torture | Forthright Radio

Our guest on this edition of Forthright Radio is the Fred Harvey Harrington Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, Alfred McCoy.

For well over five decades he has specialized in the foreign policy of the United States, European colonization of Southeast Asia, and CIA covert operations and illegal international drug trade. In June of 1972, he testified before the US Senate Committee on Appropriations’ Foreign Operations Subcommittee, testifying that American officials were condoning and even cooperating with corrupt officials at the highest levels in Southeast Asia’s illegal drug trade out of political and military considerations. He testified that the CIA chartered Air America aircraft and helicopters in northern Laos to transport opium harvested by their “tribal mercenaries”.

His multiple awards winning books include, THE POLITICS OF HEROIN IN SOUTHEAST ASIA: CIA COMPLICITY IN THE GLOBAL DRUG TRADE; A QUESTION OF TORTURE: CIA INTERROGATION, FROM THE COLD WAR TO THE WAR ON TERROR; IN THE SHADOWS OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY: THE RISE AND DECLINE OF US GLOBAL POWER; and TO GOVERN THE GLOBE: WORLD ORDERS AND CATASTROPHIC CHANGE. He was our guest when those last two were published. His latest book is COLD WAR ON FIVE CONTINENTS: A GLOBAL HISTORY OF EMPIRE AND ESPIONAGE, published by Haymarket Books.

As in his earlier books, he reiterates the importance of maintaining dominance over the heartland of the “World Island,” comprised of Eurasia and Africa, which was articulated in Halford John Mackinder’s 1904 article, “The Geographical Pivot of History.”

Articles pertinent to this interview:

America Is Waving the White Flag in the New Cold War https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/21/opinion/us-china-cold-war-tariffs-trump.html

‘The powerful have their power. We have the capacity to stop pretending’: the Canadian PM’s call to action at Davos https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/21/mark-carney-davos-canadian-prime-minister-donald-trump-new-world-order

How Trump is Demolishing U.S. Global Power and Its World Order https://tomdispatch.com/in-the-autumn-of-americas-empire/

Energy Policy and the Politics of American Decline https://tomdispatch.com/ozymandias-on-the-potomac/

Thousands of Chinese Fishing Boats Quietly Form Vast Sea Barriers https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/01/16/world/asia/china-ships-fishing-militia-blockade.html

Expiry of nuclear weapons pact between US and Russia risks new arms race https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/03/expiry-nuclear-weapons-pact-us-russia-arms-race

C.I.A. World Factbook Ends Publication After 6 Decades https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/us/world-factbook-cia.html

The Secret History of the Deep State https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/08/opinion/trump-nixon-watergate-radford.html

The risk of nuclear war is rising again. We need a new movement for global peace https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/08/nuclear-war-risk-rising-global-peace

5 Times the US Invoked the Monroe Doctrine https://www.history.com/articles/times-the-usa-invoked-monroe-doctrine?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

Further Back to the Future: Neo-Royalism, the Trump Administration, and the Emerging International System https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/further-back-to-the-future-neoroyalism-the-trump-administration-and-the-emerging-international-system/ABB12906CA345BBCA5049B544363D391#article

How to Read Scrooge McDuck in the Age of Donald Trump https://tomdispatch.com/trumps-foreign-policy-the-comic-book-edition/

Firesign Theater Temporarily Humboldt County https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqUyI5IIDOM&list=RDFqUyI5IIDOM&start_radio=1

This edition of Forthright Radio was originally broadcast on October 4, 2017, the 60th anniversary of the launching by the Soviet Union of Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite, which triggered the Space Race.

Our guest today, Professor Alfred McCoy, writes of this and much more about the history for global dominance in his latest book, IN THE SHADOWS OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY: THE RISE AND DECLINE OF US GLOBAL POWER, just published by Haymarket Books.

Alfred McCoy, who holds the Harrington Chair in History at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, has been shaking up our understanding and beliefs about the role of the United States in the world since 1970, when he co-edited LAOS: WAR AND REVOLUTION .

His research led him to publish THE POLITICS OF HEROIN IN SOUTHEAST ASIA, in 1972, which led to his testifying before the foreign operations subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee in June of that year about the role of the CIA in the production and distribution of heroin. Among his numerous other books are POLICING AMERICA’S EMPIRE: THE UNITED STATES, THE PHILIPINES AND THE RISE OF THE SURVEILLANCE STATE; A QUESTION OF TORTURE: CIA INTERROGATION, FROM THE COLD WAR TO THE WAR ON TERROR. In 2012 Yale University awarded him the Wilbur Cross Medal for work as “one of the world’s leading historians of Southeast Asia and an expert on … international political surveillance.”

In this interview, we discuss the geopolitics of global dominance; the covert netherworld of U.S. government agencies colluding with international drug cartels at the same time the military ineffectively attempts to eradicate opium production in Afghanistan; the rapid rise of China as a dominant force; cyberwarfare; the vulnerability of our and much more.

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Alfred McCoy – IN THE SHADOWS OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY: THE RISE AND DECLINE OF US GLOBAL POWER