S8 Ep346: SEGMENT 15: GREAT POWERS VERSUS SMALL STATES IN STRATEGIC THINKING Guest: Gregory Copley Copley contrasts how great powers often act impulsively while smaller states analyze carefully before moving. Discussion examines the hubris of major nations shooting
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.6 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 21 January 2026
⏱️ 14 minutes
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Summary
SEGMENT 15: GREAT POWERS VERSUS SMALL STATES IN STRATEGIC THINKING Guest: Gregory Copley Copley contrasts how great powers often act impulsively while smaller states analyze carefully before moving. Discussion examines the hubris of major nations shooting from the hip on foreign policy, the advantages smaller countries gain through meticulous strategic calculation, and lessons for American policymakers in an increasingly complex world.
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| 1:10.8 | I'm John Batchel, Gregory Copley's here, and we're commenting on the future, the immediate future, the hardest to see. 30 years, 50 years, the balance of this century. We've been speaking of middle powers and small powers, reorganizing themselves because of the absence of the great power, the United States. There are other great powers coterminously, either potential or memory. |
| 1:17.2 | I read a quote from Foreign Affairs, most recent, December issue of 2025. |
| 1:23.4 | This is an article by Dr. Caleb Pomeroy, professor at the Department of Political Science at the Monk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy University of Toronto. |
| 1:32.9 | He writes, with great power comes great insecurity, why stronger states are more fearful than weaker ones. |
| 1:41.7 | He adds this, I'm following Gregory's reporting in Defense and Foreign Affairs. |
| 1:46.5 | The strong, it turns out, are far more likely than the weak to skip careful reasoned analysis |
| 1:51.6 | when making decisions. Instead, they assess threats from the gut and shoot from the hip. While the |
| 1:58.6 | weak know they must think critically to navigate their surroundings, |
| 2:02.2 | the strong imagine they can rely on stereotypes and other mental shortcuts to get by. As a result, |
| 2:09.4 | the powerful view the world in bleak and oversimplified terms, breeding suspicion and anxiety. |
| 2:17.1 | Gregory, I'd watch this movie. |
| 2:18.6 | Where are we going with this? |
| 2:21.3 | Well, it does, we do see, in fact, now this rise of national level paranoia around the world. |
| 2:30.3 | And it's strange that the, that nationalism is one of the tools are used to project this. |
| 2:40.3 | It's also equally important to note that nationalism is the tool which the weaker states used to defend against this. |
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