The Vast Majority: Building a Left Foreign Policy with Daniel Bessner

We were terrifyingly close to an open war on Iran recently. The near-miss was a reminder of how brazenly American imperial power is wielded around the world and how easy dragging us back into another major war would be for Trump or anyone else in his position. It also was a reminder that we don't have a real antiwar movement in this country that can fight back against these kinds of escalations.

I talked about all these issues with Daniel Bessner, a historian and professor of international studies at the University of Washington, as well as the author of Democracy in Exile: Hans Speier and the Rise of the Defense Intellectual and a forthcoming history of the RAND Corporation. He's also a regular contributor to Jacobin.

Daniel's cowritten essay on democratizing US foreign policy: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2017-04-05/democratizing-us-foreign-policy

Daniel's essay on the continued supremacy of the American military: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/american-us-empire-not-in-decline-superpower-trump-proves-it-is-stronger-than-ever-militarism-daniel-bessner

Daniel's review of George Soros's most recent book: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/01/george-soros-defense-of-open-society-philanthropy

David Klion's profile of the Quincy Institute: https://www.thenation.com/article/quincy-institute-responsible-statecraft-think-tank/