Lawfare Daily: In Search of a Harris Doctrine with Michael Hirsh

[Introduction]

Michael Hirsch: She goes out and she gives speeches. She's constantly talking about the necessity of upholding international norms and rules and the rule of law. She's lived that, you know, she, this is not something that she learned at Joe Biden's feet. This is something that she learned on her own.

Tyler McBrien: It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Tyler McBrien, Managing Editor of Lawfare, with Michael Hirsch, a columnist for Foreign Policy.

Michael Hirsch: I think you will see in her someone who's going to talk tough, who's going to, you know, spend on defense, but is going to be extremely reluctant to get involved in any kind of global conflicts.

Tyler McBrien: Today, we're talking about what a potential Kamala Harris administration foreign policy or Harris Doctrine might look like, as well as Michael's recent foreign policy essay, reviewing books by Harris’ top national security advisors, Philip Gordon and Rebecca Lissner.

[Main Podcast]

So Mike, I want to start with something that two of your colleagues at FP wrote on August 20th, Robbie Gramer and Amy MacKinnon. They said, quote, if you want to learn more about the U.S. Democratic Party's foreign policy vision as the DNC gets underway this week, you have two options. First, a web page that apparently hasn't been updated in three years, or a massive PDF document that is still written as if President Joe Biden, not Vice President Kamala Harris, is the party's candidate. So first I want to ask a methodological question, if you'll indulge me. So to approach this question of what a potential Harris administration foreign policy or a Harris Doctrine, if you want to call it that, might look like, where does one even start with this dearth of guidance from the Democratic Party itself?

Michael Hirsch: I think that that's, you know, a highly accurate assessment by my Foreign Policy colleagues, because you know, even now, when we're talking about you know, fewer than seven days, 70 days before the election. We don't have anything that would add up to a Harris Doctrine or have any real sense of what her own foreign policy views might be separate from her role as vice president to Joe Biden. You know, I think we just have to go on the idea that she is running as a champion of the legacy to the Biden foreign policy. She's out there defending it in speeches around the world and has been for the last three and a half years. So, if you want to know what Kamala Harris's foreign policy is likely to be you really should just examine the record of Joe Biden.

Tyler McBrien: Great. And then before we turn to some of her current advisors and the books they've written and their record, I want to stick with Kamala Harris just for another beat of, you know, other things she's done and said or written. You had another great Foreign Policy article in which you talk about the sort of next generation of foreign policy, the places where Harris might break with Biden's foreign policy, or rather, maybe even circle back to Obama foreign policy. You talked about how her time in the Senate, specifically the Intelligence and Homeland Security Committees have shaped her, beginning in 2017. Could you elaborate a bit on that? Her, her journey in the Senate and how it might inform foreign policy?

Michael Hirsch: Yeah, no, I think that that's a really interesting dimension to her that Joe Biden doesn't really have as being representative of an older Cold War generation. Literally within a few days of Kamala Harris as being sworn in as the next Senator from California, she joined the Senate Intelligence Committee and this huge report dropped coming from the U.S. intelligence community showing how deeply Russia was involved in meddling in the 2016 election. And that became a very big story. And so she was involved in that investigation, most of it was done behind closed doors. The Senate Intelligence Committee conducts some 80 percent of its hearings in classified session, so we don't know a lot about what was said. But from talking to her former aides in the Senate and other observers, she was deeply involved in this investigation. She also got involved in a lot of other investigations into the abuse of cyberspace by Russia and China into the high-tech threat of intellectual property theft, particularly from China.

You may remember the Huawei scandal involving a big Chinese company that was allegedly going to be spying on Americans if it was entered into wide use in the United States. So she got involved in all of this stuff including some of really over the horizon type threats like quantum computing, the regulation of artificial intelligence. It's interesting to note that in her acceptance speech at the convention the other week when she talked about being a tough commander-in-chief, which was sort of the main thrust of hers, of her comments on foreign policy, she also talked about competing with and beating China on some of these newer threats and the use of artificial intelligence in particular. And I found that very striking. So in this particular area what you might call the sort of new era of high tech threats that are coming from China, Russia, and Iran now, we know there's FBI investigation into Iran's hacking of both the Trump and Harris campaigns. We have a candidate here, in Kamala Harris, who's been ahead of the curve on this.

Tyler McBrien: And staying with Harris just a bit longer, what else have you gleaned from either her speech at the DNC, she had a pretty big foreign policy speech in Munich in February. So in addition to these next generation threats, these over the horizon topics, China, what other views have you gotten from her in, in what she's said in terms of either issue areas or, you know, what her views are towards certain regions, so perhaps the global South or elsewhere?

