{"id":73832,"date":"2026-05-03T12:25:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T12:25:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/73832\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T12:25:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T12:25:21","slug":"trumps-impulsive-foreign-policy-is-tearing-apart-the-global-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/73832\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Impulsive Foreign Policy Is Tearing Apart the Global Order"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Daniel Immerwah\u2026:People sometimes look at Trump\u2019s 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. \u00a0Al Letson:On this week\u2019s More To The Story, historian Daniel Immerwahr. We talk about the long-term consequences of Trump\u2019s impulsive foreign policy and why the administration is tearing down the post-war international order that America itself largely built. Stay with us. \u00a0\u00a0This is More To The Story. I\u2019m 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\u2019s communist government in an attempt to destabilize it, and openly talked about making Canada America\u2019s 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\u2019s oil. In some ways, it might appear that Trump is trying to revive the American empire. \u00a0\u00a0\u201cNot so,\u201d 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? \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:Doing good. It\u2019s good to be here. \u00a0Al Letson:You\u2019ve studied history and foreign policy for years. When you look at Donald Trump\u2019s foreign policy today, how do you view it? What\u2019s the through line there? \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:Yeah, it\u2019s wild. I think that it\u2019s tempting to look at Trump and see him as mercurial to the point of he is sort of a madman, like he\u2019ll do anything, and there is no through line. But I don\u2019t think that is true, especially when it comes to foreign policy for Trump. And the reason I don\u2019t think it\u2019s true is that he\u2019s been talking about foreign policy for decades, since the \u201980s. In fact, that was his kind of first entry onto the political stage. And while he\u2019s 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\u2019s opposed to it not from the left as many critics are, like me, but he\u2019s opposed to it from the right. \u00a0\u00a0So, let\u2019s talk about what we mean by hegemony. It\u2019s 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, \u201cWell, that\u2019s not quite fair. Why should one country just sort of police everyone else? And won\u2019t this lead to all kind of self-dealing? And won\u2019t the United States in its role, allegedly impartial role as an umpire, won\u2019t it actually just be more of an empire? And it\u2019ll benefit from this, and it\u2019ll benefit unfairly and it\u2019ll have rules that it\u2019ll insist on that other people follow, but it won\u2019t itself feel bound by those rules.\u201d So, those are the kinds of complaints that we make. \u00a0\u00a0Trump is different. Trump is looking at the same object, but his concern is, he\u2019s like, \u201cOh, this doesn\u2019t pay out enough for the United States. We\u2019re 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\u2019t a good deal for us. We want it to pay more.\u201d And he\u2019s been saying that since the \u201980s. \u00a0Al Letson:Because in his mind, at least from what I\u2019ve seen, is everything is transactional. Everything is, \u201cI do this, I should get that.\u201d It\u2019s never about trying to \u2026 And I mean, we could argue about whether the United States has ever done this, but it\u2019s never been about trying to be a force of good in the world. \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:Yeah. And so, I mean, I don\u2019t think that countries in general, like any countries, are just motivated by altruism, but there\u2019s 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. \u00a0Al Letson:Right. Soft power. It\u2019s like US aid wasn\u2019t so much about helping other countries. It was about helping the United States by extending soft power and grace to these other countries. \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:Yeah, and what\u2019s 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, \u201cThis is crazy. This was benefiting us.\u201d And you\u2019re like, \u201cOh, it wasn\u2019t very altruistic, was it?\u201d They\u2019re 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\u2019s like, \u201cIf the United States is going to police the world, we should get paid for it.\u201d And that\u2019s such a great example of that transactional view that you just mentioned. And of course, other leaders would\u2019ve said, \u201cOh, policing the world benefits you already. You don\u2019t need a salary. You don\u2019t need a kickback for it.