American Foreign Policy: Retrench or Expand?
The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast
Hillsdale College
4.6 • 621 Ratings
🗓️ 15 October 2025
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast, Jeremiah and Juan discuss the long-term ramifications of the fall of the Soviet Union before introducing Michael Anton.
We often treat foreign policy as a mystery that can only be understood by an enlightened few who have committed their lives to understanding the complexities of international life. This view is dangerous because it encourages citizens to ignore a critical aspect of American political life that it’s our duty to understand. And it’s false because the basics of foreign policy are commonsense and a joy to learn. For the Founders, the basic premise of foreign policy is simple—we must make every decision with a view towards securing the equal, natural rights of American citizens. This understanding requires that America’s leaders remain accountable to the people, and it places essential limits on our interventions abroad. Yet, for over a century, this traditional understanding of American foreign policy has been challenged by new and more ambitious doctrines that argue for increased American involvement and leadership abroad.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, America was left as the sole great power on the world stage, which led many Americans to expect a return to noninterventionist policies. But the foreign policy establishment argued that America as the sole great power left in the world had a responsibility of leading in a new international order. The threat of global terrorism entrenched this new role.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Hillsdale College online courses podcast. I'm Jeremiah Regan and I'm Juan Davalos. We're back with |
| 0:16.0 | lecture number eight of American foreign policy post-Cold War, retrench or expand. |
| 0:21.9 | We won. The Soviet Union fell. |
| 0:24.2 | That's right. And when the Soviet Union falls, America is left as the one and only superpower in the world. |
| 0:32.2 | And the one that gets to dictate foreign affairs for a long period of time. And it leads to a different kind of |
| 0:41.5 | involvement of America in the world stage. And one that is in many ways questionable. We have |
| 0:49.3 | some adventures in the Middle East. Yeah, that's right. That leads to very long wars in the Middle East, |
| 0:55.4 | you know, Afghanistan over 20 years, Iraq, and the purpose stated by the Bush-wide House was |
| 1:02.4 | to spread democracy. Here we get into a difficulty in modern American political theory. |
| 1:08.6 | There is a taking of teaching in the Declaration of Independence |
| 1:12.5 | that all men are created equal and that they're endowed by their creator with certain |
| 1:15.8 | inalienable rights. And going on to an assumption that that means all people should be |
| 1:20.8 | governed in the same way. But you have to read more extensively the writings of the founding |
| 1:25.0 | to understand what the founders actually believed about |
| 1:27.8 | how universal rights are protected for particular peoples. Federalist II is a great exam. |
| 1:33.3 | Americans who have the same natural rights as any other people have a different type of character. |
| 1:37.6 | They're used to ruling themselves, and they have a type of unity in language and religion |
| 1:42.2 | and tradition and customs, and even the land, |
| 1:45.6 | John Jay says in Federalist II, is conducive to a single people. It doesn't mean, though, |
| 1:50.8 | that you can take the Federalist papers, translate them into a foreign language, and turn a foreign |
| 1:55.8 | people into Americans. They have their own language and religion and customs, and while they |
| 2:00.5 | enjoy the same |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Hillsdale College, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Hillsdale College and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.