Speaker 1: Welcome to Crash Course, a podcast about business, political, and
Speaker 1: social disruption and what we can learn from it. I'm
Speaker 1: Tim O'Brien. Today's Crash Course Nukes, Russia and our new
Speaker 1: Cold War. The world has never been a settled place,
Speaker 1: but it has been enveloped by sweeping existential challenges in
Speaker 1: recent years. The COVID nineteen lockdowns offered a public health
Speaker 1: crisis reminiscent of epidemics that once seemed pass a and
Speaker 1: that Russian US Cold War from the nineteen fifties, sixties
Speaker 1: and seventies that also seemed consigned to the history books.
Speaker 1: Well that's back with us too. In other words, everything
Speaker 1: old is new again, including frosty global military conflicts and
Speaker 1: the looming threat of nuclear confrontations. There's even a hit
Speaker 1: movie out about the dawn of the nuclear era Oppenheimer.
Speaker 1: Ever since Vladimir Putin sent Russian tanks rolling into Ukraine
Speaker 1: in early twenty twenty two, assumptions about the possibility of
Speaker 1: war in the twenty first century have been turned on
Speaker 1: their heads. A long absence of conflict in Europe gave
Speaker 1: way to a bloody and sustained ground war. Russia has
Speaker 1: even warned it might unleash nuclear missiles, China, rattling its
Speaker 1: own saber in Asia, looms large in the background, just
Speaker 1: as it did in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. The
Speaker 1: primary lesson of the Ukraine War, hal Brands has written
Speaker 1: is that nuclear coercion will be essential to prevailing in
Speaker 1: the rivalries that define our age. The nukes are now
Speaker 1: the new normal. Hal's a foreign policy professor at Johns
Speaker 1: Hopkins University, co author of Danger Zone, The Coming Conflict
Speaker 1: with China, a member of the State Department's Foreign Affairs
Speaker 1: Policy Board, and a Bloomberg opinion columnist, and he joins
Speaker 1: Crash Course today.
Speaker 2: Welcome Hell, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Great to spend time with you. You know, my big
Speaker 1: overarching question, if somebody like you who studies and watches
Speaker 1: these things, is would you have thought ten years ago,
Speaker 1: or say even a year and a half ago, that
Speaker 1: this is where Europe and the US would be right
Speaker 1: now with Russia.
Speaker 2: No, probably not ten years ago. We were still before
Speaker 2: the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea, although we had
Speaker 2: seen the Russian attack on Georgia in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 2: but I think there was still a significantly greater degree
Speaker 2: of hope then in Washington, but especially in a number
Speaker 2: of European capitals, that Russia might still make its peace
Speaker 2: with the international system that the United States and its
Speaker 2: European allies had done so much to construct and maintain
Speaker 2: over the years. That obviously turned out not to be
Speaker 2: the case, But even I guess a little bit more
Speaker 2: than a year and a half ago, if you go
Speaker 2: back to the run up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine,
Speaker 2: there was a significant amount out of disbelief in Washington,
Speaker 2: but also even more so in European capitals, that Russia
Speaker 2: was actually going to do this, that it was actually
Speaker 2: going to try to wipe a sovereign state off the map,
Speaker 2: annex much, if not all, of its territory, and extinguish
Speaker 2: its existence as an independent political entity. That just didn't
Speaker 2: seem like something that happened in the modern world. It
Speaker 2: seemed like something that was ripped from the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 2: And so I think it actually took the shock of
Speaker 2: the invasion to convince a lot of skeptics that we
Speaker 2: had entered either a fundamentally new world or we were
Speaker 2: threatened with a return to an older, darker world. And
Speaker 2: that has really produced a lot of the intensified transatlantic
Speaker 2: cooperation we've seen over the past year and a half.
Speaker 2: And some of what we've seen is actually quite remarkable.
Speaker 2: And so you've seen Germany, which spent more than a
Speaker 2: generation cultivating its addiction to Russian energy, kick that habit
Speaker 2: fairly quickly. You've seen Poland take steps to turn itself
Speaker 2: into a major military power. You've seen Ukraine pulled closer
Speaker 2: to NATO and the European Union and the West writ
Speaker 2: large than anyone would have anticipated. And you've seen the
Speaker 2: North Atlantic Treaty Organization be revitalized and expanded to bring
Speaker 2: in Finland and Sweden in a way that many people
Speaker 2: certainly would not have predicted two years ago.
