The Strategy Sessions is a limited-run podcast hosted by Emma Ashford, a senior fellow with the Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center. Today, Emma talks with Michael Brenes, the director of the Brady Johnson Program on Grand Strategy and a lecturer in history at Yale University. Emma and Mike discuss what internationalism might look like after this administration, how cooperation rather than competition might lead the U.S. to greater success vis-a-vis China, and why American primacy might be a fool’s errand going forward. Emma and Mike’s discussion is part of the New Visions for Grand Strategy Project, a collection of essays, videos, and podcasts in which out-of-the-box thinkers discuss the future of U.S. foreign policy. We apologize for the poor audio qualities in parts of this episode due to unexpected technical difficulties. *The Strategy Sessions Podcast is hosted by the Stimson Center and produced by University FM.
The Strategy Sessions is a limited-run podcast hosted by Emma Ashford, a senior fellow with the Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center. Today, Emma talks with Michael Brenes, the director of the Brady Johnson Program on Grand Strategy and a lecturer in history at Yale University. Emma and Mike discuss what internationalism might look like after this administration, how cooperation rather than competition might lead the U.S. to greater success vis-a-vis China, and why American primacy might be a fool’s errand going forward.
Emma and Mike’s discussion is part of the New Visions for Grand Strategy Project, a collection of essays, videos, and podcasts in which out-of-the-box thinkers discuss the future of U.S. foreign policy.
We apologize for the poor audio qualities in parts of this episode due to unexpected technical difficulties.
*The Strategy Sessions Podcast is hosted by the Stimson Center and produced by University FM.
(Transcripts may contain a few typographical errors due to audio quality during the podcast recording.)
[00:00:00] Emma Ashford: The 2020s are likely to be a pivotal decade in determining the future of America's role in the world. Global dynamics are changing. The era of unchallenged U.S. global dominance is ending. And China and other states are rising. At home, the United States is also going through a period of transition and change in foreign policy, from bipartisan consensus to debate and division. The only thing certain is that change in U.S. foreign policy is inevitable.
In these discussions, our guests engage with some of the most challenging questions facing U.S. policymakers, bring distinct perspectives to bear on these questions, and offer their own vision for the future of U.S. grand strategy. These are The Strategy Sessions.
Hello, I'm Emma Ashford, a senior fellow in the Reimagining US Grand Strategy program at the Stimson Center. Welcome to The Strategy Sessions, a series of discussions with forward-looking, out-of-the-box thinkers on the future of U.S. foreign policy.
Joining me today virtually is Mike Brenes, the Director of the Brady-Johnson Program on Grand Strategy and a lecturer in history at Yale University.
Welcome, Mike!
[00:01:20] Mike Brenes: Thanks, Emma. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:21] Emma Ashford: So, before we get started on your essay, I want to talk a little about some general questions. And I think one of the most important is understanding the world for which we're trying to craft a strategy. There's been a lot of debate. Is it multipolar? Bipolar? What will be the role of the U.S.? The role of China? And so, I'm curious, what is your mental model of the world that we're entering in the next few decades?
[00:01:46] Mike Brenes: I do think that the world is increasingly multipolar. I think that is the present and the future for the United States and for China and the rest of the world. I think you see that in multiple areas, in multiple fronts. Certainly, economically, we are an increasingly multipolar world, with the rise of China over the past 20 years, China controlling many aspects of economic production, global manufacturing, climate technology, green technology, India being poised to be the third largest economy in the world by 2030. These factors indicate to me that, economically, the world's increasingly multipolar and will be so. I think, also, what we're going to see, particularly with issues like climate change and with strategic minerals, that the Global South, countries in Asia and Africa, outside of India, I mean, I say India and China, even Asia, but those countries in Africa and Asia that aren't great powers or rising powers will also have increasingly a greater share or role to play in international relations. Particularly, I think, given the ways that strategic minerals has been an interest of the past five, 10 years, and also because what climate change will do to shape the dynamics of various countries and what that will do to potentially shape regional migration and then international migration.
