Phone A Friend: Daniel Bessner + Derek Davison of the American Prestige Podcast

Welcome to the inaugural edition of our new periodic unf*cking series, “Phone a Friend,” where we interview authoritative voices in the larger pod ecosystem. The goal is to supplement our learning track by exposing our audience to influential figures in different disciplines that help fill out our understanding of the world that we live in. I've said from the beginning of our journey together that I would do my best to stay within our socioeconomic swim lane. And, to a large extent, I think we've accomplished that. But, over the course of the last nearly two years together, we've strayed from time to time into uncharted waters and done our best to either interpret world events that shape our lives, or examine the intersectionality between our economic system and the impact it has on the world around us.

Now, Unf*ckers know that we're committed to quality, and that we pour everything into each episode, so even though we originally planned to have the segment drop sometime mid summer—so we were totally prepared—when the opportunity to interview our guests today dropped into my lap, I seized it immediately. Although I'm sure there's a good portion of you who are familiar with them, I can think of no better people to introduce our audience to than Derek Davison and Daniel Bessner from the American Prestige podcast.

Derek and Daniel, welcome to Unf*cking The Republic.

Daniel: Thanks for having us.

Derek: Yeah, thanks for having us. We're excited to be here.

Max: Okay, so, like our esteemed still president, Donald Trump, I only bring the best people. So, by way of formal introduction, let me just tell our Unf*cking audience a little bit about you guys. Daniel Bessner is the Joff Hanauer Honors Associate Professor in western civilization in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, which is crazy, because so am I!

He is also a non-resident Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a contributing editor at Jacobin, has appeared in The Nation, The New Republic and The Drift among others. He's the author of Democracy in Exile, and you can find him on the American Prestige Substack and podcast, where he hangs with Derek Davison, who is the author of the popular newsletter on Substack, Foreign Exchanges and obviously co-host of American Prestige.

Derek is an expert analyst who writes on U.S. foreign policy and Islamic history and has appeared in places like Chapo Trap House and The Michael Brooks Show. He's written for Jacobin, The New Republic, Common Dreams, The Discontents Collective on Substack, and more. It's amazing how aligned our bios are, I can't even believe it. [Laughing]

I can't thank you both enough for the time today. And I don't want to be indulgent and fawning, but before we dig into things today, I have to say that American Prestige to me has been absolutely revelatory. What you're doing is so impressive, not just because of your knowledge, but also because you've managed to balance one another really beautifully on the show. So, before we drop some of that knowledge on our audience, I was wondering if you could just briefly tell Unf*ckers how you came to collaborate and what the intent of your show is, to set the expectation for the listeners about what they're gonna get when they become Prestige heads.

So, Daniel, maybe we can start with you.

Daniel: Sure. So, Derek and I have known each other for a while, being in the left wing foreign policy world. We followed each other on Twitter, and I had heard Derek on Chapo a bunch of times—Chapo Trap House. And, then I think I had tweeted something. Derek, do you remember? I know I tweeted something. I don't remember what I tweeted. But I tweeted something…

Derek: It was something about having more outlets for academics to publish for a popular audience.

Daniel: Something like that at the beginning of COVID. And then Derek reached out to me and asked if I could write for his excellent Substack newsletter, Foreign Exchanges. I really recommend that everyone subscribe to that bad boy. It's really, really good. And so I started writing for  Derek at Substack. And then our mutual friend, Nando Vila—who is also sort of in the left wing media world—had spoken to me for a while about the need for a more heterodox foreign policy podcast. And then he recommended that Derek and I do it,  and it really came from that discussion. We talked about it, we planned it for a few months, and we started about a year ago now, 11 months ago-ish. And that's really how it came to be, the magical story of Lennon and McCartney meeting. [Laughing]

Max: [Laughing] I hope it has a better ending. Derek, in our pre-show, you indicated that Daniel was sort of a co-host of last resort and that you don't really enjoy the collaboration, which I found interesting.

Derek: I mean, you know, it's okay for now. We've been trying out some third mics. There's some people coming on the market soon here. I think maybe, you know, Rodrigo Duterte is gonna be out of a job soon. Emmanuel Macron, we could wait a couple of years and try and maybe bring him on. I don't know. I mean, it's always a search for balance. [Laughing]

Daniel: Yeah, for who you can get for someone better to replace me. It's always a search.

Max: I certainly applaud you for making do, and I'm just thrilled that so far I'm two for two for understanding your references, and Unf*ckers, I can assure you that that will be the last of it.

So Derek, before we get into some of the deeper policy questions; in just a year that you've been together, American Prestige has really gathered an impressive following. What has surprised you the most, or maybe, pleased you the most about the response thus far to the show?

Derek: I think just that people are receptive to A) a podcast that's about foreign policy, which, I know there are some out there, but I don't see a lot of them and B) I mean, we're not like tailoring anything. This is what we think and how we approach U.S. foreign policy and international affairs. And that seems to resonate with people. So it's been gratifying, I guess, in a sense—that sounds egotistical, I guess. But it's nice to find out that something that you're saying has some play with a wider audience.