Michael Hirsch: Well, you know, she obviously was saddled with trying to address the immigration problem at the start of the Biden administration. And of course she didn't seem to do very well. I think she was treated a little bit unfairly there because all of these issue areas are not, are not anything that was handed off to her. It's a contrast actually to what happened when Biden became Barack Obama's vice president. Sort of a reversal of what we have now, Biden was the vastly more experienced foreign policy official working for Obama and so Obama sort of handed off specific portfolios to him, like resolving the Iraq conflict, for example, after the surge. And that was not really the case with Harris. Biden has, you know, with all his foreign policy experience, kept Harris with relatively little, was, wasn't given any area where she, you know, she handled it completely on her own.

The one thing that I would say about her that is distinctive, and this goes back to the question of election meddling, is that dating back to her days as a San Francisco district attorney and then a California attorney general, she was very involved in all of the vulnerabilities that American democracy has to threats from abroad.
And she segued very neatly into dealing with the threat from Russia and China, in terms of, you know, what they were trying to do, planting false messages and information on Facebook, for example, to undermine the election process here. She has really been steeped in that for a long time, and even before she came to Washington, when she was in California. And you know, so her familiarity with those areas really tends to, gives you an idea that when she goes out and she gives speeches. She's constantly talking about the necessity of upholding international norms and rules and the rule of law. She's lived that. You know this is not something that she learned at Joe Biden's feet. his is something that she learned on her own. So I think, you Kamala Harris when she talks about how important the rule of law is in international relations.

Tyler McBrien: Yeah, and just to pick up on the first point you made you noted in, in your piece called “Kamala Harris's 21st Century Foreign Policy” that in her 2019 memoir, The Truths We Hold, she wrote about how shocked she was by the state's backward voting technology when she first took office, how vulnerable it was to hacking, and that concern spread beyond just election infrastructure. So I thought that was an interesting and a sharp point. I also, to turn to the second part of what you were talking about, her experience as a prosecutor, as attorney general, I've also seen elsewhere people suggest that this will likely have the effect that she will uphold domestic law in terms of arms transfers. We'll have a special emphasis on international humanitarian law and the law of war. What do you make of that connection?

Michael Hirsch: No, I think that's really astute and something that we ought to be watching for. Because she does take all that seriously. You know, there's very little daylight between Harris and Biden as we can see during her time as vice president. But one area is the upholding of humanitarian law. She's spoken with more of an edge than Biden has, for example, about what Israel is doing in Gaza in terms of its violation of humanitarian law. And just, you know, in general norms and in the way it's conducted that war. Aagain, this is visceral with her.  You know, there's a reason why she speaks out about it this way, because she's lived it. And so, yes, I absolutely think that you would see that in a Harris administration where something that, you know, some presidents have tended to pay less attention to, which is international humanitarian law would be the forefront of her foreign policy.

Tyler McBrien: So we have a few Kamala Harris speeches. We have you know, her CV, which might give us some indication of her worldview, but in the absence of more material that she's written something that you did in Foreign Policy in an essay called “Preparing for a Less Arrogant America” was to look at the two most recent books of her National Security Advisor and Deputy National Security Advisor. So just starting with a bit of biography: who are those two figures? How long have they been in the Kamala Harris orbit? And just lay it out there.

Michael Hirsch: Sure. Well, her national security advisor in the vice president's office is Philip Gordon who is a well-known figure in Washington, a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins, an expert in Europe and the Middle East who served in both the Clinton and the Obama administrations, he is, or actually was seen as kind of a middle of the road, fairly unremarkable guy who might, you know, you might see him sort of inside the intellectual bubble of the Council on Foreign Relations tradition, right? Where the whole post World War II concept of the U.S. as global overseer, creator, and preserver of the international system. That's where Philip Gordon comes out of. However, in 2020, he published a really, really interesting book that was a fierce dissection of regime change efforts by U.S. officials going all the way back to the 1953 ouster of the Iranian president at the time, which was orchestrated by the CIA. And he goes, he starts from there and then goes through our efforts in Afghanistan, both in the 1980s and post 9/11 and on to, the Iraq invasion, of course, in 2003. And then efforts that were made after the 2011 Arab Spring to oust dictators in Libya, Syria, of course, and Egypt, where, you know, you had that brief period after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak.

