Transcripts For CSPAN2 Colin Dueck Age Of Iron 20240713

Welcome to the carnegie and almond for international peace. I am a senior fellow of the endowment and its a great pleasure for me to welcome all of you to this Book Discussion of colin duecks age of iron which is a marvelous analysis of conservative nationalism. I see a couple of things about the book in the moment but before i do, i want to extend on your behalf and mind a warm welcome to colin himself and to our two distinguished commentators, danny pletka and Richard Fontaine. As you know colin is a professor at the start school of policy and government at George Mason University read and is also a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise institute, our neighbor next door literally. Colin has made his mark thinking deeply about american politics. And this book is trademark colin dueck. It examines the concept of conservative nationalism, a phenomenon that has been brought to public attention conspicuously through the rise of President Trump. In terms of both the history of ideas and how these ideas have manifestation in modern american history, especially in the debates about americas role in theworld. So the book is both encompassing and granular simultaneously and despite the gravity of the subject i can assure you its also a very delightful read. I read the book over the last weekend and i commend it to your attention. So welcome colin, its a pleasure to have you with us. Im also very grateful that danny pletka and Richard Fontaine have consented to join us inthis discussion. We could not have asked for better commentators given both their intellectual interest in conservatism mmand their own practical contributions to both the making andimplementing of foreign undomestic policy in the United States. Danny has had a long career on capitol hill where she worked at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. She has also written extensively on us Foreign Policy especially on the middle east. Appears widely on television and until recently was the Senior Vice President for foreign and domestic Foreign Policy studies where she continues to remain a senior fellow in foreignand defense policy studies. Richard fontaine to has had a long career in public service. H he is now chief executive officer of the center for new American Security which i say with some jealousy is doing incredibly Creative Work on operational issues relating to us nationalsecurity. Richard worked for many years as senator john mccains Foreign Policy advisor and prior to that work at the state department, National Security council and also the Senate Foreign Relations Committee so a very warm welcome to both of you , danny and richard. Its wonderful to have you here again. Without further ado let me invite colin to present the key teams of his book for us before i yield the floor to danny and richard for comments. Well have a brief conversation thereafter and then i will open the conversation to the floor and i look forward to your interaction during that time. Thank you colin, welcome. Thanks ashley, thank you very much for this invitation. It so happens this Panel Includes three people, all of whom experience and expertise and views i really respect so its a real pleasure to be here with danny and richard as well. Without danny, this book probably wouldnt have happened. She may regret that but that is the truth atthe American Enterprise institute. So glad to be here. Let me say a few words about the central thesis of the book. What motivated me among other things was the common argument over the last five years that the Trump Administration represents something completely unprecedented in american history. And that this striking rise of populist nationalism on the right on both sides of the atlantic is a cause for comparisons, really backto the 1930s. Without downplaying some of the genuine causes for concern, i think thats overstated. I think it must understands the nature of american populism, american nationalism and the administrations Foreign Policy so the book is not a polemic one way or another, is not a proor antitrump polemic but its an attempt to situate this moment in some sort of broader Historical Context which is often missing in this furious of the day. And what i argue is american nationalism , there is a kind of american policy nationalism going back to the founding which is not undemocratic at all, its quite the opposite. The american case at least, there is a civic nationalism which involves a american creed with powerful Classical Liberal elements. Rule of law, limited government, sovereignty and that has been buttoned up with a sense of american nationalism so i spent conservatives from the beginning sought to conserve literally that tradition and at the same time when it comes to Foreign Policy, the founders had a couple of key principles that were really a consistent paradigm for generations. One if you have a dollar bill in your pocket you can see the idea of a new order of will stand for something and hope the popular selfgovernment spreads. That is a distinct american hope going back to the foundingbest and an element of us Foreign Policy, doesnt mean you can always do it by force at least as an example. The second element leand this is in washingtonsfarewell address is the idea you maintain a free hand. That there is as jefferson put it later that there will be no entangling alliances. No permanent alliances. That was a key element in american Foreign Policy nationalism from the beginning and the founders for no contradiction between those two things. That was a dominant, what we would call bipartisan tradition well into the 20th century and so what really shifted was i argue Woodrow Wilsons innovation, during world war i. Wilson believed not only that you needed to tie a new foreignpolicy paradigm that we call today liberal internationalism or globalism, you need to tie that the possibility of domestic progressive reforms in every country. You needed to be willing to intervene on the ground militarily in your to indicate democracy overseas but also need to be willing to make global binding multilateralcommitments. Worldwide as the intended with the league of nations, particularly under article 10 so thats a paradigm shift, thats an alternative to the founders and wilson understood it as such and so did his republican critics which is what gave them pause. From the beginning republicans and conservatives have never quite agree on how wto tackle or counter or accommodate that liberal internationalist tradition, that will sony and tradition that had been internal divisions and debate and we see this over and over again and we will probably keep seeing it. I say theres remain groups of conservatives over the past century. One, conservative internationalist are skeptical of some of the will will sony and overkill when it comes to multilateral commitments but they basically believe that you should have alliances overseas, and robust american president s an active role overseas. Thats the position of somebody like henry cabot watch based off against wilson during the treaty of bursae debates. Vlad wanted a alliance with britain and france. He just bought wilsons was overly optimistic and unrealistic. Then theres the second group on the other end of the spectrum for