Max: Personally, as listener and fan of the show, it seems that you're both able to speak on just about every foreign policy topic and geographic region under the sun. So, in an effort to keep things focused here today—you know, I have a tendency to over talk and over write, and that's why I do a scripted show, so I can kind of like mash those ideas together—but I wanted to review some of the questions and the subject areas that Unf*ckers have written into us about lately.

That's the whole concept of Phone a Friend, like, when I'm out of answers, then why not ask the experts? So my goal here today is to get to four big foreign policy areas that we've been questioned on. And if we have time toward the end, maybe do sort of a lightning round that the Prestige heads are treated to at the beginning of every episode. So again, for anybody not familiar with the show—and I know everybody's going to go over and start listening to it now—I think you're gonna be as blown away as I am at the conversations that these guys have. So, let's start with something light. Derek, I'm gonna throw this first one to you. And we're just gonna, you know, have just a quick chat about Israel/Palestine. Nothing heavy to start!

Derek: Yeah, I mean, who wouldn't want to have a chat about Israel/Palestine?

Max: That's what I'm talking about!

Daniel: I guess before, before we even go to Derek, we should just point people—we've been doing an ongoing series with Rashid Khalidi, who is the major historian of Palestine at Columbia University. So whatever we say here, if you really want the in-depth history, go check that out on americanprestigepod.com and over at Substack. So yeah, we've done a lot of work on this particular issue.

Max: Well, I'll make sure to link that in show notes so everybody knows how to get there. And obviously, in the interest of time and efficiency, rather than litigating a centuries old conflict, I'm curious about one particular aspect of the conflict that I often hear—and maybe this is because I'm in New York, and I'm more exposed to, whether it's Zionist tendencies or the pro-Israel camp in the United States. But it's a frequent deflection away from Israel's policy that, hey, why don't you criticize the other Arab or predominantly Muslim states in the region for also leaving Palestinian people behind? And that these states pay lip service, but they do little to defend the interests of Palestinians.

So, I'm curious about your analysis of how the United States continues to shape or perhaps frustrate what would otherwise be natural alliances in the region.

Derek: That's an interesting question. I mean, I don't disagree that the Arab states in the region have used the Palestinians as a cause without actually addressing the material needs of, let's say, Palestinian refugees, without really adopting behaviors or policies toward Israel, that might affect change. I mean, you can see in going all the way back to Camp David in 1979, up to the Abraham Accords, that our former/maybe still president, who knows [Laughing], Donald Trump was so proud of; it's always a question of, at what point are these governments gonna be prepared to throw the Palestinians under the bus to make a relationship with Israel that either gets them access to things like the F-35, in the case of the UAE, or it gets the United States to recognize questionable territorial claims, like Morocco on Western Sahara.

I don't think it should be wielded in a way that absolves successive Israeli governments of the responsibility they bear for maintaining what is a system of apartheid or for maintaining settlements in the West Bank that preclude the possibility of a Palestinian state, at least a functional one. I don't think that should let them off the hook. But, I would agree with the general critique that Arab governments tend to view the Palestinians as a useful tool, but not as a cause that they genuinely seem to care about. That's not to say that the people in those countries don't care, it's to say that the governments, which in the Arab world, more often than not, don't necessarily reflect the popular will... the governments tend to view the Palestinians as a useful tool.

Max: So again, from an ethnocentric perspective, we're always curious about what our interventions, or lack thereof, kind of mean for those alliances in that region. And so, I'm curious about, in the sort of vacuum that we've had over the past few years, it seems to me that Israel is even looking to normalize trade relations with places like Egypt or places that might have historically been foes. Are we playing a role in how things are developing, because we're not paying attention to the region as much anymore?

Daniel: I mean, I think we're seeing the emergence of a new geostrategic structure in general, and the Middle East in particular, because I do think that Biden is pursuing a strategy that I've been calling on the show “hegemonic stabilization,” which is the notion that the United States is still extraordinarily powerful. I mean, just to run it down: the statistics. Derek, what is it, we spend more than the next 10 countries now on our defense, it used to be seven now it's 10, something like 10?

Derek: Something like that. And it's still going up. Yeah.

Daniel: We've got 750 military bases. We've basically solved the problem of war, which is that we're able to dominate the world without actually having the bourgeoisie fight and die in wars. So it's the perfect arrangement. But, at the same time, I think it's been pretty clear to U.S. policymakers that this sort of adventurism of the Unipolar Moment of the 90s, and 2000s, just failed repeatedly. So you see this relative stabilization.

And I think that the major strategic shift is a relative disentangling from the Middle East, broadly speaking. But, having said that, I think that the United States is going to remain an extraordinary supporter of Israel, and effectively, what Israel decides to do in the region. So, then the question is, what do you do with that reality? And I think this is where the American domestic political audience comes into play, and that we would be able to, in some sense, if there was some motivation, shift U.S. policy toward Israel, but I'm very skeptical about that actually happening for a variety of reasons.

