Why Does US Foreign Policy Keep Failing?

Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs, discusses US foreign policy since the end of the Cold War at IDEASpHERE at Harvard Kennedy School on May 16, 2014.

[TheSpiritOfTheTimes]

I have a lot of respect for Walt's work and read it regularly. Truthful, sober analysis- very atypical for prominent American intellectuals who comment on foreign affairs.

[ismailnoor]

What fuckedup society bloody thirsty society called USA 🇺🇸 killed millions of people around the globe

[fjordhellas]

Professors Walt and Mearsheimer are American gems . We need more people like them to be invited on mainstream media as well!

[frankblangeard]

Foreign policy in Afghanistan has been a great success. Those poppy fields are producing like never before. It isn't the Taliban who are profiting it is all the 'right people'.

[maxheadrom]

56:00 US diplomats and OSS officers did understood the nature of the Vietnamese struggle - policemakers, pushing back the anti colonialist approach of Roosevelt - decided it was more important to help France recover quickly because they feared leftist forces would raise to power through democratic means. The source is PBS' "Vietnam: A Television History".

[chosk]

It is failing in a way that you can't imagine 9 years later.

[tommyodonovan]

*"They're the gang that can't shoot straight"*
-Prof. John Mearshheimer

[maxheadrom]

54:43 It seems they really learned how to use historical analogies for rhetoric purposes but they did not learn how to use history as a source for analysis.

[maxheadrom]

On the answer to that last question, there's an interesting lecture about "why US generals were so effective in WWII and so inneffective now" (or something like that) by a journalist/historian specialized on the subject.

[gogadgetgo]

Love it, the good Doctors, as per usual, laying that beatdown flawlessly.

[darbyheavey]

He jumped over the Reagan Administration completely. How is that possible? Because Reagan ignored the consensus at the State Dept thereby securing the greatest foreign policy success in the post war period.

[travisashley]

Is the audience having dinner while he speaks? Whatever is going on in the background is really distracting.

[Ratkill]

The clamoring and commentary from the audience makes me wonder if they were half listening at all. Nobody really adds to the discussion, rather shouts out the bit they understood while trying to signal they’re on the correct side of the issue. These people are part of the problem.

[akeleven]

9 years later still trying to "pivot to Asia". But we made such a mess of Middle East we can't get out. To say nothing of Central American.

[stephenyang]

Prof. Walt made a comprehensive summary of US foreign policy events, but one would gain more by tracing in depth analysis of inter- 37:58 actions with a couple of countries, e.g. Iraq or China.

[LauraMagyar-ef]

Just look at the mess we are now have on our hands in the Ukraine and Gaza. We never learn and this will be our downfall.

[GodfatherActual]

would have been nice to see the slides as well

[akeleven]

"truth to power kills your career " Remarkable that nobody in the audience was alarmed that he said out loud that we were lied to about the Iraq war, and other foreign policy issues.

[dylang]

LOL and look at what happened with Syria two years later.

[mariocroatia]

Because the current foreign policy is suited to benefit Israel and not the USA