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 ForeignRelations 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