Derek: And to respond to the direct role the United States plays in this particular relationship. I mean, it's always been a policy of lip service, if that, toward the Palestinian cause. In particular, the Trump administration was sort of saying the quiet part out loud, I guess, in terms of just completely disavowing the Palestinians cutting off funding even to the UN Relief and Works Agency and just kind of going all in.

But U.S. policy has always been to favor Israel, and to favor, in particular, these kinds of agreements between Arab States and Israel, that normalize relations, that improve trade, because that makes things nice and tidy for the U.S. in the region, it puts everybody on the same page. Nowadays, it puts everybody on the same anti-Iran page, which is really the dominant factor here lately for the United States.

There's never really any concern for how these agreements, these normalization agreements, again, sort of consistently throw the Palestinians under the bus in service of some other cause. But the United States—I mean, look, the Biden administration not only accepted the Abraham Accords, but is trying desperately to expand them by getting some kind of a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which would be the mother load as far as these normalization agreements are concerned. We encourage this. This is good for business, as they say.

Max: In as much as what we've said tends to either go, or what we say tends to fuck things up on the international stage, without us being as meddling in direct policy within Israel, Israel is still a major economic force in the region, and is its own self determined governance there. And there's its own political realities.

I heard you talking recently about the political movement on the ground, the Netanyahu camp from the outside sort of scuttling certain initiatives that the government has, to maybe curry favor with some of the extremists come election time. Do you see another sea change coming in the electoral politics within Israel over the next couple of years?

Derek: It may not take that long. I mean, it's very interesting what's going on right now. The West Bank settlements enjoy a special legal status, they're taken care of under Israeli Law, unlike the rest of the West Bank, which is under military rule, essentially, under military law. That status has to be renewed in the legislature, I think every year, but the coalition that's currently in power tried to pass what should be a pro forma bill. It's a regular thing. And they were unable to earlier this month, they were unable to. Partly because the coalition itself is ideologically incoherent. So you have parties from the left parties, from the far right. You have one Arab party. So obviously, internally, there are some groups on the left and the United Arab that oppose the settlements in general. So they weren't supportive of renewing the status.

And then the entire opposition, which is led by Netanyahu and his Likud party—the largest opposition bloc at this point—voted against renewing the legal status. Not because they oppose it. Netanyahu, in particular, has been sort of enthralled to settler parties and settler movements increasingly over the years. But, because he saw it as a way to bring the coalition down, and the coalition collapsing is the quickest way to get to either a new negotiated government with Netanyahu back as prime minister, or a snap election. Which Israel has had an untold number—I think, for them, over the last three years or something like that. You get another one of those, and then Netanyahu's chances of getting returned at the head of his usual kind of right wing to far right wing coalition increased substantially. So there may be, within months, really, a major shift.

Max: Alright, well, in the interest of time—each one of these is something that we could talk about ad infinitum. But that's why everybody just needs to go and listen to American Prestige when they're interested in these topics. That's the whole point here.

Daniel: Hell yeah, subscribe, baby!

Max: That's right. [Laughing]

So I know that these are rather abrupt changes in topics, but I want to move over to U.S./China relations, post Obama and Trump, and pick up actually on a recent piece, Daniel, that you did for Quincy Institute on U.S. China relations, but approach it from more of an economic perspective.

Daniel: Perfect, a subject I don't know much about!

Max: [Laughing]

Daniel: That's not true. I know a bit about it.

Max: Well, it does come to trade agreements and relations. And I've heard you hang on it.

So, one of the issues that came up during the 2016 election was the question of the Trans Pacific Partnership, or the TPP, that was being negotiated in relative secrecy during the Obama administration. For better or for worse, the U.S. winds up pulling out of that agreement under Trump. And now, the country that we were attempting to economically encircle with trade agreements, has itself stepped into the center of it with what's been called the CPTPP.

So, I recall at the time, thinking that the TPP was an even more abusive form, than other trade agreements where labor was concerned, but there were certain bright spots, like with respect to intellectual property protections, for example. But that being said, I'm curious...

Daniel: Gotta keep American companies safe! [Laughing] This is the number one concern.

Max: That's right. [Laughing]

Daniel: Gotta make sure to make as much money as humanly possible.

Max: It's funny, because when I had discussions about that, I was actually approaching it more from an artistic IP sense and figuring, well, if we can keep the IP within the artistic community and corporate America benefits from it, because they benefit from everything, then that's sort of something that we're going to have to agree to give up on in order to get certain protections there.

But largely, I'm curious about kind of what you think the Biden administration's move is, or even could be, now that China has stepped into the vacuum left by the U.S. and kind of whether there's any hope in negotiating collaborative agreements between the U.S. and China going forward. Because they kind of ate our lunch during the Trump years. And I don't think that many people really understand how China has positioned itself with this seismic shift in economic influence over their hemisphere.