Speaker 1: And why was that? This is one of the curious
Speaker 1: things to be given all of the informational and observational
Speaker 1: firepower that exists in the digital era, and the amount
Speaker 1: of communication and analysis that's available to both policymakers and
Speaker 1: diplomats certainly, and to others as well military strategists. Was
Speaker 1: it simply that no one thought that Vladimir Putin would
Speaker 1: be willing to send tanks over a border. Was it
Speaker 1: that simple that there was an appraisal of him as
Speaker 1: a person and a decision maker that didn't encompass launching
Speaker 1: a very ill considered and possibly self defeating ground war.
Speaker 2: I think there were a couple of things going on,
Speaker 2: and first, as a caveat, I should say that I
Speaker 2: think the US intelligence community should get a huge amount
Speaker 2: of credit for snipping out what was coming, and the
Speaker 2: Biden administration for warning everyone what was coming. If you wonder,
Speaker 2: you know why the United States has this massive intelligence
Speaker 2: establishment that costs tons of money. This is why, right,
Speaker 2: because it gave us advanced warning of this major geopolitical shock,
Speaker 2: and notwithstanding what I said about people not being willing
Speaker 2: to believe it was coming, actually positioned the US and
Speaker 2: other countries better than they would have been to respond.
Speaker 1: But I think, and just to stay on that for
Speaker 1: a sec before you go on to your next point,
Speaker 1: is it was very interesting to watch how the Biden
Speaker 1: administration handled that intel and made it public, because remember
Speaker 1: they were sort of leaking bits about a massing of
Speaker 1: Russian forces on Ukraine's eastern border, and people were like,
Speaker 1: you know, is this wagging the dog? You know, are
Speaker 1: they just trying to manipulate public opinion, etc. Etc. And
Speaker 1: what they were saying to people was you should believe
Speaker 1: what we're seeing and hearing.
Speaker 2: And they were taking away some of the options Putin
Speaker 2: otherwise would have had for manipulating the situation to make
Speaker 2: it look as though Ukraine had somehow provoked a conflict.
Speaker 2: And so a lot of what the US intelligent community
Speaker 2: was doing was saying, the Russians are going to stage
Speaker 2: this sort of false flag operation, don't believe it when
Speaker 2: it happens. So that, notwithstanding, I think there were really
Speaker 2: two big things that stood in the way of more
Speaker 2: people heeding those warnings and understanding what was coming at them.
Speaker 2: The first was that I think a lot of us
Speaker 2: failed to understand how much Putin's decision making had atrophied
Speaker 2: over his twenty plus years in power, and in particular
Speaker 2: during his two plus years, i guess, almost two years
Speaker 2: of COVID induced isolation and so well. The reason a
Speaker 2: lot of people didn't think Putin was going to stage
Speaker 2: a full on invasion is because what he was doing
Speaker 2: didn't seem to make sense. It made a lot more
Speaker 2: sense to think that Putin was just going to try
Speaker 2: to nibble away in a little bit more Ukrainian territory,
Speaker 2: And the reason we didn't get that is we didn't
Speaker 2: realize I think how much decision making had atrophied with Putin,
Speaker 2: but also within a regime that had become increasingly dysfunctional
Speaker 2: as the level of sycophancy around Putin increased. The second thing, though,
Speaker 2: is that I think it was just shocking to people
Speaker 2: to think that this sort of thing could happen in
Speaker 2: the modern age, right, you know, it looked like nineteenth
Speaker 2: century conquest, and so I think it took the thing
Speaker 2: actually happening, right and seeing these images of Russian tanks
Speaker 2: streaming across the border, learning what the Russians had done
Speaker 2: in Bucha and countless other places in Ukraine to realize
Speaker 2: that this sort of behavior is still real. Right, it
Speaker 2: doesn't go away. The question is just whether we can
Speaker 2: suppress it and keep it at bay.
Speaker 1: And not to be forgotten. He rolled into Crimea in
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, so eight years earlier he had already sort
Speaker 1: of done an opening act to a land grab. Yes,
Speaker 1: from his side of the ledger. Do you think the
Speaker 1: US pull out from Afghanistan and Ukraine moving more warmly
Speaker 1: toward NATO membership also encouraged him to act or one
Speaker 1: of those, both of those, none of those. What do
Speaker 1: you think about those things?
