Mark Perry talks about General Lloyd Austin, Biden’s pick for Secretary of Defense. Austin is a military man through and through, but he isn’t your run-of-the-mill war hawk, explains Perry—instead, Austin has shown himself to be a strong advocate for diplomacy and restraint, likely the reason Biden has chosen him. Perry is optimistic about the potential foreign policy of the Biden administration: although Biden was a prominent cheerleader for the war in Iraq, he has moderated his positions somewhat in the intervening years, opposing U.S. support for the war in Yemen, and often representing the most dovish position in the Obama administration. Still, many of the rest of Biden’s cabinet picks have aggressive neoconservative sensibilities, and they could end up steering his administration in a bad direction.

Discussed on the show:

• “Biden’s Defense Secretary Pick Lloyd Austin Isn’t Who You Think” (Foreign Policy)
• The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of America’s Soldiers
  

Mark Perry is the author of Talking to Terrorists: Why America Must Engage with its Enemies, The Most Dangerous Man in America: The Making of Douglas MacArthur, and The Pentagon’s Wars. Read his work at The American Conservative Magazine and follow him on Twitter @MarkPerryDC.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: The War State, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Photo IQ; Green Mill Supercritical; Zippix Toothpicks; and Listen and Think Audio.

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