0:07

This is Intercepted. Welcome

0:20

to Intercepted, I'm Jeremy Scahill.

0:34

And

0:36

I'm Mutaso Sain. All right, Mas, good to

0:39

be with you again, my friend. Good to be here. So

0:41

we're going to be focusing today's

0:44

episode pretty sharply on China

0:46

and the kind of emerging bipartisan

0:49

elite consensus that China

0:51

should be viewed as the premier threat

0:54

to the United States, to its national security,

0:56

and also the concerns

0:59

that China is threatening American

1:01

hegemony. We're going to be talking

1:03

to a really interesting guest. He actually

1:05

served in the Pentagon during

1:07

the Trump administration. His name

1:09

is Elbridge Colby, and we'll mix

1:12

it up a bit with him. But before we get

1:14

into that, I just wanted to say, Maz, that

1:16

this week, history is being made

1:18

in the United States with Donald Trump being

1:21

arraigned on more than

1:23

two dozen felony charges that

1:26

relate to his 2016 alleged

1:29

hush money payments to the adult

1:31

film star, Stormy Daniels.

1:34

And I don't have much to say about the

1:36

specifics of this indictment against

1:38

Trump, but just monitoring the media,

1:40

there's a lot being made of this. Yes,

1:43

it's historic. It's the first time that you have

1:45

a former president being criminally

1:47

charged. But I couldn't help but sort

1:49

of

1:50

taking into account or thinking about

1:53

the timing of all of this coming right

1:55

after we observe the 20th

1:58

anniversary of the

2:00

2003 invasion and occupation

2:02

of Iraq. You have Vladimir

2:04

Putin also around the same time Trump

2:07

was learning that he was going to

2:09

face these indictments in New York,

2:11

Vladimir Putin was indicted by

2:14

the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Part

2:18

of the media narrative is that this prosecution

2:21

of Trump is showing that no one

2:23

is above the law, that even ex-presidents

2:25

can be prosecuted and in that sense

2:28

you know this is a good thing to start the

2:30

ball rolling on actually prosecuting

2:32

people that rise to the highest

2:34

levels of power in the us government.

2:37

But

2:37

at the same time we have. George

2:40

w bush you continuing

2:42

to like sort of be embraced as the nice

2:44

painter man we have dick cheney

2:46

somehow even though he's using another man's

2:48

heart he's evil soul is sort

2:50

of lurking in the atmosphere around

2:53

us. Henry Kissinger's animated

2:55

corpse is still around, and none of these people

2:58

have faced any justice for

3:01

the massive sustained war

3:03

crimes that were committed post-9-11.

3:06

And I have a piece up on the site about this right

3:08

now, but the short of it is, yes,

3:11

we should be in the business of prosecuting ex-presidents,

3:14

but it shouldn't be limited to their tawdry

3:17

activities or white-collar crimes. If

3:19

we actually want to pretend

3:21

that America is exceptional,

3:24

then we would actually be prosecuting presidents

3:26

for war crimes, for the gravest

3:29

of crimes committed. Until that

3:31

day happens, then Trump is going

3:33

to continue to be portrayed as this American anomaly

3:36

when in fact it should be a moment for us to

3:38

reflect on how anemic

3:41

our nation has been on the question

3:44

of holding the most powerful people accountable

3:47

for violent crimes that

3:49

they commit, including in their official

3:51

capacity as president or vice president

3:53

or defense secretary. You know, the selectiveness

3:56

of the enforcement of the law, as you said,

3:58

in this case, it kind of really takes the

4:00

satisfaction you might get out of seeing Trump

4:02

arrested and arraigned in this way. It really

4:04

sucks the life out of it. If you put it in perspective

4:06

as you did. There's a really good article actually in

4:08

the American conservative, which is quite skeptical

4:11

of the Iraq war since the beginning by

4:13

a Saurabh Amari Nis. It makes a point that, look,

4:16

you know, I don't really care that much about what Trump did

4:18

in this case. If I'm asking, like you made many

4:20

criminal things as president, the specific

4:23

charges, if you look at a big picture of what George

4:25

Bush did in being involved in the Iraq

4:27

war, torture, murder, the really the supreme

4:29

crime you can commit as a human being. Not only

4:31

was he not charged and even

4:34

the point, you know, suggestion raised in the US, he's

4:36

still in pretty good standing in the US

4:39

and his public opinion is quite favorable towards him

4:42

many years after the war ended. So the prosecution

4:44

of Trump, it's very easy to loop

4:46

it into a narrative of victimhood

4:48

and martyrdom, not because he's a good guy or

4:51

that he shouldn't be prosecuted for things which

4:53

he did in office and criminal

4:55

things which many presidents did, usually involving

4:58

killing people abroad and things of that magnitude.

5:01

But the selectiveness and the tikitake

5:03

nature of the case against him is just

5:06

a bit, it's so obviously contingent

5:08

and so obviously

5:10

not accounting for the real crimes committed by

5:12

his predecessors, fortunate

5:15

to escape complete censure, even popular

5:17

censure. Yeah, and I mean, it's also

5:19

it's really fascinating, as I said earlier,

5:21

that, you know, this is all going down with Trump

5:24

right as Vladimir Putin gets hit with his

5:26

war crimes indictment by the International Criminal

5:29

Court. And, you know, we've done a lot of work at the intercept about

5:31

how the United States has systematically undermined,

5:34

you know, the ICC and international justice

5:37

and passed laws in

5:39

the early 2000s.

5:40

One of them is referred to

5:42

as the Hague invasion act that actually

5:44

authorizes the president to conduct a

5:47

military operation in the Netherlands

5:49

to rescue or liberate any American

5:51

personnel or personnel from allied

5:53

countries who are being prosecuted

5:56

or suspected of war crimes

5:58

and was sort of like incredible.

6:00

to watch unfold was that right as

6:02

this indictment hits Putin, he

6:04

couldn't have cared less. He was just like, I have

6:06

zero concern about this. And by the way,

6:08

I can't really talk to any of you right now because President

6:11

Xi of China is arriving in

6:13

Moscow for a major public

6:15

display of how little both of us

6:17

care about what anyone

6:19

in Washington DC or the Hague says

6:22

about the war in Ukraine. And that

6:24

brings us, Maz, to the topic

6:26

of China. And we're going to be talking a lot over

6:28

the course of the next hour about this.

6:30

But a lot of this stuff is really coming to

6:32

a head with China and Russia and

6:34

China

6:35

are really projecting or

6:38

showing quite publicly that they

6:40

intend to create a total alternative

6:43

to American hegemony in the

6:45

world. And Russia is not the

6:47

leader of this. China is really

6:49

rising and getting involved with trying

6:51

to broker peace in Ukraine. There

6:54

was the deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia,

6:56

the historic deal that China

6:59

basically spearheaded. This is a really

7:01

interesting moment in global affairs and

7:03

China is putting itself front and

7:05

center. Yeah, I think in that meeting that

7:07

you mentioned between Xi and

7:10

Putin, he had a quote at the end of it.

7:13

Xi said that changes will be coming to the

7:15

world, which has not been seen in 100 years, something

7:17

to that effect. And that comes

7:20

on the heels of many speeches given recently

7:22

where he's talked about the US in very,

7:24

very direct terms as trying to constrain

7:27

and strangle China and so forth. And

7:29

I think that, you know, for the past generation,

7:32

or at least since the Cold War, Americans

7:34

have been very acclimated to being

7:37

at odds with powers which are much, much weaker,

7:39

and even kind of considering their threats or their

7:41

statements to be a bit of a joke and

7:43

things like that. But you know, he's a very serious

7:45

person, Xi Jinping, like not a good person

7:48

per se, but a very serious person. And

7:50

he's at the helm of a country

7:52

which potentially will draw

7:54

off the US economy in our lifetime, militarily

7:58

very expensive powers and so forth So,

8:01

you know, I think that his statements should be

8:03

taken very seriously. If he's saying some major change

8:05

is going to happen and he's engineering

8:08

and preparing militarily and economically for

8:11

a confrontation with the U.S., I think there's very strong reason

8:13

to believe that, or at least a strong reason

8:15

not to dismiss that or to think that it's an empty

8:18

threat or vein, because there

8:20

seems to be very quite obviously an alliance

8:23

or an alignment at least between

8:26

these powers across Eurasia

8:28

who are at odds with the US. And you could

8:30

think of Russia, China, Iran

8:33

and many other countries in between who will probably try

8:36

to play both sides. But there's a real confrontation

8:38

coming and I think that

8:40

the era of small

8:42

wars that commenced at the end of

8:44

the Cold War is being replaced

8:47

with an era of great power conflict again

8:49

which could be much more dangerous, much more deadly

8:52

and would impact the ordinary lives

8:54

of Americans in a way which, let's

8:57

say, the war on terror, for the most part, never

8:59

really did. Yeah, and it also,

9:01

you know, the U.S. response to

9:03

this, I mean, you could say that China is responding

9:06

to U.S. aggression or

9:08

U.S. threats or U.S. posturing

9:10

particularly over Taiwan or

9:12

the South China Sea, but regardless

9:15

of what framing you want to put on

9:17

this, it is indisputably true

9:19

that there is a hawkish drive

9:21

in Washington right now to

9:23

really put the sniper scope on

9:25

China as the top external

9:27

threat to America's national security.

9:30

It's part of why we wanted to talk to our

9:32

next guest who is very familiar with

9:34

what many people refer to as the blob in Washington

9:37

DC, the sort of elite institutions

9:40

that kind of benefit off of

9:42

American wars and American elite

9:44

politics. You have this momentum

9:47

that always seems to kick

9:49

in toward, we need an enemy

9:51

in the world. We need a bad guy that

9:54

we can justify all of our military expenditures

9:56

and other expenditures on. It's

9:59

interesting.

10:00

about our guest is that he has

10:02

served in a number of positions throughout

10:05

his career in the post-9-11 America

10:08

in intelligence and in military and

10:10

is sort of making a name for himself

10:13

as, I don't know, how would you describe

10:15

the politics, Mas? Well,

10:17

I would say he's what we call foreign policy

10:20

realist. And

10:22

what he described that as is, well, he's someone

10:24

very focused, laser focused

10:26

on what sees as U.S. interests and

10:29

considerations

10:30

like human rights

10:32

or specific regional powers,

10:34

how they govern themselves and so forth. It's

10:37

less of a concern, sometimes not even a concern.

10:39

It's very, very about what are our

10:42

interests, how do we accomplish them, how do we not do anything

10:45

more or less beyond that. It

10:47

sounds a little hard-edged or sounds

10:49

a little, it can sound a little cold, especially

10:51

compared to liberal imperialism, which is theoretically

10:54

very mission-driven about making the world a better place, even

10:56

though I think in practice we haven't really seen

10:58

that. So he

11:00

is very against, let's say,

11:03

the forever wars. I've read his stuff for quite a while. The

11:05

forever wars in the Middle East, skeptical of the

11:07

US war in Ukraine against Russia, and

11:10

very, very hawkish about China for some

11:12

of the reasons we talked about, for his belief that China

11:15

is going to be the major threat to the US in the coming

11:17

decades, and we prepare for that.

11:20

I agree with every single

11:22

proposal or prognostication. But

11:25

I do think it's interesting talking to him because very, very

11:27

rarely in DC, in foreign policy

11:30

circles do you meet someone who seems like they're

11:32

actually even talking about US interests.

