Should the United States Do Less Overseas?

In the first episode of our special Election 2020 series of The President’s Inbox, Karen Donfried and Christopher A. Preble join host James M. Lindsay to discuss whether the United States should scale back its role in the world.

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Host
  • James M. Lindsay
    Mary and David Boies Distinguished Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy and Director of Fellowship Affairs
Episode Guests
  • Karen Donfried
    President, German Marshall Fund of the United States
  • Christopher A. Preble
    Vice President, Defense and Foreign Policy Studies, Cato Institute

Show Notes

In this special Election 2020 series of The President’s Inbox, James M. Lindsay sits down each week with two experts with different views on how the United States should handle its foreign policy challenges. This week, he discusses the U.S. role in the world with Karen Donfried, president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and Christopher A. Preble, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute.

 

Read Lindsay’s takeaways from their conversation and find further readings on his blog, The Water’s Edge.

 

The special Election 2020 episodes of The President’s Inbox are made possible in part by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Europe

Liana Fix, a fellow for Europe at CFR and adjunct professor at Georgetown University, and Matthias Matthijs, a senior fellow for Europe at CFR and associate professor of international political economy at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, sit down with James M. Lindsay to discuss how governments across Europe are preparing for a second Trump administration. This episode is the fourth in a special TPI series on the U.S. 2025 presidential transition and is supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

United States

Christopher M. Tuttle, a senior fellow at CFR, sits down with James M. Lindsay to discuss the people that President-Elect Donald Trump has nominated for foreign policy and national security positions. This episode is the third in a special TPI series on the U.S. 2025 presidential transition and is supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Middle East and North Africa

Steven A. Cook, the Eni Enrico Mattei Senior Fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies at CFR, sits down with James M. Lindsay to discuss how Middle Eastern countries are reacting to former President Donald Trump’s election victory and his potential policy for the region. This episode is the second in a special TPI series on the U.S. 2025 presidential transition and is supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

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