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History As It Happens
Trump and the American Century
00:40:43
Is President Donald Trump augmenting or undermining the sources of American power? Trade wars against U.S. allies, an immigration crackdown, and slashing the federal workforce are but three ways the administration's approach to exercising power could...
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- [00:01]
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Martin DeCaro
History as it happens July 15, 2025 TRUMP in the American Century President Trump.
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Robert Cohan
Now announcing new tariffs on the European Union and Mexico.
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Advertiser
30% tariffs on the European Union and Mexico, fueling a wider trade war between the US and its allies.
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Joseph Nye
Every country wants to partake, even countries that have ripped us off for many, many years. China is an example, but it's not just China. European Union.
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Advertiser
We begin with the mass layoffs underway as we the State Department.
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Martin DeCaro
It's a sad time for our institution at a time when, if anything, the State Department is needed more than ever. Is President Trump augmenting or undermining the foundations of American power? His stated goal is to restore the country's greatness. He aims to do so by waging a trade war on China and American allies by cutting off migration to this nation of immigrants and by slashing the federal workforce, among other means. Is this the end of the American century, or is that already over? That's next, as we report history as it happens. I'm Martin DeCaro.
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Joseph Nye
We will make America strong again. We will make America proud again, we will make America safe again.
- [01:49]
Robert Cohan
And we.
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Joseph Nye
Will make America great again.
- [01:53]
Robert Cohan
Let's start with where Trump has it right. The US does have lots of hard power, and hard power derives from its economic and military strength. And the key principle that generates that power is the principle that Nya and I discussed as asymmetrical interdependence. That is, the US And China, for example, are interdependent. They are both being hurt by trade wars and trade conflicts between them. They both benefit from mutual trade, but the interdependence is asymmetrical. China exports three times as to the US as vice versa.
- [02:33]
Martin DeCaro
Midway through the first year of his second term, President Trump is facing a number of domestic problems, such as resistance to his immigration crackdown and international crises like the Russia, Ukraine war. The man who sees himself as a brilliant negotiator is still seeking the trade deals he promised and the peace he said would take 24 hours to achieve in Eastern Europe. Just now, as I was getting this podcast ready, the president said, if there's no deal to end the war in 50 days, he'll slap 100% tariffs on Russian exports to the U.S. we are.
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Joseph Nye
Very unhappy, I am with Russia, but we'll discuss that. Maybe a different day, but we're very, very unhappy with them. And we're going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don't have a deal in 50 days. Tariffs at about 100%, you'd call them secondary tariffs.
- [03:26]
Martin DeCaro
You know what that of all the weapons in an American president's repertoire, coercion and threats are Trump's favorites. And in an essay for Foreign affairs titled the End of the Long American Century, the political theorists Joseph Nye and Robert Cohan argue Trump is making serious mistakes that'll ultimately produce what he's trying to avoid, a stronger China. They write, by assailing interdependence, Trump undercuts the very foundation of American power. The power associated with trade is hard power based on material capabilities. But over the past 80 years, they say, the United States has accumulated soft power based on attraction rather than coercion or the imposition of costs. Wise American policy would maintain rather than disrupt patterns of interdependence that strengthen American power, both the hard power derived from trade relationships and the soft power of attraction. The continuation of Trump's current foreign policy would weaken the United States and, they say, accelerate the erosion of the international order that since World War II, has served so many countries well, most of all the United States. Robert Cohan and Joseph Nye, writing for Foreign affairs, the official publication of the Council on Foreign Relations, I will share a link to their essay in my weekly newsletter. You can sign up@historyasithappens.com Joseph Nye died in early May after co authoring this essay, now appearing in the July August issue. Robert Cohan will be here in a moment to discuss his colleague's legacy and Trump's way of doing things. For instance, just yesterday, massive layoffs at the State Department where these now former employees spoke to the Associated Press.
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Advertiser
My reaction is one of shock, disbelief, and sadness for individuals who literally dedicated their lives to keeping Americans safe, to supporting American prosperity, and for advancing American values.
