0:00

Welcome to the Director's Chair, a Lowy

0:02

Institute podcast. My name

0:04

is Michael Fullilove, and I'm the executive director

0:07

of the Lowy Institute. On the director's

0:09

chair, I sit down with political leaders, policy

0:11

makers and commentators in order to

0:13

understand what's happening in the world.

0:16

And there is certainly a lot to talk about

0:18

in the world today. We are nearly

0:20

two years into Russia's brutal

0:22

and illegal invasion of Ukraine,

0:25

and we're also nearly two years

0:27

into Ukraine's magnificent resistance.

0:30

Under President Biden's leadership, the United

0:32

States has returned to the international

0:34

community. But the orange spectre

0:36

of Donald Trump's return to the white House

0:38

is playing on all our minds. And,

0:40

of course, on the 7th of October, the terrorist

0:43

organisation Hamas attacked

0:45

Israel, leading to the deaths of more

0:47

than 1200 Israelis. Israel

0:49

responded by declaring it would destroy

0:52

Hamas, and the conflict that has followed

0:54

has completely roiled the global

0:56

strategic situation. To talk

0:58

about these important issues and a life

1:00

spent dealing with them, I'm joined today

1:02

on the director's chair by the leading American

1:04

strategic thinker, Professor Elliot

1:07

Cohen.

1:08

Well, I think it's an intelligence failure,

1:10

particularly on the part of the Israelis. The answer

1:12

is we won't fully know probably

1:15

until the Israelis do what they usually do,

1:17

establish a blue ribbon state commission,

1:19

which will investigate it very, very thoroughly.

1:22

Heads will roll, beginning probably

1:24

with the Prime Minister.

1:26

Elliott is a very well known scholar,

1:28

a former dean of science at Johns

1:30

Hopkins, but he's also been a policymaker,

1:33

serving in a number of roles, including as

1:35

counsellor in the second term of

1:37

the presidency of George W Bush.

1:39

He's currently the Robert E Osgoode

1:41

Professor at Size, as well as the Ali

1:44

Burke Chair in Strategy at

1:46

CSIs in Washington, DC.

1:48

Elliot writes widely on military affairs,

1:50

American foreign policy, and leadership.

1:52

He's a contributing writer at The Atlantic.

1:55

His latest book, The Hollow Crown

1:57

Shakespeare on How Leaders Rise,

1:59

rule and Fall, was published

2:02

in October, and Elliott is

2:04

in Australia as the Lowy Institute's

2:06

2023 Distinguished

2:08

Fellow for International Security.

2:10

Elliot Cohen, welcome to the director's

2:12

chair.

2:13

Michael, it's great to be with you.

2:15

All right, Elliott, let's start at the beginning

2:17

of your life. You're born in the suburbs

2:20

of Massachusetts. Tell us a bit about your

2:22

folks, about your family and your upbringing,

2:24

your influences as you grow up.

2:26

So I was born in Newton, Massachusetts,

2:28

which is a it's a suburb of Boston. My

2:30

family was, I would say, had originally

2:32

been a fairly secular Jewish family.

2:35

My grandparents were all immigrants from

2:37

Eastern Europe. My father

2:39

was a psychiatrist who began to get

2:41

interested in religion first, I

2:43

think to study it and then really connecting

2:46

with his own religious roots.

2:48

So he kind

2:50

of led the family into,

2:52

I would say, a more religiously observant world. I went

2:55

to a remarkable private school,

2:57

the Maimonides School, which was founded

2:59

by one of the great Modern Orthodox rabbis,

3:02

Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, which

3:04

stressed a top notch

3:06

secular curriculum as well as

3:08

a top notch Judaic curriculum. And I

3:10

give my vanity school a lot of credit. My mother

3:12

was quite a remarkable person. She

3:14

was one of only nine women

3:16

who matriculated at the Massachusetts

3:18

Institute of Technology, and four

3:20

in her class who graduated. She was an

3:22

architect, but then she ended up committing

3:25

most of her life to raising four rather

3:27

unruly sons. And, you

3:29

know, from there on I went. I went

3:31

to Harvard. I became fascinated

3:33

by military history, by

3:35

national security, by American foreign policy,

3:38

had a wonderful advisor, Samuel

3:40

Huntington, probably the greatest political scientist

3:42

of his generation, and

3:45

then went on to the Naval War College

3:48

and occasionally serving in the United States government.

3:51

Well, let me come back to that interesting

3:54

phenomenon in US

3:56

politics, where scholars

3:58

and business figures and others can bounce between

4:01

government service and their and their other lives.

