Amoral American Power, with Professor Matias Spektor

Carnegie Council Podcasts · Mar 2, 2026 · 47m

For decades, America couched its foreign policy not only in the language of interests, but in universal values such as freedom and human rights. But what happens when that moral framing of liberal values falls away?

From the streets of Caracas to the skies over Tehran, U.S. power is no longer justified through a narrative of liberal internationalism or advanced via appeals—even performative ones—to institutions such as the UN. Instead, Trump 2.0 has embraced a more explicit "might makes right" approach that rejects universality and leans into civilizational conflict between the West and the…