# Michael McFaul: America Is Burning Down Everything It Built. Its Enemies Can't Believe Their Luck

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/decoding-geopolitics-podcast-with-dominik-presl-6862131/michael-mcfaul-america-is-burning-down-everything-it-built-its-enemies-can-t-believe-their-luck
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/decoding-geopolitics-podcast-with-dominik-presl-6862131/michael-mcfaul-america-is-burning-down-everything-it-built-its-enemies-can-t-believe-their-luck.md
Podcast: [Decoding Geopolitics Podcast with Dominik Presl](https://stenobird.com/podcast/decoding-geopolitics-podcast-with-dominik-presl-6862131)
Published: 2026-04-11T08:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dominik-presl/episodes/Michael-McFaul-America-Is-Burning-Down-Everything-It-Built--Its-Enemies-Cant-Believe-Their-Luck-e3hngga
Audio file: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO4591257351.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/decoding-geopolitics-podcast-with-dominik-presl-6862131/episodes/michael-mcfaul-america-is-burning-down-everything-it-built-its-enemies-can-t-believe-their-luck
Duration seconds: 2158

## Resource

➡️ Watch the full interview ad-free, join a community of geopolitics enthusiasts and gain access to exclusive content on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingGeopolitics ➡️ Buy your own Geopolitics of the Western Pacific Map Print: https://decoding-geopolitics-shop.fourthwall.com/ ➡️ Sign up to my free geopolitics newsletter: https://stationzero.substack.com/ This is a conversation with Michael McFaul, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia and a special advisor on Russia to president Obama, professor of international relations at Stanford University and one of the most respected American experts on foreign policy and geopolitics. He is someone that I would call a typical transatlanticist - someone who spent his whole career working on build a strong alliance with Europe, promoting democracy abroad and deterring autocratic adversarial regimes - and so it’s really interesting to talk at a time when both US foreign policy and the world looks very very different. And so we talk about his thoughts on the war with Iran, whether it will end up as a strategic defeat for the United States and how it will change America’s standing and influence around the world. About the current crisis in the relations between Europe and the U.S., Trump’s desire to leave NATO, whether it's going to happen and whether it wouldn't be for the best in the end. And about the fight between autocracies and democracies that he writes about in his new book and how this fight changes if the world’s leading democracy doesn't seem that sure on which side it actually is and what it means for the rest of us - and much more.

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## Transcript

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