Daniel: Well, that's a good question. And it really is the central question of U.S. foreign policy over the next few years. I think it's probably unlikely that there'll be a shooting war between the United States and China, the risks there are just so high. You might see some exchanges, and some incidents tend to happen when powers are angry with each other, but I don't think you'll see a shooting war.

So really, the economic field is going to be the field of battle for this great power competition, which I do think is real. And I do think the very idea of a great power is a useful category, although some of the left disagree with that.

Now, the major concern is that, I think you have to look at this historically. When you look at the United States and Soviet Union, they really didn't have much economic interaction. They truly didn't. I was reading a book recently about the U.S. trade relationship between the Soviet Union, and it's just very, very low. And that is just not the situation with China. China is one of, if not the major, trading partner of the United States. So, in some sense, this is the strategic problem confronting any American administration that wants to maintain hegemony over East Asia, is that they are so coupled with China, that you can't really decouple in a structural sense without doing enormous harm, not only to the Chinese economy, but to the American economy, which will have enormous political consequences.

And no leader, particularly after Biden, who's about to get trounced in November for rising gas prices, no one is going to—the Democratic party is about to get trounced—no one's really going to pursue that. So I think you're going to see a lot of kayfabe essentially. I think you're gonna see a lot of rhetoric on both sides about sort of decoupling and protecting domestic industries and things like that, and you will see some shifts.

I think you see it in film already. China is, I think, going to start limiting the number of American films that are allowed into it. They're trying to produce their own industry, but from the macro, structural level, things are going to remain relatively the same. And I just think that the real issue is that the United States is not going to be able to remain hegemonic in East Asia in the future, whether that's five years, whether that's 15 years, I don't know. But certainly, in 25 years, it's not going to be the hegemon, it is going to be one of many powers and might be, you know, one of the top two powers, probably China will surpass it. So the question is, how do we deal with that reality?

And then that leads us also to another question: how do we deal with that we, as a species, need to rethink consumption. You know, a lot of these economic relationships are premised on the United States just consuming an enormous amount of the world's energy, enormous amounts of the world's consumer goods. And that just can't last, particularly if other nations like China and India begin to develop—and they already have them—but to continue to expand their middle classes that want to consume like the United States. So, as these larger macro economic debates are happening, there has to be a larger shift. We're past the point of discussion, a shift in how people consume.

The problem is, I don't think either of those things are going to happen. I think the United States is just going to keep blundering along. And eventually, China will make a move that is deemed particularly aggressive, probably related to Taiwan, or some sort of freedom of navigation operations, perhaps, and the United States will just decide not to fight World War Three over whatever it is, and it'll be terrible for people on the ground that are U.S. partners and allies. But I think there's not going to be a shift in how we as a species consume. So we're going to keep on putting the pedal to the metal into the brick wall of climate change. So it's a pretty grim prospect, not only for the Biden administration, as you asked about, but for any American administration. But I just think, fundamentally, the United States is not going to be able to remain hegemonic in the region for a litany of reasons.

Max: So you mentioned something about a shooting war. And I remember we had a while back done an episode quoting Margaret MacMillan's book The War That Ended Peace, talking about World War One. And my big takeaway from that book, in particular, was that the economic interdependence of all of the states that went to war in Europe and Eastern Europe at the time, was perhaps arguably even more prominent, because global trade routes hadn't really been established yet.

So the economic interdependence between those countries was what people said would prevent them from dipping into war. That, and the fact that every leader was a blood relative. So, I know it was in the middle of industrialization, I know that it was sort of at the tail end of monarchical and feudal rule, and that there was a bigger seismic shift going on. But that idea of economic interdependence, deflecting any possibility of warfare, kind of went out the window. And I think that that was obviously a surprise to world leaders and historians. So what is different about how you characterize now?

Daniel: A couple of things. Nuclear weapons really are a gigantic shift in international relations, broadly speaking, especially when we're talking about great powers, I genuinely do think that's a shift.

Also, you could look at what China has invested in in terms of its military hardware, and it basically wants to—and Derek, correct me if I'm wrong—but my understanding is that it's basically to deny access to the coast of China, within 100 miles of China. So, I think that is a big shift. Also, just the general strategic approaches are so different. And I mean, China has—I think there's some disagreement about the number of bases or what counts as an overseas military base, but let's just say less than 10, and the United States has 750. So they're just orders of magnitude different. It's not the same thing as saying fighting Britain and Germany, fighting after, you know, a couple of decades of naval armaments build up. So I just think that the historical situation is very different, between 2022 and 1914. To make the comparison, the analogy doesn't quite work. Even though I agree with the general premise. I don't think economic interdependence as a law prevents a military conflict from breaking out. But I just think in this case, considered along with a lot of other factors, it does suggest that there's not going to be a shooting war.

Also, just because the pure fact is, the U.S. doesn't have a vital interest in the region. I don't want to comment on whether or not it's good or not, but you know, it's not central to the U.S. security, to be hegemonic in East Asia. It doesn't really affect the nation's physical security.

