Subscribe on Apple for £4.99: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series ... Already a subscriber? Thank you for supporting our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations! Visit intelligencesquared.com to explore all your benefits including ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content and early access. ... Subscribe to our newsletter here to hear about our latest events, discounts and much more. https://www.intelligencesquared.com/newsletter-signup/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

American Isolationism and the Shifting World Order in the 1920s and 30s | In this 3rd episode of the season, host Andrew Keen talks to Robert Kagan, the distinguished Brookings Institute scholar of foreign policy, about America's dramatically changing place in the world during the Twenties and Thirties. According to Kagan, at the end of World War I Europe expected American democracy to lead a new world order. The Versailles Treaty, designed to engage America in post-war Europe, failed to gain domestic support. America, the world's leading economic powerhouse, retreated into its heartland of domestic concerns: consumer consumption, fears of anarchy, socialism, and communism as well as immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe and Asia. The U.S. Senate, led by conservatives, reinforced America's isolationist foreign policy throughout the 1920s. The domestic power only shifted to the White House and State Department in the late 1930s when the dangers of European fascism threatened America's stability and power. Robert Kagan is the Stephen & Barbara Friedman Senior Fellow with the Project on International Order and Strategy in the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. He is a contributing columnist at The Washington Post and the author of several books, including "The Ghost at the Feast: America and the Collapse of World Order, 1900-1941" and "Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order". Kagan served in the State Department from 1984 to 1988 as a member of the policy planning staff, as principal speechwriter for Secretary of State George P. Shultz, and as deputy for policy in the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs.

Join Hudson Institute Distinguished Fellow Walter Russell Mead for a discussion with historian Robert Kagan on his new book, The Ghost at the Feast: America and the Collapse of World Order, 1900–1941. About the Book At the dawn of the twentieth century, the United States was one of the world’s richest, most populous, and most technologically advanced nations. It was also a nation divided along numerous fault lines, with conflicting aspirations and concerns pulling it in different directions. America’s resulting intervention in World War II marked the beginning of a new era for the United States and for the world. In The Ghost at the Feast: America and the Collapse of World Order, 1900–1941 , Robert Kagan examines America’s rise to global superpower—from the Spanish–American War to World War II. Brilliant and insightful, The Ghost at the Feast shows both the perils of American withdrawal from the world and the price of international responsibility.

Subscribe to The Realignment to access our exclusive Q&A episodes and support the show: https://realignment.supercast.com/. REALIGNMENT NEWSLETTER: https://therealignment.substack.com/ JOIN MARSHALL & SAAGAR AT OUR LIVE CONFERENCE IN DC ON 1/25/2023: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/realignment-live-tickets-443348436107?aff=erelexpmlt PURCHASE BOOKS AT OUR BOOKSHOP: https://bookshop.org/shop/therealignment Email us at: realignmentpod@gmail.com Robert Kagan, author of The Ghost at the Feast: America and the Collapse of World Order, 1900-1941, joins The Realignment to discuss how the U.S. responded to the collapse of world order during and after WWI, how the acquisition of economic and military power permanently shifted America's relationship to Europe and Asia, debates over intervention, and how the pre-WWII period rhymes with today's conflicts.

Bernard-Henri Lévy—one of the West's leading intellectuals—asserts in The Empire and the Five Kings that America is retreating from its traditional leadership role as Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, and Sunni radical Islamism are taking steps to assert power and influence. In conversation with Robert Kagan, a senior fellow with the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. This program took place on February 19, 2019.

"The analogy that is at the heart of this book is about a jungle and a garden," says Robert Kagan. "In order to have a garden and sustain a garden, you've got to be constantly gardening. For me at least, that is a good analogy for this liberal world order, which itself is an unnatural creation which natural forces are always working to undermine." Human nature has not fundamentally changed, and this peaceful period is an aberration.

"The analogy that is at the heart of this book is about a jungle and a garden," says Robert Kagan. "In order to have a garden and sustain a garden, you've got to be constantly gardening. For me at least, that is a good analogy for this liberal world order, which itself is an unnatural creation which natural forces are always working to undermine." Human nature has not fundamentally changed, and this peaceful period is an aberration.

The liberal world order that arose after World War II did not occur because of the intellectual superiority of liberal ideas, argues Dr. Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Instead, it was the military and geopolitical might of the United States that converted countries like Germany and Japan into Western-style democracies. However, in today's world, Kagan believes the United States is ceding this role as a worldwide protector of liberal values, enabling countries like Russia and China to become more authoritarian and threatening the world order. Going forward, only a realistic foreign policy that employs military strength to spread American democratic values can prevent a further decay of democracy, he says. If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X , Facebook , LinkedIn , Instagram , and YouTube , and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates .