Transcripts For CSPAN2 Colin Dueck Age Of Iron 20240713

Welcome to the Carnegie Endowment i am a senior fellow at the endowment it is great pleasure for me to welcome you all to this book g discussion of teethreeol age of iron which is a marvelous analysis of conservative nationalism. So with this book in the moment before i do i want to extend on your behalf and mine a warm welcome to call and himself and our distinguished commentators. As you probably know colin is a professor at the school of endowment at George Mason University and non fellow at aei literally next door. He has made his mark thinking deeply about american politics and this is trademark direct to examine the concept of conservative nationalism a phenomenon brought to public attention through the rise of President Trump so in terms of the history of ideas and how they have found manifestation especially in the debates of americas role in the world it is encompassing and granular and despite the gravity of the subject i can assure you it is a very delightful read. I have read the book over the last weekend and i commend it to your attention. So it is a pleasure to have you with us. I am also very grateful danny has consented to join us for discussion we could not ask for better commentators given their intellectual interests in their own practical contributions to the implementing of Foreign Policy in the United States a long career on capitol hillal where she worked at the Senate Foreign relations and also written extensively on form policy and appears widely on television and until recently was a Senior Vice President for domestic form policy studies at aei with foreign and defense policy studies the itchief executive officer the center for new American Security which i say with some jealousy is doing some incredibly Creative Work on the issues relating to us National Security. For many years was senator john mccains foreignn policy advisor into the National Security council and Senate Foreign Relations Committee so welcome to both of you its wonderful to have you both here again. We would like to call into present the key themes before we give the floor over for comments we will have a brief conversation then we will open the conversation to the floor and i look forward to your interaction during that time. Thank you both. Thank you for this invitation it just so happens this Panel Includes three people whose expertise and views that i respect it is a pleasure to be here without danny this book may not have happened she may regret that so im glad to be here. So let me say a few words about the central thesis of the book so what motivated me the common argument over the last five years is the Trump Administration represent something completely unprecedented in American History and this striking rise of populist nationalism on the right is a cause for comparisons without downplaying those concerns and misunderstands the nature of american populism in the Foreign Policy so it is not pro or anti trump polemic but to be in a broad Historical Context which is often missing so i argue that american nationalism that american Foreign Policy going back to the founding but in the american case at least there is a civic nationalism with an american creed with those elements and sovereignty with a sense of nationalism from the beginning so those that sought to conserve literally thatgh tradition. And the key principles that was a paradox of a generation and you could see the new order of the ages that the United States will stand for something that is a distinctly american hope going back to the founding that doesnt mean you always do it by force but at least by example and in washingtons farewell address thatin you maintain a free hand that there are no entangling alliances that is the key element of form policy from the beginning and seeing the contradiction, that is a dominant bipartisan tradition relative to the 20th century. So what shifted is what i would argue Woodrow Wilsons innovation he believed not only to have a new form policy paradigm or globalism with progressive reforms including the United States and every country and be willing to intervene on the ground but you also have to make particularly under article ten so that is an alternative to the founders so this is what gave them pause so from the beginning republicans and conservatives have never quite tagreed how to tackle or counter that liberal internationalist tradition there have been internal divisions and debates and we will probably keep saying it i say there are three main groups one they are skeptical of that overkill when it comes to the multilateral commitments but they basically believe you should have alliances overseas that for example is somebody Like Henry Cabot Lodge with the treaty of versailles debate. He wanted a league of nations he just thought he was overly optimistic and then there is a second group that are strict noninterventionist you see this with libertarians are some conservatives that say the us should avoid military commitments altogether they could trade peacefully with other countries but not should have a militaryy role outside of the western hemisphere so that tradition goes back as well like a populist that is a strain that runs through and then the strain in the middle that is a hard line unilateralism which doesnt get much attention of elite discourse that has been representative so they have had a fairly strong willingness to spend on thery military and to conquer concrete adversaries but they are unenthusiastic about those projects if you cannot convince them there is an enemy then they tend to shy away from the moreca active role so they go back and forth between activism and disengagement so in that moment all three factions create that he was wrong but they dont know why but in the twenties and thirties that they should be detached from military affairs in europe. So pearl harbor continued that debate and leading many hardline conservatives to support a more robust military role overseas but if you think of goldwater and was not enthusiastic as all but to think that most conservative supported this that they were anticommunist so the collapse of the soviet union is the question of what now . It was wide open you had ron paul and conservative internationalists and that debate was settled for some time with the war on terror most supported for much of the administration. But during the obama years your back to the. Asking what now. The big surprise in 2016 for the republican primary was that a candidate could win the nomination to campaign against that conservative traditionalists notion going back to t the forties so leading a full assault going back decades and he one which was astonishing turning things upside down so the groups that had been marginalized felt they were better represented those that felt they were in charge were deeply concerned but what trump was doing in a way and i am not suggesting he personally read these older documents butng i am saying he is instinctively is an american nationalist who draws from older traditions so in trump ran for president he had a nationalism of his own he said the same sort of thing for 30 years and his own and use unusual way and said over and over he views the us allies as free riders primarily that is his view. Its not my view it is his view. He has been quite consistent about that this is taking advantage of the United States economically and militarily and politically and he aimed to somehow fix this through his own negotiating skills there is that much of a sense of a policy alternative but it has some popular residence in the 2016 primarily on primarily especially with the military intervention of iraq and afghanistan and frustration to benefit the well off of the china middleclass as opposed to workingor americans the National Sovereignty to bundle together frustration to turn that into a winning platform so his own particular version that i think is the resurgence that is part of the Historical Context so once he had to transition unexpectedly to government because the election came as a surprise to people in this room, it did to me the what now . What is the policy there has been a lot of uncertainty. There were severe personnel challenges so in reality the trump foreignpolicy is a mixture with activism and engagement it is a hybrid becauseis of personnel and is unpredictable day today and that is one of the arguments i make as well. There something with the trump doctrine to sound like a political scientist picturing a two by two grid. Mounting Pressure Campaigns withth allies versus adversaries and Economic Issues as well as security ones. So Pressure Campaigns with north korea, iran, isis is pretty straightforward another president may have done the same thing. Then you see Pressure Campaign with us allies and Pressure Campaigns against china usur competitor that is not as high a priority and then Pressure Campaigns against us allies that is very trump. That is new i dont think anyone would disagree with me to pressure canada, japan, south korea, eu, mexico looking for renegotiated trade agreements. A so he goes up and down the ladder of escalation that could be sudden and unexpected he will raise the temperature than lower it and make threats and then settle or talk to it almost anybody. So what we do find striking if you turn down the volume its not obvious that he knows the endpoint he cleat on keeps his options open and that is different from saying through rules based International Order i am not convinced he has it as a reference. 1 way or another. In fact i doubt it he is interested in renegotiating with the Campaign Promises as a portfolio assessment of commitments overseas commercial and diplomatic and military reserving the right to walk away from something or maybe even bolster some even those under obama so the outcome is not predetermined a significant amount of presences there and that seems to be the Foreign Policy. I will be happy to talk about the assessments of each of those but thats what it looks like to me. How my doing on time . Also looking at Public Opinion and i found to my surprise the distribution of opinion hasnt changed that much over the last five or ten years in otherr words trump took advantage of one and of the spectrum and he managed to turn that into a winning argumentt politically but it doesnt change that much so it has mixed feelings about us Foreign Policy activism but theres no less support than five or ten or 15 years ago. That hasnt changed voters minds is much as you might think. So for example most republicans have a negative putin ten years ago and most do today. Missed feelings about globalization ten years ago mixed feelings c today. Most supported nato ten years ago most supported today so that is the reality politically. Having said that there has been a longtermt shift for the Republican Party has been populist and culturally conservative over time as the base of the party will have the effect on form policy including the trade policy is much of a symptom as a cause but also with a longterm shift i would not assume just because he exits the scene that these disappear just because he is gone everything will snap back to 2014 im a little skeptical of that. So my conclusion would be that in the future conservative leaders will have the opportunity to make form policy cases to those activist in the world but those longterm shifts are real and they will probably outlast them so there has to be Coalition Building for more than one type of conservative and to figure out how to live within the same party so conservative american nationalism is here to stay. Thank you. [applause] can you say a few words . I love the fact i did not even have to put on a coat to come from my office. But colon very kindly said he would not have done this but i know he would of because he was already working on it but he was part of the first cohort of a program at aei people come from academia to try and work on policy related issuesed and with that work that they have been doing. We wanted you because we knew you would be productive and indeed you were and i know everybody at aei is super happy. Sitting next to richard is nice if you like him in the fulcrum because he was my legislative assistant when he was a wee thing. [laughter] so this is a very sober treatment of the questions all. Confront us and the thing that i like best about it that not only does into the origins of different types of american conservative on conservativism but with that hysteria that characterizes pretty much every conversation of these issues it will have a sober and serious conversation that doesnt reference twitter in any way. Actually bookmarked one part of this so you harken back to the title and then in the fence on in the final chapter called age of iron so full disclosure that he writes he was hardly optimistic of the new era scoundrels will be honored and fame will vanish. So i said i know who you are talking about. [laughter] and it is true. But the reality is if you set aside everything that goes around one along with todays conversation or if the United States will honor article five are walkingl away from the International Order, the reality is it is a typical aversion. That whether or not now is different when there has been and the version there is a project some yearsd ago at aei with those libertarian ideas at the forefront of what i would call isolationism. I dont think of him as a realist but there are plenty of people that represent that viewpoint on the left as well. We can go on and on. Nation building here at home it was a barack obama slogan. It could have been easily Donald Trumps, and, of course n each instance what we find is they run on these slogans, everybody is like, oh, my god, america is turning inward and we end up and as a middle east specialist i focus on my end of the world and donald trump has been no different than that. The other point to make that colin describes the American Public view on these things are fairly constant. The only real thing that changes interest on engagement on particular issues. For example, do the American People think its great to be in afghanistan in longrunning and obviously not hugely successful war. Very low numbers of support but during the obama administration, when obama decided that we need today plus up troops just as we were drawing down troops in iraq, he gave what was relatively rare speech compared certainly to george w. Bush, relatively rare speech talking about the importance of this and the numbers went right back up again. The American People are game to be led. Ironically its true to all leaders. When they make aan persuasive case, engagement, military commitment, economic commitment or case or moving away, you know, nation building here at home, avoiding foreign entanglements, whatever cliche they choose, the public reacts to that as well. That i would not call that fickleness but daytoday National Security. We here in washington are here. We pay a lot of attention to this. Most people dont, as thats just the reality and by the way, thats not a bad thing. Where i think you really pinpoint something that is, you know, i would call it an open question for the future. This populist trend. This really is rooted to my mind much more in sort of shift within society rather than in the sudden appeal of the Donald Trumps of this world. So we have, we have Political Parties that have remained relatively static over the years especially in the United States without a parliamentary system where we dont simply up and decide, no, im moving and create new political party. That doesnt happen here. You have this relatively static Political Parties, although redefined themselves slightly over the years and you have a public that actually has changed and feels rightly as so many do around the world that the parties no longer represent their interest, okay, and this is where you see the upstart coming from. This is where you see the upstarts not just in the United States as someone like donald trump but all over europe as well. You see them in asia. You see them elsewhere and that shouldnt be a surprise but the underpinnings of that, the loss of face in Political Parties, loss of faith is more of a economic phenomena. In it he details the fact that 20 d years ago there were enorms cross class relationships in the United States. The people were not isolated in their bubbles and therefore there was a lot of cross pollennization, the poor could marry the rich, the noneducated marry the noneducated. That doesnt happen anymore. As a result we have become much more fragmented and i think that has fed into the populist phenomena, one group of people who are Donald Trumps constituents, right, white, collar, less educated men who feelar like society has left thm behind. What those people think about these sorts of things is hugely important and could be a transformative driver. Could be, but might not be and very hard for us to know one way or the other. You know, this is something for all of us to think about. S i was told to turn off my phone and, of course, i didnt, at least its not my mother. It usually is my mother. All of these come together and and raise questions that just arent about that arent about article 5. Theyre not about the commitments of the moment. Theyre not about whether, you know, poland is paying 2 or greece is paying 2 . These are broader ideas that are flexible but that shift over time and that may in the longterm have an impact if we, those of us who care about this, are not vigilant, so with that, let me turn things over to richard. All right. Shank you, ashley for bringing this us together. Colin, congratulations on the book and danny, i dont think you need glasses but if you need, let me know and i will pick them up on the way home. [laughter] i thought i would give a few thoughts on some of the things that struck me in the book and maybe a few whore basis of difference with areas with some of the conclusions, first that they layed out in the nature of u. S. Foreign policy in terms of maximallism and entrenchment and you can see truman is maximalist and you can see maximal american exertion around the world and the thing thats the biggest driver of this is at the end of really long wars americans suddenly become realists or real poll teak aficionados, the idealism gets thrown out the window and people say we have to constrain the National Interest and that goes on for a while and start to expand again, i think the Trump Administration is a piece of that but only partially a piece of that. I think you could make an argument that an Inflection Point and overseas territories, that significantly changed the way that really everyone including conservatives at the time thought about american responsibilities in the world and american activity in the world but i actually think that the more salient turning point ts 1945. If you look and here is where i think the Trump Administration is a piece of this sort of cyclical things much more than donald trump and instinct themselves. More of an outlier frankly than the rest of the administration with whom they just dont agree many times and what i mean by if you look 1945, policy work or principles, one is that to maintain the peace we would have strong alliances underwritten by the deployment of american troops. The troops that went over in world war ii never came home and we have seen alternative. The alternative is they come home and end the war. We will not do that again. The other was another was that you maintained prosperity and increase that we would support Economic System underwritten by free trade and then the third was the support forces of treatment and safeguarded at home when possible we would have a bias in favor of democratic systems as oppose to autocracies. Within the ideological streams a lot is how you do with this, how big an army, which station where, what trade deals with whom and who does it help and things like that. There wasnt a lot manage the president s questioning about the fundamental assumption, we saw the rise of autocrats or at least large parts of it and most devastating and nobody wanted to repeat that history. Donald trump comes in and i really think his instinct are in the are verse of the three things and as colin point out, not a model of consistency on the things and you can find exceptions but rather than seeing the, you know, the deployment of american troops, not having to return to the first half of 20th century kind of thing. You see this is a really bad deal for the United States because allies of have been getting richh under u. S. Protection and troops should come home. International agreements and free trade is opposition of trade agreements and belief that trade deficits harmed the little guy. He genuinely seems not interested in democracy and human rights. You can see a similar trend in thistr direction, obama was, you know,di wanted to dial military overseas and all over the place in terms of the democracy and i do think trump in that sense is a very stark difference in what american Foreign Policy assumed to be the fundamental principles, democrat, conservative or liberal. Indifferent of you as the president seems to have of democracy and human rights. Theres the nationalist part that we havent seen before, we havent seen a populist president. We havent yet elected bernie sanders. You know, this populism, starting point, one, that the good common sense of the American People when appropriately applied, you know, and can sort of resolve really entrenched problems that the country