In this second installment of audience questions, viewers and listeners from nearly three dozen nations spanning six continents ask Hoover senior fellows Niall Ferguson, H. R. McMaster and John Cochrane about the durability of America’s “empire,” Putin’s war crimes, Henry Kissinger’s worldview, and the future of Western universities. Preceding all of that: an on-the-ground report from Cochrane in Tokyo, who is amazed that “it’s possible to run a city that is not a zombie apocalypse.”

ABOUT THE SERIES

GoodFellows, a weekly Hoover Institution broadcast, features senior fellows John Cochrane, Niall Ferguson, and H.R. McMaster discussing the social, economic, and geostrategic ramifications of this changed world. They can’t banter over lunch these days, but they continue their spirited conversation online about what comes next, as we look forward to an end to the crisis.

For more on this series visit, https://www.hoover.org/goodfellows.

0:00 Introduction
00:39 Japan: Differences between Japan and the US
6:33 How much longer do you guys think the US Empire will last?
11:57 Are bank failures government failures?
15:23 It seems reckless that the International Criminal Court charged Putin with war crimes, i.e., their “international rules-based order” versus a nuclear head of state. They've now explicitly made this into an existential struggle for both parties. Yay, or nay?
16:40 Can General McMaster please recount his experience of the great tank battle which he fought?
19:40 What is Henry Kissinger’s position on Ukraine?
22:39 What do the Good Fellows see as the key selling points of Western education in 2023?
28:58 What effect will the majority of Americans with differing values from our own have on the way our country governs, projects military strength and sees itself in the world order?
36:09 Lightning round
46:00 End