Foreign policy scholar Robert Kagan has a new book, The World America Made, and surprise, surprise he’s out on the speech circuit promoting it. Below is a video of Mr. Kagan being interviewed by David Gregory of Meet the Press and semi-debated by New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Kagan, like another historian/foreign policy scholar Walter Russell Mead who I admire, is an optimist when it comes to the United States hanging on to its position as the leader of liberal, free market world order. Though Kagan does come at his optimism from a sober, realist vantage point. For instance, he argues, that sure the US faces a partisan political environment that seems incapable of finding solutions to difficult problems, but to Kagan this is ‘what’s new!’And he has a strong point as American history is full of partisan bickering over what now seem like slam dunk policy decisions and strategic visions. I’ve read all of Kagan’s previous major works, with Dangerous Nation and Of Paradise and Power truly masterful works, and I look forward to reading and reviewing his latest.
