4:31:30 on Russia and Syria: “tell me what they’ve got!” 4:33:46 on Russia and Ukraine - it’s amazing how timely it is in 2022, even though it was said in 2017. (The above are the answers to 4:30:50 question about Russia and Syria.)
5:06:15 This is what Trump did his whole term in office: appoint unqualified people who were expendable and often would get replaced if they didn't seem loyal enough, or he would leave vital positions unfilled because they were a nuisance to him and what he wanted to accomplish...which was essentially have what Putin has (authoritarian rule) and remain in power uncontested. Luckily the US has the checks and balances, institutions and the people who believe in them and will fight for them or Trump would be another Putin today.
I can't fathom what kind of bubble you must live in, no offense. He's a silly bumbling professional bullshitter. HOW anyone can suggest Trump is diabolical is beyond me, lol.
The Cold War was incredible. You had a superficially internationalist power that was really nationalist, and a superficially nationalist power that was really internationalist. This is why Kotkin basically admits that in order to SELL internationalism, you need to tell a nice story about nationalism. I agree with the guy who asked the question about the West defining itself oppositionally--America NEEDS an enemy to be the global hegemon because that is how it became a hegemon to begin with, the only thing that gave it credibility was the threat of world Communism.
american power was not built in opposition to the Ussr, america emerged from the 2nd war as economically and militarily dominant power largely because of scale and remoteness - but the foundations for this were built since the interwar period.
Markets, private property, open societies, constitutional order, democracy. Nowhere in this list do you have to mention Communism. Not only do these have credibility as standalone institutions and values, but Communism could very obviously be interchanged in your thinking for any group or ideology that is in opposition to them. This argument is such projection because it is exactly how "the East" ie Communism viewed itself. It never achieved the ideological prosperity and social justice that it sought, and it became things that it ideologically opposed (imperialist), and at a certain point everyone had to look around at the wreckage and body count that it wrought and explain what it was all for, and the only possible answer that still fit was that it opposed capitalism.
@@gskills55 Yes, the USSR achieved a huge amount of credibility primarily in the Third World in opposing "Western imperialism" and appealing to national liberation sensibilities. That was my point in the original comment: Communism won over countries because of nationalism and anti-imperialism, not because Marxist-Leninism was some panacea. During the Cold War there were two main ideological camps that depended on each other to muster some kind of big, global coalition. The consensus within each camp depended in some way on opposition from the other camp. Today, that doesn't exist. Nobody outside of the West takes "markets" and "open societies" or whatever seriously as ideological signifiers. They either accept these premises or they don't, but their concerns are totally pragmatic. in 1985 the President of the US could call the chancellor of West Germany and have almost half a million German men under arms ready to go fight the Warsaw Pact. Now America couldn't get Germany to deploy in force against Russia even if it wanted to (and if Germany had the manpower, which it doesn't), and instead is contented with giving Ukraine a minimum amount of support so that it can simply loses slower. America can't even get enough people volunteering in its own army to defend the "Rules Based International Order." It's just not a compelling vision, unlike anti-Communism which had Americans ready to go fight and die in Korea and Vietnam (the volunteer participation rate vs. draftees was HIGHER in Vietnam than it had been in WW2). America's whole project depended on being the Good Guy to somebody else Bad Guy. Once that dynamic ended in 1989, the only thing keeping America going as a hegemonic power was the absence of any other superpowers. But as new powers emerged under a multipolar system, and American hard power declined in both relative and absolute terms, the idea that America as some kind of leader of the free world became laughable. There is no free world because there is no unfree world. There are only a bunch of countries trying to assert their own competing interests. America can declare a new Axis of Evil every few years if it wants to but it doesn't matter, nobody else cares.