And what's interesting is in that book, he basically says they all failed for mostly the same reasons: American hubris, an overestimation of what our impact could be, of what the beneficial impacts would be, an underestimation of all the hazards of these regime change efforts. And he basically concludes, look, you know, this has not worked for us, going all the way back to that 1953 ouster of Mohammed Mossadegh, who was the Iranian president at the time. And says we should, you know, think about going about this more differently, in a somewhat different way, in a somewhat more humble way. And to the extent we are dealing with rogue regimes around the world the containment strategy that worked during the Cold War may be a better approach. So that, you know, I pieced that together with another book, which I know we're going to discuss by Rebecca Lissner, who is now Gordon's deputy national security advisor on the Harris staff.

Tyler McBrien: Yeah. As you were speaking, it's reminding me how much Gordon's thesis there of humility and pragmatism harkens back to, you know, a Ben Rhodes type of character who, you know, the world as it is rather than you know, this, this high-minded optimism or idealism. I'm curious, you know, what you make of perhaps the downsides of this kind of pragmatism. I think a lot of the upsides are obvious given the past couple decades of U.S. foreign policy. There's a quote here from Richard Haass, former president of CFR: he called Gordon judicious, careful, moderate, whatever the opposite of ideological is but what are the downsides of that? You know, is it better to have a national security advisor who is ambitious, who is wanting to hold the world to higher ideals?

Michael Hirsch: Well, look, I tend to agree with Gordon's general views of the risks and hazards of regime change. You know, never more so than in the catastrophe that was the Iraq invasion which I thought was an act of insanity at the time it was happening and wrote and said that. I was obviously in the minority. But if you look at the downstream impact of that terrible decision by the George W. Bush administration, it's just mind boggling how much damage it's done. Not least as I write in my article you know, the biggest menace that the U.S. is dealing with right now in the Middle East is Iran, is the Islamic Republic. And if you go all the way back to that 1953 coup attempt, which is what really fueled the rise of the Islamic Republic you remember you know, the United States was portrayed as the Great Satan and the reason why, you know, the Islamic Republic rose to power. And then look at what happened after the 2003 invasion when a U.S. Army study concluded only several years ago that the biggest victor to come out of the Iraq War was not us, was not Iraq or anyone else, it was Iran. You can see, you know, just how much damage these regime change efforts have had. And I think that this new pragmatism, as you describe it, and I think that's accurate is something that's infecting both political parties.

I mean, whatever happens in the current race, Trump v. Harris, I think you are going to see for a long time to come a new pragmatism and a new humility, particularly about going in and trying regime change. It just almost never works. You know, the only time in modern history that we can say that it definitely definitively worked was post-World War II Japan and Germany. But those were unique circumstances and probably succeeded in part because both countries were highly advanced countries, you know, economically and politically, but also because of the 40 year-long Cold War which kept U.S. presence in both countries and continues to do so today. Those are the exceptions. The rule is let's not meddle in other people's governments, and so I think that you're going to, I think that that's probably the view you're going to see. I think ideology is definitely out of fashion these days in U.S. foreign policy.

Tyler McBrien: Yeah, I liked what you wrote about you actually, how you were characterizing Biden's foreign policy as this sort of halfway house foreign policy that bridges the global policeman era and this new era of restraint. In a way, you know, reading about Gordon, I almost felt like that he will continue this, you know, trying to straddle both ideologies, but pragmatically and with humility. Especially because you know, another piece I was reading on him that dissected the book felt that Gordon also pinned the blame on the characters involved rather than just the strategy. So Michael Brenes, for example, wrote, Gordon endorses the well-worn premises of U.S. national security, yet he expresses a persistent disappointment in its architects. So I guess my question here is, if you had to slap a label on, on Gordon's worldview, is it progressive internationalism? Is it I don't know, pragmatic, you know, is it realism? How would you kind of, how do you wrap your head around this, you know, his strategy?

Michael Hirsch: I'm not sure that it admits of any particular label. Pragmatism, certainly realist, you know in the foreign policy sense in the sense that, you know, you're going to have to deal with the world as it is deal with rogue and liberal and autocratic regimes and work with them rather than trying to overthrow them. Yes, very much so. Progressive internationalist? All that, you know, that's also probably true because Gordon, like others around Harris, you know, firmly believes in the U.S. orchestrated international system that came into being after World War II, wants to maintain as much of it as he can. And above all, I think Philip Gordon, you know, if he becomes, say, President Harris's national security advisor, is going to be passionate and dedicated to maintaining U.S. alliances, particularly with Europe. One thing that Gordon is known as is a very strong trans-Atlanticist who values NATO and the NATO alliance and of course now with Russia's aggression in Ukraine that's become more imperative than ever.

