The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s weekly radio program Rear Window, which explores “the history behind current events,” recently invited IWP’s Walter Kohler Professor of International Relations, Dr. John J. Tierney, Jr., to provide insight into the role of democracy in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. The July 27, 2011 episode of the program addressed the question, “How well has the U.S. lived up to the rhetoric [of being a defender of democracy]?”
Two other scholars, Dr. Clare Corbould, of Monash University in Melbourne, and Dr. James Carafano, of the Heritage Foundation, joined Dr. Tierney on the program; to read a transcript of it, please click here.
Commenting on Vietnam, Dr. Tierney said: “This too is a heritage of Wilsonian political dogma or philosophy: to see the world in terms of black and white, good or bad, good or evil, and to view the world mostly through the quasi-theological lens of a crusader.” He also remarked, “The relationship between the English-speaking peoples – and I include Australia, Canada, and New Zealand in this great bond – throughout the 20th century is probably … the most important single element that explains the century.”
In addition to his teaching and research as the Institute’s Kohler Professor, Dr. Tierney is the author of the forthcoming Conceived in Liberty: The American Worldview, Theory and Practice (2011), as well as Chasing Ghosts: Unconventional Warfare in American History (2006). He also serves as IWP’s faculty chairman.