We're just so used to, as a population, engaging in things that aren't really related to our national interest for a long time. But I think now that American power is in relative decline, you'll see a return to that sort of strategic thinking, broadly speaking. Maybe not with Biden, or with Pelosi, you know, these gerontocratic leaders who really grew up during the era of the Cold War, but with the next generation of people around my or Derek's age who just see the failure of U.S. power over and over and over again, and are much more skeptical about it, even if you're a pure establishmentarian like Pete Buttigieg. You know, you just can't avoid it, that the U.S. hasn't accomplished what it set out to accomplish in basically every foreign policy thing that's pursued.

Max: Derek, did you want to add something to that before we move to the next segment?

Derek: Well, I would add to Danny's first answer. You're talking about kayfabe, I think the kayfabe has already started on the U.S. side. And I would offer a couple of recent examples. One being President Biden's trip last month to East Asia—it was one of his first big Asia trips—it was supposed to reinvigorate the U.S. presence in that region. And it ended with something called the Indo Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, which nobody seems to actually know what it is or what it does or what it's supposed to do, or who's going to be in it. There's a press release from the White House that's, as far as I know, the most detailed statement on this thing, and it says nothing.

And then, fast forward to earlier this month in the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, the capstone of which was President Biden announcing the America's Partnership for Economic Prosperity. Prosperity is a buzzword here. And I think it's empty, just as these two proposals seem to be empty of any substance. They're meant to be statements that America is still here, and don't forget about us, and Latin America is another region that's really engaged heavily with China over the last several years. They're supposed to be reminders that the United States is still there, but they don't have any substance to them, which mirrors to me a lot of domestic politics.

There's not even any impetus to try and materially affect anybody's lives anymore. Like we've sort of given up even the attempt to do that, let alone actually succeeding and doing it. These sorts of things feel just like empty statements of American Empire, which reflect a decline if you actually get past the name or get past this sort of headline, because there's nothing there. There's no substance.

Max: So, before we move to the next topic, is it fun or horrifying when you see your president go out and kind of declare his own Taiwan policy?

Daniel: [Laughing]

Derek: Yeah, that's pretty terrifying. [Laughing]

Max: So it's on the terrifying end of the spectrum.

Derek: Yeah, I would not want my president to be—especially on something that could lead to a nuclear exchange—I don't want my president just sort of riffing off the top of his head in public. That's not a recipe for anything good. I think.

Max: Well, I think this is obviously incredible stuff thus far. And we're just gonna jump to the next big topic, after we pause briefly for a word from our sponsor. Nah, I'm just fucking with you, we don't have sponsors.

Daniel: [Laughing]

Derek: [Laughing]

Max: Okay, so let's go to the next one. Russia/Ukraine. Lots of fun. All the hits are coming. So obviously, hot button issue at the moment. And I've personally taken a fair bit of criticism on this topic.

In a nutshell, more on the Chomsky/Hedges wing of things since the invasion, I've been kind of asserting or fearing that our single note policy of supplying weapons just enough to defend Ukraine, but not enough to be decisive, is ultimately going to wind up ventilating a protracted, perhaps multi-year war, that amasses enormous casualties on both sides; one caring about it and the other not, maybe.

And I understand the implications of not assisting the Ukrainians in their struggle to defend their land. But what bothers me is that we almost seem to be incapable of marshaling any support with the—let's say, if it was with the EU and China, as if this was not a massive humanitarian crisis—to bring some sort of detente or ultimately a diplomatic end at some point, and I hear the whole you can't negotiate with an insane person or the appeasement arguments…

Daniel: Ridiculous. That's absolutely ridiculous. I mean I just have to state that.

Max: I'm sympathetic to it though, Daniel. You know, it's like, I kind of get where you're going with it. But it's like, do we even have diplomatic power?

Daniel: It's ahistorical.

Max: Okay.

Daniel: In my opinion. I mean, Derek, do you mind if I go off for a second here?

Derek: Yeah, go for it.

Daniel: So, I think the only decisive weapon would be an atomic bomb. That's one. So, unless people are willing to risk atomic war with Russia, I don't really know what they're saying. What the U.S. government clearly wants, is to basically bog Russia down in a Syria-like situation to further weaken Russia. Which, you know, that is the prerogative of the American state, if that's what they want. But I don't think people should delude themselves into thinking that there's any American defense contractor,  any part of the American state that is especially concerned with the fate of the Ukrainian people. I mean, the phrase that we've been using over and over is that the United States is willing to fight to the last Ukrainian.

That is not to judge whether or not Ukrainians themselves should resist invasion, that is absolutely understandable and their prerogative, and of course, if someone invades you, it's a horrible thing that Putin did. And I don't think what Putin did was caused by the United States. I do think NATO expansion was one of several factors that probably helped contribute to the security environment that eventually resulted in the invasion of Ukraine, but it is Putin's decision and, for some reason, we live in a media discourse where you have to say that. So I've said it, we at American Prestige blame Putin for the invasion, it's not the Americans fault.