- [05:26]
Martin DeCaro
You know, I just think it's, it's a sad time for, for our institution at a time when, if anything, the State Department is needed more than ever to advance our interests around the world and to compete with China and other countries to start, stop wars and support President Trump's agenda. So does this deliberate undermining of American soft power mark the end of the American century? Well, first, what does that term mean? It was coined by Time Life founder and publisher Henry Luce in 1941. The United States had a responsibility to accept wholeheartedly our duty and our opportunity as the most powerful and vital nation in the world. The country proved its economic and military power in the allied victory in 1945 and two years later in the Truman Doctrine, a vow to exert US Influence to block Communism.
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Joseph Nye
One of the primary objectives of the foreign policy of the United States is the creation of conditions in which we and other nations will be able to work out a way of life free from coercion. This was a fundamental issue in the war with Germany and Japan. Our victory was won over countries which sought to impose their will and their way of life upon other nations.
- [06:48]
Martin DeCaro
The American century outlived the Soviet Union. And as the Cold War came to an end, it felt like the American century might last forever. President George Bush January 1991. As the United States entered the unipolar moment at the apogee of its power and influence, it is a big idea.
- [07:08]
Joseph Nye
A new world order where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind. Peace and security, freedom and the rule of law.
- [07:25]
Martin DeCaro
Unipolarity did not last, and a new world order did not materialize. And after 9 11, Washington blew so much of its power and prestige fighting unwinnable wars in the greater Middle East. This is a familiar story. By now, free trade became politically toxic, and there's been a ferocious backlash to immigration in our global age. This helps explain why Donald Trump found a receptive audience in 2016. In 1977, Joseph Nye and Robert Cohan co authored Power and Interdependence, a seminal text in the field of international political economy. So influential actually. The Encyclopedia Britannica has an entry for the author. Cohen argued that states are generally not apprehensive about each other's successes and look forward to benefiting from cooperation. Besides security issues, states pursue mutually beneficial activities, such as trade or environmental protection. Today, however, in foreign affairs, Cohan argues, the Trump administration has rocked all these pillars. The world may be entering a period of disorder, one that settles only after the White House changes course or once a new dispensation takes hold in Washington. But the decline underway may not be a temporary dip. It may be a plunge into murky waters. Robert Kohan, professor emeritus of Public and international affairs at Princeton University Our conversation.
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- [09:20]
Martin DeCaro
Robert Cohan, welcome to the show.
- [09:22]
Robert Cohan
Thank you.
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Martin DeCaro
It's an honor to have you here after all of your decades of work on political science and international relations. Before we start talking about your essay and your ideas about international relations, why don't you offer a word or two, if you don't mind, about your co author, Joseph Nye. He passed away on May 6th.
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Robert Cohan
Joseph Nye was an extraordinary person. He was one of the few people who combined being a creative and top level academic with being a major policymaker, especially in the Clinton administration where he was in the Defense Department as Assistant Secretary and also in the State. The State Department. He was later dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Very few people are able to combine both being creative and imaginative, original theorists of international relations and practical, strategic, cogent analysts and policymakers. And Joe was one of those people until the day he died. He died suddenly, unfortunately. He had sepsis and in a hospital. He was about to go to England for a trip. There was no long illness and there was no pain, but it was a. It was tragic. He died at age 87. He's much, much missed by his friends and by me especially. We had known each other for 58 years. We had a long history together.
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Martin DeCaro
My condolences for the loss of your colleague and friend, the co author of your major book in 1977, Power and World Politics in Transition. So your approach has been described as neoliberal institutionalism. As mentioned, your 1977 book emphasized interdependence and cooperation in the world of politics or in global politics rather than zero sum realism. Tell us what that means.
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Robert Cohan
Well, I don't like the label of neoliberal institutionalism myself. It was applied by an academic critic of mine, so he didn't win the argument. But that label stuck. Unfortunately for me, I view it simply as the institutionalist approach to world politics. And I will sit next to realism. There are some very common elements. Realists emphasize that states follow their interests, I.e. they calculate what their interests are. Their activities can be understood as an attempt to achieve their interests through the exercise of power. Hans Morgenthau called it interest defined as power. That's the realist view. And the institutionalist view accepts that states pursue their interests they're not altruistic, they're not idealistic, they seek to do so through power. However, we emphasize that institutions can facilitate their achievement of their objectives. Institutions can confer power on states, that is give them the ability to achieve what they want to achieve, if that's what power means, the ability to achieve your objectives, which is how NY and I viewed it. Most aspects of world politics, not all, but most of them, are non zero sum games that it's possible to have a bargain which both parties benefit from relative to no bargain or complete conflict. And so the idea of negotiation and idea of institution building is to find situations where all of the participants, all the major participants, the ones who are powerful and have a veto, can achieve something of what they want. Nobody achieves all they want, but they're all better off than with a total conflict situation.
