#401 – John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3
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The following is a conversation with john mr. Hammer, a professor, a university chicago and one of the most and controversial thinkers in the world he teaches, speaks and rights about the nature of power war on the global stage in history. And today, please allow me, me to say once again my hope for this little journey, amon, I will speak to everyone on all sides with compassion, with empathy and with backbone.

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Can you explain your view on power in international politics as outlying your book, the tragedy of great power politics and in you're writing since then.

yeah, make two sets of points there. First of all, I believe that power is the currency of international relations, and by that I mean that states are deeply interested in the baLance of power and their interested in maximizing how much power they control. And the question is why states care so much about power? In the international system, there is no higher authority.

So if you get into trouble and you dow nine one one, there's nobody at the other end. In a system like that, you have no choice but to figure out for yourself how best to protect yourself. And the best way to protect yourself is to be powerful, to have as much power as you can possibly gain over all the other states in the system.

Therefore, states care about power because IT enhances or maximizes their prospects for survival. Second point I would make is that in the realist story, or in my story, power is largely a function of material factors are the two key building blocks of power or population size and wealth? You want to have a lot of people and you want to be really wealthy. Of course, this is why the united states is so powerful. IT has lots of people and IT has lots of wealth. China was not considered a great power until recently a because IT didn't have a lot of wealth, certainly had population size, but I didn't have wealth and without both a large population and much wealth you usually not considered a great power uh so ah I think power matters uh but when we talk about power, it's important to understand that is a population size and wealth that they .

are underpinning IT. So there's a lot interesting things that are first, you said nations in relation to each other are is essential and state of anarchism yeah well.

anarch basically means the opposite of higher archy. Sometimes as people think when you're talking about anna chy, you're talking about murder and but that's not what anerton chy means. In the realist context, anarchy simply means that you don't have higher archy.

There's no higher authority that sits above states. States are like pool balls on a table, right? And in an anarchic world, uh, there is no hier authority that you can turn to, uh, if you get into trouble.

And of course, the political philosopher who laid this all out with Thomas hobs and hobs talked about life in the state of nature. And in the state of nature you have individuals, and those individuals compete with each other for power. And the reason that they do is because in the state of nature, by definition, you have no higher authority.

And hob's view is that the way to get out of this terrible situation, where individuals are competing with each other and even killing each other, is to create a state, is what he calls the other than. And that course is the title of his famous book. So the idea is to escape, you create a state, and that means you go from anarchy to high archy.

The problem in international politics is that there is no world state, there is no hierarchy. And if you have no higher archy and you're in an anarchic system, you have no choice but to try to maximize your relative power to make sure you are. As we used to say when I was a kid on new york city playgrounds, the biggest and bad is dude on the block, not because you necessarily want to beat up on other kids or other states, but because, again, that's the best way to survive.

And as I like to point out to people, the best example of what happens when your weak in international politics is what the chinese called the century of national humiliation. From the late eighteen forties to the late nineteen forties to chinese were remarkably weak. And the great powers in the system prayed upon them and um that sends a very important message to not only the chinese but the other states in the system. Don't be weak, be as powerful as you can.

And we will talk about IT. But humiliation can lead to resemble, resemble, leads to something you've also studied, which is native germany in the nineteen nineteen thirties, will talk about IT. But staying to the psychological philosophy picture, what's the connection between the will to power in the individual, as you mentioned, and the will to power in a nation.

the will to power in an individual has a lot to do with individual psychology. Uh, the story that I tell about the pursuit of power is a structural argument. It's an argument that says when you are in a particular structure, when you're in a system that has a specific architecture, which is the states have no choice but to compete for power.

Uh, so structure is really driving the story here. Will to power has a lot more to do with an individual, uh, in in the nature story where that concept comes from. So IT is very important to understand that i'm not arguing that states are inherently aggressive, right?

My point is that as longer states are in anarch, right, they have no choice but to behave in an aggressive fashion. But if you went to a hierarchy c system, there's no reason for those states to worry about the baLance of power. Because if they get into trouble, there is a higher authority that they can turn to. There is an effect of eaon.

So what is the role of military might in this will to power on the national level.

while military mites were ultimately matters? As I said he before, the two building blocks of power or population size and wealth.

you don't mention military.

I did not know. That's right. And it's good that you quite that because if you have a large population and your wealthy country, what you do is you build a large military and it's ultimately the size of your military that matters uh, because military fight wars. And if states are concerned about survival, which I argue is the principal goal of every state in the international system, for what I think are obvious reasons, then they're going to care about having a powerful military that can protect them. If another state comes after them.

what's not obvious that a large nation with a lot of people and a lot of money should necessarily build a gigantic army and seek to attain superpower like dominant soul, superpower status? The military might. But you're saying, as you see the world today, IT has to be that way.

Yeah, i'm going IT is obvious if you're a state, the international system, uh, do you want to be weak? Uh, if you live next door and not germany or imperial germany or in polio ic france or even the united states, the united states is a ruthless great power. You surely recognize that.

And if you're dealing with the united states of amErica and you're vat put and you want to make sure you as powerful as possible, so the united states doesn't put its gun sites on you and come after you. Same thing is true with china. You want to be powerful in the international system.

States understand that. And they got a great length to become powerful. Just take the united states of america. When I started in seventeen eighty three, IT was comprised of thirteen misses colonies strung out along the atlantic sea board over time, you know the uh various leaders of the united states went to gray lane to turn that country into the dominant power in the western hemisphere.

And then once that was achieved in nineteen hundred, we've gone to great place to make sure that there's no peer uh competitor in the system. Uh, we just want to make sure that were number one. Uh, and my argument is that this is not peculiar to the united states.

Uh, if i'm china, for example, today, I would want to dominate asia the way the united states dominates the western hemisphere. They'd be false not to. If I were imperial germany, i'd wanted dominate all of europe the way the united states dominates the western hemisphere.

why? Because if you dominate all of europe from your imperial germany or an apoyo ic france, that no other state in the area or in the region can threaten you because you're simply so powerful. And again, what i'm saying here is that the structure of the international system really matters is the fact you're in this anarchic system where survival is your principal goal and where I can't know you're intentions, but you're in another state.

I can't know that at some point you might not come after me. You might. And if you're really powerful and i'm not, i'm in deep trouble.

yes. So some of the ideas underlying what you ve said, the offensive realism, which I would love to talk to about sort of the history of realism versus liberalism, but some of the ideas already mention anarchy between states, everybody trying to developing military capabilities. uncertainty. Such an interesting concept. States cannot be sure that other states will not use motor capabilities against them.

which is lots of enormous.

important, really worry. And so interesting because you also say that this makes realist more cautious and more peaceful. The uncertainty, because of all the uncertainty involved here, is Better to approach international politics with caution.

Really interesting to think about. And again, survival. Most states interesting. And survival. And the other interesting thing is assume all the states are rational, which most of .

the time .

you call this framework offensive, realism. Can you just give a overview? The history of the realism versus liberalism debate as world views well.

I think for many centuries now, the big divide within the world of international relations theory is between realism and liberalism. These are time honour bodies of theory. And before I tell you what, I think the differences are between those two bodies of theory, IT is important to emphasize that there are differences among real less and differences among liberals um uh so when you talk about me as an offensive real list, you should understand that they're also defensive real out there and there are A A plenty of liberal theories as well but uh basically real less believe that power matters, that states compete for power, and that war is an instrument of statecraft. And the liberals, on the other hand, have what I would say is a more idealistic tic view of the world.

This is not to say that they are naive or foolish, but they believe there are aspects of international politics, uh, that lead to a less competitive and more peaceful world than most will less say. And i'll lay out of you very quickly, what are the three major liberal theories today that I think we will give you a sense of the more optimistic perspective that is inherent in the liberal enterprise. Um the first and most important of the liberal theory is democratic peace theory.

And this is a theory that says democracies do not fight against other democracies. So the more the world is populated with democracies, the less likely IT is that we will have wars in this basic argument is inherent in Francis fuca as the end of history. He argues that democracy triumph over fascism in the twenties century.

IT then triumph over communism. And that means that in the future we could have more and more liberal democracies on the planet. And if you have more and more liberal democracies, and those democracies don't fight each other, then you have a more peaceful world.

That was his argument, is a very liberal argument. A realist like me would say that IT doesn't matter whether a state is a democracy or not, all states behave the same way. Because the structure of the system, getting back our earlier discussion about international anarch, the structure of the system leaves those states no choice, whether their democracies or autocracies. And again, the liberal view, this first liberal theory is that democracies don't fight other democracies, and therefore, the more democracy you have, the more peaceful the world.

Can I just sort of try to unpack that a little bit? So the democratic peace theory, I guess, would say that in democracy, leaders are elected, and the underlying assumption is most people want peace and so they will elect peace makers. So the more you democracy you have, the more likely have peace.

And then the real less perspective, what says that IT doesn't matter. The majority people want peace. The structure of international politics is such that superpowers want to become more super and powerful, and they do that through war.

You can't make that argument you're making about democracies because if you're saying that democracies are in climbed toward peace and the electorate pics leaders who are inclined for its peace, then you have to show the democracies are in general more peaceful than non democracies. And you can support that argument. You can find lots of evidence to support the argument that democracies don't fight other democracies.

So the argument I believe that you have to make, if you're onna support democratic piece theory, the main argument you have to make is that liberal democracies have a healthy respect for each other and they can assess each other's intentions if you're a liberal democracy and i'm a liberal democracy, we know we have value systems that argue against aggression and argue for peaceful resolution of crisis. And therefore, given these norms, we can trust each other. We can know each other other's intentions. Remember, for really less like me, uncertainty about intentions really helps drive the train. But if you talk in about two democracies, right, the argument there is that they know each other.

other's intentions. And for you, sure, maybe democracy reduced uncertainty a little bit, but not enough to stop the train.

I think that's right. Yeah, that's that's right. So that's democratic peace theory. yes. The second theory is economic and a dependent theory and that's the argument that in a world like the one that we live in and have lived in for a long time, there's a great deal of economic interdependence.

And if you and our two countries, uh, or a few mere two countries and h were economically independent and were both getting prosperous as a result of this economic intercourse, the last thing that we're going to do is start a war. Either one of us, because who would kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, is that kind of argument. So there you have an argument that the economic independence leads to peace.

And then the third liberal argument has to do with the institutions, sometimes referred to as liberal institutional ism. And this is the argument that if you can get states into institutions, will they become rule abiding actors? They will obey the rules, the dictate that war is not acceptable.

Uh, so if you get them to accept the U. N. Rules on when you can cannot initiate a war, uh, then you'll have a more peaceful world. So those are the liberal theories, and as you can tell, they're very different from realism as articulated by somebody like me.

Can you want maybe are you against the economic interdependence and in the institutions that institutions follow rules a little bit. So the golden goose with the golden eg, you're saying that nations are happy to kill the goose because, again, they want power.

If they think it's necessary to kill the golden goose because of security concerns, they will do IT. The point is that economic inter dependence, at its root, has prosperity as the covariant. In the real story, the core variable is survival, and survival always trumps prosperity.

So if you go back to the period before world war one were in europe is nineteen thirteen or early one thousand nine fourteen, what you say is that you have an intense security competition between all of the great powers. On one side, you have the triple alliance, and on the other side, you have the triple untag. You have these two alliance, and you have an intense security competition between them.

Okay, at the same time, you have a great deal of economic independence. It's amazing how much economic intercourses taking place in europe among all the actors, right? And people are getting prosperous or countries are getting prosperous as a result. But nevertheless, in the famous july crisis of nineteen fourteen, this economic prosperity is unable to prevent world war one because security concerns or survival is more important. So there are, you know, going to be lots of situations where prosperity and survival come into conflict and in those cases, survival win.

And um maybe you can speak to a different camps of realists. They said, offensive, defensive can draw the tension of those too yeah.

let me just back up a bit on that one. And you were talking about will to power before, uh, the first big divide between real less is structural reality and human nature.

Will is nice and .

hung Morgan, though, who was influenced by nature and therefore had that willed to power logic embedded in his thinking about how the world works, right? He was a human nature real. okay? I'm a structural realist, and I believe it's not human nature.

It's it's not individuals and some will to power that drives competition and war. What drives competition? War, is the structure of the system.

It's anarchy saying not as romantic as the human nature. Alist.

yeah, there's just A A world of difference between the two is just important to understand that.

So within that from the structural that there's a subdivision also of offensive.

indefensible inside the actual world, right? And you have a handful of really less who believe that the structure of the system Fosters competition. For sure, security competition.

But IT really rules out great petar war almost all the time. So IT makes sense to care about the baLance of power, but to focus on maintaining how much power you have. That's the defensive realism.

Maintaining how much power you have, not trying to gain more power because the argument, the defensive realism, is that if you try to gain more power, the system will punish you, the structure will punish you. I'm not a defensive ve real alist. I'm an offensive real alist. And my argument is that states look for opportunities to gain more power in every time they see or almost every time they see an opportunity to gain more power. Um and I think the likelihood success is high and the cost will not be great, we'll jump at that opportunity.

Just a link on the human nature perspective. How do you explain, hit, learn and not see germany? Just one of the more recent aggressive expansions through military might. How to explain that in the framework of offensive realism? Well, I think .

that naughty germany was driven in large part by a structural considerations. And I think you'll look an imperial germany, which was largely responsible for starting world war one, and of course, nazi germany is largely responsible for starting world war two.

What that tells you, what you didn't need of hitler t to start world world one, right? And I believe that there is a good chance you would have had world war to, in the absence of hitler, right? I believe the germany was very powerful.

I was deeply worried about the baLance of power in europe. And IT had strong incentives to behave aggressively, uh, in, in, in late nineteen thirties, early nineteen forties. So I believe that structure matter. However, I want to qualify that in the case of a ohler, because I do think he had what you would call a willpower.

I've never used that word to scribe him before, but it's consistent with my point that I often make that there are two leaders or there have been two leaders in modern history who are congenital aggression, uh, and one was napoli and the other was hitler. No, if you want to call that a will to power, you can do that. Are more comfortable referring to hit her as a congenital aggress or and referring to napoli as a congenital greaser, although there were important differences between the two because hitler was probably the most murderous leader uh in recorded history and napoli was not in that category at all. Uh but but both of them uh were uh driven by what you would call a will to power uh and that has to be married to the structural argument in hitlers case and also in the pollen case.

Is there some degree and human psychology side that resentment because of how because what happened after all the one LED to hitler early so much power than hitler starting world war two? This is the the human side. Perhaps the reason asked that question is also because you mentioned the century of humiliation on the china side. So so to which degree the humiliation lead to hit, learn and lead to world war too?

Well, the question of what LED to hitler is a very different question than the question of what had to world war two. Once hit, there was in power. I mean, after january thirty, one thousand thirty three, he's in power.