And I think that means that the United States, for instance, a country that I've studied a lot and most concerned about in my research, that is going to mean that the United States, its influence is going to, I think, wane. And it's not that the United States as a superpower is going to disappear, superpower status is going to disappear, or that it's going to be in a position where it's not going to have a permanent role in economic and military affairs. Far from it. But I think the ability for the United States to achieve the outcomes it wants to achieve, militarily, economically, strategically, will be few and far between, to be quite blunt. I don't think the United States is going to be able to use this military power and economic power to achieve the same ends that it did, certainly, during the unipolar moment, but even during the Cold War.
And I think that is an interesting situation to be in. It's a new world for us all. Certainly, you know, for people like us who grew up in unipolar moments, right, who saw U.S. foreign policy develop as it did during unipolar moments. But even those who were educated by the Cold War, this is not a new Cold War. It’s not a great competition in my view that will lead to one country dominating the other, right? It's a multipolar world. And I think that the United States, for the reasons I just articulated and specified, should be willing to accommodate that world rather than resist it.
And just a final point, and I think China as well, and I think all countries should be trying to understand and accommodate this multipolar world as opposed to trying to dominate or try to control aspects of economic power in the ways that we saw during the unipolar era or certainly during the Cold War.
[00:04:45] Emma Ashford: So, I think that's the next logical question, right? I mean, if you were to design American foreign policy for this new world, what would your guiding principles be? And it sounds like accommodation might be one of them. But I'm curious, you know, what would you prioritize? Perhaps, that's a poor choice of words in grand strategic debates, but where should the U.S. focus?
[00:05:08] Mike Brenes: I think that's an excellent question and it's an excellent point, which is that the United States, in my view, has not prioritized its interests and has not prioritized its goals or its ends. You know, really, since the end of the Cold War. The United States has pursued a variety of different ends and has not been specific about what it wants to achieve in the world. And what it has sought to achieve during the war on terror, extirpating terrorism from the face of the globe, trying to be the security force or the world's policemen, those ends, if that was what the war on terror was supposed to achieve, obviously failed.
And I think we're now in a position where, because the world is multipolar, the ends are not infinite, but they are multiple. You could see the United States prioritizing control over the South China Sea. You could see the United States prioritizing security issues in various regions of the world.
From my interest, I think the United States should be focusing on areas of transnational concern and the areas that, I believe, are concerns that are existential threats to the United States and China, it's rival, China and Russia, but also the rest of the world. And that is climate change. There is pandemics, that is issues like inequality, that is issues like refugee and migration crises with which exacerbates xenophobia and nationalism. And that contributed to a lot of the democratic crises or crises of democracy or liberalism that we see in the world today.
And I think the problem of the United States, or the problem that the United States confronts right now in terms of its thinking about U.S. foreign policy is that it’s stuck in a paradigm of competition. It's stuck in a paradigm of, like, if we're not great power competition, then it's essentially a race between the United States and the rest of the world as we see during the Trump administration to have U.S. dominance. Whether that be tariffs, whether we're talking about EU policy, or whether that mean dominate in the South China Sea militarily. And that's just not going to, again, as I said earlier, achieve the ends that United States wants to achieve, and also be counterproductive. The rest of the world doesn't want that. The rest of the world, I think, wants a more cooperative, if not multilateral, international approach to world affairs, particularly dealing with issues like climate, like pandemics, like debt relief in the Global South.
And I think the United States has an ability to think long term. We'll see what happens with the Trump administration, but the United States, you know, after Trump, certainly, has an opportunity to think long term about where it goes in the direction of tackling transnational issues, existential issues like climate, given that identity interests aren't going to be met, I think, as we're currently pursuing them and that the United States influence is not going to be significant or as significant as it once was on the international stage.
[00:07:50] Emma Ashford: I think that's a good place to pivot into your essay. It's actually funny, almost none of the other contributors in this project talk much about Donald Trump at all. But if there's a central figure in foreign policy debates today, love him or hate him, it's Donald Trump. You make the point in your essay that he's not persuadable. You basically say the foreign policy community is irrelevant for the next four years. So, are you basically saying that strategy has to focus on the day after, that we have this, sort of, three-year interregnum and, you know, it's about planning for after Trump?