noninterventionist and you see this with libertarians, from paley of conservatives who say that the us to avoid military commitments altogether, alliances, bases, interventions. It can trade piece but it shouldnt have a military role. Outside of lets say the western hemisphere. Thats a tradition that goes back to that as well, people like robert lafayette, a populist from west of the mississippi. Thats a strain that run through theres a third string in the middle which is kind of a hawkish or hardline unilateralism which doesnt get as much attention in elite discourse. I would say its been underrepresented but a lot of conservatives have had a fairly strong willingness to spend on the military, willing to counter concrete adversaries, the soviet union, al qaeda but theyre unenthusiastic about broader liberal internationalist projects if you cant injured convince them that theres some enemy that requires a tresponse ahand to shy away from a more active role. At the Pivotal Group over time and what you see is a pivot back and forth between activism and disengagement depending on the circumstances so in that moment of the treaty debate, all three factions agreed wilson was wrong but didnt agree why you and in the 20s and 30s conservatives for the most part agreed the us should be detached from military affairs in europe. Pearl harbor settled that debate for some time and of course the rise of the soviet union led many hardline conservatives to support a more robust military role for the overseas but if you think back to somebody like a goldwater, he was not enthusiastic at all about liberal internationalism as such. The reason most conservatives accorded this was they were anticommunist, monthly anticommunist so the lasix soviet union led the question tiof what now for conservative. In the 90s i think it was wide open. You had pat buchanan, you had ron paul, you also had interpretive internationalists and everything in between. George w. Bush settled that debate for some time with the concept of the war on terror and many republicans fought him on that for much of his administration but during the obama years . That period where conservatives are asking what now had the big surprise in my opinion of 2016, 2015, 2016 in the primary was that a candidate could win the republican nomination and in fact the presidency campaigning against that conservative internationalist tradition, going back to the 40s. Donald trump really led a frontal assault on the conservative internationalist tradition. Going back decades and he won which was astonishing. He sort of turned things upside down so groups that had been marginalized felt they were better represented. In charge were deeply concerned. But i think what trump was doing in away and im not suggesting he personally read these older documents, thats not my argument read my suggestion is instinctively is a kind of american nationalist who draws from older traditions, the idea that you need tomaintain a free hand for example. When trump ran for president he had a particularly american nationalism of his own and if you go back you can see the said the same sort of thing or 30 years in his own unusual way, 30 or 35 years. He said over and over again he viewed us allies as free riders, that is you. Primarily as free riders rather than assets. Not my view, its his view. S he was quite consistent about that. He said they were taking advantage of the United States economically kiand militarily and politically and he aimed to somehow fix this through his own negotiating skills. It was a complaint, it wasnt really a plan to read wasnt much sense of what is the policy alternative but it was a complaint with unpopular residents as we saw in the 2016 primary, particularly when you tie into frustration over military interventions in iraq and afghanistan, frustrations with patterns of economicglobalization that seemed to benefit the welloff and chinas middle class as opposed to working americans. Frustrations over sections of National Sovereignty. He bundled together a sense of restriction and turn it into a winning platform so its an older version of american nationalism, his own particular version that i think weve seen resurgent and thats part of the Historical Context. Once he had to transition unexpectedly to government because i think his election came as a surprise to a lot of peoplein this room , i can tell you it came as a surprise to me, the question is whats policy and of course a lot of uncertainty from the beginning. There were severepersonnel challenges , in reality the trump Foreign Policy is more of a mixture of nonintervention, hardline unilateralism and in some ways continued us foreignpolicy activism and engagement, its a hybrid partly because of the personnel around him. Thats partly because of his own adaptations over time, is very flexible, flexible to a fault. These unpredictable day today but there does seem to be a pattern in how he handles foreignpolicy thats one of the arguments i make as well there is Something Like a trump doctrine and if youll indulge me, not to sound like a political scientist i would picture the 2 x 2 grid. He launches escher campaigns against allies as well as adversaries. He launches escher campaigns on Economic Issues as well as securityones. So in other words , Pressure Campaigns against the purity adversaries in north korea, iran, isis, caliban and another president might have hadone the same thing in a somewhat different way thats part of what youre seeing, maximum Pressure Campaign in the case of the ran and north korea for example. And you see Pressure Campaigns against us allies on security to increase events. Not entirely new he is blunt in a way that we havent seen before. You see Pressure Campaigns on the economic front against china , us competitor thats a trump innovation i think. That was not nearly as high priority for tedious president s to really push china on the commercial side and then finally, Pressure Campaigns against us allies on trade. Thats new and thats very trump, thats trump. I dont think any other candidate candidate would have done that. Pressure canada, japan, south korea looking for renegotiated trade agreements so those are the Pressure Campaign and what he does is he goes up and down the ladder of escalation in ways that can be quite sudden and unexpected. He will raise the temperature temperature and then he will lower area he will make threats and be willing to settle or talk to almost anybody. This tends to unnerve people. At unnerve allies, adversaries, probably some of his own staff but what i do find striking if you try to turn down the volume which tends to be very high, its not obvious that he himself knows the endpoint which is interesting. Im not sure he himself knows his own Reservation Point and every one of these fronts he keeps his options open that is different from saying he is hellbent on dismantling what we call rulesbased international order. Im not convinced he has that as a Reference Point one way or the other. In fact i doubt he could describe it to me. Hes interested in renegotiating existing arrangements consistent with his campaignpromise. It is a portfolio assessment of us commitments overseas, commercial,diplomatic, military. Is reserving the right to walk away from some commitments and maintain some, maybe