But, having said that, I think we need to think whether or not the United States should be involved in every world conflict. If you take a look at history—and I think everyone should really do this, and I've got a piece coming out in Harper's about this—people should take a look at history and think if American ”world leadership” was good or bad for the world. And from our perspective, and Derek, correct me if I'm wrong, it has not been especially good for the world.

I would point people to books like Paul Thomas Chamberlain's The Cold War's Killing Fields, I would point people to Lindsey O'Rourke's Covert Regime Change. And I would just say, as a global structure, American leadership has not been particularly good. So, if one is serious about drawing back the American empire and deciding that maybe we shouldn't have these 750 military bases, maybe we shouldn't spend so much of our discretionary funding on the military, then you have to decide if the United States is going to get involved in every conflict at every moment. And, in order to decide that, you have to decide what is in the United States' vital interests.

And I leave that up to every American, I guess, to determine whether or not indefinitely funding Ukraine or really any movement around the world is in the American national interest. What is that interest? And whether or not the United States should continue to basically be the global policeman.

So that's where I stand on that. And I guess, Derek, you could go and either add or take away from what I said.

Derek: Well, I think the question of arming Ukraine specifically gets at the core problem, which is the vaunted military industrial complex. There's a lot of money to be made, sending Ukraine weapons, and then paying defense contractors to make more weapons to either send to Ukraine or to restock the ones that we're sending to them.

The question is whether you find this particular cause noble or just or worth what we're doing. Leaving that aside to some degree, in general, is this a system that you think has done good for the world over the last 50 years or 100 years?

Well not 100, but let's go back to the Cold War all the way back to the '50s. Is this system of a massive U.S. Empire that is fueled by defense contractors and weapons and arms sales, has it been worth it? Has it been worth it that whole time?

Yes, you're gonna find cases here and there where that system is put to work in a cause that most people would find to be just. But, overall, I would say it's not been a very good thing for mankind. And so it should probably be done away with, and what's happening now in Ukraine is only strengthening and funding and fueling, it's kind of feeding the beast, so to speak.

So I would look at it on a sort of longer timeline, and think about it in those terms, rather than just the specific conflict that we're talking about right now.

Max: Can we pull on a couple of threads that you guys have already mentioned?

Derek: Sure.

Max: And just to talk more about, I guess, what is the nature of diplomacy or whether or not that even exists anymore? Was there, if you take all of the bullshit relationships out of the equation, and brought to bear the full weight of China's diplomatic authority, the EU and the United States all kind of standing together in unison, is there a non-militaristic confrontation that we can bring to bear through diplomatic channels that could potentially end it?

Because what's missing for me is that I don't hear anybody issuing pie in the sky rhetoric about trying to bring parties to the table. We just sort of, from the beginning, seem to be ceding the fact that this one actor is terrible and insane, is going to do what they're going to do, and it is what it is, so we better just supply weapons.

Is there no such thing as global diplomacy anymore?

Daniel: No one cares enough. I mean, it's good for the United States' arms industry to continue to fund this war in Ukraine. And, because it's not of a vital American interest—what happens in Ukraine—there's not enough juice, let's say, in either the official organs of the American state, like the State and Defense Departments and the military, or the unofficial organs of the American state, like think tanks and whatnot to pursue a diplomatic solution.

There's just basically—from the perspective of people who want to maintain American hegemony—there's only upside to this war continuing. So you can't remove those bullshit relationships, because that's the whole thing. Again, this is not of vital American concern. It's not an invasion of Canada or Mexico. It doesn't threaten American security at all, you know, Americans aren't really dying.

There might be some sort of economic thing to come. But I mean, in this capitalist system, the oligarchs will be just fine, so who cares anyway? I just think that's the truth. Derek, do you agree with that?

Derek: I mean, I would, I would say a couple of things about the question of diplomacy. One, there's been so much hand wringing since the war began. You know, going back to the earliest attempts in the UN to condemn the invasion and looking at the list of countries that voted in favor and voted against and abstained; just a lot of hand wringing about like, why are countries in the global south not getting on board here? Why are they not condemning this invasion?

I would say, I mean, look at what the United States has done in the global south over the last 20 years. We've run roughshod over any notion of sovereignty, we drone whatever country we like, we invade whatever country we like, we overthrow regimes, we impose sanctions. There's no sense of any kind of attempt to build a relationship with Sub Saharan Africa, or with many countries in the Middle East, with countries in Latin America. And then to turn around and say, hey, guys, look, this is a war in defense of the international rules based order and democracy, and we have to all jump on board.

I mean, what have we shown the rest of the world over the last 20 years, if not that there is no rules based international order, at least not one that the United States ever follows? And that, democracy leads to, I mean, what what value do you place on democracy after watching the war on terror and the way that it's unfolded?

And there was a really good piece in the Atlantic by Stephen Wertheim, who is a friend of our pod, just a couple of days ago, arguing that the Biden administration would be much better off dropping all this talk about the rules and democracy and democracy versus autocracy. And talking about national sovereignty. I mean, this is a violation of Ukraine's national sovereignty, the invasion. That's a universal value, that the United States hasn't managed to discredit over the last 20 years.