4:03

As you mentioned, you've served in government

4:05

a number of times. I guess at the most senior level,

4:07

when you were counselor to Condoleezza

4:10

Rice, when she was secretary of state in the

4:12

second term of the George W

4:14

Bush administration. Tell us what that

4:16

was like, and tell us what you think

4:18

are the pros and cons of this system

4:20

that sometimes brings quite brilliant

4:23

but inexperienced people

4:25

in a way, into very senior

4:27

positions in government. Is it a net positive

4:29

or a net negative?

4:30

Well, it's certainly quite different from how

4:32

other governments operate. I think one thing to

4:34

remember about it is that it's very

4:36

rare that people come in at senior levels,

4:38

have no government experience whatsoever.

4:41

So when I became counselor of the State Department,

4:43

for example, I had already worked in the Defense

4:45

Department on the Defense Department policy planning

4:47

staff. I had run a major study

4:49

for the Air Force of the first Gulf War. I'd been

4:51

on advisory panels in the intelligence

4:53

community and in the Department

4:55

of Defense. So at the very top, usually

4:58

what you're getting, say, with people like Kurt. Who's

5:00

the deputy national security adviser, who

5:02

devised Aukus, among other things. So he's

5:04

a he's well-known figure here, somebody who'd

5:06

been in and out repeatedly. And

5:08

I think what that means is that you have

5:11

people who have serious experience,

5:13

but not full time experience.

5:15

The good news in all this is you get

5:17

a lot of fresh thinking, and you

5:19

get people who are generally aligned

5:22

with whatever the current administration wants.

5:24

So it's unlike

5:26

other systems where the the

5:28

civil service is

5:30

can have its own views. Yeah. The

5:33

so-called deep state, on the other hand, we

5:35

do have literally thousands of officials

5:38

who change out when whenever

5:40

there's a new administration. So you can have some chaos,

5:43

particularly initially. And

5:45

some of the people you get are not particularly competent

5:48

or effective. I will say I came

5:50

in at the end of the Bush administration is counselor

5:52

for the last few years. And I have to say,

5:55

I thought at that point the system worked wonderfully

5:57

well because the both the career people

5:59

and people like myself who had come in, had

6:02

a similar orientation to public service,

6:04

worked extremely well together. You didn't really

6:06

see fundamental disagreements

6:09

among us. And I think there was a certain freshness

6:11

that on the whole was beneficial.

6:13

But it's it's a very unusual system. I

6:15

don't know any other country in the world that has the.

6:18

Most important foreign policy decision

6:20

that George W Bush made as

6:22

president was to take the United States and its

6:24

allies, including Australia, into Iraq,

6:26

in the aftermath of nine over 11. Let

6:28

me ask you about that decision,

6:30

because I know you were in favor of that

6:32

decision. You worked a lot on Iraq and

6:34

Afghanistan when you served in the administration.

6:37

To put my cards on the table. I opposed

6:39

the invasion of Iraq at the time

6:41

because I thought it was too risky and likely

6:44

to lead to negative, unintended consequences.

6:46

When I look back on it 20 years ago,

6:48

it feels to me like that decision remains

6:51

a stick in the spokes of the West, in

6:53

not only in the sense of the long term

6:55

implications of that particular intervention,

6:57

but also because it is constantly

7:00

thrown back in our faces whenever the West

7:02

tries to intervene. Now, regardless of how

7:04

pure our intentions are, we

7:06

get the charges of what about ism? So when I

7:08

argue that Australia should support Ukraine's

7:11

resistance against Russia's illegal

7:13

invasion, many people say to me, well, Australia

7:15

supported America's illegal invasion

7:17

of Iraq. It does seem to me it's undermined

7:20

some of the West's claims. How do you feel

7:22

about that decision two decades

7:24

later? Was it a mistake

7:27

or was it not a mistake?

7:29

I was very much in favor of it, as

7:31

were a lot of other people. And I'll just mention

7:34

two. One was The Economist,

7:36

which, you know, is not

7:38

an organ of the United States government. And I actually

7:40

knew John Howard a bit. I don't think John Howard

7:42

was dragged into that war. I think there were

7:44

a lot of people who thought it made sense,

7:47

and that it made sense for several

7:49

reasons. One was legitimate

7:51

fear, which we know was misplaced about

7:53

a revival of the Iraqi nuclear program. But

7:55

I think the other thing which people tend to forget

7:58

now is that after

8:00

the conclusion of the first Gulf War,

8:02

there was an inspections regime to

8:04

contain the Iraqi nuclear program, and

8:06

there was a sanctions regime to prevent Iraq

8:09

under Saddam Hussein from coming back.

