#85 Michael Hirsh: The Dark Logic Behind America’s New Foreign Policy

Decoding Geopolitics Podcast with Dominik Presl

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This is a conversation with Michael Hirsh, columnist for Foreign Policy and one of the most experienced observers of U.S. foreign policy and national security in Washington. In this episode, we look at a big claim he’s been making: that realism has quietly become the dominant way of thinking about America’s role in the world.

We talk about what that actually means, why realism has become so popular, and whether the Trump administration really reflects a realist approach or something closer to chaos and isolationism. We also get into the views of figures like J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio or Elbridge Colby, or why Democrats are adopting their own version of realism as well.

And finally, we look at what all this means in practice - for U.S. policy toward Ukraine and Europe, for NATO and alliances more broadly, and for China and the Indo-Pacific - and how this shift could shape the next decade of U.S. foreign policy and the world with it.