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- [00:01]
Podcast Host (Ad Reader)
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- [01:59]
Martin DeCaro
Libsyn history as it happens June 5, 2026 Cold War liberalism Redux One of
- [02:10]
Historical Voice / Archival Audio
the primary objectives of the foreign policy of the United States is the creation of conditions in which nations will be able to work out a way of life free from coercion. Not as a call to battle, though in battle we are but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle. Why are these realities our concern? Why are we in South Vietnam? It was a Soviet Cuban colony being readied as a major military bastion to export terror and undermine democracy. There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment and expose the pretensions of tyrants and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant. And that is the force of human freedom.
- [03:04]
Martin DeCaro
What was what is Cold War Liberalism. Does it live on in the Trump administration? If so, how so? From its roots in the 1930s and 40s to its descent in Vietnam to its afterlife under neoconservatism. Our guests in this episode say you can't understand the long destructive patterns in US foreign policy without knowing Cold War liberalism. That's next as we report history as it happens. I'm Martin DeCaro.
- [03:31]
Daniel Besner
Most Cold War liberals argued that evil was ineradicable. Politics was a tragic sphere of life defined by conflict. Utopian thinking must be rejected. Extreme forms of instrumental reason were dangerous. Intellectuals should strive to protect negative liberty and that the struggle between the working classes and capitalists had been displaced by the struggle between liberal capitalist democracy and communist authoritarianism.
- [04:02]
Historical Voice / Archival Audio
Seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes.
- [04:09]
Martin DeCaro
March 12, 1947. A seminal moment in the early Cold War. President Harry Truman addresses Congress asking for aid to Greece and Turkey.
- [04:18]
Historical Voice / Archival Audio
It is necessary only to glance at a map to realize that the survival and integrity of the Greek nation are of grave importance in a much wider situation.
- [04:31]
Martin DeCaro
In an essay titled Free World Leadership and the Limits of Liberalism, Peter Sleskin writes, the Truman administration worried the Republican controlled Congress would oppose the expenditure for Greece and Turkey. As a result, Truman deliberately formulated his request in stark moral terms reminiscent of wartime anti Axis rhetoric. In his speech to Congress, the President explained that at the present moment in world history, nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life, one guaranteeing individual liberty, the other relying upon terror and oppression.
- [05:04]
Historical Voice / Archival Audio
It would be an unspeakable tragedy if these countries, which have struggled so long against overwhelming odds, should lose that victory for which they sacrificed so much. Collapse of free institutions and loss of independence would be disastrous not only for them, but for the world. Discouragement and possibly failure would quickly be the lot of neighboring peoples striving to maintain their freedom and independence. Should we fail to aid Greece and Turkey in this fateful hour, the effect will be far reaching to the west as well as to the East.
- [05:47]
Martin DeCaro
Slezkine goes on to cite A memo from August 1947 written by Chip Bolen, who is then serving as counselor at the State Department. He insisted on recognizing what he called the disagreeable fact that there were two worlds instead of one. He argued that persistent attempts to make policy based on the non existent thesis of one world might lead the administration to neglect to take such measures as would make the non Soviet world possible of existence. Only by drawing closer together politically, economically, financially and in the last analysis, militarily, said Bohlin, could a free and non Soviet world hope to survive in the face of the centralized and ruthless direction of the Soviet world.
- [06:27]
Historical Voice / Archival Audio
Alarmed at the rapid expansion of totalitarian interests in Europe and Asia, President Truman addresses a joint session of Congress on our changing foreign policy. A grave gathering hears his forthright message.
- [06:39]
Martin DeCaro
Sleskine's essay appears in a volume of a dozen essays co edited by the historians Daniel Besner and Michael Brennis, Cold War Power in a Time of Emergency, to which they also contributed pieces of their own in addition to editing the book. So you can hear echoes of Truman's formulation, the world as a simple dichotomy and freedom on one side, Communist slavery on the other. All throughout the Cold War, most of
- [07:06]
Historical Voice / Archival Audio
the non communist nations of Asia cannot by themselves and alone resist the growing might and the grasping ambition of Asian Communists.
- [07:21]
Martin DeCaro
The Cold War, that existential struggle that defined my childhood, wound down in the late 1980s.
- [07:27]
Michael Brennis
Astonishing news from East Germany, where the
- [07:29]
Historical Voice / Archival Audio
East German authorities have said, in essence, that the Berlin Wall doesn't mean anything anymore.
- [07:33]
Martin DeCaro
And then the Soviet Union disappeared in 1991.
- [07:37]
Historical Voice / Archival Audio
This is a victory for democracy and freedom.
- [07:41]
Daniel Besner
It's a victory for the moral force of our values.
- [07:44]
Martin DeCaro
But Bessner and Brennis argue the ideology and the institutions of Cold War liberalism, including the national security state, lived on and needed new era defining enemies from communism to radical Islam to autocracy today, although under Donald Trump's personal rule, maybe it's not. But that is why I invited them onto the podcast. Daniel Besner teaches history at the University of Washington, but you probably know him as the co host of American Prestige podcast. Michael Brennis is co director of the Brady Johnson Program in Grand Strategy and a lecturer in history at Yale University. They co edited the aforementioned Cold War Power in a Time of Emergency. Daniel Besner, welcome back.
