After the Apocalypse: America’s Role in a World Transformed w/ Andrew Bacevich

On this edition of Parallax Views, the President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft Andrew Bacevich joins Parallax Views for an in-depth discussion on the history of the D.C. "Blob", U.S. foreign policy, and his thoughtful new book After the Apocalypse: America's Role in a World Transformed. 2020 was a year full of tumult from the COVID-19 pandemic to the protests against racial injustice in the aftermath of George Flloyd's death. And then, there is the increasingly concerning issue of climate change and the crises it could create. This is the "Apocalypse" that Andrew Bacevich's new book addresses. And he argues that in order to address the domestic challenges we face as a country, from pandemics to racism to increasing economic inequity to potential climate catastrophe, we must reassess U.S. foreign policy in post-pandemic world. Bacevich questions the U.S. "forever wars", the role of NATO in the 21st century and the American relationship to it, and much more. In putting all our efforts into interventions abroad are we missing national security threats at home like climate change or, in the aftermath of the Jan 6th uprisings, domestic terrorism? Are the uprisings, left and right, in part a result of atrophied institutions in the beltway devoted to outmoded Cold War modes-of-thinking that have created a foreign policy with domestic consequences? And what of the often underdiscussed issue of nuclear proliferation? Andrew Bacevich and I, hopefully, tackle these and other issues with eloquence in this fascinating hour long conversation.