Speaker 1: We have a big bonus episode today. I'm handing over
Speaker 1: the reins for this one to Mr Brian Goldsmith. It
Speaker 1: is all you, baby, So who did you talk to?
Speaker 1: I talked to Graham Allison, who has written the foreign
Speaker 1: policy book of the year. It's all about whether the
Speaker 1: US and arising China are headed ultimately for war, which
Speaker 1: is a subject that hasn't gotten very much attention. Graham
Speaker 1: has been an advisor to the last seven or eight
Speaker 1: Secretaries of Defense. He knows a lot about nuclear terrorism,
Speaker 1: about the North Korean challenge, about what's happening with the
Speaker 1: Trump administration and the Russians. So we covered a wide
Speaker 1: range of issues, and I think people who are interested
Speaker 1: in foreign policy are going to really like this conversation.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to hear it, and I think that it
Speaker 1: comes at a very important time. He sounds like a
Speaker 1: real smarty pants by the way, Brian, but I'm really
Speaker 1: excited to hear him his take on the President's recent
Speaker 1: trip abroad, on some of the things that Uncle Merkel
Speaker 1: has been saying, as you mentioned, what's going on with Russia,
Speaker 1: and kind of going deeper into why this should spark
Speaker 1: outrage if in fact the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians,
Speaker 1: and of course and a very tense situation in North
Speaker 1: Korea with them launching that missile that landed in the
Speaker 1: Sea of Japan. I mean, there's so much going on internationally,
Speaker 1: and I welcome somebody smart to give me a deeper
Speaker 1: understanding and better perspective of all the things that are
Speaker 1: going on. Well, needless to say, I could completely geek
Speaker 1: out with Graham Allison about all those topics and a
Speaker 1: lot more. So take a listen. Dr Graham Allison, my
Speaker 1: former professor at the Kennedy School. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for doing the show. Thanks for having me. Well. I
Speaker 1: read this new book with great interest and fascination because
Speaker 1: it really steps back from the day to day and
Speaker 1: asked a really big question, which is are the United
Speaker 1: States and China inevitably heading to war? And and what
Speaker 1: is what is the answer to that question? Well, that's
Speaker 1: I think the sixty four dollars or sixty four trillion
Speaker 1: dollars questions, and I think the answer is yes and no.
Speaker 1: And in case it seems to profits oial, I think
Speaker 1: that's not a very satisfying answer, not very satisfying, but
Speaker 1: it's true. So in this case, I believe business as
Speaker 1: usual will likely produce history as usual, and in that case,
Speaker 1: that would be a war between China and the US
Speaker 1: that would be catastrophic for both. That's the yes and
Speaker 1: no is that UH. As the saying goes, only those
Speaker 1: who fail to study history are condemned to repeat it.
Speaker 1: And there are enough ingredients in the relationship to UH
Speaker 1: imagine that far sighted states craft, both in Washington and Paging,
Speaker 1: could find a way to live together to mutual benefit.
Speaker 1: And speaking of learning from the past, you studied in
Speaker 1: this book, UH sixteen occasions in which, over the past
Speaker 1: five years, a rising power threatened to displace an existing superpower,
Speaker 1: and you found that in twelve of those cases the
Speaker 1: result was war. For those cases the two parties avoided war.
Speaker 1: What were the distinctions between them? Well, great question. So
Speaker 1: in the twelve cases, UH, normally they succumb to the
Speaker 1: normal pressures and normal misunderstandings and normal mistakes of a
Speaker 1: rising power and a ruling power. So a rising power, thanks,
Speaker 1: I'm bigger, I'm stronger, my interests deserved more weight than
Speaker 1: they got when I was smaller and weaker. I deserve more,
Speaker 1: say more. Sway, So when an upstart threatens to an incumbent,
Speaker 1: you get a rising power syndrome and a ruling person.
Speaker 1: The ruling power looks and says, wait a minute. The
Speaker 1: way things were were great. They were the only circumstances
Speaker 1: which you got a chance to grow up. You should
Speaker 1: be grateful, you should even help support them. And your
Speaker 1: actions now seemed there were to be threatening. So that
Speaker 1: dynamic is the something you see in the cases of failure.
Speaker 1: And I would say the dramatic case of that, and
Speaker 1: most relevant for us today, is the circumstances that got
Speaker 1: us to World War One. That's on the one hand.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, as you say, what about the
Speaker 1: cases in which wear was averted and a very interesting case,
Speaker 1: the US rose to rival and then ultimately overtake Britain
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the twentieth century. Britain found a
Speaker 1: way to adapt and adjust that was so nuanced and
Speaker 1: subtle that they kept what was vital for Britain on
Speaker 1: the one hand, but they accommodated the US and other
Speaker 1: areas and so smoothly that Americans came to understand our
Speaker 1: interest is largely aligned with Britain. So then when World
Speaker 1: War One came, the US was Britain's lifeline both with
Speaker 1: supplies and with money while the war was going on,
Speaker 1: until when the US entered World War One, we naturally
Speaker 1: entered is Britain's a lie And then between the wars,
Speaker 1: the U S British relationship thicken, and then when World
Speaker 1: War Two came, the US was again the essential ally
Speaker 1: for Britain. So that was a great case of life adaptation.