8:11

The inspection regime had collapsed

8:13

and the sanctions regime was collapsing.

8:16

And we forget now the price the West paid

8:18

for that. For example, if you go back and look at some

8:20

of some of bin Laden's declarations,

8:22

including his infamous declaration of jihad

8:25

against the West and specifically

8:27

against Jews as well, there's a lot of reference

8:29

to the suffering of the Iraqi people. Plus,

8:32

we forget all the issues associated

8:34

with a large military presence in Saudi Arabia

8:36

and so forth. Now, in retrospect,

8:38

the premises were false. I also

8:40

think that we made

8:42

things much worse for ourselves by

8:45

incompetent execution, which is actually

8:47

what I was saying at the time, which was one of the

8:49

reasons I was surprised to be asked by Condi

8:51

to to be her, her counselor.

8:54

And I don't think it had turned out quite the way that

8:56

it did. On the other hand, is the world

8:58

better off without Saddam Hussein?

9:00

I think unquestionably. So.

9:02

Is the Iraq that you have today

9:05

a more reasonable state in the

9:07

Middle East because of what happened?

9:10

I tend to think that it is, although I

9:12

think it was a mistake in retrospect, wouldn't have

9:14

supported it, certainly not the way I did.

9:16

I think it was an understandable mistake, and

9:18

I don't think we should be

9:20

wringing our hands about it. There's a terrible

9:22

thing, I think, in the West now that we we

9:25

like to cringe. What about us? What

9:27

Australia did with the Aboriginal peoples?

9:29

What about allying with Stalin? You

9:31

know, we need to have the courage to make

9:33

the argument about the right policy at

9:35

the moment. And I

9:37

think it's a terrible mistake to go

9:39

weak in the knees, because

9:41

in retrospect, some decisions probably

9:44

were not the right ones, because, you know, that's

9:46

the nature of foreign policy and

9:49

and decision making. Every country, including

9:51

ours, including yours, has made

9:53

some terrible decisions. That doesn't mean

9:55

that we should be paralyzed now, and

9:58

it doesn't mean that we should go around to apologize. I think.

10:00

Well, we could do a whole podcast on Iraq.

10:03

A few of your arguments there that I wouldn't mind responding

10:05

to, but I want to keep going, and I want to come

10:07

now to Ukraine. Since Russia

10:10

invaded Ukraine nearly two

10:12

years ago, your commentary on the war

10:14

has been very widely read.

10:16

Let me just ask you what you think the

10:18

state of play on the battlefield

10:21

is now, and what happens next?

10:23

Well, I think it's pretty clear that I don't

10:25

know whether stalemate is right word, but the

10:27

front lines are pretty clearly settled

10:29

in. Russia

10:31

is mobilizing,

10:34

probably not quite as effectively as

10:36

sometimes painted, and Ukrainians

10:39

are feeling the pressure. I think, you know, I have very

10:41

mixed feelings about my own government's performance

10:43

and all this. I think they did a very good

10:45

job alerting everybody to the impending

10:48

invasion, which, by the way, I think actually undid

10:50

a lot of the damage of Iraq. You

10:52

know, one of the consequences of Iraq

10:54

was damaging the reputation

10:57

of American intelligence

10:59

in the sense of governmental information.

11:01

And I think the way they handled that

11:03

was good. You know, I give President

11:06

Biden credit for the right instincts.

11:08

I think the big mistake we've made

11:10

is to let ourselves be deterred by

11:12

Russian threats from delivering

11:15

the things that the Ukrainians really needed

11:17

in quantity and fast.

11:19

I mean, at the moment, what we have is we're giving

11:21

the Ukrainians the right kinds

11:23

of things, but we're giving too little and we're giving

11:26

it too late. Where does it go from

11:28

here? Well, you know, they'll probably be another

11:30

Russian offensive. What's going

11:32

to happen in the next phase of the war? The Ukrainians are

11:34

committed to fight this out. I've been to Ukraine several

11:37

times, and they're an inspiring

11:39

group of people. They will fight also

11:41

because they know that this is about their very existence.

11:43

I mean, this is that fundamental, a kind

11:45

of war. The Russians are waiting

11:48

to see what happens with the American presidential

11:50

election. I think they're also waiting to

11:52

see what kind of aid Ukraine

11:54

gets. I think the competition will now

11:56

shift more to a technology

11:59

intensive kind of competition.

12:01

You know, generals illusionary, the Ukrainian

12:04

chief of defence staff, wrote a

12:06

very interesting paper about the war,

12:08

which is very candid. There was a short version

12:10

of it in The Economist, but you can get the full version.