even bolster some. There are us troops in poland more than there were under obama so the outcome is not predetermined. A significant amount ofthe us forward presence is there and in may some cases be increased. And that seems to be the Foreign Policy. Id be happy to talk in discussion about assessments of each of those fronts but thats what it looks like to me. A few final thoughts, how am i doing on time . I talk about Public Opinion, the relationship of conservative opinion to the Trump Administration and i found to my surprise that the distribution of opinion hasnt changed that much over the last five or 10 years, in other words trump took advantage of one end of the spectrum, the less interventionist, the more protectionist and managed to turn that into a winning argument politically but the distribution hasnt changed that much. The average voter in the Republican Party has mixed feelings about us foreignpolicy activism but theres no less support for it then there was 10 or 15 years ago so thats interesting. He hasnt changed voters minds as much as you think. He himself has made a big difference and captured a certain segment of opinion area most republicans had a negative of opinion of putin 10 years ago, most have a negative opinion today. There was mixed feeling about globalization 10 years ago, there is mixed feelings today. Most supported nato 10 years ago, most republicans support nato today. Thats the reality politically. Having said d that i think theres been a longterm shift by the Republican Party that has become more populist, culturally conservative, white workingclass voters have become more and more important over time as the base of the party and thats going to have an effect feon your foreignpolicy including your trade policy. Theres no getting around it and he has as much a symptom as a cost he has accelerated that but he represents longterm ships. I would not assume that just because he seems that these longterm shifts disappear. We cant assume hes a one off and that as soon as hes gone everything will snap back to 2014. Im a little bit skeptical about that. So i guess my conclusion would be that in the future, post trump, conservative leaders will have the opportunity to make or in policy cases believe in and they can play a leading role. The public is open to it. Theres still a fair amount of support among conservatives for us activism but some of these longterm ships are real. They predate trump and will probably outlast him so theres going to have to be coalition building. Theres going to have to be more than one kind of conservative is him and they will have to live within the same party not to mention with independents and democrats so one way or another my conclusion would be conservative american nationalism is here to stay thank you. [applause] can i ask you, im going to go for about five minutes. Thank you so much ashley for being here. I love the fact that i didnt need to put on a coat to come over from an office and i appreciated your words of thanks colin. Colin, very kindly, said he wouldnt have done this. I know he would have because he was already working on it but he actually was the first cohort of program we have at aei which we are really proud which we named after Jean Kirkpatrick and he was one of our first gene kirkpatrick scholars. People who come from academia to a think tank to try and work on policy related issues and move away from the pure Academic Work that they had been doing and we wanted you because we knew you would be productive and engaging and you do find work and i know everybody at aei is super happy about it. Of course sitting next to record richard is fine for me, i feel like im in a fulcrum of which richard was my legislative assistant when he was but a weekday. He hasnt changed in the. So theres that. But onto the substance. So this is i think a very sober and a very treatment of the questions that confront us all. And the thing that i like best about it is not simply that it delves into the origins of various different types of american conservatism and Foreign Policy and National Security but does so in a way that is absent the hysteria that characterizes every conversation about these issues that goes on today in washington. Itsgood to have a sober , serious conversation doesnt reference twitter in any way. Although i did actually bookmark one part of this because i thought i know who youre talking about here. So your heart back to casey in the title r. And then in your final chapter, called age of iron and then theres this gorgeous quote in here from colin writes he was optimistic about this new era in which scoundrels will be honored and shame will banish and i thought i know who youre talking about. And it is true, but the reality is that if you set aside all of this experiment drank that goes along with todays conversations about whether were going to abandon nato or whether the United States is going to honor article 5or whether were walking away from our global commitments , the reality is that this is what i see as a very difficult reversion to the mean. And we can all debate whether in fact now is different as almost everybody has at every turn and there has been this reversion to the mean. We had a project at aei was e in reaction to what we found a rather nervous making viable libertarian ideas and sort of rand paul at the forefront of what i would call isolationism. I dont think of him as a realist, i think of him as an isolationist and i think there are plenty of people who represent that viewpoint on the left as well if you watched last night debate, you saw that on display a a little bit ayin so far as National Security got a vague mention but we started this project and one of the things we look at was pulling over the years about American Public interest in Global Engagement and what you see is a very, very cyclical engagementinterest , drop and if you go back to a much every president ial campaign, lets just pick, we can pick this century, go back even further to bill clinton. Every single one of these campaigns, republican and democrat has been about turning inward area and its the economy, stupid. George w. Bush , the gulf war, that was done that we can go on and on. Nationbuilding here at home barack obama u, it was a barack obama slogan it could easily have been Donald Trumps. And of course in each instance what we find is they run on these slogans, everybody thinks all my god, americas turning inward and forth and up as a middle east specialist i focus on my area of the world which and up entangled in some sort of conflict in the middle east and donald trump has been no different. No different than that. I think the other point to make that i think colin rightly described is that the American Public views on these things are fairly constant. The only thing that really changes is interest and engagement on particular issues. So for example, the American People thinkits great to be in afghanistan on the longrunning and obviously not usually successful war very low numbers of support. But during the obama Administration Obama decided we needed to pop troops as we were drawing down troops in iran, he went out and the what that was a relatively rare speech compared to george w. Bush, relatively rare speech talking about the rtimportance of this and the