This interview features historian Walter Mead arguing that despite internal chaos, America keeps winning through information revolution and maritime trade advantages. He says Trump turns lying and drama into power, but warns it's not sustainable. Mead is bullish on India as an overlooked rising power, flags China as a risk for reducing global dependency to avoid being cut off in conflict, and notes Japan is rearming as a key variable.
Walter Russell Mead, in his appearance on the Invest Like the Best program, explores how the United States can sustain its global leadership. He outlines a five-step strategic playbook that has historically enabled the Netherlands, Britain, and the United States to become global hegemons, and argues
Walter Russell Mead is a columnist for The Wall Street Journal and author of Special Providence and God and Gold, who has spent decades studying the historical logic of America's global leadership. The core theme of this episode: The United States is experiencing a peculiar coexistence of a "dynamic nation and a collapsing world system" — the institutional network built after World War II is unraveling, yet America itself has grown stronger due to the information revolution. Mead presents a central judgment spanning 300 years: from the Netherlands to Britain to the United States, the maritime commercial liberal order has consistently defeated centralized continental powers, and this pattern is now replaying in the U.S.-China competition.
Mead argues that Trump has uncovered a core secret of contemporary power—turning fame into power, turning drama into power, while rendering himself entirely immune to conventional constraints.
Mead also notes that this does not guarantee a “happy ending”: Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo and exiled.
Mead proposes a core historical pattern spanning 300 years: from the United Provinces (Netherlands) to the UK to the US, the maritime commercial liberal order has consistently defeated centralized continental powers. He summarizes this as a "five-step plan for global dominance":
| Step | Content | Historical Example |
|---|---|---|
| Step One | Open domestic society | 17th-century Netherlands: tolerance of religious dissenters, scientists, and immigrants; Galileo would not have been imprisoned in the Netherlands |
| Step Two | Global trade | The Netherlands had 10,000 oceangoing vessels; wealth accumulation—Dutch paintings depict items from China, Turkey, and Brazil |
| Step Three | Invite others into the system | 19th-century British free trade: the British Navy fought pirates for everyone, including the US, which became a beneficiary |
| Step Four | Make participants dependent on the system | Germany discovered in WWI: after integrating into the global system, it could not access Argentine grain or Malayan rubber during wartime |
| Step Five | Cut off the opponent's connection to the system | This is one of the key reasons maritime powers win wars |
Mead maps this pattern onto US-China competition: China is attempting to reduce its dependence on the global economy through solar energy, hydropower, and coal reserves—"they are trying to avoid the trap of relying on the global economy." The core logic of China's energy policy is: to be able to fight a prolonged war in the worst-case scenario of a US-China conflict.
Mead categorizes the traditions of U.S. foreign policy into four types and notes that the current Trump coalition is "a mix of Jeffersonians (isolationists) and Jacksonians (hawks)."
| School | Representative Figure | Core Philosophy |
|---|---|---|
| Hamiltonian | George H.W. Bush | A strong capitalist economy + global trade = national power; the government should help U.S. companies succeed |
| Wilsonian | Clinton Consensus | Promote democracy and international institutions; democracies do not fight each other |
| Jeffersonian | J.D. Vance | Avoid involvement in overseas affairs to protect domestic liberties; otherwise, the government becomes large, secretive, and high-taxing |
| Jacksonian | Marco Rubio | Peaceful like a Jeffersonian; when attacked, "eliminate enemies like rats" |
Mead argues that the "Tech Hamiltonian" school is an emerging key force:
Mead argues that since the 17th century, the key to power in the modern world has been "which countries can most effectively develop and harness the power of new technologies without exploding internally due to social pressures."
Mead points out that the stable post-WWII American society was composed of three classes, all of which are now in disarray:
| Class | Post-WWII Form | Current State |
|---|---|---|
| Industrial Working Class | Stable jobs, unions, pragmatic politics | Collapsed |
| Business Class | Professional managers, public companies, regulated monopolies | Collapsed |
| Expert/Technocratic Class | Decision-makers guided by peer-reviewed social sciences | Collapsed |
Mead argues that the "incoherence" within the U.S. is undermining any possibility of global stability — because the U.S. remains "the only potential pillar of global stability and organization."
Mead argues that the erosion of deterrence is the most significant geopolitical issue today—"What you want is not to help Ukraine win the war, but to make Russia find the consequences of attacking Ukraine so terrible that it is simply not worth doing."
Mead visited Ukraine twice and observed fundamental changes in the nature of warfare:
Mead argues that India is the most noteworthy source of power besides China and the U.S., and its worldview differs from both.
| Position | Analyst Stance | Key Data |
|---|---|---|
| China | Risk Warning (Primary Competitor) | In 1980, India's GDP was approximately 60-65% of China's; today it is about 17% |
| India | Bullish (Overlooked Rising Power) | 1.4 billion population, nuclear weapons, 86,000 grassroots groups meeting weekly |
| Japan | Neutral Observation (Key Variable) | Increasing defense spending, reshaping strategic doctrine |
| Israel | Neutral Observation (Too Small to Counter Iranian Hegemony) | — |
| Iran | Risk Warning (Threat from Deterrence Gap) | Can threaten desalination plants in Gulf states |
| Ukraine | Neutral Observation (Case Study of Changing Warfare) | One wounded soldier took 63 days to be evacuated |
1. Mead believes Trump's core innovation is "reducing the marginal cost of shame to zero" — Clinton discovered that shame only exists when permitted; Trump industrialized its deployment, shedding all conventional political constraints.
2. "From the Netherlands to Britain to the United States, 10 letters (UP→UK→US) encapsulate 300 years of modern history" — The pattern of the maritime commercial liberal order consistently defeating centralized continental powers is being reenacted in the US-China competition.
3. Mead argues the true logic of China's energy policy is "avoiding the trap of dependence on the global economy" — Solar power, hydropower, and coal reserves are all designed to sustain a long-term conflict in the worst-case scenario of US-China confrontation.
4. The rise of the "Tech Hamiltonian faction" is one of the most important geopolitical changes of the 21st century — The economic interests of tech companies (supply chain security, IP protection, employee patriotism) fundamentally differ from those of traditional multinationals (free trade, open markets, cheap immigrant labor).
5. Mead believes the erosion of deterrence is the biggest current geopolitical issue — "What you want is not to help Ukraine win, but to make Russia feel that the consequences of an attack are so terrible that it's not worth doing." Any solution short of deterrence involves a long, costly, and divisive war.
6. "Continuous military revolution" has replaced the "one-time revolution in military affairs" — The Ukraine war changes every six months; tanks and rifles may become as obsolete as cavalry charges and swords; the US, as the country with the most equipment, is most vulnerable to technological change.
7. Mead argues the information revolution drives civilizational divergence rather than convergence — The industrial revolution forced societies to converge (all needed factories and railways); the information revolution allows countries to use their own cultures as platforms, making Turkey more Turkish, India more Indian, and Japan more Japanese.
8. Mead's optimism about the US stems from "the abundance brought by the information revolution can solve seemingly intractable problems" — The healthcare cost revolution, federal deficits, and social security issues could all become solvable through technological breakthroughs; "the biggest problem is that abundance comes too fast, and we don't know how to manage it."