@@tb8865 at this point i have to assume you didn't listen to the lecture. it's called "Spheres of Influence" and in the lecture Kotkin spent 5 hours defining the Western sphere of influence. I'll cue you in to an important point since you didn't listen: the Western sphere of influence includes more than just the US. Your whole response is a critique on US foreign policy while the Western sphere of influence extends to Europe and Asia and impacts economics, trade, politics, rule of law, the list goes on. Again, there's 5 hours of content describing all of this in depth. You should really give it a listen, especially if you're going to comment. I'm trying to deal with the point about ideological signifiers and pragmatism, but the sentences you wrote are so nonsensical it's hard to know where to start. Markets and open societies aren't ideological and they don't need to be. That's the whole point. Anyone engaging with these values and the institutions that were built upon those values would be, yes, as you said, taking a completely pragmatic and non-ideological approach, because the results are borne out on the world stage for everyone to see: economic prosperity, peace, exchange of ideas, mutually beneficial trade, technology transfer, the list goes on and on (again, the lecture is 5 hours of this). This is yet another projection of thinking that the East is stuck in, that says if you are not ideologically motivated then you can be compromised and thus you are weaker, which is of course not true. If you were trying to say that after the fall of the USSR that no one outside the West believed or could be motivated by values like rule of law, open societies, and markets, then this is a completely nonsensical claim. For one thing, countries that were outside the West when the USSR collapsed are now PART of the West. 13 countries joined the European Union since 2004. NATO added 16 countries (16!!!) since the USSR collapsed. Why did they do this when there was no bad guy?
Stephen Kotkin rules
Steve is a political hack
He was throwing hands in the Q and A
I listened to this 2 years ago.
Today I find it a better more accurate version of the news than all the cable channels combined.
Thank you for the continuation of great lectures and jokes!
thanks for putting this together
Kotkin is a wonderful lecturer. Fantastic!
oh my,this is 5 hours. awesome.
4:31:30 on Russia and Syria: “tell me what they’ve got!”
4:33:46 on Russia and Ukraine - it’s amazing how timely it is in 2022, even though it was said in 2017.
(The above are the answers to 4:30:50 question about Russia and Syria.)
lol I’m like #420 listening in Denver baked. I love it and I love this guy Stephen. ❤️
Yeah, any hope to see the slides?
3:23 The lecture begins.
Congratulations, you are the first public person to speak abt the high deductible in health insurance especially when it is mandated.
Absolutely. I work with the ACA population and for most people, it is near useless.
Are there copies of the slides somewhere?
may this be heard by weakling liberal political figures everywhere. thank you Stephen Kotkin for your clarity. and humor.
5:06:15 This is what Trump did his whole term in office: appoint unqualified people who were expendable and often would get replaced if they didn't seem loyal enough, or he would leave vital positions unfilled because they were a nuisance to him and what he wanted to accomplish...which was essentially have what Putin has (authoritarian rule) and remain in power uncontested. Luckily the US has the checks and balances, institutions and the people who believe in them and will fight for them or Trump would be another Putin today.
I can't fathom what kind of bubble you must live in, no offense. He's a silly bumbling professional bullshitter. HOW anyone can suggest Trump is diabolical is beyond me, lol.
Was FDR a Putin? Or was he a Stalin? Where were the checks and balances on Uncle Joe's best friend? The world wonders.
Great stuff, thank you!
I love this video, perhaps you can't see my appraisal,due to the ccp backed trolls, but I turly love you
Joe Pesci in the house!
the louis ck comments and his postulation that the US would not let the world burn to recreate the economic conditions of the 40's did not age well
Straight Gangsta
Truth
The Cold War was incredible. You had a superficially internationalist power that was really nationalist, and a superficially nationalist power that was really internationalist. This is why Kotkin basically admits that in order to SELL internationalism, you need to tell a nice story about nationalism. I agree with the guy who asked the question about the West defining itself oppositionally--America NEEDS an enemy to be the global hegemon because that is how it became a hegemon to begin with, the only thing that gave it credibility was the threat of world Communism.
Did you really listen to 5 hours of Kotkin and come up with that nonsense? That is not how hegemony is achieved by America or any other power.
american power was not built in opposition to the Ussr, america emerged from the 2nd war as economically and militarily dominant power largely because of scale and remoteness - but the foundations for this were built since the interwar period.
