Trump, Putin, and Genghis Khan

Fiona Hill has spent her career trying to understand—and, in one case, advise—leaders with grandiose ambitions, high risk tolerance, and an unshakable sense of themselves as world-historic figures. She has been a close observer of Vladimir Putin for decades, as a scholar and a member of the U.S. intelligence community. In Donald Trump’s first term, she was a senior member of the National Security Council before becoming a household name during Trump’s first impeachment, for testifying about his relationship with Putin and with Volodymyr Zelensky.

Read more Russia’s Descent Into Tyranny

Now, Hill is watching as Trump and Putin, as well as Xi Jinping and others, upend global order, and policymakers everywhere try to navigate the most turbulent period in recent memory—while the rest of the world tries to discern what might come in its wake.

Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke to Hill on the morning of Tuesday, May 5, about the wars in Ukraine and Iran, the predicament faced by American allies, and what Trump’s second-term foreign policy will mean for the future of American power.

Read more Why Putin Still Prefers War

Sources:

“How to Fight an Economic War” by Edward Fishman

“How Geopolitics Overran Globalization” by Eswar Prasad

“Russia Is the World’s Worst Patron” by Alexander Gabuev and Sergey Vakulenko

The Doom Loop by Eswar Prasad

This episode of The Foreign Affairs Interview was produced by Elise Burr and Kanishk Tharoor, with audio engineering by Christopher Koch and Markus Zakaria and original music by Robin Hilton. Special thanks to Irina Hogan.

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