Speaker 1: When you think about the case you just described of
Speaker 1: the US and Britain, Britain was, in a sense managing
Speaker 1: its own decline. It was deteriorating as the great empire
Speaker 1: of the world as the US was coming up. And
Speaker 1: I'd imagine a lot of Americans would reject that comparison
Speaker 1: and would be made very uncomfortable by it. And so
Speaker 1: when you think about those two things, on the one hand,
Speaker 1: war with China more likely than not. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: a lot of Americans, not feeling comfortable with managing peacefully
Speaker 1: are declined visa via the Chinese. Are Are we just
Speaker 1: headed sort of inexorably towards a big conflict? Are well?
Speaker 1: I think thucydities would say, there's an unstoppable rising China
Speaker 1: on a collision course with an immovable ruling America, that
Speaker 1: would be business as usual and history as usual. But
Speaker 1: if we look at the cases of success, I mean
Speaker 1: a more positive example that maybe is more appealing as
Speaker 1: we think about it, and no cases exactly like the other.
Speaker 1: But in the case of the Cold War, the US
Speaker 1: faced a surging Soviet Union. When John Kennedy became President
Speaker 1: of the US in nineteen sixty one, he believed, and
Speaker 1: conventional wisdom believed the Soviet Union was going to overtake
Speaker 1: the US as the dominant economy by the end of
Speaker 1: the seventies. Again, history people can't even believe that today,
Speaker 1: but that was the fact. You can go back and
Speaker 1: look at the economics textbook of the time, the Samuelson
Speaker 1: Textbook in nineteen sixty four, it says by the end
Speaker 1: of the seventies, Soviet Union will overtake the US, which
Speaker 1: is why analysts should never make these predictions. Well, but
Speaker 1: we have to live in a world where uncertain as
Speaker 1: we are, we have to have expectations. So for sure,
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union was thought of and appeared to be
Speaker 1: a existential threat to the US. Rather than having a
Speaker 1: war with the with the Soviet Union, people invented a
Speaker 1: whole new crazy idea. How about Cold War? So in
Speaker 1: my column this figures in the no war because war,
Speaker 1: and this is only a metaphor, Cold War was competition
Speaker 1: in every dimension by every means except bums and bullets
Speaker 1: killing thousands of each other. And we had some proxy wars,
Speaker 1: proxy wars, we had the covered killing of people, we
Speaker 1: had economic war, we had propaganda war, but we didn't
Speaker 1: have bums and bullets killing each other. And so I'm
Speaker 1: about in this book, I mean by war, I mean
Speaker 1: thousands of people killing each other. That's that's what means war.
Speaker 1: And in the case of the Cold War, people invented
Speaker 1: a strategy that was highly imaginative, very adoptable, but which
Speaker 1: coped with the threat successfully. So I would say, if
Speaker 1: we were trying to think about the situation today, we
Speaker 1: don't want to manage to guous the client like Britain,
Speaker 1: and we don't want a Cold war just like the
Speaker 1: Soviet unit. This is a whole new, different situation. But
Speaker 1: from each of these cases we can get some clues, uh,
Speaker 1: as well as from the mistakes that were made in
Speaker 1: the cases that led to war. The new strategy that
Speaker 1: would have to be created will be as strangely different
Speaker 1: if it's going to be successful from all of the
Speaker 1: conventional conversation today as the Cold War was from the
Speaker 1: conversations previously. And one of the most powerful passages in
Speaker 1: this book is when you describe just how big, how
Speaker 1: powerful China is becoming. And one of the many reasons
Speaker 1: to read this book is just to wrap your mind
Speaker 1: around the scale of blockbuster growth that we're talking about.
Speaker 1: I mean, every two years, the increment of Chinese growth
Speaker 1: is greater than Indie as whole economy. China has already
Speaker 1: surpassed the US as an economic power, particularly in manufacturing
Speaker 1: and consumer goods. It's the largest automaker in the world,
Speaker 1: and it is only a matter of time. It's a
Speaker 1: question of when, not if China becomes the dominant world superpower. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that the uh, your point is exactly right.
Speaker 1: So uh, unless once been watching China carefully, and maybe
Speaker 1: even if you have, it's hard to appreciate what's happened
Speaker 1: in a single generation. So in a single generation, a
Speaker 1: country that didn't appear in any of the International League
Speaker 1: tables has leaped to the top in every arena. Uh.
