Daniel Immerwah…:People sometimes look at Trump’s wars and they see imperialism. I mean, I think of imperialism as generally like seeking to construct an empire, a vast administrative unit. And what I see in Trump is sort of the cannibalism, like cannibalizing the empire. This is just this hit-and-run strategy. Al Letson:On this week’s More To The Story, historian Daniel Immerwahr. We talk about the long-term consequences of Trump’s impulsive foreign policy and why the administration is tearing down the post-war international order that America itself largely built. Stay with us. This is More To The Story. I’m Al Letson. Donald Trump came into office promising to steer America clear of foreign entanglements, but over the last year, his administration captured Venezuelan President Nicholas Medoro, threatened to take over Greenland, pressured Cuba’s communist government in an attempt to destabilize it, and openly talked about making Canada America’s 51st state. But the most consequential move by far was the attack on Iran, which reportedly killed thousands inside the country and snarled the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil. In some ways, it might appear that Trump is trying to revive the American empire. “Not so,” says Daniel Immerwahr, a Northwestern University history professor and author of How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States. What Trump is really doing, he says, is undermining the international system itself. Daniel, how you doing this morning? Daniel Immerwah…:Doing good. It’s good to be here. Al Letson:You’ve studied history and foreign policy for years. When you look at Donald Trump’s foreign policy today, how do you view it? What’s the through line there? Daniel Immerwah…:Yeah, it’s wild. I think that it’s tempting to look at Trump and see him as mercurial to the point of he is sort of a madman, like he’ll do anything, and there is no through line. But I don’t think that is true, especially when it comes to foreign policy for Trump. And the reason I don’t think it’s true is that he’s been talking about foreign policy for decades, since the ’80s. In fact, that was his kind of first entry onto the political stage. And while he’s had a lot of different positions, and you can imagine him sort of shifting, and who to bomb, Cuba, yes or no, that kind of thing, I think he has a fairly consistent set of instincts. And if I were to describe those instincts, I would say he is opposed to US hegemony, but he’s opposed to it not from the left as many critics are, like me, but he’s opposed to it from the right. So, let’s talk about what we mean by hegemony. It’s the idea that the United States should have a distinct role in the world, not just that it should be unusually powerful or rich, but that it should superintend global affairs, that it should be the global cop. It should have just a different part to play in the world than other countries, and the United States has played that part since 1945. And left-wing critics of US hegemony often say, “Well, that’s not quite fair. Why should one country just sort of police everyone else? And won’t this lead to all kind of self-dealing? And won’t the United States in its role, allegedly impartial role as an umpire, won’t it actually just be more of an empire? And it’ll benefit from this, and it’ll benefit unfairly and it’ll have rules that it’ll insist on that other people follow, but it won’t itself feel bound by those rules.” So, those are the kinds of complaints that we make. Trump is different. Trump is looking at the same object, but his concern is, he’s like, “Oh, this doesn’t pay out enough for the United States. We’re not benefiting enough from this. Everyone is free riding on this work that the United States is doing for the rest of the planet. This isn’t a good deal for us. We want it to pay more.” And he’s been saying that since the ’80s. Al Letson:Because in his mind, at least from what I’ve seen, is everything is transactional. Everything is, “I do this, I should get that.” It’s never about trying to … And I mean, we could argue about whether the United States has ever done this, but it’s never been about trying to be a force of good in the world. Daniel Immerwah…:Yeah. And so, I mean, I don’t think that countries in general, like any countries, are just motivated by altruism, but there’s been a kind of understanding that past presidents have had, which is that maintaining the global system is good for the United States. It pays off in some ways. Al Letson:Right. Soft power. It’s like US aid wasn’t so much about helping other countries. It was about helping the United States by extending soft power and grace to these other countries. Daniel Immerwah…:Yeah, and what’s been wild about these moments when Trump takes down some instrument or pillar of soft power is then you get all these guys coming out of the woodwork and saying, like, “This is crazy. This was benefiting us.” And you’re like, “Oh, it wasn’t very