\u201d \u00a0Al Letson:Right. You get something out of it, but it feels like he doesn\u2019t understand the nuance, or maybe he doesn\u2019t understand, or maybe he just doesn\u2019t care about those nuances. \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:Or we can say it more charitably, he just doesn\u2019t think it\u2019s worth it. I mean, he hasn\u2019t \u2026 Let\u2019s also make the case, because it\u2019s 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\u2019s been good for some people. It\u2019s been good for the ultrarich in the United States. It\u2019s been arguably, I mean, this is what defenders of the order say, it\u2019s been good for the planet. It\u2019s led to more peace than usual. It\u2019s led to the rise of India and China, but it hasn\u2019t super paid off for a lot of people in the middle and the working class, at least since the 1970s. \u00a0\u00a0And so, when Trump says, \u201cWhy 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.\u201d I think that\u2019s something \u2026 I mean, he\u2019s been saying it for decades, but I think it actually really resonates with a lot of people, and I think that\u2019s been a successful [inaudible 00:07:24] strategy for him. \u00a0Al Letson:I think it\u2019s 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. \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:Oh, yeah. \u00a0Al Letson:I mean, recently you wrote, \u201cWhat\u2019s striking about Trump is his shrugging indifference to overseas outcomes. You could call this regime-change nihilism. You can\u2019t call it imperialism.\u201d So, describe for me what you mean by regime-change nihilism. \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:Yeah, so because Trump, he\u2019s not looking at the global chess board, because he doesn\u2019t 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, \u201cUltimately, the American homeland is the planet. Everything everywhere matters for the United States, because we\u2019re in charge of the whole thing.\u201d So, anything, like a country has an election, that matters for the United States. \u00a0\u00a0Trump doesn\u2019t see it that way at all. And so, you could imagine a version of Trump where he would just \u2026 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\u2019s the claim he made about himself when he was running. It\u2019s just, I think, clearly not true, because one other aspect of Trump\u2019s not caring very much about downstream effects is that he feels very free to do stuff. \u00a0\u00a0Other presidents have thought about bombing Iran, and sometimes they badly wanted to, but they haven\u2019t done it. And the reason they haven\u2019t done it is they\u2019re like, \u201cOh, 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.\u201d It\u2019s not out of deep humanitarianism generally that\u2019s held them back. It\u2019s that they\u2019ve just understood that they have a lot of interest in a lot of places. And Trump\u2019s not looking at the chess board. He\u2019s not really playing chess, so he\u2019s just very comfortable with- \u00a0Al Letson:He wants what he wants. \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:Yeah, and he wants what he wants in a very short-term way. So, people sometimes look at Trump\u2019s 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. \u00a0Al Letson:Yeah, because it\u2019s so scattershot. It\u2019s so hard to know what he\u2019s going to do next, because it doesn\u2019t really flow. I mean, if he was building specifically an empire, you would kind of have an idea about how he\u2019d want to do it, and it wouldn\u2019t be this. \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:Or I mean, if he were concerned with power in a larger systematic sense, yeah, he wouldn\u2019t be doing things randomly. If you\u2019re trying to run a system, you want to make a case that you have some legitimacy and that you\u2019re applying rules, not just acting arbitrarily. The United States, I mean, I don\u2019t think the United States has been particularly studious about following its own rules, but it\u2019s always trying to make the case. \u00a0\u00a0Think 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\u2019t disrupt other US interests. \u00a0Al Letson:In talking about what George Bush did, the thought that comes to mind is that when you\u2019re 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\u2019s the difference between 1.0 and 2.0? \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:The usual thing that we say is that in Trump\u2019s first term, he was surrounded by, quote, unquote, \u201cgrownups,\u201d and that they pushed back enough that he just didn\u2019t 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\u2019s right. I would just add something, that the quote, unquote, \u201caxis of adults\u201d was clashing with Trump most about foreign policy. That was really where it came out. \u00a0\u00a0And there\u2019s a kind of famous moment, because it\u2019s a little gossipy and colorful, where Rex Tillerson, who\u2019d been the Secretary of State, just throws up his hands, is like, \u201cTrump is like a moron.