Tyler McBrien: I was interested to read about how he's a bit of a polyglot, speaks several romance languages very much a classic trans-Atlanticist in that way. But I want to turn to his deputy, Rebecca Lissner. A bit about who she is and then the book that you dug into of hers with Mira Rapp-Hooper, her co author, also from 2020, which I want to get into as well a bit later. A lot has happened, I think it's safe to say, in the interim since both were published. But, yeah, a bit about Lissner.

Michael Hirsch: Well, Rebecca Lissner is younger than Phil Gordon. She is considered a rising star and has been for a long time. She was one of the key people in charge of Biden's national security strategy. She, you know, has gone into all the best schools, also a Ph.D from Harvard. She, in 2022 opted to leave her very senior role with the Biden National Security Council and move over to become Phil Gordon's deputy, deputy national security advisor under Harris. So clearly, you know, she had in mind and had in mind helping to shape the next generation as it were a foreign policy.

And she wrote in 2020 a book called An Open World with another Biden administration official Mira Rapp-Hooper which was an absolutely fascinating argument about how the United States needs to sort of ratchet down its ambitions and focus on what we minimally can get done, which is to maintain the global open system so that, you know, we benefit from trade, we benefit from international cooperation. And we should, you know, turn away from the so called messianic strain in foreign policy, which leads us to, or has led us in the past, to some of these regime change efforts that Phil Gordon addressed in his book. So it was very interesting to see the way that Lissner’s and Gordon's books kind of fit together in that respect.

Tyler McBrien: That's the through line, I would say. But as you also note, they don't agree on everything. Did you notice any major divergences between the two books?

Michael Hirsch: Well, I think that Lissner's book is much more ambitious in trying to reconceive the international system and America's role in it. Gordon is much more focused on sort of just scaling back our efforts to remake the world in our image. Which is kind of a, you know, a foreign policy stream that goes back to Woodrow Wilson and making the world safe for democracy after World War I, it, you know, it's been dominant. You've seen it appear in different administrations since then, of course, perhaps most prominently in the George W. Bush administration after 9/11 when there was a great deal of American hubris. The so called unipolar moment after the Cold War was still very dominant in people's thinking. And you know, you had an extraordinary amount of arrogance in officials like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney about, you know, what we could and should do to transform the world, to complete the so called, you know, Reagan Revolution and all of that.

And other administrations, even Republican administrations, for example, like Eisenhower's, have been much more restrained and much more realist in their approach. But that strain of messianic thinking has always been there. And I think the key thing that Lissner and Rapp-Hooper are saying in their book is okay, let's just drop this. And I think Phil Gordon would agree with that based on his own assessment of regime change efforts. So added up you have between these two key advisors to Kamala Harris, I think a new view which still being sketched, you know we don't really know what their current thinking is, but what it amounts to is sort of codifying, if you will, the anti-interventionist strain that we're seeing in foreign policy where the U.S. knows it needs to be involved in the world. There's no other power to rival it. But we really need to downscale our ambitions and just try to see what we can preserve of this post war system that is now so, so tattered and so challenged in particular by China and Russia.

Tyler McBrien: So this, this through line between the two books and their main theses, I would argue has aged pretty well in the past four years, but as you note in your piece, not everything in the book has aged as well. Looking back, you know, reading these books in 2024, what stuck out to you as a bit dated?

Michael Hirsch: Well, I think the events since then, in particular, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which is, you know, for the first time since World War II made, you know, made an open traditional war the dominant policy crisis in Europe as well as the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel and the way it's threatening to widen into a broader regional war there have really put into relief just how difficult it's going to be for the United States to try to sort of drawback, if you will. Not become isolationist, though, of course, if Donald Trump is elected, we certainly would become more isolationist, but it has highlighted the idea that there really isn't anyone else. You know, if you look at what's happened in the last two and a half years since the Ukraine invasion, the U.S. has led the way in terms of putting in the lion's share of military assistance and resurrecting NATO, which of course is a legacy Biden is very proud of, bringing in Finland and Sweden. And then of course, in the Middle East, you've had Washington forced to defend Israel from the air. Biden has sent in some carriers, he's sending in submarines, you know?

