Ep. 12: Hal Brands on the Cold War

Hal Brands, the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, joins the show to discuss the Cold War's lessons for great-power rivalry today. Times 01:24 - Introduction 02:47 - Halford Mackinder and how Eurasian geopolitics framed the Cold War 05:37 - Mackinder's theory of the heartland 07:47 - China's Belt and Road Initiative as an application of Mackinder's theory 09:07 - Comparing the United States' approaches to the USSR and China 13:04 - Nuclear power during the Cold War 17:24 - How Cold War-era nuclear logic applies today 21:02 - No first use policy 26:56 - The Nixon administration's critique of containment strategy 29:58 - The collapse of the Soviet Union 32:15 - Theories of victory that led to the Vietnam War 35:08 - End of the Cold War 39:17 - Infrastructure needed to fight the Soviets in the United States, and what the U.S. needs to take on China today 44:02 - China's moves to decouple economically from the United States 46:47 - The United States' harrowing responsibility to take on adversarial powers