faces and that theres a corrupt elite that has been sort of distorting things for its own purposes and things like that. We havent seen that as articulated and, o of course, it is by no means only on the on the republican side . I mean, you look who the front runner is on the democrat side, big it institutions are runed and out to get you and only by applying the common sense of the real American People however defined wee can face as a country. That gets thank what is more philosophical. You know, republicans recently as, you know, mitt romney, john mccain, george w. Bush probably would have been comfortable generally with the idea that america is this idea, its this place that people from, you know, around the world can come and buy into this notion of fundamental rights and freedoms and things like that. A people that live in a geography and thats the United States and it has to be protected and that raises issues that harm the physical security or the Economic Security much higher than thinking about, you know, the rights of of others to live in peace or democracy or even americans living overseas, right, so you saw with President Trump quite obviously was much more concerned about north korean missiles that could hit the United States and north korean missiles killing americans living in the korean peninsula. Thats different in at least the way publicly articulated. American president s have thought about these things including on the right side. I guess i would say two final things on popular opinion, issues that resinate and issues people vote on. You know, it would be an interesting thing to see of all of thehe people who who voted for donald trump how many of them did so on the basis of they were really [laughter] similarly on the democratic side or trump rallies. The commitment to end the forever wars. It resinates. Its not clear at all to me that these are definitive in any way, shape or form and that a president couldnt take a very different position including on the ending the socalled forever wars. Theres not marchs in the streets. This is not vietnam or even 2003, but there are other issues that people will vote on that i think a president cant walk away from on immigration, trade and other things and so i think you can get people to express an opinion, but actually think that theio president , whether republican or democrat will have much more room for maneuver, sometimes maybe than they even think. I just dont think that theyre bound to their base or things that resinate for the issues that are not drivers of a vote and then finally, you know, the book concludes, you know, the interesting reflections on what will be and should be the future of conservative Foreign Policy and ive participated in some of these groups where, you know, republicans who arere not in the administration get together and talk about, you know, what the future is and sometimes this feels like too white russians meeting in helsinki and they have a plan. They will fall any day now and it was 1991 and all the russians were long gone. To the hell knows whats coming next and a lot of this will turn on who wins the the election Going Forward, but this is a contribution to that debate so thank you, colin, for writing it and thank you, ashley for inviting to talk about it. I love books with simple team that actually make things clear in ways that when you need them, i knew all along and this is really one of those books. The sub structure of the conservative movement as it were consists of 3 groups, isolationists, maybe unilateralists or nationalists and maybe internationalists and that for much of america post war engagement. It was the coalition between the nationalists and internationalists that allowed us to maintain a Foreign Policy that activists and expansive and as the coalition has fragmented giving way to new alternative of isolationists plus nationalists thats whats explains donald trump, thats the broad structure in which the analysis on the book is based and i think it actually tells us something that goes beyond the headlines at the level of this destruction. National organizations produce world order that we have seen post 1945 and yet today that is what we have to deal with. The United States is no longer the old republic set apart from the International Political system. The management of that order is president of the United States. In this environment, what is the future of the isolationist, nationalist coalition that brings trump to power . We dont have the luxury now sort of sitting apart. We had that luxury before 1945. Condemn to manage the world whether we like it or not because our interests are tied to world we created and nationalist, internationalists coalition, not the product of the isolationist International Coalition but even if you have nationalist internationalist coalition by trump, thats a world out there, very different from the expectations and precedence of the trump coalition, so how does one manage this, what do you think is the future of this coalition that brings trump into office . One possibility, one possibility thats not managed or not managed very well. Thats entirely possible. It may be that domestic political coalitions run up against Foreign Policy legacies inherited legacies in ways that are extremely disruptive, so, i mean, i think a lot of people that thats what we are seeing rightru now. So thats one possibility, however, i did like the point that came up both from danny and richard which is the cheer role of president ial leadership and persuasion. I do think president s have a lot of leeway and i say this in a book repeatedly. I show how past republican president s have gathered together. Eisenhower had to deal with powerful mid western nationalist wing and he handled it very effectively, not by actually confronting them frontally but kind of coopting them and recognizing valid concerns. You canou imagine a future republican conservative president that bridges the gaps and understands that the average voter is not, you know, voting on lets say the exact amount of money that south korea or japan pays the United States with its bases. You have leeway on those things, however, where you are seeing a real shift thats going to have to demand some respect is on immigration, maybe to some extent trade. As it turns out that there are a lot of bluecollar republicans that feel that multilateral Free Trade Agreement have hurt them and their families and communities over time. Political thats just a fact but it has to be has to be recognized, whether or not economists like it or not. So i think youre going to see some new coalition. Its not going to look exactly like bush or not exactly like reagan and not exactly like trump. Its possible that the things can be managed in the way you describe. I actually think a lot depends on president ial leadership. And what is the role of distributional effects on the survival of the coalitions, that is, for example, moved into a phase where there was a better distribution of the economy, better distribution of International Trade relations in terms of incomes for medicals in different groupings, would the convictions change, so how much of this is really a response