Walter Russell Mead: evaluation

Transcript context

…If we put aside the immediate partisan divisions of the current day, which can be quite path-dependent, but just try to think in terms of overall worldview, what’s the biggest foreign policy difference between the two major American parties? I think, to some degree, you can say it’s historical that the Democratic Party believes in — as people like President Biden or Secretary Kerry would say — learning the lessons of Vietnam, that our over-reliance on hard power is dangerous, that soft power really is where it’s at, and that America needs to accommodate two different regime types and so on, around the world. Of course, again, both parties are contested. There are different groups in both parties. The Republicans — Vietnam did not have as great a consequence for Republicans. If you think about people like James Baker, George Shultz, the great Republican foreign policy figures of the last 30, 40 years, the legacy of Vietnam for them was quite different, that sort of cultural impact. Democrats tended to lose . . . A class of liberal Democrats saw their faith in American ideology permanently wounded by Vietnam. I don’t think that was as true among Republicans. Is it a good thing that Biden has significantly cut back on drone wars?…

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