💬 We used to live in a kind of high-trust globalization. What we have now is a world of great connectivity — but high-fear globalization.
🎙️Episode Details
Guest: Steve Clemons
Title: The Man About Town in a Fragmenting World
Host: Lyric Hughes Hale
Producer: Sam Fu
Recorded: Mon Feb 16, 2026 · 60 minutesEpisode Overview
What happens when the era of high-trust globalization gives way to something more conditional, more fractured—and far less certain?
On this episode of The Hale Report, Lyric Hughes Hale speaks with journalist and global policy convener Steve Clemons, a longtime observer of power, who has spent decades moving between Washington, journalism, and the world’s major geopolitical forums—from Tokyo and Brussels to Davos.
Clemons did not come to journalism through the usual route. Trained in economics, policy, and U.S.–Asia relations, and shaped by a childhood spent on U.S. military bases abroad, he built a career convening conversations among policymakers, business leaders, and thinkers across ideological and national lines. That perspective informs a wide-ranging discussion of how global alliances, domestic politics, technology, and journalism itself are being reshaped in real time.
From the legacy of Chalmers Johnson’s developmental state to Japan’s political transformation under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, from NATO’s evolving role to the growing power of Big Tech, Clemons argues that the world is reorganizing into more conditional and ad hoc arrangements. The United States remains central—but no longer unquestioned.
At home, he sees a Washington defined by internal fractures and performative politics, while globally the risk of conflict may arise less from deliberate strategy than from miscalculation in an increasingly unstable system.
Underlying the entire conversation is a quieter theme: the role of journalism in such a moment. In an era of fragmentation and personality-driven media, Clemons offers a reminder that the journalist’s task remains what it has always been—to illuminate reality, not become part of the spectacle.
About our Guest
Steve Clemons is a journalist, policy strategist, and global convener. He serves as Editor-at-Large of The National Interest and is the founder of Widehall, an international forum convening leaders across policy, business, and media.
Over the course of his career, Clemons has held senior roles at The Atlantic, The Hill, and Semafor, and founded the influential Washington policy blog The Washington Note. He has worked closely with leading figures in U.S. foreign policy and international economics and has been recognized internationally for his contributions to transatlantic understanding.
He is widely known for bringing together diverse voices across ideological and national divides to foster substantive global dialogue.
Topics Discussed
The formative influence of growing up abroad and entering journalism through policy and economics
Chalmers Johnson, industrial policy, and lessons for China and the United States
Japan’s political evolution and the leadership of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi
The shift from “high-trust” to “high-fear” globalization
NATO, conditional alliances, and Europe’s emerging strategic autonomy
Washington’s internal political fractures and performative partisanship
Big Tech’s growing structural power and parallels to the robber-baron era
AI, surveillance, and the future of privacy
The rising risk of accidental conflict in a fragmented world
The coming midterm elections in the US
Journalism’s credibility crisis—and the importance of remaining neutral, factual, and accountable
🎤 Key Moments
❝ Unconditional alliances are over. They are going to be more conditional and ad hoc.
❝ Both parties are an exercise in the study of schizophrenia.
❝ I worry more about escalation, miscalculation, and accident than deliberate war.
❝ Journalists are not the story. They should never be the story.
📚 Related Reading & References
Chalmers Johnson — MITI and the Japanese Miracle
Graham Allison — Essence of Decision
Thomas L. Friedman — The Lexus and the Olive Tree
Brad Smith — Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age
George Orwell — 1984
Richard Vague — The Banker Who Made America: Thomas Willing and the Rise of American Finance
💬 Join the Conversation
Feel free to share this podcast. To receive new episodes of The Hale Report and additional econVue insights, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
🎙️ About Our Host
Lyric Hughes Hale
Lyric Hughes Hale serves as Editor-in-Chief of econVue, a platform for economic and geopolitical analysis. She hosts The Hale Report, a podcast featuring conversations with leading policymakers, economists, writers, and strategic thinkers. She is Director of Research at Hale Strategic, and founder of the Hale Strategic Resources Initiative.
📍 Chicago
❝ I don’t think I’m the story. Everything I’ve experienced is the story.
— Steve Clemons