Speaker 1: We never, never in history has a country risking so far,
Speaker 1: so fast, on so many different dimensions. In fact, in
Speaker 1: the chapter on the rise of China, I quote backliffe
Speaker 1: Hovels good line in which he says things have happened
Speaker 1: so fast we haven't yet had time to be astonished.
Speaker 1: So everywhere in every arena, one sees China in our
Speaker 1: face and three times the size of if the trend,
Speaker 1: if the trend should continue, Because do the math, there's
Speaker 1: four times as many Chinese as there are Americans. So
Speaker 1: if there are only one fourth as productive as Americans,
Speaker 1: the two economies are equal, So they're not that. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they're only half as good as we are, half as productive, well,
Speaker 1: then there twice as big as we are. And for Americans,
Speaker 1: and especially red blooded Americans like me, even red neckt Americans.
Speaker 1: I'm from North Carolina, we know USA means number one.
Speaker 1: I can take off my shirt here and you'll find
Speaker 1: a tattoo you know that says USA means number one.
Speaker 1: Note that's a joke. But but but but if you
Speaker 1: took but if you took the skin off, you would
Speaker 1: you would. Basically, Americans under believe, most Americans, people like me,
Speaker 1: believe that we have been number one all our that's
Speaker 1: the way the world is supposed to be, somewhere in
Speaker 1: the Bible, or in the Constitution or the laws of nature,
Speaker 1: it says, Usa. One of the points you make in
Speaker 1: the book is that you know, in large part this
Speaker 1: is due to the fact that we have the biggest economy,
Speaker 1: because then we can fund the biggest military, the biggest
Speaker 1: intelligence apparatus, the biggest diplomatic apparatus, the biggest thing. Exactly,
Speaker 1: it's not that we're inherently better. And so if another
Speaker 1: country is three times the economy and there therefore three
Speaker 1: times the resources to do this stuff, are we going
Speaker 1: to be number one anymore? Probably not? Probably not. And
Speaker 1: I think in the in the book, I give you
Speaker 1: an abbreviated version of the chart I give to my
Speaker 1: students and of course at Harvard. So the top of
Speaker 1: the chart says when could China become number one? And
Speaker 1: I give twenty six indicators. So biggest auto manufacturers, you say,
Speaker 1: but the biggest cell phone manufacturer, biggest smartphone user, biggest
Speaker 1: robot producer, biggest artificial intelligence, biggest economy. And students in
Speaker 1: the Harvard class say, oh, maybe forty for this one.
Speaker 1: We make a you know, pick a number for each
Speaker 1: one of the twenty six indicators. Then I have chart
Speaker 1: two and chart to the top of which says already,
Speaker 1: so every one of these twenty six indicators, China has
Speaker 1: overtaken the US. But there's an asterisk attached to all
Speaker 1: of this, all these projections in the future, which is,
Speaker 1: if the present trends continue and a lot of people
Speaker 1: take a darker, dimmer review of Chinese authoritarianism, of their
Speaker 1: governance model. Condi Rice just came out with a new
Speaker 1: book about democracy in which she notes that there are
Speaker 1: a hundred and eighty thousand protests a year in China.
Speaker 1: There's still no reliable rule of law. There's mass seizure
Speaker 1: of people's assets there they the Chinese government has to
Speaker 1: employ over a million people just to censor the internet.
Speaker 1: And so is this model of an open economy but
Speaker 1: a closed political system actually sustainable or is there going
Speaker 1: to be some disruption over time? It's a great, great question,
Speaker 1: And I would say of a fundamental question about China
Speaker 1: as their government system, I say in the conclusion of
Speaker 1: the book, a fundamental question about the US is our
Speaker 1: governance system exactly? Things are just working fine. So basically,
Speaker 1: if you're trying to think of, you know, what would
Speaker 1: be a conceivable accommodation between the two parties for the
Speaker 1: time being. Let's imagine that there were adult supervision for
Speaker 1: a second in international affairs. Of course, they're not. We
Speaker 1: we live in a hobsey in the world. There's nobody
Speaker 1: who's superior to. She's impaying and Trump. But let's just
Speaker 1: imagine hypothetically. I knew this in my class, that their work. Okay,
Speaker 1: So here's a Martian strategist who's an adult and she
Speaker 1: parachutes into Mary Lago for the summit between she and Trump,
Speaker 1: and she says, guys, I have a couple of things
Speaker 1: to point out to you. First, each of you have large,
Speaker 1: probably insurmountable problems. At first. Secondly, the most important of
Speaker 1: these problems occur in early within your own border, not
Speaker 1: the problems you were talking about between the between the
Speaker 1: two a few So I have an idea for you.