altruistic, was it?” They’re very explicit about that. So one of the most, I think, telling moments was when Trump was running for president in 2016, and he said multiple times, and he wrote it in his book, one of his campaign books, he’s like, “If the United States is going to police the world, we should get paid for it.” And that’s such a great example of that transactional view that you just mentioned. And of course, other leaders would’ve said, “Oh, policing the world benefits you already. You don’t need a salary. You don’t need a kickback for it.” Al Letson:Right. You get something out of it, but it feels like he doesn’t understand the nuance, or maybe he doesn’t understand, or maybe he just doesn’t care about those nuances. Daniel Immerwah…:Or we can say it more charitably, he just doesn’t think it’s worth it. I mean, he hasn’t … Let’s also make the case, because it’s not an absurd case to make. The last couple decades under US being the most powerful country in the world and being diplomatically and militarily and economically central, it’s been good for some people. It’s been good for the ultrarich in the United States. It’s been arguably, I mean, this is what defenders of the order say, it’s been good for the planet. It’s led to more peace than usual. It’s led to the rise of India and China, but it hasn’t super paid off for a lot of people in the middle and the working class, at least since the 1970s. And so, when Trump says, “Why are we doing this? Why are we spending all this money in the military to protect Japan? Japan should just protect itself. We should worry about ourself. We should worry about our own jobs.” I think that’s something … I mean, he’s been saying it for decades, but I think it actually really resonates with a lot of people, and I think that’s been a successful [inaudible 00:07:24] strategy for him. Al Letson:I think it’s a successful strategy. The question I have is whether when he takes these unilateral actions, these international, unilateral actions, if it benefits anybody except for him. Daniel Immerwah…:Oh, yeah. Al Letson:I mean, recently you wrote, “What’s striking about Trump is his shrugging indifference to overseas outcomes. You could call this regime-change nihilism. You can’t call it imperialism.” So, describe for me what you mean by regime-change nihilism. Daniel Immerwah…:Yeah, so because Trump, he’s not looking at the global chess board, because he doesn’t ultimately believe that US interests are everywhere. There was this line, this really evocative line in the 9/11 Commission Report where the commissioners were thinking about US national security and all the threats that might come to it, and they said, “Ultimately, the American homeland is the planet. Everything everywhere matters for the United States, because we’re in charge of the whole thing.” So, anything, like a country has an election, that matters for the United States. Trump doesn’t see it that way at all. And so, you could imagine a version of Trump where he would just … And this is kind of what Trump has said about himself, was that his lack of caring in that way would lead him to have a more modest and peace-seeking foreign policy. That’s the claim he made about himself when he was running. It’s just, I think, clearly not true, because one other aspect of Trump’s not caring very much about downstream effects is that he feels very free to do stuff. Other presidents have thought about bombing Iran, and sometimes they badly wanted to, but they haven’t done it. And the reason they haven’t done it is they’re like, “Oh, okay. If we do this, then we got to worry about the Strait of Hormuz, and then our allies in the Gulf have this problem.” It’s not out of deep humanitarianism generally that’s held them back. It’s that they’ve just understood that they have a lot of interest in a lot of places. And Trump’s not looking at the chess board. He’s not really playing chess, so he’s just very comfortable with- Al Letson:He wants what he wants. Daniel Immerwah…:Yeah, and he wants what he wants in a very short-term way. So, people sometimes look at Trump’s wars and they see imperialism. I mean, I think of imperialism as generally seeking to construct an empire, like a vast administrative unit. And what I see in Trump is sort of the cannibalism, like cannibalizing the empire. This is just this hit-and-run strategy. Al Letson:Yeah, because it’s so scattershot. It’s so hard to know what he’s going to do next, because it doesn’t really flow. I mean, if he was building specifically an empire, you would kind of have an idea about how he’d want to do it, and it wouldn’t be this. Daniel Immerwah…:Or I mean, if he were concerned with power in a larger systematic sense, yeah, he wouldn’t be doing things randomly. If you’re trying to run a system, you want to make a case that you have some legitimacy and that you’re applying rules, not just acting arbitrarily. The United States, I mean, I don’t think the United States has been