Episode 54
Special Edition: Carlos Roa - A Washington DC Rake's Progress
This week on Multipolarity, something a bit different.
We want to map the DC brain, from the inside.
Somewhere, inside the Washington Beltway, are a bunch of very smart people who often think alike. Be they at the State Department, the Pentagon, CIA, other parts of the Federal government, or think tanks, they have been tasked with projecting the global power of the world’s greatest empire.
They make the decisions. Someone has to.
And just as France has its Enarques. Or China has its unique mandarin examinations, the Foreign Policy bureaucracy of America have a common culture, a particular education, and a singular mindset. Yet it is so common, so super-dominant in our Western world, we seldom think to question its priors.
This week, we’re lucky to be joined by the very model of the modern wonk-general. Carlos Roa. A Contributing Editor at The National Interest, he was formerly the Executive Editor of the publication. He was Associate Editor of Horizons: Journal of International Relations and Sustainable Development and an analyst at the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development.
He knows DC from many different vantage points.
We wanted to use his experience of being an insider to chart the anthropology of the Washington Deep State. To talk about what it is to be part of the Washington power elite - how you get started. What schools you go to. What parties you go to. Who you meet and the fundaments of the shared world view they regurgitate to each other.
This episode is a Rake’s Progress, if you will. How To Get Ahead In DC, who you ned to step on, who you step round, to get to the top of the totem pole.
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For the full expanded edition, 90 minutes with Carlos, get us on Patreon:
