David C. Henrickson will be at Cato on Monday, April 16, at 11am to discuss his new book, Republic in Peril: American Empire and the Liberal Tradition in which he contends that American foreign policy is well over-due for “renovation.”
He argues that that
- The United States does not and cannot function at the legitimate umpire of the international system.
- Its ostensibly liberal ends have concealed highly illiberal means.
- Its doctrine holding the world’s states to one standard has been destabilizing.
- Its military policy has been overly aggressive.
He further contends that the people who loudly praise “the liberal world order” have lost touch with critical elements of the liberal tradition,” and he seeks to revive that tradition in what he calls “a new internationalism” emphasizing “restraint rather than braggadocio” and the acceptance by the United States of “its role as a nation among nations” rather than arrogantly “extolling its exceptional virtue and superior wisdom.”
And that’s all on just two pages.
He also suggests, quite unfashionably, that foreign policy elites might consider containing their congenital hysteria over Russian assertiveness in its area and over China’s (rather screwball) islands in the seas to its south.
Hendrickson is the author of eight books and is a professor of political science at Colorado College where he has enjoyed the view since 1983.
Commenting will be Michael Mandelbaum of the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and the author of even more books than Hendrickson. I will be moderating. And there’s a free lunch afterward.
Click here to register or to learn more.