to simply losses of globalization that have manifested themselves in the last 30 years, and so the question im getting at is are these convictions in some sense function of circumstances . Yeah. The circumstances change can people move fromnd one group to another . I think its door number 2. If you think about it they never completely disappeared but it wasnt political relevant. Thats just not how many conservatives and republicans felt. The reality is you had the soviet union and it was an understood threat. Events matter, right, circumstances matter. I think trump recognized politically, turned out to have uncanny political sensitivity in 2015 at the moment to the fact that we didnt realize on other campaigns the potential appeal of platform. Oddly enough if his supporters feel coming up to november that he has represented them well and i think many do, that he has renegotiated the trade agreements, then he has leeway politically to say if he chooses lets not completely walk away from afghanistan, lets not disband nato in second term, he can do that. He has the ability to do that. There arent going to be mass demonstrations. He has its not because of the cope of personality. Partisans tend to support president s of their party. Same thing happened with obama. So i actually think if youre more internationalist tendency, thats possible even under donald trump and so events make a big difference. If, for example, theres shocking military event, some crisis, if a war breaks out, we might see a second trump term radically different. We could have a Foreign Policy that changes quite a bit whether the president likes it or not. Danny, any thoughts on this . I think part of the problem that we have and thatt is becoming more and more common as we look inward is that we deny everybody else. The truth is we have two huge factors that have had influence on the fluctuations over the last century. The first is financial crises, you talked about the depression but the financial crisis of 200809 incredible by impactful. Really had a huge, huge effect on on what i describe the shifts in american politics and really without it would not probably have propelled someone like donald trump to the presidency. Thats part one. The second part is, of course, that theres part of the cyclical nature when we disengage, you know, vernacular, happens overseas, when we take our eye off the bowl understanding that theres a global order that the United States has underwritten since the well, basically since the end of world war ii, to a certain extent prior to that that when we cease to do so, bad things happen and bad things suck us back in because they are the events that colin describes, 911. Rather different than conventional view, but still, and she said, no, because in the second term george bush is the president that he would have been had 911 not happened and i didnt like him, and and thats exactly right, because, you know, im a good interventionist andig thats the reality, is that there was the reversion, the intrinsic event that drove us back in. We are looking at a world in which there are very, very serious threats to not just the global order that we have, that we have sustained and that has made us all pretty rich even the people who feel like they werent,we right, but also, you know, there are also other factors out there that we dont talk about as much, but that have huge potential for disruption and we dont talk about nonproliferation anymore at all, but the proliferation of missiles, the proliferations of weapons of mass destruction and any of those can cause event that colin talked about. If you look historically and i think its true, fear changes ideological preferences if they are afraid enough about the external threat, right . Thats the key thats the key driver. In 1945 you had robert taft, not only quasi isolationists if not more but part of ideological impulse for this because they didnt want to maintain a socalled National Security state, broad Standing Army huge federal bureaucracy that collected taxes because there were a few small government conservatives. Those concerns were relegated to a second tier thing. The big tier was communism. You may prefer a small government, you may prefer not to have a Standing Army, you may prefer not to have government in your face, but theres something that you have to worry about and same thing after 911 in part because amount of democracy and bearing on how radicalized people were and military intervention were necessary and stabilize and government were really trying to chip away at what they thought was the National Security state that had grown up over the cold war and no longer necessary and suddenly back in business. I hate the word existential and challenges some of the core that we enjoy in the United States and so the question is, you know, a future president may have all of the preferences that go along with the hard line unilateralist because they are small conservative and the fear enough that will be reduced to small number of people and more expansive view of american Foreign Policy. I am going to open the discussions in the floor in a minute but i had one question that was triggered and additional remarks, how do the 3 groups that youve identified as significant for conservatives and manifestation in politics, how do the group map the questions of citizenship and the view of citizenship and political belonging, the citizenship which has more nativist and connected to certain identities. Is there any obvious mapping of notions of citizenship in these groups . Theres been research in Political Science to try to answer that. Goes back to Richards Point if its an idea, youre more likely to find hardline nationalists, unilateralists do tend to have a view of the United States as a place. Its a place with particular people and not only that, maybe a particular religious and ethnic background. The late senator talked of civic definition versus ethnic. Argue that theres an angle protestant core from 17th century. Thats one way to think about it. That can be compatible with being pretty muscular if you think alqaeda or soviet union is a problem t but youre not likely to have Foreign Policy approach at large, so i think that theres a relationship in that way, yeah. The only thing i would add to that people have looked at lots of the drivers of populism right now and the nationalism that gets linked to populism and theres the economic drivers of the financial crisis and growing inequality and theres the fed upness and nonrepresentation that the elites have never sort of felt, spoken to the needs of those things like that, but theres also cultural aspect because the percentage of foreignborn americans today is higher than it has been in over 100 years, crested right around world war i and all of the legislation was passed in order to close the people who were able to come in and opened up at 60s and pressed again, you know, in elite circles that that kind of diversity and cosmopolitan is embraced even on the right and the left really and has sort of seen as great virtue of the country and culturally renewing phenomena and things like that. Its felt differently in other parts of the country