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Martin DeCaro
Yes, you've argued that if the realists were 100% correct, international institutions would not exist or they'd be unimportant. But you know, the UN Charter is still around. We are in the international era post 1945, but in many ways the world has not changed. So yes, we have institutions and the post1945 order, we have treaties, et cetera. But to a large degree the powerful states still do what they want. What's that old saying? The powerful do as they wish and the weak do as they must. Just look at the case of Russia and its invasion of Ukraine.
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Robert Cohan
Thucydides from Thucydides.
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Martin DeCaro
That's right. Take a look at Russia and Ukraine. Right. Russian leaders have a self image, an idea of where their country belongs in the hierarchy of states. There's a fundamental incompatibility with the post Cold War Western vision of a new rule of law, democracy, human rights. So while there were plenty of incentives to cooperate at some level, conflict was inevitable.
- [14:14]
Robert Cohan
Well, Putin questions Ukraine's right to exist and then of course makes conflict inevitable with Ukraine. If it were just a matter of Ukraine's boundaries, that would be one thing and there have to be some renegotiation of that. Obviously when this war ends, when it's a matter of Ukraine's independence and existence, that's an existential conflict and very hard to compromise. That's the source of this terrible war.
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Martin DeCaro
The sanctity of borders, post1945 violated by Russia. We'll return to the issue of whether there's still a rules based order a little bit later. The importance of trade is big in your thought and your work. So let's talk about what's happening now? The subject of your essay, the End of the American Century. Let me make sure I get that right. The end of the long American century. President Trump, always grumbling about how the US Is mistreated by its trading partners, allies, and opponents alike. He says things like, china is ripping us off.
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Joseph Nye
It's an amazing thing. This has been something used against us for many years by other countries, China in particular, but others. Not just China, others. And taking advantage of us. Ripped us off and left us for dead, frankly.
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Martin DeCaro
Actually, American consumers are buying imports often made by American companies that have manufacturing plants in China. But never mind. This is what the president says. As you point out, though, despite how poorly treated he believes the United States is, he still understands the US Is the stronger partner here or the less dependent one, still has plenty of leverage. But you also say he's exercising this leverage counterproductively. What do you mean?
- [15:58]
Robert Cohan
Let's start with where Trump has it. Right? The US does have lots of hard power, and hard power derives from its economic and military strength. And the key principle that generates that power is the principle that Naya and I discussed as asymmetrical interdependence. That is, the US And China, for example, are interdependent. They are both being hurt by trade wars and trade conflicts between them. They both benefit from mutual trade, but the interdependence is asymmetrical. China exports three times as much to the US as vice versa. The irony, or the paradox of trade power is that the importer has more ability to alter the situation and more incentive to do so than the exporter. If you're importing three times as much as you're exporting, you can cut off those imports or limit them or restrict them or tax them, put tariffs on them, as the US has done with Chinese exports, and impose a cost on the other party. So being weak in a sense, or being less successful in the economic realm can generate potential political power for you in the political realm. Now, the United States, in April, when it, when it was engaged in these actions against China, misjudged the situation. The Trump administration, in my view, overestimated how much leverage the US had, how much advantage the US Gained from this asymmetrical interdependence. The Chinese have been busy trying to show us, through restrictions on rare earths like lithium and other ways that they have means of leverage themselves. And so we have a trade war going on where both sides are testing who has more ability to inflict harm on the other. And, of course, that leads to a situation where both are worse off than they were before.
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Martin DeCaro
Well, proud and powerful countries don't like to be bullied. You know, we talk about interests and political theory, but some of these more abstract or less tangible ideas play a role here, don't they? Pride, anger, jealousy. And the Chinese don't want to be bullied into an agreement.
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Robert Cohan
They may play a role, but I think you can explain it pretty well on the basis of their interest. Sure, there are lots of reasons not to want to be bullied. If you are successfully bullied, you may encourage the bully to bully you more. So there's a lot of reasons. For example, put aside China. Europeans have resisted being bullied by the United States. Denmark has resisted being bullied by the United States. It's very dangerous to allow yourself to be, in your phrase, bullied. There are political reasons. It doesn't require that you be emotionally involved to realize that pushing back is probably necessary in a situation when the other side is attempting to coerce you.