\u201d That was right after the quote, unquote, \u201cadults\u201d had pulled Trump into a long meeting in the Pentagon where they were like, \u201cLook, let\u2019s explain everything, like how are the knee bones connected to the shin bones connected to the US power?\u201d 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\u2019s actually something that presidents have had to have \u2026 Presidents have needed that tutelage often, but usually they come out of that meeting being like, \u201cOh, yeah. No, we\u2019re not going to give up any of those military bases. Those are important.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0And Trump, by all accounts, was in that meeting just being like, \u201cI don\u2019t care. I don\u2019t give a shit. This doesn\u2019t matter. I don\u2019t want any of this.\u201d And then right after that, Rex Tillerson comes out and just reportedly says, \u201cTrump is a fucking moron.\u201d 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\u2019s what he had to do. \u00a0Al Letson:When we come back, Daniel talks about what shocks him the most about the fracturing of the international order. \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:I wasn\u2019t expecting a US president to do an inside job on it. \u00a0Al 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\u2019t do it without you. Now, we\u2019re going to ask you to help us out to help new listeners find our show, so here\u2019s 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. \u00a0\u00a0This is More to the Story. I\u2019m Al Letson and I\u2019m 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? \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026: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\u2019s leadership, and if they dislike it, it\u2019s 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. \u00a0\u00a0But 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\u2019s been engaged in, and that\u2019s a definition I welcome. What\u2019s weird about Trump is that he\u2019s anti-hegemony, but because that, he\u2019s drawn to other forms of power, including the most naked, saber-rattling, we\u2019ll take Greenland forms of imperialism, forms of colonial imperialism. \u00a0Al Letson:Why Greenland? And has the US always coveted Greenland? What\u2019s the history there? \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:I mean, yes and no. There\u2019s definitely been moments when the United States has tried to acquire Greenland, so part of it is like what- \u00a0Al Letson:But we have a base there that we pretty much \u2026 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\u2019t understand that. \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:Yeah, so there\u2019s 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\u2019s 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. \u00a0\u00a0There 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\u2019s what Dr. Strangelove is about, by the way. That\u2019s like those planes over Greenland. So, the United States is \u2026 Yeah, what you said is exactly right. It\u2019s had carte blanche in Greenland. \u00a0\u00a0I think with Trump, first of all, I think he\u2019s not interested in the softish kind of things where it\u2019s like, we have a deal with you and then that lets us have the base. He\u2019s like, \u201cI just want the whole thing. I don\u2019t want to have to negotiate with foreigners. It\u2019s like ours. We get to build a wall around it. It\u2019s not yours.\u201d He has this very stark real estate mentality. But I also think with Trump, he\u2019s really drawn to spaces that he can imagine as white or potentially white, or like \u2026 \u00a0\u00a0So, 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\u2019s talked about, can we get rid of Puerto Rico? So, I think there\u2019s something in his racial imaginary that dictates what places he\u2019s interested in talking about taking. \u00a0Al Letson:And also when you look at the immigrants coming to America who he wants, quite welcoming to white South Africans. \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:White South Africans, yeah. \u00a0Al Letson:But everybody else, they can kick rocks. \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, Trump is really interestingly spatial. There\u2019s an inside to the country. There\u2019s an outside. You get the people you want on the inside, you get the people you don\u2019t want out. You build a wall. You get the spaces that you want in, you get the spaces you don\u2019t want out, and that\u2019s not generally how the United States has been. It\u2019s actually been fairly porous, and it\u2019s expanded and contracted a lot in its history, maybe more expanded than contracted, so it\u2019s this very like \u2026 You just imagine Trump with a map of the United States in his head, and just this really thick black border around it. That\u2019s the kind of space he\u2019s imagining. \u00a0Al 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? \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:Yes. Yeah. No, I think that\u2019s right. And I just always kind of imagined that this thing couldn\u2019t 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, \u201cThat structure just can\u2019t go on forever.