11:34

A lot of people have agendas for certain regions and this

11:36

postulates constantly and try to retrofit why

11:39

it's in the US interests after the fact. I

11:41

think that he's really sincerely, rightly wrongly,

11:43

is very strongly of the belief that

11:45

this sincerely is a US interest to confront China.

11:48

And that's kind of his one note that

11:50

he plays again and again in his books and other

11:53

public commentary with my book, which is very interesting. And

11:56

to me, the news value also of

11:58

talking to people from that broad...

12:00

or school of thought is that

12:02

the nature of politics has changed quite

12:04

radically over the past six

12:07

or so years, maybe eight years,

12:10

where you now have more libertarian

12:12

strands of the conservative movement

12:15

becoming more prominent. Some of it

12:17

plays out with the Carnival

12:19

of Crazy in Congress with the Republicans

12:21

and the Freedom Caucus people now

12:24

rising to certain positions of power

12:26

in the House of Representatives. But there are

12:28

really serious thinkers

12:31

who have been against many

12:34

of the US imperial adventures for a long time.

12:36

They don't share a lot of the politics

12:38

with leftists or others on many

12:40

issues, but there is an interesting convergence,

12:44

particularly on foreign affairs and on matters

12:46

of war. That's why I'm really

12:48

glad that Elbridge Colby is joining

12:50

us. He served in a variety of roles

12:53

for the US government. He was the Assistant

12:55

Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force

12:57

Development during the Trump administration.

13:00

Prior to that, he served on various

13:03

U.S. intelligence and defense commissions,

13:06

and he co-founded the Marathon Initiative,

13:08

which is a think tank focusing

13:10

on what it calls sustained great power

13:13

competition. He is also the author

13:15

of the book, The Strategy of Denial

13:18

American Defense in an Age of Great

13:20

Power Conflict. Albridge Colby,

13:22

thank you very much for joining Maz and I here on

13:25

Intercepted. Jeremy and Murtaza, great

13:27

to be with you.

13:28

So I wanna start, we're gonna talk about the

13:30

recent summit that Xi Jinping

13:32

held with Vladimir Putin in Moscow,

13:35

some issues related to the agreement

13:37

that China helped broker between Iran

13:40

and Saudi Arabia, probably touch on some

13:43

issues related to the war in Ukraine. But

13:45

to just start from 30,000 feet, I

13:48

would really be interested in hearing you lay out

13:51

how you see the role

13:53

and position of the United States

13:55

the world today, coming off

13:58

of the 9-11 era.

14:00

the forever wars, the unusual

14:02

presidency of Barack Obama, the historic

14:04

presidency, also in its own way, the

14:07

historic presidency of Donald Trump. You,

14:09

of course, served in the Pentagon when Donald Trump

14:11

was president. But sort of from your

14:14

perspective, the position

14:16

and role of the United States in the world,

14:19

given all of that history that preceded

14:21

this moment. Well,

14:23

big and obviously important question.

14:26

I mean, I think there's a question of how is How is the United States

14:29

behaving or how has it behaved and

14:31

how is it that I think that we should

14:33

see our foreign policy and our role in the world?

14:36

I think the way I look at things is there's

14:38

a tendency to talk about, especially in sort of blobby

14:41

circles, there's a tendency to talk about the so-called

14:43

post-war order. But I think the

14:45

foreign policy world that we've been living in is the

14:48

post-Cold War world

14:50

order. I mean, in which during the Cold War,

14:52

there was a bipolar system, there was

14:54

a sort of internationalization and quote unquote

14:57

rules of the road and so forth. But

14:59

they tended to be highly bifurcated and they were

15:01

ultimately oriented as people recognized at

15:03

the time towards containment. It was

15:05

not the only thing going on in American foreign policy, but

15:07

it was the primary sort of

15:09

focus or driver. I think in the post Cold

15:12

War world, what you had was an attempt

15:14

to sort of capitalize on unipolarity

15:17

to pursue what I think Robert Kagan

15:19

has called global

15:20

liberal hegemony. And

15:22

that began in the 1990s when the United States was

15:25

really uniquely

15:26

powerful relative, which was somewhat

15:28

surprising, obviously, even 10 or 15 years before

15:30

people had been talking about US decline,

15:32

the persistence of the Soviet Union, etc. So

15:35

there was this sort of sense of rejuvenation. The

15:37

Soviet Union had collapsed, Russia was weak, China was still

15:40

at a relatively low level of development.

15:43

That sort of in a sense accelerated. I don't see that much

15:45

fundamental difference in foreign policy outlook

15:48

between Bill Clinton's administration and George W.

15:50

Bush's administration, the primary difference was

15:53

in the means they were prepared to use.

15:55

Clinton's was more multipolar, looking more at

15:57

diplomacy, but willing to use military ing yourself.

16:00

in the former Yugoslavia, Bush was

16:02

much more assertive and

16:04

prone to the use of military force as famously

16:07

or infamously laid out in things like

16:09

the axis of evil speech and the 2002 national

16:11

security strategy. Well, I think that

16:14

was fundamental in my view to mix in my own views. That

16:16

was a hubristic view. That was in a sense,

16:20

I would say a kind of liberalism on steroids,

16:22

liberal internationalism on steroids. And

16:25

the experiment was run and I

16:27

think it failed. I mean, it failed to both

16:30

sort of quote unquote pacify or liberalize

16:33

sort of areas of the world that were seen as the

16:36

last bastions to kind of boulderize Fukuyama

16:38

and Hegel. They were going to kind of pacify

16:40

the last holdouts towards

16:43

social liberal democracy or whatever you want to call it. But

16:46

it also catalyzed balancing behavior.

16:49

And of course, most significantly,

16:51

especially if you look at it, as I do

16:53

from a kind of realist perspective, it

16:55

involved the growth of what has now

16:57

clearly become, in my view, the primary challenge

17:00

to American interests and the primary other actor in the

17:02

international system, China, which

17:04

is for the first time, the most significant

17:06

fact is not the rules to me,

17:09

but the rules are the outgrowth of the power relationship,

17:11

the balance of power. And for the first time

17:13

in 150 years, there was a peer economy to

17:15

the United States and that's China.

17:18

And so my, just to kind of put a point on it,

17:21

my view is it was exceptionally ill-advised

17:23

and I would say disastrous to pursue this

17:26

Kagan-style global liberal hegemony 20 years ago,

17:29

I think it could be actually catastrophic

17:31

today. In the sense that then

17:33

we did not face a peer adversary.

17:36

Our military was far ahead of others.

17:39

And ultimately, I think those advantages were

17:41

frittered away through unwise decisions.

17:44

But today we do fear we face a peer in China.

17:48

We face a highly resentful

17:50

and adversarial Russia. And of course, there are

17:52

other countries that have, you know, opposed

17:54

interest to at least what established Washington reviews

17:57

as our foreign policy. So I think we really

17:59

need a new. And I think that there's active

18:02

or latent interest in alternative foreign policy

18:04

across the political spectrum, and much of it

18:07

is going to involve, I think, cross-cutting

18:09

political coalitions. That's

18:11

one of the reasons I'm so excited to talk

18:13

to you both. I think the

18:15

status quo benefits from

18:19

pushing out alternative

18:21

views to, if you will, and they're

18:23

framing the extreme. And what we need

18:25

is sort of practical or prudential

18:28

coalitions that are willing to work for shared interests

18:30

even if there are very strong remaining disagreements

18:32

on a range of issues.

18:34

We want to talk to you a lot more about China as well too, but going

18:36

back to which point about the blob and its commitment

18:38

to liberal hegemony over the last several decades, can you

18:41

talk about what in your view sustains

18:43

that constituency? Because

18:45

I think today it's been very discredited by

18:47

advanced it seems, but there's still a very strong constituency

18:50

in D.C. to pursue liberal

18:52

international foreign policies in Europe

18:55

of course, but also even in the Middle East and other places where

18:57

this seems to have failed quite a bit. continues

19:00

to sustain that despite the apparent

19:02

missteps of the past generation?

19:05

It's a great question and one I spend a lot of

19:07

time thinking about it because you say it's discredited, then

19:09

here in Washington it feels like it's

19:11

still in the ascendancy. And it's not just

19:13

discredited on the left. I was in a interview

19:16

for a piece in, I think,

19:18

Barry Weiss' sort

19:20

of outlet about sort of more

19:22

dovish kind of Republicans. And one of the other

19:24

participants said, among the younger generation

19:27

of right of center thinkers, non-interventionism

19:29

is like all in vogue, it's the total norm.

19:32

And yet in the established power

19:34

centers, Congress often, the

19:36

think tanks, et cetera, it's still very

19:38

much 2002, 2003. So

19:41

I've thought a lot about that. And again,

19:43

using my sort of normal heuristic,

19:46

I tend to look at kind of where is the power, how is

19:48

that a range? And I think the biggest thing that I've

19:50

come away with is that

19:52

foreign policy is fundamentally an elite

19:55

centralized enterprise in the American

19:57

system. And I'm not saying that is a good thing.

20:00

thing even it's just a like a fact like if you

20:02

go back in the Federalist you know Hamilton and all

20:04

these stuff they're talking about they want a monarchical

20:07

kind of structure for foreign

20:09

policy and so the only elected individual

20:11

in the foreign really the foreign policy

20:13

sort of policymaking or or

20:16

you know enterprise is the president

20:18

him or herself and that person

20:20

often has limited ability to do something about it and

20:22

there's this huge official Washington and what that

20:24

creates is a kind of like I don't know if Versailles

20:27

is too much, but sort of Louis XIV kind

20:29

of courtier culture and

20:32

a pretty open sometimes disdain for popular

20:34

views because that's not where the incentives

20:36

are. The incentives are, well, there's

20:39

one guy who's elected, that person's usually

20:41

captured, if you will,

20:43

or can be a culture. I remember George W. Bush was

20:45

running on a humble foreign policy. That turned

20:47

around. President Obama ran as a skeptic

20:50

of that. To his credit, I think he

20:52

tried in certain ways, but I'll face a lot of difficulties.

20:54

Obviously President Trump. So I think that's

20:57

what leads me to think that

20:59

the solution to the problem is probably

21:01

not going to be purely grassroots. It

21:04

has to be through the president because

21:06

that's the person who has the power and ultimately

21:09

the institutions will go along if

21:11

there's enough consistency in pushing against

21:13

that blobby kind of global liberal hegemony attitude,

21:16

which of course I think you're right. I

21:18

think manifestly does not really serve the American

21:20

people's interest. So it's kind of, I mean, not

21:22

manifestly. I don't think it serves the American

21:24

people's interests. I

21:26

think, and I want to get your read on this, but it's so

21:29

clear that

21:30

the Trump era, the lead up to

21:33

his election, then his four

21:35

years in office, and now the current

21:37

situation where Trump is under

21:39

indictment, yet he's running again for president,

21:42

and the Democrats are scrambling for how to respond

21:45

to this. But this whole era, this whole

21:47

moment that we're in, it just broke

21:49

so many people's brains.

21:51

I mean, it really did. You know, among liberals,

21:53

it certainly broke brains. The

21:56

Republican Party is in complete schizophrenic

21:59

disarray.

22:00

You have the neocons and the so-called

22:02

traditional conservatives just struggling

22:05

to tread water politically

22:07

because of what the Trumpist sort of political

22:09

factions have done to that party. But

22:12

then within that, and what I think is actually on a foreign

22:14

policy level, one of the most important

22:17

realities of this broken brain political

22:19

culture that we're in right now is

22:22

that it's been clarifying.