12:13

And I think the point of it is that the

12:15

shift now is to one in which technology

12:17

will be critical, and that includes things like

12:19

high performance aircraft, but

12:22

also things like long range missiles, cruise

12:24

missiles and things of

12:26

that nature. So the war is not

12:28

over like most wars. You can't tell

12:30

how it's going to end when you're in the

12:33

middle of it. But what I would say

12:35

is the stakes are very, very

12:37

high, obviously for the Ukrainians, but they

12:39

are high for the entire liberal

12:41

democratic world. And I advisedly

12:43

don't say the West, because I think it includes the

12:46

Asian liberal democracies. If Russia

12:48

succeeds, we're going to be in a much darker

12:50

world then I think we can even imagine

12:52

right now.

12:54

Eliot, as you mentioned, you've been to wartime

12:56

Kyiv a couple of times. You've met with President

12:59

Zelensky once. What has

13:01

the war revealed about

13:03

Zelensky, about his qualities,

13:06

about, if you like, the role

13:08

of the individual in great

13:10

historical moments. And what has the war

13:13

revealed about President Putin,

13:15

about his frailties?

13:17

I was at the Munich Security Conference

13:19

two days before the Russian invasion

13:22

in February of 2022, and

13:24

I was speaking to a very knowledgeable person

13:27

who, fluent in Russian, knows

13:29

Russia very well, who assured me that

13:31

President Zelensky, who actually appeared at Munich,

13:33

would just continue from there to London and

13:36

ride this thing out. And I always

13:38

remember that because this was a

13:40

bona fide expert and boy, was he dead

13:42

wrong. Zelensky turns out

13:44

to be an inspirational

13:46

leader. I think his

13:49

gifts as an actor, actually,

13:51

coupled with just a kind of strength

13:54

of character, have made him an extraordinarily

13:57

effective leader, both

13:59

within Ukraine but also in representing Ukraine

14:01

to the rest of the world. It's it's astonishing

14:03

to me how well he knows how to speak to

14:05

different audiences Americans,

14:08

Germans, dare I say it, Australians

14:10

as well. And I know he's he's spoken here at at

14:12

Lowy. I think with President Putin the

14:14

signs were there if you cared to

14:16

pay attention to them, and particularly if

14:19

it's very important, I think, to read things

14:21

leaders publish and to take seriously

14:23

the things they say in public, by the way,

14:25

that has applications for XI Jinping

14:27

on Taiwan as well. But with the

14:29

case of Putin, he wrote

14:31

this essay, which is filled with a lot of bogus

14:34

history on the historical unity

14:36

of Ukrainians and Russians, it's very

14:38

clear that he does not think that Ukraine deserves

14:40

to exist as a state, that he thinks

14:42

of it as an inferior branch

14:45

of Russia, and that he

14:47

is determined to restore the

14:49

Russian state by which he means an imperial

14:51

state. What is striking to me is

14:53

how much difficulty

14:56

expert opinion, including people

14:58

who are Russian historians, had. And taking that

15:00

seriously. You'll see lots of other interpretations

15:03

of Putin's behaviour before

15:05

the war and in its early stages,

15:07

which suggest that he had limited aims.

15:09

He does not. He wants to destroy

15:11

Ukraine and really recreate

15:13

a Russian imperial state, which is

15:16

in many ways, I think, legitimately

15:18

called fascist.

15:20

Alright, last question on Ukraine.

15:23

Ukrainians have been enormously

15:25

courageous, professional,

15:28

innovative, entrepreneurial in the way

15:30

that they use the aid and the the

15:33

weapon systems that the world has given

15:35

them. But but obviously they need our help if

15:37

they're going to win. There are a lot of claims

15:39

of war weariness in the West

15:41

you will have seen a few weeks ago, for example,

15:44

I think the Italian prime minister was pranked

15:46

by someone and said that there's a

15:48

lot of fatigue in Europe. Do you

15:50

think Americans are war weary?

15:52

Do you think democratic countries are war

15:54

weary?

15:55

So I have to tell you, I have a visceral

15:57

reaction when people use that phrase.

15:59

You know, my wife and I know what it is to send

16:02

a sent off to war. We had a son who

16:04

had did two combat tours and a light infantry

16:06

brigade in Iraq. My

16:08

feeling was he was entitled to be war weary, but

16:10

he wasn't. My wife certainly was,

16:13

but I don't think she was. And I'm

16:15

entitled to be, but I wasn't. If all

16:17

you're sending is dollars and things,

16:20

it's kind of contemptible to say that

16:22

your war weary, you're just cheap, that's

16:24

all. Or you have

16:26

a kind of policy, attention

16:28

deficit disorder. So, you

16:30

know, I think it also bespeaks a

16:32

kind of seriousness about what the stakes

16:34

are. So again, I would push back on it

16:36

quite hard.