numbers went right back up again. The americanpeople are game to be led. Ironically thats true in most democracies. They want their leaders to make a persuasive case to them and when they make a persuasive case whether it is for greater engagement, military commitment, economic or make a case for disengagement, moving away nationbuilding at home or avoiding foreign entanglements, whatever clichc they choose for the moment, the public reacts to that as well and that, i would not call that a Sticking Point on the part of the public, i would call that a general normal lack of interest in the daytoday of National Security. I try to underscore that we here in washington areweird. We pay a lot of attention to this, most people dont and thats just the reality and by the way that not a bad thing. Where i think you really pinpoint something that is e i would call it an open question for the future, this populist trend. This really is rooted in my mind much more in the sort of tectonic shifts within society. Rather than in the sudden appeal of the Donald Trumps of this world. So we have Political Parties that have remained relatively static over the years, especially in the United States. Without a parliamentary system where we dont get to decide that im losing and therefore im going to create a new political party, that doesnt happen here so you have these relatively static Political Parties although they redefined themselves slightly over the years and you have a public actually has changed and feels rightly as so many around the world that the parties no longer represent their interests. And this is where you see the upstarts coming from. This is where you see the upstarts not just in the United States and someone like donald trump but all over europe as well. You see them in asia, you see them elsewhere that shouldnt be a surprisebut the underpinnings of that , the loss of a in Political Parties, the loss of faith in the estate and establishments is less a National Security box phenomenon and more of a on social and economic phenomena and i commend to you the work of another aei scholar , Charles Murray wrote a book called coming apart. Really a wonderful work. In it he details the factthat 50 years ago , there were enormous cross class relationships in the United States and the people were not isolated in their bowls and therefore there was a lot of cross pollination. Before married the rich, the rich were married to the poor, the university educated word in every nonuniversity educated and that doesnt happen anymore and as a result weve become much more fatomized and fragmented and i think that has fed into this populist phenomenon, this sense of particularly one group of people who are trumps constituents. Whitecollar roless educated men who feel like society has eleft them behind. They are not about the commitment to the moment. They are not about whether poland is paying 2 or grease is thanked 2 . These are broader ideas that are flexible but that shift over time, and that may in the long term have an impact, those of us who care about this are not vigilant. So with that let me turn things over to richard. Thank you for bringing us together. Congratulations on the book. I i thought i would give a few thoughts on some of the things that struck me in the book and then maybe a few areas of difference with some of the conclusions. The first is as they played out all right in the cyclical nature of u. S. Foreign policy in terms of maximalist and entrenchment. You can see this, trumans a maximalist will get in korea war and then eisenhower we trenches and jfk and lbj are maximalist and nixon and ford have to fall back from vietnam andnd of the places. You can see this waxing and waning come sort of maximal american exertion around the world and then retrenchment, at the thing, the biggest driver of this is at the end of really long wars americans become realists aficionados. The idealism tends to get thrown out the window. Exhaustion sets in. The cost sets in a people silhouette to constrain the definition of our national interest. That goes on for a while and it starts to expand again. The Trump Administration is of a piece of that but only a piece of that. Colin framed the sort of reaction, intellectual reaction among conservatives thinking about Foreign Policy to begin reaction to wilson. You could make an argument also an Inflection Point was in 1898 and assumption of overseas territories and that significantly change the ways really excellent including conservatives thought about america responsibility and americas activity will. I think the more salient turning point in his 1945. If you look enters i think the Trump Administration is the piece of thest sort of cyclical thing much more than donald trump himself which i would to think im more off an outlier frankly the rest of his administration with whom they just dont agree many times with a lot of those instincts. What i mean by that is if you look post1945, there are three broad assumptions built into u. S. Foreign policy, or principles. One is to maintain the peace we would have strong alliances underwritten by the forward deployment of american troops. Troops of world war ii never came home and we had seen the alternative. The alternative, they come home and we have to send them back over. We will not do that again. The other was, or another was to maintain prosperity and increase when we would support an open International Economic system underwritten by free trade. And then the third was support the forces of freedom, safeguard at home when possible we would have a bias in favor democratic as opposed to autocracies. The debate among conservatives and liberals and democrats and republicans and different president snd and within the ideological streams, a lot was about how you do this. What do you do with a friend autocrat . Win to promote democracy or when is it too costly . How many troops . What trade deals with whom . Who does it help and hurt . It was a lot among the president post1945 questioning about the fundamental assumptions. In part because that was the reaction to the first half of the 20th century, whatt we saw, world wars, derisive autocrats without they could take over the world or at least large part of it. Nobody wanted to repeat that history. T donald trump comes in at a think his instincts are in the reverse on those three things. Now, as colin pointed out hes not exactly a model of consistency on all of these things so youl can find all the exceptions, but rather than seeing the forward deployment of american troops and american alliances going on, having not to return to the first half of 20th century this is a bad deal for the United States because allies have been getting rich and use protection and not paying theirir fair share and te troops cost a lot of money. International economic agreements and free trade have not been consistent, and the police trade deficits harm of the little guy. And then genuinely he seems that term interest in the promotion of democracy and human rights. There are some exceptions like venezuela and some other things, but its just not a top priority. Some of these are trends here obama you can a similar trend in this direction. Obama wanted to dialback American Military commitments overseas. He was all over the place in terms of democracy