22:24

You have the elite of the Democratic

22:27

Party and the former elite

22:29

of the the Republican Party still grasping

22:31

for political relevance, they

22:34

have come together and they have this sort

22:36

of secular religion of worshiping

22:38

the national security state. They're

22:41

coalescing behind the war machine.

22:43

People like Bill Crystal are now great, welcome

22:46

on the airwaves of MSNBC with nodding

22:49

heads, not shaking heads with nodding heads.

22:52

And you have this narrative set now

22:54

where the sort of so-called adults

22:57

in the room believe that the war machine

22:59

is gonna solve our problems. Believe that the

23:01

Justice Department, the CIA, these

23:04

institutions, these are gonna

23:06

solve our problems. And it's like we live

23:08

in this broken brain moment where

23:11

to

23:11

question those policies

23:13

gets you tarred now in this McCarthyist

23:16

way as either being in the service of

23:19

Putin or like in the case of

23:21

people like Maz and myself, I

23:23

did a piece once where I was talking about as

23:25

crazy and awful as I think Trump

23:28

is, his instincts against

23:30

this sort of interventionist policy represents

23:33

one of our best chances to start ending these

23:36

forever wars. I was not co-signing Trump's

23:38

methods, his presidency, his

23:40

ideology. I was stating up, you know,

23:43

a basic fact. And I just got inundated,

23:45

just trolled for that. We live

23:47

in this moment where if

23:50

you are saying something that contradicts

23:52

the bipartisan elite consensus,

23:55

particularly on matters of war, The

23:57

opponents of that immediately go for this

23:59

protection.

24:00

of the elite and tiring

24:02

you with these sort of McCarthyite

24:04

attacks. I pretty

24:06

much exactly agree. I mean, that's exceptionally

24:09

well said. And I guess a few thoughts. I

24:11

mean, one is kind of Cuy Bono, who benefits

24:14

here? You know, I mean, if you

24:16

want to have American

24:18

foreign policy be changed, and mine would be more of realist

24:21

perspective, others might have a more anti-interventionist

24:24

or kind of peace first perspective, but there may be areas

24:26

of overlap, then I think you've got to be prepared.

24:29

I mean, that's something in stepping back. And I

24:31

think you're right is there's a lot of broken

24:33

brainness and it's a difficult environment to navigate. I

24:35

certainly don't claim that I've navigated it perfectly

24:37

by any stretch. What I will say is on the right

24:39

right now, there's a feeling, I

24:42

like it a little bit to like the okay corral, you know, you

24:44

can pull up

24:44

a bunch of guys and you roll into town

24:46

and have a shootout. I mean, there's an openness. Actually,

24:49

I think it's dangerous and crazy, but there's

24:51

more fun because and I

24:53

don't want to make light of the situation, but there's

24:55

a more open, it's kind of like early Silicon

24:57

Valley or whatever. I mean, pick your analogy where it's

24:59

like, yeah, you can actually push

25:01

to change things and there's a real openness. Whereas

25:04

I feel a little bit on the left, and again, I'm not on the left,

25:06

so I don't wanna be, you know, but like I

25:08

defer to you guys, but it seems like it's become

25:10

more sort of establishmentarian, like

25:13

a lot, especially the Biden world, I

25:15

liken them to like, I mean, to like mandarins

25:17

in 19th century China. Mandarins in 19th century China

25:20

were very, very smart, but they were kind of working

25:22

in a very conservative small C. If you

25:24

were looking at it sociologically, often much more

25:26

conservative. And I guess my view is

25:28

there's an elite enterprise that, you know, sort

25:30

of that foreign policy is and

25:33

there's also a strong status

25:35

quo bias. I mean, so one of the things

25:37

that, and again, it's human nature and it would have been

25:39

very evident to political philosophers in

25:41

the past, but like, you know, for instance, I mean, military

25:44

people, senior

25:44

military people, a lot of people often think, oh, they're conservative.

25:47

Well, not necessarily. What they are is conservative sociologically.

25:49

So they're very bought in to the traditional

25:51

way of doing it. I mean, if you'd gone and you'd ask

25:54

a Roman general on the border of

25:56

Germany in like the the second century, they

25:58

would have said, Well, the empire is very important.

26:00

for Rome, right? And in a sense, you have a

26:02

similar phenomenon where people like, the alliance

26:04

with Korea is critical, the alliance with that, and

26:06

these may or may not, but there's a deep, deep

26:08

investment to the structure. And I've seen very

26:11

senior military officers go off on this

26:13

in a way that, and be very dismissive of the divisiveness

26:15

of American politics. And the line

26:18

I think of when I see that is like, well, when this

26:20

country was founded, the standing army was definitely

26:22

the bug, and the divisive politics were the feature.

26:24

That's like, that's what our country is about. And

26:27

I think that that's important here, because

26:29

if you're

26:30

gonna push change, you've gotta take political

26:32

risk and you've gotta be willing to work

26:34

on your own side of the spectrum and across

26:37

it with people who are also willing

26:39

to do that in ways that are gonna expose yourself. You're gonna

26:41

stick your head above the parapet to use a military

26:43

metaphor. And I think what's happening is

26:45

this like conformist sort of McCarthyite

26:48

element, which is very real. I mean, somebody accused, it was

26:51

like pure McCarthyism. It

26:53

was almost hilarious, this guy, you know, is a right-wing

26:55

guy, but it was like, you know, but it's so stupid,

26:57

right? But it's designed to

27:00

keep the status quo and to push people

27:02

down. Because if we can't, people like, I

27:04

don't wanna speak for you, but if people can't

27:06

push change and take risk and maybe make a mistake

27:09

here or there, then nothing is gonna happen. Then

27:11

it's gonna go back to inertia. And I

27:13

think that's the big, that's what I see

27:15

with the Bill Crystals, of course. And it's

27:18

like, my feeling about Bill Crystal, I mean, not to be too nasty,

27:20

but like, I mean, so he either was complicit

27:23

in building up this Republican Party that has now existed,

27:25

in which case, why are people listening on the left? Or he

27:27

didn't see it, in which

27:28

case he doesn't have a very good political eye.

27:31

So why is it you know sort of what what's you

27:33

know and then of course He's like the one of the fathers of the Iraq

27:35

war and stuff like that you know, but it's and then that's

27:37

another thing that I would just say on this point is I

27:41

Think the anti-war left has gone into

27:43

dormancy, you know over the last couple year But

27:46

I imagine that has to be a temporary

27:48

feature like at some point That's

27:51

such an inherent feature of the left that

27:53

that I expect it will come

27:55

back and that will give more opportunity Opportunity for

27:57

change I disagree with them on a lot of things particularly on China

28:00

and so forth. But I think, again, using the

28:02

idea, you know, finding areas

28:04

of agreement to work on, that's going to be an important feature.

28:07

You know, regarding Jeremy's point about Trump's

28:09

instincts, I think it's very true that he had sort of a realist

28:12

foreign policy that he campaigned on. He

28:14

expressed it a bit inarticulately in his fashion

28:16

during the campaign, but that was sort of the gut sense

28:18

of what his America First

28:20

foreign policy was. But I found that in

28:22

practice, for the most part, at least, the Trump

28:24

administration, it's kind of continued

28:27

a lot of policies that of his predecessors. not

28:30

deepen involvement in theaters or areas

28:32

where there wasn't key U.S. interests, but certainly developed

28:34

a lot of political and diplomatic and

28:37

administrative attention to them and so

28:39

forth, and didn't really fully pivot

28:41

as much as his campaign suggested

28:43

he might have during that period. Can

28:45

you speak, because you were inside the Trump administration at the

28:47

time, what exactly happened or why

28:50

was there less of a realist foreign policy than

28:52

his campaign had seemed to suggest at the outset?

28:55

Well, I think again if I think the lack

28:57

of probably aligned personnel

28:59

who were You

29:01

know prepared and ready and

29:03

equipped and experienced to operate the levers of

29:05

power I mean because the president can say something

29:08

but

29:08

it's not necessarily gonna happen. And of course, you know, president

29:11

Trump's style is less You

29:13

know Orthodox or kind of by the book So

29:15

it's already gonna be kind of harder

29:17

to make make the the ship of state

29:19

change and there wasn't a large

29:22

group of people, in fact a lot of them, I mean John Bolden

29:24

is a great example, I mean John Bolden was the National Security

29:26

Advisory, he has like the opposite, I mean at

29:28

least on this. The personnel appointments themselves

29:30

are a big part of this strangeness. Yeah,

29:33

so I think looking forward what's really critical

29:35

what I'm is for this kind

29:37

of point of view to have people who more

29:40

people who are broadly aligned,

29:42

I'm not talking about like a 47 step

29:44

test or something like that, but you know

29:46

basically working in the same direction, but

29:49

who are also competent.

29:49

And that's the other problem is that, you know, sometimes

29:52

I think some of the people that were up for jobs or

29:54

whatever might have been in sympathy with President

29:56

Trump, but they weren't necessarily going to get the job done

29:58

very well because you know it is

30:00

machine, right? I mean, it's a big machine that

30:02

has to work. And I think, you know, that gets back to,

30:05

there's a chicken and egg problem. How do people get

30:07

experience who are not bought

30:09

into the system if the system kind of acculturates

30:11

and rewards people who do get bought into

30:14

it? That's a real problem and one I've actually

30:16

been thinking about quite a bit. But I think

30:19

if a president can demonstrate a

30:21

consistent commitment to this way,

30:25

ultimately, people will respond to incentives

30:27

and a new generation, especially I think

30:30

a lot of this, especially at the leadership level,

30:32

like a lot of this is a function of age. I

30:34

mean, Trump is, I think, unusual for his generation,

30:36

in the sense that people at that age range

30:39

tend to be much more bought in on the Republican and Democrat

30:41

side to the kind of blobby post-Cold

30:43

War order. People who are

30:45

younger, I think are just, you know, they

30:48

have Murtaza, the kind of baseline sort

30:50

of sense that I think we all do here, that

30:52

this was not a successful experiment. So time

30:54

will improve it, but

30:55

like we don't have a a lot of time, right? That's the problem.

30:58

Let's shift specifically to

31:00

China, and I think we'll definitely get into some areas

31:02

of disagreement here. I know one of

31:04

the projects that you were involved with when you were

31:06

at DOD, at the Pentagon, was

31:09

trying to convince the bureaucracy and convince

31:11

some of your colleagues to downgrade

31:14

Russia to put in place of China

31:16

as what you were identifying as sort of

31:18

the premier threat or premier challenge

31:21

to America's short and long-term

31:23

national security. I want to give you a chance

31:26

to lay out your argument and then Maz

31:28

and I can pick at it as we will and

31:31

see how it goes from there, but just sort of lay

31:33

out why you believe China

31:35

represents this level of a threat

31:38

to the United States. Great. And well,

31:42

strategy obviously happens over time. It depends

31:44

on the lay of the land and how the players are

31:46

evolving. So when I was in the Pentagon, what

31:49

we pushed was kind of China first, followed by

31:51

Russia. We were putting Russia second,

31:53

but it wasn't

31:55

where I would say now. But five years

31:57

have gone under the bridge now and the situation

31:59

is Deteriorate

32:00

a lot. That's why it really gives me

32:02

I'm much more urgent on the China

32:04

focus than I was even five years ago when I was Pretty

32:06

I would say certainly relatively very urgent on

32:09

that subject and part of what I was trying to do at least from

32:11

speaking for myself was give

32:13

NATO a boost and then let the give the

32:15

Europeans an Opportunity to step up

32:17

and take more responsibility over the long term so we could

32:19

focus on China and now now

32:22

I think we've kind of come to that point where that's sort of Necessary

32:24

where they're going to be harder choices. Why do I think you

32:26

know look again? I look at it from a kind of realist

32:29

point of view, which is that you know power

32:31

is what matters because intentions change You

32:34

know Lord

32:34

Acton power power corrupts and absolute power

32:36

corrupts absolutely if people don't see a check on

32:38

their ability to get stuff They're

32:41

more likely to abuse that power. Okay, and

32:43

that by the way applies to us I don't think we've always

32:45

have been so great with our power We're not I think we're

32:47

we're pretty good, but we're not perfect say

32:49

the least And China is

32:52

much much much much more powerful than

32:54

anybody else other than ourselves But

32:57

certainly then Russia, I mean, it's 10 times the economic

32:59

size, which is the main source

33:02

of power in the world. And I think

33:04

it's demonstrated. I mean, 10 years

33:06

ago, there was, I think, a good debate to

33:08

be had about whether China's latent likelihood

33:12

of pursuing a more ambitious and aggressive foreign policy

33:14

and military buildup, whether that was going to actually

33:17

come to pass. Now, I think it's pretty clear. I

33:19

mean, if you look at Xi Jinping, if you look at the military

33:21

buildup, if you look at their behavior around the world,

33:23

it's pretty clear.