16:37

All right. Let's move to

16:40

the theater. And the conflict that

16:42

in many ways has has taken the world's

16:44

attention away from Ukraine. On

16:46

the 7th of October, the deadliest

16:49

single day for the Jewish people since

16:51

the Holocaust, nearly 50 years to

16:53

the day since the outbreak

16:55

of the Yom Kippur War, we saw another

16:57

catastrophic failure of Israeli and

17:00

Western intelligence on that

17:02

day. How did the intelligence

17:04

services, the famous intelligence services

17:06

of Israel, and the rest of us, how do we get it

17:08

so wrong? How do we miss what was happening, what Hamas

17:11

was planning?

17:11

Well, I think it's an intelligence failure,

17:14

particularly on the part of the Israelis. I mean,

17:16

you know, the way intelligence communities work,

17:18

something like the CIA can't

17:21

be equally strong everywhere.

17:23

So what they do is they form liaison relationships

17:25

with other intelligence services, as

17:27

we have with Australia, and we tend to listen

17:30

to them. And here, of course, the Israelis do have very

17:32

effective intelligence services. The answer

17:34

is we won't fully know probably

17:37

until the Israelis do what they usually do,

17:39

as they did after 1973 war

17:41

and after they did after the 2006

17:44

Lebanon War, which is they have established a blue

17:46

ribbon state commission which will investigate

17:48

it very, very thoroughly. Heads will

17:50

roll beginning probably with the Prime Minister.

17:53

But there seem to be a number of things. First,

17:55

as is usually the case, there were signals

17:57

in the system that got missed.

18:00

Some of the reporting in the Israeli press suggests it's

18:02

because you had female soldiers who were, you know,

18:04

in charge with doing surveillance by

18:06

with electro optical and other sensors

18:09

who were sending up kind of alarming messages,

18:11

and they were dismissed. So, you know,

18:13

there may be some male chauvinism at

18:15

work there. I think

18:17

it's also quite possible that the Israelis

18:20

felt that they had a sort of a solution

18:22

with Hamas, that is to say,

18:24

you know, occasional strikes

18:26

and stuff when when there were rocket attacks,

18:28

but also actually encouraging the

18:30

Guterres to fund Hamas,

18:33

which the Israelis did, and

18:35

allowing nearly 20,000

18:38

Palestinian workers with the prospect

18:40

of more to cross the border from Gaza into

18:43

Israel. And I think they felt that that was

18:45

kind of the solution. And I think they

18:47

radically underestimated, particularly

18:50

the leadership. The main leader of Hamas,

18:52

Sinwar, who, remember, had spent a number

18:54

of years in Israeli prison. That was very interesting interview

18:57

in the Financial Times with

18:59

one of his interrogators who

19:01

said, you know, this guy spoke perfect Hebrew.

19:03

We thought we understood him well. We didn't fully

19:06

understand as he was really going to school

19:08

on us. And he was he

19:10

was reading biographies of Israeli leaders.

19:12

He was reading a lot about Israeli history.

19:14

The fact is, you're dealing with a

19:17

guy who's evil. I mean,

19:19

the kind of person who authorizes what they did on

19:21

October 7th is evil, but

19:23

is also very smart and very, very

19:25

capable. So I think there's a larger misreading

19:27

as well. But all this is preliminary.

19:29

We'll find out much more. When

19:32

a thorough investigation is done. It will

19:34

certainly go down in history as one of the great intelligence

19:36

failures of all time, though.

19:38

In response to the attack,

19:41

Israel declared it would destroy

19:43

Hamas. Is that war aim

19:46

achievable? And how far has

19:48

the IDF gone in the period since

19:50

then towards achieving it?

19:51

You know, in a way, this goes back to

19:54

your earlier question about Iraq. Part

19:56

of my reaction to the Iraq war is

19:58

I'm never certain. About anything.