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Martin DeCaro
So this is what you mean by counterproductive. Rather than getting more beneficial trade deals, we get a trade war where a country start erecting barriers against each other's commerce and everyone gets poorer in the process. One point you make here is that Donald Trump as a negotiator, he leans too heavily on. Well, I said bullying. You use coercion. I think that's a good word. He leans too heavily on coercion. Why do you think that is?
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Robert Cohan
Coercion is, of course, one tool of the statesman, of the statesperson. You're bound to have coercion in your quiver. But if you're going to achieve your objectives, you also have to have what Joe would Joe referred to as honey. You have to have some way of inducing others to agree with you. So Joe talked about soft power is a term he coined that as if power is the ability to get others to do what one wants. We have to realize that coercion is expensive and not always effective. And attraction, if you can attract others, as the US has traditionally attracted people around the world, that's often costless or much less costly. So soft power builds on the attractiveness of society to others. The US had lots of soft power before Trump. China had little soft power, not such an attractive society. The US Benefited from that. So the use of coercive power by Trump reduces US Soft power. It achieves something because coercion can achieve something. And there were situations where there were asymmetrical trade barriers which were disadvantageous. The United States, which the United States allowed to be imposed on it. So Trump had a point there. But his use, of course, of power exclusively disrupt U.S. friendship patterns and alliances. So he's discarding American soft power. What he should be doing is to pairing soft power with hard power, using.
- [20:47]
Martin DeCaro
It against US Allies. I don't quite understand that. You know, I mentioned before how Trump says China is ripping us off. I mean, China does steal intellectual property. We know that China doesn't always play fairly by the rules of international trade. It exerts economic coercion in the Indo Pacific. That is the complaint of countries like Australia, et cetera. What that means is there's a receptive audience, there are willing partners in that part of the world who want to work with the US to fend off China's economic coercion. But the administration is also pretty harsh on some of those willing partners at times. Other than trade, how else do you believe President Trump is undermining US Soft power?
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Robert Cohan
Well, let's talk about immigration. Immigration is contested everywhere. Since no rich countries will allow unrestricted immigration into their territories, leads to disruption, would lead to very large numbers of people, as in 2016 in Europe, as in the border under the Biden administration for the first couple years, the U.S. mexican border, that unrestricted immigration disrupts societies, is disliked by democratic publics, generates anti immigrant feelings, generates right wing views. So none of these democracies want to allow unrestricted immigration. But the US Is a huge beneficiary from immigration because we're the magnet for the best and the brightest from the whole world. So instead of relying only on Americans to innovate, the US can attract innovators from everywhere. And Elon Musk may be in some ways a difficult character, but he's an example of someone from abroad. South African who made a brilliantly successful career, became the world's richest man as an immigrant to the United States. So immigration spurs scientific research and spurs technological advance and makes the US the innovation center of the world. By attacking interdependence in this way, by attacking immigration in a way which is undifferentiated, Trump is handing China a gift. And right now we're seeing scientists, for example, of Chinese origin going back to China. We find scientists of non Chinese origin going to Canada or elsewhere or back to Europe, because the US has become a more hostile place for science. Then of course, it's having terrible effects on our universities.
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Martin DeCaro
Our country needs immigrants, period. Skilled, educated immigrants who drive innovation and unskilled laborers who work in all the jobs we all rely on in our society. Agriculture Services, retail, food, hospitality. We don't need mass deportation. We need a reformed immigration system that can accommodate for the flows of people who are coming here. But previous to this, that system wasn't good either. It was overwhelming. An asylum system that was never designed for the number of people coming across the southern border.
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Robert Cohan
That's right. It was a broken system. The Biden administration was too slow to take remedial action. It was too slow to devise an immigration system which would both limit the massive flows coming in of unskilled people, but also provide a large enough flow and a controlled enough flow that the US could, as you say, benefit selectively from the kinds of workers we need, both high skilled and low skilled.