particularly studious about following its own rules, but it’s always trying to make the case. Think about George W. Bush invading Iraq. There was a long lead up to that and there were reasons and evidence and this whole explanation. And it turned out to be largely false, but there was an enormous amount of energy that went into making sure all the allies are on his side, making sure we understand the principles involved. And I think that was part of Bush wanting to do something very badly, which was invade Iraq, but also wanting to make sure that it didn’t disrupt other US interests. Al Letson:In talking about what George Bush did, the thought that comes to mind is that when you’re thinking about Trump, you also have to think about him in two different ways. Trump 1.0 did not, and he could have. I mean, he got rid of the agreement with Iran, but he did not invade Iran, whereas Trump 2.0 seems to be all about conflict and taking whatever he wants from whoever he wants. Why do you think that changed? What’s the difference between 1.0 and 2.0? Daniel Immerwah…:The usual thing that we say is that in Trump’s first term, he was surrounded by, quote, unquote, “grownups,” and that they pushed back enough that he just didn’t end up getting to do what he wanted to do. And then by his second administration, he figured out the people he needed in the room to not push back, which I think that’s right. I would just add something, that the quote, unquote, “axis of adults” was clashing with Trump most about foreign policy. That was really where it came out. And there’s a kind of famous moment, because it’s a little gossipy and colorful, where Rex Tillerson, who’d been the Secretary of State, just throws up his hands, is like, “Trump is like a moron.” That was right after the quote, unquote, “adults” had pulled Trump into a long meeting in the Pentagon where they were like, “Look, let’s explain everything, like how are the knee bones connected to the shin bones connected to the US power?” All these deals, all these basing agreements, all these troops everywhere, it all is good for us, and they just tried to lay it out for him. And that’s actually something that presidents have had to have … Presidents have needed that tutelage often, but usually they come out of that meeting being like, “Oh, yeah. No, we’re not going to give up any of those military bases. Those are important.” And Trump, by all accounts, was in that meeting just being like, “I don’t care. I don’t give a shit. This doesn’t matter. I don’t want any of this.” And then right after that, Rex Tillerson comes out and just reportedly says, “Trump is a fucking moron.” But all the guys that Trump had surrounded himself with originally were deeply invested in US hegemony, and I think it just took Trump a while to clear the space of those people and to realize that that’s what he had to do. Al Letson:When we come back, Daniel talks about what shocks him the most about the fracturing of the international order. Daniel Immerwah…:I wasn’t expecting a US president to do an inside job on it. Al Letson:But before we come back, we do our best every week to bring you the kind of stories and conversations that you expect from Reveal, but we can’t do it without you. Now, we’re going to ask you to help us out to help new listeners find our show, so here’s what you do. Just grab your phone, go to your favorite podcast app, search Reveal, then scroll to the bottom, right there, right, right, right there. Tap those stars, five please. Write a review. Uh-huh. Let others know how much you really appreciate the journalism, the conversations, and obviously, maybe most importantly, how much you love the host, and there you have it. Okay. More with historian Daniel Immerwahr and your favorite host. Stay with us. This is More to the Story. I’m Al Letson and I’m back with History Professor Daniel Immerwahr. So, you wrote a book all about the history of US imperialism, how to hide an empire. How would you define American empire today? Daniel Immerwah…:Yeah, so that term is contested, and so people have different understandings of it. Sometimes it gets used as a pejorative. People say, if they like US foreign relations, it’s leadership, and if they dislike it, it’s empire. What I was really interested in that book was empire in the most strict technical and inarguable sense, like an empire is a country with colonies and outposts, and the United States is that. But if you are looking for a broader sense of the term, you might say that the United States is an empire, not just because of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands and the US Virgin Islands, and its 750 military bases. You might also say that the United States is an empire because of this hegemonic project that it’s been engaged in, and that’s a definition I welcome. What’s weird about Trump is that he’s anti-hegemony, but because that, he’s drawn to other forms of power, including the most naked, saber-rattling, we’ll take