Sinica Podcast — Daniel Bessner on American Primacy, Cold War Liberalism, and the China Challenge

Host: Kaiser Kuo
Guest: Daniel Bessner, historian at the University of Washington
Date: January 14, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode explores the intellectual roots and enduring influence of “Cold War liberalism” in American foreign policy, centering on the work of historian Daniel Bessner. Kaiser Kuo and Bessner delve into how Cold War liberal thought shaped American primacy, how it responds to the “China challenge,” and the anxieties surrounding American decline. Together, they weave historical, philosophical, and contemporary threads to reconsider the inevitability of great power conflict and the necessity (or not) of American global hegemony.

Key Discussion Points

1. Daniel Bessner’s Intellectual Trajectory

• Bessner came of age politically during the Iraq War and its aftermath, witnessing “nonstop failure, nonstop intervention and collapse, the destruction of other people’s lives, literally and in terms of deracinating them.” [06:20]
• He focuses on “defense intellectuals”—the thinkers who shaped post-WWII American foreign policy—from the founding of think tanks (notably RAND) to the institutional roots of U.S. hegemony.
• His academic and public writings analyze how U.S. global dominance became the elite assumption and examine the “architecture of American power.”

2. What is Cold War Liberalism?

• Cold War liberals founded U.S. foreign policy institutions after WWII (e.g., NSC, CIA, RAND). [11:00]
• The doctrine emerges from earlier progressivism—optimistic about technocratic management but skeptical of mass politics.
  • “From very early on in the progressive movement, there’s a skepticism of ordinary people.” [14:26]
• Key features include: a bleak conclusion about human nature, belief in inevitable conflict, the need for elite technocratic management, universalism, and “military Keynesianism” (using defense spending as domestic economic stimulus).
• Influential Cold War liberals: Hannah Arendt, Reinhold Niebuhr, Isaiah Berlin, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., George Kennan.

3. Institutionalizing Elite Worldviews and Exiling the Left

• The Cold War liberal worldview becomes embedded through the creation of powerful institutions (NSC, CIA, DOD) whose leadership is insulated from democratic control. [24:07]
• The Democratic Party, not only McCarthy, destroyed homegrown left institutions (“loyalty oaths, anti-communist purges, communist unions kicked out of labor movement”). [24:32]
• This left the U.S. with a tightly policed consensus: “Politics ends at the water’s edge, by which is meant everyone agrees the United States needs to dominate the world globally.” [25:51]

4. The Cold War Was a Choice, Not a Destiny

• Drawing on new historiography (e.g., Andrew Stevenson, Sergey Radchenko), Bessner argues:

  “Today it’s clear that the Cold War was an American choice... Stalin was a realist... [who] believed that the world should have been divided into spheres of influence... What the historiography now shows is that the Americans just were never going to accept that.” [28:32]

• FDR’s original vision (“four policemen”) was closer to a multipolar world, but later leaders went for primacy/universalism, turning the Cold War into a moralized world struggle.

5. American Anxiety Over Decline and China’s Rise

• The “anxiety of loss”—the elite fear that U.S. primacy is slipping—is a recurring motif:

  “You argue that this whole notion of decline itself is an ideological idea that assumes that somehow US Global dominance was supposed to be... natural, it was sustainable. There’s a kind of teleology there—that it was actually morally necessary.” [33:34]

• Bessner points out that “protestant millenarianism” and a sense of American uniqueness undergird foreign policy expectations. [34:35]

6. China as the New Cold War Adversary?

• The logic of “sphere of influence” is resurfacing among younger U.S. foreign policy thinkers—less faith in unipolarity, more realism about limits.

  “There is a dawning realization amongst younger foreign policy hands... that the United States is not going to be able to dominate East Asia like it had for much of the 20th century...” [31:07]

• But the new “bipartisan consensus” on China borrows heavily and uncritically from Cold War tropes (existential rivalry, militarized competition, binaries). Material reality (China’s rise), psychology, and ideology all play a role. [37:55]
• Two differences: U.S.-China commercial integration, and the racialization of China as an adversary (different from Soviet-era dynamics).

