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“They’re Not Like Us”: Michael McFaul on Autocrats vs. Democrats and the Fight for the Twenty-First Century | Peter Robinson | Hoover Institution

March 2, 2026·1 hr 12 min·6 clips

Putin told Biden's delegation directly: 'You look like us — you think we think like you, but we don't.'

Peter Robinson begins with the biography before getting to the argument. He traces Michael McFaul from Montana to Stanford, the Obama National Security Council, and his time as ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014. Then the book takes over. Robinson pulls from Autocrats vs. Democrats on America's relative decline and continued primacy, then asks the blunt question underneath the episode: what does the United States have that Russia and China do not? From there, the conversation turns strategic. On Elbridge Colby, McFaul accepts the hard part. American resources are limited, and preventing war over Taiwan is a paramount national security interest. But he rejects the clean separation of Ukraine and Taiwan. Ukraine, for him, is the hinge. If Putin wins and America looks weak, Xi Jinping has more reason to think military force against Taiwan can succeed. Robinson sharpens the point: in this view, defending Taiwan runs through Ukraine because autocrats watch strength and weakness across borders. McFaul then reaches back to Vietnam, Angola, and Mozambique as examples of defeats changing how American power was read elsewhere. Recovery, he argues, takes time. Weakness had to be followed by a later restoration of strength before the mood shifted. The closing turns inward. McFaul says Americans cannot keep calling fellow citizens enemies and still expect to win the twenty-first century. Patriotism needs unity. Without it, he warns, the United States loses the century to China.

As heard by us

McFaul turns great power rivalry into a clear argument about strength, weakness, and the link between Ukraine and Taiwan.

Michael McFaul makes the case that the fight between autocrats and democrats is really about power, deterrence, and how strong the United States looks to others, and Peter Robinson lets him build it out without crowding him.

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Why you'd press play

You want a sober guide to the Ukraine-Taiwan link and why McFaul says they are related.

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