And in the question of what is driving him comes racing to the four, uh, is their resentment over the very side treaty and what happened to germany? yes. Did that matter? yes.

But my argument is the structure was the principal factor, uh, driving the train in in hitler's case. But what i'm saying here is that there were other factors as well as well. Resentment being one of them wilt power or the fact he was a congenital aggression in my lexicon certainly mattered as well. So I don't want to dismiss um your point uh about resentment.

So he'll n particular the way he wielded, the way he gained so much power, might have been the general resentment of the popular of the german populist.

I think that as a result of defeat, world war one and all the trials and tribulations associated with damage germany and then the coming of a the great depression or all of those factors definitely account for his coming to power I think that one of the reasons um that he was so successful IT winning over the german people once he came to power uh was because there was a great deal of resentment um in the german body politics and he played on that resentment that surely helped him get elected to but I think um having studied the case he was even more important once he took over I also believe that one of the principal reasons that he was so popular and he was wildly popular inside ni germany is because he was the only leader had been an industrialized country who pulled his country out of depression uh and that really mattered uh and a IT made him a very effective it's also worth noting that he was a remarkably charismatic individual I find that hard to believe because every time I look at a more listen to his speeches he does not appear to be charismatic to me but um i've talked to a number of people who are experts on this subject who assume that he was very charismatic and I would note to if you look at public opinion polls in germany, west germany, in the late nineties, this is the late 10 after the third rike is destroyed in one thousand forty five， he is still remarkably popular in the polls.

Stalling is still popular in many parts of eastern europe .

yeah and stolen popular in many quarters inside russia uh and stalls en murdered more of his own people than he murdered people outside of the soviet union.

And still to you, the ties of history turned not on individuals. Button structural considerations so so hitler may be a surface layer characteristics of how germany started work, but not the really the reason.

History is a multiple dimensional .

al phenomena hear .

and we're talking about interstate relations cy, and realism is a theory about how states interact with each other and there are many other dimensions to international politics. And if you're talking about someone like get off, hit their right, uh, why did he start world war two? Uh, is a very different question.

Then why did he, uh, start the holocaust? Why did he push forward the holidays? I mean, that's you know a different question and realism doesn't answer that question.

So I want to be very clear that, you know, i'm that someone who work is that realism answers every question about international politics. But IT does answer what is, you know, one of the big, if not the biggest, questions the I R. Scholars care about, which is what causes security competition and what causes great party war.

Does offensive realism answer the question why hitler attacked the soviet union? Yes, because from a military strategy perspective, yeah, there's present counts. That decision process counts to every decision.

The question is that he think that he could win a quick in the size of Victory and he did, I mean, as did his generals. It's very interesting. I've spent a lot of time studying in german decision making a in world war to look at the german decision um to invade poland on september first nineteen thirty nine and you look at the german decision rayed france on may tenth nineteen forty and then the soba union on gin twenty second nineteen forty one what you say is that was actually quite a bitter resistance to hitler in one thousand nine thirty eight at the time of checkout opake munich e and there is also quite a bit resistance in september nineteen thirty nine .

internally or internally.

internally for sure. Yeah, you people head doubts. They didn't think the very mark was ready. And given the fact of world war one had just ended about twenty years before, the thought of starting another european war was not especially attractive to lots of german policymakers, including military leaders. And then came friends nineteen forty.

In the runup to may nineteen forty a there was huge resistance a in the german army to attacked in france um but that was eventually eliminated because they came up with a clever plan, the manchon plan. If you look at the decision to invade the soviet union on due twenty second nineteen forty one, which is the only case where they fail, they succeeded in france. They succeeded in they succeeded uh, at munich in one thousand and thirty eight. So the union is where they fail is hardly any resistance at all, right?

Yeah well, to say that they failed the soviet union, I mean my grandfather, I mean from from the soil union, you know there is a lot of success is early on so there's poor military, I would say, a strategic decisions along the way. But IT was a IT caught sound of garden, but maybe you can correct me, but from my perspective, terrifying. Ly, so they could been successful if certain different decisions were made from a military perspective.

Yeah, i've always had the since they came terrifically close to winning and you can make the opposite argument that they were doomed um but I am not terribly comfortable making that argument. I think the very marked by the summer of nineteen forty one was a finally tuned instrument for war and the red army was in quite terrible shape a slan had perused the officer core uh they had performed poorly in finland um and there were all sorts of reasons to think that they were no match for the fireworks. And if you look at what happened in the initial stages of the conflict that proved to be the case um the germans one a lot of significant tactical Victories early on and if they focused .

and went to moscow as quickly as possible, it's again terrifying. Ly, so could have been basically to top 是 dn。 Um and one thing that that's .

possible that's possible fortunately, we're not going to run the experiment again. But one could argue that the had they concentrated as the generals wanted to do in going straight from moscow, that they would have won. I mean, what hitler wanted to do is he he wanted to go into the ukraine.

E, I mean, hitler thought that the main access there were three axes. The northern axis went towards lending grab. The central access, of course, went to moscow.

And then the southern access army group south, uh, headed towards ukraine. And deep into the caucuses, and heavy believed that that that should have been the main access. And in fact, in nineteen forty two, the soviet, actually me, the germans go back on the offensive in nineteen forty two.

This is Operation blue. And the main access and forty two is deep into the ukraine ine and into the caucus's. And that fails. But one could argue that had they done that in forty one, had they not gone to moscow, had they gone you, had they concentrated on going deep into ukraine and into the caucuses, they could have knocked the soviet out that way. I'm i'm not sure that in the end, I believe that I think in the end the soviets would have won no matter what. But i'm not a hundred percent sure of that.

So sometimes maybe you can educate me, but sometimes, you know, they say, just like with the polar winter defeat hitler in in russia, I think not often enough. People tell the story of the of the soldiers in the the motivation and how hard they fight. So, uh IT turns out the ukrainean and russians are not easy to conquer.

There are the kinds of people that don't roll over and fight bravely. There seems to be a difference in certain people, peoples, in how they see war, how they approach, or how proud they are to fight for their country, to die for their country, these kinds of things. So I think battle star tells, at least to me, a story of extremely brave fighting on the soviet side and that the component of war too, it's not just structural, it's not just military strategy, is also the humans involved. But maybe that's a romantic notion of war.

No, I I think there's a great deal truth in net but let's just unpack IT a bit in the case of the soviet union and rob ward to the counter argument to that um is that in world war one the a russian army disintegrated uh and if you look at what happened when napoli invaded in eighteen twelve, and you look at what happened in nineteen seventeen, and then you look at what happened between forty one and forty five, then the poly in case looks a lot like the hit their case.

And IT fits nately with your argument. But world, world one does not fit easily with your argument because the russians lost and surrendered yeah and you infamous trade of breath sloops where the soviet union then because IT went from russia to the soviet union, october teen sob union surrendered large amounts of, uh so be a territory because IT suffered humiliating defeat. My argument for why the russians, and let me take them back, why the soviet fought like wild dogs in world war two, is that they were up against the genocide adversary.

You might understand the the germans murdered huge numbers of soviet P O W. Uh, the overall total with three point seven million. And by december, december of one thousand forty one, remember the invasion is june forty one. By december of nineteen forty one, uh, the germans have murdered two million soviet P O W. At that point time, they had murdered many more P, O, W than they had murder juice.

And this is not to deny for one second that they were on a murderer RAM page when I came to juice, but they were also on a murderer rampage when I came to soviet citizens and soviet soldiers, right? So those soviet soldiers quickly came to understand that they were fighting for their lives. If they were taken prisoner, they would die. So they fought like wild dogs.

Yeah, you know, the story of the holocaust, six million juice is often told extensively. If a hitler, one concrete soviet union, it's terrifying to think, and a much grander scan in the holidays, what what would have happened to the slovic people, to the the 所谓 people people .

absolutely only have to do is read the hunger plan， right? And they also had had a plan um was a called grand plan east forget the exact name of IT uh which made IT clear that they were gona murder many tens of millions of people and by the way, I believe that they would have murdered all the polls and all the roa.

I mean, my view is that the jews were number one on the genocidal list, the roma, where the gypsies were number two and the polls were number three. And of course, I just explain to you how many P, O, W they had killed so they would event IT up murdering huge numbers of a soviet citizens as well. But people quickly figured out that this was happening. That's my point to you. And that gave them, needless to say, very powerful incentives to fight hard um against the germans to make sure that they did .

not win the fast ford in time but not in space. Let me ask you about the one ukraine. Why did russia and invade ukraine on february twenty forth, twenty twenty two? What are some of the explanations given and which do you find the most convincing? Well.

clearly the conventional is the is that putin um is prince will be responsible. Putin is an imperialist h he's an expansion ist.

That's the conventional thinking .

yeah yeah and the idea is that he he is bent on creating a greater russia uh and even more so he's interested in dominating eastern europe, if not all of europe um and the ukraine was the first stop on the train line and what he wanted to do was to conquer all of ukraine, uh incorporated into a greater russia, and then he would move on and conquer other countries. This is the convention of wisdom. My view is there is no evidence. Let me emphasize ze zero evidence to support that argument.

Which part that he would, the imperialist part, the sense that he would, he sought to conquer all of the crane and move on and on.

was no evidence he was interested in conquering all of ukraine. There was no interested. There is no evidence beforehand that he was interest in conking conquering any of ukraine ine. And there is no way that an army that had a hundred and ninety thousand troops at the most right could have conquered all of ukraine.

Just impossible, as I like to emphasize, when the germans went in to poland in one thousand thirty nine uh, and the german who wanted, remember, we're only intent on conquer the western half of poland because the soviet uh, who came in later that month, we're gona conquer the eastern half of poland so the western half of pole and is much small in ukraine and the germans went in with one point five million troops ah if um bad mir putin were bent on conquering all of ukraine, he would have needed at least two million troops I would argue we need three million troops because not only they need to conquer the country, you then have to occupy IT but the idea that one hundred ninety thousand troops was sufficient for conquer, uh, all of ukraine es is not a serious argument further more, he was not interested in conquer ukraine and that's why in march twenty twenty two, this is immediately after the war starts, he is negotiating with the landscape to end the war. There are serious negotiations taking place in istanbul involving the turks and enough toy. Bennet, who was the israeli prime minister at the time, was deeply involved in negotiating with both put in zelenski to end the war.

Well, if he was interested putin in conquering all of ukraine, when god's name would he be negotiating with landscape to end the war? And of course, what they were negotiating about was nato mention into ukraine, which was the principle cause of the war. Uh, people in the west don't want to hear that are argument, because if IT is true, which IT is, then the west is principally responsible for this bloodbath that's now taking place.

And of course, the west doesn't want to be principally responsible. IT wants to blame lad mir putin. So we've invented the story out of whole cloth, that he is an aggressor, that he is the second coming a vae off hitler.

And then what he did in ukraine was tried to to conquer all of IT, and he failed. But with a little bit luck, he probably would conquer all of IT, and he'd now be in the bolt states and eventually end up dominating all of eastern europe. As I said, I think there is no evidence to support this.

So maybe there's a lot of things to ask there. Maybe just to link on nature expansion. What is nature expansion? What is the threat of nato expansion? Why is such a concern for russia?

Nato was a mortal enemy of the soviet union during the cold war. It's a military liance which has at its heart the united states of america, which is the most powerful state on the planet. IT is perfectly understandable that russia is not going to want that military lions on its doorstep.

Here in the united states, we have, as you will know, what's called the mono doctor. And that basically says no great powers from europe or asia are allowed to come into our neighborhood and former military lions with anybody in this neighborhood. When I was Young, there was a thing called the cuban missile crisis.

The soviet had the audacity to put nuclear armed missiles in cuba. We told them in no uncertain terms that that was not acceptable and that those missiles had to be removed. This is our backyard, and we do not tolerate distinct great powers coming in to our neighborhood.

Well, it's good for the goose, is good for the gander. And if we don't like great powers come in entire neighbour d it's hardly surprising that the russians did not want nato on their doorstep. Uh they made that manifestly clear um when the cold bar ended and they exacted a promise for us that we would not expand nato.

And then when we started expanding nato, they made IT clear after the first ranch in one thousand ninety nine that they were profoundly unhappy with that. They made IT clear in two thousand four after the second chance, that they were profoundly unhappy with that expansion. And then in April two thousand and eight, when nato announced that, uh, ukraine and georgia would become part of nato, they made IT unequipped clear, not just putin, that that was not gonna en, they were drawing a red line in the sand. And IT is no accident that in August two thousand eight, remember the book a resubmit is April two thousand eight. In August two thousand and eight you had a war between georgia and russia and that involved at its core in nature expansion so, uh, the americans and their allies should have understood by at least August two thousand and eight that continuing to push to bring ukraine to nado was going to lead to disaster.

And I would know that there were all sorts of people in the nineteen nineties, like George kennon, William Perry, who was built, clinton, secretary defense, the chairman, the joint chief of staff, paul kitson, so forth and so on, who argued that nature expansion would end up producing a disaster which IT has I would know that um at the famous April two thousand, a book s summit where nato said that ukraine would be brought into the alliance, Angel mercer and nicolas sarkozy, the german and french leaders respectively oppose that decision, until merkel later said that the reason SHE opposed was because he understood that putin would interpret IT as a declaration of war. Just think about that, merkel is telling you that SHE opposed nato expansion into ukraine because he understood correctly that putin would see IT as a declaration of war. What at the united states and its friends and friends in europe do? They continued to push and push because we thought that we could push nature expansion down their throat after two thousand eight, the same way we did in nineteen ninety nine, in two thousand four.

But we were wrong. And IT all blew up in our face in two thousand and fourteen. And when IT blew up in our face in two thousand and fourteen, what did we do? Did we back off and say, well, maybe the russians have some legitimate security interest? No, that's not the way we Operate.

We continue to double down. And the end result is that in two thousand twenty two, you got a war. And as i've argued for a long time now, we, the west, are principally responsible for that, not vladimir.

So the expansion of nato is primarily responsible.

yes, to put in more general terms, what we were trying to do was turn ukraine into a western bulk work on russia's border. And IT really was a nature expansion alone. Nature expansion was the most important element of our strategy.

But the strategy had two other dimensions, one was E. U. Expand, and the third was the color revolution. We were trying to force orange revolution in ukraine, and the basic goal there was to turn ukraine into a pro western liberal democracy.

And that meant that you'd d have ukraine if IT worked as a prowest n liberal democracy that was in the E. U. And IT was in nato.

This was our goal. And the russians made IT unequipped clear ukraine was not gonna become a western bulk work on their border. And most importantly, they made IT clear that ukraine and nato was unacceptable.

Can we talk about the mind of later, or putin? You've mentioned that this idea that he has aspirations .

for .

imperial conquest, that he dreams of empire, is not grounded in reality. He wrote an essaying twenty twenty one, about one people. Do you think there is some degree to which he's still dreams of the former soviet union?

