Reject their pro-heg forecasts. There’s no “expertise” in strategic studies.

One final point, globalization. The opening of markets to trade and investment around the world had real benefits for some people. Certainly for millions of people in Asia, lower and middle classes back there, but not for the lower and middle classes in the United States and in Western Europe. It’s good for the global 1 percent but not for lower and middle classes here in the United States. That’s also been part of the backlash we’ve seen in the last few years.

The bottom line here is that liberal hegemony was a failure. Now again the question is, well, why did we do this? Well, one reason was because of this remarkable position of power we found ourselves in at the end of the Cold War, which made this seem possible. It led to a certain amount of hubris, but of course when you think about it, we were already in such good shape. An ambitious strategy of trying to reshape the world wasn’t really necessary either. Now we were already in pretty good shape. I think we did it because there was a very powerful bipartisan consensus, in favor of it within the foreign policy elite. That’s really the heart of the book. This is a consensus not shared by the general public. By the foreign policy elite, I mean those people who actively work on foreign affairs all the time. It’s what Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security advisor called the blob. We’re talking about the formal institutions of government, the president, NSC, Departments of State and Defense, Intelligence Services, and organizations like the Council on Foreign Relations, that lots of people belong to and participate in foreign affairs. Think tanks like the Brookings Institution, the Carnegie Endowment, many, many others. Various special interest groups and lobbies that try to advance some foreign policy cause, whether it’s arms control or human rights or whatever. There’re dozens of those in Washington. People in the media who write on a regular basis on foreign affairs. I would put them in the foreign policy elite as well. Of course people like me who writes books and articles that shape opinion or at least try to, who sometimes serve in government and who train the people who go into these key positions.

I just want to make two points about these elite. First point, there are no formal membership requirements, no required degree, no bar exam you have to pass. You need a license to sell real estate in the United States, but you don’t need a license to practice foreign policy. All it takes is convincing enough other people who are already in the elites that you’re smart, knowledgeable, energetic, loyal, and useful. Second, it is a community and especially at the higher levels. As you rise up within it, the leading members know each other pretty well. They often belong to overlapping organizations. They’ve all served together in various capacities, and because it’s a community, professional success depends on your networks and especially on your reputation. Right, that’s really all important. When reputation is all important, then staying within the acceptable consensus is really critical. You don’t want to ever be seen as unsound, or holding a set of views that are outside the mainstream consensus. The most important part of that consensus is the idea that the United States will exercise leadership on virtually every issue of world politics, and has the right to interfere with any government we happen to dislike if we think we can get away with it. That spreading of course those liberal values, is good for us and good for the world. Questioning that basic view is not a smart career move if you want to rise in Washington.

Now, I don’t want to suggest that this is a complete consensus. There are sometimes disagreements in the blob over specific issues, like the Iran deal or whether to intervene in Syria. In general, voices embracing and supporting liberal hegemony in American leadership have been much louder, far more numerous, than voices saying the United States ought to act with a bit more restraint.

Now, one final point, why does the elite like this strategy so much? Well, I think partly because they genuinely believe in these principles. That’s the good intentions in the title of my book. It also of course increases their power and status, justifies bigger budgets, gives them plenty to do, even flatters their sense of self-worth.

I say in what is perhaps the snarkiest line in the book, that liberal hegemony has been a full-employment policy for the foreign policy elites. The only problem is that the American people have a somewhat different view. It’s clear from numerous surveys, they reject isolationism, but they also want actually a much more restrained foreign policy.