- [08:29]
Daniel Besner
Thanks so much for having me again, Martin. Appreciate it.
- [08:32]
Martin DeCaro
And Michael Brennis, welcome to the show. Your first time.
- [08:36]
Michael Brennis
Thanks so much.
- [08:36]
Daniel Besner
Pleasure to be here.
- [08:37]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah. How lucky are you? You get to join Daniel Bessner, who
- [08:41]
Michael Brennis
in with Danny's a lucky day.
- [08:43]
Daniel Besner
So that's, that's so beautiful, Mike. Thank you so much.
- [08:46]
Martin DeCaro
He'll be co hosting or even hosting this episode himself and I'll just sit here. So congrats on your edited volume, Cold War Liberalism, Power in a Time of Emergency, a number of fascinating essays. Michael, since this is your first time, why don't we go with you first? Why'd you want to put together this volume?
- [09:04]
Michael Brennis
Danny and I have had a mutual interest in cold reliberalism since we've known each other. Which is going back now more than half a decade. And I, you know, Danny can speak for himself, but I was interested in Coldwell Liberalism going back to early days in graduate school. I wrote a book on the history of the defense industry and the ways the defense industry mobilized people around greater military spending for jobs and growth. And I've encountered these liberals, we've called them Coldwell Liberals, like Hubert Humphrey, Scoop Jackson, people in politics who helped shape the defense industries but also shaped the welfare state in many ways. Hubert Humphrey, a champion of civil rights, champion of labor. And I was always interested in the contradiction, if you want to call it that, or the inability to reconcile support for the support for a large military budget alongside support for a welfare state. One has to trump over the other at some point. Point. And the literature on Cold War liberalism was. I don't want to throw anyone under the bus here, but it's quite sparse. Most of it's on Cold War intellectuals. It's an intellectual history of thought during the Cold War. And what I always was fascinated in was how coldworld liberalism sort of manifested in politics and in policy. And so part of the reason, I think Danny feels this way too, a little bit, but I won't speak for him, part if not most of the reason we wanted to get together to collaborate on this was to show how Cold War liberalism existed beyond the thought of intellectuals. And it really was fundamental to shaping policy and politics in the United States. So we wanted to look at Cold Realism as a broader phenomenon beyond the purview of a few intellectuals.
- [10:37]
Daniel Besner
Yeah, I think that's right. And it's interesting, the previous historiography on Cold War liberalism, like Mike said, I would say primarily focused on intellectuals, but intriguingly enough, mostly, or not mostly, but a lot of British intellectuals, Karl Popper, Isaiah Berlin, or emigre intellectuals like Hannah Arendt, obviously very crucial figures in intellectual history, but very disconnected, far from politics. Berlin was kind of a doyen and people read a rent, but certainly not connected with politics. And then Cold War liberalism, intriguingly enough, Mike, I found in. In the reading of the literature, oftentimes was in the history of domesticity and the family. There was. There was a quite a bit on Cold War liberalism as almost a domestic phenomenon, which is very important to my mind. The fundamental thing about Cold War liberalism is that was the ideology of the largest empire, most powerful empire the world had ever seen. And so we wanted to fill what seem. Seemed like an obvious gap about talking about this ideology in terms of foreign policy, which is, you know, the Cold War was A domestic phenomenon. Absolutely. But it was at base, I would argue, an orientation toward the world and an orientation toward politics. And so we wanted to fill that gap with this book, or at least start to fill the gap, because I think it is a potential research subject that could really launch libraries.
- [11:55]
Martin DeCaro
Sure.
- [11:56]
Daniel Besner
And hopefully this book will start encouraging that.
- [11:58]
Martin DeCaro
So here's where I'm coming at this from. I had never really heard the term Cold War liberal until Samuel Moines book came out. I had Sam on to discuss his book a few years ago upon the publication of it. Although the ideas under girding Cold War Liberalism I was familiar with, so just the term was new, not the ideas and the notions and the ideology, if you will. Although I'm reluctant to get into a long discussion about definitions, I think we do need to address that at first. You know, what is Cold War Liberalism? Because as I read the volumes, I was thinking of how I define myself as, say, a liberal. But if Cold War liberalism, as it states here on page 116, is an embrace of a pessimistic view of humanity and society, also anti democratic, pro imperialism, at least Cold War liberalism was. I mean, that's not how I define my own liberalism today, which is a very long way of asking you, Michael, and I want to hear from Daniel as well. Just briefly define what this means or what it was or if it still exists today. I mean, I spent a lot of time on the show about the origins of today's crisis patterns, American foreign policy. What was this? What is present tense? Is it.