He's made IT clear that, uh, anybody with A A triple digit I Q, uh, understands that it's not to think about recreating the soviet union. He thinks it's a tragedy that the soviet union fell apart. But as he made clear in that essay, the july twelve, twenty twenty one essay and has he made clear in speeches before, immediately before he invaded ukraine, he accepted uh, the break up of the soviet union and he accepted the status quote in europe safe for the fact he did not accept the idea that ukraine would become .

part of nato he's been in power for over two decades is a degree that power can affect a leaders are ability to see the world clearly as they say corrupt um do you think powers corrupted? I like them. I put into a degree .

it's very hard for me to answer that question because I don't know him and i've not study hit him carefully. Uh, in terms of his overall performance over the course, you know, the twenty three years that he's been in power, i've studied him as a strategist and i've studied how he you know deals with the west and you know deals with the international system more generally since two thousand fourteen. And I think he is a first class strategists. This is not to say he doesn't make mistakes, uh, and he admits he's made some mistakes uh but um I think that the west is dealing with a formative adversary here um and I don't see any evidence that he's either lost speed off his fast ball or that power has corrupted his thinking about strategic affairs so he has consistently .

put as a primary concern security as does the united states he's put for russian security making sure that nado doesn't get close as boris .

I think that's clear yeah I think is a emphasize early honor conversation that leaders privilege security or survival over everything else and by the way, he gave a number of talks um and press conferences uh in addition to writing that famous article that you referred to until two thousand twenty twenty one. So we have you know a pretty clear record of what he was say.

I would argue what he was thinking in the run up to the war in february twenty twenty two. And if you read a what he said um it's quite clear that he privileged security or survival. He was deeply concerned about the security of russia.

And russia is a quite vulnerable state in a lot of ways, especially if you think back to what IT looked like in the nineteen nine dies. You know Better than I do. Uh, IT was in terrible shape.

Uh, the chinese talk about the century of national humiliation. One could argue that for the russians, that was the decade of national humiliation. And and IT took putin, I think, quite a bit of time to bring the russians back from the dead.

I think eventually succeeded. But a IT took a considerable managed, and I think he understood that he was not playing a particularly strong hand. He was playing something of a weekend and he had to be very careful, very cautious. And I think he was, uh, and I think that's very different than the united states.

The united states was the unique IT was the most powerful state in the history of the world, most powerful state relative to all its possible competitors from, you know, roughly nineteen eighty nine, certainly after december one thousand and ninety one, when the sober union fell apart. Up until, I would argue, about two thousand and seventeen, we were incredibly powerful even after two thousand and seventeen up to today, the united states remains the most powerful state in the system. And because of our geographical location, uh we are in a uh terrific uh situation to survive in any great per competition. So um you have a situation involving the united states that's different than the situation involving russia. They're just much more vulnerable than we are and and therefore, I think putin tends to be more sensitive about security than any american president in recent times.

Europe on one side, china the other side is a complicated situation.

Yeah and we talked before about eighteen twelve when Polly and invaded in moscow, ve got burned to the ground. We talked about world war one where the russians were actually defeated uh and surrendered uh and then we talked about thousand and forty one to one thousand and forty five or although thankfully, uh, so we had prevailed uh IT was a if IT was a cold call and I mean the casual is the destruction of the soviet union uh had inflicted on IT by the german is just almost almost hard to believe it's uh, so they are sensitive.

You can understand full well, or at least you should be able to understand full well or why the idea of bringing ukraine up to their border or really spoke them A I don't understand why more americans don't understand that just in the bottles. May I think he has to do what the fact that americans are not very good at putting themselves in the shoes of all the countries. And uh, you really if if you're going to be a first class strategist in international politics shift to be able to do that, you have to put yourself in the shoes of the other side and think about how they think so you don't make foolish mistakes.

And as a starting point, americans tend to see themselves as the good guys and a set of others as the bad guys. And you have to be able to empathize that russians think of themselves as the good guys, the chinese think of themselves as the good guys, and just be able to emphasize if they are the good guys. As I got that the funny skit are with the baddies, consider the united states could be the bad guys the first like, see the world.

If the united states the bad guys and china is the good guys, what does that world look like? Be able to just exist with that thought because that is what the chinese leadership and many chinese citizens, uh, if not now, maybe in the future, will believe. And you have to kind of do the calculation, the simulation forward from that. The same with russia, same with with other nations yeah.

I agree with hundred percent and just, you know, I always think of Michael c. Ford's stanford who was the american ambassador to, uh, russia.

I think between twenty twelve, twenty four teen and he told me that he told putin, uh, that putin didn't have to worry about nato expansion because the united states was a benee hydrogen and uh, I asked my what putin's response was to that and a mike said, didn't believe IT and but might believe that he should believe that and that we could move nato eastward to include ukraine and in the end we get away with IT because we are a benee hedger on but the fact is that not what you and so police saw us as a blind edman. And what mike thinks, or any american thinks, doesn't matter. What matters is what people and think.

But also, the drums of war have been beating for some reason. Nature expansion has been threatened for some reason. So you ve talked about nato expansion being dead. So like IT doesn't make sense from a geopolitical perspective on the europe side to expand nato but nevertheless has been echoed. So um why has little expansion been pushed from your perspective?

I think there are two reasons. One is first of all, we thought I was a wonderful thing uh to bring more and more countries in tomato. We thought that is facilitated peace and prosperity. He was ultimately offer the good um and week also thought that um uh countries like ukraine had a right to join. They know these are sovereign countries that can decide for themselves and the russians have no say in what ukraine wants to do. And then finally, and this is a point I emphasize before we were very powerful, we thought we could travel down their throat so so IT is a combination of those factors that let us to pursue what I think was ultimately a foolish policy.

I've talked about how words get started. How do you hope the warm ukraine ends? What are the waste ends, or what are the waste achieve? Peace there to enter them. I was a senseless death of Young man has always happens in more.

I am, said the sad. I don't have a good answer to that. I don't think there's any real prospect of a meaningful peace agreement, and I think it's almost impossible. Um I I think the best you can hope for at this point is at some some point the shooting stops ceasefire and then you have a frozen conflict uh and at frozen conflict uh will not be highly stable uh and the the ukrainians in the west will do everything they can to weaken russia's position.

Uh and the russians will go to great length to not only damage that dis functional rum state that ukraine becomes, but the russians will go to great length to so decently within the alliance. And and that includes in terms of transit lane relations. So you'll have this continuing security competition between russia on one side, ukraine in the west on the other even when you get a frozen peace uh and or you get a frozen conflict and and in the potential for escort lation, there will be great. Um so I I think this is a disaster .

that's a very realist perspective. Let me ask you for a the the human side of IT, do you think there's some power to leader sitting down having a conversation, man and man lead the leader about this? There is just a lot of death happening IT seems that from a economic perspective, from a historic, from a human perspective, both nations are losing is IT possible for various landscape and an lama, putin, to sit down and talk and to figure out away where the security concerns and both nations can minimize the lot of suffer this happening and and creative a past, future flushing.

I think the answer is no.

Even with the united states involved.

three people in the room. Well, I think you, if the united states involved, the answer is definitely no. But you have to get the americans out.

And then I think if you have slansky and putin talking, you know, you have a sliver of chance there. The americans are um a real problem. Look, let's go back to what happens right after the war starts.

Okay, as I said before, this is we're talking march early April of twenty twenty two the war starts on favorite twenty fourth twenty twenty two and as I said to you, um the two sides were negotiating in a stumble and they were also a negotiating through of toilet bennet and the bentz track and the turkish track were Operating together. I mean, they were not across purposes at all. What happened? Bennet tells the story very clearly that they had made significant progress in reaching an agreement.

This is a landscape on one side and put on the other. Bennet is talking in person to both pun and a landsat. And what happens to produce failure? The answer is the united states and britain get involved and tells a landscaped walk. They tells the lansky to walk if they had come in and encourage the lansky to try to figure out away with putin to shut this one down and worked with bennet and worked with eto on, we might have been able to shut the war down in, but was the united states.

Well, let me sort of a push back on the, you're correct, but it's the united states paints to like, picture that everybody y's a line. So I maybe you can correct me, but I believe in the power of individuals, especially individual leaders, again, when there is by in a trumPeter, whoever goes into a room and says in a way that's convincing, that no more nature expansion and actually just in a basic human level.

Ask the question of why are we doing all this senseless killing and look at the interest of one russia, look at the interest of the other ukraine. They're interest pretty simple and say, I say, is gonna out of this. We're not going to expand IT to and say all that in a way that's convincing, which is nato expansion is still at this point.

China is a big threat. We're not going to do this kind of conflict escalates with russia. The code was over, but that Normalized relations.

Let me just embedding your argument.

Okay, thank you. I need that.

If we say there's a sliver of a chance that you can do this, and I do think there is a sliver of a chance, let me just emma ellish your point. I can get .

two things .

have to be done here, in my opinion. One is a ukraine has to become neutral and IT has to completely severe all security ties with the west, right? H, it's not like a, you can say we're not going to expand nato to include ukraine, but we're going to continue to have some blue security arrangement with ukraine.

None of that has to be completely separate. Ukraine has to be on its own. okay? And number two, ukraine has to accept the fact that the russians are gonna keep the four o blasts that theyve now in next and crimea, right?

The russians are not gonna give them back. And what you really want to do, if you is the land skii or who's ever running ukraine in the scenario that we're positing, is you want to make sure the russians don't take another four o bloss. To include our chive and odessa, right?

If if i'm playing in putins hand and this war goes on, i'm thinking about taking four more old bus. I wanna take about forty three percent of ukraine and the next set to russia, right? And I certainly won a desk, and I certainly won heart key. And I I want the two old boss in between as well.

literally, or as a leveraging negotiation? No.

are you cleaning? I want them literally. I, I want to conquer them literally. But my point to you is, if we can begin talk about cutting a deal now, you may be able to head that kind of regression off at the past.

In other words, you may be able to limit putin and russia to annexing the fall boss, the deep now and next post crimea. That's the best I think you can hope for. But the point is you have to get the ukrainians to accept that. You have to get the ukrainians to accept becoming a truly neutral state and conceding that the russians keep a big chunk of territory, it's about twenty three percent of ukrainian, and territory is theyve next. And I find IT hard to imagine any ukrainian leader regret to that.

Well, there they're copy more nuance, things like no military involvement between the united states in ukraine, but economic involvement, sort of a financial support. So Normalizing economic relationships with the ukraine, with russia, I think.

I think you could probably get away with that. I think the tRicky question there that you would have the answer is what about E. U. expansion? right? And I think eu expansion is probably a no, no for the russians because most people don't recognize this.

But there is a military dimension built in to E. U. expansion. It's not purely an economic uh alliance uh or relationship or institution whatever word you want to use. There's a military dimension to that.

And in the run up to the war um actually in the run up to the two thousand fourteen crisis when IT first broke out, uh the russians made IT clear they saw A E, U. Expansion as a stockin horse for nato expansion. So E U expansion is tRicky. But I I think your point of close economic relations between or healthy economic relations to use a Better term between ukraine and the west is is possible. I I, I think the russians have a vested interest if if it's a neutral ukraine, they have a vested interest in at ukraine flourishing, but then then brings us spect to the territorial issue.

right? Well, well, so do you believe as possible for individual human relations to contract the structural forces that you talk about, meaning the leaders being able to pick up the phone and make agreements that are good for humanity as a whole and for their individual nations?

And I think leadership matters here. I mean, one of the real problems here is that there is no trust and on the russian side and that has to do with the men's agreements um the um the men's agreements which we're designed to shut down the civil war uh in eastern ukraine in the dunbar um really mattered to the russians and there were four players involved in the ah the men's process uh for main players russian ukraine of course in in germany and france.

And I believe the russians took the mango court seriously. I believe putin took them very seriously, he wanted to shut down that conflict. Um and uh Angel miracle Frankwell holland he was the french leader and port shankar, who was the ukrainian later those with the three key players besides putin again all on france, mickle from germany and porches a from ukraine have all explicitly said they were not seriously interested in reaching an agreement in all the discussions with putin.

They were bamboozling him. They were trying to trick him so that they would buy time to build up ukraine's military. Putin is profoundly upset about these admissions by these three leaders.

He believes he was fooled into thinking that means could work. He believes that he negotiated good faith and they did not, and he believes that the level of trust now between russia ah and the west is virtually zero. As a result of this experience over mix.

I only bring this up because IT cuts against your argument that leaders could pick up the phone and talk to each other and trust each other at least somewhat to work out a meaningful deal. If you're put at this point time, trusting the west is not an idea. It's gonna be very attractive at all. In fact, you're gonna a distrust, anything they say.

yeah, distrust in the west say. But there is individual humans. The way human nature works is when you sit and across from a person, you can trust a human being while still distrusting the west. I am, I I believe in the power of that. I I think with the right leaders you could sit down and talk like over override the general structural distrust of the west and say, you know what, I like this guy or go whatever I do hope the lanes can put and sit down together and talk.

have multiple talks. Just remember that we're doing in march and they marry, they was came in and the british came in, yeah and they switch the potential deal.

Well, the other beautiful thing about human nature is forgiveness. And there's, uh trying again.

when you're the leader of a country in an anarchic system, you have to be very careful not to let your trust in a foreign leader take you too far because if that foreign leader betray you or betray your trust and step you in the back, you could die. And again, you went to remember that the principal responsibility of any leader, I don't care what country IT is, is to ensure the survival of their state.

And that means that, you know, trust is only gonna buy you so much. And when you've already betrayed the trust of a leader, you really are not onna be able to rely on trust very much to help you move in forward. Now you disagree with that.

I hope you're right. And if they can shut down the ukrainian russia war, uh, I would be wonderful if if unproved dead wrong, ah, I would be wonderful news. My my prediction that this war is gone to go on for a long time, and and and in .

an ugly .

way is is a prediction that I don't like IT all so I hope.

but wrong. He wrote that many s believe that the best hope for ending the uka walks to remove that my pot from power. But you argue that this is the case, can you explain?

But a lot of people thought when they were having all that trouble, the russians were having all that trouble with pergolas and the wagner group did, putin was vulnerable and was likely to be overthrown. And what would happen is, uh, a peaceful ving leader would replace putin. Uh, I made two points at the time, and I would make the same two points now. Number one, he is not likely to be overthrown.

He was not likely then to be, uh, and I think you know as long as his health holds up, I think he will remain in power my second point is if he doesn't remain in power and he's replaced, I would bet a lot of money that his replacement will be more hawkish and more hard line than putin is um I actually think one could argue that putin was too trusting of the west before the war started um and number two, I think one could argue that he has not waged the war against ukraine as vigorously as one might have expected uh he was slow to mobilize the nation for war uh and he has pursued a limited war in all sorts of ways. The israelis, for example, have killed more civilians in gaza in one month than the russians have killed over eighteen months in ukraine. The idea that blad mir putin is waging a punishment campaign and killing on purpose large numbers of civilians is simply not true. But all this is to say that I would imagine that if putin leaves office and someone else comes to replace him, that someone else will be at least, if not more, hard line than him in terms of waging the war, and certainly will not trust the west any more than he has.