20:01

And so when people tell me, well, the Israelis can't

20:03

possibly do that, well, maybe

20:05

not, probably not. But am I willing

20:07

to be conclusive? No. Because,

20:10

you know, wars are uncertain things. I

20:12

think it really hinges on

20:14

an element that people haven't talked about, because it's

20:16

very hard to know anything about it. And that's opinion

20:19

in Gaza. I mean, there's no question the population

20:21

of Gaza hates the Israelis. I'm sure they hate

20:23

them. If it was possible they hate them more

20:25

now than they did. I think it's quite

20:27

likely. And there is evidence that it's a fact

20:29

that they also really hate Hamas,

20:32

which brought this upon

20:34

them. And I think they know that we know that

20:36

Hamas grip on the Gaza Strip is not

20:38

far from perfect, because otherwise you wouldn't have movements

20:40

like Palestinian Islamic Jihad and

20:42

others, which are not entirely under Hamas's

20:45

control. So I think we don't

20:47

know. I find it hard to see how they

20:49

could do that, particularly since

20:52

after the operations

20:54

in the northern half of the Gaza Strip. I find

20:56

it hard to imagine that they'll be able

20:58

to do the same kind of thing in the South.

21:01

In other words, displacing this case

21:03

would be almost 2 million people and

21:05

then going after Hamas. But what I what

21:07

I would say is, I think there are two really important

21:09

things to bear in mind. The first is that the

21:11

Israelis, I believe, now have

21:14

a kind of an existential mindset that is

21:16

to say, for the first time in about 50 years,

21:18

actually, they think

21:20

that in a certain way the existence of their state

21:22

is in question, not

21:25

so much because what Hamas can do directly, but

21:27

because of what will happen if

21:29

Israel's ability to deter

21:31

attacks, including from Hezbollah, including

21:34

from Iran, is called to question by

21:36

a failure here. The

21:38

second thing is, however, it is waged.

21:40

This war is going to go on for a long time.

21:42

You're not going to go back to the pre

21:44

October 7th dispensation,

21:46

where the Israelis would just kind of observe

21:49

Hamas, but not necessarily go after it.

21:51

I think from now on, whenever Hamas leader

21:54

leaves a building, whenever there's a training

21:56

exercise, if there's ever

21:58

a popular demonstration

22:00

or parade or something like that, the

22:02

Israelis are going to hit it and they will be doing

22:05

things overseas as well. So

22:07

I think the rules now are just

22:09

very, very different. I'm not sure everybody's internalized

22:12

that.

22:13

You mentioned Hezbollah and Iran.

22:15

When I was in Washington about a month ago,

22:18

there was a lot of concern about

22:20

the potential for escalation into a region

22:22

wide conflict. Is that something

22:24

that concerns you?

22:25

Of course. And it should. I mean, the what's

22:28

been underreported? First, the amount of

22:30

attacks by Hezbollah on Israel

22:32

along the northern border and the fact that

22:34

most Israeli settlements and villages

22:36

along the northern border have been evacuated.

22:38

I mean, the Israelis now have a displaced

22:40

persons population of about 125,000.

22:44

Now, that's all done in accordance

22:46

with the set of understandings that Israel and Hezbollah

22:49

have, which is you attack military targets,

22:51

you don't attack civilian targets, you don't

22:53

attack things that are too deep. It's okay

22:55

for the Israelis to hit big targets in

22:58

Syria. And so there's this kind of tit

23:00

for tat is it possible that it could escalate?

23:02

Absolutely. I do again,

23:04

give the Biden administration credit. I think deploying

23:06

two aircraft carriers off the coast of

23:08

Lebanon sent a serious message.

23:11

A lot of heavy metal, a.

23:12

Lot of heavy metal there. But I also

23:14

am not sure that Hezbollah really

23:16

wanted to get involved. It was very interesting when Hassan

23:18

Nasrallah gave a speech that the head of

23:21

Hezbollah gave a speech about this,

23:23

he was at pains to say this was 100%

23:25

Palestinian activity. We didn't

23:27

know about it. You know, you have to ask, why

23:30

is he going to make such a big point of that? And I think

23:32

it's because he doesn't want a war. Remember,

23:34

also after the 2006

23:36

war, he said that in retrospect, if he

23:38

had known how the Israelis would react,

23:41

he wouldn't have ordered the kidnapping

23:43

of the two Israeli soldiers that led to

23:45

that war. So I think he's

23:47

he's a bit more cautious. And

23:50

I think that's restraining them

23:52

for now. But the potential for something much larger

23:54

is there to to include just one last

23:56

thing. I would add indirect Iranian attacks

23:59

via Yemen. I mean, the Houthis have been

24:01

going after shipping off the coast

24:03

of Yemen. They've fired missiles

24:05

at Israel. This is not

24:07

the Houthis in this case or cat's

24:09

paw for Iran. I don't think they manufacture

24:11

their own missiles. And,

24:13

you know, it's it's absolutely

24:15

possible that this thing will escalate in

24:18

a variety of ways.