- [13:11]
Michael Brennis
We can take the conversation, of course, in many different directions. There's many different variations of Cold War liberalism, but to me it comes down to, and we say this in the volume, it comes down to emergency politics and the fear that the nation is under threat from external enemies, but also internal enemies. And then the only way to gird or protect the nation is to make sure that it's properly prepared to deal with those threats. And so Cold War liberals emerge out of the New Deal. They emerge out of the 1930s when the threat of the Great Depression and rising empires like the German and Japanese Empire come to threaten the nation. They form a powerful, indeed foundational block of people who believe that the United States needs to do everything it can to make sure that a Pearl harbor never happens again, that World War II never happens again, prepare itself in terms of national security state, but also has to make sure that there is no more Great Depressions anymore, that there needs to be an attempt to provide for people within, to avoid fascism, to avoid communism, which is what Cold War liberals fear. They fear that communism is a threat within and a threat without. And I think that is what essentially defines Cold War liberalism for me, is that people today, and I think it manifests today in ways that you see people like Timothy Snyder, Ann Applebaum, Yascha Mounk, people who feel that the United States should provide health care for its citizens, that it should be a place where people don't go poor, but they also have not met a defense budget that they're not willing to approve. And I think that's kind of where we're coming at this. And also the point about the focus on emergency, that the nation is under threat, under threat from Trump. And again, I don't disagree with people who think that Trump is a threat. He certainly is. But also supporting American interventionism abroad to defend democracy, small D democracy, wherever it may be threatened. And I think that's a lot of
- [15:10]
Martin DeCaro
ways to do that. Though I want to talk about Harry Truman in his 1949 inaugural address in a minute. But Daniel Besner, I know you loved our past episodes where we defined fascism. Oh, no, I'm kidding. Go ahead, define Cold War liberalism.
- [15:23]
Daniel Besner
Sure. So I think Mike did a good job of tracing Cold War liberalism to its proximate origins. But maybe to take a step back and take a more macro view, I would argue that its inception, liberalism, liberalism had two key features, which was a skepticism of mass politics and a valorization of elites. And who that elite was or who comprised that elite changed over time. But liberalism, and we agree with Helena Rosenblatt here, which Mike, was she your advisor actually?
- [15:50]
Michael Brennis
Yeah, she was.
- [15:50]
Daniel Besner
Yep, Mike's advisor, which I didn't even realize until halfway we were doing this volume, who argues in her book that liberalism as a political form instantiated in real world politics, is really a reaction to the French Revolution. You could point to proto liberals like a Montesquieu and others, but when it became a political form in the early 19th century and was attached to Napoleon and Napoleonic armies, it was primarily trying to steer a middle path between revolutionary terror and counter revolutionary reaction. So it wanted to act in favor of the people. And it understood that mass politics was a thing that was here to stay. But it was also aware that the quota, fearful of the mob, which might be the other, imagine as the other side of mass politics and embodied by Robespierre's terror, you know, thousands of people are murdered, tens of thousands of people are imprisoned, and many of those innocent. So that liberalism is trying to move this middle path, pursue this Middle path and what liberalism is worried about changes over time. At moments, it's more afraid of the masses. Other moments it's less afraid. At moments, it's particularly focused on elites. At other moments, it's less focused on elites. But as Mike was saying, the particular political experience of the 1930s, the depression, the rise of Hitler, then followed by World War II and the rise of the Soviet Union, pushed the prevailing liberalism at the time in a particularly paranoid direction. And that is the Cold War liberalism that we know. Beyond that, I think it might be worthwhile because I imagine academics listen to this, to actually define some of the key features of Cold War liberalism. From. I did a broad reading in the literature and defined this in my introduction, and I think I'll just read it just because it's quick and it gives a good sense. So in addition to their core skepticism of mass politics and faith in US Empire, most Cold War liberals argued that evil was ineradicable. Politics was a tragic sphere of life defined by conflict. Utopian thinking must be rejected. Extreme forms of instrumental reason were dangerous. Intellectuals should strive to protect negative liberty. The welfare state and Keynesian fiscal stimulus were necessary features of modern economic governance. Central planning must be avoided. Psychology was a crucial means to understand human behavior. And that the struggle between the working classes and capitalists had been displaced by the struggle between. Between liberal capitalist democracy and communist authoritarianism. And those are the key features of Cold War liberals, who, I think it must be added, never cohered into a very specific group. I mean, liberalism is obviously a broad ideology, but borrowing from the work of Dieter Pleva and Phil Murawski. But Pleva wrote the introduction to the Road From Mount Pelorin, the Making of the Neoliberal Thought Collective, which was a book that came out in 2009 by Harvard. The Cold War liberals, we think, are best understood as a thought collective in the sense that they had keywords, they had a common approach, they had a particular view of society. But. And they are writing for specific journals, but they're not, you know, the pragmatists. And like a very coherent philosophical movement, they basically define the common sense of an era.
- [18:54]
Martin DeCaro
And as in sports, where you're not supposed to compare athletes from different eras, like Babe Ruth and whoever the best baseball player is today. You know, the word liberal meant something different when Thomas Jefferson was around than it did during Reagan's time. But you can say they're both somewhere in the American liberal tradition. I mean, I think our focus here is on Cold War liberalism's origins and its height and Then how it continued on after that, I guess you could say with the rise of neoconservatives who adapted or adopted a form of Cold War liberalism. But its Height was the 1940s through basically Vietnam. Then it goes into a dissent. Would you agree with that? We'll stick with Daniel Besner on this one, but I want to hear from both of you.