Markets, private property, open societies, constitutional order, democracy. Nowhere in this list do you have to mention Communism. Not only do these have credibility as standalone institutions and values, but Communism could very obviously be interchanged in your thinking for any group or ideology that is in opposition to them.
This argument is such projection because it is exactly how "the East" ie Communism viewed itself. It never achieved the ideological prosperity and social justice that it sought, and it became things that it ideologically opposed (imperialist), and at a certain point everyone had to look around at the wreckage and body count that it wrought and explain what it was all for, and the only possible answer that still fit was that it opposed capitalism.
@@gskills55 Yes, the USSR achieved a huge amount of credibility primarily in the Third World in opposing "Western imperialism" and appealing to national liberation sensibilities. That was my point in the original comment: Communism won over countries because of nationalism and anti-imperialism, not because Marxist-Leninism was some panacea. During the Cold War there were two main ideological camps that depended on each other to muster some kind of big, global coalition. The consensus within each camp depended in some way on opposition from the other camp.
Today, that doesn't exist. Nobody outside of the West takes "markets" and "open societies" or whatever seriously as ideological signifiers. They either accept these premises or they don't, but their concerns are totally pragmatic. in 1985 the President of the US could call the chancellor of West Germany and have almost half a million German men under arms ready to go fight the Warsaw Pact. Now America couldn't get Germany to deploy in force against Russia even if it wanted to (and if Germany had the manpower, which it doesn't), and instead is contented with giving Ukraine a minimum amount of support so that it can simply loses slower. America can't even get enough people volunteering in its own army to defend the "Rules Based International Order." It's just not a compelling vision, unlike anti-Communism which had Americans ready to go fight and die in Korea and Vietnam (the volunteer participation rate vs. draftees was HIGHER in Vietnam than it had been in WW2).
America's whole project depended on being the Good Guy to somebody else Bad Guy. Once that dynamic ended in 1989, the only thing keeping America going as a hegemonic power was the absence of any other superpowers. But as new powers emerged under a multipolar system, and American hard power declined in both relative and absolute terms, the idea that America as some kind of leader of the free world became laughable. There is no free world because there is no unfree world. There are only a bunch of countries trying to assert their own competing interests. America can declare a new Axis of Evil every few years if it wants to but it doesn't matter, nobody else cares.
@@tb8865 at this point i have to assume you didn't listen to the lecture. it's called "Spheres of Influence" and in the lecture Kotkin spent 5 hours defining the Western sphere of influence. I'll cue you in to an important point since you didn't listen: the Western sphere of influence includes more than just the US. Your whole response is a critique on US foreign policy while the Western sphere of influence extends to Europe and Asia and impacts economics, trade, politics, rule of law, the list goes on. Again, there's 5 hours of content describing all of this in depth. You should really give it a listen, especially if you're going to comment.
I'm trying to deal with the point about ideological signifiers and pragmatism, but the sentences you wrote are so nonsensical it's hard to know where to start. Markets and open societies aren't ideological and they don't need to be. That's the whole point. Anyone engaging with these values and the institutions that were built upon those values would be, yes, as you said, taking a completely pragmatic and non-ideological approach, because the results are borne out on the world stage for everyone to see: economic prosperity, peace, exchange of ideas, mutually beneficial trade, technology transfer, the list goes on and on (again, the lecture is 5 hours of this). This is yet another projection of thinking that the East is stuck in, that says if you are not ideologically motivated then you can be compromised and thus you are weaker, which is of course not true.
If you were trying to say that after the fall of the USSR that no one outside the West believed or could be motivated by values like rule of law, open societies, and markets, then this is a completely nonsensical claim. For one thing, countries that were outside the West when the USSR collapsed are now PART of the West. 13 countries joined the European Union since 2004. NATO added 16 countries (16!!!) since the USSR collapsed. Why did they do this when there was no bad guy?
Miller John Lee Laura Harris Margaret
Boringer than sobbin' a juiceless Orange