After the Fall: Reckoning with the End of History | Ian Shapiro

In Episode 485 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Yale political scientist Ian Shapiro—author of After the Fall—about how the widespread optimism of the post–Cold War era gave way so rapidly to the fractured, combative politics of today, why American unilateralism hollowed out the very international institutions the US claimed to champion, and what it will take for mainstream democratic parties to recover their legitimacy in the populist era. The first hour traces the critical decisions of the 1990s and early 2000s that Ian believes set this unraveling in motion: the choice to enlarge NATO eastward and invest meaningfully in Russia's post-Soviet transition, and the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia as the first major military action taken without UN Security Council authorization. They then turn to the unilateral invasion of Iraq as the seminal rupture in the international rules-based order, followed by the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath, which delivered a parallel blow to the elite consensus that had governed Western countries since the onset of the Cold War. The second hour opens with the 2011 intervention in Libya and the doctrine of the responsibility to protect, which Shapiro argues was cynically deployed to topple Muammar Gaddafi, leaving behind a failed state and further discrediting the international norms it was meant to uphold. From there, they trace the cascading fallout across the Middle East and Europe—through Syria and Ukraine—to the present moment, before turning to the central political question of the age: whether mainstream parties can deliver an industrial policy and a model of inclusive growth capable of addressing the economic grievances and insecurities driving the populist revolt across the democratic world. You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at https://hiddenforces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. 00:00 Introduction 03:36 Ian Shapiro's Background: South Africa, Yale, and the Study of Regime Change 07:04 From Optimism to Fracture: How the Post-Cold War Era Unraveled 11:47 The Core Argument: Unilateralism as the Root Cause 13:40 NATO Enlargement and the Missed Opportunity to Integrate Russia 17:06 Should NATO Have Been Disbanded or Expanded to Include Russia? 19:47 Clinton's Domestic Politics and the Decision to Expand NATO Eastward 22:11 Gangster Capitalism: How the West's Neglect Fueled Russia's Oligarch Era 25:01 The NATO Bombing of Yugoslavia: The First Unilateral Strike Without UN Authorization 27:05 Teaching the 1990s to Students Who Weren't Alive for It 31:09 Economic Insecurity and Why Gen Z Is Susceptible to Zero-Sum Politics 34:24 9/11, the War on Terror, and the Neoconservative Seizure of U.S. Foreign Policy 40:48 Why Toppling the Taliban Was a Choice, Not a Necessity 44:32 The Neoconservative Vision: Democracy at Gunpoint and American Empire 46:25 NATO's 2004 Expansion and the Road to the 2008 Georgia War 47:37 Putin's Munich Speech and the Bucharest Summit as the Point of No Return 49:15 The 2008 Financial Crisis: Shattering the Washington Consensus at Home and Abroad 51:50 Hypocrisy as the Catalyst: How Iraq and the Bailouts Destroyed Public Trust 53:56 Topics for the Second Hour If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts at https://apple.co/3fLSIgR Write us a review on Spotify at https://spoti.fi/3tv4zYr Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Follow Hidden Forces on Twitter:   / hiddenforcespod   Follow Demetri on Twitter:   / kofinas   Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 06/25/2026