Charles Kupchan on 'Isolationism'
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 13 October 2020
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Many of us think of the history of the United States' interaction with the world as one of relentless expansion, growth and engagement. From the early colonies, through the Spanish American War, through involvement in two world wars and of course, the Cold War era, the story is one of America increasingly getting involved with countries in its region and around the globe. Charles Kupchan has a thing or two to say about that. He recently researched and wrote the book, "Isolationism: A History of America's Efforts to Shield Itself from the World." He joined David Priess to talk through the idea that much of American history in terms of its relations to the outside world can be explained by isolationist tendencies, with only occasional bursts into more engagement, most notably in the Cold War world. But is that period coming to an end? And how does Donald Trump play into these trends?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:34.0 | My head exploded when I started to read pre Pearl Harbor history, the narrative of American |
| 0:39.2 | exceptionalism, which was so powerful from the very beginning was a very different kind |
| 0:47.7 | of exceptionalism than the one that we're used to. |
| 0:51.4 | Now today, American exceptionalism is used to justify intervention and global engagement. |
| 0:58.3 | For much of American history, it was the opposite. |
| 1:01.7 | It was, the United States needs to protect its exceptional experiments in liberty by keeping |
| 1:08.1 | the outside world at bay. |
| 1:11.8 | I'm David Prius and this is the LawFair podcast, October 13, 2020. |
| 1:18.5 | Many of us think of the story of the United States interaction with the world as one |
| 1:24.1 | of relentless expansion, growth and engagement. |
| 1:29.4 | From the early colonies, through the Spanish-American War, through the involvement in two world |
| 1:34.6 | wars, and of course the Cold War era, the story is one of America increasingly getting |
| 1:40.9 | involved with the countries in its region and around the globe. |
| 1:45.6 | While Charles Cupchan has a thing or two to say about that, he's recently researched |
| 1:49.7 | and written the book, Isolationism, a history of America's efforts to shield itself from |
| 1:55.7 | the world. |
| 1:57.2 | I sat down with Charles in the virtual jungle studio to talk through this idea that in |
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