Speaker 2: I think Putin definitely got stuck in a trap of
Speaker 2: his own making, in the sense that his aggression in
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen, which you mentioned and after, really left Ukraine
Speaker 2: with no choice but to move closer to the West
Speaker 2: in a way that I think would have been quite
Speaker 2: controversial in Ukrainian politics. Prior to the taking of Crimea
Speaker 2: in twenty fourteen, Ukraine was actually quite divided on the
Speaker 2: question of, you know, whether it wanted a Western identity,
Speaker 2: whether it wanted to move closer to NATO in the
Speaker 2: European Union, or whether it wanted a close affiliation with
Speaker 2: Russia prior to that, but you know, by burying his
Speaker 2: teeth in the way that he did, Putin basically left
Speaker 2: Ukraine's only option for maintaining its territorial integrity such as
Speaker 2: it was, and perhaps even survival as moving closer to
Speaker 2: the West. And then as that happens, Putin says, oh,
Speaker 2: Ukraine is moving closer to the West. I really don't
Speaker 2: want that. I'd better do something to prevent that from
Speaker 2: being consolidated. And so, even though Ukraine was not on
Speaker 2: the verge of being admitted to NATO or anything like that.
Speaker 2: In early twenty twenty two, I think Putin was genuinely
Speaker 2: worried by the westward drift of Ukrainian policy. He didn't realize,
Speaker 2: or at least chose not to acknowledge, that that drift
Speaker 2: was largely a result of his own actions on the
Speaker 2: first issue he raised, which is the pullout from Afghanistan.
Speaker 2: It's really difficult to say for certain. In general, I
Speaker 2: think it's bad for US policy when the US fails
Speaker 2: in a major undertaking of some twenty years, when there's
Speaker 2: achaotic rush to the exits and so on and so forth,
Speaker 2: and so I wouldn't be shocked if, at the margin,
Speaker 2: right it was some small percentage of Putin's calculus was
Speaker 2: influenced by this view that the United States was weak,
Speaker 2: that it was in decline, that it was losing resolved
Speaker 2: to pursue its interests in an assertive way in the
Speaker 2: international system. And he might have gotten some of that
Speaker 2: impression from Afghanistan. But I think if it mattered, it
Speaker 2: mattered mostly at the margin. I think the invasion was
Speaker 2: mostly about his perception of the strategic situation in and
Speaker 2: around Ukraine, and.
Speaker 1: So regardless of causation, here we are. And what do
Speaker 1: you think are some of the most significant things that
Speaker 1: have changed. You talked a little bit earlier about the
Speaker 1: militarization of Poland, the expansion of NATO, include Finland and Sweden,
Speaker 1: things that would have been unheard of. But what do
Speaker 1: you think are some of the other sort of big
Speaker 1: tent pole changes that this is catalyzed.
Speaker 2: I think there are three. The first is the revival
Speaker 2: and reconsolidation of what we would have called the free
Speaker 2: world back in the Cold War. And so the Ukraine
Speaker 2: War has obviously led to greater cohesion and greater effort
Speaker 2: within NATO, but it's also had that effect on the
Speaker 2: other side of Eurasia, in East Asia and in the
Speaker 2: Western Pacific, where the war has given momentum to the
Speaker 2: defense reforms that Japan and Taiwan are making. It has
Speaker 2: led to fears that aggression in Europe might be a
Speaker 2: prelude to aggression in Asia, and so it has facilitated
Speaker 2: US coalition building efforts visa VI China. And so what
Speaker 2: the Ukraine War has done is it's strengthened kind of
Speaker 2: the free world, the Democratic alliance blocks on both sides
Speaker 2: of Eurasia and also led them to do more together.
Speaker 2: And so it's really interesting that South Korea has quietly
Speaker 2: been one of the most indispensable members of the coalition,
Speaker 2: supporting Ukraine by supplying artillery, ammunition and things like that.
Speaker 2: Japan and Taiwan and Australia have joined in the sanctions
Speaker 2: and helped in other ways as well, because there's an
Speaker 2: increasing recognition that what happens on one side of the
Speaker 2: Asian land mask can still matter for countries on the
Speaker 2: other side. So thing one would be kind of consolidation
Speaker 2: of this free world community. Thing two, unfortunately, is a
Speaker 2: greater integration of what you might think of as the
Speaker 2: axis of Eurasian autocracies. And so the war has pushed
Speaker 2: Russia closer to China, because as Russia is cut off
Speaker 2: from the West as a result of its own actions,
Speaker 2: it has few strategic alternatives other than too deep in
Speaker 2: its relationship with China. It's gotten a much deeper military
Speaker 2: relationship with Iran as well, So it's not just Russia
Speaker 2: selling Iran gear anymore. It's Iran providing Russia with drones
Speaker 2: and artillery and maybe some missiles that it's used on
Speaker 2: the battlefield. And so you're seeing overlapping closer relationships between
Speaker 2: Eurasian autocracies that have in common they're shared antipathy to
Speaker 2: a US led international order. So that would be thing two.