- [19:35]
Daniel Besner
Yeah, I, I. Cold War liberalism is associated with what might be thought of as the height of the Cold War, or what a scholar like Andrew Stevenson refers to just as the Cold War, which is basically this period between the mid to late 1940s and the mid to late 1960s when the United States, particularly the American elite, viewed the Soviet Union as essentially illegitimate. So that's on the geopolitical side. And it might also be associated with a type of left wing Fordism or more social democratic Fordism, or really, like I said, a military Keynesianism. But the height of Fordism. And once the crises of geopolitics as expressed through Vietnam and the crisis of capitalism as expressed through the Fordist stagnation of the 60s and 70s came to fruition, Cold War liberalism itself began to wane. However, it's still important because it's really the institutions of American foreign policymaking we still think are really inflected by the moment in which they were created. They were paradigmatically Cold War liberal institutions are very focus focus on elites. They're very skeptical of the mass public. They concentrate power in the executive. And as Mike gestured to earlier in this conversation, there are still several people who sound a lot like the Cold War liberals. Although updated for the 21st century, a Timothy Snyder, Ayasha Monk, and Applebaum, still speaking in the language of Cold War liberalism in a moment when it appears less and less relevant. And maybe the last Cold War liberal was Joe Biden.
- [20:57]
Martin DeCaro
I was just about to say Biden
- [20:59]
Daniel Besner
was, yeah, And Anthony Blinken and Jake Sullivan. They do emerge, I think, to some degree from a Cold War liberal tradition. And I think it unlikely that you'll ever see another Cold War liberal president again.
- [21:10]
Martin DeCaro
You know, democracy versus autocracy sounds a little bit like the free world versus the communist world.
- [21:17]
Michael Brennis
I think we're in a contest not
- [21:19]
Historical Voice / Archival Audio
with China per se, but a context
- [21:21]
Michael Brennis
with autocrats, autocratic governments around the world,
- [21:26]
Historical Voice / Archival Audio
as whether or not democracies can compete
- [21:28]
Michael Brennis
with them in the rapidly changing 21st century. So Mike Franzak and I actually have an essay in the volume where we chart the history of Cold War liberalism or track it into neoconservatism and the main point of that essay is a lot of the Cold War liberals who get disenchanted with the new Left or disenchanted with the trajectory of the Democratic Party don't go away. They just form new, sometimes countervailing institutions that keep the focus on the Cold War as a, as a phenomenon. That's what I was saying. The United States needs to fight the Cold War, needs to fight communism even after Vietnam and the Cold War changes and then end up becoming part of the Reagan administration. And many of them go into the State Department or the Defense Department helping to shake Reagan's foreign policy and his muscular approach to communism then. But they don't shed their liberal bona fides. They don't go away in terms of thinking that they're liberals. They just think they're representing the true liberalism, the original liberalism in the post war sense. And I think that that's where you'd see the similarities to the people that Danny talks about is that press those people and ask them, are they liberals? I think they would all say yes and that they would believe that they're holding a version of liberalism that they think is necessary for the United States to fight victories at home and abroad and win.
- [22:44]
Historical Voice / Archival Audio
As the years dragged on, we were told that peace would come if we would simply stop interfering and go home. Well, it's time that we recognized ours was in truth a no cause. A small country, newly free from colonial rule, sought our help in establishing self rule, the means of self defense against a totalitarian neighbor bent on conquest. We dishonor the memory of 50,000 young Americans who died in that cause when we give way to feelings of guilt as if we were doing something shameful. And as a result we've been shabby in our treatment of those who return.
- [23:25]
Martin DeCaro
Like empire. It's a bipartisan endeavor.
- [23:28]
Daniel Besner
I do think that it's going to be an ideology that will is unlikely to experience a resurgence. I think it is fundamentally connected to American hegemony or American hyperpower superpower status. And I do think the United States will remain a superpower. It will remain within a specific sphere of influence and will be less globally dominant going forward. And Cold War liberalism is really all encompassing in this vision of domination.
- [23:54]
Martin DeCaro
And I think treating it as an ideology is important. Although people who are considered Cold War liberals in your edited volume here never refer to themselves that way. But it is an ideology, even if not in the same way as socialism or Marxism or fascism. Right. Liberalism itself is an ideology, although again, it's hard to. It's a Slippery term, depending on who we're talking about, what time period we're talking about. I think it's right to discuss it as an ideology. And this is where I guess I started to really engage with the book. I believe your argument and the argument of your co authors here is that Cold War liberalism was a betrayal of liberalism was even paranoid in some respects, where Communism had to be contained at all costs, even if Country X wasn't really a threat to U.S. security. Right. Primacy, primacy everywhere. A betrayal of liberalism that set the United States on a course from which it really has not recovered.
- [24:49]
Daniel Besner
So that's Sam Moyne's argument, that Cold War liberalism was a departure from liberalism. I actually disagree. I think that it reflected certain elements that were present in liberalism from the beginning. Sam argues that liberalism was more forward thinking, emancipatory in the 19th century and early 20th century, and that the Cold War cut it off. I think that Cold War liberalism is less a departure from liberalism than a form of liberalism that emphasizes and underlines things that were always there under the particular pressures of a contingent historical era. So I wouldn't necessarily call it a betrayal of liberalism because, I mean, this has been liberalism for much of the 20th century, second half. So to some degree it just is liberalism.
- [25:31]
Martin DeCaro
You argue, though, Dan, you argue in your initial introductory essay, I should say that it had disastrous consequences, yes, but that.
- [25:38]
Daniel Besner
I mean that embedded within liberalism as such, as opposed to a departure from liberalism. I think those consequences were embedded in the ideology when it responded to the French Revolution. That's how I would put it.
