The Chuck ToddCast
Interview Only w/ Ambassador Robert Blackwill - America Is Losing The World
18 Feb 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Chapter 2: What does Ambassador Blackwill believe about America's foreign policy consensus?
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Chapter 3: Why did the assumption about China's integration into the world fail?
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Chapter 4: What makes China the most dangerous rival for America?
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of a potential Taiwan invasion by China?
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Chapter 6: How does the current U.S. administration view military intervention regarding Taiwan?
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So if you spend any time thinking about American for a moment, you can feel the drift. Alliances are under strain. Trade is being redefined in some blunt transactional terms. The word multilateral has become suspect in certain corners of Washington. And hovering over all of it is the central strategic fact of our time. China is not just rising, it is competing. So here's the question.
Chapter 7: What are the risks of a peace deal in Ukraine for Russia's aggression?
What is America's grand strategy now? It's not a slogan, not a reaction, not a tweet, a strategy. My guest today has spent decades inside the machinery of American foreign policy trying to answer that question.
Ambassador Robert Blackwell is a former ambassador to India, former deputy national security adviser under President George W. Bush, and really one of the most seasoned strategic thinkers in Washington. He's now the Henry Kissinger Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
And he's out with a special council special report I had previewed for the audience a few weeks ago, actually, when it first came out. It's called America Revived, A Grand Strategy of Resolute Global Leadership. Basically, he's laying out an argument that is both a warning and a blueprint.
And I sort of viewed it as must, if you're running for president, whichever side of the aisle you're on, I felt this was something that I think The ambassador is hoping it will be something these candidates read and be thinking about as in case one of them actually wins the next presidency and can implement what is a 21st century national security strategy.
Chapter 8: How is Trump's foreign policy affecting U.S. alliances?
So Ambassador Blackwell joins me now. Bob, good to see you.
Good to see you. Thanks for having me.
So, look, you have. you know, you're, you're part of this world that I've, you know, that some people will criticize as the unit party, right. That there's always been a, and in the cold war, there really was the quote bipartisan consensus. And you talk about this in your piece and there is no consensus anymore on how, what America's role in the world should be at the moment.
And it struck me that what you were trying to do is make an argument for a new consensus. Is that fair?
That is fair. The consensus of which you speak, Chuck, governed America's approach to the world from the end of World War II to Mr. Trump. And it was pursued by presidents in both parties. They did it in certain different ways. But the essence was...
A foreign policy based on alliances, which every president thought contributed American strength to American values, which every president thought was the foundation of America's power projection into the world. And finally, avoiding the emergence of a peer competitor, which would dominate a crucial region. And I believe President Trump has rejected all three of those.
And so that has produced the debate that we're now acutely in.
So let's start with before we get into what you're what you're laying out. Let's start with what everybody got wrong on China. And it just feels like what, you know, I think, you know, whether it was Nixon and Carter believing you could bring them along, right? Frankly, ditto with Clinton and Bush in many ways, I would argue those four in different ways had big impacts.
And I think the assumption was that somehow the more we brought China into the free market economy, the more the people of China would see how great a free market economy is and would reject communism and it would over time essentially help us win the argument, if you will. That didn't happen, why?
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