\u201d But I kind of imagine that a lot of the tension or a lot of the challenges would come from outside. I wasn\u2019t expecting a US president to do an inside job on it. I mean, and there\u2019s reasons, right? And there\u2019s reasons why the price of Pax Americana, the price of the liberal international order hasn\u2019t felt worth paying for a lot of people in Trump\u2019s space. And he\u2019s been really vocal about pointing out the ways in which they might not benefit, but it\u2019s been really wild to just watch the whole thing fall apart. \u00a0Al Letson:So, what does the future look like? What do you think happens if that coalition goes away? \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:There\u2019s two options, and the defenders of the sort of US hegemony, they\u2019re the ones who call it the liberal international order. That\u2019s their preferred term. They will say that without this, you\u2019re going to either have anarchy and it\u2019s 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. \u00a0\u00a0There\u2019s, I think, another option, and that was articulated recently by the Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, and he said, \u201cWe\u2019ve 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,\u201d because you just kind of had to do that. You had to just be okay with that because that\u2019s how the world worked. And he\u2019s like, \u201cNow it\u2019s falling apart.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0I think we can be a lot more honest about the ways in which the, quote, unquote, \u201cliberal international order\u201d wasn\u2019t really working or wasn\u2019t really fair, and we can also look forward to a world where maybe global affairs aren\u2019t going to be under the thumb of a single hegemonic power. Maybe it\u2019s 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\u2019s the case. That\u2019s an empirical question, whether we\u2019re in the kind of more chaos or Russia scenario, or if we\u2019re in the Canada scenario, but I\u2019m afraid of the first, but I\u2019m kind of hopeful about the second. \u00a0Al 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\u2019t 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\u2019m watching the Trump administration kind of dissolve a lot of America\u2019s 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? \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:I mean, that\u2019s the question. That\u2019s 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. \u00a0\u00a0I don\u2019t know if the only option besides US hegemony is Chinese or Russian or someone else\u2019s hegemony. I\u2019m just not sure. We don\u2019t 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\u2019s just really unclear, but I think that\u2019s the theory that Chinese leaders have. \u00a0Al Letson:How\u2019s all of this playing out with his base? \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:It\u2019s interesting, because some things Trump does, you\u2019re like, \u201cOkay, I don\u2019t like it, but this is kind of why you got elected,\u201d so that\u2019s fair. I mean, not fair, whatever. That\u2019s how things work. \u00a0Al Letson:Like his immigration policy, that\u2019s what people who voted for him- \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:That\u2019s what he said he was going to do. \u00a0Al Letson:It\u2019s what he said he was going to do. \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:Yeah. Yeah. And when he had Elon Musk in there just randomly firing government officials, I was like, \u201cOkay, that wasn\u2019t done very well.\u201d \u00a0Al Letson:He said he was going to do that. \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:But that\u2019s exactly what they wanted you to do. But I think a lot of the \u2026 I mean, Trump ran, like part of his case for, I don\u2019t 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\u2019t always against it. That\u2019s a lie that he tells, but he had been against it, and he would say things that you don\u2019t often hear politicians saying, like, \u201cWhy are all these Iraqi kids getting their legs blown off? What is the point of that?