- [25:49]
Martin DeCaro
And unnecessary. I mean, isn't that really the point here, that. That this take on the world, as the second essay gets into Free World Leadership and the Limits of Liberalism by Peter Sleskin, that this was, yeah, this was unnecessary because the Soviet Union wasn't the threat that the American Cold warriors made it out to be. Michael, why don't you take that on?
- [26:09]
Michael Brennis
Danny's absolutely right. In terms of continuity here as opposed to departure. I still think, though, that there's a better form of liberalism out there that we could be living under. You know, that what FDR did in the 1930s was linked to, and there's a literature on this by Andrew Preston, Peter Rode and others who've written on this. But link domestic security, economic security to national security, to foreign policy issues. And by doing that, by essentially linking the two, you've created the seedbed, the origins of Cold War liberalism. And that's done in a certain way in the early 30s, that by the time the Second World War comes about has taken on a life of its own as the threat of fascism becomes apparent to the United States. And we're about to enter, or FDR is thinking right now, into the war in 1941. So I think there is something there. However, the ways in which the Cold War for us, I think, gets institutionalized, or liberalism gets institutionalized in the Cold War, through the national security state and through the organizations and departments that are created in 1947 in the federal government.
- [27:10]
Martin DeCaro
All still with us, by the way.
- [27:11]
Michael Brennis
Yeah, all still with us. I think that's the key point, is that that's a point of no return. And then you can change the Department of Defense, Defense to the Department of War or whatever, and you could try to go back to the 1930s version
- [27:21]
Martin DeCaro
of it, but that's more accurate, actually. But go ahead.
- [27:24]
Michael Brennis
Well, yeah, but you're not going to be able to undo the history there. You know, for all of Trump's illiberalism, there's an argument to be made that cold reliberalism, as Danny said, manifests in the foreign policy establishment much more so than the sort of Trump postures on.
- [27:38]
Martin DeCaro
Well, those are the, those are the continuities they're talking about institutional ones. Daniel and I have discussed this in the past. I did a series about 1945, that was last year, the 80th anniversary of the, of the Second World War and the establishment of the national security state afterward. So there are institutional continuities, but also structural ones. An ideology is a structure. The need for an all encompassing enemy from communism then. Well, the early 1990s were kind of drifting, looking for something there, maybe humanitarian interventions. Right. The Samantha Power type of liberalism. Then we move to Islamism after 9, 11, and now it's autocracy, although nothing can really match up to the, the, the Soviet Union. But go ahead, either one of you.
- [28:19]
Daniel Besner
Yeah, I mean, I think that's the problem, and I think that's going to become less of a problem as the United States's power naturally declines, particularly in East Asia and as China begins to affirm itself as a genuine regional power, which to me is not a matter. I mean, it already is a genuine regional power, but the regional power, the United States is still the most powerful nation in East Asia under certain metrics,
- [28:42]
Martin DeCaro
but I think military might, I mean, but what did it get us in the Middle East? I'm sorry to interject, I don't want to digest.
- [28:48]
Daniel Besner
No, no, I mean, sure.
- [28:49]
Martin DeCaro
I mean, I, I, I blow lots of stuff up.
- [28:52]
Daniel Besner
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I agree. I agree with that. But with the decline of relative power, a lot of these ideas are going to just necessarily change because oftentimes ideology follows material reality and just the United States is not going to be as powerful. It's not going to be willing to, for example, lose tens of thousands of soldiers in a war with China over Taiwan. A lot of things, I think are going to change in the coming years.
- [29:12]
Martin DeCaro
I mean, that argument is made or was made by Walter Lippman, as is explained in the essay about Lippman in your volume. He was saying it then, Imperial overstretch is real. You know, the United States can't do it.
- [29:23]
Daniel Besner
Right. Or there was a hard limit on it over time. And I would argue FDR was also someone who believed that. I think his model of the four policemen was a subtle endorsement of spheres of influence in the type of world that we are returning to now.
- [29:40]
Martin DeCaro
So implicit in the arguments from the authors here is the notion that it was the United States who was responsible for starting the Cold War, and it was unnecessary. Am I getting that right? I mean, I don't entirely agree with that. I think the US Was more responsible for starting the Cold War than the Soviet Union and certainly for globalizing the Cold War after Stalin's death. But in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, FDR dies, Truman takes over even before the Truman Doctrine is enunciated. What was going on in Germany and Stalin's moves in Germany. I mean, it's understandable why you would see the formation of the ideas that are discussed in your book. I guess what I'm trying to get at here, shouldn't we discuss that aspect of all of this? This wasn't entirely paranoid or maybe entirely unnecessary.
- [30:30]
Daniel Besner
Well, I mean, Mike, let me take this quickly and then I'll hand it off to you. I mean, I think in Sergey Rodchenko's book, it's kind of interesting because I think, think he's like, Stalin is a realist, and Stalin wants to reach an agreement with the United States in the immediate aftermath of World War II, and Truman basically doesn't want to do that. And then Rodchenko makes what I think is a bit of a interesting move where he says, well, the reason we fought the Cold War is because Stalin wouldn't give Eastern Europe sovereignty, which essentially is arguing Stalin shouldn't have had access to the type of sphere that the United States had access to in the Western Hemisphere. So it's almost like, like arguing the Soviet Union should be held to A different standard than the United States was the United States maybe not as directly influential as the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, although how many times has the United States invaded Nicaragua or overthrown governments or tried to overthrow governments Cuba or, you know, Guatemala, et cetera, et cetera.