Greenland forms of imperialism, forms of colonial imperialism. Al Letson:Why Greenland? And has the US always coveted Greenland? What’s the history there? Daniel Immerwah…:I mean, yes and no. There’s definitely been moments when the United States has tried to acquire Greenland, so part of it is like what- Al Letson:But we have a base there that we pretty much … They give us carte blanche. We could do whatever we want with it. So, if we have a base there and we can do pretty much whatever we want, why do we need to own the whole thing? I don’t understand that. Daniel Immerwah…:Yeah, so there’s generally two reasons why you might want territory. One is strategic access, so the location, and two is the resources. If you own a place, you have sovereignty over a place, then you can definitely get secure access to the resources. And it’s a little bit of a mystery with Greenland, because the United States functionally has both of those things already. Does it want to buy strategic minerals from Greenland? The Danes will sell. It has a base, and not just a large base, but a base where it has historically done exactly what it wanted. There was a moment, sorry, not a moment, there was a long period where the United States was against, not even with the knowledge of Denmark, we think, and certainly over the objections of Denmark, was stationing nuclear weapons on Greenland and was flying planes armed with hydrogen bombs over Greenland just to keep the planes in the air in case anything happened with Russia. That’s what Dr. Strangelove is about, by the way. That’s like those planes over Greenland. So, the United States is … Yeah, what you said is exactly right. It’s had carte blanche in Greenland. I think with Trump, first of all, I think he’s not interested in the softish kind of things where it’s like, we have a deal with you and then that lets us have the base. He’s like, “I just want the whole thing. I don’t want to have to negotiate with foreigners. It’s like ours. We get to build a wall around it. It’s not yours.” He has this very stark real estate mentality. But I also think with Trump, he’s really drawn to spaces that he can imagine as white or potentially white, or like … So, what has he talked about in terms of what he wants to colonize? Canada, which I think in his mind is white. Greenland, which is empty, so again, not actually, but in a sense. Not Panama, but the Panama Canal Zone, which is the historically white part from which John McCain came, and Gaza, but only if Gaza is ethnically cleansed of Gazans. So, these are all kind of white or empty spaces. And meanwhile, he’s talked about, can we get rid of Puerto Rico? So, I think there’s something in his racial imaginary that dictates what places he’s interested in talking about taking. Al Letson:And also when you look at the immigrants coming to America who he wants, quite welcoming to white South Africans. Daniel Immerwah…:White South Africans, yeah. Al Letson:But everybody else, they can kick rocks. Daniel Immerwah…:Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, Trump is really interestingly spatial. There’s an inside to the country. There’s an outside. You get the people you want on the inside, you get the people you don’t want out. You build a wall. You get the spaces that you want in, you get the spaces you don’t want out, and that’s not generally how the United States has been. It’s actually been fairly porous, and it’s expanded and contracted a lot in its history, maybe more expanded than contracted, so it’s this very like … You just imagine Trump with a map of the United States in his head, and just this really thick black border around it. That’s the kind of space he’s imagining. Al Letson:US is breaking longstanding ties with allies around the world, threatening to leave NATO, even cozying up to dictators under this administration. Are we witnessing a fundamental breakup of post-World War II liberal international order that America largely built? Daniel Immerwah…:Yes. Yeah. No, I think that’s right. And I just always kind of imagined that this thing couldn’t last forever, and it was built around the United States at a time when the United States was so much richer than other countries. And I was like, “That structure just can’t go on forever.” But I kind of imagine that a lot of the tension or a lot of the challenges would come from outside. I wasn’t expecting a US president to do an inside job on it. I mean, and there’s reasons, right? And there’s reasons why the price of Pax Americana, the price of the liberal international order hasn’t felt worth paying for a lot of people in Trump’s space. And he’s been really vocal about pointing out the ways in which they might not benefit, but it’s been really wild to just watch the whole thing fall apart. Al Letson:So, what does the future look like? What do you think happens if that coalition goes away? Daniel Immerwah…:There’s two options, and the defenders of the sort of US hegemony, they’re the ones