[00:08:30] Mike Brenes: Partly, I think the point I was trying to make in the essay is that the foreign policy commentary, the national security policymaker circles, you know, people who are in the Biden administration, they won't have an influence on Donald Trump. And Trump is going to do what he's going to do. And I think, what Trump really is concerned about is two issues and two issues alone, which is tariffs and immigration. Trump really sees threats to national security from within. And in particular, he sees the threat of undocumented immigrants and, of course, hosts of xenophobic and racists and sometimes paranoid arguments come out about the threat that undocumented immigrants posed to American security interests.
But outside of those two issues, he really doesn't have a core. He really doesn't have a set of values. I think he's transactional, obviously, as we've already talked about in other spaces. But he also just really… he’s going to go with the wind. He's going to maneuver as he sees the new issue be popular or sees that something is going to be significant to boost his image or his popularity.
But I think the damage that will be done is already, kind of, forecasted in the past six months, is that Trump is just going to be a chaotic force. And I think we are living in an age or will be living in an age of Trump, which is to say we're living in an age of nationalism and xenophobia that Trump will leave an indelible mark on. And I think the question then for me, and this is to your point about our question about what comes after, I think, is how do you deal with this age of nationalism, but not just in the United States is confronting, but, you know, countries in Europe, of course, are dealing with it, and Asia as well, if you look at India and Modi. I think then the answer for me is, internationalism is the cure to nationalism, like multilateralism is the cure to nationalism because nationalism, you know, gets us more Donald Trumps.
So, what can be the antidote? What can be a tonic cure for what ails us? And I think, thinking anew about what internationalism means after Donald Trump is important. And I think that we should treat the post-Trump moment as a post-war moment. They were after World War II, or after the Cold War, the United States took stock of its institutions and took stock of its role in the world. The taking stock in World War II led to international institutions being created. It was a different result after the end of the Cold War, of course, because it was a different moment. But I think that's how we should treat Donald Trump, is that he will leave a mark on American foreign policy for quite some time. It's not a mark that I want to see last very long. And then those who don't want to see that mark last, then I think it's incumbent upon us to come up with a better vision for U.S. foreign policy. And I think that is an international swan that can move us out of the years of Donald Trump and what he's done to shape foreign policy.
[00:11:16] Emma Ashford: So, let's stick with the domestic lens for a moment, because I think one of the most obvious areas where this administration is going to impact and shape foreign policy is the destruction of existing institutions of U.S. soft power. We've seen USAID closed down. We've seen various government associated think tank institutions, the Wilson Center, USIP closed, state department reorganization. And so, I think, one problem for your vision is that it may be more difficult to do U.S. foreign policy, to engage multilaterally in a post-Trump administration. How do you think about rebuilding or thinking about new domestic institutions?
[00:12:04] Mike Brenes: I think, ultimately, the United States has to come to grips with the fact that Donald Trump profits off of insecurity, and he profits off of anxiety, and he profits off of people who feel like there is no hope other than making sure that they feel better than their enemy. I think Donald Trump has used tactics of fear to elevate himself and shape our politics. And I think that's, in one sense, sort of, a psychological problem, but I think we have to deal with it in materialist chunks. The United States is in a position where, as you say, after Trump, institutions of social welfare or domestic institutions will be hollowed out. And I think there are voices out there within the Democratic party and outside of the Democratic party who are saying, “Look, Trump's Senate and the Democratic Party, I think, is in a position where it can be a bulwark against Donald Trump.” But you have to offer a better version of liberalism. You have to offer a better vision of tomorrow than what Donald Trump has. And so far, the Democrats have not offered that. The status quo has been the status quo — the same.
And so, I think, first, it comes with the Democratic party or opponents of Trump building a vision, a more affirmative vision of what government can be, creating political coalitions that can mobilize people along these lines. And then, once you're in power, then I think then the institution building is easier. I mean, I think this is what we've seen with Donald Trump, is that he's been able to capture essentially all three branches of government and use his power noise to dismantle agencies.
Now, I think, ultimately, my vision would be that those who are opposed to Donald Trump and his vision of austerity and simply just canceling programs because he feels that they're not in the best interest of the United States or they're serving purposes of DEI, whatever that may be, that we can offer clinical coalitions of us can offer better vision and then get elected and use the three branches of government in ways that we haven't been able to for quite some time.
