Parallax Views w/ J.G. Michael
Society & Culture
On this edition of Parallax Views, Christopher Mott, a Research Fellow at the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy and author The Formless Empire: A Short History of Diplomacy and Warfare in Central Asia, joins Parallax Views to discuss his recent CovertAction Magazine piece "Samantha Power and the Cosmopolitan Crusaders". Applying his knowledge as someone who has worked inside the U.S. State Department, Chris explains the foreign policy thought of the diplomat and government official Samantha Power, whose influential book A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide was foundational to R2P (Responsible to Protect) doctrine. R2P, Mott explains, holds that powerful nations (ie: the U.S. and NATO-aligned states) have a duty to stop human rights abuses around the world. Although a noble cause in theory, Mott argues that R2P in practice has not always worked perfectly in practice. In this regard Mott examines the Obama-era intervention into Libya on humanitarian grounds and how Libya has turned into a chaotic failed state that's led to the return of the slave trade to North Africa. In addition to all of this Mott and I also discuss:
- Fear of another Weimar moment haunting beltway foreign policy circles and the role that plays in driving interventionist policymaking
- The question of isolationism, the specter of WWII, and Stephen Wertheim's Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy
- Foreign policy realism and its variations including offensive realism and defensive realism
- Sun Tzu, the risks of war, diplomacy vs. military force, and the question of grand strategy
- The role of ideological, systemic, and economic factors in U.S. foreign policy
- Democratic Peace Theory, American exceptionalism, and Kantian liberal cosmopolitanism
- Sanctions, the potential critique of their effectiveness in achieving state policy goals, and the Iran deal/JCPOA; sanctions as a form of economic warfare
- Jihadism, cosmopolitanism, and state collapse
- U.S.-China relations, human rights rhetoric, and whataboutisms
- American exceptionalism as having a right, left, and center form
- U.S. foreign policy, puritanical morality plays, and protagonist syndrome
- Tyler Cowen's Bloomberg op-ed arguing for using "Wokeism" (a very vague term removed from its original context on Black Twitter) to rebrand American exceptionalism
- And much, much more!
Fred Olen Ray Returns to Discuss Collaborating With Ed Wood, Low-Budget Filmmaking, Wild Tales from 80s Hollywood, & More!
Heavy Radicals: The FBI’s Secret War on America’s Maoists w/ Aaron J. Leonard
I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It! Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, and Academic Freedom w/ Norman Finkelstein
True Blue: White Unionists in the Deep South during the Civil War and Reconstruction w/ Clayton J. Butler
Spyfail: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs, and the Collapse of America’s Counterintelligence w/ James Bamford
The British Marxist Historians w/ Harvey J. Kaye
Amityville: An Origin Story w/ Jack Riccobono
We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland w/ Fintan O’Toole
The Ethnic Cleansing of Armenians by Turkey-Supported Azerbaijan w/ Peter Bahlawanian
A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The Saudi Struggle for Iraq w/ Katherine Harvey
In Search of Monsters to Destroy: The Folly of American Empire and the Paths to Peace w/ Christopher J. Coyne
On the Brink: Jenin’s Rising Resistance (Armed Resistance in the Jenin Refugee Camp) w/ Yumna Patel
REPLAY: The Israel/Palestine Conflict and The Specter of Meir Kahane w/ Yossi Gurvitz
Pro-Israel & Right-Wing Groups Accused of Collaborating to Stifle Academic Freedom: The Case of Dr. Lara Sheehi w/ Dr. Lara Sheehi
The Russian Far-Right and the Neo-Nazi Attack in Bryansk w/ Dr. Marlene Laurelle
Birds of Prey: Hitler’s Luftwaffe, Ordinary Soldiers, and the Holocaust in Poland w/ Philip W. Blood
Silicon Valley Bank and the Economy w/ Mike Swanson/Corporate Media, Big Tech, and Project Censored’s State of the Free Press 2023 w/ Mickey Huff
Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, & Human Rights w/ Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied Since 1967
Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich Calls for ”Wiping Out” Palestinian Village of Huwara w/ Estee Chandler of Jewish Voice for Peace
John Quincy Adams and American Foreign Policy w/ David C. Hendrickson
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