By we have advice, I may ask you, if I were to have a conversation interview line, maroon and the landy individually, what should I ask them? If you, me and final putin are having a chat? What a good ideas to explore, what a good questions to ask, what are good things to say? Honour of the mike, once again, that could potentially even slightly less than the mar of suffering in the world caused by this war.

I think if you get an interview with that man, putin, just all sorts of question you could ask him and my sense is depute is a straight shooter um he's also very knowledgeable about history and he has simple theories and his head about how the world works and but I think he would level with you and all you would have to do is just, you know, figure out what all the right questions are and that would not be hard to do right?

You know, you could ask him, why was he so foolish this for for example, why was he so foolished to, uh, trust porter, holland and miro in the many courts? Uh, no. Why after his famous talk unit in two thousand seven, where he made IT clear that he was so unhappy with the west, uh, did he continue you? Uh, too, you know, in a very important, we trust the west.

Why did you mobilize the russian military before late september twenty twenty two? Uh, you know, once the negotiations that we were talking about before, uh, involving this tumble, uh, and not tally in once they broke down, you know, why didn't he immediately mobilize more of the russian population to fight the war? And just all sorts of questions like that and then you could ask some questions about, you know where uh he sees this one headed uh what's the best strategy for russia um if the ukrainians will not agree to neutrality right yeah you know people like john marsh armer say you'll probably take a close to half of ukraine. Is that true? Does IT makes sense to take a desk?

And john musharraf has questions about china, your future relationships to china?

yeah.

I mean, one really important question that I would ask him is if the united states had basically not driven you into the arms of the chinese, if there had been no war over ukraine and the united states and its european allies had gone a considerable lanes to create some sort of security architecture in europe um that resulted in you put in having good relations with ukraine, what would your relations with china be? And you know, how would you think about that? So there are just plenty of questions you could ask him.

Well, hope burns eternal in my heart, I think probably important to heart in the landsat heart, I hope, cause hope is a the leap of trust that we've talked about, I think, is necessary for the escalation for peace.

We realized, I have from the beginning, argued for different policies that were all designed to prevent this world from ever happening. I don't know if you know this, but in nineteen ninety three, I argued that ukraine should keep its nuclear weapons. I was probably the only person in the west who made that argument in.

My argument in nineteen ninety three is in foreign affairs, was that there may come the day when russia thinks about invading ukraine. And should that they come, IT would be very helpful for preventing war. If ukraine had nuclear weapons.

The military, my, is essential for maintaining a bounce of power and peace.

Well, if you're interested, deterrent an adversary. If worried about you coming after me, the best way to deter you is to have military might. And if you're russia and i'm ukraine, i'm far weaker than you, right? And having a nuclear deterrent would be very effective at convincing you not to attack me, because if you attack me, you're threatening my survival.

And that's the one circumstance where IT is likely that I would use nuclear weapons to defend myself. And given the consequences of nuclear use, you would be reluctant in the extreme to attack me. So that's why I argued in ninety three that if ukraine kept its nuclear weapons, that made war down the road, much less likely.

And I believe I was correct. And in fact, bill clinton, who played the key role in forcing ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons, now says he is set publicly. You can find IT on youtube that he made a mistake doing that.

Furthermore, I argued in two thousand fourteen that IT made imminently good sense not to continue to push to bring ukrainean and tomato, because the end result is that ukraine would be destroyed and ukraine is being destroyed. So I was deeply interested at time and making sure that that didn't happen for the good of the ukrainians, not to mention because stability in euro is a net positive for almost everybody involved. But people did not listen me than either.

How did nuclear weapons change the calculus of offensive realism because of mutually assured destruction? I mean, it's not just military might. It's just so destructive .

that you basically .

can't use nuclear weapons unless you want complete destruction.

There is no question that the presence of nuclear weapons makes IT much less likely. I'm choosing my words carefully here, much less likely that a great power would aggress against another great power. IT doesn't take that possibility of the table, but IT makes IT much less likely because of the reasons that you articulated.

Um but with regard to nuclear use. It's a an interesting question how you think about nuclear use in a mad world. I mean, your point that were in a mad world is that's made capital M A D as well as IT mad small letter.

But let's stick to the capital letters were in a world the mutual assured destruction. There's no question that in that world it's unlikely the nuclear weapons would be used. But the way you use nuclear weapons in that world is you use them a for manipulation, risk purposes, demonstration effect.

You you put both sides out on the slippery slope. Now, what exactly am I saying here? Let me talk about nato.

doctor. During the cold war, we lived in a mad world, united states and soviet union, where the wars are packed in. Nato both had an assured destruction capability. So you had mutual, sure destruction if the also pack between vade western europe and here we're talking about west germany um and nato was losing the war. We said that we would use nuclear weapons.

How would we use nuclear weapons given that we were in a mad world? The your argument was that we would use a handful nuclear weapons against the world packed, not not necessarily against their military forces, could be in a remote area. We would use a small number of nuclear weapons to signal to the soviets that we were deadly serious about putting in to their offensive and that we were throwing both sides out on the slippery slope to a oblivion.

And other is we were manipulating risk, and the last clear chance to avoid army gen rested with them. And then we would tell them that if you retaliated with a handful of nuclear weapons and you didn't cease your offensive against west germany, we would watch a small another nuclear attack. We would um explode a handful more of nuclear weapons over the purposes of showing you our resolve right? So this is the manipulation of his strategies of what of the language I just used in describing IT to you, is language the tomas shelling invented right now.

Fast forward to the present. If russia, were you losing in ukraine? That's the one scary O I think for russia would abuse nuclear weapons.

And the question is, how would russia have used nuclear weapons? Again, we're assuming that the russians are losing to the ukrainians. I believed they would have pursued a manipulation with strategy. They would used four, five, three or four, who knows, nuclear weapon.

maybe just one in a rural area that kills very few people.

Yes, exactly. And basically, that would spoke everybody the .

market in the mushroom clone .

yeah the it's because of the threat of escalation, right? Again, your point is in a mad world, I accept that. And if you have limited nuclear use, right? We understand hardly anything about nuclear escalation because then gdas, we've never had a nuclear war.

So once you throw both sides out on the slippy slope, even if you only use one nuclear weapon in years scenario, you don't know what the escalation dynamics look like. So everybody has a powerful incentive to put IT in to the conflict right away. I might have to you that there were people who believed that we would not even initiate a manipulation of this strategy in europe if we were losing to the world or pack during the cold war.

Both Henry passenger and Robert mcnealy said after leaving office that they would not have done IT. They would have not initiated nuclear use, even limited nuclear. That's what we're talking about here.

They would rather be red than dead, right? That was the argue, too risky, too risky. That's exactly right. But if they had used one nuclear weapon in your story, or three or four in my story, everybody would have said, oh my god, we've got to shut this one down immediately. I only tell you this story or lay out the scenario as an answer to your question of how you use nuclear weapons in a mad world. And this is the .

answer I saw, very terrifying, perhaps in part is terrifying to me, because I can see in the twenty first century, china, russia, israel, in states using a nuclear weapon in this way, blowing IT up somewhere in middle of nowhere that kills maybe nobody.

But i'm terrified of seen mushroom cloud and not knowing what you know given social media, given half fast news travels, what the escalation looks like there just you know in in a matter of minutes how the news travels and how the leaders react is terrifying that this this little demonstration of power um the rip effects of IT in a matter of minutes, seconds what that leads to this is like it's human emotions is that you you see the landscape of human emotions, the leaders in the populist and in the way news are reported and in the landscape of risk, as you mentioned, shifting like the worlds most intense nonino dynamic system. It's just terrifying because the the the entity of human civilization hangs in the baLance there. And it's like like this, like hundreds of millions of people could be dead.

We just talk about this in the context of the ukraine war. If the russians we're losing, as I said before, which is not the case anymore, but in twenty twenty two, IT IT did like that. If the russians are losing and they turn to nuclear weapons, the question is how they use them and they would use them in ukraine.

And because ukraine has no nuclear weapons of its own, ukraine cannot retaliate. It's not a mutual assured destruction world. It's a case where one side is nuclear weapons in the other. Doesn't that means that the russians are likely to think that they can get away with using nuclear weapons in ways that would not be the case if they were attacking nato, and therefore IT makes nuclear use more likely? Okay, that point one, point two is let's assume that the russians used two or three nuclear weapons in .

a remote area. 对， 就是 this is a commentary.

the way terrifying. yeah. The question then is, what does the west do now? Micron has said in beige is also, I think, implicitly made this clear, we would not retaliate with nuclear weapons if the russians were to attack with a handful nuclear weapons in western ukraine.

But then the question is, what would we do? And if you live the David portrays, what David portrays says is that we should attack the russian naval assets in the black sea and attack russian forces in ukraine. Well, once you do that, you have create reward, an idle versus russia, which is another way of saying you have the united states versus russia.

We're not what a great power war. They have nuclear weapons. We have nuclear weapons. We've use nuclear weapons. What is the happy ending here? And just to take IT a step further and go back to our earlier discussion about moving nato up to russia's borders, the point I made, would you surely agree with, is that the russians are very fearful when they seen natal coming up to their border.

Well, here's a case where not at least the nature come up to their border, but they're in a war with nato right on their border. What the escalation dynamics look like there? You know what the answer is? Who knows that should scared the live in bag is out of you.

right? And some of IT could be, like you mentioned, unintended. There could be under the consequences. There could be a russian misses his phone, these kinds of things that just escalate misunderstandings, my communications, even mean nuclear weapon could be, boy, you could have been planned to go location x and he went to a location.

Why that end up actually killing a very large number people? I mean, I just that the the escalation tion that happens, that just happens in a matter of minutes. And the only way to stop that, this communication between leaders, and that means a big argument for ongoing communication.

you know, is the story that during the cuban missile crisis, a Kennedy put out the world, uh, no aircraft a under any circumstances, or to penetrate. So the space, yeah. He then found out a few days later that the some guy hadn't had the message and he had penetrated a in an aircraft deep into soviet air space.

Yeah and this supports your basic point that you know uh bad things happen and the and again, the overarching point here is we've never done this before. Thankfully, therefore, we don't have a lot of experiences to how IT plays itself out. Um it's really a theoretical enterprise because there's no empirically basis for talking about escalation tion uh you know in the nuclear crisis and that of course is a wonderful thing.

Why in general the the human species as a whole is is one off is a theoretic enterprise, the survival of the human species. You know, we've seen empire rise and fall, but we haven't seen the human species rising fall so far. It's been rising.

But it's not obvious that doesn't end. In fact, I think about alien is a lot and do the fact that we don't see aliens makes me suspect it's not so easier to survive in this complicated world of ours. Switching gears a little bit and going to a different part of the world.

Also golf ten more. Let me ask you about the situation in israel. A wide homos attack israel on october seventh twenty twenty three, as you understand the situation. What was the reason that attacks happened?

Well, I think the main reason was that you had this suffocating occupation. I think as long as the occupation persist, the palestinians are going to resist um as you well know, this is not the first time there has been a palestinian uprising. There was the first into foa, there was the second in tofoa. Now there is october seven and their uprising ons besides those three so this is not terribly surprising.

Uh a lot of people hypothesize that um this attack was due to the fact that um the israeli, the saudis, the americans were working together to a Foster another Abraham accord uh and the palestinians would in effect be sold down the river uh I think given the fact that this was in the planning stages for probably about two years uh and the Abraham accords with regards tious after arabia or relatively new phenomenon, I don't think that's uh the main driving force here. I think the main driving force is that the palestinians a feel oppressed as they should and that this was A A resistance move. They were resisting the israeli occupation.

so that resistance, the attack, involves killing a large number of israeli civilians. As many questions to ask there. But one is, do you think of as fully understood what the retaliation will evolve from israel into gaza?

They had to understand, I mean, 呃， you had Operation cast LED in two thousand eight, two thousand nine IT started I think right after Christmas two thousand eight and that ended right before a present. Obama took off um in january two thousand nine. And the israeli periodical do what they call moving the lawn where they go into gaza, and they tell the palestinians to remind them that they're not supposed to rise up and cause any problem. So there is no question in my mind that the the homos forces understood full well that the israeli would retaliate, and they would retaliate force as they have done.

Yeah, that even the metaphor of moving lawn is disturbing to me many ways. Have I actually saw a Norman fox, I think, say that, well then, if you use them for then you could say that homos was awesome in the law .

as such a horrific image.

because the result on either side, tage, is the death of civilians. I mean, let me ask about the death civilians. So during the attack, fourteen, one hundred rates were killed, over two forty were taken hostage. And then in response, as we sit today, israel's military response has killed over ten thousand people in gaza and given the nature of the demographics is is a fair heavily Young population. Over forty percent of them are under the age eighteen of those killed that's uh, of course, according to ministry of health, the past in authority ties so what these things, the long term effect on the prospect of peace when so many civilians die.

I mean, I think it's disastrous. I mean. The only way you're gonna get peace here is if you have a two state solution where the palestinians have a sovereign ate of their own and there is a sovereign ury state. And these two states live side by side. American president since Jimmy Carter have understood this full well and this is why we have pushed very hard for two state solution indeed, many american jews and many israeli, I have pushed for a two state solution because they think that that is the only way you're going to get a peace a between the two sides um but what's happened here is that in recent years the israelis have lost all interest in a two state solution in its in large part because the political center of gravity and israel has steadily moved to the right when I was a Young boy.

Uh the political center gravity in israel was much further to the left than IT is today and IT is in a IT is in a position now the political center og vy where there is hardly any support for two state solution and the ahoo and the rest of the people in his government were in favor or are in favor of of a greater israel el. There's just no question about that. Well, on top of that, you now have had a war.

Where is you described? Huge numbers of civilians have been killed, and you already had bad blood between the palace. Ted, in these really is before this conflict. And you could imagine how people on each side now feel about people on the other side.

So even if you didn't have this opposition inside israel to a two state solution, how could you possibly get the israeli is now to a grey to a two state solution. I think for the foreseeable future, the animosity inside israel towards the palestinians is so great that IT is impossible to move the israelis in that direction. And the israelis here are the key players, more so than the palestinians, because it's the israelis who control greater israel.

It's the israeli who you have to convince. I want to be clear. You also ultimately have to get around the fact that her mos right IT is not committed to a two state solution. But I think that problem could be dealt with. It's important.

Understand the arafat and the P, L, O was once animation opposed to a two state solution, but arafat came around to understand that that was really the only hope for settling this, and he became a proponent of the two state solution. And that's true of mark mood, a boss who runs the pa in the west. Bang, it's not true of a lot at this point time.

They want a one state solution. They want a palestinian state. And of course, the israeli is one to one state solution to which is a jewel ate that controls all of all greater is real. So the questions, can you get some sort of agreement? And I think to get here, the number of be your question, given what just happened, it's almost impossible to imagine that happening anytime soon.

The cynical perspective here that those in power benefit from conflict, while the people on both sides suffer. Third degree of truth to that, or for the people, power. To maintain power, conflict needs to continue.

No, I don't believe that. I mean, just to take the next iao government, or any israeli government that maintains the occupation, what you want is you want a palestinian population, the IT submitted to israeli domination of greater israel. You don't want resistance. You don't want an into father. You don't want what happened on october seven.

In fact, I think one of the principal reasons that the israelis are pounding gaza and killing huge numbers of civilians, punishing the civilian population in ways that clearly violated the laws of war, is because they want the palestinians to understand that they are not allowed to rise up and resist the occupation, that their goal. So I think these rael else would prefer that the palestinian s roll over and accept submission in terms of the people who live in gossip to include the elites and the people who live in the west bank to include the elites. They would much prefer to move to some sort of situation where um the palestinians have a state of their own.

I think in the case of the P A, uh under a bus, they would accept the two state solution. I think what at this point time her mother wants is a one state solution. But they want peace. All of them want peace. You know, the two different sets of leadership in palestine and the israelis.

do you think I wants peace?

sure. But on its own terms, that's the point.

What is peace look like for homos .

at this point time? I think peace basically means a greater real controlled by palestine or palestinians OK.

So essentially, I mean, it's the whole land is called palace and there's no is I think .

at this point time, that's their principal goal. I do believe, and there have been hints over time, Jimmy Carter has said this, that homos can be convinced that the two state solution, assuming that the palestinians get a viable uh state of their own, that homos would buy into that I can we say that with, uh, a high degree of certainty? No, but I think I think israeli, I should have pursued that possibility.

They should have worked with a boss. They should have worked with a boss to do everything they can to facilitate the two state solution. Because I think ultimately, that's in israel interest. Now the israeli government and most israeli at this point time, I believe, don't agree with that.

What do you think of israel starting the groundwork of gaza recently an october .

twenty seventh the question is should they continue um until they have finally defeated hamas? There are all sorts of reports in the media, including in the israeli media, that they're not gonna be allowed by the united states to continue this offensive. Uh, for much more than a few weeks the israeli I have been saying that would it's gna take in in, in in the best all possible world's a number of months, if not a year, to finish off a mos.

Well, IT doesn't look like they're going to have enough time to do that. I doubt whether they can finish mass even if they're given the time. I think they're onna run into fierce resistance.

And when they run into fierce resistance in large numbers of israeli is gone to start to die, they'll lose their appetite for this. And they the israelis surely know at this point time that even if they finish off her mos, even if i'm wrong, they're able to finish off hama's. Another group is gonna rise up to, uh, resist the occupation.

The idea that you can use with ziv abb sky called the iron wall to beat the palestinians into submission IT is delusional. It's just that could happen. The palestinians want a state of their own.

They don't want to live under occupation. And there's no military solution for israel here. There asked to be a political solution, and the only viable political solution is a two state solution. I mean, you can't go to democracy.

You can't go to a situation where you give the palestinians equal rights inside a greater israel, in large part because there are now as many palestinians as their israeli juice and over time the baLanced, the baLance shifts against the israeli juice in in favor of the palestinians, in which case will end up with the palestinian and state in greater israel so you know, democracy for all doesn't work. Uh the israelis, I believe, are quite interested at the cleansing. I think they saw this um this recent set of events, an opportunity to clans gaza, but that's not gonna happen.

Um the Jordanians and the egyptians have made IT clear that that's not happening. The united states is now made IT clear that that's not happening and and the palestinians will not leave uh they'll die in place um so at the clancy does that work. So you really left with two alternatives, the two state solution or a greater israel that is effectively in apartheid state I mean that's what the occupation has LED to.

And all sorts of people have been predicting this for a long, long time. And you've now reached the point, you know, here in the united states, if you say that israel, in a party state, that's gonna you into all sorts of trouble. But the fact is, the human rights watch, amnesty international and but sellem, which is the leading israeli human rights group, all three of those institutions or organizations have issued detailed reports, making the case that israel is in a part time day.

Furthermore, if you read the israeli media, right, all sorts of israelis, including israeli leaders, referred israel as an apartheid state. It's it's not that unusual to hear that term used in israel. This is disastrous for israel, in my opinion. And Steve wolden, I sentience, by the way, when we wrote the israel lobby that israel is an apartheid state, which is equivalent to israel as an occupier, uh, is not good for real uh and that brings us back to the two state solution. But as you and I we're talking about a few minutes ago, it's hard to see how you get a two state solution and the end result of this conversation is other despair because .

the past the tuesday solution is blocked by the amount of hate as created by seventeen deaths that plus the fact that .

that the israeli government um is filled with people um who have no interest in a two state solution. Their ideologically deeply committed to a greater israel. They want all the land between the Jordan river in the mediterranean sea to b part of a jewish state that just ideologically committed to that and uh and of course, as we are talking about for with regard to her, mos homos wants everything between the river in the sea to be a palestinian state. And you know, when you have two sides with those kinds of views, right, you're in deep trouble because there is little room for compromise.

So what you have to do to get this to work, because you have to convince the israelis, that is in their interest to have a two state solution. And you have, you ve already taken care of the pa on this front, the palestinian authority, but you've gotto convince her, mos, that it's a its maximum goals are are not good to work and its in its interest uh to follow in footsteps of arafat and accept two state solution. But um even if you do that at this point, let's say that you know there's a lot of wilderness, a intellectually on both sides to do that. The problem is that the hatred that has been fuel by this recent cut, uh, this ongoing conflict is so great is just hard to imagine how you can make a two state solution work at this juncture. Uh, that's why i've sort of taken to saying, and I hope bob wrong here, the you know on the two state solution ah that that boat has said it's just no it's no longer possible.

Again, I believe in leadership and there's other parties to play here. Other nations, Jordan sada, ia. Other plays in the in the middle ast that can help. That can help through a Normalization of relationships and these kinds of things. There's always hope, he said.

Sliter of hope. 四对。

i think human socialization progresses forward by taking advantage of the all the liters you can get. Let me ask you about, you mentioned israel lobby. You write a book, probably the most controversial book on the topic.

not probably clearly the most controversial book I ever wrote. So you've criticized this.

a lobby in the united states for influencing U. S. Policy in the middle east. Can you explain what the israel lobby is, their influence in your over the past and a couple decades with the argument that .

Steve what nine may actually wrote an article first and uh which appeared red in the london review a box um and then we wrote the book itself uh our argument is that the lobby is loose coalition of individuals and organizations that push american policy in a pro israel direction uh and uh basically the lobbies is interested in getting israel actually be getting in the united states and he were talking mainly about the american government to support israel no matter what israeli does.

And our argument is that if you look at the relationship between the united states in israel, it's unprecedented in modern history, uh, this is the closest relationship did you can find between any two countries and recorded history. It's truly amazing the extent to which israel and the united states are joining at the hip and we support israel no matter what, almost all the time. Um and uh our argument is that dad is largely due to the influence of the lobbed.

The lobby is uh an extremely powerful interest group. Now is very important to understand that the american political system is set up in ways they allow interest groups of all sorts to wield great influence. So in the united states, you have an interest group or a lobby like the national rifle association makes IT well now impossible to get gun control.

And and so with the israel loving, you have this group of individuals and organizations that wield enormous influence on U. S. Policy toward the middle ast.

And this is not surprising given the nature of the american political system. Uh, so our argument is that the lobby is not doing anything that's illegal or elicit or immoral or unethical. It's just a good old fashion american interest group and IT just happens to be extremely powerful.

And our argument is that this is not good for the united states because no two countries have the same interest all the time. And when our interest conflict with israel's interest, we should be able to do what we think is in our national interest, in america's national interest. But the lobby tends to conflate america's national interest with israel's national interest and wants the united states to support israel no matter what.

We also argue, and I cannot emphasize this enough, given what's going on in the world today. The the baby's affects, the robber has not been pushing policies that are in israel's interest. So our argument is that the lobe, right, the lobby pushes policies that are not in america's interests or not in israel's interests. Now you're saying to yourself, what exactly does he mean by that? What every president since Jimmy Carter has tried to do, as I said before, is to Foster two state solution to push israel, which is the dominant player in greater israeli.

Push israel to accept the two state solution and we have run into huge resistance from mommy whenever ver we tried to let's be one about the course is well, right in a perfect world where there was no lobby and an american president was free to put pressure on israel to course israel, I believe we would have been a long way towards getting two state solution and I believe this would have been in israel interest. Uh, but we couldn't get a two state solution because he was almost impossible to put meaningful pressure on israel because of the so this was not israel's interest and IT was not in america's interest. And that was the argument that we made. And h we, of course, got huge push back for making that argument.

What's the underlying motivation of? The lobby is IT religious and nature is IT similar to the way warhawks are sort of military tic. Nature is a nationalist signature.

What's if you described the loose coalition of people? What would you say? Is there motivation?

Well, first one, I think you have to distinguish between jews and Christians. You won't remember that there are a huge number of Christian silences who are deeply committed to israel no matter what, right? And then there are a large number of juice, the juice. They are obviously the most important of those two groups in the israel lobby.

But you know, one of the arguments that we made in the book is that you should not call the jewish lobby because it's not populated just by juice and Christian asian is are an important part of that will be but furthermore, there are a good number of juice who are opposed to the lobby ah and the policies that the lobe pervy and there a number of juice who are prominent anthy's ones right? So and they're obviously not in the lobby or or if you take a group like jewish voice for peace, right? Jewish voice for piece is not in the lobby.

So if it's wrong to call IT a jewish but with regard to the american jews who are in that lobby, um I think that really this is all about nationalism. It's not so much religion. Many of those jews who are influential in the lobby are not religious in any meaningful sense of that term but they self identify as jewish in in in sense that they feel their part of a jewish nation and that the addition to being in american right they are part of this tribe, this nation called juice and that they have a responsibility um to push the united states in ways that support uh, the jewish state so I think that's what drives most, if not almost all, the jews. This is not to say there's not a religious dimension for some of them, but I think that the the main connection is much more tribal in nature.

So I had a conversation with the benching yahoo and he said, fundamentally, if you are anti zia antismog, so the the zinets project is tied the hip to the jewish project, what would you have to say to that?

Look, you can define antisemitism any way you want, right? And you can define antisemitism to incorporate anthy's on ism um and ah I think we have reached the point where anti semitism is identified today, not just with the enthusiasm but with criticism of israel. If you criticize israel, people will say, some people will say you're an enticement.

And if that your definition of anti semitism, it's taken an important term and stretched IT to the point where it's meaningless, right? So when Stephen, I rote the book of the article, then wrote the book, all sorts of people said that we were anti metes. This is a luders charge.

But what they meant was you're criticizing the lobby, your criticized ing israel, and therefore you an antisemitic. Okay, if that's what an anti same idea is. Somebody who criticizes israel, you know, probably have the jewish community, if not more, in the united states, is anthy's metic.

And of course you get into all these crazy games where people are calling jews, self hating jews and anti sides because they are critical of israel. But even people are anthidia as I don't think they're anthy's dc at all. Uh you can argue their misguided that's fine.

But um many these people are jewish and proud of the fact that they're jewish. They just don't believe the nails ism and jewish nationalism is a force that should be applauded. And you want understand that in the american context there is a rich tradition of enthusiasm, right? H and these were not people who are anti sites. If you go back to the thirties, forties, fifties, and the same thing was even two in europe, there are all sorts of european jews who were opposed designers ism with a and I am like, I don't think so, but we've got to the point now where people are so interested in stopping any criticism of israel that they real this weapon of, uh, calling people and mites so loosely that the term is kind of lost meaning so I I think that who is is is wrong headed to quit, uh, anti ism with the anthy's metis m.

Alan dershowitz was one of the people that called you specifically anthemic. Just looking at the space of discourse, how do you were .

the slider .

of hope for healthy discourse about U. S. Relationships with israel? Between you and lender shots and others like him.

Well, I think until here is a settlement of the israeli palestinian conflict, there is no hope of what in the end is not sense, right?

So is the just uses of terms to kind of cheat? Your way to the to the discourse is shortcut?

No, it's the baLance. People is very, very important. Understand that one of the lobbies principle goals is to make sure we don't have an open discourse, a free whiling discourse about israel, because they understand people in the law.

I understand that if you haven't open this course, israel will end up looking very bad, right? You don't want to talk about the occupation. You don't want to talk about how israel was created, right? All all the subjects, uh, or once that uh uh will cause problems for israel, see, just go to the present crisis.

Okay, when you have a disaster, and what happened on october seventh is a disaster, one of the first things that happens is that people begin to ask the question, how did this happen, right? What's the root cause of this problem? This is a disaster. We have to understand what caused them so that we can work to, uh to make sure that doesn't happen again. So we can work to shut IT down and then make sure that doesn't happen again.

But once you start talking about the root causes, right, you end up talking about how his role is created, right? And that means telling a story that is not pretty about how design is concrete palestine, uh, and number two, IT means talking about the occupation, right? It's not like ha attacked on october seventh because they were just a bunch of antibiotic hated juice. And one of the kill jews, this is not, you know, not to germany, right? This is directly related to the occupation and to what was going on inside of gaza.

And it's not new zeeland interest with a lobby's interest to haven't open discourse about what the israelis have been doing to the palestinians since, I would say, roughly nineteen or three when the second olia came to israel or or came to what was then palestine, right? Wanna talk about that? And we don't want to talk about, from the lobby's point of view the influence that the lobbies has, right? Um it's Better from the lobby's point of view of most americans think that uh american support of israel is just done for all the right moral and strategic reasons not because of the and when john mr.

Shermer on Steve world come along and say, you have to understand that this special relationship is do in large part to the lobby's influence. That is not an argument that the people in the lobby one here. So the point is, you have to go to great length for all these reasons.

You have to go to great length to silence people like me and Steve. what? And one of the ways to do that is to call a anti sites.

I think the chapter are the section of the book where we talk about charge of anthy's. Matis m is called the great silencer. That's what we call the charge of anthy's matisse, the great silencer who wants to be called in anti semi, especially in the wake of the holy cost.

Do I want to be called an anti semi? Oh my god, no. And um so it's very effective. But you know IT is important to talk about these issues in my humble opinion. And I think if we had talked about these issues a way back when we've got a long way towards you know maybe getting a two state solution, which I think was the best alternative here.