- [31:21]
Martin DeCaro
So, I mean, I would argue it was Germany. Germany is where the Cold War begins.
- [31:25]
Daniel Besner
Yeah, but sure, that really begins in 47, 48, and I think 45 and 46 and 47. And then Truman announces the doctrine in early 40, his Truman doctrine in early 47, which globalizes the Cold War to Greece and Turkey and therefore to the rest of the globe. I think that Stalin was ready to make a deal and Truman didn't want to, quote, unquote, give up Eastern Europe, which is ironic because that's precisely what happened anyway. I mean, Eisenhower doesn't support rebels in Germany in 53, doesn't support in Hungary in 56. LBJ doesn't support in Prague in 68. So, I mean, the United States did act as if Eastern Europe was the Soviet sphere, but it, for various reasons didn't in the immediate post war period, period. And I think if FDR was there, there wouldn't have been a Cold War. I do think it's overwhelmingly the United States's responsibility that the Cold War happened. I think if Truman had just said, okay, you know, where your armies are, that's your sphere. The United States and Britain, I mean, there were claims to Britain, but really the United States is going to dominate Western Europe and the Western Hemisphere. You're going to have Eastern Europe. You've been invaded, you know, three times, Napoleon, World War I and World War II. That's going to be your sphere. You're also really powerful and we can't really do anything about it. But he didn't do that. He instead, I think, made a series aggressive moves to which Stalin counter reacted and the Cold War was on.
- [32:40]
Historical Voice / Archival Audio
It is necessary only to glance at a map to realize that the survival and integrity of the Greek nation are of grave importance in a much wider situation. If Greece should fall under the control of an armed minority, the effect upon its neighbor Turkey would be immediate and serious. Confusion and disorder might well spread throughout the entire Middle East.
- [33:08]
Martin DeCaro
Michael, do you agree with Daniel there? I think he's making some excellent points, but I don't know. I think I'm a little harder on Stalin's decision making and the moves that, you know, it's a. It's a reaction, counter reaction goes both ways, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. But go ahead, Michael.
- [33:21]
Daniel Besner
No, sure. US was way more powerful, though, and had an atomic monopoly, had the only air force was responsible for 50% of the world's export sports. Soviet Union had just lost somewhat around. It depends, you ask over 20 million people. I mean, it's a different game. Its entire territory was destroyed in the Western Soviet Union.
- [33:39]
Martin DeCaro
Sorry, but still has something like 100, 100 divisions in, in Eastern Europe.
- [33:43]
Michael Brennis
But go ahead to say a bit differently. You would certainly have tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. I mean, FDR saw that there was going to be tensions between the United States and Soviet Union. He knew that. He knew that Stalin was making moves in Eastern Europe. Question is, then do you then, as Daniel he suggested, do you then say, well, a Soviet threat to Eastern Europe is a threat to the United States and then the Soviets marching in on Turkey or Greece, as Truman articulates in the truman doctrine in 47, that's a threat to American national security interests. And I think that's where you get the Cold War is to say, well, a communist threat to any nation is therefore a threat to the United States. The United States needs to defend not just the Western Hemisphere, but it needs to defend Europe, it needs to defend Asia. And I would argue also, I'm not a big fan of George Kennan, but Kennan's original, original vision of containment was a much more restrained one. He believed that the United States needs to defend Western Europe and Japan and not through military means, basically through diplomacy and promoting democratic values. Obviously, that can get into a slippery slope in terms of how you promote them through military means. But Kennan was quite shocked about how his vision of the Cold War, if you want to put it in those terms, got bastardized by the Trump administration and by successive administrations to the point that he's coming out against the Vietnam War war pretty early on and not liking much of American foreign policy after the 1950s, not even keen on Korea all that much. So there's a argument to me that you can have a more realist perspective on the world in terms of the current dealing with China. Now, are we actually going to fight a global war over Taiwan? I hope not. God, I hope not. Because one, that would be calamitous for the world in terms of death and destruction, but two, it would just not be a war that the United States could win.
- [35:21]
Martin DeCaro
How is the United States supposed to defend Taiwan when it can't defend its bases in Kuwait? From drones?
- [35:26]
Daniel Besner
Yeah, it can't. Yeah, yeah, yeah, from drones.
- [35:29]
Martin DeCaro
So, okay, the conversation continues. Tap subscribe now in the Show Notes to skip ads, enjoy early access and all of our bonus content, or go to history as it happens.com.
- [35:55]
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- [36:56]
Martin DeCaro
Wayfair Every style, every home There's a generation of young people who have grown up with the United States basically at war in the Middle east for the better part of 25, 30 years now, going back to 1991, really. So to them, American foreign policy has meant one thing. Militarism. Right? There's no soft power. It's brute military force to try to create certain political outcomes. Harry Truman's 1949 inaugural address talks about the United States playing a role to prevent the world from becoming more communist. Right? He understood that socialism was appealing to people in the developing world world. But he's not talking about invading them. He's talking about donating, giving the benefits, quote, benefits of our scientific advances in industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of undeveloped areas or underdeveloped areas.
