So those sorts of things are not wrong, but the kind of intellectual overreach that some people might assign to the end of history thesis probably is not where we would leave the discussion.

Well, I think the volume shows beyond a shadow of a doubt, it underscores what John just said, is that the intellectual debate in the nineteen nineties was much more wide-ranging, fluid, open than just Fukuyama's vision of liberal modernity's triumph, the kind of view that it was that all the way down.

So you had realists and liberals and nationalists and globalists and scholars and commentators disagreeing really over the shape of things to come.

So many predicted, uh, in fact, heightened competition within the West for economic advantage, that friends would become foes.

In fact, there were books and articles written with that title.

Others argued that the post-Cold War world would be one of increased military and security competition, that Japan and Germany would become formidable great powers, that NATO would weaken and break up, that alliance commitments would become more fluid and shifting.

The end of bipolarity, they predicted, would usher in a return to traditional multipolar politics.

So could you explain the liberal bet that the West, particularly the US, took with China, why it failed, and what other consequences this has had?

So those sorts of things are not wrong, but the kind of intellectual overreach that some people might assign to the end of history thesis probably is not where we would leave the discussion.

Well, I think the volume shows beyond a shadow of a doubt.

It underscores what John just said, is that the intellectual debate in the 19th more wide-ranging, fluid, open than just Fukuyama's vision of liberal modernity's triumph, the kind of view that it was that all the way down.

So you had realists and liberals and nationalists and globalists and scholars and commentators disagreeing really over the shape of things to come.

So many predicted, in fact, heightened competition within the West for economic advantage.

The friends would become foes.

In fact, there were books and articles written with that title.

So could you explain the liberal bet that the West, particularly the US, took with China? Why it failed and what other consequences this has had?

So those sorts of things are not wrong, but the kind of intellectual overreach that some people might assign to the end of history thesis probably is not where we would leave the discussion.

Well, I think the volume shows beyond a shadow of a doubt.

It underscores what John just said, is that the intellectual debate in the 19th more wide-ranging, fluid, open than just Fukuyama's vision of liberal modernity's triumph, the kind of view that it was that all the way down.

So you had realists and liberals and nationalists and globalists and scholars and commentators disagreeing really over the shape of things to come.

So many predicted, in fact, heightened competition within the West for economic advantage.

The friends would become foes.

In fact, there were books and articles written with that title.

So could you explain the liberal bet that the West, particularly the US, took with China? Why it failed and what other consequences this has had?

(laughs)

... rather than the willing. I mean, the crux of the problem here is that European leaders do not want to put boots on the ground as part of a peacekeeping force within Ukraine without a US security backstop in the form of, you know, aircraft, anti-missile batteries, intelligence data, satellite info. And Trump has basically, thus far, been unwilling to, at least publicly-... commit to such a backstop. And I think, I mean, the other news item that's getting no attention today is he's got a meeting with, uh, Marco Rubio, um, and, um, uh, Hetzkopf, um, you know, about-Right.... um, what the response is gonna be. And it seems like, you know, the choices are between canceling or suspending.Right.That's the positive outcome-Okay, Peter, I, I gotta-... we're seeing.... I gotta interrupt here. And this is-Yeah.This is totally unfair to you. And not the way-Okay.... surveillance rolls. But everyone's thinking about it, whatever their politics. Should the secretary of state resign?So my view, and I've said this, and I'm on the record, I believe he won't last very long.Hmm.So, th- and that's because it, it's pretty clear, anybody that was watching on, on Friday or watched the Saturday Night Live spoof of it, realizes that Marco Rubio is very uncomfortable. He's basically-Right.... pivoting 180 degrees from things that he said about the war, Putin's war in Ukraine two years ago. You know, and, uh, so the question is, can he carry the brief and, you know, uh, you know, or, or not? To me, he seems like he's not a particularly relevant player in the administration.Right. Years ago, folks, you had to walk around campus, if you wanted to be a girl magnet, you had to walk around with a black and white cover book, Reagan's Legacy and a World Transformed. Oh, yeah, that one I'm sure.And Young Tribblewitz, (laughs) Eliot Cohen's in the book, Paul Kengor, others.Yes, okay.Young Tribblewitz is in there, The Balancer: Ronald Reagan, Party Politics and US Grand Strategy. You're in a classroom right now and that smart aleck Paul Sweeney's in the back row, half asleep.Yeah.And he raises his hand, professor, and he says, "What's after Trump?" Do you see a permanence to this Republican effort of the President of the United States? Or do you look at Donald Trump as a one-off?Um, I, I think the, the answer here is that it's possible. Look, the United States is very divided. We all know that. And not everybody agrees with this. If you look at the polling and so forth, the country is divided on so many of these questions. So, it's quite possible that two years from now, you know, Trump, the Republicans lose the Congress, everything grinds to a halt and a Democrat comes back in four years from now and tries to change things. But imagine this from the standpoint, this is the kind of thing I hear over here, as an American, li- talking to Europeans and so forth, what kind of credibility? I mean, if this can happen, if it can happen, you know, uh, if it can happen under Donald Trump, it happened at this point and it happened four years ago, it could happen again. And I think these things have, um, a kind of, um, they're sticky and it's hard to just turn things back. So, I think what is happening is, you know, we're seeing parts of the rules-based order that has been in place more or less for 80 years, it's fraying, it's unraveling. And we're gonna head into different territory, it seems to me.

(laughs)

I mean, look, they got, they have a war on their doorstep, you know. Um, this is not the first time. Let me just say, too, this is not the first time that an American president has put, if you will, the screws to Europe over security. Richard Nixon shook, you know, tried to shake down America's allies back in the 1970s. You know, Tom, you'll remember this, when he threatened-No.... to slash American, the American troop presence there if they didn't start spending more on defense. But the difference between then and today is there wasn't an active war on Europe's doorstep. So, this really has their attention. And, but the question-Right.... you know, Europe is a, the EU does not make a decision on a dime and like, turn on a dime. So, they, and they have trouble coming up with, they've had trouble always coming up with-Yeah.... a coherent foreign policy, a security policy.Yeah. I remember the days-And it is not obvious that they're gonna get there.Yeah. I remember the day de Gaulle wouldn't let American jets fly over France on their way to somewhere, uh, to bomb somebody. One final question, Professor Tribblewitz, a good friend of the show, Robert Hormats, with all of his public service, wrote a book umpteen years ago, The Price of Liberty: Paying for America's Wars. Hormats' grand theory out of Tufts is simple, if your fiscal house is in order, you can't get it done. Russia's fiscal house is not in order. Europe's fiscal house is not in order. Decidedly, America's fiscal house is not in order. How does that play out?I think the US has much more running room than the other two that you mentioned. And so, um, you know, uh, I mean, the implication of what you're saying is that everybody will, each of these countries has an incentive to retrench. The problem here is some of Putin, if he sees the United States pulling back in Europe, that's exactly what he wants. He wants-Yeah.... to be able to divide Europe from the United States. This is, did not start with Putin. This was the old Soviet strategy as well. It had been Russian policy for a very long time. So, he will double down if he sees that goal in sight.All right.Deficit or no deficit, I think.Thank you so much for the time.