IT is complicated. And I only you comment on the complexity of this, because criticizing israel, and you know, which is the lobby, can for a lot of people, be a dog whistle for sort of antisemitic conspiracy theory that, you know, this idea that jews run everything, run the world through this kind of cuba and you know it's it's also very .

true that .

people who are they generally any thematic, are also critics of VISA in the same kind of way and so it's such a complicated landscaping we should have discussions .

because um you know .

even people like David duke uh for little races don't sound racist on the surface I haven't listened to enough but like you know there's dog whistles. It's a complicated space so we need to have discussions because IT may be I wonder if you can serve speak to that um because there's this silencing effect of calling up brandish matic. But is also true that there is antisemitic m in the world like there is the size of population of people who hate juice. That's probably size of population of people who hate muslims through.

I want to hate out there.

a lot of hate out there, but the hatred of jews has like a long history. And so you have, like roling stones have a set of great hits, and I just a set of great hits of the west. Conspiracy theories they can make up about about the juice they are used as part of the hatred. So there's like nice templates for that. And I just wonder if you can comment on Operating as a historians and analyst as a strategic thinker in this kind of space .

yeah we obviously when we wrote the article, which we did before the book, gave the subject a great deal, thought, I mean, what you say just now, music to areas i'm talking for about me and Steve, uh, I mean, I think that, you know, your paint about dog whistle is correct. Look, we went to great length to make IT clear that this is not a good ball. It's not a conspiracy.

In fact, in a very important way of law, beat Operates out in the open, right. They brag about their power, right? This was true before we wrote the article, right and um and we said in the article in the book and you heard me say IT here finally, it's not a jewish lobby, right? Um secondly, it's not a cobo, right? It's an american interest group and an american .

system is designed such that interest groups are perfectly legal and some of them are super effective.

If I mean, you hit the nail right on the head, that's exactly right. And you know and IT was nothing that we said that was antimissile any reasonable definition of that term. And you know huge numbers of juice have known me and Steve over the ears.

And nobody ever ever said that we were antisemitic before march two thousand six when the article appeared because we're not anthy's tic. But look, you've got this interest group right that has a significant influence on american policy and on israeli policy. And you want to talk about IT, it's just important to talk about IT.

It's important for juice right in the united states producing israel to talk about this. The idea that you want to silence critics is is not a smart way to go about doing business. In my opinion, if we were wrong, if Stephen I were so wrong and our arguments were so far, they could have easily expose those arguments.

They could gone into combat with this in terms of the marketplace of ideas, and easily knocked this down. The problem was that our arguments were quite powerful, and instead of engaging us and defeating their arguments, they wanted to silence us. And this is not good, right? It's not good for israel.

stop. Good for the united states. And I would argue in the end, if anything, it's gonna force. The anthropocentrism. I think you don't want to run around telling people that they can't talk about israel without being called an anthy's mi.

It's just that it's not healthy in terms of the issue that you're raising, right? But I still agree with you that this is a tRicky issue. I I don't want to a make light of that.

I know that there's this piece of literature are out there called the protocols of the elders of zion. And I fully understand that if you're not careful, you can come close to writing volume to the protocol. But I don't believe that we wrote anything that was even close to that. And again, I think that a healthy debate on the issues that we were raising would have been an not only in america's interests, but I would have been .

an israel's interest. Yeah, I am a underneath ologies. I wonder why there is so much he against groups. Why is such a sticky way of thinking, not just tribal ism like proud of your country and kinds hating another country, but really deeply hating, like hating and we will party your identity kind of he.

Well, just to make a general point on this issue, in our conversation here today, you often talk about individual leaders, and the word individual often pops up in your vocabulary. I believe that we are ultimately social animals before we are individuals. I believe we are born into tribes, were heavily socialized, and that we carve out space for our individualism.

But we are part of tribes and our social groups. Our nations call them what you want, ethnic groups, religious groups. But the fact is that these stripes often question to each other, and when they crash into each other, uh, they end up paid in each other.

Uh, if you got a place like bosnia, right, the croats and the serbs, oh my god, and then thrown wing the bosnian eggs, which is the term for bosonic and muslims and you know, muslims, croats, serbs, oh uh, the tribes, you know hate each other uh and uh in a funny way that hatred almost never goes away um and I guess there are some exceptions to that um get the germans afterworld or two. They've gone a long way towards reducing, I wouldn't want to say completely eliminating, but reducing a lot of the hatred uh that existed between germans and their neighbors uh but that's really kind of an enormous ous case. Um I mean, you go around east asia today and the hatred of japan in a place like china, the hatred of japan in a place like korea, just not to be underestimated.

And uh so but I think a lot of IT just has to do with the fact that you're dealing with social groups that have crashed in each other uh, at one point or another and there are those lingering effects. And by the way, this gets back to discussion a few minutes ago about trying to get a two state solution between the palestinians and the israeli juice. Now that you have had um this horrible war, which is ongoing.

it's interesting to ask to go back to world or two and you said you studied nazi germany and authorities from a perspective of maybe a fense ve realism. But just look at the it's sometimes popular in public discourse today to compare certain things to the whole costs.

People have compared the homes attack on israel to the hot costs, saying things like it's the the the biggest attack on jews since the hall cost, which kind of implies that there's a comparison. People have made that same comparison in the other direction. What do you make of this comparison is comparable? Is is is the use of the have any accuracy in comparison modern day international politics?

Is IT possible that you could have another genocide? De, yes. And I would argue that what you had in rWanda was a genocide, right? The holo cost is not the only genocide.

I believe the word genocide is used to loosely today. Um and if you know lots of people and I mean lots of people who are propelled tinian accused the israeli is of engaging and genocide in gaza. I think what the israeli is are doing in gaza uh represented massacre.

I would use that term given the number of civilians that theyve killed and the fact they've been in discriminate in terms of how they've been bombing gaza. But I would not use the word genocide. For me, a genocide is where one side attempts to eliminate another group from the planet.

I think that what happened with the holy cost was clearly a genocide and that the germans were bent a on destroying all of european jury and if they could have gotten their hands on, uh, just outside of europe, they would murdered them as well. That's a genocide. And I think with the who took in the tuxes, you have a similar situation, uh, I think with turks in the armenians during world war one, that was a genocide.

But I have a rather narrow definition of what a genocide is. And I don't think there are many cases that qualify as a genocide, but how I was certainly does. Okay, now what a mass did doesn't even come course to what happened to european and jury between, let's say, nineteen thirty nine and nine nine forty five, although I date the start of the holocaust.

一， if we were you looking at IT closely, but let's just say nineteen thirty nine when they invade poland, one thousand nine thirty nine to nineteen forty five, what must thousand comparison? And it's hard to believe anybody would make that argument right? Yes, a lot of juice died, uh, but a hardly. Hardly any compared to the number that died um you know what the hands of the german I am just no parallel at all uh and further more, how much was in no position to kill all the juice in the middle is just not not gonna en.

but there's also levels of things using the germans using uh, human skin for laps. There's just levels of evil in this world.

Yes, but you don't see that with I mean, that's not what a moss is doing. I mean, I want to be very clear here. I am not justice, the hosses killing of civilians, okay, not for one second, but i'm just saying in, by the way, just to go to the israelis and what they are doing in gaza, right?

As I said you before, I do believe that is a massacre, and I believe that to be condemned the killing of civilians um is not legitimate collateral damage they're directly punishing the population but I would not call that a genocide right? And I would not compare that to the for for one second. I won't be very clear on that.

Do you think if israeli could they would avoid the death of any civilians? So you're saying there is some degree of punishment .

of collectively killing varians. This is the iron wall. They're trying to beat the palestinians and insulation, right? There's no way you kill this many civilians.

If you're trying to precisely take out homos fighters, and by the way, the israeli spokesman, the idea spokesman, has explicitly said that we are not pursuing precision bombing. And then what we are doing is trying to, you know, maximize the amount of destruction and damage that we can inflict on the palestinians. And I think this is a major mistake on the part of israel.

First table. IT ends being a moral stain on your reputation. Number one. And number two, IT doesn't work. IT doesn't work.

The palestinians are not gonna roll over and submit to uh israeli domination of their life um so you know the whole concept of the iron wall um gaby ti term was misguided um and and by the way, the iron if you look at what the israeli is are doing, they're trying to do two things. One is the iron wall and that's what you punish h the civilian population in gazin get them to submit. The other thing that they trying to do is get her mother.

They want to destroy her mother. And the belief there is that if they destroy her mos, they've solved the problem. But as many israelis know, including people on the hard right, even if you destroy him moss, they are going to be replaced by another group, another resistance group, uh, and that resistance group will employ terror.

I think, I think you've said that the other terrorist organizations have used the situation because as A A ruit mechanism for for a long time.

or some have been not made IT clear that this was all this principle reasons for attacking the united states.

right in the united states attacked back and got us into a twenty year war that cost the lives of millions of people, not american, but human beings. yes. And and torture, torture.

Yeah no. I think if you look at how we reacted to nine eleven and how the israelis are reacting to what happened on october evs, there's uh quite a bit of a similarity in the both sides. The israeli side in american side, uh, are enraged, right, and they lack shout and they go on one page and the end result is not good.

Is there capacity within israel or within united states after nine eleven to do something approximately? Turn another cheek of understanding the root of tair is hay. And fighting that hate was not the side naive, but compassion.

Well, I don't think in either case, you're gonna turn the other cheek. Uh, I think.

well, some I what I mean by that is some limited, powerful military response, but very limited yeah .

coupled with a smart political strategy.

political strategy, diplomacy.

that's what they should have .

done yeah right with their capacity for that or from your offensive realism perspective is just the odds are really low now for my .

offensive real less perspective or my realist perspective, that's what you should do, right OK. My my view is states of rational actors, they should be running right? They should think about a strategic situation nearin and choose the appropriate response. And uh, what happens? And this is why my theory is not always correct this that sometimes states are not rational and they misbehave.

I would argue in the israeli case um the we've ve been good after october seven for starting on october seven if the united states had tried to hold israeli back and countenance A A more uh moderate response, a more with the spend. Take some time just to think about how to deal with this problem instead of lash. Now I I think given what happened to the israeli, given how shock they were, given the level of fear, given the level of rage, they were gonna lash out.

And I don't believe that was in their interest. I think I would have been made would have made sense to to think about IT and um to think about a smarter strategy that they're now employing. And I think you know the americans blew IT.

The americans gave a bear hugg and a Green light and that will give you all the weapon you need and go out and do IT. And um I don't think that was a smart thing to do. Look, in the wake october seven, the israelis had no good strategy, right? It's it's not like there's a magic formula.

They just didn't say we shouldn't ld him what the magic formula was, right? That's not true. They were, in a sense, quote between IQ and a hard place in terms of what to do. But there's smarter things in numbers thing and I think these really is lashed out in ways that or counterproductive.

Uh, I think you know going on a RAM page and you know killing huge numbers of civilians is not it's obviously morally were wrong, but it's also just not in their strategic interest, right? I mean, uh, because it's it's not gonna them anything right and in fact it's gonna cost them right because people all over the planet are turning against israel. Uh I saw you know and israel thinkin today that has been tracking protest around the world um gave some figures for what IT looked like a between october seventh and october thirteen terms of the number of uh protests around the world that were poison versus propane stine.

And then I looked at the numbers from um a copper thirteen th up to the present and I think the numbers were sixty nine percent were propane tinian in the first six days they after october seven sixty nine percent and I think thirty one percent take these numbers with a grain assail. Thirty one percent were pro israel so I think is sixty nine and thirty one um and um since then since october thirteen and if you look at the number of protests around the world, ninety five percent have been propane stani and five percent have been pro israel um and what this tells you is the public opinion around the world has shifted against israel. And if you look at some of the demonstrations in places like london and washington, D.

C, it's truly amazing the number of people who are coming out in support of the palestinians. And all all of this get is just to support my point, that that was just not smart for israeli to a launch this bombing campaign, right. You can make an argument for going after homos in doing IT a surgical away or a surgical away as possible um but uh, that's not what they did and get my point to you is I think that this punishment campaign is not gonna a work strategically.

In other words, they're not going to beat the palestinians into submission. They're gonna finish off her mos. And at the same time, by pursuing this strategy, they're doing huge damage to their reputation around the world.

Why just and wake october? Given the geopolitical context, I think there's a lot of leverage to be the great ethical superpower that that .

demonstrate .

power without killing any civilians in use, that leverage diplomatic leverage to push forward something like at ebrahimi cords with more nations with saw ara, push for peace, aggressively peace agreements, this kind of stuff, economic relationships, all this kind of stuff, and thereby pressure the passing authority. You told the perhaps a tuesday solution.

I think what you're missing here, just in the israeli case is the the israeli government is not interested to state solution. And you want to remember that Benjamin net, yahoo, who looks very hawkish when you look at him in isolation, doesn't look so hawkish when you look at him compared to the rest of the people in his cabinet, right? He, he he almost looks like a moderate.

He's got a lot of people who were way out to the right of him. And these people in this, of course, includes that yao are not interested in two state solution. So the question you have to ask yourself is you if you if your Benjamin in yahoo and it's july seventh late, that actually be an october seven late in the day, what do you do? You don't think IT about the two state solution.

You're thinking about an occupation. It's not going to end. And the question is, how do you build the palestinians given what's just happened well.

is there is people in the cabinet in in their history, and history remembers great leaders. And so a Benjamin, and you can look in the streets of israel, and though I see the protest and think of how history will remember him, and I think a tuesday solution is on the table for a great leader.

well, IT was there. He the person who is going to take advantage of that? I don't think so. But the .

student history, well, at this point, or the, will see that any is very, very difficult. Mick said, ninety five percent now or whatever the number is the protests, I think the the window in which israel has the years of the world, they can do the the big ethical peace action towards pieces. I think it's closed or maybe there's still slater, but is just the slip .

slip .

of hate is has taken off? Yes, it's quite depressing to watch.

Yeah I like a hundred percent depressing.

But know, of course, as you talk about the the role of you, us involvement, this is critical, important here for the united states. And the argument you make is that we should not be involved in ukraine, at least degree we are we being the next states, and we should not be involved in israeli to the degree we are because it's stretching us to thin when the big geopolitical contender in the twenty first century with you in the states, china that's that correct .

summary. Yeah I I think just on ukraine, we should not have pushed ukraine to join nato. sure.

Uh, and once the war started, we should have worked overtime to shut IT down immediately. march. Yeah, march right. And and remember, by the way, not to go back to ukrainian great detail in the fall early fall of twenty twenty two.

The war starts february twenty twenty two is march twenty twenty two, which we've talked about, which is the negotiations in the fall of twenty twenty two I think was in september uh, the ukrainians had won two major tactical Victories, one in her son and the other in heart cave. And at that point in time, general million, who is the chairman, the joint chips to stay, said, now is the time to negotiate, because this is the high water mark for the ukrainians. Billy understood that things really gonna get worse and the White house shut Molly down and said, we're not negotiating so we have blown a number of opportunities here to head this problem off at the past.

