American Foreign Policy: The Liberal International Order
The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast
Hillsdale College
4.6 • 621 Ratings
🗓️ 22 October 2025
⏱️ 38 minutes
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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.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Hillsdale College Online Courses podcast. |
| 0:12.0 | I am Jeremiah Regan, and I'm Juan Dabalos. |
| 0:14.3 | We're back with American Foreign Policy. |
| 0:16.6 | On to lecture number nine, the last lecture, the liberal international order. |
| 0:21.0 | In this lecture, sums up the course and leaves us where we are in America today, and because |
| 0:26.4 | of that, it's worth looking back to where we started with the founding. |
| 0:30.4 | There's an interesting affair from the founding era in which the Greeks sought independence |
| 0:34.7 | in the 1820s from the Ottoman Turks, and they petitioned America, |
| 0:39.5 | using the words of the Declaration of Independence, for aid, money, diplomatic recognition, and even |
| 0:45.5 | troops and ships to help them throw off the Ottoman reign. Those letters were directed toward |
| 0:51.2 | American Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, serving under James Monroe, |
| 0:56.1 | and Adams responded with a practical and a principled rebuttal. |
| 1:02.3 | First, it should be said that Adams expressed sympathy for the Greek cause and promised that America |
| 1:07.6 | would recognize the Greek states should they win their independence, |
| 1:17.6 | but he refused aid on two grounds. First, the practical, the executive in the American system is not the one who makes decisions about allocating money or troops. That would be Congress. |
| 1:22.8 | And he points this out. He says, the president can't make this decision. Congress must make it, but they should not. |
| 1:28.9 | And then we get into the principled objection. The taxes taken from American citizens, |
| 1:35.4 | the men who serve in the American military, that blood and treasure is for the preservation of |
| 1:41.8 | American lives and liberties. And so while we wish you, the Greeks, |
| 1:45.8 | well, Adam said, we cannot assign American property or lives to your cause. You need to do that |
| 1:53.3 | yourselves. I've always enjoyed reading John Quincy Adams on foreign policy because I think |
| 1:59.3 | from all of the precedents, at least in my opinion, |
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