Foreign Affairs invites you to listen to its podcast, the Foreign Affairs Interview. This episode with Robert Gates was originally published on February 8, 2024.

Last fall, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Bob Gates took to the pages of Foreign Affairs to issue a warning: with America facing the most dangerous geopolitical landscape in decades, dysfunction in Washington threatened to turn that danger into disaster.

Today, Russia and China are testing the international order. Iranian proxies are attacking U.S. forces on a daily basis. And, as Gates writes, “at the very moment that events demand a strong and coherent response, America cannot provide one.”

Gates worries that such dysfunction at home could prompt America’s foes to make risky bets—with catastrophic consequences for both the country and the world.


Sources:

“The Dysfunctional Superpower” by Robert M. Gates
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united...


“A New Strategy Can Save Ukraine” by Stephen J. Hadley and Matthew Kroenig
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-new-st...

“The Overmilitarization of American Foreign Policy” by Robert M. Gates
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articl...


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