who call it the liberal international order. That’s their preferred term. They will say that without this, you’re going to either have anarchy and it’s going to be the same kind of global outlook that got us World War I and World War II, this time with nuclear weapons, or someone else will step up and fill the role that the United States was filling, and that will probably be Russia or China. So, those are like nightmare scenarios for the liberal internationalists. There’s, I think, another option, and that was articulated recently by the Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, and he said, “We’ve always been going along with this US-led world order, and we kind of just looked the other way when it just was so obvious that the United States was not following its own liberal principles,” because you just kind of had to do that. You had to just be okay with that because that’s how the world worked. And he’s like, “Now it’s falling apart.” I think we can be a lot more honest about the ways in which the, quote, unquote, “liberal international order” wasn’t really working or wasn’t really fair, and we can also look forward to a world where maybe global affairs aren’t going to be under the thumb of a single hegemonic power. Maybe it’s going to be a multilateral coalition of the medium-sized countries, countries like Canada, and we might be far more effective in having the principles that we want to see actually govern world affairs, if that’s the case. That’s an empirical question, whether we’re in the kind of more chaos or Russia scenario, or if we’re in the Canada scenario, but I’m afraid of the first, but I’m kind of hopeful about the second. Al Letson:About 10 years ago, I was in Africa, in the country of Malawi. At the time, Malawi was rated as one of the poorest countries in the world. And one thing that I noticed, that a lot of the construction and a lot of the aid that was happening in Malawi was being funded by Chinese companies and what I believe to be the Chinese government. I don’t know specifically whether it was the Chinese government. I just know that a lot of Chinese ventures were happening in Malawi at the time. And what that told me was that China was specifically investing in places to exert its soft power. I saw it firsthand. And so, when I’m watching the Trump administration kind of dissolve a lot of America’s soft power, the first thought that comes to my mind is that if America leaves that on the table, that other major countries are going to pick that up. Would you agree with me on that? Daniel Immerwah…:I mean, that’s the question. That’s the empty throne thesis, right, is that if a monarch abdicates, someone else will find their way to the throne, will pick up the scepter. And China is clearly interested in the job, and is doing a lot of things and a lot of infrastructure building kind of all over the map as a way to become relevant, to become predominant in areas, just like all these kind of quiet ways in which China has been building out its power. I don’t know if the only option besides US hegemony is Chinese or Russian or someone else’s hegemony. I’m just not sure. We don’t have enough cases of how this plays out. The only cases we have are historical of what happens when one hegemony collapses, and so much has changed with our technology, with our population, with how we live. It’s just really unclear, but I think that’s the theory that Chinese leaders have. Al Letson:How’s all of this playing out with his base? Daniel Immerwah…:It’s interesting, because some things Trump does, you’re like, “Okay, I don’t like it, but this is kind of why you got elected,” so that’s fair. I mean, not fair, whatever. That’s how things work. Al Letson:Like his immigration policy, that’s what people who voted for him- Daniel Immerwah…:That’s what he said he was going to do. Al Letson:It’s what he said he was going to do. Daniel Immerwah…:Yeah. Yeah. And when he had Elon Musk in there just randomly firing government officials, I was like, “Okay, that wasn’t done very well.” Al Letson:He said he was going to do that. Daniel Immerwah…:But that’s exactly what they wanted you to do. But I think a lot of the … I mean, Trump ran, like part of his case for, I don’t believe in the foreign policy consensus, had always been because they get us into dumb wars. And Trump had actually been a fairly effective critic of the Iraq war. He wasn’t always against it. That’s a lie that he tells, but he had been against it, and he would say things that you don’t often hear politicians saying, like, “Why are all these Iraqi kids getting their legs blown off? What is the point of that?” Good question. So I think my sense is that the case for Trump, in fact, this was America first. We’re just going to focus on ourselves, and I think a lot of people were interested in that. People elected him. And then it turns out that the same worldview that allows him to be quite critical of the Iraq war also just makes it easy for