\u201d Good question. So I think my sense is that the case for Trump, in fact, this was America first. We\u2019re just going to focus on ourselves, and I think a lot of people were interested in that. People elected him. \u00a0\u00a0And 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\u2019t see a lot of appetite in his base for that. I mean, there\u2019s some interest in the kind of machismo of we went in there and we went in hard, and the other presidents wouldn\u2019t 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? \u00a0Al 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 \u2026 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\u2019re paying at the pump and how much they\u2019re paying in grocery stores. If they are feeling like they are financially good, they probably don\u2019t care as much about all the other things. But when they\u2019re 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\u2019s decision-making even more erratic. \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:Yeah. I think that\u2019s right. So yeah, that\u2019s sort of the doom spiral of Trumpism is that, I mean, he\u2019s always had this incredible relationship to his base, and that has explained his relationship to Congress, because he can primary anyone. He\u2019s got enough hardcore supporters that you kind of have to do what he says if you\u2019re a Republican, otherwise you\u2019re 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\u2019ve got, just as you point out, then that\u2019s another guardrail that we might lose. Then we\u2019ve just got an erratic, angry man who\u2019s known for lashing out and is in possession of a large nuclear arsenal. \u00a0Al Letson:Are you worried that he might use that arsenal against Iran? \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:I don\u2019t know. Yeah, yeah, so the fact that I said \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d means, yes, I am. It\u2019s so hard to tell with Trump. There\u2019s just such a large gap between the things he threatens to do and the things he does, but it\u2019s not a reliable gap, because some of the things he really does do. So, when he talks about ending Iranian civilization, that\u2019s a threat to use nuclear weapons, kind of. I mean, that seems like that\u2019s 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, \u201cDon\u2019t do,\u201d and he\u2019s kind of drawn to them for that reason, and he\u2019s 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\u2019re worried about that. \u00a0\u00a0And 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\u2019ve said, \u201cIt is important for the United States to somehow achieve regime change in Iran,\u201d over the decades, generally what they\u2019ve said is the main thing, there\u2019s other things too, but they\u2019ve said, \u201cIran is on the cusp of having nuclear weapons.\u201d 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\u2019s not just that he\u2019s on the cusp of having nuclear weapons. He has them. \u00a0Al Letson:Yeah. Daniel Immerwahr, thank you so much for coming in and talking to me. This has been great. \u00a0Daniel Immerwah\u2026:Al, it\u2019s been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me on. \u00a0Al Letson:That was Northwestern University History Professor, Daniel Immerwahr. He\u2019s 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. \u00a0\u00a0Lastly, 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\u2019s 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\u2019m Al Letsonino. Let\u2019s do this again next week. This is More To The Story. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniel Immerwah\u2026:People sometimes look at Trump\u2019s wars and they see imperialism. I mean, I think of imperialism as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[39799,39800,39801,32815,39802,39803,39804,227,39805,174,39806,9320,39807,26,184,39808,1584,2246,12081,39809,32210,57,6263,39810,39811,1671,39812,39813,2271,11228,39814,3160,39815,39816,39817,59,39818,39819,74,39820,39821,39822,5355,39823,15240,39824,2963,39825,16287,39826,39827,39828,39829,39830,238,39831,17938,17961,39832,75,39833,39834,19708,23816,4247,39835],"class_list":["post-73832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-greenland","tag-al-letson","tag-al-letson-npr","tag-al-letson-podcast","tag-america-first","tag-american-empire","tag-american-imperialism","tag-american-samoa","tag-canada","tag-center-for-investigative-reporting-podcast","tag-china","tag-cir-podcast","tag-cuba","tag-daniel-immerwahr","tag-denmark","tag-donald-trump","tag-dr-strangelove","tag-foreign-policy","tag-gaza","tag-gaza-strip","tag-george-w-bush","tag-global-order","tag-greenland","tag-guam","tag-hegemony","tag-how-to-hide-an-empire","tag-imperialism","tag-international-order","tag-investigative-reporting","tag-iran","tag-iraq","tag-iraq-war","tag-japan","tag-liberal-international-order","tag-maga","tag-malawi","tag-mark-carney","tag-more-to-the-story","tag-moretothestory","tag-nato","tag-nicolu00e1s-maduro","tag-northern-mariana-islands","tag-nuclear-bomb","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-panama-canal-zone","tag-podcast","tag-president-bush","tag-president-trump","tag-prime-minister-mark-carney","tag-puerto-rico","tag-reveal-news","tag-reveal-npr","tag-reveal-podcast","tag-reveal-radio","tag-rex-tillerson","tag-russia","tag-soft-power","tag-south-africa","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-the-center-for-investigative-reporting-podcast","tag-trump","tag-us-attack-on-iran","tag-us-imperialism","tag-us-virgin-islands","tag-usaid","tag-venezuela","tag-white-south-africans"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}