33:25

And this is a big difference between say a realist

33:27

analysis and some of the people who really watch

33:29

China closely. I think those heuristics

33:31

can be integrated, but my view is the

33:33

dominant one we should use should be the realist one because

33:35

the China watchers

33:37

over the years would have told you hey China has a

33:40

divided and consensus system of government.

33:42

China doesn't build overseas basis. China has a small

33:44

nuclear term. Well, they've blown through all of those things,

33:47

which is what a realist would expect expect to

33:49

say because you know again appetite grows

33:51

with the eating you know the more you know you're more likely to want

33:53

to buy a

33:54

Rolls Royce if you've got a billion dollars than if you're making $150,000

33:57

a year or something like that. So

34:00

I think that's my basic point. And then

34:03

people question my sincerity so I can only

34:05

say it and people can take it for what it's worth. But

34:07

I definitely don't want a war. I think a war would

34:09

be disastrous and very unpredictable.

34:12

But I think that the best way to avoid a war with

34:14

China in a way that protects interests that I think are genuinely

34:17

important, and including the ability of

34:20

reformers, you know, I'm thinking more on the right, but I

34:22

think also on the left, people, you know, Matt Stoller, If

34:24

you want to have the leverage and

34:27

the power to be able to pursue an economic

34:29

reform agenda, you cannot allow China

34:31

to dominate Asia because then it will have so much power.

34:34

It'll be like us compared to Russia, right?

34:37

I mean to make an extreme example, right? In the

34:39

sense of how much economic oomph

34:41

they can put against us. And in that case,

34:43

I don't think we can just let them do that. But we also

34:45

don't want to fight a major war. The best way to do that, and I think

34:47

the Cold War does offer an illustrative example in

34:49

this respect, is be ready, be prepared,

34:52

Show that you're ready to fight and then they'll

34:54

be more likely to say, it's just not

34:57

worth it. I'll find another opportunity. That's not

34:59

suppressing China. That's not dismembering China.

35:01

That's not regime changing. I mean, I hate communism, but

35:03

like if they're gonna be communist, that's kind of up to them at

35:05

the end of the day. We can find a modus vivendi.

35:08

We can find a détente, but I think it needs to

35:10

come from a position of strength.

35:11

So you published a really interesting book a few years ago, The Strategy

35:14

of Denial, which I read it quite closely at the time. I thought

35:16

it was very fascinating. So, I think that

35:19

you're talking about how not to contain China, but how

35:21

the US should manage or respond

35:23

to an ascend in China. In the book,

35:26

you lay out some of the reasons which you alluded to

35:28

just now of why a very powerful

35:30

China which consolidated its hold over Asia

35:32

would be very challenging

35:35

for the United States because it would be a far larger

35:37

and more economically dominant power. It's

35:40

a newer Asia as well too, which is historically a very

35:42

important strategic zone. I think

35:44

in the book, and correct me

35:46

on this, but I think that what you lay out is like a realist

35:48

foreign policy based on offshore balancing

35:51

and offshore balancing in the sense of strengthening

35:54

the countries around China to contain

35:57

it in a way or to prevent it from consolidating its

35:59

hold. Okay.

36:00

talk a bit about what exactly like you say

36:02

the war is like the worst possible outcome, but what

36:05

should the US do in specific short of

36:07

war and how does it balance China

36:09

in a way which maybe China finds tolerable

36:11

enough that they don't go to war and then the

36:14

US doesn't have to as well. Oh, sure. Thank

36:16

you. Thanks very much. I appreciate

36:18

it a lot. I would say, I mean, offshore balancing is kind of something

36:21

that's defined other people are in that school. I mean, I would say

36:23

mine certainly probably shares

36:25

elements of it. What I think

36:27

of it is the basic interests of

36:29

the

36:30

American people, and again, going back to that,

36:32

what's our foreign policy about? Our foreign policy

36:34

is about serving the concrete economic

36:36

political security interests of

36:39

American citizens. That's in not allowing

36:41

a country, and in this case, the most likely one would

36:43

be China, to dominate such a huge market

36:45

area. How do you go about doing that in

36:48

a way that's consistent with the risk

36:50

and threat tolerance? People are tired of war,

36:52

and justly so. We need

36:54

to husband their resolve. We need to be conscious of how much

36:56

they're prepared and rightly, you know, sort of expected

36:59

to sacrifice So I think the natural

37:01

way to do is again, it's it's realism. It's pretty you

37:03

know, it's it's tried and true But you know sometimes cliches

37:05

or our cliches for a reason, but it's

37:07

it's basically what I call an anti hegemonic coalition

37:11

in Asia Which is basically a coalition

37:13

bound together not by the rules based

37:15

international order or whatever or some particular

37:17

Fukuyama's vision of the end of history but

37:20

rather

37:21

by a shared goal to prevent China

37:23

from

37:24

having a hegemonic influence. And fortunately, again,

37:26

natural self-interest, most countries

37:28

in Asia don't want to live under China's thumb. Now

37:31

some for particular reasons like Cambodia

37:33

might be, but if you're

37:35

Japan, if you're South Korea, if you're

37:37

India, if you're Vietnam, if you're Australia, you don't

37:39

want to live that way. So there's a natural coalition to

37:42

work with, and in fact, that's already happening,

37:44

largely because of China's own behavior. I mean you

37:46

could see it in things like AUKUS, the deepening of the US

37:49

Japan relationship, deepening of the US India

37:51

relationship, or deepening partnership with Taiwan.

37:54

That's the way to do it. And I think the goal here, you know,

37:57

containment is a fraught term. I don't like to use

37:59

containment. I use. I

38:00

like to use balance of power because the goal,

38:02

it's different than canon. I think the original

38:04

vision was to literally contain Soviet power

38:07

until the incompatibilities

38:10

within the Soviet system

38:13

resulted in its collapse

38:15

or at least it's mellowing. I

38:17

don't expect China to fundamentally change

38:19

its spots. I think if like the Guomindang had won

38:21

the civil war or if they came back into power

38:24

on the mainland, alternative

38:27

history, I don't think China's foreign policy would

38:29

probably be that radically different because

38:31

it's fundamentally driven by, I

38:34

think, structural incentives on this. But

38:37

this means that you're never gonna just solve the problem

38:39

and this is one of the real problems with the sort of global

38:42

liberal hegemony internationalism

38:43

mindset is that they think

38:46

if we can liberalize China, it's

38:48

gonna be a

38:49

lot less dangerous, it's gonna be our friend. I don't think that's

38:51

right because I think a democratic China would have pretty

38:53

similar incentives. So the bad news

38:56

is you never get out of the problem. The good news is

38:58

you don't have to like fundamentally convert

39:01

them, quote unquote, right? We just need to give

39:03

them an incentive, cost

39:05

benefit set of incentives where it's

39:08

better to work with the system. And

39:10

you were kind enough to read the book. The

39:12

last chapter, I actually, the short

39:14

chapter is really addressed to Chinese

39:16

people. It's called a decent piece. And it's basically

39:18

saying, look,

39:20

this strategy, if it succeeds, would have a

39:22

strong coalition and a balance of power

39:24

that would not involve the humiliation, The dismemberment

39:27

of China would not involve the frustration

39:30

of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. China

39:32

would be one of the two great countries of the world, but

39:35

there would be a balance where Beijing

39:37

could not impose its will on

39:39

us. The danger to that, basically, just to kind

39:41

of finish the thought, is that China will be able to

39:43

pick that coalition apart. That's where

39:45

the conflict is, I think, is most likely to

39:47

come. If we can avoid that, I'm actually

39:50

pretty optimistic, if we're in a position

39:52

of strength, that China will ultimately go in that direction

39:54

because the downside risk would be so great. But

39:57

I think we're not doing what's needed to get

39:59

to that point and that makes war

40:00

more likely. But Elbridge, on an intellectual

40:02

level, of course, I understand exactly what

40:04

your argument is. I guess on a fundamental

40:06

level, I want to pose the following to

40:09

you.

40:10

Who are we to

40:11

be telling China or any other

40:14

nation in the world anything about

40:16

hegemony? You have the Korea War, ostensibly

40:18

fought about China. The Vietnam War, ostensibly

40:21

fought about China. Then you can go through all

40:23

the dirty wars of the 1980s. You

40:25

can have the cruise missile liberalism of Bill

40:27

Clinton throughout the 90s. You

40:30

have 9-11, then you have global torture

40:32

regime kidnapping people. We still

40:34

have people in Guantanamo. We

40:37

invade Afghanistan. It didn't leave until

40:39

very recently, and we may actually end up

40:41

going back in. Iraq, we utterly

40:43

destabilize the Middle East. We made a massive

40:45

contribution to the radical level

40:48

of instability that exists there right now. We

40:50

overthrew Qaddafi in Libya. We turned it, in large

40:53

part, into a modern-day slave state. I know

40:55

you opposed several of these wars

40:58

that I'm citing there, but you're making

41:00

an argument that essentially says, we

41:02

should throw all of that aside. Let's not pay any

41:04

attention to the fact that for much

41:06

of the world, we are the hegemon.

41:09

We are the country that is destabilized.

41:11

We are the criminals who refuse

41:14

to subject our personnel like Vladimir Putin

41:16

does also to the International

41:18

Criminal Court. China's not invading

41:21

countries left and right. not drone

41:23

bombing African nations in the Middle

41:25

East? When I hear it, there's a lot

41:27

I sympathize with in your arguments,

41:30

and I do think there's common ground, but I really

41:32

want to just put this to you. Who are

41:34

you as an American to

41:36

make this argument toward

41:38

China or any other nation on

41:40

Earth? Well, great

41:43

question. I would certainly differ with some of your assessments,

41:45

but there's a lot of merit to what

41:47

you're saying. I mean, look, stepping back, I'm

41:50

a realist. And so I look at the world

41:52

and I say,

41:53

how do we make this work and

41:56

the framework for morality?

42:00

think

42:00

is very important, at least in my idea of realism.