Speaker 1: Why don't you take a little breather like Pericles did
Speaker 1: with the Sparta in the thirty year piece. The thirty
Speaker 1: year piece basically said, why don't we just each focus
Speaker 1: on our own problems for thirty years and then we'll
Speaker 1: get back to trying to kill each other. And so
Speaker 1: it's interesting, you know, to think the unthinkable yet again
Speaker 1: before we move on to other topics, what does a
Speaker 1: war between the US and China? Look like? Is there
Speaker 1: a war between these two nuclear powers that's anything but unmanageable, catastrophic,
Speaker 1: millions and millions of people dying on both sides. Again,
Speaker 1: great questions. So anybody who's looked at this carefully in
Speaker 1: the Defense department and the Chinese counterpart have done, can
Speaker 1: see that a full scale war between the US and
Speaker 1: China would be kin austrophic for both and nobody would win.
Speaker 1: Nobody what's war. Everybody understands a war would be catastrophic.
Speaker 1: So if that was the case, how could a war happen? Well,
Speaker 1: war has happened if we look at the previous cases,
Speaker 1: not because somebody wanted war, but because some third party
Speaker 1: action or event becomes a match that makes a fire
Speaker 1: at the end of which people are somewhere where they
Speaker 1: don't want to be. So let's take in this case.
Speaker 1: So I'd say the most most likely path today the
Speaker 1: war between the US and China, and which large numbers
Speaker 1: of Chinese and Americans are killing each other goes just
Speaker 1: like North Korea. So North Korea will in the months
Speaker 1: ahead either conduct I CBM tests that will give it
Speaker 1: the capability to strike Los Angeles with a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 1: That's on the one hand, or it will be interrupted
Speaker 1: that's on the other. So I've written about this as
Speaker 1: a Cuban missile crisis in slow motion. So just to
Speaker 1: back up, the scenario is North Korea has the capability
Speaker 1: or proves that they have the capability to strike Los
Speaker 1: Angeles with a nuclear tipped missile. Trump decides to strike
Speaker 1: the North Koreans to prevent them reaching that final point. Yes,
Speaker 1: and North Korea responds by killing more than a million
Speaker 1: people soul South Korea, which they have the capability of
Speaker 1: doing today, And then the US and South Korea declare
Speaker 1: war on North Korea, and and where do the dominoes
Speaker 1: fall after that? Okay, then it's then the game becomes
Speaker 1: thick because if we if if we attack North Korea
Speaker 1: in order to make sure it can't conduct another round
Speaker 1: of attack, including nuclear weapons against South Korea or against Japan,
Speaker 1: well possibly some of those weapons get fired in the process.
Speaker 1: So now you can even have nuclear weapons exploding in
Speaker 1: South Korea or Japan. We're upon As Colin Powell once
Speaker 1: said to the North Korea counterparts, he said, the movement
Speaker 1: of nuclear weapon explodes on the soil of any ally
Speaker 1: of the U s, We're gonna turn the whole of
Speaker 1: North Korea into a charcoal biscuit. Uh So maybe when
Speaker 1: then we just simply say too much is too much?
Speaker 1: Uh toasts the whole place, that we can do that. Okay,
Speaker 1: that would be one possibility, and then we have to
Speaker 1: see how does that play with the Chinese. The more
Speaker 1: likely possibility, I think is that will end up with
Speaker 1: a ground war in South Korea, in which the South
Speaker 1: Koreans and the Americans will otherwise capture North Korea and
Speaker 1: unify the country unless China enters the war. But we
Speaker 1: should remember what happened in the First Korean War. Again,
Speaker 1: Americans don't do much history here, but it's worth to remember.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty UH North Korea attack South Korea, almost
Speaker 1: capture the whole country. US came to the rescue very
Speaker 1: last minute, pushed the North Koreans back up the peninsula.
Speaker 1: We're approaching the Chinese border, the border between North Korea
Speaker 1: and UH and China. The Chinese then out of the
Speaker 1: Blue to the bedazzlement of MacArthur, attacked and pushed beat
Speaker 1: the Americans right back down the peninsula to the thirty
Speaker 1: parallel where the war ended, because China was determined that
Speaker 1: no American military ally was going to be on its border,
Speaker 1: even in nineteen when it was, you know, one the
Speaker 1: size of the U S. The US had a monopoly
Speaker 1: of nuclear weapons. US had just finished World War Two
Speaker 1: by dropping bombs on a Roshoma and Nagasaki, and that
Speaker 1: China attacked the US. So most people believe that China
Speaker 1: would not tolerate a unified Korea that was a military
Speaker 1: ally of the U. S. It seems like the rational
Speaker 1: way to prevent this and acknowledging we're not in a
Speaker 1: fully rational world here, at least in terms of the
Speaker 1: North Korea track, is to get the Chinese to prevent
Speaker 1: the North Koreans from going nuclear. That we would accept
Speaker 1: the status quo if North Korea weren't threatening our country
Speaker 1: or our allies with nuclear weapons. But the question is
Speaker 1: can the Chinese do that and will the Chinese do that? Well,
Speaker 1: you're you're channeling Trump Chagan, and I think in a
Speaker 1: way that most Americans would so when most Americans hear
Speaker 1: of this. I mean I've I talked to, you know,
Speaker 1: people in the government as well as students or others.