But I think you're right. It's going to be a 10, 20-year process. And this is to your point earlier about Donald Trump and him shaping foreign policy. He's irrevocably shaped, I think, domestic policy as well. He's a key figure in our history now.
And so, the rebuilding process, and this is where grand strategy comes in, will be 10 to 12 years. But I think it's also a project that is simultaneous with foreign policy. A better domestic policy creates a better foreign policy. And the two reinforce each other. And I think that's something that I would like to see go forward or, you know, from the Democratic Party or for people who are opposed to Trump, is linking domestic foreign policy together in ways that they have not been and try to, again, offer better vision to the American public about what foreign policy can be, what many Americans are opposed, to forever wars, have been opposed to endless wars, don't like to see their monies being wasted abroad, and then also want to see their monies being put to good use at home and want to see that government is a force of good. Many Americans like social security. They like Medicare. They like SNAP. You know, they like environmental regulations. And I think linking those two things in together ways that are coherent and drive people to the ballot box and therefore create institutions once those people get elected to power, I think that's the vision that I have going forward over the next 10 to 20 years.
[00:15:23] Emma Ashford: Yeah, and I think that can be a very tough sell. Foreign policy doesn't typically move votes. Much of the country's in a very nationalist mood. So, I mean, I think your approach is broadly within the progressive camp in terms of that linkage of domestic politics and foreign policy, in terms of centering values, maybe not the way that they've been centered over the last couple of decades, but talking about things like justice or accountability and the multilateral system as ways to achieve that, I would like you to talk a little bit more about that, and also about how the United States might actually be able to achieve some of these things, because it seems to me that we've spent a lot of the unipolar moment trying to use U.S. power to push various kinds of values with relatively minimal success. Could we just talk for a few minutes about values and how we actually pursue them?
[00:16:19] Mike Brenes: No, I think that's absolutely correct. The values of the United States in the unipolar moment and the values of the United States during this era of competition have been to make sure that the U.S. is up and the rest of the world is down, you know. Or, how do you serve U.S. interests? You abide by U.S. power. That's basically been, from my perspective, at least, maybe I'm being too harsh, from my perspective, that's been the approach the United States has taken.
And so, what that's done, I think, over the past 20, 25 years is that it's eroded the power of the multilateral international institutions that we have, that would provide justice or accountability to the United States, yes, but also to other countries as well. And I think we see this, in the case of International Criminal Court, ICJ, when the United States just says the ICJ doesn't matter and the United Nations doesn't matter, right, it's just a situation where we can just ignore them. And United States has been very, very effective at ignoring the United Nations for the past 25 years. And so, trying to, and succeeding in ignoring the concerns of international community, and yet at the same time trying to say, well, the United States represents freedom and democracy in the world, has gotten us nowhere. It's gotten us actually much of the world angry at us, for failing to adhere to our values.
I think, first and foremost, then beyond the points I've made about creating institutions or building upon partnerships and alliances that the United States has to include new allies or to include China on certain endeavors, I think the United States should first recognize our values in these international institutions that exist. Why does the United States just decide to ignore the WTO when it suits their interest in terms of tariffs? But yet, we yell at China for when it ignores the WTO, right? Why do we do that, you know? And I think this just goes back to, sort of, cold realism in many ways. Well, you know, great powers act in the interest of great powers. But the United States, as it has been told to us for centuries, is an exceptional nation. We have the ability to spread democracy and should be, we can argue about that, but for many people, national security establishments should be spreading democratic values, at least in some capacity, not through nation building, but through some soft power.
And it's hard to do that if you're just ignoring the rest of the world. And I would say the rest of the world, certainly the Global South matters. And again, we can isolate Gaza and the situation in Gaza as a key indication of how the United States has alienated the rest of the world by not adhering to its values and not adhering to the world's values when the rest of the world is saying a situation like Gaza demands greater attention and something needs to be done to stop what Israel is doing. And the United States says no, then it's just hard and, you know, impossible for the United States to try to continue encouraging the rest of the world to abide into its vision. And I think that's the first step to rectifying things. And then going from there, we'll see if that happens, you know. But again, the post-Trump world, I think the opportunities can be multiple.