42:02

And it's a canard that realism is

42:04

not moral. In fact, Hans Morgenthau, a contemporary

42:07

or the father of modern

42:09

realism, wrote extensively about

42:11

political morality. But it's more the morality

42:14

of, it's not consequentialist, but it's about

42:17

reasonably anticipatable consequences and

42:19

these kinds of things. But

42:22

what I'm thinking about

42:24

is the moral foreign policy

42:26

for America is one along

42:28

the lines I'm talking about because that's the one

42:31

that would result in

42:33

the interest in serving the concrete interests of the

42:35

American people without doing things to other

42:37

people that is rapacious or unnecessarily

42:40

violent. I think that's part of it. It's kind of an enlightened

42:42

self-interest model and the consequences

42:44

hopefully if it's done adeptly and well

42:46

and with sufficient urgency should be great

42:49

power piece which is probably the best thing that

42:51

we can do in the world. So in a sense like

42:53

our past is, it sort

42:55

of is what it is But if you're looking at it from a realist

42:58

lens, even if you're like, and I know this from personal

43:00

experience, the Indians think that

43:02

we screwed them over in the East Pakistan

43:04

War, the Bangladesh independence war, and

43:07

they believe that we supported China's

43:10

buildup, rightly, actually. That's not one of you. Vietnam,

43:13

they believe that we committed untold

43:15

crimes against them during the US

43:18

Vietnam War. Japan, of course,

43:20

doesn't believe that

43:22

what we did with fire bombing and the atomic bombings

43:25

in World War II were crimes and so forth. But

43:28

they are all desperate for us to be pursuing the foreign

43:30

policy that I'm talking about, or at least something like it, right?

43:32

So I think in a sense, I mean, I

43:35

don't wanna sound at all dismissive of what you're saying, but

43:38

in a sense, the fundamental way that our foreign

43:40

policy has got to operate has got to be based on aligning

43:42

the interests of nations. I personally

43:45

believe that we should not, and

43:47

not just personally, I think it's actually increasingly

43:50

important for us in order to succeed

43:52

in this foreign policy, is not to get in these foolish

43:55

interventions that are not only foolish, but because

43:57

their consequences can be reasonably anticipated

43:59

or

44:00

actually immoral. I don't think we should do that. But

44:02

I think if we turn it into a

44:04

court of law of the past,

44:06

then I don't think that's going to serve the

44:08

American people's interest. Just by the way, obviously,

44:11

China, I'm not the past. Yeah. I

44:13

mean, there's an ongoing... I mean, there was

44:15

a reason... I wanted to pull this up because I found... I think

44:18

you'll find this interesting too. This statistic, the

44:20

Economist Intelligence Unit recently

44:23

did a study that estimates that

44:25

support for the US position

44:27

regarding the war in Ukraine

44:30

has diminished so much in the past year that

44:32

nearly two-thirds of the world's

44:34

population, excluding Russia and Ukraine,

44:36

is now either neutral or

44:38

leans toward Russia in that war.

44:41

And certainly, there's ongoing

44:43

drone strikes that this administration is

44:45

doing in Somalia. There's ongoing

44:47

strikes in Syria. We're

44:51

living with the aftermath of our disaster,

44:53

so it's not necessarily that

44:55

it's just in the past. I mean, this

44:57

is current. I understand what you're saying. I think you're

44:59

making some fair points,

45:02

but I really want to push

45:04

you on this to answer it. China has

45:06

not shown anywhere near

45:09

the level of offensive aggressiveness

45:11

in the world that the United States has. So

45:14

I'm just questioning why you think it's

45:16

the US

45:18

role to be saying to China,

45:20

oh, let's make a deal that we have these sort of two

45:22

spheres of influence. The US has gone

45:24

on a global shooting spree, and now

45:26

we're saying, oh my God, We need to contain China. It's

45:29

just a little bit on the nose, I think,

45:31

for people that know the US history. Well,

45:33

a couple of things. I mean, you can't let China off the

45:35

hook here, right? I mean, the reason that they haven't been more

45:37

offensive, and I think this is what realism would tell you, is that they were

45:39

weak. But if you look at what they did internally, the Cultural Revolution

45:42

greatly forward, the suppression

45:44

of the Civil War, the conquest

45:46

of Tibet, the aggressive wars against India,

45:49

the intervention in Korea, and the

45:51

use of human wave attacks with Guomindang prisoners,

45:54

invasion of Vietnam in 1979, et cetera, right? I

45:57

mean, I disagree, I think on some on some

45:59

key points like.

46:00

i think we need to have a counterterrorism campaign i

46:02

am not the world's expert on at some i

46:04

i i don't doubt there are things we could do more and

46:06

more focused a narrow way and and some of the may

46:08

be counterproductive i'm prepared to could see that

46:11

but i think the real question is you know if

46:13

you're talking about like the of the views of the world

46:15

actually the interest of other countries like

46:17

if this were just purely an american people's interest

46:20

i would still support it because that's my criterion

46:22

for our foreign policy in a way that's not being rapacious

46:25

and brutal towards others in and cetera but

46:27

it's actually you know if you want to talk with every

46:29

pupil

46:30

the people in india people in japan be

46:32

a lot of people nasty on they don't want to be dominated

46:34

by china and that's the critical thing that's

46:36

that's going on and of and of in the fact

46:38

is it's i mean i love america i think it's the greatest

46:40

country or yada yada yada but the the the

46:43

objective argument on that is

46:45

that only we are strong enough to lead an anti

46:47

headroom on it coalition and

46:49

i think that's the sort of fundamental

46:51

way

46:51

that i would that i will that i would look at it

46:54

and then i think i do think we should work at having

46:56

a better foreign policy and not your

46:57

during the cold war for instance we did not intervene

46:59

and often we made mistakes like in vietnam i think we

47:01

went too far too long etc

47:04

but i mean it's it's it's possible for

47:06

the united states to have

47:08

a more as george w bush wouldn't humble focused

47:11

foreign policy

47:14

know

47:14

i think that one the consequences of last

47:16

twenty years and these are very misguided interventions

47:18

zipper fatigue and for foreign policy

47:22

in the us understand we love

47:24

americans were killed these wars that there were lot of

47:26

destruction and disillusionment

47:28

and promises and so forth so i think

47:30

that the war with china potentially

47:32

or even embarking on a foreign

47:35

policy which is a sort of towards china or

47:37

it raises people's hackles little

47:39

bit because a lot of reasons jeremy said but also

47:42

you know because people are fatigued and they don't the last

47:44

lot trust in the foreign policy establishment

47:46

in the rule establishment generally so

47:48

two things one as you first of all

47:50

a war with china over taiwan

47:53

for instance of war with that actually entail former

47:55

us perspective and terms of for what's

47:57

the reasonably can be expected to sacrifice

48:00

or commitments like will Americans be

48:02

dying in large numbers, etc. And secondly,

48:04

you know, why is it important? Like,

48:06

why is it important from an American perspective

48:09

if you're an American who has like a Trump

48:11

sort of foreign policy, America

48:13

first, very inwardly focused, like why

48:15

should you care if China, you know,

48:17

controls Taiwan and some of the surrounding

48:19

countries? I think you alluded to it a little bit in the high level,

48:22

but in specific, I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts

48:24

and your argument about that. Well, I mean, I

48:26

start from the same point of view. I think people are really

48:28

tired. I mean, the point I like to make is if you watch

48:30

Fox, you know, which for all

48:32

the

48:33

flack it gets actually offers quite a broad

48:35

array of opinions, especially on foreign policy issues.

48:38

It's quite striking across the day or into the evening

48:40

in particular. But there's this ad for

48:42

wounded warriors, which is for, you know, people

48:44

who are horribly wounded

48:47

in Iraq or Afghanistan or something or they're, you

48:49

know, widows or widowers, you know,

48:51

9-11 firefighters. I mean, it's really,

48:54

really, I mean, it's

48:56

affecting, you know, and that's the mindset

48:58

I think a lot of people watching and the

49:01

kind of political coalition you're talking about, it's obviously not only

49:03

on the right, but I mean, people are tired

49:05

of what and they are absolutely right to be

49:08

skeptical of the foreign policy. I mean, I just find it kind

49:10

of staggering that like literally the same

49:12

people basically

49:13

making the same kinds of arguments are still going 20

49:16

years on. I mean, it's actually astounding. I mean,

49:18

I have an intellectual

49:20

explanation, which is this, you know, the Versailles

49:22

thing, but it's like at a human level,

49:24

it's actually just it's flabbergasting,

49:26

to be honest. So when I think about

49:28

China and Taiwan, I'm acutely conscious of this,

49:31

partially because my instincts are non-interventionist

49:33

and they're not pacifists, but

49:36

I want to avoid wars whenever possible. I

49:39

think war is an evil that creates other evils. I

49:41

mean, sometimes it is necessary, but

49:43

I tend to think, you know, Eisenhower said something like,

49:45

you know, when you start a war, you never know how it's going to end. So that's

49:47

my instinct, but you can't go too far, otherwise

49:49

you'll

49:50

get run over in the world, obviously.

49:52

So, but that's my starting point. Let me answer

49:54

your last question first, because I think it's

49:56

important to kind of start there Why is it important?

50:00

persuaded, I'm

50:01

not a macroeconomics, I'm not

50:03

a geo economics guy, but I think it's like makes

50:06

sense, which is if China dominates

50:08

well over 50% of global GDP, our lives are going

50:11

to be a lot worse. And you can

50:13

think of just kind of pure rational

50:15

act or speculation why that might be. You can look at

50:17

our own behavior to Jeremy's points over the last 30

50:19

years and how we view sanctions and the role

50:21

of the dollar, etc. And then you can just look at what

50:24

China's actually saying and doing in creating

50:26

this huge market area, right? I think that's

50:28

what the stakes are. the stakes, what China wants,

50:30

I think, and they're increasingly clear about it, partially

50:32

because they think we're trying to strangle them. That's the

50:34

actual word Xi Jinping used the other day with

50:37

our semiconductor sanctions and otherwise, is

50:39

I would say like a secure geo-economic

50:41

sphere. And that sounds kind of arcane, but actually

50:43

if you look historically at why great power wars have happened

50:46

and what the aggressors tended to go for, like

50:48

Japan, 1941, Germany, 1914, is

50:50

this large market area where then you become the world's

50:53

greatest economy. And of course it's like a conceit

50:55

of the Tom Friedman neoliberal economics that

50:57

that doesn't matter, but of course it does, right? They wanna

50:59

have the Googles, the Facebooks, the

51:01

Harvards, the Stanfords, the yada, yada,

51:03

yada, clustered in China. And that's

51:06

their vision. And I mean, it's hard to fault

51:08

them because that's pretty great. Then you get to

51:10

pick what the, we get to deflate

51:12

the currency and fight the currency, whatever we want, and everybody

51:15

else has to deal with it and march to our tune. Presumably

51:17

that's what China wants. If we allow

51:19

that to happen, I'm very confident Americans lives

51:22

are gonna get a lot worse, partially just because China

51:24

is gonna supplant us as the top global

51:26

economy, but also because they are gonna need to

51:28

push us down to secure their ascendancy,

51:31

right? They're gonna go up Silicon Valley and

51:33

with all the complaints, rightful

51:35

complaints about Silicon Valley and universities and all

51:37

that, but it's better to have these great

51:40

institutions and things in our

51:42

country than elsewhere. So I think that's it.

51:44

The way China's gonna get at that, I fear, is

51:46

not through Adolf Hitler style, declare

51:49

war on everybody at the same time, because then you're too likely

51:51

to fail. What it would be

51:54

is a kind of series of short, sharp wars,

51:56

could be short, but relatively focused wars

51:58

designed to collapse that coalition.

