Ambassador Nicholas Burns is the 2019 Rothschild & Co Distinguished International Fellow at the Lowy Institute. He is one of America’s most eminent former diplomats, having served under Republican and Democrat administrations in a 27 year career in the foreign service. He was US Ambassador to NATO and later Under Secretary for Political Affairs, the State Department’s third-ranking official. He is now a Professor of Diplomatic Practice and International Relations at Harvard University, and has more recently joined former vice president Joe Biden’s campaign as foreign affairs advisor.
In Episode 12 of the Lowy Institute’s podcast, Rules Based Audio, out today, Ambassador Burns talks about the instability of US foreign policy under Trump and how to recover from it, the centrality of US alliances in great power competition with China, and also why he rejects former US Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ pointed criticism of Biden’s foreign policy record.
Rules Based Audio is a half-hour, fortnightly podcast covering stories from the cracks and faultlines in the global order, hosted by Kelsey Munro and powered by the Lowy Institute.
Subscribe to Rules Based Audio on Apple Podcasts, listen on SoundCloud, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
