Heather Cox Richardson

So if they're going to make a choice, I wish they'd hurry up and get to it.

So, you know, a lot of the world in which we live in the United States seems to us always to have been here because it has kept us so safe and so prosperous for so long.

And, you know, if you think about, I keep throwing out the term rules-based international order.

Yeah.

And

Think about power.

Like, if you are a nation, your first job from the beginning is to keep your people safe.

Aside from anything else, you want to make sure that the army from next door doesn't march in, you know, back on its horses and in its suits of armor.

You want to keep your people safe.

Now, that's the theory, right?

Of course, there's going to be lots of loopholes in that.

Yeah.

But the idea that you stay safe by having a big army and threatening to invade your neighbors and maybe making friends with some of your neighbors and then you can pick on other people says that you use power aggressively.

The point of power is to use it to hurt other people.

But what happened after World War II, and there was an attempt after World War I, but after World War II with this

extraordinary destruction, this extraordinary destruction that some people are trying now to downplay.

But it was truly horrific.

I mean, countries ruined, millions dead.

Anyway, at the end of that, the allies from World War II and their partners, there were some people who were not actually allied, but who come on board for this, decide something really cool.

And that's that they're going to use their power, not as offense, but as defense.