particularly if you tack on economic difficulties and stuff like that and you see resonance here with the president s kind of, we have doing a lot of stuff for a lot of americans for a long time. Its time to get ours now. Time to put america first, right . So, you know, depending on how you define that now in america first, i think that that can be a driver of of some of this. I mean, youre right and its i think its very hard to know because there are sort of flows in attitudes towards immigration, but there are also demographic realities. One of my favorite, one of my favorite interviews from back around the time when there was a controversy whether european allies will do more to support us in the wake of 911 and we were all arguing about what it was and dick cheney was on some sunday show and asked why was it that the europeans wouldnt do more and he said, well, because theyy cant, and can is actually an important factor. Its important factor not just for us but for the chinese. As you start to spend more on social policy as you spend more on social welfare and as you disinvest in defense as we have been doing now for quite some time, then you end up in a situation where you actually cant do things. If you have a population in which you have more old people than young people and the job of the young people is to sustain and pay for and work so that the old people have benefits. They dont want to join the military. Their parents dont want them sent off to do these things. This is something that one of the things that our friend and colleague predicts about china which is a population that there are more elderly people and not children no sustain them and if we become a nation thats not a nation of immigrants which we have historically has been, thats part of where the energy of our growth comes from, innovation and success and if we stop and we rely solely upon americans we will have a the sae problem. And im going to open the discussion if you want to make an intervention identify yourselves and ask as pointed your comment or question, please. Im a retired u. S. Government official. Thats a very stimulating and reassuring discussion, so thank you to all of you. So trade sovereignty, you know, is not only not going to go away any time 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 the intensification of trade sovereignty in all quarters begins to effect the overall environment, how that effects the behavior and calculations of allies, adversaries, rivals, whatever you like . Sure. This to me was really one of the most unexpected changes of the last 5 years and in the book i lay out some recommendations in the end. This is one of the things im most critical of the administrations trade policy and i actually give them credit on china. I really think that that issue needed to be addressed and raised and i think the president deserves some credit. The economic side of it. On u. S. Trade disputes with allies, this doesnt really make sense on the merits of it strategically or economically. I mean, we should be cooperating with our allies to coordinate, so, you know, the wto could use reform, that needs to be addressed. I dont see wellcoordinated effort to do that. What i see is picking fights with allies and resolving the fights and saying we have a deal and we may see the same thing with the eu. Theres threats of auto tariffs. The germans are very worried, you know, so i agree that theres a trend toward trade sovereignty, theres a trend towardrd protectionism, historic shift that we are seeing and seems to have domestic Political Support in Different Countries and that also seems to be one of the single biggest areas where a lot of Congressional Republicans really have a problem with the Administration Even though they dont always, you know, put their foot down but thats thats a sore spot for republicans because they hear about it. If youre a foreign state, you will have local complaining that this is hurting you. Ideally an approach where you coordinate with allies against china. I mean, two things that i think, one, i actually dont see this as a as historical shift as i think youre describing because i think theres always been a really vast goal between elites and by that i also mean members of congress who are voting on these matters and the public. The difference is that the elites were far more willing in the past to ignore their constituents. I mean, having sat through god knows how many msn debates on china and remembering how it shifted depending who the president was or constituency was, that was a pure sign of, again, how big it was and people think differently about it. Theyre not leaders. The mentality of the elected leaders we were elected to lead, not to, you know, be in the front of a mob and now as confusion has deepened about what it is that people really want, nobody really understands what this is all about. People are still kind of confused ofre how donald trump t elected and who really voted for him, right, thats washington for you. I think that thats why they are paying more attention to this. Its not that theres a inarrowing effect. I really believe that. The second point that i think is really important that we never, ever talk about is age. Okay, im sorry, you know, im not a spry as i once was, why is o that we believe that organizations that were created in the wake of world war ii are somehow spry, theyre dont reque reform, nato, world bank, imf, all of the organizations have sort of become hugely intellectual property competition, climate change. Whatever it is, they havent evolved. Thats a huge problem and nobody talks about reform issues. I think youre right. The trade stuff, the skepticism of trade in corridors is not going to go away. Its become a proxy of discomfort. You dont get to vote on egntainerized shipping or, you know, interrogated Financial Markets or broadband imported and exported across voters. Twore remedies to this. Theres the ignore everybody who who is hurt, harmed by whatever economic phenomena is at issue. Which used to be the remedy. The other conceptually attractive one. Service jobs or work as programmers in seattle or whatever, which is attractive especially to those as far as i can tell think tank jobs are not yet tradeable goods nor can they be automated away by Artificial Intelligence or Something Like that, so when you have all of the people making these decisions who are 99 secure that the effects of these economic phenomena will ultimately in their selfinterest because it lowers prices andhe those things, it is hard to say, well, what really is the solution . Are we really going to have a system thatm effectively takes the manan or the woman who has been working in manufacturing in North Carolina for 30 years and now is going to either find the same sense of purpose in everything by working in the strip mall even if they get paid 50 cents more an hour or ideally becomes a programmer in silicon valley. Its very hard to see how that actually works. Which i think raises the larger question which is you have a coalition between logics of the markets and logics of the state. You move now production across National Boundaries and consequences to that shift and we have to manage