John Mearsheimer on 'The Great Delusion'
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 19 October 2018
⏱️ 40 minutes
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Summary
In recent decades, both democratic and republican administrations have tried to guide other countries toward liberal democracy. But international relations theorist John Mearsheimer’s latest book, “The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realties,” says that strategy has made the U.S. a “highly militarized state fighting wars that undermine peace, harm human rights, and threaten liberal values at home.” Last week at the Hoover Institution’s Washington office, Jack Goldsmith sat down with Mearsheimer to talk about the book. They talked about why administrations try to promote democracy, how that strategy has bolstered non-democratic governments, and whether a more restrained foreign policy could better serve U.S. interests.
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| 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 | The American public is not that interested in foreign policy because it doesn't matter that |
| 0:37.9 | much. |
| 0:38.9 | This is a playground for the elites, right? |
| 0:41.1 | And as I said before, it's a giant jobs program. |
| 0:45.0 | And the end result is that as long as large numbers of Americans are not being killed, |
| 0:52.5 | and as long as people don't think they now have to pay a lot of money to fight these |
| 0:57.8 | wars, they're willing to let the wars go on. |
| 1:01.2 | And my final point to you would be the elite in this country is really brilliant at |
| 1:07.8 | banned-bosling the public into thinking it's necessary to spend all this money on defense |
| 1:14.1 | and fight all these wars. |
| 1:16.2 | Threat inflation is our business. |
| 1:18.2 | There's nobody that's better threat inflation than the American foreign policy establishment. |
| 1:25.2 | I'm Matthew Khan and you're listening to the LawFair podcast October 20, 2018. |
| 1:32.5 | In recent decades, both democratic and republican administrations have tried to guide other |
| 1:37.8 | countries toward systems of liberal democracy. |
| 1:41.5 | But international relations theorist John Nearsheimer's latest book, The Great Delusion, |
| 1:47.1 | liberal dreams and international realities, says that strategy has made the US a highly |
... |
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