him to do the Venezuela thing. And I don’t see a lot of appetite in his base for that. I mean, there’s some interest in the kind of machismo of we went in there and we went in hard, and the other presidents wouldn’t have done that, but all these drawn-out conflicts that are raising prices, who wanted that? Also, the Greenland thing, who in his space was ever talking about Greenland before Trump was? Al Letson:It seems like as this goes on with the war in Iran, as it goes on, that his base begins to quietly disintegrate, because … I would say that his base, while they talk about a lot of things like draining the swamp, they talk about how the system is rigged against them, and immigration and all of those things. I think at the base of it, though, it comes down to how much they’re paying at the pump and how much they’re paying in grocery stores. If they are feeling like they are financially good, they probably don’t care as much about all the other things. But when they’re feeling financially threatened, the more that the prices go up, the more his base is going to disintegrate and drop away from him, which I think also makes the president’s decision-making even more erratic. Daniel Immerwah…:Yeah. I think that’s right. So yeah, that’s sort of the doom spiral of Trumpism is that, I mean, he’s always had this incredible relationship to his base, and that has explained his relationship to Congress, because he can primary anyone. He’s got enough hardcore supporters that you kind of have to do what he says if you’re a Republican, otherwise you’re not going to be in office very long, and all the Republicans who are still in offices figured that out. If Trump loses his ability to do that, if other Republicans, or God forbid, Democrats, seem more appealing to Trump voters than whatever Trump is demanding, a lot of this collapses. And then we’ve got, just as you point out, then that’s another guardrail that we might lose. Then we’ve just got an erratic, angry man who’s known for lashing out and is in possession of a large nuclear arsenal. Al Letson:Are you worried that he might use that arsenal against Iran? Daniel Immerwah…:I don’t know. Yeah, yeah, so the fact that I said “I don’t know” means, yes, I am. It’s so hard to tell with Trump. There’s just such a large gap between the things he threatens to do and the things he does, but it’s not a reliable gap, because some of the things he really does do. So, when he talks about ending Iranian civilization, that’s a threat to use nuclear weapons, kind of. I mean, that seems like that’s what that is. Technically, he has the authority to do that, and he is known for doing things that are terrible ideas that everyone around him says, “Don’t do,” and he’s kind of drawn to them for that reason, and he’s sort of popular for being the kind of guy who will do the things that his advisors tell him not to do. So yeah, of course you’re worried about that. And by the way, all of the things that, not just Trump, but other opponents of the Islamic Republic and Iran have said, like people who’ve said, “It is important for the United States to somehow achieve regime change in Iran,” over the decades, generally what they’ve said is the main thing, there’s other things too, but they’ve said, “Iran is on the cusp of having nuclear weapons.” And given the kind of rhetoric that has come out historically from the leadership of the Islamic Republic, the idea that Iran would have nuclear weapons, is an existential threat to everyone, and justifies just bombing Iran without any sort of previous attack of that scale. That justification at this point works just as well for the United States. Given the kind of rhetoric, Trump has descended into the worst kind of rhetoric, and it’s not just that he’s on the cusp of having nuclear weapons. He has them. Al Letson:Yeah. Daniel Immerwahr, thank you so much for coming in and talking to me. This has been great. Daniel Immerwah…:Al, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me on. Al Letson:That was Northwestern University History Professor, Daniel Immerwahr. He’s the author of How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States. If you like this conversation, you should check out our recent More To The Story episode featuring Vice President Al Gore. We talked about the conflict in Iran and how the president ignored decades of war planning when he ordered the attack. It was a fascinating conversation. You can find it in the Reveal feed. Lastly, a reminder. We are listener-supported. That means listeners like you. You can help us thrive by making a gift today. Just go to revealnews.org/gift. Again, that’s revealnews.org/gift, and thank you. This episode was produced by members of the Justice Society, Josh Sanburn and Carl McGurk Allison. Taki Telonidis edited the show. Theme music and engineering helped by Fernando, my man, yo, Arruda, and J-Breezy, Mr. Jim Briggs. I’m Al Letsonino. Let’s do this again next week. This is More To The Story.
