I finally finished this empire essay which Iâve several times mentioned Iâd been working on. I found it much more taxing and draining than Iâd imagined. And itâs made me question and rethink a number of my assumptions about Americaâs place in the world today, her relative power, and the underlying domestic changes that are shaping the way she acts today on the world stage.
Is it really reasonable to expect that the values which undergird liberal democracy in America will be effectively spread abroad by the most illiberal people in America? It’s a good question. Think about it.
Iâll get into various of these points in subsequent posts. But let me just start by recommending again this book by George Soros The Bubble of American Supremacy. In some ways this is an uneven book — or perhaps better to say, unadorned. And I donât subscribe to all his points of analysis or conclusions. But his basic diagnosis of the errors of our current policies â both strategic and moral â are insightful, wise, and important.
(This strikes me very much as the sort of book one might write if one were a multibillionaire who were old enough and accomplished enough to lack any particular literary ambitions, but just had some very specific, important points one wanted to get in front of a large audience. Soros is indifferent to dressing his points up; he just makes them, which is a good way to approach writing.)
All of this allows Soros to step outside the well-worn grooves that our contemporary foreign policy discussions tend to slide along.
