Samantha Power’s journey from foreign policy critic to UN ambassador

Sep 26, 2019

Samantha Power, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former U.S. Ambassador to the UN, shares her remarkable journey from critic to policymaker. She discusses the psychological dynamics that lead ordinary people to commit atrocities, the failures of international responses to genocide, and the moral dilemmas faced in foreign policy. Power reflects on the complexities of interventions in Libya and Syria, the necessity for consistent U.S. values, and offers insights on navigating relationships with China and Russia. Her candid lessons reveal the challenges of balancing ethics and strategy in global affairs.

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INSIGHT

Fear in Human Nature

Samantha Power's books explore human nature in different circumstances.
One common thread is fear, driving both perpetrators and policymakers.

ANECDOTE

Bosnian Atrocity

Power recounts a horrific story from Bosnia of a father and son forced to commit an unspeakable act.
She questions what drives such extreme cruelty, beyond fear.

INSIGHT

Reckoning with Atrocities

Societies often refuse to acknowledge past atrocities unless forced to confront them.
Power cites examples of post-war Germany and Rwanda's Gacaca courts.

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Samantha Power reported from the killing fields of Bosnia. She watched a genocide that could’ve been stopped years earlier grind on amidst international indifference. What she saw there led to A Problem From Hell, her Pulitzer-prize winning exploration of why the world permits genocide to happen. She emerged as a fierce critic of America’s morally lax foreign policy, a position that led to a friendship with Barack Obama, and then a series of top jobs in his administration, culminating in ambassador to the UN. Power’s new book, The Education of an Idealist, is a memoir of this journey.

It is rare that an outspoken critic of the foreign policy establishment becomes so powerful within it. But that’s what makes Power’s career, and the lessons she learned, so interesting. In this conversation we discuss:

- What causes ordinary people to participate in genocide

- Why policymakers so often fail to respond to genocide before it is too late

- Whether foreign policy decisions are too restrained by the overreaches and mistakes of the previous generation

- Power’s reflections on Libya, Syria, South Sudan, and more

- How the US’s inconsistent moral stances undermine its strategic interests

- The blurry line between morality and strategy in foreign policy

- How the next administration should handle US relationships with China and Russia.

- The case for being “unreasonable,” even as a policymaker

And much more. This conversation is weedsy at times, but in a way that I think is telling: It’s a window into the agonizing complexity and impossible choices that define foreign policymaking.

Book recommendations:

Switch by the Heath Brothers

The Abandonment of the Jews by David S. Wyman

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.com

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