Eric and Eliot, thank you for your podcast. I wait for it to land every week as a beacon of rational thought in these depressingly ignorant and incoherent times. Your interview with Michael Beckley was uplifting given the many dire predictions about America’s demise as the world's great power. It gave me hope we might just survive the cu…
Eric and Eliot, thank you for your podcast. I wait for it to land every week as a beacon of rational thought in these depressingly ignorant and incoherent times. Your interview with Michael Beckley was uplifting given the many dire predictions about America’s demise as the world's great power. It gave me hope we might just survive the current incarnation of American political folly (Barbara Tuchman's "March of Folly" particularly her analysis of how a succession of US presidents consistently acted against America's best interests and lost the Vietnam War is worth a re-read). Then I heard an interview with the authors of “The Rivalry Peril: How Great Power Competition Threatens Peace and Weakens Democracy” (Van Jackson and Michael Brenes). Have you read this book? It seems to take the exact opposite point of view from Michael Beckley and I’m curious how these two very different perceptions can be reconciled: America as a unipolar power that has no real close competitor economically or militarily and could prevail for decades (if one or the other political party doesn’t screw it up) vs an America in decline as the world becomes more multipolar, grasping onto primacy through a Cold War-style “great power competition” with China that will create a more dangerous and unstable world unless we stop taking an aggressive stance and pursue detente with China. Unless I’m misunderstanding their arguments, how can both be right?
Eric and Eliot, thank you for your podcast. I wait for it to land every week as a beacon of rational thought in these depressingly ignorant and incoherent times. Your interview with Michael Beckley was uplifting given the many dire predictions about America’s demise as the world's great power. It gave me hope we might just survive the current incarnation of American political folly (Barbara Tuchman's "March of Folly" particularly her analysis of how a succession of US presidents consistently acted against America's best interests and lost the Vietnam War is worth a re-read). Then I heard an interview with the authors of “The Rivalry Peril: How Great Power Competition Threatens Peace and Weakens Democracy” (Van Jackson and Michael Brenes). Have you read this book? It seems to take the exact opposite point of view from Michael Beckley and I’m curious how these two very different perceptions can be reconciled: America as a unipolar power that has no real close competitor economically or militarily and could prevail for decades (if one or the other political party doesn’t screw it up) vs an America in decline as the world becomes more multipolar, grasping onto primacy through a Cold War-style “great power competition” with China that will create a more dangerous and unstable world unless we stop taking an aggressive stance and pursue detente with China. Unless I’m misunderstanding their arguments, how can both be right?