[00:19:20] Emma Ashford: So, I think a common criticism of this kind of progressive approach or this kind of multilateralist approach is that it's easy to talk about the places where the United States has failed to live up to its values or to abide by the rules that it's agreed to. But it's also the case that China, Russia, others regularly violate these rules as well. And it's not clear how the U.S. compels them to abide by these rules. Is it possible in an era of great power competition to have this kind of multilateralism? And you may well reject the notion that we're in an era of great power competition, but I’m curious how you see this working.
[00:20:07] Mike Brenes: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right that I do reject that we are in an era of great power competition. I don't think that's what we're in. I think great power competition is a policy choice. It's a framework. That is a policy choice. But it's certainly not a strategy. It's certainly not a vision for how to get to or achieve certain ends.
Competition, I would argue, is just that — it's trying to compete with a rival for power, status, influence– but it doesn't actually spell out what the ends are. And I think the first thing, yeah, is to reject the idea that competition achieves the ends that the United States wants for itself, because it hasn't. You know, what has great power competition bestowed us? Over the past 10 years, or, you know, close to 10 years?
We've tried to constrain China, constrain its economic influence, constrain its developments and technology, constrain its developments in climate. Currently, China is developing new, cheaper, DeepSeek AI models, it's controlling 75%, I think, is the current figure of climate technology and new technology coming out of China. China controls electric vehicle production. It's in a situation where it's simply dominating United States and will be the country that can lead us into climate change.
So, great power competition, if you wanted to take stock of it, has not achieved the ends that we wanted to achieve. And therefore, it's unproductive and counterproductive to achieve the United States’ interest. I think that's the first step to admitting that it's not working and to move into a more, you can call it, progressive or cooperative approach to foreign policy. But I think that's key. And my hope is that, when Trump is done with his chaotic transactional approach to U.S. foreign policy, and we realize that we're in, perhaps, even further behind China on many things, that we're just not in, structurally, we're just not in a position to catch up. And I think that's what's going to happen, is that the United States is going to be forced to reckon with the fact that it can't compete because it can't actually win on the fronts that it says it should be winning on.
And I think that ideological plus structural reality will come to the fore over the next four to eight years, 10 years. And the United States will be forced to adapt a new position. So, I think, partly, I mean, hopefully, it's a choice. It's a proactive choice that the United States foreign policy establishment can make. But I think it's going to be one that's going to be forced upon them regardless of whether they want to make it or not. Because I don't think China is on the verge of collapse at any moment. China's, you know, the 7 to 8% growth rates that it had are not here, but 5 to 6%, I think, will be here to stay over the next few years.
Beijing and Xi Jinping doesn't look like it's collapsing anytime soon. I don't think you're going to be in a position where the United States can ignore China. And that's the driver into a more cooperative stance is that the United States is in a multipolar world where, again, it can’t have the input that it once had, it’s in a position where it's going to have to accommodate China's rise as opposed to a new system. And you can call that progressive and you can call that cooperative strategy, but in the end, I think that's the reality. And coming to terms with that and trying to achieve multilateralism, as possible, I think that's the first step to a better foreign policy that considers accountability and justice, you know, that, sort of, builds upon a cooperative stance. That is difficult, I think, but it's something that we can think about achieving again.
[00:23:35] Emma Ashford: I appreciate the honesty. To be honest, I think, a lot of people would argue that the U.S. having a more cooperative approach does not necessarily mean accepting U.S. decline or does not necessarily mean that China is going to be calling at least some of the shots in the world. I mean, is there a version of your vision that doesn't involve U.S., sort of, decline? Or is this something you see as, sort of, baked in and we, kind of, have to adapt to it?
[00:24:03] Mike Brenes: So, I see the U.S. decline more, again, in terms of the outcomes. I don't see, again, the United States in a position where it's not one or two economically. Certainly, one military… like, number one, number one position militarily. You know, retrenching is not forthcoming. It's very unpopular. It's hard to achieve in American history. And we're getting a $1 trillion defense budget soon. So, that's not a sign of retrenchment, as much as Trump has talked about cutting military or Hegseth has talked about cutting military, that's not going to happen.
