Glenn Diesen - Greater Eurasia Podcast George Beebe: A New U.S. Grand Strategy & Europe's Strategic Failure
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Jan 24, 2026 George Beebe, former CIA Russia analyst and director of grand strategy at the Quincy Institute. He discusses the end of the unipolar era and U.S. strategic overreach. He outlines America’s shifting geographic priorities and a messy transition to multipolarity. He critiques Europe’s inability to adapt and argues for realistic compromise over ideological framings in the Ukraine conflict.
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End Of The Unipolar Moment
- The post–Cold War unipolar order was unsustainably ambitious and led to "foreign policy insolvency."
- The U.S. must now prioritize limited resources and focus first on its immediate geographic neighborhood.
Prioritize Interests Over Global Ambition
- Prioritize national interests and match ambitions to capabilities when crafting grand strategy.
- Retrench where necessary and concentrate resources on what directly affects U.S. security and governance.
Geography And China As Priorities
- The new U.S. strategy ranks geography and China as top priorities after the homeland.
- America recognizes a shift to a polycentric world with peer and near-peer rivals needing balance-of-power management.