Is America Losing the High Ground?

美国是否正失去制高点?

The Foreign Affairs Interview

2026-04-23

58 分钟
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It is an understatement to say that the United States finds itself at a particularly fraught geopolitical juncture. The outcome of the war in Iran is still uncertain. The war in Ukraine continues with no end in sight. Add to that U.S.-Chinese competition, overlapping planetary crises, a highly erratic hegemon—the list could go on. Such an unstable world presents a formidable test for policymakers in Washington and in every other capital, and no one understands that test better than Jake Sullivan. He served as U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser for four years, after serving in a number of senior national security jobs in the Obama administration. Much of what he dealt with in those jobs, including China, Gaza, Iran, and Ukraine, remains at crisis or near-crisis levels for U.S. foreign policy today. And, as Sullivan writes in a new essay for Foreign Affairs, technological change, especially in AI, is adding new layers of complexity and risk to all of those challenges. Dan Kurtz-Phelan, who worked for Sullivan at the State Department in the first part of the Obama administration, spoke with him on Monday, April 20, about the key tests for the United States today, and about what American power will look like after U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
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  • I'm Dan Kurtz-Phalen, and this is the Foreign Affairs Interview.

  • In a funny way, because America is playing the role of disruptor in living color in such a dramatic way,

  • China is adopting a strategy of claiming to be almost the guardian of the order and the projector of stability.

  • So I do n't see them acting as a massively revisionist power right now because they 're looking at the U.S.

  • Acting as a revisionist power and positioning themselves.

  • As the protector and defender of the rights and interests of everyone else in the face of all that disruption.

  • It is an understatement to say that America finds itself at a particularly fraught geopolitical juncture.

  • The outcome of the war in Iran is still uncertain.

  • The war in Ukraine continues with no end in sight.

  • Add to that U.S.-China competition, overlapping planetary crises, a highly erratic hegemon, the list could go on.

  • Such an unstable world presents a formidable test for policymakers in Washington and in every other capital.

  • And no one understands that test better than Jake Sullivan.

  • He served as Joe Biden's national security advisor for four years after serving in a number of senior

  • national security jobs in the Obama administration.

  • Much of what he dealt with in those jobs from Iran and Gaza to China and Ukraine remains at crisis

  • or near crisis levels for U.S. Foreign policy today.

  • And as Sullivan writes in a new essay for Foreign Affairs,

  • technological change, especially in AI, is adding new layers of complexity and risk to all of those challenges.

  • I spoke with Sullivan, for whom I worked, I should say,

  • at the State Department in the first part of the Obama administration on Monday,