Speaker 1: They say, I don't believe this, Okay, I a little impoverished.
Speaker 1: Pip squeak cannot have nuclear weapons. I mean, nobody would
Speaker 1: allow that. And I say, well they do. The American
Speaker 1: intelligence community says they have an arsenal nuclear weapons. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean, it is unbelievable if you were just you know,
Speaker 1: not paying attention. But but it's a fact. But do
Speaker 1: the Chinese have the capacity or the will to influence
Speaker 1: the North Korean's not to proceed any further with their
Speaker 1: weapons program? Well, yes and no. So yes, okay, So
Speaker 1: the Chinese control a lifeline for North Korea. If the
Speaker 1: Chinese were prepared to collapse the North Korean regime, they
Speaker 1: could do so because any five percent of the trade
Speaker 1: with North Korea goes to China and nine of the energy,
Speaker 1: so the oil that keeps Panyon's factories, uh, their military
Speaker 1: uh their heat in the winter, all of this comes
Speaker 1: from China. And if they were prepared to squeeze that lifeline,
Speaker 1: they could squeeze them. Now, what would didn't happen and
Speaker 1: this is. I mean, I've sat down with Chinese and
Speaker 1: game this several times and they say, okay, so let's
Speaker 1: imagine the place collapses. Now we have a what chaos?
Speaker 1: A civil war? Are there South Koreans and you're gonna
Speaker 1: get involved in this situation? And I say, well, the
Speaker 1: South Koreans are not gonna let their cousins in North
Speaker 1: Korea start without trying to be helpful to them, and
Speaker 1: they're gonna have an interest in the matter, and so well,
Speaker 1: maybe they'll get engage a little bit. And then well,
Speaker 1: if they do, won't they end up inheriting the of Korea?
Speaker 1: I would say that would be the normal thing. They're
Speaker 1: very successful country and wealthy. These guys are poor and miserable.
Speaker 1: You know, it'll take them a long time, like East
Speaker 1: Germanita get the country back together, but I think that's
Speaker 1: probably how it will come about. Well, then they say,
Speaker 1: so there's gonna be a U. S military, a lie
Speaker 1: on our border, and that's the reason why we went
Speaker 1: to war with you earlier. And the scenario you're describing
Speaker 1: is that basically the North Koreans don't buy the idea
Speaker 1: that the Chinese would really squeeze them because They know
Speaker 1: that the Chinese don't want to have an American ally
Speaker 1: on their board, and therefore their leverage well impressive on paper,
Speaker 1: is maybe, you know, not so much in reality. So
Speaker 1: when we come back with Graham Allison, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about what if anything, the United States can do
Speaker 1: to prevent a war with China, and we're also going
Speaker 1: to talk about some other foreign policy issues. Uh, stay
Speaker 1: with us. Just a reminder next week, Brian and I
Speaker 1: will be talking with that during comedian Matt Walsh. You
Speaker 1: probably know him as Press Secretary Mike McClintock on HBO's
Speaker 1: V one of my favorite shows. So what questions do
Speaker 1: you have about Matt's life career and how he really
Speaker 1: feels about Julia Louis Dreychus call us and leave a
Speaker 1: message at four four six three seven nine two two
Speaker 1: four four six three seven What can we do right
Speaker 1: now to get us off the path toward inevitable, horrible,
Speaker 1: destructive war with the Chinese. I say, this is not
Speaker 1: a problem to be fixed the way Washington likes to
Speaker 1: fix a problem. The rise of a five thousand euro
Speaker 1: civilization with one point four billion people is not fixable.
Speaker 1: This is a chronic condition to be endured and managed
Speaker 1: for a generation. So that's the point. One point two
Speaker 1: in this case is specially diagnosis must proceed prescription. Just
Speaker 1: like if you went to the emergency room and the
Speaker 1: doctor said get on the guerney, I'm pulling you into
Speaker 1: the operating room and I'm gonna do surgery, you would say,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, how about a diagnosis first? So diagnosis
Speaker 1: should proceed prescription. And this book is mainly about trying
Speaker 1: to help us with the diagnosis. Okay, if we were
Speaker 1: just adults trying to work out some of these problems
Speaker 1: or these workable or is it really this is hopeless?