So, I think it's more, again, in a multipolar world with the economic material outcomes of the United States, one two keys can't be achieved. I think that's going to, again, shape its diplomacy and its diplomatic outcomes and its diplomatic approach to world affairs. But that's not a position of decline, structurally, in the sense of, like, the United States no longer being a superpower. That, to me, maybe it's a distinction of that difference. But I think that to me is a clear indication that the United States’ policy primacy has to be rethought, right? If primacy is not going through competition or through, you know, dominance during the unipolar moment, if primacy is not achieving the ends for American foreign policy, then, something again must be done differently. The U.S. must accommodate a new world where primacy doesn't work.
And I think that's where I'm stepping into the conversation, is to say, I think ultimately, primacy is counterproductive again for the United States, but it's going to be hard to, sort of, make a convincing argument to U.S. foreign policymakers and to the public to just give up primacy for the sake of giving up primacy. What I would say is we have to reaccommodate or accommodate the world and remake a primacy to suit certain ends, right?
And I think those ends are ones that we saw in the wake of World War II. The United States was the superpower, alongside the Soviet Union. But we recognized the Soviet was not going to go away. George Kennan famously articulated in 1946 that there's going to be a long, drawn out contest over control of the world. And I think we should recognize China and realize that we can't have a contest as we did between the United States and Soviet Union because it's not a new Cold War. We can't have a bipolar competition. But recognizing that China's here to stay and that we have, actually, because of our integrated economies, we have a clear interest in sustaining the other.
Actually, supporting Chinese consumerism and the United States and China supporting American consumerism, I think that's what's the reality. And I think that means that primacy can be remade, it can be retooled to accommodate this multipolar order. And I think that's a convincing argument for people in the Democratic Party who come to progressive foreign policy activists and say, “Oh, you just want us to cut the military budget?” Yeah, I mean, yeah, we would like that. But in the end, I don't think that's the first step we should be thinking about. I think we should be thinking about retooling primacy to smoothen multipolar order. And then when stability is achieved and when results are materialized, I think in the way that they do, then I think cutting the defense budget on certain aspects and altogether, I think, or retrenchment on a broader scale in a new era, I think that's something to talk about in a more serious and programmatic way, if that makes sense.
And this is, sort of, maybe as a reflection of where I'm at, which is that I recognized that, you know, we're in a moment where competition reigns. And I think, getting out of that as fast as possible will suit the United States and the American people to a large degree.
[00:27:27] Emma Ashford: Well, we are running out of time here, but before we wrap up, I do want to ask you the one final question we're asking everybody, which is, we at the Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program, we're all about questioning assumptions, and so, you know, what is your top assumption about U.S. foreign policy that you think should be challenged?
[00:27:44] Mike Brenes: I think it speaks to the last comment I made, which is that the United States cannot achieve the ends it wants to achieve through primacy. We can't dominate the world. We can't facilitate conditions where China collapses in ways that suit our interests, right? Competition, for the sake of competition or to force China to capitulate to American interests, just won't happen.
And I asked the question that many foreign policy experts have asked, which is, like, what does the fall of China to U.S. interest look like? Do we want the Xi Jinping regime to collapse? Do we want the CCP to collapse? Do we want the Chinese economy to collapse? Do we want to basically have China just, sort of, fall on the American sword and say, “You know what? Tell us what, you know, we can do for you.” I just don't see any of those outcomes being in the best interest of the United States, Chinese, or the world, again, for that matter, given the ways that the Chinese economy influences world outcomes, and certainly the United States, too.
So, the idea that we can win the competition is just not possible. Primacy is not going to work. We think U.S. foreign policy along more cooperative lines. I think that's too ambitious, again. But that's my main assumption.
[00:29:04] Emma Ashford: No, I like that one, the assumption that the U.S. can win great power competition against China. We'll have to call on historians like yourself in several decades to see if that one's true or false. So, that's all we have time for. I really appreciate you joining me today, so thank you.
[00:29:20] Mike: Oh, thanks Emma. It was a great pleasure. Great to see you.
[00:29:26] Emma Ashford: That's all for this episode of The Strategy Sessions. You can find the full set of episodes, along with the accompanying essays, at stimson.org, or by searching for us on your favorite podcast app.
A big thanks to Stimson's communications team for their assistance with the taping, and to University FM for providing audio editing services. I'm Emma Ashford. Thanks for listening!