52:00

and then get everybody to cut a deal, which

52:02

again is human behavior. If you think if you're in the Philippines

52:04

or Vietnam, you don't wanna live under Chinese

52:06

hegemony, but if your alternative is to be made an example

52:09

of, I mean, the Chinese cliche is, you

52:11

know, you strangle a chicken

52:13

to scare the monkeys in the trees, right, basically

52:16

you don't wanna become that chicken, right? And

52:18

that's a very real possibility. And the Chinese are pretty clear

52:20

that that's the threat. But

52:22

if you're in that situation, then you cut a deal,

52:25

and that's where Taiwan becomes important. The

52:27

problem is, I've said this to some politicians

52:29

of all the people, they're like, nah, yeah, that's not very convincing,

52:32

right? And that's a big part of the problem because it is

52:34

kind of a couple of steps. Like

52:36

I think when you walk that through,

52:39

one can see where it goes, but it sounds

52:41

kind of arcane, which is

52:44

part of why I think China would do that

52:46

because it wouldn't seem existential. And that

52:48

gets to your second question, Martasa, or

52:51

your first question, which is like, what would

52:53

it entail and what the costs are? And that's what powers

52:55

a lot of my fervency and

52:58

sharpness on Taiwan defense preparedness

53:00

because it's not a zero to one thing. It's along

53:03

a spectrum. The stronger and more prepared

53:05

we are, the less costly it will be. And

53:08

then the more likely the American people are to support it and

53:10

the stronger the case to them to support it, right?

53:12

But the more we neglect it, for instance, by

53:15

over focusing on Ukraine, by allowing things

53:17

to go on as they have and the defense industrial base, et

53:19

cetera, et cetera, the closer we get

53:21

to that margin and the more it's gonna be instead of 5,000 or 10,000, which

53:25

God forbid, I mean, that's a lot of people, but that's

53:27

different than 100,000 and failing, right? It's

53:30

one thing to say, we're gonna lose 5,000 guys and you're gonna

53:32

completely succeed in the Chinese military is gonna

53:34

be put in a box for 10 years,

53:36

that's one world we could live in or you're

53:39

gonna lose 150,000 guys and you're probably gonna

53:41

lose. Well, that's gonna be hard to deal with.

53:44

And so that's really where I want us

53:47

to be as far away from

53:49

that, you know, knife's edge as

53:51

we can be and that's unfortunately where we're sitting right now. I mean, I

53:54

think that on this issue of Taiwan, And

53:56

there's sort of two

53:57

issues that I'd like to push you on a little bit.

54:00

One is just on a purely military

54:02

level, and I was reading some of the

54:05

latest statistics on Chinese military development,

54:08

Chinese naval capacity. It is true, and

54:10

this more goes into your category

54:12

of argument, it is true that China has

54:15

begun to spend enormous sums

54:17

of money building up its naval capacity.

54:20

It is true that China now has more

54:23

vessels than the United States and

54:25

is on track to many more vessels than

54:27

the United States. In military

54:30

theory, it's a simplified

54:32

thinking, but there is a notion that the

54:34

nation or the force with more ships generally

54:37

tends to win the battle. China

54:39

has its own version of a black

54:41

military budget like the US does. We're aware

54:44

that the US military budget is heading

54:46

toward a trillion dollars a year. It's $860 billion. China's

54:50

reported budget is a fraction of

54:52

ours, but it's true. This goes into your

54:54

category. We don't know the extent of Chinese

54:57

military spending. We do know that the

54:59

labor associated with manufacturing

55:01

weapons of war is much cheaper in China.

55:04

We also know that the United States is now

55:06

baking in no bid contracts to expand

55:09

our defense industrial base. So the United

55:11

States is trying to compete with China,

55:13

but I think just on a pure fact level,

55:15

it's clear that China has a

55:18

much better machine capable

55:20

of advanced weapons manufacturing,

55:23

especially when you're talking about lower end weapons

55:25

systems than higher end. China,

55:28

I wrote about this also, China recently

55:30

unveiled a drone that is almost

55:33

on par with tier one

55:35

US drones. One of Russia's problems

55:37

thus far in Ukraine on a military level

55:40

is that it failed to invest

55:42

in drone technology the way that the United States

55:45

and increasingly China is. But

55:47

on a purely military level, this

55:50

would be the equivalent of of China

55:53

trying to stretch itself to

55:55

the other hemisphere.

55:57

And, you know, if there was sort of an

55:59

attempt...

56:00

but Puerto Rico is going to break away from the United

56:02

States and China's going to come in and say, no, no. We

56:06

would get massacred in that war.

56:08

Just on a purely, if you want to say nationalistic

56:11

or America first level, the number of

56:13

Americans that would die over

56:16

Taiwan would be, I think,

56:18

astronomical. I think every advantage

56:20

would be in China's category just on a

56:22

military level. Let's just start with that. Set

56:25

aside any moral things, anything about what is it

56:27

the US business, just on a military

56:30

The U.S. would suffer

56:32

catastrophic losses on a human and

56:35

ordinance level.

56:37

Well, it's funny because sometimes I'm in the position

56:39

of saying that, usually I'm in the position of saying the threat's

56:41

a lot worse than people anticipate

56:43

because I think there's a lot of sanguinity and especially the blob

56:46

doesn't want to have to make choices so they just try

56:48

to think, you know, write off the problem. But

56:50

occasionally, here, and I

56:53

actually think your point, Jeremy, and

56:55

it's similar, you I was debating with Lyle

56:57

Goldstein a little while

56:59

ago, the kind of point of view often that

57:02

it's beyond, it's infeasible.

57:04

I think it's actually the tougher argument, especially over time.

57:07

I think we have a lot of reason to be less

57:09

pessimistic than you are. I won't say we can be optimistic,

57:11

but I think if we put our minds to it, and here's the thing.

57:14

I mean, bear

57:15

in mind strategically that like,

57:17

all of the important countries in Asia

57:19

are basically right next to China, right? South

57:21

Korea is 100 miles, Japan a little bit more, Philippines

57:24

about and Luzon is about a hundred miles from from Taiwan.

57:26

There's nothing in this in the Central Pacific So if we lose

57:29

in the Western Pacific the game is up, right?

57:31

So that's so so we kind of have to be over and then that's why our

57:34

position has been drawn at what's called the first

57:36

Island chain since the end of World War two Japan Taiwan

57:38

Philippines, etc so the

57:41

thing that we have going in our favor is

57:44

they have to cross and Sustain

57:47

a decisive military operation across a hundred

57:49

miles of water and at the end of the day There's a lot of this faddish

57:51

stuff about you know now all wars and

57:53

zeros and ones I think we can see in Ukraine That's not true. I mean

57:56

crossing a river is tough, you know, the

57:58

Russians have had difficulty. we'll see. how the Ukrainians

58:00

do. But crossing 100 miles

58:02

of strait is very, very tough. It's not impossible,

58:05

but just to take a historical example, and

58:08

they're not that irrelevant given

58:10

that military, I mean, planes still use gas

58:12

and stuff like that. Missiles were invented in

58:14

World War II. The Germans could not

58:17

develop and sustain enough military

58:19

power to get across the English Channel despite having

58:21

overwhelming military advantage vis-a-vis Britain in 1940.

58:24

And that's actually a war situation, but that situation,

58:26

the other thing is, There's a lot of propagandistic

58:29

as well. Yeah,

58:31

but their forces were being depleted because

58:34

they were waging a multi-nation

58:36

offensive campaign.

58:38

It's not just that they couldn't get across the English Channel.

58:41

They also were tied down in

58:43

multiple other conflicts simultaneously.

58:46

Right. Well, that certainly helped. When

58:49

they invaded the Soviet Union, that took, what was

58:51

it? Forgetting the

58:53

name for the invasion. Sea lion, I think, off

58:56

the table. But, I mean, you're right.

58:58

And that's one of the advantages that China has that you didn't mention,

59:01

which is much more focused on the problem than we are.

59:04

We think we're living in Robert Kagan's

59:06

world, but actually we're not, and that's a very dangerous

59:08

situation. But the other thing I want to say is

59:10

that, look, our real advantage, and

59:12

I mean, what I was saying is there's kind of a rah-rah

59:15

kind of element about our military. And I mean, not having served

59:17

in the military, I'm not going to comment on the

59:19

specifics, I'm always a bit skeptical

59:22

when we say with such confidence that

59:24

our military is like so much better than everybody else Like I don't

59:26

think Tom Brady won all those Super Bowls by saying that everybody

59:28

in the offseason like you can't be beat Right like

59:30

that just seems kind of basic to me but where

59:32

we really are and have always had a strong

59:35

advantage partially because we're a liberal democracy and

59:37

in a sense we're an island from a strategic

59:39

point of view is in the high

59:41

capital Investment aerospace and maritime

59:43

domains, right? And and so you talk about what

59:46

we're talking about I mean, we could evolve into

59:48

a direction where there are more American ground forces involved,

59:50

and that's possible. But a lot of what we're going to be talking

59:53

about is air, maritime

59:55

space, you know, very kind

59:57

of higher end. I mean, I'm not saying that it's all.

1:00:00

You know zeros and ones, but this is

1:00:02

like from our point of view

1:00:04

Ships submarines aircraft satellites

1:00:07

missiles missiles missiles, and then we're also

1:00:09

working with our allies bear in mind The japanese

1:00:11

are increasingly looking likely to be directly involved

1:00:14

assistant secretary of defense eli radner I

1:00:16

think is very very good on this the current he's

1:00:18

in the pentagon now, but he said you know This is an enormous

1:00:20

challenge, but it is feasible. I think that's right.

1:00:23

I think that's right I think if we put our mind we can

1:00:26

do that and you can present the chinese bear in mind

1:00:28

in the cold war for instance The official

1:00:30

assessment of NATO was always that the Soviets

1:00:32

would win an invasion It was just

1:00:34

too risky was gonna involve escalation They couldn't so

1:00:36

we're actually in some ways we're in a better

1:00:38

situation when we were then if we can just convince

1:00:41

the Chinese I think that it's too risky that

1:00:43

may be enough I'd rather not I'd rather

1:00:45

be more confident But I mean look they've got

1:00:47

to get forces over that involves ships that

1:00:50

move slowly that involves aircraft You know even

1:00:52

forces that get on they need to be sustained And

1:00:54

of course that that depends a lot on how hard the Taiwanese

1:00:57

will fight which is another factor But I

1:00:59

don't think we should throw in the towel.

1:01:00

So not to ask you to prognosticate, but in

1:01:03

your estimation, how likely

1:01:05

do you think such a war is likely to take place

1:01:07

given the way the current balance of forces?

1:01:10

I know in China right now, too, Xi Jinping has given

1:01:12

very hawkish speeches recently. And

1:01:15

surprisingly, to me at least, because I thought

1:01:17

that post what seems to be a

1:01:19

debacle for Russia and Ukraine, that maybe

1:01:21

you've dissuaded them from

1:01:23

trying to test the limits at the

1:01:25

moment, but perhaps not. So I want

1:01:28

to know how likely you think such a war

1:01:30

would be. And then also, for

1:01:32

those who haven't read your book, which I think probably most

1:01:34

people are listening right now, can you talk a bit

1:01:36

more about what the strategy of denial means

1:01:39

in practical terms in

1:01:41

the context of the actual invasion across

1:01:43

the straits in U.N.J.M. you were just talking about? Yeah,

1:01:45

no, thanks. I mean, denial is kind of,

1:01:47

it had a multi-function or sort of multi-level

1:01:50

meaning, I mean, denial at the big level, the

1:01:52

geopolitical level, is

1:01:53

denying any other

1:01:55

country a hegemonic position over one

1:01:57

of the key market areas in the world. That's

1:02:00

our goal. It's a negative goal, which sounds bad,

1:02:02

but actually is better. Negative goals tend to be lesser.