Speaker 1: So I would say, well, now, wait a minute, what's
Speaker 1: on the asset side and what the liability on the
Speaker 1: asset side. First, we both have nuclear arsenals that produce
Speaker 1: mutual assured destruction, So if you decide to kill me,
Speaker 1: you can, but only by committing suicide. So everybody knows
Speaker 1: that's a lousy idea, and as I say, everybody in
Speaker 1: the national security establishment both places gets that. Secondly, we
Speaker 1: have economic inner relationship here which is so thick that
Speaker 1: the war between the US and China, basically Walmart's would
Speaker 1: be empty, and Chinese factories would be producing goods for nobody,
Speaker 1: and the U S couldn't get loans to pay for
Speaker 1: our deficit. So basically these are thickly interdependent. Now that
Speaker 1: economic interaction has allowed both of us to be wealthier
Speaker 1: than we would be otherwise, there's kind of economic mutual
Speaker 1: assured destruction as well as military. But yeah, absolutely. Then thirdly,
Speaker 1: there's climate. Now that's not agreed to by everybody in
Speaker 1: the U. S. But but every every person UH with
Speaker 1: any scientific competence who's looked at this agrees that on
Speaker 1: the current trajectory, we may make an uninhabitable climate for
Speaker 1: our great great great grandchild or hundred years from now.
Speaker 1: So if if we succeeded in doing that, that's clearly
Speaker 1: contrary to the violent interests of the US. So is
Speaker 1: there any way the U S could solve this problem
Speaker 1: without China? No, we're the two biggest greenhouse gusto manors. Together.
Speaker 1: We may not be able to solve it. We may not,
Speaker 1: but for sure, independently we can only fail. I wonder
Speaker 1: if we're going to look back from a strategic perspective
Speaker 1: as as the year that we the United States seated
Speaker 1: global leadership. If you look at our withdrawal from the
Speaker 1: Trans Pacific Partnership, which basically delegated the rules of the
Speaker 1: road in Asia to the Chinese. If you look at
Speaker 1: our withdrawal from climate leadership as we pulled out of
Speaker 1: the Paris Deal, you look at the the anger and
Speaker 1: the resentment that we're triggering with the travel ban and
Speaker 1: sort of increasing isolationism, picking an alliance with Russian effect
Speaker 1: over an alliance with NATO by not reaffirming our commitment
Speaker 1: to all for one and one for all, and and
Speaker 1: being consumed by political infighting here at home. Is this
Speaker 1: kind of a pivot point that you know, we need
Speaker 1: to focus on and and reverse or America is going
Speaker 1: to go off in a very bad direction. I don't
Speaker 1: I don't like the implication of the question, but I
Speaker 1: can't resistant. I mean, I think that's the logic of
Speaker 1: the situation. And I've been trying to look at the
Speaker 1: cases that I've seen previously, but with a rising and
Speaker 1: ruling power, and which basically the ruling power we tweeted
Speaker 1: from the field of leadership in areas of its strength,
Speaker 1: and I haven't been able to find one. But I'm
Speaker 1: hoping maybe you know, breaking new ground here. We may
Speaker 1: be breaking new ground, but I'm hoping maybe that somebody
Speaker 1: else will, you know, we'll find some analog because generally
Speaker 1: what happens the ruling power tries to strengthen its relationships
Speaker 1: with other powerful entities that allow it to help shape
Speaker 1: the environment for the rising power, so that it has
Speaker 1: to adapt, as opposed to allowing it to lead in
Speaker 1: in writing new rules which clearly will be disadvantageous for us.
Speaker 1: And in in fact, you can argue that that's what
Speaker 1: the Obama administration was trying to do with both the
Speaker 1: Paris Deal on climate change, with the Trans Pacific Partnership
Speaker 1: on trade to some extent, with the Iran Deal on
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons. Absolutely at all in all three cases, and
Speaker 1: I think in all three cases recognizing that our power
Speaker 1: is not unlimited, uh, that we have to find compromises,
Speaker 1: but that we would do the best we can. So
Speaker 1: the Iran deal is not what you would want, but
Speaker 1: is an amazing deal in terms of what would be
Speaker 1: feasible because for a decade, here's rand uh, you know,
Speaker 1: postponing any nuclear advance. That's pretty fantastic compared to the alternative,
Speaker 1: which would have been basically either Iran would be a
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons state or we would be at war with Iran.
Speaker 1: So in the climate arena, while I was not a
Speaker 1: huge fan of Pair US in terms of its accomplishments
Speaker 1: in actually resolving the climate challenge, which is way, way,
Speaker 1: way more severe. You know, with the Nicaraguans, you you
Speaker 1: weren't signed on to Paris because you didn't think it
Speaker 1: went far enough. No I I I signed on, but
Speaker 1: with with the notion that we shouldn't delude ourselves. This
Speaker 1: is what this did is say we all recognize the problem,
Speaker 1: We recognize the magnitude of the problem, We recognize that
Speaker 1: we have to cope with this together. We recognize that
Speaker 1: the big greenhouse cimeters have to carry most of the burden.