- [37:48]
Historical Voice / Archival Audio
More than half the people of the world are living in conditions approaching misery. Their food is inadequate. They are victims of disease. Their their economic life is primitive and stagnant. Their poverty is a handicap and a threat both to them and to more prosperous areas.
- [38:08]
Martin DeCaro
What Truman says in this speech, which is often overlooked, is the closest you might get to a positive definition of Cold War liberalism rather than negative one. We're simply not communists. They're offering something here.
- [38:21]
Daniel Besner
Yeah, and I talk about that a little bit in the introduction where Cold War liberals, for example, were really crucial to the civil rights revolution, at least at the elite end. They held helped get civil rights plank added to the Democratic party platform. They lobbied in favor of Brown v. Board. They were in favor of the civil rights legislation of the 60s in, in a genuine way maybe some of them did that as historians have argued because they were worried about Soviet propaganda. But I mean liberals had often been attracted to civil rights ideas. In doing so though, as the historian Kenneth Jenkins has argued, they did force for example the NAACP to kick out its left flank. And they only civil rights groups that were fundamentally okay with capitalism. But no, they did genuinely do that. But there was of course the irony that as they supported the expansion of the formal franchise, they created a state structure in which ordinary people were increasingly disconnected from policymaking. There's always this dialectic where they supported social democracy but through military cantianism. And over time what happened, the way that I put it in the introduction is you went from having guns and butter to just having the guns and no butter as the neoliberal revolution took off in the 1970s. So a lot of these tensions were overcome during the period of high Fordism and during the period of one might say the high Cold War and high American imperialism. But once that changed and the United States wasn't the only party in town, you pretty quickly see a reversion to the more oligarchic mean that took several decades of course to enact. But I think where we are, where we're now at inequality is worse than the Gilded Age is there is a
- [39:58]
Martin DeCaro
reflection of that at least. Hear Truman this snapshot in 1949 talking about the United States as the preeminent among nations in the division development of industrial and scientific techniques.
- [40:08]
Historical Voice / Archival Audio
The United States is preeminent among the nations in the development of industrial and scientific techniques. The material resources which we can afford to use for assistance of other peoples are limited. But our imponderable resources in technical knowledge are constantly growing and are inexhaustible. I believe that we should make available to peace loving people the benefits of our store of technical knowledge in order to help them realize their aspirations for a better life.
- [40:43]
Martin DeCaro
Am I placing too much importance on what Truman said here?
- [40:46]
Michael Brennis
No, I mean that's. But that's Cold War liberalism to us. I mean that's, that's the idea is to use American power in both the domestic and international sense to further the rights and interests of peoples abroad. In ways that enhance America's own power. You know, what you're describing there is Truman's much, much of sort of the Democratic Party's vision of the US and the role in the world from Truman up to Kennedy and Johnson, really through. Up to Carter. Even elements of Carter are in there. But the focus on modernization and the attempts to improve the lives of people abroad through development projects, trying to create TVAs in the Mekong Delta and things like that, trying through the alliance for Progress under Kennedy, helping Latin America through development. The idea of the United States States through its economic power, its military power, its technological know how. Technocracy is a big part of Colbert liberalism too, that, that it can provide uplift to people abroad. And that can also help us in terms of defending our standing reputation from communists.
- [41:45]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah, because a major argument in the book, at least this is how I interpret it, is that Cold War liberalism mostly defined itself by what it wasn't, what it was opposed to.
- [41:53]
Michael Brennis
Everything that Truman does is. Is to say, like we're fighting against the communist.
- [41:57]
Historical Voice / Archival Audio
That false philosophy is communism. Communism is based on the belief that man is so weak and inadequate that he is unable to govern himself and therefore requires the rule of strong masters.
- [42:13]
Martin DeCaro
Joshua Donovan's essay, Cold War Liberalism in the Middle east. This really resonated with me because it has a lot to do with what we're seeing right now. He makes a connection in there between the afterlife or the second life of Cold War liberalism, such as it is today, and US support for Israel during the destruction and genocide in Gaza. What do you think of that connection?
- [42:35]
Daniel Besner
I think the idea, and I don't want to speak on behalf of. Of him. You could have him on is the idea that a lot of US interests in the Middle east has this contradictory character about wanting to bring freedom and spread democracy, but winding up in incredible violence. But I think you should have him on. It's a very rich piece. I'll leave it there because I don't want to speak on behalf of his argument. I don't know it well enough to be honest.
- [42:59]
Michael Brennis
I think it's. Again, I don't want to elaborate too much because Josh can talk about it, but the United States trying to remake the Middle east has been a project since, arguably since 1953, since the overthrow of Mazate and the Shah. And it's a Cold War project. And I think that's something that he points to kind of in the piece is to say the attempts to sort of remake the Middle east in American image is done repeatedly and Our alliance with Israel is an attempt to. To. I think he's implying in that essay, sort of say, you know, remake the Middle east in American interests. You know, so a democratic, ostensibly democratic country aligned with a democratic country, you know, working to further the rights of democracy in the Middle east and doing so even as it leads to the destruction and devastation and mass death in Gaza. That's, I think, you know, a dangerous path that cobalism can fall down is that we can dominate the world and cause mass deaths in Asia, but as long as the Soviet Union fell, well, then that's worth it kind of thing. And one of the things we're raising in the. And our larger work together, you know, separately and together, is to say, is that worth it? You know, is the cost of millions of lives in Asia worth how the Cold War fell? Which was arguably, in my view, Maybe Danny can speak for himself, arguably due to the Soviet Union collapsing unto itself, as opposed to the American state, is forcing the Soviet Union to collapse.
