At this week's Round Table, Inica, Kenisha, Jack, and Madeline spoke with Alexander Cooley, the Claire Tow Professor of Political Science at Barnard College and Director of the Harriman Institute for the Study of Russia, Eurasia and Eastern Europe at Columbia University, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year! Professor Cooley helped us understand international politics and historic domination by the US by drawing an analogy to Walmart that we won’t soon forget. Change can come from places we don’t expect and things that seem dominant can be toppled—like Amazon superseding Walmart. So what went wrong? Professor Cooley talked us through the many variables. We talked about the War on Terror, the illiberalism of most international orders, the CNN effect and how the rise of global media has mitigated it, the benefits and limitations of international rankings, and American hypocrisy—along with the role of technology in making the gap between rhetoric and reality more apparent. Professor Cooley helped us understand how states are social creatures that, like all social creatures, want to project certain images. He helped us recognize that the United States can’t be all things to all countries; we have to be principled and to think about priorities and not be in constant competition with everyone else. All politics is about power but also about trade offs and figuring out what we are willing to give up to advance what we care most about. Thank you for joining us!