and human rights. But i do think trump in that sense is a very stark difference in what american Foreign Policy had assumed be the fundamental principles, whether republican, democrat, and shall become liberal. But its complicated because the administration is very hard to think of people in the administration who have asked dyer of the view of our allies come as close against what International Economics c does, and a different view about democracy and human rights. It nets out to be something more in terms of the administration, more in this broad sort of cyclical upanddown. Part of this is new because we just have never, theres the Nationals Park which weve seen before. We havent seen a populist president. We didnt elect pat buchanan senator bernie sanders. This starting point, one, that the good common sense of the American People went appropriately applied can sort of resolve really entrenched problems that the country faces at that theres apr corrupt elie that has been sort of distorting things for its own purposes and things like that. We havent seen that as articulated and, of course, it is by no means only on the republican side. You look at the front runner of the democratic side. Very strong echoes of big institutions are run by elites and their out to get you and only applying the common sense of the real American People, however defined, can be overcome the challenges we face as a country. That gets back into, something more philosophical, but how do we identify the america whose interests were trying to protect and pursue. Republicans as recently as i think mitt romney, john mccain, george w. Bush probably would wouldve been comfortable generally with the idea that america is at this idea, its this place that people from around the world can come and buy into this notion of fundamental rights and freedoms and things like that. For the hardline nationalist view is no, its not an idea. Its a particular set the people that live in a particular geography, which is the United States, atni that geography haso be protected. That raises issues that could harm the physical security or the Economic Security American People living in the traditional homeland much higher than thinking about the rights of others to live in peace or democracy. Or even americans living overseas, right . We saw this with President Trump quite obvious he was much more concerned about north korean missiles that could hit the United States than north korean missiles could kill americans living on the korean peninsula. That is a difference in at least away it is publicly articulated, american president s have thought about these things included on the right side. I guess i would say two vital things here. One, on the polling of popular opinion its important to distinction between issues that resonate and issues people vote on. It would be an interesting thing of all of the people who voted for donald trump, how many of them did so on the basis of the really irked by support by japan for american support. Or trump routes and things like that. The commitment to in the forever war. That resonates just like getting tough with the allies. A lot of these things resonate but its not clear at all to me these are defended in any way, shape, or form and a president couldnt take a very different position on this including the ending of the socalled forever wars. Theres not marches in the streets. This is not vietnam or even 2003. But there are other issues people vote on how to think the president cant walk away from on immigration and trade and other things. You can get people to express an opinion but i think the president , whether its republican or democrat, was much more room to maneuver sometimes then maybe they think. I just dont think they are bound to the base or things that resonate for the issues that are not drivers of a boat. And then finally, the book concludes with the interesting reflections on what will be and should be the future of conservative Foreign Policy. I participate in some of these groups where republicans who are not in the administration get together and talk about the future, and sometimes it feels like the white white russians n helsinki in 1920 saying weve got to plan. The bolsheviks will not be there forever. They will fall any day now. Although white russians are long gone. So who the hell knows whats coming next . A lot of this will turn on who wins the election Going Forward, but this is the contribution to that debate, so thank you for writing it. Thank you, ashley, for inviting us. Thank you. I love books with a simple theme that actually make things clear in ways that when you read them you think gee, i knew that all along. I just didnt have the conceptual this is really one of those books. As you read it, you end up agreeing with a lot and you end up thinking gee,en i do that, bt yet wehi didnt. I want to come back to some of the mechanics that you unpacked in the book because i know we come back to trump in some way or form in open discussion. You make the argument that the stop structure of the movement as it were, consistently groups. Isolationist, unilateralist and international. And that for much of america postwar engagement. And those that have allowed us for the foreignpolicy that is activist and does this coalition handles fragmented through the isolationist that is what explains in some ways the structure of which of the analysis. So i have two questions. Nationalist and internationalist coalition but yet today that is the inheritance. It is no longer the old republic. But with that of the United States so what is the future of the coalition . We dont have that luxury now. That we like it or not or wanted or not. And then if it is a product of the nationalist coalition if it is by trump there is a world out there and from the trump coalition. So what do you see for a future of this coalition . One is that it is it managed very well. As they run up against these inherited legacies that are destructive. And so that is one possibility. But the sheer role the president ial leadership and they say this in the book but eisenhower has a deal with the powerful midwestern wing to coopt them with their valid concerns you can imagine a future who skillfully bridges these caps on understands the average voter is not voting however what you are seeing is a real shift to demand some respect and then to some extent with trey there are some bluecollar republicans and it has hurt the over time. And its got to be recognize. And a lot will depend on the specific leadership. But these things can be managed but i actually think a lot of that depends on president ial leadership. And if for example moving into a phase with the better distribution of the economy in terms of incomes in those different groupings so how much of this is a response so the question im getting at is so are these primordial and so that they can move. But that wasnt completely relevant because the reality was so events matter. I think trump recognize politically in 2015 at that moment and with that potential appeal oddly enough but then to renegotiate the trade agreements. The lets not completely walk away from afghanistan. And there would be mass demonstrations and that is with the cult of personality. In the same thing with obama. With a conservative internationalist