- [24:17]
Martin DeCaro
You wrote in your essay, America's decline may not be a mere dip, but a plunge. You say that the continuation of Trump's current foreign policy. We've discussed trade, immigration. He's also talked about or mused about taking over the Panama Canal, taking over Denmark, or, I'm sorry, taking over Greenland from Denmark. You say Trump's current foreign policy would weaken the United States and accelerate the erosion of the international order that since World War II has served so many countries well, most of all the US So how do you measure decline compared to the power of other states? I think some of this is inevitable. China, a nation of one and a half billion people, was going to become a hegemon, possibly sooner rather than than later in East Asia. So there's relative decline. What do you mean by decline? May not be a dip, but a plunge.
- [25:08]
Robert Cohan
If you had a coherent American policy, you would still have a relative decline compared to China, because China has three times as many people now in the last 40 years. A government that sponsors economic development and innovation has lots of talented people. The United States would necessarily be relatively less dominant vis a vis China than it used to be. That's inevitable.
- [25:35]
Martin DeCaro
And that's not the worst thing in the world either.
- [25:37]
Robert Cohan
Trump is doing. It's difficult, it's hard to manage. It's potentially dangerous. There certainly are. There are theories of world politics that say global wars have come when there's a power transition, when the dominant powers lose their, their dominance but try to maintain their status anyway. And the rising powers, the classic case, Germany, attempt to develop higher, higher prestige and to expand their influence and come into conflict with the policies of the formerly dominant countries like Britain. And so having a power transition is inherently dangerous. There's no getting around it. China's rise, even if the US Had a perfect policy and China was pursuing a normal policy of A rising hegemon, you would have tension and difficulty and the danger of war. The problem is that the United States now is throwing away many of its own advantages and therefore weakening itself. With respect to science, for example, we talked about that innovation and is in danger of being in a much worse situation when it comes into tension with China. Now, Trump has not been a warmonger. You can't, you can't call Trump a warmonger. He's not somebody who is demanding things of China and threatening war with China. That's not something you can accuse him of. There is an inherent danger and he's weakening the United States in its competition with China.
- [27:13]
Martin DeCaro
In my view, decline is often evident in retrospect. It's hard to measure it in the moment. I don't think the United States is in decline. Here's how I evaluate this problem with China. I said it's not the worst thing in the world. I think you're right though, that there can be conflict. I mean, that's easy for me to say. I'm not living in Taiwan, right? So I'm sitting here in my comfortable studio in Washington. If one believes that Chinese hegemony in East Asia is inevitable, the United States government, the foreign policy establishment, the so called blob, at some point has to make a determination that it can't be everywhere all the time. Primacy, right, permanent primacy over all the globe is simply not a realistic aim. It's not sustainable. So that then leads us to one of the crises points in the world, potential crises points, and that is over Taiwan. So the United States has a commitment to Taiwan. Well, maybe that's, maybe that's not wise. And I know that sounds insensitive. I don't want Taiwan to be dominated by China, but what can we do about it?
- [28:16]
Robert Cohan
What worries me is that ambiguity is dangerous in world politics. If you look back at the, at the origins of the Korean War, it's not clear that North Korea wanted to wind up in a three year war, much less that the Chinese or their Russian supporters wanted to. They miscalculated. It was ambiguous. The US was sending ambiguous signals about whether it would, whether the US would defend South Korea. So ambiguity is dangerous. And the United States policy toward Taiwan has been deliberately ambiguous. That is, we dropped the US Taiwanese treaty as a precondition for normal relations with China. But we still send arms to Taiwan and we're closely tied to them economically. I don't think the US can explicitly say Taiwan is a democratic country and we're going to abandon and let them become part of China. But we have to navigate, and therefore we're stuck with this ambiguous policy. But it's potentially dangerous. I don't have an answer.
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Martin DeCaro
Yeah, either do I. I only ask questions. I don't provide many answers. But if the United States government were to say, okay in the event of war, although what hostilities are would need to be defined clearly. But if the United States were to say okay in the event of war, if China were to invade Taiwan, the US will definitely, no question about it, come to Taiwan's defense would mean war between China and Taiwan. That's not ambiguous. But it could have the effect, unintended, of convincing the Chinese to go now instead of later. If you remove any ambiguity, it could provoke the response you don't want.
