2025-12-04
51 分钟I'm Dan Kurtz-Valen, and this is the Foreign Affairs Interview.
I think Trump is certainly not steeped in classical IR literature,
but I think he has an intuitive understanding of how power works in the world.
And in doing so,
I think he accepts that there are other countries that have power and influence in various places in the world and where the United States either can't necessarily change the state of affairs or can't do it at a low enough cost.
In the last decade,
American foreign policy makers have been forced to reckon with a shifting global balance of power.
Theorists have long argued over the shape of international order,
but such questions now occupy practitioners as well,
as they grapple with the end of the unipolar moment that followed the Cold War and struggle to shape new strategies that account for new geopolitical realities.
Emma Ashford is a leading proponent of a more restrained US foreign policy.
In an essay for Foreign Affairs, as well as in her new book, First Among Equals,
she argues that American policymakers must, above all,
get comfortable with the fact of a multipolar world.
Instead of artificially cleaving the world in two, she writes,
the United States should choose to embrace multipolarity and craft strategy accordingly.
Ashford joined me on Monday, November 17th, to discuss this new order,
how the Biden and Trump administrations have dealt with these changes,
and how America must adapt to thrive in a multipolar age.
Emma, thank you so much for doing this.