Speaker 1: And we're making a big step. I mean not a
Speaker 1: big step, a small step, but a real step in
Speaker 1: the right direction. And I thought the most interesting part
Speaker 1: for me in the Paris record was the agreement both
Speaker 1: by private venture capitalists like Bill Gates and the governments
Speaker 1: to invest heavily in new technologies that may transform the problem.
Speaker 1: Because I don't think we're gonna stop the problem with
Speaker 1: the current parameters that we have technically. I think unless
Speaker 1: there's a technological breakthrough that makes it possible for people
Speaker 1: to have electricity and light bulbs and air conditioning. Uh,
Speaker 1: and not ruined the climate. We will get screwed, so
Speaker 1: I and I said, I'm an optimist. I think I
Speaker 1: think we will get there, but I think we part
Speaker 1: of the way we get there is as Paris did,
Speaker 1: to say, okay, here we have some bench marks that
Speaker 1: we're reaching towards. Plus then lots of people in lots
Speaker 1: of different countries. So this wasn't just the U. S
Speaker 1: and China. This was the Europeans, very importantly the Europeans
Speaker 1: and if you're but but also the big little guys
Speaker 1: coming along for whatever reason, big guys. Germany was playing
Speaker 1: absolutely equescial role in this. And as Mrs Merkel said,
Speaker 1: I mean for her the climate thing, she feels it
Speaker 1: as existential a threat is she fails the threat of
Speaker 1: what we would call terrorism or what you know, Russia
Speaker 1: or others. So she thinks, well, wait a minute, and
Speaker 1: if for a hundred years I've left an environment that
Speaker 1: Germans can't live in, I can't give an account of
Speaker 1: my chancellorship. No, that's just makes sense. And yet in
Speaker 1: an act of intentional or unintentional misunderstanding. The Trump administration
Speaker 1: is saying, oh, well, the Paris Accord imposes all these
Speaker 1: regulations on the United States that will kill our economy,
Speaker 1: when the fact is the standards in the deal are voluntary.
Speaker 1: Each country sets its own plan and its own carbon
Speaker 1: limitations itself. If Trump really felt like what Obama agreed
Speaker 1: to in terms of carbon reduction was too tough, he
Speaker 1: could have weakened those standards without leaving the agreement. So
Speaker 1: this was really a political statement more than a substantive one.
Speaker 1: If I were gonna write it up in on this
Speaker 1: I'm not because I'm focused on the Ginus stubs you
Speaker 1: right now, but I would call it the Napoleon's Great line,
Speaker 1: because this is worse than a crime, This is a blunder. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you're a very famous defense strategist, and it really
Speaker 1: struck me when uh General McMaster and Gary Cohne, the
Speaker 1: president's top economic and national security advisors, wrote a peace
Speaker 1: in the Wall Street Journal in which they basically said, um,
Speaker 1: the world is not a global community but an arena
Speaker 1: where nations, NGOs, and businesses engage and compete for advantage.
Speaker 1: We bring to this forum unmatched military, political, economic, cultural,
Speaker 1: and moral strength. Rather than deny this elemental nature of
Speaker 1: international affairs, we embrace it. And so, what do you
Speaker 1: think are the consequences of this sort of hobbsy in
Speaker 1: way of looking at the world. Well, Uh, I'm a
Speaker 1: big fan of hr McMaster. I know him for a
Speaker 1: long long time, and I'm grateful that he's serving in
Speaker 1: this job. I know Gary Cohen a little bit, not
Speaker 1: not much. Do you think General McMaster really believes what
Speaker 1: he wrote? I do? I do? I do? I think
Speaker 1: that he believes what he thinks. And so there's a
Speaker 1: there's a schizophrenia in this a little bit. So on
Speaker 1: the one hand, UH, we talk about a global community
Speaker 1: and the international rule based order and uh uh the
Speaker 1: subordination of sovereignty UH and globalization UH, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of rhetoric around that. On the other hand, uh,
Speaker 1: does the US ever asked permission when we want to
Speaker 1: go uh couple Saddam Hussein or Kaddafi or conduct their
Speaker 1: strikes on UH terrorists in some other country or drop
Speaker 1: into Pakistan and kill Osama bin lad Well. And we
Speaker 1: rely on our friends and allies, not just because often
Speaker 1: what we're doing is in their interests, but because there
Speaker 1: are friends and allies and we've helped them over the years,
Speaker 1: and they've helped us, and it's a it's a mutually
Speaker 1: beneficial relationship and not necessar serially a purely transactional one.
Speaker 1: Well that's a different point. But yes, i've been I
Speaker 1: agree with that, and I know we have to go
Speaker 1: in a few minutes, but I would be remiss if
Speaker 1: I didn't ask you a couple of questions that Katie
Speaker 1: wanted me to bring to your attention. The first is,
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of talk about President Trump rolling
Speaker 1: back the rap pro Schman or normalization of relations with
Speaker 1: Cuba that President Obama really started. You're obviously one of,
Speaker 1: if not the greatest expert on the Cuban missile crisis.