24:19

Let me finish on Israeli politics.

24:22

Many in Israel blame Prime

24:24

Minister Netanyahu for failing to detect

24:27

and prevent the attacks on October the 7th, but also

24:29

for including far right figures,

24:31

for example, in his government, who say things that

24:33

are completely unacceptable. Is

24:36

Bibi finished, do you think?

24:37

Yes, and I think rightly so.

24:40

First, obviously the presiding

24:42

over this catastrophe. But I

24:44

think it's also the case that his

24:47

kind of reckless and irresponsible policies

24:49

to include bringing these really

24:52

marginal far right figures into his government

24:54

and the ensuing reaction by

24:56

a large chunk of the Israeli public,

24:59

including. Over judicial reform and things

25:01

like that. Convinced Hamas

25:03

and possibly others

25:05

that Israel was internally divided

25:08

and weak. Now, in a way, that's

25:10

a misreading, because the very

25:12

same organizations that were bringing out hundreds

25:14

of thousands of people to protest the government

25:16

then turned around and began supporting

25:19

what was really a very large scale mobilization

25:21

at the front. A lot of those very same people

25:23

are actually at war right now.

25:26

But but absolutely, Bibi will

25:28

go. I think there's, you know, all the polls indicate

25:30

that, like 90% of the Israeli public wants him

25:32

gone and he should go.

25:34

Let me come to your own country, the

25:36

United States. You've described yourself

25:38

to me as a politically homeless person.

25:41

You served in a Republican administration,

25:43

but you are never Trumper. I think you left

25:46

the Republican Party in 2016,

25:48

and certainly the Republican Party of today is

25:50

a mile away from the Republican Party. I

25:53

have read about, as an historian, a party of

25:55

strong defense, strong commitment to alliances,

25:57

fiscal rectitude, and so on.

25:59

Let me ask you about

26:01

President Trump. What are the

26:03

chances of Mr. Trump

26:06

being elected president next year?

26:08

If he were elected president,

26:10

how would his next

26:12

term as president differ from

26:14

his first term?

26:15

Well, you know, again, I've been on

26:17

the record from the very beginning. I was actually, I think,

26:19

one of the original Never Trumpers. I

26:21

thought then and in fact, as early as 2015,

26:24

that he was utterly unfit to be president

26:26

and said so. And I

26:28

think if anything, he's more unfit than ever

26:30

in the light of everything that he said and done,

26:33

since I think if he got in,

26:35

there would be two things he

26:37

would. Undoubtedly, he has

26:39

had as much try to use the government

26:41

to go after his enemies

26:43

as he understands them, and he doesn't understand

26:46

the word opponents. He understands the word enemies.

26:48

And there's decent democratic

26:50

governance requires that you think of the other side as

26:52

opponents, not enemies. And unfortunately,

26:54

you know, he now knows more about

26:56

how the government works, and he has more people

26:58

around him who know that. So that part

27:00

would be very dangerous. But I also think

27:03

that he would be crazier

27:05

and even less disciplined

27:07

and coherent. I think if you just look at his speech,

27:09

if you look at the things he

27:11

he writes, if you look at public

27:13

meetings, I mean, he is he's

27:16

visibly aging. People talk. And rightly

27:18

I think about

27:20

President Biden, in essence,

27:22

being too old to continue on as President

27:25

Donald Trump is only something like about four

27:27

years or so behind

27:29

him, maybe six. But he's

27:31

old, too. He's in his late 70s, and

27:33

I think it shows, and I think that would make him

27:36

even more erratic now. I mean, the polls

27:38

are quite worrisome if you believe

27:40

all that. I tend to think at the end

27:43

of the day, his chances are

27:45

not as good as people think. First, you

27:47

know, he could very well be in jail

27:49

by the time the election happens. He's got four

27:51

different court cases against

27:53

him with, I think, a grand total of 91 indictments.

27:56

And so I think that

27:58

will come more to the fore. Americans don't make

28:00

their their minds about politics until a

28:02

couple of months before the election anyway. They're

28:04

probably not entirely paying attention.

28:07

And I also think that,

28:09

you know, in the crunch, Biden

28:11

will be a somewhat more effective candidate than

28:13

people tend to think. So although

28:16

I'm obviously concerned about it. And

28:18

it's not that I'm hugely enthusiastic

28:20

about President Biden, but he's unquestionably

28:22

better than the alternative. I tend

28:24

to think that the chances of Trump coming in

28:27

are not as high as people think.