Daniel: Even as we violated it, wherever the hell we wanted.

Derek: Even as we violate it, right. But it's still there. I mean, every country values its sovereignty in ways that they probably don't value the rules based international order anymore. So, I would say, if you want to appeal to those countries, then change your message.

The other thing I would say specifically about China. I mean, we couldn't even work with China on the pandemic, which didn't have geopolitical implications like this, where China has a vested interest in Russia and a strong alliance with Russia. We couldn't even collaborate on fighting the pandemic, we can't collaborate clearly on climate change. So no, I don't think there's any hope that we're going to be able to, like get on the same page and condemn this war and try to bring a settlement about.

Daniel: And, just very quickly to add to what Derek said, when we're talking about the rules based international order, it's kind of funny, because China actually participates in that order. It exists in these international institutions and the problem [laughing], it's so crazy.

The issue is that a lot of American leaders are annoyed because China is using these institutions to advance its own national interests.

Max: Right.

Daniel: And Americans are like, no, no, only we're allowed to do that. You know, the rules based order is supposed to benefit us. I mean, it's just so absurd at this point. As a culture, we really only focus on yesterday, today and tomorrow. And we really need to take a longer view of these things, and really decide what the structures actually do in the world.

I would venture to say that there was something just about Ukrainian and Ukraine's decision as a country to combat the Russian invasion. Of course, there is a horrible violation of sovereignty. But you have to also consider that in light of these larger structures and trends. These things didn't start yesterday, they've been going on for 75 plus years.

Max: So that's actually a really excellent lead into the last big sweeping question I have. And dramatic oversimplification alert, by the way, just for the sake of expediency. But when we talk about, or you talk about as historians U.S. foreign policy broadly in doctrinal terms; if the first part of the 20th century saw the U.S. as the burgeoning world player, shifting between isolationism and involvement, to where we twice had a prominent seat in being able to carve up the world after the great wars, into the Cold War era policy, from containment through the collapse of the Soviet Union; maybe an argument to be made that the end of the Clinton era through Bush and Obama could be ascribed to sort of the neocon wing, the Bush Doctrine, maybe as a centerpiece, again, just broad generalizations.

When you think about the last generation, the Obama through Trump and now under Biden years, when historians such as yourselves evaluate this era ultimately, how do you think they're going to characterize U.S. foreign policy?

Daniel: One quick thing I just want to make clear, because it's used so often incorrectly, the United States has never been isolationist. I mean, basically, if you consider dominating the entire Western Hemisphere, that's never been isolationist. When people mean it, they're talking about Europe. But even then, I mean, if you look into the '20s, to suppose that era of the United States isolationism, you have like the Young Plan and the Dawes Plan and the United States really being economically involved in Europe. It just never was isolationist. And I think that's just a fact to state.

In terms of the last generation, this is going to be, from my perspective, in like 500 years, right? Some super macro perspective. It's going to be a series of leaders who weren't able to come together to address the actual problems facing humanity: climate change, pandemics, the population movements that are going to be engendered by climate change and pandemics that are going to result in the deracination of so many people. And there's going to be so much death, it's just going to be a totally failed opportunity, just falling down totally on the job. And I think it's going to be viewed with considerable disgrace, actually, and it's going to be a grim situation.

Derek: I think these three most recent presidents and—I mean, who knows, maybe we'll get Trump again, or maybe we'll get another term of Biden and it could go on beyond them—I think this period that as you defined it, that period, Obama, Trump, Biden, and who knows, is going to be regarded as a period of empire on cruise control.

Three administrations that weren't able, either, to see that the world is changing, and that it is no longer the '90s when the United States was free to pretty much do what it wanted, where it wanted—that we squandered a lot of goodwill during the war on terror, at least the early years of the war on terror, the economic rise of China has changed the game substantially—but either weren't able to recognize that or recognized it, but didn't really know what to do about it, if anything. And again, I think there's some mirror on our domestic politics where you have a series of presidents who either don't see the problems or don't really know what they can do about them. So we're on cruise control. That's the way I feel about where things stand now.

Max: So when we talk about influential figures, the nemesis of the show that Unf*ckers are familiar with is Milton Friedman. So fuck Milton Friedman, #FMF. That's our center point here, so we always have somebody to refer back to when we're angry.

But when you think about looming figures in, I guess, at least modern U.S. foreign policy, whether it's Nietzsche, Kennan, Dulles, Kissinger, Baker, Albright, maybe? I don't know. People who really kind of came to define their eras with a specific worldview. I mean, are we in “the Blinken era?” Do you think people are gonna look back and be like, oh, that was the Binken era?

Are there any big policy thinkers right now that have an ability to move us in a particular direction? Or, are we so devoid of talent at that level right now, because we're empire on cruise control?

