This week, our guest is Stephen Wertheim, Senior Fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. We discuss the origins of “isolationism,” historical hypotheticals, the United States’ relative interests in the Middle East, Europe and Asia, Ukraine and Taiwan, and an “America first” policy for the Democratic party, among other subjects.

• 00:00:45 PhD in history and pivot to policy
• 00:07:38 Charges of “isolationism” from the 1930s through Trump
• 00:15:54 Should the US have done anything differently during WWII or the Cold War?
• 00:19:43 The collapse of the Communist bloc and American primacy unbound
• 00:25:00 Need to draw down in the Middle East
• 00:26:48 Let Europeans take greater charge of their own security
• 00:36:00 How should the US react to the rise of China
• 00:41:12 Taiwan and Ukraine
• 00:51:47 An “America first” policy for the Democratic party

*The Monterey Trialogue Podcast is hosted by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and produced by University FM.

This week, our guest is Dmitry Novikov, Deputy Head of the School of International Relations at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Russia. We discuss the difficulties of being an Americanist in Moscow, the sources of US-Russian conflict, and Russia’s future as a “Eurasian” power, among other subjects.

• 00:00:38 What is like being an Americanist in Moscow right now?
• 00:04:22 Russian perceptions of US domestic politics
• 00:08:44 Russia’s “realist” understanding of international relations
• 00:10:51 Russia’s efforts to join the West
• 00:20:05 Russia as a Eurasian state
• 00:23:20 When did Russia begin to pivot East?
• 00:28:08 Russia as logistics corridor, security provider, and source of raw materials
• 00:39:17 Need for stabilization with the West
• 00:44:00 A new Russian identity?
• 00:49:13 The growing importance of Islam in Russia
• 00:53:00 The Cold War “lessons” that drive US and Russian elites

*The Monterey Trialogue Podcast is hosted by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and produced by University FM.

My guest today is DA Wei, Professor of International Relations and Director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University. We discuss Wei’s time at CICIR and Tsinghua, his recent visits to the US and Russia, Taiwan and the South China Sea, and the potential positives of partial decoupling, among other subjects.

• 00:00:49 What is CICIR
• 00:04:13 Tsinghua’s Center for International Security and Strategy
• 00:09:03 Impressions from recent trip to US
• 00:11:16 Potential consequences of Harris or Trump presidencies for China
• 00:14:26 Is chaos in the US good for China?
• 00:15:49 Sources of US-China competition
• 00:21:29 Impressions from recent trip to Russia
• 00:26:15 Comparison of US-China and US-Russia relations
• 00:30:35 Consequences of COVID
• 00:33:06 Potential positives of decoupling
• 00:40:0 Taiwan and South China Sea

*The Monterey Trialogue Podcast is hosted by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and produced by University FM.

This week, our guest is Charles Kupchan, Professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. We discuss Charlie’s first visits to China and the Soviet Union, naiveté and NATO expansion in the 1990s, the dangers of the current conflict with Russia and China, the possibility of a new American foreign policy paradigm, global interdependence, and an endgame in Ukraine.

• 00:01:06 First trip to China in 1980
• 00:06:45 Trip to the Soviet Union and Poland in the early 80s
• 00:10:13 Naiveté in the 1990s
• 00:15:23 The dangers of current conflict with Russia and China
• 00:19:44 Pivot to Asia?
• 00:32:31 New US foreign policy paradigm?
• 00:43:10 Global interdependence
• 00:50:02 Maintain channels of communication with Russia and China
• 00:52:20 Endgame in Ukraine

*The Monterey Trialogue Podcast is hosted by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and produced by University FM.

This week, our guest is Alexander Pilyasov, a professor of geography at Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. We discuss the Russian Arctic, cooperation in the region with China, and growing competition with the United States. We recorded the conversation in Belgrade, following a “Trialogue” on American, Russian, and Chinese interests in the Arctic.

• 00:01:13 The Arctic in the Russian economy
• 00:17:38 Life in the Russian Arctic
• 00:23:56 Energy export from the Russia Arctic
• 00:26:52 Sanctions
• 00:32:41 China in the Arctic
• 00:40:29 Growing competition with the US in the Arctic

*The Monterey Trialogue Podcast is hosted by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and produced by University FM.

This week, our guest is ZHAO Hai, Director of the International Politics Program in the National Institute for Global Strategy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). We discuss US policy toward China, Sino-Russian relations, the war in Ukraine, and China’s vision of global order.

• 00:01:00 Zhao’s family connections to the PRC Navy
• 00:06:37 Zhao’s graduate study in Chicago
• 00:09:26 Chinese think tanks and the function of CASS
• 00:13:11 China’s reaction to Trump
• 00:22:57 China’s reaction to Biden
• 00:30:22 Sino-Russian relations before the Ukraine war
• 00:34:18 The war in Ukraine
• 00:47:52 China’s vision of global order

*The Monterey Trialogue Podcast is hosted by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and produced by University FM.

This week, our guest is Karl Eikenberry, a retired lieutenant general in the U.S. Army, whose many titles include the defense attaché at the U.S. Embassy in China, Commander of the Coalition Forces in Afghanistan, and U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan. Because General Eikenberry has had such a long and fascinating career and often occupied key roles at important pivot points in U.S. policy, we decided to devote the whole interview to an examination of his biography.

• 00:01:04 Childhood experience of the Cold War
• 00:06:42 West Point
• 00:10:21 Korea in the 70s
• 00:14:10 China in the 80s and 90s
• 00:35:11 NATO and the collapse of the Communist bloc
• 00:42:14 The Pentagon on 9/11
• 00:44:02 Afghanistan
• 00:51:51 NATO and Putin’s Munich speech
• 00:54:28 Afghanistan
• 01:10:34 Ukraine

*The Monterey Trialogue Podcast is hosted by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and produced by University FM.

This week, our guest is Andrey Kortunov, the founding director of the Russian International Affairs Council.

• 00:01:00 Kortunov’s career before RIAC
• 00:09:22 RIAC’s origins and evolution
• 00:18:36 RIAC’s work on sanctions
• 00:25:40 BRICS and other international institutions
• 00:33:29 China-India relations
• 00:36:06 Russia-China relations
• 00:47:00 Russia-Western relations

*The Monterey Trialogue Podcast is hosted by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and produced by University FM.