Tucker Carlson’s recent interview with Vladimir Putin has touched off a firestorm of criticism in the Anglo-American press. An interesting turn of events considering that the United States and its allies are not officially at war with Russia. It was once the case that journalists would have jumped at the chance to interview the leader of a rival state, but now it seems to break message unity with the establishment on foreign policy is to commit an act of unofficial treason. Never mind that the interview is hardly being seen as an undisputed success in Russia. It is worth examining why this circling of the wagons has become the case.

The establishment press is majority liberal. Not necessarily in the sense that it is used in U.S. partisan domestic discourse, but in the philosophical sense. It is primarily made up of people who believe that an individual making choices in a marketplace of ideas and goods is the core unit of society. This usually comes with a set of assumptions- that history is teleological and linear with clear-cut right and wrong sides, and that economic development will cause political and economic convergence between different societies. Such a world view leads to an attitude which is akin to that of the missionary: If liberalism is a universal good, it must be expanded by any means. 

It is in this sense that much of the North Atlantic’s foreign policy focused press is also liberal. Regardless of if the author or publication is left, center, or right in official inclination when it comes to domestic issues. There is a kind of monoculture based around seeing the U.S.-led alliance network as ‘values based’ forces of light, against a nefariously defined ‘authoritarian’ alliance of darkness.

The multipolar world we are entering, however, is not an abstract choice by policymakers. It is an inevitability. The existence of a roughly three decade long interregnum of an unchallenged United States being able to imprint itself on as many parts of the globe as possible is coming to an end. Not because anyone lost their moxy or gumption, but because there are more countries, great and middle powers alike, that are much stronger now than before. The United States in the 1950s had almost half of the world’s industrial and economic power, today it is roughly a quarter. Its power is real and still unsurpassed, but the proportions vis-a-vis the globe have shifted dramatically.

The double standards between the rhetoric and practice of the “Pax Americana” have always been there, but recent events coupled with the diminishing ability of Washington to hold itself up as the global gold standard make them all the more glaring. Even the concept of human rights, itself the darling cause of a liberal press, is ultimately dependent on unipolarity in order to have any kind of globally applicable definition. As viable rival power poles continue to multiply in different regions of the world, causes such as these will see a multiplicity of values replace what was once assumed to be convergence. Whether one celebrates, laments, or is indifferent to this state of affairs, to accept this inevitably is to acknowledge the increasingly undeniable. 

But can the liberal-internationalist media foreign policy complex do so? This press culture has grown accustomed to two generations of constant self-validation building off of the fall of the Soviet Union- an event that fades ever more distantly into the past. Long flattered by the expatriates of their own profession (who share similar class backgrounds) who originate from less free countries and who seek better opportunities abroad with affirmations of loyalty to a democratic ‘west’, it is worth asking if this field as a whole is even capable of understanding that some societies may now want to pivot away from, rather than towards, the world view of internationalist liberalism.

Long used to not being challenged by different values or divergent interests, it seems quite possible, even probable, that the liberal press will have to run into the reality that not every foreigners is a poor oppressed drone with an inner American yearning to be liberated from the shell of their circumstances. Regionalism and nationalism are more likely to drive domestic pressures on the foreign policy of many states than the quest for political globalization. When journalists actively pine for a free world guaranteed by liberal hawkishness, they do so from the perspective of their concept of freedom dominating all others. The long-held ability to monopolize the media discussion on other countries by manufacturing conformism on issues related to human rights abroad is rapidly deteriorating in the face of growing distrust from the general public. 

As U.S. power diminishes in a relativistic sense towards most of the world, will the reporting on foreign affairs be able to psychologically adjust? The question is worth asking because the way in which this reporting is framed can often impact the general public discussion. Even simple adjustments such as taking the old Wikipedia’s policies on scouring ‘weasel words’ (i.e. value-saturated adjectives meant to tilt the reader’s perceptions included in supposedly unbiased reporting) could meet with pushback from journalists citing such small steps as ‘selling out to tyranny’ or ‘endorsing oppression.’ This means that as more regions of the world come into their own concept of statecraft priorities much of the press will actually increase its agitation for sanctions and military operations even as the capacity for the liberal states they are based in to engage in such interventions decreases. Will necessary cordial relationships with countries with different domestic values be too baffling to comprehend for a professional class so tied to a universalist worldview they see international relations as an extension of domestic culture war? Would a breakdown in relations between two liberal states precipitate an existential crisis among the commentariat? Most importantly, would diplomats be constantly hounded for doing their jobs in a sober and prudent fashion by a press that demands purity, leading to opportunistic politicians running against the practitioners of statecraft itself in order to court favorable press coverage?

These factors, if not addressed, pose a very real danger when the majority of the foreign policy press attempts to shape liberal discourse over a world that is unquestionably realist- where divergent interests, values, and capabilities must be taken as they are in an ever-changing and vaguely cyclic world. So the question remains, can a profession that has spent decades giving itself over to the missionary impulse adapt to a world where the hard compromises of diplomacy inevitably reign? And what happens if it does not?