Speaker 1: What do you think would happen if we were to
Speaker 1: go back to status quo anti You know what the
Speaker 1: world looked like before President Obama started um changing our
Speaker 1: relationship with Cuba like and I think this reflects some
Speaker 1: political impulses rather than strategic compulses, and I think it
Speaker 1: would be a mistake. I think that if you look
Speaker 1: at it, uh, the only communists and communists like countries
Speaker 1: that have survived, have the ones that have been able
Speaker 1: to isolate themselves from the world. So North Korea is
Speaker 1: kind of the poster child. Cuba has been as well
Speaker 1: every other country that became engaged in the world where
Speaker 1: information comes into them and trade comes to them, and
Speaker 1: otherwise what happens cockamami systems get overthrown by their own regimes.
Speaker 1: Look and see what happens. So rarely in policy world
Speaker 1: do you get a kind of almost scientific experiment or
Speaker 1: what You've got a lot of countries, either you isolate
Speaker 1: them or you engage them. In the in case of
Speaker 1: the engagement. Basically, freedom and market economies overwhelmed the regimes
Speaker 1: that they have In a few cases, they isolate themselves
Speaker 1: and they sustained it. So I would say we've been
Speaker 1: way better off undermining Cuba by the policies that are
Speaker 1: going forward. And I whether at this stage if Trump
Speaker 1: would roll it back. I haven't looked at the details
Speaker 1: enough to judge. And lastly, the hope of the foreign
Speaker 1: policey establishment in many ways has been the presence of
Speaker 1: all these generals in the Trump administration, Maddis and McMaster
Speaker 1: and Kelly. But the other side of that is as
Speaker 1: people say, if you're a hammer, every problem looks like
Speaker 1: a nail. Do you worry about too much of a
Speaker 1: sort of militarization of American foreign policy in this administration?
Speaker 1: So in a word, yes, So I would say, on
Speaker 1: the one hand and the other. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: there's no question whatever than an hr McMaster and Maddis
Speaker 1: and Kelly, we have outstanding Americans and great and wise
Speaker 1: military leaders. I be happy to give my wallet to
Speaker 1: any one of them and trust them that they would
Speaker 1: do well and wisely. On the other hand, it's not
Speaker 1: for nothing that the Constitution and the tradition from George
Speaker 1: Washington on has been civilian leadership of the military. Because
Speaker 1: if you're a military man and your whole career is
Speaker 1: about operating instruments of violence to achieve national objectives, and
Speaker 1: especially if you're part of the greatest military machine the
Speaker 1: world has ever seen, with a set of hammers that
Speaker 1: can nail anything that looks like a nail, you're inclined
Speaker 1: to look for a hammer and for an ail. And
Speaker 1: I think if I watch what's happening both in Afghanistan
Speaker 1: and in Iwaq, and also to some extent in Syria
Speaker 1: and a little bit in Yemen. You see now a
Speaker 1: first order push for military instruments over other instruments, and
Speaker 1: in particular sense, President Trump basically uh in this budget
Speaker 1: reflects I respect for more hammers in a slicing back
Speaker 1: of the other instruments. Now, to his credit, Maddess has said,
Speaker 1: you know, if you don't have a very active state department,
Speaker 1: including reducing its capabilities by reducing its budget, then you're
Speaker 1: gonna need to buy for me more bumps than bullets,
Speaker 1: because I can't go bomb anybody you want me to bomb,
Speaker 1: and I can go shoot anybody you want me to shoot,
Speaker 1: but that's not going to be the end of the story,
Speaker 1: and that's not the better way to deal with the bobom.
Speaker 1: Do you think we're going to be in a Rock
Speaker 1: and Afghanistan for the foreseeable future. I'm afraid yes, and
Speaker 1: I think neither of them will turn out well. Well
Speaker 1: on that happy note, Professor Graham Allison, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for talking with us today. Thank you for having me
Speaker 1: joined the conversation special thanks this week to Ryan Connor
Speaker 1: for recording this conversation off site in l A. Thanks also,
Speaker 1: as always to our producer Gianna Palmer, and to our
Speaker 1: sound engineer Jared O'Connell. Alison Bresnik does social media for us,
Speaker 1: and we thank her of course, thanks to Emily Beanoff
Speaker 1: her part in producing this show, and Nora Richie for
Speaker 1: additional editorialists stints, Mark Phillips, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: our theme music. Katie Currik and I are the executive
Speaker 1: producers of this podcast, and please remember you all can
Speaker 1: leave us a voicemail at nine two to four four
Speaker 1: six three seven, and don't forget to call him with
Speaker 1: your questions for Matt Walsh from hbos VP. He is hilarious.
Speaker 1: He's going to be on our show next week. We're
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