if there is some shocking military we would like to see a second trump term look radically different than the first and this is not unusual historically and it could change quite a bit if war occurs. So part of that problem that we have as we look inward is that the truth is there are two huge factors we talked about the had a very meaningful influence on these fluctuations. And the financial crisis is incredibly impactful. And from what i describe as a tectonic shift and probably would not propel somebody like donald trump so the second part is part of the cyclical nature when we disengage and then shut happens overseas. So then what happens when we take our eye off the ball that it has underwritten and to a certain extent prior to that and that they sucked us back in. I still remember when my favorite conversations my girlfriend was marveling how i couldnt stand the second bush administration. And she said no in the second term he is the president he would have been had 9 11 not happened. And that is exactly right. And that is the reality from what drew us back in and we dont gaze at our bellybuttons and that slight enthusiastic way we have the last couple of years. And with those serious threats not just the world order even the people that werent rich felt pretty rich. And then there were a few other factors out there. And we dont talk about nonproliferation anymore at all. And any one of those could cause what we talked about. Fear changes that ideological preference so with that threat that is the key driver. In 1845 you have all these guys who were not only cause isolationist the impulse was that they didnt want to maintain the National Security state. With an army a huge federal bureaucracy collecting taxes from everybody because there were small Government Conservatives. So those concerns were second tier because the big tear was communism. But there is still something bigger to worry about especially after 9 11 in part because it is connected to so many things. And military intervention was necessary. Now the small Government Conservatives in the 19 nineties would try to chip away at the last vestige of the National Security state that was no longer necessary so whether there was a war it could be china. But that existential challenge with those core things that we enjoy so a future president may have all the preferences that go along with the hard line isolationist because they think we should not be there but if the fear is great enough it will be reduced to the more expansive view of Foreign Policy. So one question how did the three groups that you identified for conservativism in the manifestation . If they map on citizenship as a matter of political belonging and constitution and connected to identities . Is there any obvious mapping of citizenships in these groups . There has been and research to answer that with the idea you are more likely to find hardline nationalists and have a view of the United States as a place. But not only that a religious and ethnic background with the cynic definition to argue there is that anglo protestant core. And that can be compatible if you think al qaeda is the problem but you are not likely to have that cosmopolitan so there is a relationship in that way. The only thing i would add to that is looking at the drivers of populism and nationalism that is linked which is the economic drivers of the Global Economic crisis, the fed up and non representation and those that have spoken to those needs. But also the cultural aspect because the percentage of foreignborn americans today is higher than in over 100 years cresting over world war i and then to close the spigot and then opened up again in the sixties in those elite circles those diversity that embraces even on the left to see is a great virtue of the country it has felt differently if you tack on the these economic difficulties if you see the residence with the president its time for us to put america first. Because they cant. And canon is an important factor its an important factor not just to us, its an important factor for the chinese. As we spend on social policy, start us the more in social and safety welfare net. As you disinvest in defense as we been doing for quite some time. Then you end up in a situation where you cant do things. If you have a population which have more oldio people than youg people and the job of young people is to, in fact, sustain and pay for and work so that the old people have benefits, they dont want to join the military and their parents dont want them sent off. This is something that our colleague predicts about china which is a population with our more elderly people and not enough children to sustain them. If, in fact, weve become a nation that isn not a nation of immigrants, as historically have been, that is part of with the energy of our innovation and of our success. If we stop, we will rely upon americans will have the same problemsem here. An intervention just identify yourself and ask. A very stimulating and reassuring discussion, so thank you to all of you. So, trade sovereignty is not only not going to go away anytime soon but most probably going to intensify not only in the u. S. But throughout the world. So, the question is dont we need now as people who are concerned about interNational Security and u. S. National interest dont we need now to start thinking about how intensification of trade sovereignty. This is one of the most striking unexpected chains over the last five years. U. S. Trade disputes with ally on the merits strategically or economically we should be grappling with our allies to coordinate so as often is the case there is always a kernel the wto could use reform and that needs to be addressed. I dont see the well coordinated effort to do that. What i see is picking fights with allies and then resolving the fights and saying weve got to deal. The germans are very worried, so i agree that there is a trend toward trade sovereignty and protectionism is with that shift there seems to be support in the countries that was the problem they dont put their foot down but that is the problem because they hear about it if you are a farm state you will have been complaining that itthencomplaio hurt you so ideally you would have them coordinate work allies against china. Two things one i actually dont see this as a historical shift as you are describing because i think that its always been a lost gold betwee betweene elites and by that i also mean members of Congress Voting on these matters and in the public. Having sat through god knows how many debates in china. Its between the leaders and the people and there was a lot of hesitation because people think differently about it. The mentalities we were elected to lead, not to be in front of the mob. Now as computers have deepened about what it is people really want because nobody really understands what its about and people are still confused about how donald trump got elected thats washington for you and its not that there is any narrowing. The second point that its important that we never, ever talk about his age. I am not as spry as i once was. Why do we view the organizations createneed the organizationscrer ii are somehow, that they dont require reform or nato or the United Nations or the wto or the world bank or the imf World Peace