1:02:04

It doesn't mean we need to conquer the whole place

1:02:06

or convert them to end

1:02:09

of history stuff. It's just preventing somebody

1:02:11

from being the hegemon in one of these

1:02:13

key areas. And then

1:02:16

the military goal of denial, and this gets

1:02:19

exactly to the discussion I was having with Jeremy,

1:02:21

is we don't have to defeat the whole Chinese military.

1:02:24

And again, going back to the Battle of Britain, you just need to be able

1:02:26

to defeat the invasion force. project

1:02:29

and sustain

1:02:30

enough dominant force to compel

1:02:32

Taiwan or in the future Philippines Vietnam

1:02:34

Japan and South Korea to Give

1:02:36

up then they're unlikely to succeed and if they

1:02:39

anticipate that they're unlikely to start because you

1:02:41

know Mao Zedong wanted to take over Taiwan

1:02:43

desperately wanted to get his hands around the neck of Chiang Kai-shek

1:02:46

But he never tried because he knew he was gonna

1:02:48

fail after the Americans put the seventh fleet

1:02:50

in between when the Chinese intervening Or when

1:02:52

Korea broke out, so that's that's the goal.

1:02:54

It's again. It's a lower goal It's not

1:02:56

the goal of you know the 1992 defense

1:02:59

planning guidance or the 2002 National Security

1:03:01

Strategy It's not saying we need to be able to project

1:03:03

power and dominate everybody and dissuade them No,

1:03:06

no, it's a lower standard, but I think it should

1:03:08

be enough How

1:03:11

likely is a war so I mean I I'm just

1:03:13

really I try to be Very

1:03:16

focused on not not giving a particular number because I have no

1:03:18

idea right I mean, I just don't pretend what worries

1:03:21

me Martaza is that I could see

1:03:23

very compelling reasons if I were

1:03:25

thinking about this from a Chinese point of view, why war

1:03:27

makes sense. And that's for

1:03:29

a couple of reasons. I mean, one is Xi

1:03:31

Jinping's, we can talk about that his personality,

1:03:34

but the guy is specifically linked the resolution

1:03:36

of the Taiwan issue

1:03:38

to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, the central

1:03:40

goal of his

1:03:41

leadership, he's super empowered.

1:03:43

So if you look at why Putin invaded Ukraine, some

1:03:45

of that is personal legacy. So that's something that's, but

1:03:48

that's changeable and contingent. I think the more disturbing

1:03:50

reasons are actually kind of more structural.

1:03:53

The biggest one is China, I think can

1:03:55

see that there's this anti-hegemonic coalition

1:03:58

is coming together, right? reasons of social hammering

1:04:00

more involved. Japan, there's

1:04:02

a lot more. Everybody's talking more to Taiwan.

1:04:04

If China lets that go, then they, I

1:04:07

think they fear they

1:04:08

may be strangled, to use the term

1:04:10

that Xi Jinping, I'm mixing and matching a little

1:04:12

bit, but I think that's basically the attitude. So

1:04:14

for China, you want to break out. Now, some of this is diplomatic,

1:04:16

like what they're doing with the Saudis, and the Iranians,

1:04:19

what they're doing in Europe to try to drive wedges, etc.

1:04:21

So that could work. But it's also in Asia,

1:04:24

it is kind of coming together. Japan's increasing defense spending,

1:04:26

there's the AUKUS thing, etc. So that means

1:04:28

you kind of want to break out. And And how would you break out?

1:04:31

Well, I mean, the most effective way to change people's

1:04:33

calculus would be really decisive military

1:04:35

force, which can

1:04:37

fail, but if it's successful, it can achieve

1:04:39

big outcomes. And there, if

1:04:41

you're going to do that, there are reasons to do it sooner

1:04:43

rather than later, because the Chinese, for instance, militarily,

1:04:46

have been working on the Taiwan and the US

1:04:49

and the Western Pacific problem assiduously and

1:04:51

with rigorous focus for 25, 30 years. We

1:04:53

just sort of started getting focused. And

1:04:56

even despite the defense strategy that I worked on, it's

1:04:59

been slow, the progress. So if you're

1:05:01

China, you may have advantages now that you might

1:05:03

not have in five to 10 years. And

1:05:05

that's, you know, you mentioned the ship numbers, but

1:05:07

you know, we're going to have hopefully 100 B-21s in 10 years. Those

1:05:11

are the replacement to the stealthy bomber. Those things are going

1:05:13

to be dangerous. Like that's going to be those,

1:05:15

the submarines, UUVs, satellites,

1:05:17

missiles, those are things that are going

1:05:20

to matter. Hopefully we're going to

1:05:20

be in a much better position in 10 years. So if you wait around 10 years

1:05:23

in Beijing, you may lose the window. By

1:05:25

the way, Taiwan is never, I think, going to fall

1:05:27

into their lap peacefully. The traditional thing

1:05:29

was, they think they're going to get it peacefully.

1:05:32

Taiwan's going to be a ripe apple or whatever, and

1:05:34

it's going to fall in their lap. There's no way that's going to happen. I mean,

1:05:36

even the Guomindang has abandoned one country,

1:05:39

two systems. I think if you're China, you're

1:05:41

saying, well, I'm never going to get it peacefully. There's

1:05:44

this strangulation that may

1:05:47

be happening. The

1:05:49

problem is, because of our neglect, I'm not sure there's

1:05:51

a... This is an inherent

1:05:53

dilemma. I don't ignore this dilemma.

1:05:56

This is one of the reasons my view is we should be hitting the gym

1:05:58

but not

1:05:59

beating our...

1:06:00

Peacocking so much like everybody

1:06:02

wants to meet Zion when no no like like we

1:06:04

should be put in lower profile We should not

1:06:06

be poking the Chinese necessarily in the eye where we

1:06:08

can avoid it because that's gonna that could

1:06:10

precipitate the conflict That we want to avoid when

1:06:12

you're when you're weak You don't want to poke the dragon

1:06:14

in the eye you want to hit the gym first But

1:06:17

that's kind of where we are so I you know whether we'll

1:06:19

actually do that I don't know but I think that's

1:06:22

that's what really worries me and of course

1:06:24

now the official assessment of the US intelligence community

1:06:26

which is of course not infallible, but the official

1:06:28

assessment, this was a fringe

1:06:30

view two or three years ago, is that Xi Jinping

1:06:32

has specifically instructed the People's Liberation Army

1:06:34

to be ready to invade and occupy Taiwan by 2027. That's

1:06:37

not a prediction, but like, I mean, it's pretty, that's

1:06:40

pretty overt. I mean, when you

1:06:42

look at what's happening

1:06:44

with China and the modernization

1:06:46

of particularly the technological modernization

1:06:49

of its military, and then you

1:06:51

contrast that with Defense

1:06:53

Secretary Lloyd Austin recently was in California

1:06:56

for the unveiling of the new

1:06:58

stealth bomber. It

1:07:00

was like a film

1:07:02

premiere or something that they were engaged

1:07:04

in. But it really makes

1:07:06

me, maybe it's because I read a lot of kids

1:07:08

books these days, but it really makes me think

1:07:10

of the butter battle book of Dr.

1:07:13

Seuss where you have the Yooks and the Zooks battling

1:07:15

each other and they keep going back into their

1:07:17

brilliant boys' room where they're making

1:07:20

these new weapons. It often feels

1:07:22

like we're living in that world when we're

1:07:24

talking about these things, but on a more serious

1:07:27

front, you had this summit and

1:07:29

it was really interesting timing

1:07:31

where she goes to Moscow, spends several

1:07:33

days there, right after

1:07:36

Vladimir Putin has the first of what

1:07:38

will probably be several indictments coming down

1:07:40

from the International Criminal Court. They're

1:07:43

caught on tape saying that they have an opportunity

1:07:46

to do something that hasn't occurred

1:07:48

in 100 years. You're

1:07:50

talking about the Yuan being the official

1:07:52

currency of trade, including in the Western

1:07:55

Hemisphere with Latin American nations.

1:07:57

You have the Iran-Saudi Arabia.

1:08:00

deal which raises the prospect of

1:08:02

hopefully ending this bloodbath

1:08:04

in Yemen. You have Xi releasing

1:08:07

a, or China releasing what they call

1:08:09

the 12-point peace framework for

1:08:12

Ukraine. Now, it was very spartan in its

1:08:14

details, but clearly China,

1:08:17

in addition to the military issues that you're talking about,

1:08:20

sees a void in the world that it

1:08:22

wants to step into and occupy.

1:08:25

And that is that US credibility has

1:08:28

been severely damaged. Its

1:08:30

own war machine has

1:08:33

dramatically harmed its standing

1:08:35

in the world, or if you're looking at it from a different perspective,

1:08:38

clarified what the US is doing

1:08:40

with its foreign policy. And I

1:08:42

think that there is a logic

1:08:45

to what we're seeing China doing

1:08:47

that is not all about the

1:08:49

narrative that you're you're describing,

1:08:52

which has to do with China seeing

1:08:54

opportunity to become a more

1:08:56

hegemonic power, but rather,

1:08:58

it's logical that China

1:09:01

is saying, this is in our interest, we're a

1:09:03

big powerful country. We have

1:09:05

the same motivations that Elbridge

1:09:07

Colby is laying out from

1:09:10

the American perspective. I

1:09:12

think on a human level, a lot of what China is doing

1:09:14

is very logical,

1:09:15

makes a lot of sense. I would imagine there's a lot of

1:09:17

American policymakers that stand in great

1:09:20

admiration for China's ability to

1:09:22

do all of this without firing a single drone

1:09:24

strike. Isn't that

1:09:26

part of this too, though? It makes

1:09:28

sense for China to do this. It's not all part

1:09:31

of a nefarious plot.

1:09:32

That's the tragedy. I'm sorry.

1:09:35

I'm not saying that what China is doing is fundamentally

1:09:37

nefarious. I mean, look, I think it's a Leninist system.

1:09:41

China's actual activities and its aspirations,

1:09:43

as I think I was hopefully trying to convey earlier

1:09:46

are not like Hitler kind

1:09:48

of, you know, they are the normal behavior

1:09:50

of great power, but that's very worrying, right?

1:09:52

Like, I mean, we, I mean, to take your point, I

1:09:54

don't sign on everything, but like when America was

1:09:56

unconstrained,

1:09:57

watch out,

1:09:59

right? I mean, watch out. I mean look at our record

1:10:01

in Latin America look at our record in the Middle East I'm not

1:10:03

saying that we're perfect I mean, you know I'm

1:10:05

prepared to stand up our record to pretty much any any

1:10:07

major state because I mean nobody's got that

1:10:09

good of a record when You when you look back and they've

1:10:12

had the opportunity to do something about it, but China

1:10:14

is It makes

1:10:16

sense for them, but that but that's not oh that's not

1:10:18

okay for the rest of us That's the sort of point

1:10:20

like it's in a way in the same way that sort of like hey

1:10:23

You know Steve Jobs or Bill Gates won the monopoly.

