Tastes Like Chicken

Foggy Rock Bottom.

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Revitalized after his latest struggle with COVID, Jonah invites AEI senior fellow and foreign policy expert Michael Rubin back to the Remnant to discuss how America should respond to challenges posed by China, Russia, and the Middle East. Should the U.S. government embrace regime change? What’s at stake for the West in Taiwan and Ukraine? And should we be optimistic about liberalism in China and Iran?

Show Notes:

– Michael’s page at AEI

– Michael: “Why Is the US Never Prepared for Regime Change?”

– The Chicken Kiev speech

– Paul Kennedy’s The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers

– Lin Wells’ memo to Donald Rumsfeld

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Comments (12)
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  1. Jane.Elzinga

    Mr. Goldberg: As always, your podcasts are a delight to the ears, and an exercise for the mind! Just wanted to comment on your "man status quo;" be careful about the comparison to the strength of 12-year-old girl - never sell short little girls! <

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    Jonathan

    I think the guest and host misunderstand why progressives reflexively defend conservative Islamic states. If you are a progressive, you have lots of friends or family who said a lot of really racist/bigoted things about Arabs and Muslims after 9/11. My social media feed, for example, in 2008-2012 contained my conservative Christian relatives complaining about “towel heads” and demanding that Muslims in America be treated the same as Christians in Saudi Arabia. This is the basic sentiment that led Trump to try and “ban” all Muslims from entering the country. This combined with negative partisanship makes Muslims feel like ideological allies in the American culture war. Honestly, it’s probably the same sentiment that makes Orban and Putin folk heroes to some on the right— they have the “right” critics domestically.

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    Ben Connelly

    What a great memo. File it under, “epistemic humility.”

    Jonah, I think you know that hardcore Remnant fans are going to listen to the dog episode whether we are interested in dogs or not. After all, we made it through the rat episode…

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  4. Rune485

    I don’t think Rubin seemed willing to give you a straight answer on the realism question, but you nailed it. I’m by no means an expert, but every time I see it argued it comes across as Apologetics for the isolationist/America is an evil imperialist pig types.

    It’s basically the CRT of foreign policy.

    That said, I see why Mjturosz mentioned the last 5 minutes of your show. That was genuinely moving.

    I hope that you’ll offer a transcript of the podcasts at some point - only b/c I absorb information much better through reading than I do listening. I rewound the podcast three times because I kept missing something and finally just gave up, lol. You triggered a mental bunny-trail and Pavloved off into the sunset every time.

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    Mjturosz

    Glad you're feeling better. Great last 5 min of the podcast.

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  6. Lieseandrew

    Prefacing by saying I'm not a Realist in foreign policy, but I think Jonah is misunderstanding fundamental about what Realism is. Realism is a model of foreign interactions that assumes that states are rational and will attempt to preserve themselves. Criticizing Realism for "assuming Russia h1as no agency" is like criticising an economic model for assuming that a monopolist "has no agency" when they raise prices. Of course the monopolist has agency, but the model is predicting what the agent is incentivised to do, i.e. set marginal revenue equal to marginal cost. But a monopolist can still just decide not to do that, for whatever reason. The model is "wrong" in the way that "all models are wrong, but some are useful." Knowing what a monopolist is incentivised to do helps to organise our thinking.

    Realism is exactly that kind of starting point, a mechanical, "imagine how players act in a game of Diplomacy" model, and has the shortcomings you would expect from that worldview. But of course that billiards-game physical analysis of "ball A hits ball B and ricochets at angle x" won't build "agency" into the movement of the billiard balls.

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      Ben Connelly

      So, I could be wrong, but I think I basically share Jonah’s dislike of realism in foreign policy - not because of the idea that incentives matter (I absolutely believe they do, even if in both economics and foreign affairs people act against their incentives sometimes - or they have a different idea of what those incentives are than I do) - but because too many people who call themselves realists don’t seem to be (to me) realistic. They are certain they know what various nations’ or leaders’ incentives are, but then they often seem to get it wrong. They remind me of the guy who tried to do a deal with Alan Rickman in the first Die Hard.

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      1. Lieseandrew

        Completely agree that people like Mearshimer give Realism a worse name than it deserves, but it also just seems fundamentally stuck in a pre-nuclear mindset. The whole idea that a Western-aligned Ukraine is a threat to Russia because it "upsets the balance of power" is absurd. Russia has nukes. No amount of power disparity between Russia and NATO could lead to a war, and the disparity in conventional power is already near-infinite! Ukraine being in NATO is as much a threat to Russia as Latvia or Estonia: a rounding error.

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    OJFL

    One more time I am confused and will push against the narrative that opening China up to the rest of the world failed. The evidence is staring at us right now. China IS different and was made different by the economic development that was created by the opening. The China of today, the one with all of these protests, is not the same as the one before Deng Xiaoping. The Chinese people of today, particularly the middle class mentioned in the article, is the one protesting on the streets. So the "not yet" the article mentions is already here. It is probably not enough to topple the regime, but the seeds were planted and the plants are growing. Those are not even green shoots, but full plants.

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  8. Hrbsanon

    At 1 minute on Apple podcast (listening on iPhone), the episode jumped to 3 min 38 seconds.

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      Adaam James Levin-Areddy staff-badge Editor

      Thank you! Would you mind telling me which iPhone model you're using? And is it the latest OS?

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      1. Hrbsanon

        iPhone 11 - latest OS (16.1.1)

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