American Prestige

Danny and Derek discuss COVID-19 and how vaccine colonialism reflects longer-term trends in U.S. history, the recent coup in Guinea, the formation of the new Afghanistan government, and the upcoming German elections. The boys then speak with Alexander Aviña, an assistant professor of history at Arizona State University, about the history of Mexico and U.S.-Mexican Relations from the 1810 Mexican War of Independence to the "drug war" of today.

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Timothy Gill, assistant professor in the department of sociology at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, joins Danny and Derek for a discussion of how the US has attempted to undermine foreign governments, particularly Venezuela, by way of democracy promotion. They discuss the role of government groups like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and parastatal actors like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the history of US-Venezuelan relations and how they deteriorated, the two-party consensus in the US around democracy promotion interventions, how this tactic has also been used by the US in other regions, and more.

Be sure to grab a copy of Tim’s book Encountering US Empire in Socialist Venezuela: The Legacy of Race, Neo-Colonialism, and Democracy Promotion: https://shorturl.at/aiEIN

Danny and Derek welcome back Christopher McKnight Nichols, Wayne Woodrow Hayes Chair in National Security Studies and professor of history at Ohio State University, to the program for a chat about rethinking American grand strategy. They talk about what exactly “grand strategy” is, grand strategy vs. first principle, the role of WWII and the end of the Cold War in US grand strategy, PEPFAR and the Bush administration, climate change vs other low-success grand strategies, technology and grand strategy, and more.

Be sure to check out the volume Christopher co-edited, Rethinking American Grand Strategy!

Danny and Derek spend the first part of the episode talking about Libya from its independence through the rise and fall of Muammar Gaddafi, the civil war, and its faltering peace process. Then, Derek is joined by Assal Rad, senior research fellow at the National Iranian-American Council, to discuss her recent piece on the role economic warfare plays in extending the US empire and on the state of American-Iranian relations.

Check out Assal's article here:
https://bit.ly/2TZR8AD

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This week, Danny and Derek take you from Iran, to China, to Iraq, to Tunisia, before speaking with Matt Duss, the chief foreign policy advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders. They talk with Matt about the Olde Blogosphere, how he got to work for Bernie, and interrogating the foreign policy “consensus” from inside the belly of the beast.