1:10:25

It's natural of course why not? But that doesn't make it okay

1:10:28

right that's sort of the that sort of and

1:10:30

I think the key Here is that what I'm seeing

1:10:32

China doing is I don't say China's not again So

1:10:34

they're not the Nazis in the sense where diplomacy

1:10:37

is like some complete, you know fourth-rate

1:10:39

thing and it's all about the military I think that they

1:10:41

understand that the military is central. That's where investing in it But

1:10:44

they're also doing things economically

1:10:46

diplomatically Which is is is bad

1:10:48

in the sense that it gives them a lot more influence and

1:10:50

which can be used against us But it's also good in the sense

1:10:52

that I do think that this is a country whose

1:10:54

incentives can be sufficiently spoken to

1:10:56

I don't want to say shaped but like spoken

1:10:59

to in the sense that

1:11:00

like fundamental World War three is not inevitable You

1:11:02

know we can we can we can deal with this what

1:11:05

I do think China's behavior shows

1:11:07

I mean I was really struck by the Moscow thing I mean

1:11:09

that was that's big I mean in case there were any

1:11:11

doubt I mean the guy first trip after Covid

1:11:13

three days in Moscow changes are afoot

1:11:16

that have not been seen in a hundred years Whoa that got my attention.

1:11:18

I mean in this guy Xi Jinping. He's a serious serious

1:11:21

man Like I don't like what he's

1:11:23

doing, but he lived in a cave for five

1:11:25

years. His father was purged He's made his way

1:11:27

up the bloody pole of the Communist

1:11:29

Party, you

1:11:30

know structure He's literally killed some

1:11:32

of his opponents. I mean we should take this guy seriously

1:11:34

He's not just a kind of you know flitting

1:11:36

around what I think this shows though Is

1:11:39

that and this is a critical point

1:11:41

is that China's ambitions are? Expansive,

1:11:45

you know for years going back China watchers

1:11:47

would say China has you know it's a developing nation

1:11:49

and Deng Xiaoping really cultivated this attitude

1:11:52

was you don't know we're just little you know we're

1:11:54

coming our way up we're not gonna do anything we're not gonna

1:11:56

throw our weight around uh-uh that is

1:11:58

not true That's the thing. And that's why it's

1:12:00

very important, I think, to see this in

1:12:03

a Taiwan context. Taiwan is not important

1:12:05

in and of itself. I mean, at the end of the day, look, I sympathize

1:12:07

with the people on Taiwan, admire what they've done

1:12:09

with their country, quote unquote, but like

1:12:11

it's not worth having tens of thousands of Americans put their

1:12:14

necks on the line just for Taiwan. But

1:12:16

what is important is that Taiwan is not going

1:12:18

to be the end. The military they're building is manifestly

1:12:20

designed to go way beyond Taiwan. I mean,

1:12:23

they were looking at a base in Equatorial Guinea,

1:12:25

which is on the Atlantic coast of Africa.

1:12:28

They're in the talks with the Argentines, apparently. They're fishing

1:12:31

a maritime militia off the Galapagos.

1:12:34

They're building a huge number

1:12:36

of space systems, nuclear paradox, and then we can see in

1:12:38

their diplomacy. They're no longer just focused

1:12:41

kind of mouse,

1:12:43

I'm not trying to be dismissive, but I mean literally, they were

1:12:46

trying to avoid drawing

1:12:48

excess tension. That is over, and I think

1:12:50

we can expect that to continue, and that

1:12:52

gives us a sense of what the stakes are.

1:12:54

Yeah. So I think others have made this point before, but

1:12:56

it's almost like a Thucydides-type situation

1:12:59

that he described, like Sparta being challenged by Athens.

1:13:02

So, you know, it almost seems inevitable

1:13:04

in that sense that there was gonna be a conflict. And you kind

1:13:06

of talked about, well, the ideal situation

1:13:08

would be like two spheres of influence in Asia, but then

1:13:11

why would other Asian countries like a seat to the ether

1:13:13

part of the anti-hegemonic coalition? So

1:13:15

it's kind of hard for me to imagine, it given all

1:13:17

we've talked about that this will be resolved peacefully,

1:13:20

but can you talk a bit about what you see as a decent

1:13:22

piece and how would that look for

1:13:24

a Chinese perspective? How it would look for the US perspective?

1:13:26

And how might other countries who

1:13:29

might be affected by this also find that

1:13:31

to be something that they acquiesce to and find acceptable

1:13:34

as a means of avoiding more?

1:13:36

Yeah, I'm cautiously optimistic.

1:13:39

Well, optimistic is why I'm hopeful because

1:13:41

I think that the risks and chances

1:13:43

of war are so great that

1:13:46

it has, even for someone like Xi Jinping, I think he would

1:13:48

be prepared to do it. That's the read I have of him

1:13:50

and that's the military he's building. But I do

1:13:52

think that

1:13:53

we can speak to him enough to dissuade

1:13:56

him or his successors. with that decent

1:13:58

piece. I mean, look. Think

1:14:01

Like a country like Vietnam doesn't

1:14:04

want to live under Chinese I was you know anecdote But

1:14:06

I was in the Chinese Vietnamese War Museum in Hanoi

1:14:08

a couple years ago and a lot of that is taken up with the Chinese I

1:14:10

mean if you look at Korean history It's often

1:14:12

a lot of that is dealing with with with

1:14:14

Chinese intervention and so forth these countries

1:14:17

are certainly India these countries are acutely Conscious

1:14:20

of the ability of China to and they don't want to live

1:14:22

in fact some of them like Vietnam have famous reputations

1:14:24

for nationalism Precisely, I mean partially

1:14:26

about the French the Americans but but historically really

1:14:28

about about China They're defined sort

1:14:30

of against China So the strong they don't

1:14:32

want to live and the only hope for them and they know this

1:14:34

very well is the United States now the

1:14:36

good news from if you're thinking about you

1:14:39

know, the downsides of American influence

1:14:41

that that Jeremy you've been you've been pointing to is That

1:14:45

our behavior is going to be constrained as well, right?

1:14:48

We are gonna have to you know We've

1:14:50

been all spending money, gambling,

1:14:52

whatever the last 30 years, because we were so rich

1:14:54

that nobody could challenge us. Now, my hope

1:14:56

is, I think it's inevitable. My hope is it can happen

1:14:59

sooner rather than later. We're facing a really

1:15:01

sobering, I mean, literally like sobering

1:15:04

and disciplining force that will make

1:15:06

us so that we can't be going around just like

1:15:08

randomly deciding to invade

1:15:11

a new country, right? Because we don't have the military edge

1:15:13

anymore. So you can't afford

1:15:15

to put it all on the roulette table, I mean, to carry forward

1:15:17

the metaphor. I think that could work because

1:15:19

I think the sphere of influence would basically be like, I

1:15:22

think geopolitically and militarily there would be

1:15:24

kind of formal alliances, not always in every case.

1:15:26

Like, I think Vietnam and India are

1:15:29

likely to continue as strong American allies

1:15:31

in the traditional sense, like the pre-1914 sense,

1:15:34

even if they don't have treaty

1:15:36

packs. That might change, for instance, if Taiwan falls

1:15:39

or something like that, God forbid. But I think,

1:15:41

and then geo-economically, if you will,

1:15:43

I think there will be somewhat of

1:15:45

The way I think about it is likely is like a bifurcation

1:15:48

of spheres with China as one

1:15:50

and America as the other with a lot of intercourse

1:15:53

and engagement and commerce across that

1:15:55

unlike in the Cold War This is just my guess because

1:15:58

I think we're so codependent.

1:16:00

It's I mean my understanding is actually trade

1:16:02

with China is actually increased even in the

1:16:04

last year or two They've expanded the Panama Canal for

1:16:06

instance So more stuff is coming from China that

1:16:09

that would be and then you'd say you know There's sort of a an

1:16:11

area the precise role that you want I'm not

1:16:13

sure but like Beijing is kind of the center

1:16:16

of this and that's probably Cambodia Maybe Pakistan

1:16:18

Russia certainly maybe some of the Central Asian

1:16:21

countries

1:16:21

And then so a lot of countries that are farther from the

1:16:24

the big planets if you will will

1:16:26

kind of play both sides That's what I see like Saudi doing

1:16:29

and the Emirates doing where they're gonna come and if you

1:16:31

look at the Cold War you saw That with like Egypt

1:16:33

in India to some extent. That's kind of common

1:16:36

behavior.

1:16:36

I think that would be I Think

1:16:39

that'd be a lot better than the alternative It might not

1:16:41

be the global liberal hegemony of Robert Kagan's dreams

1:16:44

But I think we could have peace

1:16:46

and I think and and the kind of the real point I make

1:16:48

to Chinese people is You know, I was at just

1:16:50

sorry to go on but like one last I was at a briefing

1:16:53

a number of ambassadors

1:16:55

from Southeast Asian countries a month

1:16:57

or so ago. And the first question I got was, how do

1:17:00

you deal with the fact that the Chinese think that the purpose

1:17:02

of the Americans is to hold them down and never

1:17:04

let them be number one and never

1:17:06

let them succeed and strangle them basically. And I said,

1:17:08

look, I actually think in my strategy, China could actually

1:17:10

become number one

1:17:11

country, you know, the number one economy in the

1:17:13

world. It could be whatever that means, okay?

1:17:16

But you're not gonna be able to dictate to us. So

1:17:18

now I don't know if the Americans have, I don't know if we have it in

1:17:21

us to take that

1:17:23

point. I don't think it's necessary to be number

1:17:25

one in absolutely every way to be America. I don't think

1:17:27

that was the plan when the country was founded, whatever

1:17:29

the faults that we had. But I mean, hey,

1:17:31

it'd be great to be number one, but as long as we

1:17:33

can't be dominated, I'd rather say,

1:17:36

hey, China can have a larger economy

1:17:38

and we can avoid a war and you can't boss us

1:17:40

around and everything, obviously we have to deal with you as a

1:17:42

huge entity, of course. But

1:17:45

I think that to me is like,

1:17:47

geez, I mean, if I'm living in Shanghai

1:17:49

or Chongqing or even smaller cities,

1:17:52

those are huge cities, I'm saying, man, there

1:17:54

have been enough wars in China over the last hundred years.

1:17:57

Like, let's take a break, you know? that

1:17:59

sounds

1:18:00

It seems

1:18:02

to me that that would be a reasonable deal. All

1:18:05

right. Well, Elbridge Colby, thank you very much for

1:18:07

joining us here on Intercepted and for your willingness

1:18:10

to mix it up with us as well. We

1:18:12

hope you come back. It would be a pleasure. Really enjoyed

1:18:14

talking to you both. Elbridge

1:18:15

Colby served in a variety of roles

1:18:18

for the U.S. government, including most recently

1:18:20

as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense

1:18:23

for Strategy and Force Development. That

1:18:25

was during the Trump administration. He

1:18:27

co-founded the Marathon Initiative, which is

1:18:30

a Washington, D.C. think tank, and he's

1:18:32

the author of the book, The Strategy of Denial

1:18:34

American Defense in an Age of Great

1:18:37

Power Conflict.

1:18:42

That does it for today's program. Intercepted

1:18:45

is a production of The Intercept. Jose

1:18:47

Olivares is the lead producer. Supervising

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producer is Laura Flynn. Roger Hodge

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is editor-in-chief of The Intercept. Rick

1:18:55

Kwan mixed our show. Our theme music,

1:18:57

as always, was composed by DJ Spooky.

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Murtazo Singh.