So there is this sense that since these books were published the old role of “Globocop”, as I like to call it, which I think every American president – if there's one thing that Biden and Trump share, it's that they don't want to play this role as much anymore. I mean, Biden said so after he withdrew from Afghanistan, by the way, on Trump's plan that we are, we're just giving up all this notion of remaking other countries. I think that we've been sort of forced back into that role to some extent, just in pursuit of preserving stability and peace in these key regions. And of course, you know, there's high tensions over Taiwan and Biden has done a great deal to bolster U.S. alliances with Japan and South Korea, to supply military aid to, you know, Australia. And so there's a sense that as much as we would like to pull out, we are getting pulled back in, you know, like that old line from The Godfather and that we have no choice because there just simply is no one else who's going to be able to preserve their stability.

Tyler McBrien: Right. And, you know, what we're doing right now, obviously, is looking at Gordon and Lissner's books as an approximation of Harris's potential foreign policy. But as you well know, Harris has a lot of agency here as the President. Gordon and Lissner as NSA and deputy NSA are just that they're advisors. So, in addition to, you know, world events that are starting to perhaps pull America back into this hegemonic “Globocop” role, why else might Harris not be so eager to embrace this, this worldview as eagerly or as fully as Gordon and Lissner have in their books?

Michael Hirsch: Well, politics, you know, to put it simply, I mean, certainly over the next few months until the election you're going to see Harris presenting herself as a potentially strong and tough commander-in-chief, as she did in her acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention. You know, talking about maintaining the U.S. military as the most lethal in the world. That harks back to the sort of hegemonic views you heard from some conservatives and Republicans in the post-Cold War period, like Paul Wolfowitz. And so, you know, I think the sense that she needs to be out there looking like a tough commander in chief is going to, is definitely going to shape her views.

But that's not to say, you know, if she does get elected that she won't try to implement sort of new anti-interventionist strain, as I call it, in foreign policy. I think that is really going to be the default mode for American presidents for a long time to come. And no one summed up the reasons why, frankly, better than Phil Gordon who I think from, you know, everything we're hearing is going to be in a very senior role in a Harris administration if one occurs and could possibly end up remaining her national security advisor if she becomes president. So I think you're gonna, you know, He was involved in all those policy debates, particularly post Arab Spring when you know, Obama was struggling, you know, should we get involved in the Syria insurrection? Should we help the rebels against Assad? But there were all sorts of confusion, cross currents, you know, involved in that because Assad was as brutal as he was as a dictator, the only one really fighting, the Islamic jihadist rebels who were, who made up a large portion of that insurrection. And we could never, you know, the U.S. could never quite figure out who they might be helping. And if we were just going to send large amounts of military equipment, whose hands might they, might they end up in?

You know, similarly in, in, in Libya, when Obama sort of reluctantly joined a European effort to oust Gaddafi. Well, what ensued was again, you know, a sort of quasi-Islamist takeover of that country, which is in a state of chaos also. So I think, you know, all of these lessons that Phil Gordon lived and learned are going to be landing right in Kamala Harris's lap if she's president. I think you will see in her someone who's going to talk tough, who's going to, you know, spend on defense but is going to be extremely reluctant to get involved in any kind of global conflicts.

Tyler McBrien: I want to make sure we briefly touch on the bureaucratic political dimension, or perhaps the policymaking dimension. Michael Brenes, who I referenced earlier, also wrote that Jake Sullivan, the current Biden national security advisor has transformed the role, unlike any figure since Henry Kissinger, making the NSC the most undemocratic yet essential institution of U.S. foreign policy making. So whether or not you would go that far I think it's safe to say Jake Sullivan has his own brand of, his own spin on the role. So assuming again, Harris wins in November and assuming Gordon stays on as national security advisor, how would you contrast, you know, how Gordon might approach the role and, and running the NSC versus how Sullivan has?

Michael Hirsch: I think Gordon, you know, would take what the Biden administration has accomplished in terms of restoring alliances, particularly in Europe, and run with it. I think he believes in that. At the same time, you know, I would say that Jake Sullivan and along with say Kurt Campbell, who was a senior official on Asia and is now the deputy secretary of state under Biden have been more hawkish than Gordon particularly when it comes to East Asia. And I think that you're going to see, you would see under a sort of Phil Gordon NSC, perhaps more of an attempt to reach out to and find rapprochement with China, although you are seeing some of that in the Biden administration. So I'm not saying the differences would be that dramatic. But I do think that again, you know, going back to his book, his view about the disaster that regime change has been as a policy for the United States, you're going to see someone who is going to counsel more caution, perhaps, than Jake Sullivan has.