Organization to meet the challenges of intellectual property climate change, whatever it is. That is a huge problem and nobody talks about these reform issues. I think that you are right the skepticism of trade isnt going to go away one because skepticism trade and trade agreements become a proxy for discomfort with what globalization has brought so you dont get to vote on container shipping or integrated International Financial markets or Broadband Access to allow thethat allowthem to be exportee borders. You dont get to vote on automation. But i think it is a severe challenge because theres two remedies to this. Thursday it nor everybody that is harmed by whatever economic phenomenon is the issue. And then theres the other sort of conceptual the attractive one which is we are going to retrain the people in manufacturing and devoted service jobs or work as programmers in seattle or whatever. But its especially to those that are not yet tradable goods nor can they be automated away by the Artificial Intelligence and things like that. So when you have all the people making these decisions who are 99 secure that the effects of these economic phenomena will lowered prices on these things it is hard to say are we really going to have a system that effectively take the man or the woman thats been working in manufacturing in North Carolina for 30 years and now is going to either find the same sense of purpose by working in the stripp mall even if they get paid 50 cents more per hour or ideally becomes a programmer in seattle its just very hard to see how that actually works. Which raises the question. You mov move the mouse or once production of National Boundaries and there are consequences to that shift and those have stated choices and yet we have to manage the consequences which are not easy solutions. And you can make everything worse if you say the answer is to protect the industrys battle so is the wrong answer. You can recognize the challenge and have empathy with those that are affected and then come out making matters even worse. A quick followup on that which is politically trump showed that you can have a narrowly Winning Coalition with a protectionist platform and that may have been a vote moving issue with the working class voters in pennsylvania and michigan. So they copy success and when i see a debate like that, the one obvious it seems like the Democratic Party isnt going to take the lead in standing up for free trade so you may get a convergence. You mentioned the conservative nationalism is here to stay. Do you see the same trend shift in europe . Second, are your views on the definition and nationalism cant have double or not compatible in public virtue of nationalism . Its a very important book. I liked much of it. For example, the office of staunch defense of National Sovereignty he suggested there is an element that is a western political tradition that says we havent sent anything better than the nationstate to allow experiments in selfgovernment. I think that hes right about that. Nations dont come together for the most part of abstract social contract theories. It is bound up with the Classical Liberal ideas that were not true worldwide. To think that eight u. S. President has the right to go to the un and give a speech initially. I dont know why they would have the right to do that. Why is it americas business of the internal affairs. Its here to stay and its not about Foreign Policy. I would say immigration is a sheer number one. Theres a book i would recommend to yoit to you if you are interd that might sound like an imposing title. And he goes through the cases suggested into the single biggest cause of the rise of populism securely in europe is the issue of mass migration and the feeling of traditional majorities that are no longer going to be the majority encouraging the rise of new parties of the right and since those arent about to add and there is the migration across the coming centuries, so if that is true given that you already have a large percentage so those parties are not going away. They tend to be more skeptical with certain National Sovereignty. Some of them are very pro putin so if you can have a cultural conservative. Would it be true to say it is yes to stay what is the future of the nationstate . What is the nationstate . Of course we have the competitions make adjustments on the margin but because the viability of the nationstate . I think there is such a thi thing. In the nationstate as a matter of fact but nevertheless there is a state and the nation. We like the fact it tends to be bottomup and we like to keep it that way but it is historically the american nationstate. One of the things the war revealed under the leadership is the single United States but he insisted on and embodied the determination with the ability to defend its territory and integrity so it is an idea but also a place. Thereve been a tendency to say that the nationstate is fading and disappearing because of economic independence, governance. I would say the nationstate has come back with a vengeance and we know there are areas that dont have effective control of the territory like subsaharan africa. But i would not count the nationstate out as a matter of fact if you are american i dont think you should. I think you should see the United States as a nation that has responsibilities to its citizens and that is part of what we are seeing is hopefully the restored since of the nation called the United States we have obligations to each other. At one point i think you should have asked the question of how gore described how Global Trends are running up against the existence of states or however you describe it, and danny rightfully pointed out we have multilateral institution. If we look at europe in migration its not at europe as an entity hasnt tried to find the response to migration or the realistic response. The fact that even europe hasnt been able to do that i think its back to your original observation which is that we do have this inadequacy of the nationstate to address the global problems that we have but then that does ultimately come back to the observation which is we really do need to start addressing the question at the multilateral level and thats where the inadequacy of nationalism really implodes because it is going to be very difficult to convince genuine nationalists of the virtue. Not in terms of ethnicity but in terms of the constitutional commitment so in that sense if it became irrelevant in the political personality. Then the United States can survive and prosper as a nationstate. Its when you start settling for the nationhood that you begin to see the competition within countries becoming difficult so there is a multilateral dimension to it, but i think many of these issues have to be involved within certain countries themselves. We took about two Different Things in the ways. One is migration, why does europe have a problem with immigrant because European Countries dont like to say with the exception perhaps a little bit of england into a small extent than id like to say here is what our country stands for because that sounds like i am right and you cant have that. So you dont get the sense of civic nationalism deny that sense of ethnic nationalism. We have not had that but increasingly i would say there