America’s Dangerous Pessimism

12/14/23 • 52 min

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Most Americans think their country is in decline. So do their leaders. Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have embraced foreign policies premised on the notion that the global order no longer serves American interests.

But these pessimistic assumptions are wrong, Fareed Zakaria argues in a new essay for Foreign Affairs. Moreover, they are leading the country to embrace strategies that will harm much of the world—and the United States most of all. Zakaria is the host of Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN, a columnist for The Washington Post, and the author of The Post-American World.

You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

Previous Episode

Bonus: Who Killed the Chinese Economy?

There is no doubt that China’s economy is struggling. After Chinese President Xi Jinping ended the country’s zero-COVID policy a year ago, most economists expected growth to surge—but that never really happened, and deeper problems became apparent. So what are the exact causes of China’s stagnation?

The economists Adam Posen, Zongyuan Zoe Liu, and Michael Pettis each have different answers. China’s future—and the future of the United States’ policy toward China—hinges on which of their answers is the right one.

Foreign Affairs Executive Editor Justin Vogt spoke with them at a November 14 discussion co-hosted by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, of which Posen is president. Liu is the Maurice R. Greenberg fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Pettis is a senior fellow at the Carnegie China Center and professor of finance at Peking University.

Next Episode

Bonus: How the War in Gaza Is Reshaping the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Hamas’s attack on October 7 shocked the world and upended the status quo in the Middle East. As Israel’s war in Gaza continues, the two-state solution seems more out of reach than ever. And yet, close observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict understand that for there to ever be peace, a political solution must go hand in hand with any military strategy.

At a Foreign Affairs live event on December 14, Lisa Anderson, Salam Fayyad, and Amos Yadlin joined Foreign Affairs Editor Daniel Kurtz-Phelan to explore these issues and more.

Anderson is the James T. Shotwell professor of international relations emerita at Columbia University and was the president of The American University in Cairo from 2011 to 2015. Fayyad served as the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority from 2007 to 2013. Yadlin is a retired major general in the Israeli Air Force and served as head of Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate from 2006 to 2010.

Together, they discussed Israeli strategy, whether Hamas can actually be destroyed, and whether there is any hope for a return to a peace process. This is an edited version of their conversation.

You can find transcripts and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.