Uh and uh but that's my view there. And with regard to that, the israeli is mildly print about israel, is that IT would be Better for israel and Better for the ted states if we, the united states, where I was in a position, the united states was in a position to put pressure on israel from time to time. Steve and I say in the book, we should be able to treat israel like a Normal country, right? The fact is the country is sometimes do stupid things.

This includes the united states and this real. And if israel is pursuing a policy that we think is unwise, we should be in a position where we could put pressure on israel. That's our argument, right? But anyway, we goofed both with regard to ukraine and with regard to the middle east. And we're now up to our eyeballs in allegation ors in both of those regions. And as you describe my view, this is not good because the area of the most strategic importance for the united states today is, he stated, and that's because china is there, and china is the most serious threat in the state's faces.

Do you think they'll be a war with china in the twenty first century?

I don't know. Uh, my argument is there will be there is right now a serious security competition and um at the same time there is a real possibility of war. Whether or not we avoid IT is very hard to say.

Uh I mean, we did during the cold war we had a serious security competition from roughly one thousand and forty seven to one thousand and eighty nine and and we thankfully avoided war, probably came the closest in one nine hundred and sixty two with the cuban missile crisis. But we avoided IT. And I think we can avoid IT. Here is IT for sure. No.

you've said that china won't move on taiwan military in part because it's uh, as you said, and fibers Operations are difficult. Why will china not move in taiwan? Is in your sense in the near future? Well.

it's because there's this body of water called the taiwan straight, which is a big body of water. And getting across water, uh, is very difficult unless you can walk on water.

So jog, if still has a role to play. The two and four century.

oh yeah, I think job is very important. Big bodies of water matter. In an ideal world, you'd like to have the pacific ocean between you and any potential adversary. You know, six thousand miles, six thousand miles of water. Hard to get across.

If if your country and i'm a country and there's land between us, I can take my pants or divisions, and I can go right across the land and get into your country or attack your country. And you, of course, can take your panzer divisions and come across that same piece of land. But if there's a big body of water between us, your pants or divisions can go across the water.

And then the questions, how do you get them across the water? IT has a very tRicky. And in a world, we have lots of submarines and you have lots of aircraft and you have missiles that our land based, you can hit those surface ships is very, very hard to, you know, to attack across the body of water. And all you have to do is think about NorMandy, you know, the american invasion, Normally, june six, nineteen forty four, coming in on omaha beach, right? A old boy has really difficult.

but there is a growing a symmetry of military power there that even though is difficult.

that is correct.

So I guess that .

is correct.

So I had a conversation was in our mosque and and he says that, you know, china is quite serious about the one china policy. IT seems inevitable that taiwan will have to be. If you look at this pragmatically in the twenty first century, IT seems vital that I will have to be a part of china.

And so we can get there either diplomatically or military like. What do you think about the inevitability of that kind of idea when a nation says this is a top priority for us? What do you .

think .

about the meaning IT? And what do we do about that?

There is no question as a top priority for them and there is no question they mean IT, but it's also a top priority for us not to let them .

take why exactly?

Because it's an important strategic gas, said, uh, many people say it's because taiwan is democracy, but that doesn't matter that much. Um it's because of two strategic reasons. The first is that um if we were to let taiwan go, I would have usually negative consequences for our alliance structure in stage. To contain china, we need allies.

We have a lion structure and realize japanese, south koreans, phillip OS, australians, they're all counting on us to be there for them and if we say we're I going to defend taiwan, the chinese attack they're gonna say I bet if the chinese attack us, the americans won't be there for us. Uh, so the he would have a imaging effect on our alliance structure, which we cannot afford because containing china is that wicked problem. It's a powerful state.

You're getting to this before when you talked about china versus taiwan. So that's the first reason. Second reason is you want to bottle up the chinese navy in the chinese air force inside the first daland chain.

You don't want to let them get out, uh, into the pacific. You don't want them dominating the waters of the stage. You want to bottle them up again inside the first island chain.

And you can only do that if you control taiwan. You don't control taiwan. They get out into the Philippines c into the pacific and the western pacific and cause all sorts .

of problems. Well, you saying all that. You've also said the century of humiliation, japan and united states, a source of that humiliation for china. Don't you think they see the other side of that?

absolutely.

And in the interest of avoiding a world war, I guess the question is, how do we avoid world? World IT doesn't seem like the military involvement in the conflict between china. And I want is the way.

well.

I don't want. There's no good answers here. I'm saying no, which is the the less bad option.

What what you want to do is you want to make sure that you'd deter uh, china from invading taiwan. You want to avoid a war, you an iron, and complete agreement on that. We don't want a war, but we want to contain china.

We do not want to let china dominate asia. That's what the americans are principally concerned with here, and it's what china's neighbors are principally concerned with. This includes the japanese to south koreans, filipinos, australians and the taiwanese. We they don't want and we don't want china to dominate the region. So we have to contain IT.

But at the same time, and this should be music areas, we not only want to contain IT, we want to make sure we don't end up in a shooting match with the chinese, because this could be disastrous. So you have to have a very smart policy if to build powerful military forces, and you have to make sure you don't do anything that's provocative on taiwan. For example, the last thing you want is for the taiwanese government to declare its independence, because the china said, if taiwan does that, we will go to war. And of course, we don't want that. So my view is you want to smart tly build up your military forces, and you want to do everything you can to contain china, and at the same time, not be provocative.

So a big component of that is making sure your military, the U. S. Military, is bigger than the chinese military.

Not necessarily the interest resting question. A lot of people think that to make the rents work right, you have to be able to beat the chinese and therefore you need a much bigger military um and I don't think over time that's possible, right? I think it's probably even possible now to beat the chinese and war over taiwan, or in a war in the south china, say, I think what you want to do is make IT clear to the chinese either that there will be no winner, another gene have to win.

But you want to make sure they don't win, okay, it's it's IT lose lose position if they go to war over a taiwan's or what have you uh, and if you can do that, right, you think that they are so powerful that they're ultimately gonna in. You want to convince them that Victory would be a pirate Victory. In other words, they would pay a god of for Price to win the war.

You follow him saying, so you would be the best strategy for deterrents. You win. China loses.

Second best strategy is a star mate. Nobody wins. Third best strategy is they win, but they pay out of the Price. And the fourth possibility, which you don't want, is they wait quickly and decisively, right? If that's the case, then you don't have much deterrence.

What is a world with china's the sole dominant superpower look like? I mean, a little bit underlying our discussion as this kind of idea that us is the good guys in china's is the bad guys. First of all, you you know, dividing the world to get guys and bad guys seems to somehow, mister, you answer this whole .

human civilization .

project were undertaking. But where the world look like, where china is the dominant soul superpower in a unipolar world.

well, I don't tend to think of the world in terms of good guys and bad guys is a good realest. I I think that, you know, states or states, the old black boxes. You know, I don't discriminate between democracies and autocracies.

But having said that, I am an american, and as an american, i'm interested in the security of my country, the survival of my country. So I want the united states to be the most powerful state in the world, which means I want the united states to dominate the western hemisphere. I want us to be a regional hedgie on. And I want to make sure that china does not dominate asia the way we dominate the western hemisphere. It's not because I think we're the good guys and there the bad guys. If I were chinese and I were in beijing and I were teaching ping's national security advisor, i'd tell him what we got to do is make sure we dominate the world or or dominate our region and then do everything we can to undermine america's position in the western hemisphere right? That that be my view um so I guess you could say I do view the world in terms of good guys and bad .

guys in amErica .

is a nice way put IT yeah it's us verses them not so much good guy versus .

bad guy is impossible to have a stable peaceful world with a good baLance of power with where it's china in U. S. As superpowers. He is a bipolar world, no longer unipolar.

yes. Okay, we are hypothesized in the world where they dominate asia. Yeah, and we dominate the western hemisphere. Yes, I believe there would be uh, a great deal of security competition, intense security competition between those two supermarket.

The definition of intense matters here. So IT could be small, small military conflicts, or IT could be extremely large, unstable military conflict.

Fix, let's use the word war. okay? So I distinguished between security competition and war. And what i'm telling you, you have an intense security competition where there is no shooting, where, if there are shooting is mainly proxies that are doing the fighting much like to be a no war, right um or you could have a case where one of those superpowers was involved in a war against the proxy of the other superpower korean war thinked the korean war, the united states for the chinese were allied with the soviet at the time, but a war between the united states and china, just like a war between the united states and so the union in the cold war, that's what you really want to avoid.

So I think you'd have an intense security competition, right? You'd have wars involving proxy of each of those two superpowers. And you would probably have some wars were one of the super powers was involved in a proxy, right, with the other super, one of the super other super paris proxy.

So that seems likely then, if that's the case, that would be ten, once the proxy and U. S, fighting china, the proxy.

yes, that would assume the united states. But you won't remember, you're hypothesizing the situation where china dominates .

asia has dominated.

already dominated taiwan. H, I, we, we.

Do you find the proxy? The midday .

east could be a good case. Person, golf.

Oh, boy. And then our discussion of israel becomes even more dramatically. Israel.

israel gets involved. I think. I think in this scenario, you're talking about the U. S.

China competition, right? And you're talking about the middle east. I think it's the gulf. It's it's the saudi, the iranians, the iraq, it's the oil.

Don't you think you could be israelis around with some very nineteen eighty four kind of dramatic partnership of iran, russia, in china, in the states, european um israel? I think that's .

possible yeah. I think that's possible yeah now that I think I mean, I hadn't thought about IT until you said IT but yeah I think that that that is .

possible is is not terrifying yeah .

well that you know in your scenario, we're trying to already dominates asian. We d dominate the western hemisphere. I think you start talking about where the most likely places, uh, that the united states in china go head ahead uh or or fight through proxies. Uh, I think IT is the gulf for the middle east and the scenario that you posit.

I mean, one one question I have, I don't know about you, but for me, unlike with the soviet union, and I know was born there, but even outside of that, the cultural gap, the the lost in translation, the communication gap between china and the united states seems to be much greater than that of all the forms of the union and the states. I see two cultures intermingling and communicating is one of the ways to describe future conflict.

It's interesting question. I mean, IT IT is part of an abstract theoretical level. My argument is the great paris act according to realize dictate tes, and they understand those realised I tates, and that can lead to CoOperation or IT can lead to war. IT depends, I would say, just in the case of the soviet, a lot of people described the cold war as an ideological competition. Above all else, it's was communism verses liberal democracy or communism versus liberal capitalism whatever um I actually don't believe that I I believe the soviets were a realist to the core.

I believe stolen was a realest part excEllence and that ideology did not matter much in stolen foreign policy and I believe if you look at so beat from policy, uh, after world war two, you know, throughout the cold war, they were real to the car. A and and I think in those days, the americans were real less, right? Lot of liberal ideology floating around out there, but the americans were real less.

And I think one of the reasons you avoided a shooting match between the united states in the soviet union from forty seven to, uh, eighty nine, I was because both sides, I think I understood basic baLance of parallel. C, U, S, china competition is somewhat different, first, for the chinese are realised to the core. Uh, i've spent a lot of time in china.

I basically have rocked and roll. I'm basically a rock and roll star in china. Ah, the chinese you got have a big .

deal in china. I love IT.

The chinese are my kind of people. Yeah, they're real less right. They speak my language. It's the the united states that is not very realist. American leaders have a very powerful liberal bent and tend not to see the world and realist terms. I believe, by the way, just corn back to our discussion of nato expansion.

I think our inability to understand that nato expansion was anathema to the soviet, to the russians, was doing large part to the fact that we, just during the unipolar moment, didn't think of international politics from marial st. Perspective and didn't respect anyone who thought about international politics from a really perspective. Those various american administration, starting with the clinton administration, and put their realist head on, they would have understood the native expansion into ukraine was not a good idea.

But we had a storly liberal view of the world that dominated their thinking. And it's going to waste somewhat since we moved into multiple aries, but not completely. And this makes me a little nervous, right? To pick up on your point, I mean, that states is thinking about the world in ways that are somewhat different than the chinese. Well, real is part exelon.

So that's fascine. So the chinese are pragmatic about thinking of the world in as a competition of military powers, all the ways in which you described the really perspective so that that mean that's that's a hopeful thing, right? If we can achieve stability and baLance of powers through that military competition yeah .

I I actually think that's right. I think of the united states. Just let me talk a little bit about the ted states to get out the issue you're raising if the united states pursues a smart containment strategy, given what you just said, I said about the chinese, I think we will avoid war.

Prompt americans is it's not just the liberalism, it's the possibility that we will pursue a rollback policy. Another is during the cold war, uh, we pursuit containment IT was whenever anybody talk about american grand strategy towards the soviet union, containment, containment, containment. We now know from historical record that the united states was not only pursuing containment, IT was pursuing roll back.

We were trying to roll back soviet power. They put bluntly, we were trying to reach the soviet union. okay. And I would not be surprised moving forward with regard to china if the united states pursues a serious rollback policy.

And you say throughout history, united was always doing that, was, what was that from why? Why can't we respect the power of other nations?

Because they may be a threat to us.

We well, I mean.

you don't look, you don't respect the power of other nations. You fear the power of other nations .

will fear and respect the next to our neighbors depending on the neighborhood are living in. But I just mean, it's IT could be very kind of production to try because if you can emphasize with there, if if you assume their rational actors you try to roll back will create would lean into the uncertainty of potential conflicts you want to avoid the uncertainty potential for caution, right?

Well, yes and no, the look your point, as you want to empathy, you want to be able to put yourself in the shoes of the other side. Yes, I agree one hundred percent. But with that right is very important if your first class strategies to be able to do that.

But at the same time, there is this competition for power taking place. And what you want to do is maximized how much power you have relative to the other side, and the other side wants to maximize how much power IT has relative to you. So you have this competition for power, right? Uh, that's taking place all the time, and that's taking place at the same time. You want to have empathy or you want to be able to put yourself in the shoes of the other side. So those two things kindly got .

together right is just feels less threatening to build up your thing versus try to hurt the other person's thing, the other group's thing.

But if you build up your own power, you are building up your capability to hurt the other other side.

But like you do, I guess you don't write all the sabor, just just work on manufacturing saabs.

but that I agree with, I think that you know the one states you know wants to make sure that has a big stick in each station for for purposes of containing china and avoiding the war right now. Again, I want to be clear, i'm not advocating uh. That we start world worthy. But the point is you want to have a big stick and you want to make sure that you don't overstep your bounds in terms of using net big stick.

This is the danger with roll back, right? That you get to aggressive and you precipitate a war, right? And you also just have to be very careful what you say and to go back to your favorite or argument, you wanna be able to have empathy or put yourself in um the shoes of the other side. Because if you do something you want to think smart tly about what that all the side, how that all the side is good to see your action and how they're gonna react, right?