- [29:58]
Robert Cohan
You can't remove all ambiguity. Obvious response to that policy would be a blockade of Taiwan that cuts them off from energy imports. What are the implications of that? That would be a lot smarter policy for China because it wouldn't be firing the first shot. It would just be keeping tankers from landing in Taiwan, and then they would be forcing the US Taiwanese side to do something. China has lots of. There's lots of potential strategies here which aren't necessarily just simply attacking or not attacking. They have increasing capabilities. So I think the positive side of this is that China can play the long game. Seems to me at least that they are advantaged over the long term. They're in a very strong position. The US might lose interest in Taiwan. The US might substitute for Taiwanese chip factories in the US and not care as much anymore. The US might decide it's just too costly to do that to defend Taiwan. China can play the long game, and I think that's. That's the reason for optimism in the short term. I think there's very little argument. If I were in Beijing, I think there'd be a very argument for launching an attack on Taiwan in this decade.
- [31:14]
Martin DeCaro
I agree.
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Robert Cohan
An invasion, no sense to them. Even if you. Your objective is in the long run, that Taiwan is going to be part of China.
- [31:22]
Martin DeCaro
An amphibious invasion of Taiwan, that's insanity. But we know that nations go to war when it's really not in their interests. Because of some of these other ideas I mentioned, national pride, history, politics, what have you.
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Robert Cohan
China does not have a history of adventurism in foreign policy.
- [31:41]
Martin DeCaro
It hasn't fought a war since when the Usuri river, the Ussuri river, maybe against India. There's been some. Hasn't fought a war in decades, decades.
- [31:51]
Robert Cohan
A war against Vietnam was a real war, 1979, ironically, against another communist country.
- [31:58]
Martin DeCaro
That's right. I forgot about that one. Yes, you're right. In 1979, China and Vietnam fought a war. Isn't the American century already over?
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Robert Cohan
Yes, sure. The American century meant a situation where the United States was the only major power in the world, only, only power able to operate globally and unquestioned in its dominance, except within the sphere, quite limited sphere of its opponents, such as the Soviet bloc in the Cold War, if that's what we mean, then American century ended probably roughly 2008, 2009, with a financial crisis and in China with the, with the rise of Xi. As you said earlier at the time, it's hard to have these dates precise. So I don't want to say this is definitive, but if I had a guess, I would say future historians will say the American century lasts from 1947, the, the Truman Doctrine until 2008, the financial crisis, you know, and it's a long time, that's 61 years of a situation where nothing in the world as a whole, outside of the limited spheres of influence of, of Russia and China, the US Was the most important state.
- [33:17]
Martin DeCaro
And it wasn't a peaceful time. But there was no World War, another world War.
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Robert Cohan
It wasn't a totally peaceful time. No. And Vietnam is not a peaceful time. An example. But from a global point of view, there aren't many situations since the modern state system was developed, say from the 16th century. There aren't many situations where the world has gone for 80 years without a major conflict. The only other example is 1815-1914, which had some wars like the Franco Prussian War, but didn't have a, didn't have a world war. It was quite an accomplishment even with Vietnam and even with other, other conflicts.
- [34:03]
Martin DeCaro
So, Robert Cohen, I agree with you that the Trump administration is needlessly undermining U.S. soft power. For instance, I just read an article this morning about the PEPFAR program of George H.W. bush. I'm sorry, George W. Bush, his son. And that had bipartisan support. This is the HIV AIDS prevention program and it was so successful. And I read an article today about how instead of reforming usaid, instead of reforming it, just dismantling the entire agency and the PEPFAR program with it, it's imperiling the lives of thousands of people. I agree with you. These moves are senseless. They're counterproductive. However, when it comes to the so called rules based order. This is also one of those things that we talk about all the time. Seems to me this exists only in some people's imaginations and not in reality. And I'll give you an example of what I mean. Israel is destroying Gaza and the Palestinian National Project and has killed tens of thousands of men, women and children. None of the powerful countries that actually have influence to stop this, namely the US is lifting a finger to do so. The UN Security Council is paralyzed by the veto power. Talk about Russia, Ukraine as well. Russia's not gonna vote on the UN Security Council to sanction itself for the war of aggression against Ukraine. Trump just hosted Benjamin Netanyahu who is charged with war crimes by the icc. Netanyahu is nominating Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize. The man who just bombed. I mean, this is all ridiculous. What's your take on the rules based order? Well, we know what the rules are. That's just not followed. That's the problem.