Daniel: The talented people wouldn't be in this space to even be in an administration at this point. Because, I mean, it's so obvious that the energy is with critique and changing things. And you just can't have that approach and actually get to a very high level within the system, at this point. I mean, maybe if Bernie had won, things would have been different. But, given the current situation, I just think it's very, very unlikely. Maybe there'll be some shifts to a more genuine left, and then you could actually see young people coming in. But barring that, I think, no, this is not an era of great foreign policy thinking. Hasn't been for a while. [Laughing]

Max: For better or for worse, the last instrumental figure who was able to kind of move the needle and policy writ large, who would that be in the United States?

Daniel: No one really in the '90s.

Derek: I mean, anybody since Kissinger?

Daniel: Yeah, I was thinking Kissinger with detente. Right. That's the last big one.

Derek: Yeah.

Daniel: Probably that, probably Kissinger and detente, where that was the last sort of like major thinker who actually had an approach and an idea.

Derek: I mean, maybe the neocon or maybe somebody like Irving Kristol…

Daniel: Yeah, Iraq, it's of a lower scale, I think. But because it wasn't really a risk to the United States—it was a risk to everyone else.

Max: [Laughing]

Daniel: But yeah, not for a while, not for a while. Because it's been a status quo policy for so long, that you know, you have to have a certain approach. Let's not judge individual people, but you have to have a certain approach to the world to rise within that structure.

Max: Alright, so with the last few remaining minutes, and I'm glad we actually got to get to it. We're going to do a quick lightning round. This is one of the things I honestly—I love your interviews. I love when you guys have deep dives into single issues. But, your around the world in like 10 minutes that you begin the episodes with, to me, is just soul crushingly smart.

Derek: It's usually more like half an hour, let's not over promise.

Max: [Laughing] Alright we'll try to be more efficient just to respect your time.

Derek: [Laughing]

Max: So, very quickly, lightning round. Derek: Iran. Can you tell us why you're becoming increasingly pessimistic about reauthorizing the Iran nuclear deal?

Derek: I mean, inertia at this point is on the side of doing nothing. The Biden administration came in promising to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. It had, by many accounts, had an agreement worked out with the previous Iranian government, Hassan Rouhani, but then Ebrahim Raisi took a much harder line, was elected president, he came in with some new demands, one of which is for the United States to lift a foreign terrorist designation from the the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is the Iranian kind of core military defense of the revolution unit.

The Trump administration put them on that list because they knew it would make it harder to get the nuclear deal restored, they knew that that would be a sticking point. And the Biden administration, you know, even though, from a material perspective, the Revolutionary Guard is sanctioned under so many other rules by the United States government that, from a material perspective, taking it off the FTO list would probably not have much of an impact. It's more of a symbolic gesture. But, even that is too much, apparently, for the Biden administration.

Which, I think if you want to say one thing, other than Afghanistan, if you want to say one thing about its foreign policy for the last year and a half, it's been that they're not terribly interested in taking any political risks to achieve anything. So, they're not willing to take the heat for removing the IRGC. And I just think, at this point, you know, everybody's kind of retreated to their own sidelines, and they've got their positions, and there's no sign that they're moving or that they're talking. So I don't see any way forward at this point.

Max: Daniel: Cuba. I was able to go there, right before Trump became president, and then everything changed. When's the next time I'm going to be able to go to Cuba without winding up on a watch list?

Daniel: [Laughing] Umm, I don't know, let's be optimistic. Relatively soon? Again, there's so little real, genuine national interest in maintaining the United States' negative relationship with Cuba. I mean, the problem is, there are, you know, very powerful domestic lobbies that are not in favor of it. But I think the Ben Rhodes/Obama decision to open up to Cuba probably is a harbinger of where things are going to go in the next five to 10 years. So I think there's a relatively good chance that the United States will improve its relations with Cuba.

Max: Let's stay with some good news. Derek, back to you, Yemen. Why do you see a recent bit of good news in Yemen?

Derek: Well, there was a ceasefire imposed, or agreed to, in early April, that was supposed to last for two months, they've since renewed it for at least another two months. The renewal was really, I think, an optimistic note. The terms of the ceasefire had only been partially fulfilled. So there would have been cause for one side or the other to say, no, this isn't working out for us, let's withdraw. But they didn't do that. They stuck with the ceasefire. And now the question is, can they fully fulfill the initial terms and then move beyond them to start talking about more generally, into the war, a permanent ceasefire, and it's early still, so hopefully they will.

Max: That's it Unf*ckers. That's all you get, we are out of time. If you want this kind of erudite analysis of literally everything that's happening around the world, you can't come back here; you have to go over to American Prestige, okay?

So Daniel Bessner, Derek Davison of American Prestige on Substack, and the incredible podcast, I cannot thank you both enough for hanging with the unf*cking audience today. Thank you guys.

Derek: Thanks so much. Thanks for having us.

Max: Okay, you can find American Prestige wherever you get your podcasts. I definitely encourage you to check out their Substack for both Prestige and Derek's very, very popular newsletter Foreign Exchanges. We'll have links to all of it in the show notes.