And and mostly focus on the cares, have a giant stickler around, never mention IT, just focus on the .

carrots occasionally you have to mention the .

stick never knows .

that is there there is some truth .

in that right I mean yeah um but you know and words matter a lot he feels you know this a current president by this meeting with sheen pain. And I think the words exchanged there are really important. I have a notion that leaders can stop wars just as much as they can start wars.

But leaders matter. There's no question about that, no question, but just an unread orig. You want to remember that putin has, on more than one occasion, very suddenly rattled the nuclear source o and IT has been very effective.

Yeah, because joe biden has paid attention and joe biden wants to make sure we don't end up in a thermal nuclear war. And thank good. Yes, he's thinking that way.

So all pun has to do is mention the possibility of nuclear war just to go back to taiwan. You switch areas of the world if you're interested in containing china, and you're interest in deterrence. And let's go back to those various scenario where the chinese win. We win. Chinese win, but they do IT costly, a great cost. One could argue the that discussion I laid out before didn't take into account nuclear weapons and all president by nor any of his successors has to do is just very suddenly uh rattle uh or or employee the nuclear threat you know uh and just sort of remind the chinese that you know you start to war over a taiwan IT could easily escalate into a nuclear war you won't understand we both have nuclear weapons and if you the one of us is put into a desperate situation, we may turn to those nuclear weapons and all by the way, jian ping, you will understand that we're out here in the water and using nuclear weapons in the water not that uh the the same is using war, a nuclear weapons on lands so we may very well use them. I'm not saying we will, but with little sabor reti yeah right.

Let me just zoom out on human history. What makes empire collapse and what makes them last when they do? When you look at human history, in your sense, think IT about the united days perhaps is an empire.

I don't view the new states is an empire.

What's the what's the different so to you empire the thing that seeks expansion finally.

yeah I I think it's a country um that incorporates different uh regions or areas around the world into sort of a giant sphere of influence without incorporating those territories actually into the state itself. So he had distant called the british empire and the controlled areas like india, north amErica and kenya。 Just to pick a couple instances at different points, singapore would be another example.

Australia would be another example. So these were all entities that were part of the british empire, right? And the united states has taken a stabbed empire a after the spanish american war, for example, uh, with regard to the Philippine and cuban porter ago. But we never got serious about IT. There's never been in american empire.

This is not to say the united states is not an incredibly powerful country that goes all around the world building military bases and stationed in troops here, there and everywhere but we are not running an empire the way the british empire was run or the french empire um so the question for me is why did those empires go away? What the british emp. Ire go away? You ever look at a map of the world in nineteen twenty two after world war. It's truly amazing how much of that map is controlled by britain. They had a huge empire and IT disappeared.

probably by far the biggest in terms of area empire, human history. I think so I .

think that right is almost test .

to be yeah right um it's crazy crazy yeah and then no longer no longer is the .

case yeah I be clear. The americans have wielded maybe even greater influences in britain did when I had its empire, but I don't believe we have an emperor. E, that bears any resembLance to the british empire.

E, so the question, what happened to the british empire? What happened to the french emperor? What happened to the belgian emp ire? What happened to the dutch emp ire? These countries that economies all over the planet of the dutch east, indeed.

嗯， right? Vietnam was, you know, french in china. Where will those employees go? Two factors finish them off. Number one, nationalism. Nationalism became a very powerful force in the one thousand nine century IT began where its head, the eighty eight century, and became very powerful than than ninety. And certainly in the twenty years.

playing nationalism here.

Nationalism is the idea that these different nations that were part of the empire, like the kenyans, wanted their own state, nation state. This might put about the palestinians, right? This palestinian nationalism, what ism sign ism is, jewish nationalism.

Jewish nationalism. Think of theatre hurt. Sal's famous book is called the jewish state, nation state of the word nation state, that body's nationalism, nation state.

Jewish ate, palestinians want their own state to state solution, right? Can't beat the palestinians the submission, right? The indians, one of their own state. The pakistani's, one of their own state.

The kenyans, one of their own state in singapore, or one of its, oh, the americans, one of their own state is called the american revolution, right? So that's the first reason nationalism that these emps disappeared. The second reason is that from across benefit analysis, uh, they no longer made any sense.

Uh and IT was the commit of the industrial revolution. Once the industrial revolution comes an empire, it's basically an albatross around your neck. I would argue that the british empire was an albatross around britain's neck in most of the twentieth tury.

Some of my friends disagree with that and think they're all hard to benefits from the british emp. ire. But you want to remember that in the twenty century, the three countries that really were powerful were the united states, germany and the soviet union.

Those were the big three. Did any other have an empire? No.

no.

you don't need, you know, an empire, right? When you need is a powerful manufacturing. This.

well, the the cost benefit analysis, different before the industrial revolutions, been many empires.

There's no question of empires came and went. right. I am right. And if just look at the british and the french in the seven years war, seventeen fifty six to seventeen sixty three, the british win. They get canada right.

And that's why, you know, quebec, montreal, all these big friends speaking areas are now part of, uh, canada, right? Uh, so borders change in countries got established in united states being one. And remember, south amErica and central amErica were once completely dominated by the spanish and in the case of brazil, the portuguese.

But um they all in the eighteen century got their independence right. And what i'm saying to you is in sixteen in the twentie century they were two forces that were really driving the train. One is nationalism and then the other is the industrial revolution, which changes the cost benefit analysis.

Almost too crazy of a question. But if you look, let me called, I say, five hundred years from now, and you, you, you, you tell me, sure, somehow travel through time and are at the bookstore looking at the entire history, human citizen, in a single book. What role does U. S.

play? I watch the story of U. S. Over the next hundred, two hundred, three hundred years. Is IT a big role.

small row. Well, that's a long time, if you, yeah, let me, let's just say the next hundred years.

Yeah, that's still tough.

That's still tough actually. You know, I think we're an excEllent shape. And here's the reason going back to the beginning of the conversation.

U. S. May you know about power. And I told you the two principal building blocks of power, our population size and wealth. okay? And therefore you want to look around the world and you want to look at what you think the demographics are of countries like britain, the united states, A A ran, uh, china, russia.

Pick your country moving forward, right? Well, the demographics look like and how wealthy of those are those countries likely debate when you discover very quickly, and is that almost every country around the world is depopulating over time, right? Russia is gonna much smaller.

China is going to be much smaller, uh, hundred years from now than both of those countries are is best we can tell the states. American women are not having lots of babies these days. No question about that, but we have immigration.

We're an immigrant culture you're perfect manifestation in that are perfect. You're now in america. That's wonderful. We need more people like you, right? So when I hear Donald trump and others arguing that immigration a terrible thing, this is ridiculous. And immigration is what made us great, right? It's when my relatives came over in the middle of nineteen century from germany in ireland, right?

That's fascinating. Like, you know that is you know has been a huge concern, amErica and other developments and not having enough children. But you you just made me realized .

in the long .

arch of history, the united tes has gone really damn good at integrating immigrants and you and like help en in flourish the whole diversity of uh the demo s of america. There's a machinery of integrating other cultures .

yeah I just very quickly on this as the same honeythunder book who are away uh which in in many ways I i've loved that book but IT has one fundamental floor and a number of people told him beforehand that that floor existed and he didn't fix IT. But some argues in the book that we have large numbers of its panics in this country and we're doing a very poor job of integrating them into the mainstream and you're not becoming americans.

And because many of them are concentrated in the southwest of the united states, unlike other ethnic groups that were spread out all over god's little Green accor, right? We're gonna have a this cohesive group of span is speaking americans, right, who are gonna a want to break away. And the united states is no longer gonna be, you know, a reasonably coherent nation state.

He's wrong. The all the evidence is that his panics are integrating into the american mainstream, uh, more quickly and more effectively than the european em economy out the european immigrant groups that came. Starting around eighteen thirty five, if you look at immigration from europe into the united states, leave in aside the original wasps who came over and founded the place.

The immigrants start coming in large numbers in nineteen thirty five. And we really don't shut the door until one thousand and twenty four, right? Starting this is a crude overview, starting in nineteen thirty five and running up till about eighteen eighty five.

It's mainly germans in irish. That's why germans are the largest ethnic group i've ever come to the united states, and the irish are right behind them. These are the european ethics PS were talking about, then started in nineteen eighty five.

Polls, juice in italian start coming, right? Uh, and the germans and irish keep coming. And this is why l asylum is open. I think it's eighteen ninety three.

L assailant is open because castle garden in new york, which had handled all the previous immigrants coming across the pond, castle garden couldn't handle them all. So they opened up well as island. That's why somebody like me, I can't find my distant relatives records in alaska. And because they came to castle garden, right, is lots of juice. I know lots of italians, I know they could find their relatives records in a asylum because they came to alaska.

The point is, you had all these immigrants who came in roughly between eighteen thirty five and ninety twenty four when we shut, to get the only time we've ever really shut the gates in a meaningful way, right? And this is what made amErica great, right? All these people, and they made lots of babies, right?

So some sense, make amErica again means in, get more immigrants in.

But we open the gates again in sixty five, caused them in twenty four, open them in sixty five. I'm over simplifying the story here because we didn't completely shut them. We almost completely shot them in twenty four, opened in sixty five.

And we've had huge numbers of immigrants flowing in. These immigrants have been flowing in sand. Sixty five are not europeans. They're not mainly europeans. They're mainly his panics and actions. If you look at those hispanics nations they're integrating into the american mainstream at a much faster and more effective quip was the case with those immigrants who commit came in in the nineteen century and early twenty century the irish oh my god, you know they were treated harvey. There's a book um a very famous book that's been written called when the irish became a White.

Just think of about the title that but yes, there was discrimination against all these groups, right? And the worst discrimination, of course, was against chinese americans, right? But we've got much Better. And what we should do moving forward is redouble our efforts to integrate immigrants into the american mainstream.

You know his panics, you know asians of all sorts, because the fact is that amErica is rapidly reaching the point where it's not gonna be all White country, right? Uh, I have five children and two of my children, or I was a generation Z J Z. Genie is the last majority White generation, right? Subsequent generations in the majority weight uh so for anybody who is bothered by this, i'm not bothered by that.

But for anybody who is bothered by this, they Better good use to IT because americans aren't making a babies that we can continue to grow uh, population wise in a robust way. So we need immigration and we're an immigrant culture. And this is a great virtue. IT has been a great virtue over time.

should be a source of hope, not worry.

That's my view. That's my view in america, when IT works is a place that is very attractive to immigrants, and immigrants can do very well here.

And in the real key moving forward is in a marriage, right? And you have a huge amount of intermarriage, right? Somebody was telling me, not too long go at the highest intermarriage rates in the united states among asian women, asian american women, asian women and angles, right? And the I say, wonderful 呃 and great you know.

the love is the fastest way to into great .

yeah what you do, what you want to do is you want to eliminate difference, right? You you want to eliminate difference, right? It's like, you know, people who say i'm in at the semi, right? I have two grandsons who ate off hitler were a thrown into a guest chAmber, one of whose first name is john and middle name is mere sheemale.

right? Yeah.

this is what you want. Yeah, right? Steve world's wife and his two children would have been thrown into a guest chAmber by air.

Hitler, right? This is what you want. You want into marriage. Now they're number people in some of those groups, especially among jews who don't like in a marriage, right? But they've lost because I haven't looked recently at the data of the data among um for in merage rates among basically secular juice, but IT used to be around sixty two percent large numbers of juice.

Mary going and i've lost because of any marriage. Any marriage helps the tribal ism, the different kind of travel ism, that's nice .

calling me and that I said they have been met, my grandson's, my son and war nieces that I, A niece that I have nephews that I have brother in laws that I have jewish, right? Come on.

And this this gives a really nice hope of view of america, is is the integration of different, different cultures, different kinds of peoples, that is, a unique property america.

yes. But just to go back to where we started, IT was not smooth in the beginning.

All things are rough.

In the beginning, things are off in the in.

What advice would you give to a Young person today about how to have a career? They can be proud of our life.

they can be proud of. Well, I think it's very important to make sure that you do something in life that really interests you. My mother used to use this phrase, floats your boat. You want to do something that floats your boat. Or to use another one of my mother's phrase phrase is you want to get up.

You want to do something where you get up out of bed in the morning with a baLance in your step, right? So I think that you know, if your mother and father want you to be a layer and they're pushing you be a layer, and you don't want to be a lawyer, you wants to be a policeman, be a policeman, right? I don't do what other people want you to do because it's very important to find a job and occupation that you really love.

The second thing I would say, and this has to do with your point about humility um you want to think about the humility hubris index. My friend Steve, whenever who teaches an M I, he and I invented this concept we call the uber humility index. And you want to have healthy dose of humility, but you also want to have a healthy dose of hub.

You want to think you can change the world. You want to think you can make things Better for yourself. You want to take chances.

You want to think sometimes that you know Better than other people do. Hubris is not a bad thing, but at the same time, you have to have humility. Yeah, you have to understand that a man or a woman has his or her limits and you want to listen to other people. You want to be a good lister right? Um so always remember the importance of the ub humility index and the importance of having healthy dose of both you birth and humility speaking .

of humility, your model like all humans are due ponder your mortality. Are you afraid with are you afraid of death?

I'm not sure i'm afraid death. Um I I don't wanna die because I enjoy life. So yeah you know, given how horrible the world is today, I hate to and I hate to say that i'm having too much fun.

But do I find what I do interesting and gratifying? I I I do uh I just love what I do. Uh, and I love studying you know, international politics and um I love being intellectually curious about all sorts of subjects. I i've talking to you about this and that I mean this is really wonderful and I often tell people, you know thank good as i'm only twenty eight years old because I do try to behave I am only twenty eight years old but I am well aware of the fact that is my mother the saying nothing is forever and that includes me and when you're seventy five going on seventy sixth, you understand that you have a limited number of years left uh and I find that depressing um because i've been i've been very lucky and the and I feel like i've won the lottery and uh i'm very thankful for that and i'd like to you know make IT last for as long as possible but I do understand that you know nothing is forever yeah .

the five nights ess of things.

Yeah, you never think that when you're Young, I mean, you know, you think you gonna live forever and you just not gna get all. I never thought this would happened that I would become seventy five years old.

Well, you got you got so much energy and boldness and fearlessness and an an, an excitement to you that i'm really grateful to see that, especially given how much i'm sure you've been attacked for having a bold ideas and presenting them and not losing, yeah not losing that youth energy is beautiful to say thank you, not becoming cynical, just a huge order to speak with you that you gave me so much time and so much respect and so much love.

This was a really incredible conversation. And thank you so much for everything you do in the world for looking out into world and trying to understand IT and teach us. And thank you so much for talking with the silicate like me.

My pleasure. Thank you much throws.

Thanks for listening to this conversation with join mr. Sharma to support the spot cast. Please check out our sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you some words .

from play to .

only the dead have seen the end of war. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.