Bob Kagan

speaker

1,471 appearances 4 recordings 1 series first heard Feb 2026 last heard 29 Jul

Bob Kagan’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

Appearances

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

The Bulwark Daily · Robert Kagan and Marianne Williamson: Slipping Into Dictatorship · 4 Feb 2026 podcast

Yeah, I mean, the first thing to be said is that our, in that scenario, the American sphere of influence is a remarkably poor, not particularly well-developed, not very industrial part of the world, while their spheres of influence include the major industrial centers, the most powerful economies in the world, et cetera.

People talk about spheres of influence without really understanding what they're talking about most of the time.

So what is Russia's sphere of influence?

If you think about it historically...

And I mean, historically, going back to the czars, not just back to Stalin, et cetera.

Russia's natural sphere of influence definitely includes the Baltic states.

So they will no longer be independent.

They will be under Russian control.

Almost invariably throughout history for centuries, when Russia has enjoyed what it regards as its

appropriate sphere of influence, Poland has ceased to exist.

It's either been partitioned between Russia and Germany or Russia and Prussia, or it's been totally subsumed under Russian control.

So if you're a Pole, if we grant Russia its natural sphere of influence, they cease to be an independent country.

And the same is true in Asia.

I'm sure if

Anybody who looks at Chinese history will say China's view of its natural historic sphere of influence includes all of Southeast Asia and Japan and definitely Korea.

So when people talk about spheres of influence, they're basically selling out all kinds of

very significant populations of people who currently enjoy their freedom and independence to put them under the thumb of Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin.

They're very generous with other people's countries and sovereignty and territory.

But also, aside from what the horror that that would mean for those countries that are subsumed under those empires, the United States gets the worst part of it.

The worst part of this deal.

Showing 1221–1240 of 1,471 · page 62 of 74