The Great Conversation: Is Foreign Policy Still About the Nation?

Hello, everyone! Today, I want to explore an uncomfortable but essential idea: what if U.S. foreign policy is no longer primarily about national interests, security, or the so‑called “liberal international order,” but about something much more personal—about private enrichment and the power of one man and his inner circle?

The Foreign Affairs article “The Age of Kleptocracy” by Alexander Cooley and Daniel Nexon argues that under President Donald Trump’s second term, U.S. foreign policy has become fundamentally kleptocratic: in other words, a tool to increase the wealth, status, and impunity of the president, his family, and his loyalists.​

In this episode, I’ll walk you through what that means, how it breaks with traditional assumptions about U.S. statecraft, and what it tells us about the emerging global order.

Let’s start with a simple question: what is kleptocracy?

Kleptocracy literally means “rule by thieves.” It describes systems where those in power use the state as a vehicle for private gain—diverting public resources, bending laws, and weaponizing institutions to enrich themselves and protect their impunity.​

We often associate kleptocracy with authoritarian regimes: oligarchs close to the Kremlin in Russia, military‑linked networks in places like Sudan, or business‑political cartels in South Africa under Jacob Zuma. In these systems, public office is not a trust; it is an asset, a revenue stream to be exploited.

What Cooley and Nexon argue is that this logic—the logic of kleptocracy—now sits at the heart of U.S. foreign policy.

To understand how radical this claim is, we need to recall the traditional story that U.S. elites tell about American foreign policy.

In the mainstream debate, there are fierce disagreements—liberal internationalists versus realists, restraint advocates versus primacists—but they all share one underlying assumption: that the purpose of U.S. foreign policy is to advance some conception of the national interest or the global good.​

Even when analysts argue that Washington has blundered, they still assume that leaders are trying, at least in theory, to serve the public interest: to defend the country, promote prosperity, or uphold a set of values—democracy, human rights, the rule of law.​

That’s why policy papers talk about what “the United States” should do, as if the state has interests that rise above any one individual, any one administration, or any one party.​

Cooley and Nexon say: that assumption no longer holds.

According to “The Age of Kleptocracy,” Trump’s second term is best understood not through the usual lenses of realism, liberalism, or “great‑power competition,” but as a kleptocratic project.​

Analysts spent years trying to pin down his approach. Some saw him as a crude realist focused on power and bargaining. Others thought he wanted great powers to collude and divide the world into spheres of influence. Almost everyone described his style as “transactional”—the “art of the deal” projected onto global politics.​

But Cooley and Nexon argue that all of these interpretations commit a category error. They start from the false premise that Trump’s primary goal is to advance U.S. national interests.​

Instead, they show a pattern in which foreign policy decisions are consistently used to:

• Increase Trump’s personal wealth.

• Elevate his status, both domestically and internationally.

• Benefit a tight circle of family members, business partners, and political loyalists.​

On this view, U.S. foreign policy is no longer merely distorted by corruption; it is organized around it.

If foreign policy becomes a vehicle for private gain, then independent institutions turn from assets into obstacles.

The article emphasizes how the Trump administration has systematically tried to subvert or disable the very bodies that once channeled and constrained U.S. foreign policy: the National Security Council, the State Department, the Defense Department, and the professional diplomatic and civil service apparatus that supports them.​

Why? Because these institutions embody the idea that officials occupy their positions as a public trust. They are supposed to provide expertise, continuity, and legal constraints that prevent foreign policy from becoming a personal fiefdom.​

In a kleptocratic logic, you don’t want those constraints. You want loyalists who will blur the line between the president’s private interests and the country’s official position, who will treat access to the U.S. state as a tradable commodity.​

So, dismantling or capturing institutions isn’t a side effect of Trump’s style—it is a necessary condition for sustaining a kleptocratic foreign policy.

One of the article’s most striking points is how the administration collapses the distinction between private gain and national purpose.​

The White House routinely invokes “U.S. national interests” to justify decisions that, on closer inspection, primarily benefit Trump’s businesses or his political network. Deals that channel money, contracts, or prestige to friends and donors are publicly framed as strategic masterstrokes.​

Many news reports still treat these benefits as “side payments” or perks—corrupt, yes, but incidental to a larger national strategy. Cooley and Nexon suggest that we invert the logic: the private benefits are the strategy.​

This reframing also explains the obsession with loyalty. In a kleptocracy, loyalty is not about ideology; it’s about complicity. Those who share in the spoils have every incentive to protect the leader and to undermine any investigations that might expose the network.

Around the world, we see kleptocratic autocracies and captured states where elites use grand corruption, offshore finance, and transnational networks to enrich themselves and entrench their rule. From Russia’s oligarchic system to military‑backed regimes that trade natural resources for security support, these networks connect domestic corruption to international influence.

The disturbing implication is that under Trump’s second term, the United States no longer stands outside this system as a regulator or opponent of kleptocracy—it increasingly participates in it.​

Instead of leading a coalition against transnational corruption, the U.S. becomes another hub in a global marketplace where access to state power is bought, sold, and exchanged among elites.

You might ask: isn’t corruption just politics as usual? Why does it matter if foreign policy is somewhat more “personal” or “transactional”?

Cooley and Nexon’s answer is that kleptocracy fundamentally erodes democratic accountability and national security.

First, when foreign policy serves private interests, the public loses any meaningful say over the strategic direction of the country. Elections become less about alternative visions of the national interest and more about choosing which network of insiders will control the spoils.

Second, kleptocratic foreign policy creates vulnerabilities. Deals struck to help friends, family, or creditors can entangle the United States in risky alignments, obscure financial ties, and compromised relationships that adversaries can exploit.

Third, it corrodes the credibility of U.S. commitments. Allies and partners no longer know if Washington’s promises reflect enduring interests and legal obligations, or simply the president’s latest business or political calculus.

For scholars, journalists, and citizens, “The Age of Kleptocracy” is also a warning about how we analyze power.​

If we cling to the assumption that U.S. foreign policy is always about some abstract “national interest,” we will miss what is really going on. We’ll misread patterns of behavior, misjudge risks, and underestimate the extent to which institutions have already been captured.​

The authors suggest that we need to take seriously the possibility that leaders in a major democracy can, in fact, wield state power primarily for personal gain—and that this requires a different set of analytical tools and political responses.

That includes strengthening transparency, regulating conflicts of interest, and rebuilding institutional safeguards that make it harder for any one individual to convert foreign policy into a private revenue stream.

Let me end with this thought.

When we talk about grand strategy, we usually talk about ideas—containment, engagement, great‑power competition. “The Age of Kleptocracy” reminds us that sometimes, the grand strategy is much more basic: use the power of the state to get rich, stay immune, and reward those who protect you.​

If that’s the logic shaping U.S. foreign policy today, then debates about left versus right, hawk versus dove, may be missing the point. The real fault line is between public purpose and private plunder.

Thank you for listening to The Great Conversation. If you found this episode useful, please share it, leave a review, and let me know what you’d like me to cover next. 

And now, in light of this reflection, please click the link and then continue with the article below from Foreign Affairs for a deeper understanding of today’s discussion.

The Age of Kleptocracy | Foreign Affairs