28:29

All right, Eliot, today we've spoken

28:31

about a lot of big individuals

28:34

Zelensky, Putin, Xinhua,

28:37

Trump, Biden, the

28:39

most acute observer

28:41

of individuals, of course, was

28:43

William Shakespeare, which is lucky

28:45

because, of course, you've just published this

28:47

wonderful book, The Hollow Crown,

28:49

on what Shakespeare thinks

28:52

about leaders. This is obviously

28:54

a departure from from some of your other

28:56

more scholarly books. Why should people

28:58

who listen to this podcast, who care about

29:00

history and international politics,

29:03

why should they read Shakespeare?

29:04

So let me begin with the opening line of the book,

29:07

which is, it's

29:09

all very well to see Richard the second, Goneril

29:12

and Iago on the stage. I've

29:14

had to work with some of those people. And

29:16

the truth is that, you know,

29:18

as the course of a career in which I've spent

29:20

a lot of time in the corridors of power,

29:22

and I've met with presidents and prime ministers

29:24

and generals and diplomats

29:26

and spies. The more I think

29:29

about it, the more I see Shakespeare as just

29:31

a wonderful guy to that which Shakespeare has

29:33

to teach us about his character. You know, he he's

29:35

not interested in economics. He's

29:38

not interested in mass movements. He's interested

29:40

in character. And I'll give you just one example

29:42

of all that I mentioned. I'd been

29:44

at the Munich Security Conference a couple of days before

29:47

the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And

29:50

I remember, I would say, the vast majority

29:52

of the European experts there thought,

29:54

well, this is largely a bluff.

29:56

Or if Putin does attack Ukraine.

29:59

Just a small piece of it. Then it'll offer

30:01

negotiations. They expected

30:04

something quite subtle, and I had my doubts. And

30:06

the reason why I had nothing to do with my knowledge of either Putin

30:08

or Russia. It had everything to do with

30:10

having reread Richard the Third for

30:12

the eighth or ninth time. Now,

30:14

Richard the third, of course, is about this

30:16

incredibly evil and cunning king.

30:18

And what struck me on that most

30:20

recent rereading was that in the first three acts,

30:23

Richard the third is committing murder left and

30:25

right. He has his own brother drowned in a

30:27

cask of wine. But he is subtle.

30:29

He is indirect. He covers his tracks.

30:32

In the fourth act, he orders the murder

30:34

of his two nephews in the tower.

30:36

And the way Shakespeare portrays that is,

30:38

he says to his lieutenant

30:40

Buckingham, I want the bastards

30:43

dead and wish it done suddenly.

30:45

Do you understand me? Buckingham

30:47

is a little bit shocked, and next thing you know, Buckingham

30:50

is off to the block. So

30:52

what does that tell you? What it tells you. What Shakespeare

30:54

sees in the character of dictators

30:57

is a kind of deterioration, and

30:59

that they can go from

31:02

being subtle and indirect and

31:04

cunning to being more and more brutal

31:06

and open in a way, part of the natural

31:08

trajectory of their characters. It's

31:10

accompanied by language to include,

31:13

by the way, the language of rape,

31:15

which Richard uses, as

31:17

did Vladimir Putin. You know, Putin before

31:20

the invasion, said, kind

31:22

of addressing the Ukrainians, like

31:25

it or not, my beauty, you'll have to put up with it.

31:27

Well, that that is clearly a threat

31:29

in effect of rape. And,

31:31

you know, that was just one of those moments of recognition,

31:34

of which there are many. I've always loved

31:36

Shakespeare, but I will say that over time,

31:39

what I came to believe

31:41

is that he was the best guide

31:43

there is to understanding the

31:45

role of character and leadership and

31:47

the role of theatre in politics, which is

31:49

another theme of the book.

31:51

Well, Eliot Cohen, parting is such

31:53

sweet sorrow. It's been a pleasure to

31:55

speak with you, but you have other

31:57

duties to carry out. As the Lowy Institute's

32:00

Distinguished Fellow for International Security.

32:02

So we'll let you go. Thank you for joining me

32:04

today on the director's chair to talk

32:06

about Ukraine, the Middle East, Zelensky,

32:09

Putin and Richard the Third. Eliot

32:11

Cohen, thank you very much. Thank you. Michael. The

32:13

director's chair is a podcast from the

32:16

Lowy Institute. The producer for

32:18

this episode was D'Arcy Milne with research

32:20

by David Vallance. If you've enjoyed

32:22

this episode, please leave a review in

32:24

your podcast app. You can find all

32:26

our past episodes at our website.

32:28

Lowy Institute. Org slash

32:31

director's chair I'm Michael Fullilove.

32:33

Thank you for listening.