- [35:41]
Robert Cohan
Rules based order is idealistic aspiration and rhetoric. Right. If you look at the whole Cold War, there were lots of actions by both sides, by both the US and Russia, which didn't conform to rules. There was never a situation where the UN Security Council really control things, except when Russia mistakenly walked out of the Security Council and wasn't able to veto the Korean War, the Korean resolution. So the rules based order has always been an ideal, never been a reality. There have been attempts to move toward it, to move toward it in domains like climate change for example, and a variety and medical issues, lots of non security issues where there have been actions toward a rules based order. There was for a while serious attempts at arms control which was an example of a movement toward a rules based order. So there have been heroic attempts in moving this way, human rights efforts, but they've never been totally successful. Because of the nature of world politics, powerful states will protect their own interests and policies even if those violate rules. So you're never going to have a total success of a rules. Sure. The great triumph of the, of this 80 year period was that there were a lot of successes of developing rules that increased the degree of order in certain islands, certain areas of world politics. Never comprehensively. Sure.
- [37:12]
Martin DeCaro
And there's a tension here during the height of detente in the 1970s, which is when relations between the US and the USSR had improved to the point where, you know, a major war was, I don't want to say out of the question, but close. I'm talking about the Nixon, Kissinger, Gerald Ford, Brezhnev period. Part of that success was because the United States did not emphasize human rights.
- [37:37]
Joseph Nye
As long as I am President, the.
- [37:40]
Robert Cohan
Government of the United States will continue.
- [37:43]
Joseph Nye
Throughout the world to enhance human rights.
- [37:46]
Martin DeCaro
Jimmy Carter was a critic of detente. He didn't abandon it, but he started to emphasize human rights and would publicly and vocally criticize the Soviet Union for violating human rights after the Soviets had signed the Helsinki Final act, which in the long run actually helped undermine the Soviet Union because all people were supposed to enjoy basic human rights, and that included the people in Eastern Europe that were under Soviet domination. So it's less a question than it is kind of a rambling statement there, Robert. But there is that tension, right? We talk about human rights, but if we make that a priority, it also can get in the way of cooperation.
- [38:21]
Robert Cohan
You know, that was certainly Kissinger's view. Kissinger was no great advocate of human rights, and he thought it would get in the way of his detente policy and negotiation with the Russians. It turned out that the human rights policy, as you say, had a huge effect on destroying the Soviet Union. So Kissinger, here's an example where Kissinger's politic miss something important, miss the way in which ideas can penetrate even into systems that attempt to be authoritarian and fundamentally affect the behavior of people in those systems. So I think human rights had much bigger effects than most of us expected and certainly much bigger effects than Hendrick expected.
- [39:04]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah, I just finished reading a book by Vladislav Zubok about the Cold War, and I learned that with Brezhnev reaching an accommodation with the US which he ultimately did not reach, the US didn't want the USSR to be a partner. But anyway, Brezhnev, this was so important to him that he went along with the Helsinki Final act to the horror of his fellow Communist leaders in the Politburo and in the military. What are you doing agreeing to this language here about human rights? I do see the world moving generally in a very bad direction right now. The shredding of international law, tariff barriers, counterproductive ways of trying to stop the intractable problem of human migration. Multilateral institutions are weakened. But, you know, all this really is a choice. It's not inevitable that it's going to keep going in this direction.
- [39:52]
Robert Cohan
It's going to depend on what happens in American domestic politics. It's going to depend on whether the American public rejects the Trump administration in the midterm elections and then later in 2028 and forces a more moderate approach. Domestic politics in the United States will be crucial in the outcome that we observe.
- [40:17]
Joseph Nye
So we just send them a letter if you want to. If you want to play ball, you have to. This is what you have to pay.
- [40:22]
Robert Cohan
So we're com.
- [40:23]
Joseph Nye
As far as I'm concerned, we're done.
- [40:27]
Martin DeCaro
On the next episode of History, History as it Happens. What happened to journalism, my profession? We're not going to speak to a historian or a political scientist, but another journalist. That ought to be entertaining. Or depressing. Remember, new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. My free newsletter comes out every Friday. You can sign up@historyasithappens.com or just go to Substack and search for History As It Happens. And you can also find us on Facebook now, too.