We think that because we’re children of the Enlightenment, the way the world is moving is gradually toward liberalism. I think the natural course of the world is away from liberalism and it has only been American power that has sustained this aberration in world history.

Robert Kagan

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A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com.

Robert Kagan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, a columnist at The Washington Post, and among the most influential writers on foreign policy today. His latest book is Ghost at the Feast: America and the Collapse of World Order, 1900-1941.

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:37
• American and WWI - 2:37
• Isolationism and Retrenchment - 16:40
• Troops in the Rhineland - 31:36
• Parallels to Today - 42:32

Key Links

The Ghost at the Feast: America and the Collapse of World Order, 1900-1941 by Robert Kagan

"A Free World, If You Can Keep It" by Robert Kagan in Foreign Affairs

"The Weight of Geopolitics" by Robert Kagan in the Journal of Democracy

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Larry Diamond on Supporting Democracy in the World and at Home

Charles Kupchan on America’s Tradition of Isolationism

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