meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Hidden Forces

After the Fall: Reckoning with the End of History | Ian Shapiro

Hidden Forces

Demetri Kofinas

Business, Government

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 29 June 2026

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In Episode 485 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Yale political scientist Ian Shapiro—author of After the Fall—about how the widespread optimism of the post–Cold War era gave way so rapidly to the fractured, combative politics of today, why American unilateralism hollowed out the very international institutions the US claimed to champion, and what it will take for mainstream democratic parties to recover their legitimacy in the populist era.

The first hour traces the critical decisions of the 1990s and early 2000s that Ian believes set this unraveling in motion: the choice to enlarge NATO eastward and invest meaningfully in Russia's post-Soviet transition, and the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia as the first major military action taken without UN Security Council authorization. They then turn to  the unilateral invasion of Iraq as the seminal rupture in the international rules-based order, followed by the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath, which delivered a parallel blow to the elite consensus that had governed Western countries since the onset of the Cold War.

The second hour opens with the 2011 intervention in Libya and the doctrine of the responsibility to protect, which Shapiro argues was cynically deployed to topple Muammar Gaddafi, leaving behind a failed state and further discrediting the international norms it was meant to uphold. From there, they trace the cascading fallout across the Middle East and Europe—through Syria and Ukraine—to the present moment, before turning to the central political question of the age: whether mainstream parties can deliver an industrial policy and a model of inclusive growth capable of addressing the economic grievances and insecurities driving the populist revolt across the democratic world.

Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

If you'd like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

If you enjoyed today's episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by:

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas
Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

Subscribe and support the podcast at https://hiddenforces.io.
Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas

Episode Recorded on 06/25/2026

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

What's up, everybody? My name is Demetri Gaffinus, and you're listening to Hidden Forces,

0:06.0

a podcast that inspires investors, entrepreneurs and everyday citizens, the challenge consensus

0:12.2

narratives, and learn how to think critically about the systems of power shaping our world.

0:18.0

My guest in this episode of Hidden Forces is Ian Shapiro,

0:21.3

professor of political science and global affairs at Yale University,

0:25.0

whose new book, After the Fall, explores how and why the widespread optimism of the post-Cold

0:31.6

war era gave way so quickly to the fractured and combative politics of today.

0:42.3

We begin the first hour of this conversation, exploring how the United States, throughout key moments in the 1990s and early 2000s, chose to act alone, repeatedly and in defiance of the

0:49.3

very international institutions that it claimed to support, while simultaneously expanding the scope of its military

0:55.1

alliances and operations in the face of a collapsing post-Soviet empire.

1:00.2

We focus in particular on the decision to enlarge NATO eastward, the failure to invest in

1:05.4

Russia's transition, the decision that helped give rise to gangster capitalism and the

1:09.7

oligarchs, and the NATO bombing

1:11.5

of Yugoslavia as the first major unilateral military action taken without Security Council

1:17.4

authorization. We then turned to the 9-11 attacks and the unilateral invasion of Iraq as the seminal

1:23.8

moment in which the consensus supporting the international rules-based order was shattered,

1:29.1

followed by the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath, which did the same for the legitimacy

1:34.4

of the elite consensus that had governed countries throughout the Western world since the onset

1:39.6

of the Cold War. The second hour begins with the 2011 intervention in Libya, and the doctrine

1:46.4

known as the responsibility to protect, which Ian argues was cynically invoked to topple Gaddafi

1:52.4

and the West's own economic interests, leaving behind a failed state and further discrediting the

1:57.8

very international norms and institutions it was meant to advance.

...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 22 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Demetri Kofinas, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Demetri Kofinas and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.