is an element of conservatives dare i call them that Tucker Carlson conservative who think of us as endless protestants and that is what makes america and therefore all of you immigrants no matter what they believe in the American Dream or not in the constitution are never going to be part of it and with the playing of the National Emblem they are not wholly american if they are referred to without some hyphenated attachment so we have these factors that are all exacerbating these problems and because of them we actually come together and agree how to prioritize any multilateral. I want to i wanted to ask you how do you think the change or shifting demographics especially towards more millennials and more generations coming into the mix who have grown up in a completely connected world affect the thought process of nationalism Going Forward . And even now that more millennials shaping of Public Opinion. So i can, on a couple things. One is the Public Opinion and the other is anecdotally ive been teaching for 30ac years soe see ships which are interesting in hundreds of students, underground graduate students. The other seems to be millennials a more skeptical of military intervention than some older generations. What they have grown up with, none of its been a very positive experience, looking at recent experience. Even the 9 11 generation. I now have undergrads who have no knowledge of 9 11. You might say this is shocking we need to do something. Thats not the experience. There lived experience is wars dragging on and the greater middle east. Of course none of them have successful conclusion of the cold war which my generation it was a big formative moment. That matters and that is across party lines so you find some republicans actually who share that view. I think thats not to say views cannot change because of events. People change as well. Striking millennials tend to be more skeptical of military intervention. Thats not the same thing as isolationists. Why do we need to intervene after all, anyway . They believe theres a peaceful solution, some element of cultural, technological interdependence which could cause a positive outcome. Im sometime skeptical of that. Maybe im just a natural pessimist but ive noticed that change overut time. That was my shortcake on how millennials are changing u. S. Opinion on Foreign Policy. Just my general sense, maybe specifically with respect to nationalism but the notion of the nationstate as primary actor and international affairs. My sense is that notion is more widely shared including among millennials today that it was back when i was in college in the late 90s when all about multinational corporations and super empowered individuals and multilateral organizations and the eclipse of the nationstate as the Building Block of international affairs, networks of nongovernmental organizations and activists and things like that. Certainly if you look at Something Like isis, and nationstate leading other nationstates the put into the caliphate. People look at the Global Financial crisis. The Central Banks had to turn on the monetary spigot and governments that had used use l policy in order to help pull out of the financial crisis. There was really very little that you could do without and, in fact, i think the governments role in all of our times when significantly up rather than down right at this moment when the nationstate was being eclipsed and it always economics than other ways. There is this kind of reductive list reality that for all of the desire for multilateral frameworks and for all of the reality of big corporations that have ceos who can move opinion and technology that can connect people around the world, there really still is the nationstate that is a primary actor in international affairs. To the degree its not in terms of multilateralrn frameworks, those three nationstates have made a conscious decision to cede some particular element of their sovereignty or to constrain their decisionmaking in some way to suggest some better perceived outcome at a different level. The issue of the rise of china i think its an issue that can unite a lot of different attractions, right and center right. We get heated debate over military intervention, particularly in the middle east, syria, but when it comes to china actually even some of the more noninterventionists voices are down with the notion that youve got to do something. That i think can be a unifying argument. One of the things that struck me about the story told in the book was that you have trump who is a product of an isolationist nationalist, now declaring the return of competition. A very different direction from what the political groups of his own descendents are. On that note i want to thank all of you for coming to the endowment this morning. Want to extend a special thanks of course to call in for giving us an opportunity to host him. To danny and to richard for spend time with us. I look forward to seeing you back here at some point in the future. We do have the book on sale outside. If you have an interest you can even entice him to sign a copy but we have a few copies out there, and you t are welcome to the cup a copy. Thank you very much. See you soon. Byebye. [applause] [inaudible conversations] a recent episode of afterwards American Conservative Union share matt schlep interviewed greg jarrett about his new book on the mueller investigation. Heres a portion of the program. For the eight years of the barack Obama Administration intelligence community, fbi, they were all empowered. You know, this small group of unelected but powerful officials can you call the deep stick him so that others, i it a malignant force, they saw donald trump coming and he was a threat, to the perpetuation of the power. Hillary clinton would even a third term of barack obama. Their power would continue, but donald trump member vowed to drain the swamp. They are the swamp, the malignant force. They didnt want to be drained. Power in washington is like crack cocaine. Once you get on it comes to have come you dont want to get up and you will do anything to stop someone whos going to take your power away from you. And so thats how the russian hoax began. Thats how it begat the witch hunt is because these people saw donald trump as a threat to themselves and what they loved, power, and the end justified any means, even lawless means. To watch the rest of this program into final episodes, visit our website, booktv. Org and click on the afterwards tab at the top of the page. Next on booktv, New York Times economic reporter Conor Dougherty reports on the housing crisis in the San Francisco bay area. And then cspan cities tour visit san antonio, texas, to interview local authors and explore that cities literary scene. Then mitchell kaplan, owner of books and books in coral gables florida talks about how the coronavirus has impacted his bookstore operations. Find more information in your program guide. Hi, everyone. Going to going to get started with tonight event. Thank you all so much for coming. He also spent a decade writing on housing and economy for the wall street journal. Steve has been an la times colonist since 2001, has won numerous journalism awards and is a threetime Pulitzer Prize finalist. Today we celebrate connors new book which is a stunning