the consequences without easy solutions. And you can make everything worse by if you just say the answer is to protect all of the industries, that also is the wrong answer, right . You can recognize the challenge. Exactly. You can recognize the challenge, you can have empathy with those who arend affected and then come out making matters even worse if akyou adopt on the back of that the wrong economic policies. Just one quick follow up on that, politically trump showed that you can have narrowly Winning Coalition at College Level with protectionist platform and that may have actually been a vote moving issue with some off the whiteworking class voters in pennsylvania and michigan. So politicians copy success and when i see a debate like last night, democratic debate. The one obvious free trader Mike Bloomberg didnt have a great night. It seems they are not going to pick the lead in standing up for free trade, put it that way. You may get a convergence. You may get a convergence. Yes. My name is yoda, radio liberty. And you mentioned that the conservatism nationalism is here to stay. Do you see the same trend, the same shift in europe . Thats the first part of my e . Question. Secondly, are your views on on definitions of nationalism compatible or not compatible with yoram hasonis views point forward in his book virtual of nationalism . So yorams book is a very important book. I actually like much of it. Wewe have a slightly different view on some things. For example, he offers a staunch sense of National Sovereignty. He suggests that theres a benign element to nationalism historically and theres a western political tradition that says we havent said anything better than nation state. I think hes right about that. By the way, nations dont come together for most part abstract theories, they come together for force, out of coercive situations, external challenges. I actually think he has a point. Where its different i dont know if you can have Global Vision of nationalism, certainly not true worldwide. So, for example, it is very american to think that a u. S. President has the right to go to the un and give a speech as trump did initially to criticizing the north korean regime for internal human rights abuses, right . I dont know where you find the framework, if youre a strict nationalist across the board, i dont know why a u. S. President would have the right to do that. I think, you know, if i read yorums book, i dont see the basis for a u. S. President to do that. But i think hes in a way a brilliant political theorist, so then on the eu, short answer is, yes, its here to stay and its not really mainly about Foreign Policy. I would say immigration as far as i can see is issue number one. Theres a book i would recommend to u. S. Interest called white shift. Might sound like very calm, thoughtful, eric hoffman is the author and goes through cases and says the single biggest cause in rise of populism in europe is mass migration and the fact that this is causing a feeling that traditional ethic majorities are no longer going to get majorities and they are just getting around it and since the movements, migratory movements about to end, continue to be migration from africa crossing in the coming century. So if thats true and i think it is, thats going to force european governments to decide what to do about it. You already have a large percentage of foreignborn population in European Countries so those parties are not going away. The underlying factors are there. It isnt mainly Foreign Policy. Those parties as you know tend to be much more skeptical of the eu. They dont necessarily want to exit but they tend to be more skeptical, National Sovereignty and actually centric but on immigration, you know, thats thats a clear, thats the top issue i would say and then Foreign Policy is interesting because some of them are very proputin, some of them arent. If youre polish youre not proputin. You can have a polish nationalist who is conservative and no use for russia whatsoever. Would itt be true the trend here to stay about migrations in different ways, africaeuropean version, what is the nation state . Of course, we will have accommodations, we will make adjustments but what is longterm viability of the nation state as political small question. [laughter] this is why i love ashley. I think theres such a thing one of the reasons i defend the word nationalism. Some people want to say patriotism. I think theres things in american nation and actually nation state, as a matter of fact, just like other nation states. Might have distinct qualities but nevertheless theres a state and theres a nation, now, we like the fact that america tends to be bottom up. Its not authoritarian. Its democratic. We would like to keep it that way. Theres historically american nation state. We talk about the u. S. Civil war. You probably heard the line before the u. S. Civil war these United States multiple. One of the things the world revealed under lincolns leadership that it was a single United States and he insisted on it. Embodied that determination. American nation states with the ability to defend its territory and integrity by force if necessary. So, yeah, its an idea but also a place. Its a place, so theres a theres a force into all of it. For decades theres been tendency say the nation state is fading, its disappearing because of economic interdependence, transnational governance, really . You think so . I would say the nation state has come back with a vengeance in many parts of the world and we know theres large areas where they dont have effective control, subsaharan transfer quay, for for example, i thik they have obligation to its citizens and hopefully a nation, obligation to each other. Thank you. Anybody else out there . [inaudible] sort of wanted to talk about [inaudible] okay. Which is, ashley, at one point i think you asked the question of how you know, described how Global Trends are running up against the, you know, the existence of states, et cetera, the inadequacies of states and danny rightly pointed out that we have multilateral institutions interstate institutions which are clearly sporadic i think you described. Its not that europe as an entity hasnt tried to find a response to migration, rational realistic response. Its simply that they dont have the institutional frameworks to be able to do that even though they actually have a multilateral institutions that puts most others to shame as multilateral institution, so the fact that even europe has not been able to do that gets back to your original observation which is that we do have this inadequacy of the state, the nation state to address the global problems that we have, but then that does sort of ultimately come back to, you know, to dannys observation which is however sporadic it may be we need to address the question at multilateral level and thats where the inadequacy of multinationalism is glaring, because difficult to convince generallynation generally nationalists and some sovereignty. It was the exact solution to the problem because it defined nationhood not in terms of ethnicity or blood or soil but in terms of constitutional commitment. So in that sense, ethnicity became