7. Drawing Down Responsibly: Toward Spheres of Influence and Restraint

• Bessner urges acknowledgment that “cold wars aren’t just things that happen to states—they are things that states and elites within states actively make.” [40:08]
• He doubts the U.S. would really wage World War III over Taiwan; advocates “a planned drawdown” to minimize chaos. [41:21]
• The U.S., he argues, should accept a more pluralistic order in Asia, focusing on coexistence and giving up the pretense of managing global order:

  “The U.S. shouldn't go to war over Taiwan. Flat out. It's not worth fighting World War III.” [47:42]

• Transition would mean supporting allies’ buildup, preparing for regional autonomy, and eventually accepting spheres of influence. [44:46]

8. Moral Arguments and the Limits of U.S. “Good Empire”

• Addressing the “moral imperative” for intervention:

  “You cannot do the thing. You cannot manage international affairs. It is an incredibly violent project in which tens of millions of people died.” [52:39]

• The alleged “good wars” can’t be isolated from the overwhelming historical record of violence and hypocrisy:

  “You can't have good empire without the bad empire. The Bad Empire has done an enormous amount of damage to the world. That's just the facts of the matter.” [53:09]

9. Current Mood: ‘Imperialist Realism’

• Bessner’s upcoming book, Imperialist Realism, argues Americans understand U.S. power isn’t always moral, but see no alternative (“there's this thing that I term in this book imperialist realism. Imperialist realism, where, like, Americans understand that they can't do good in the world, but they simultaneously feel the need to act...”). [54:54]
• Political inertia and cynicism, especially post-9/11, reign in D.C., but substantive debate remains “boring... not complicated questions, actually.” [54:23]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “My experience of US foreign policy ... has been just one of nonstop failure, nonstop intervention and collapse, the destruction of other people’s lives, literally and in terms of deracinating them. So that’s really what got me interested in US foreign relations.”
  — Daniel Bessner [06:20]

• “It is basically Cold War liberals who create the architecture of American power and the founding ideology of American Empire.”
  — Daniel Bessner [11:00]

• “Americans actually thought that their political matrix stood apart from Europe ... liberalism really comes to the United States in the 1930s...”
  — Daniel Bessner [13:10]

• “What the historiography now shows is that the Americans just were never going to accept [spheres of influence], that due to a combination of geostrategic impulse ... refused to deal with Stalin.”
  — Daniel Bessner [28:32]

• “I think the material reality of ... China’s huge, powerful, economically important ... is eventually going to lead to just the fact of U.S. retreat from the region. So the question to me is not a matter of if but when, and not a matter of if, but how.”
  — Daniel Bessner [39:54]

• “The U.S. shouldn't go to war over Taiwan. Flat out. It's not worth fighting World War III.”
  — Daniel Bessner [47:42]

• “You can't have good empire without the bad empire. And the Bad Empire has been terrible. So what are you going to do?”
  — Daniel Bessner [54:23]

• “We’re living in the moment of imperialist realism.”
  — Daniel Bessner [56:35]

Important Segment Timestamps

• Intro—Setting up the Cold War frame: [00:09-04:53]
• Bessner’s background and think tank genealogy: [06:20-10:07]
• Deep dive: what is Cold War liberalism?: [11:00-16:14]
• Key figures and intellectual trajectories: [16:26-17:25]
• Institutionalization and the fate of the left: [24:07-27:53]
• “Whose fault” was the Cold War?: [27:53-30:21]
• Applying this debate to China today: [31:07-34:35]
• Decline anxiety/distortion of China policy: [34:35-37:55]
• The logic and differences of new Cold War with China: [37:55-43:57]
• What would U.S. acceptance of pluralism look like?: [44:17-49:39]
• Restraint, moral arguments, and “imperialist realism”: [50:56-56:35]
• Paying it Forward (Quincy Institute, Responsible Statecraft): [58:13-59:52]
• Music and podcast recommendations: [60:40-61:53]

Additional Recommendations

• Paying it Forward:
  • Bessner endorses the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the new book “The Trillion Dollar War Machine” by William Hartung and Ben Freeman. He also promotes his podcast “American Prestige.” [58:13-60:03]
• Cultural Picks:
  • Bessner: Upcoming history podcast on Nirvana and Pacific NW political economy.
  • Kaiser: Substack “hellotechchina.com” by Po Zhao for China tech analysis.

Tone and Takeaways

The conversation is clear-eyed but unflinchingly skeptical about American exceptionalism, global moral imperatives, and the patterns of elite-driven foreign policy. Bessner challenges comfortable narratives—presenting the Cold War and current China rivalry as contingent, ideologically loaded choices by American elites, not deterministic clashes. The theme: Real security and legitimacy for the U.S. will require relinquishing fantasies of primacy for a more restrained, pluralistic order—starting with an honest reckoning with the history and consequences of Cold War liberalism.

For listeners seeking a thoughtful, historically literate challenge to “new Cold War” thinking and American primacy, this episode is essential.