Tyler McBrien: Now with apologies for turning briefly to the upcoming election and Harris's opponent, Donald Trump, everything we just described of what could be the makings of a Harris foreign policy, how do you distinguish it from a potential second term Trump foreign policy? And then secondly, do you think it matters to voters? Is this a foreign policy election at all? I mean, I think it's telling that foreign policy didn't figure that much into the DNC. So in, you know, thinking about Harris versus Trump, the candidates and their foreign policy proposals where do you draw the distinction?

Michael Hirsch: Well, I mean, there are some important distinctions and similarities. I'm going to take the second half of your question first, though. I think you're right. I just, I don't think that foreign policy is going to play a big role barring the possibility, you know, of the proverbial October surprise where something big happens, Americans die in the Mid East or elsewhere, or China makes another move or, you know, something really new happens barring that I don't see it as being a key factor. I mean, Trump and JD Vance have tried to make it into a key factor by, you know, describing what a chaotic world we're in now. And how Trump, as Trump says, if he were president, if he had been president, you know, Russia would never have invaded Ukraine, which of course there is absolutely no evidence for whatsoever.   It’s just another thing he spews out without any facts behind it at all. But you know, aside from that, I know, I don't think that that's the case, that it will be important. And there obviously would be huge differences. You know, Trump takes pride in alienating the European allies. He obviously has made you know, the threat of a whole new range of tariffs, a key point of the foreign policy he would bring. So he would definitely bring a more protectionist world that would probably damage international economic growth.

But in other respects, not that different. You know, one of the most interesting things to look at comparing the Biden administration and Trump administration is how similar they have been in their approach to China, particularly economic threat from China. Biden has kept in place almost all of Trump's tariffs against China. And at the same time adopted what you might call a quasi-protectionist view of the U.S. economy. Which is included you know, a lot of industrial policy that once would have been seen as, you know, as a very poor policy choice by both political parties a generation ago, the CHIPS Act and so forth. So, I think you would see as many parallels, interestingly enough as, as, as distinctions between a Harris and a Trump administration with the single exception, of course, of the way that President Harris would, would treat U.S. alliances.

Tyler McBrien: So I guess politics sometimes stops at the water's edge, but I want to, I want to end here with a bit of a forward looking thought exercise. So assuming again, Harris wins in November, and barring, as you mentioned, any shocking geopolitical events. Come January, what do you think will be at the top of Harris's agenda in the first week, the first hundred days? You know, what are her first moves coming into office?

Michael Hirsch: Finding some way to resolve the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and, you know, I think perhaps the good news is there that with pragmatists surrounding her, they may try to find their way at least to the negotiating table. Which it's been difficult for Biden to do because he's sort of painted himself into a corner rhetorically and essentially, you know, what we've done is delegate U.S. strategy to, to Ukraine and to, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, which is dangerous because, you know, most recently you've seen this invasion of Russia by Ukrainian forces as extremely provocative. But that would be her focus. Her focus would be to resolve in some way the Gaza conflict in the same way that Biden's doing. I fully expect that to be ongoing, particularly with Benjamin Netanyahu still as the Israeli prime minister. And then it would be to focus on, you know, trying to ratchet down tensions with China so that, you know, there isn't any kind of invasion of, or quarantine of, you know, some people talk about the possible possibility that China could try to sort of cut off Taiwan without an actual invasion.

So essentially it's going to be basically the same big issues we're dealing with now. They're all so huge, they're all unresolved and they will land in her lap and they would in the lap of the second President Trump as well. I mean, my own view is that one of the consummate ironies, you know, of, of, of this era is that American presidents going back to Obama have wanted, you know, to try to pull back a little bit to focus on fixing our own problems at home. And we just haven't been able to do it because the irony is that we're still by far the most powerful superpower. In fact, you know, Europe has actually fallen behind economically since the Biden administration began. And China, you know, another big factor is that since these books were written, you know, China has also fallen into a period of stagnation and slow growth, which suggests that the some of the, you know, fear mongering, if you will, about China has not turned out to be true.

Tyler McBrien: To your last point, I guess the news of the death of the American century has been greatly over exaggerated.

Michael Hirsch: Yes, that is a good way of summarizing it. And because there is no other fill in the blank century on the horizon, particularly a China century we, you know, we may be at the beginning of another American century right now.

Tyler McBrien: Well, Mike, I want to thank you for joining me. I think should Harris win, this will be a very prescient and informative conversation. Should she lose, it'll still be worthwhile to listen to, I think. So either way, thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me today.

Michael Hirsch: Thank you, Tyler. Good talking to you.

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