irrelevant in favor of a new political personality, and if that becomes the definition of nation, then the United States can survive and prosper as a nation state because there is no particularly definition of nation in this case. Everyone who becomes american becomes part of this american nation, right . Its when you start, i think, settling for alternatives conceptions of nationhood that you begin to see these the competition within countries becoming difficult and then so theres a multilateral die mention to it but i think many of the issues would have to be resolved within certain, within countries themselves and that will impact on the definition and their conceptions of nationhood. I mean, its a catch 22, though, it really is. Youre talking about two Different Things in a lot of ways. Why does europe have a problem with migration . Why does europe have a problem with immigrants . When immigrants come to European Countries European Countries dont like to say with the exception perhaps a little bit of england and small extent france, they dont like to say here is what our country stands for, right, because that was that sounds so much like im right, you cant have that. As a result you have the people who come and dont get a civic dont get a sense of civic nationalism. They are denied the sense of ethnic nationalism and they are forever outside. That causes europe problem. Wewe have not had that but increasingly theres an element of conservative,i call them the Tucker Carlson conservative who thinks of us as white anglosaxon protestants and thats what makes america and therefore all of you immigrants no matter whether you believe in the American Dream or not or constitution really are just never going to be part of it. Thats exacerbated by the left and people feel that they should kneel during playing of the National Anthem or not wholly american if they are americans without hyphenated attachment. We have factors that are all exacerbating the problems and because of them we cant actually come together and agree about you, how to prioritize any multilateral fixes to any of them because we cant decide where those people belong or if they belong and how to manage it. Its a real trap that we are in. Yes. I wanted to ask you how you think the change or the shift in demographics especially towards more millennials and more generation z coming to the mix who are growing up in a completely connected world affect the thought process of nationalism Going Forward and even now that more millennials shaping Public Opinion towards that trend . Good. So i can comment on a couple of things. One of the Public Opinion research, ive been teaching for 30 years, over time you seen shifts which are really interesting in hundreds of students, undergrad graduates and the evidence seems that millennials are skeptical of military intervention than older generations because what theyve grown up with, none of it has been positiveit experience, looking at the this isnt even a 911 generation anymore. I have undergrads who have no memory of 911. You might say this is shocking, we need to do something, right, thats not their experience. Their lived experience is just wars dragging on in the greater middle east and, of course, no memory at all of successful conclusion of the cold war which for my generation was a big formative moment. So, you know, that matters and that by the way is across party lines. You find some republicans actually who share that view. So i think that thats not to say that these cant change because of events. People age and develop different views as well but its striking that millennials are more skeptical of military interventionist. Its not the same as interventionists. Why do we need to intervene, itll work out anyway. They believe that theres a peaceful solution. Some element of cultural technologicall interdependence which wouldld cause a positive outcome which i find interesting. Im sometimes more skeptical of that and maybe im a natural pessimist. I noticed that change over time. I guess that would be my short take on how millennials are changing u. S. Opinion on Foreign Policy. Last thought . Just my general sense, not specific to nationalism. I think that notion is more widely shared including among millennials today than it was back b when i was in college in late 90s when it was multinational corporations and super empowered individuals and multilateral organizations and the eclipse of the nation state as the sort of Building Block of International Affairs and, you know, networks of nongovernmental organizations and activists and things like that, and certainly if you look at Something Like, i dont know, isis, nation state leading other nation states that put end to isis caliphate. Thats kind of obvious and even global crisis. Reductive is reality. For all of the desire for Multi Lateral framework and the reality of corporations that can move opinion and technology to connect people around the world really is still the nationstate that is a primary actor to the degree that its not in terms of multilateral functions. So as to perceive the outcome in some level. The issue of the rise of china i believe it can ignite a lot of different factions. Syria, retrospective critiques. Even the more noninterventionist is down with the notion that you have to do something. Hoping it can be a unified tgument. The story that they told in the book. You had trump who is a product of a isolationist nationalist and pushes us in a very different direction. On that note i want to thank all of you for coming to the endowment this morning. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to host them. I look for to seeing you back here at some point in the future. If you have an interest you could entice them to stop and sign a copy for you. Youre welcome to pick up a copy we will see very soon. Tonight at 11 00 eastern lots sonja shaw discussing the pandemics. We dont really look for the social and political roots we wait for them to erupt. Then we hope that we can throw sufficient vaccines and drugs added. When i talk about pandemics very quickly the animal connection comes into play. With ebola it is bats. There is nothing about this that suggested anything other than a natural mutation and its a reminder that we dont need all kinds of theories of biological warfare to explain something that is natural and i think should be a wakeup call to all of us. We are often in denial about the space of work. People assume that workplace is a meritocracy. People dont have different experiences and work. We are denying inequality. Sunday and 9 00 p. M. At 9 00 p. M. Eastern on book tv. Here are some of the current bestselling nonFiction Books according to new is max. The recounting of the coverage of the trumpet ministration. In front row at the trumpet show. In the house of kennedy the journalist Cynthia Fagan recall the political life of the kennedy family. At the Opioid Epidemic through the experiences of those increment West Virginia and death in mud like. That is followed by the some of the people data scientists and that would be history of census taking. Wrapping up the look at the non Fiction Books according to newsmax. What the examination of the