- [44:16]
Martin DeCaro
So, final thing here, you cite a couple of other scholars who label Cold War liberalism as a zombie ideology. I think that's great because zombies don't know they're dead right. Zombies don't know that the game is over. They're going around unawares of themselves. I mean, is that really what we're seeing here in the desperate attempt to maintain primacy?
- [44:38]
Daniel Besner
It's not an accident. Zombie films, and zombies in particular, really exploded after the financial crisis and after Iraq, where the fundamental premises of American geopolitical and economic hegemony really called into question. And so there does seem to be a connection between the popularity of the Walking Dead and shows like that and where the United States finds itself. And I think other people have said this as well. I was listening to Alpha Bunga Bunga, that podcast. It's a good podcast. They were talking about that as well recently. So I don't want to claim that as an original insight, though I have been talking about zombie liberalism for years. I think I first used the phrase in 2021 or 2022, a piece I wrote for Foreign Exchanges. So there's something true there, and it has to do with mine. You know, also talking about Gerontocracy, talking about intellectual inertia, talking about the increasing segmentation of the elite away from ordinary Americans and the fact that the elite has been so professionalized and Ivy League ized. People who are invested in a system that's no longer working and more importantly, is no longer legitimate in the eyes of many don't appreciate that. Reality, and eventually that reality is going to become clearer. But there does feel to me like something, it's a little bit zombified. This American search for primacy, this American obsession with non social democratic capitalism just seems increasingly impossible to maintain. Particularly after Trump won on a populist platform. I mean, I think that was mostly bullshit and he didn't actually enact populism. But Trump won on a populist platform and this is Sex with Bernie. Turns out the Democrats are better at uniting against Bernie than the Republicans were uniting against Trump. But it's pretty clear that things are. The times, they are changing. And I think we'll look back on this moment as a moment of transition, as opposed to a moment where liberalism is reconstitutes itself.
- [46:22]
Martin DeCaro
So about Trump and the war in Iran, you know, to the extent that Cold War liberalism has an enduring structural legacy, you can make an argument that it influenced Trump's decisions here. Because every single president comes into power, right, thinking that they're going to do things differently. They will avoid the mistakes of their predecessors because they're smarter than their predecessors and they don't acknowledge all these structural costs causes.
- [46:47]
Michael Brennis
I think what actually Trump has tried to do is pull a page out of the playbook of neocons and he's getting criticized roundly for it. I think that's what's interesting to me is that we thought much of the debate within the pages of Foreign affairs and the foreign policy establishment has been how Trump is a force of change, a vehicle of change, and I think he is. But this Iran war has been in the pocket of Israel, in the pocket of sort of neocon circles going back at least 20, 30 years. Years. That's a legacy of Colbert liberalism and Trump deciding to do it, maybe because he thinks he's the only person who can pull it off, or maybe he thinks this is an opportune time. Who knows what's in the head of Donald Trump? But structurally is reflective of this history here that we talk about in the book in terms of how the idea of American interventions abroad can shape outcomes. And originally it's not so much justification for the war now, but originally that we can create regime change in Iran, we can maybe even create a democracy. And that's the implicit, that's the corporate corollary of regime changes. We think that democracy can flourish. And I think that was then discarded. But that was interesting to me. That argument came out of Sean Trump's mouth and the administration's line, and it was sort of roundly rejected. You know, that's not where we are anymore. And this is to the point that Danny raised about I don't know if culprit can be revived in the same ways. It's institutionalized in ways that incentivize presidents and policymakers to make use of its structures, in particular American military power, American military dominance in ways that will be disastrous, as I think the Iran war is disastrous for Americans in their personal economic livelihoods at home.
- [48:17]
Historical Voice / Archival Audio
Finally, to the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand.
- [48:24]
Martin DeCaro
Stay sheltered.
- [48:25]
Historical Voice / Archival Audio
Don't leave your home. It's very dangerous outside.
- [48:28]
Martin DeCaro
Bombs will be dropping everywhere.
- [48:30]
Historical Voice / Archival Audio
When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours. Today, take this will be probably your only chance for generations. For many years you have asked for America's help, but you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do.
- [48:49]
Martin DeCaro
Tonight on the next episode of History As It Happens, Richard Nixon will be remembered for Watergate, his corruption and criminality, his lawlessness, and the two year long fight that eventually ended his presidency.
- [49:02]
Historical Voice / Archival Audio
I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow.
- [49:06]
Martin DeCaro
Today, Donald Trump is just as or even more corrupt than Nixon or any other president in recent memory. Yet it seems Trump is going to get away with it. Corruption in broad daylight. That is next. As we report History as it Happens, make sure to sign up for my free newsletter. Just go to Substack and search for History As It Happens. Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn Ads, go to Libsyn ads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com today.