Speaker 2: And then thing three is you get what you might
Speaker 2: think of as non alignment to point ozh, but you
Speaker 2: get a whole bunch of countries around the world that
Speaker 2: basically say, we prefer to avoid choosing a side in
Speaker 2: this right. And it could be Brazil, which gets tons
Speaker 2: of fertilizer and other things from Russia and under Lula
Speaker 2: in particular, is not particularly desirous of following the United
Speaker 2: States into a geopolitical and ideological showdown with the Eurasian autogracies.
Speaker 2: You've got India, which is aligning ever more closely with
Speaker 2: the United States on China issues but not doing anything
Speaker 2: of the sort with respect to Russia. You've got countries
Speaker 2: throughout Southeast Asia and Africa and a variety of other
Speaker 2: places that have basically said, either we don't have a
Speaker 2: dog in this fight, or a pox on both your houses.
Speaker 2: Because yes, the war is bad in terms of food
Speaker 2: security and international economic security, but so are the sanctions,
Speaker 2: and so in some ways the international system we have
Speaker 2: now is coming to look a little bit more like
Speaker 2: the Cold War, where you've got these two opposing blocks
Speaker 2: that are consolidating, and then a large group of countries
Speaker 2: that are trying to sort of navigate the territory in between.
Speaker 1: You know, I love how that you respond in bullet
Speaker 1: points and lists and numbered things as a It makes
Speaker 1: it a life, you know, very apprehensible and easy, and
Speaker 1: that you call it thing one and thing two like
Speaker 1: Doctor Seuss. You like the Doctor Seuss. So foreign policies, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm glad we've arrived there. You know. One of the
Speaker 1: other extraordinary things to me about the consequences of this
Speaker 1: war is that Germany and Japan are rearming. And that's
Speaker 1: another one of those who would have thought, especially anyone
Speaker 1: who's interested in our student of World War two, that
Speaker 1: you know, we'd be eighty ish years on where everyone
Speaker 1: is advocating rearming Germany to deal with a more aggressive
Speaker 1: Russia and rearming Japan to deal with more aggressive China.
Speaker 1: That also just seems extraordinary to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think it's probably important to note that
Speaker 2: Germany's rearmament is a bit more aspirational, whereas Japan's is
Speaker 2: happening in real time, and so the Germans have made
Speaker 2: a variety of commitments to get to two percent of
Speaker 2: GDP for their level of military spending, which is the
Speaker 2: standard within NATO, at least it's supposed to be the
Speaker 2: standard within NATO, but as is often the case, there
Speaker 2: have subsequently been delays and modifications such that you know,
Speaker 2: the moment when we get a Germany that wields meaningful
Speaker 2: military powers still some years in the future. Japan's rearmament
Speaker 2: is remarkable by historical standards, and so at the end
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty two, the Japanese government pushed through a
Speaker 2: series of reforms that would see defense spending increase by
Speaker 2: about seventy or eighty percent over a five year period,
Speaker 2: that would see Japan acquire more offensive military capabilities like
Speaker 2: Tomahawk missiles and things of that nature, and would basically
Speaker 2: help Japan make this transformation from what it was in
Speaker 2: say the nineteen fifties, when it was basically a strategic
Speaker 2: protectorate of the United States, to a real regional military
Speaker 2: power and maybe America's most important single ally in the
Speaker 2: world because of geography, because of the capabilities it has
Speaker 2: and things of that nature.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's an overstatement given all of these
Speaker 1: big global chess pieces that are moving around, and these
Speaker 1: realignments of oversea powers in new combinations and in very
Speaker 1: clear ways. Now it's not foggy. There are very purposeful
Speaker 1: alliances being formed for largely military and strategic reasons. That
Speaker 1: the risk of global war hasn't seen so pronounced since
Speaker 1: the early nineteen sixties. Or is that an overstatement.
Speaker 2: No. I think the basic statement that the risk of
Speaker 2: not just war but great power war, so war between
Speaker 2: the most powerful actors in the international system. I think
Speaker 2: that risk is higher, certainly than any time since the
Speaker 2: end of the Cold War, and maybe even since the
Speaker 2: hottest part of the Cold War, So the period of
Speaker 2: crisis in the late fifties and nineteen sixties which you
Speaker 2: referred to. Tend to think that the alliance building we're seeing,
Speaker 2: in the coalition building we're seeing, is more the symptom
Speaker 2: than the cause, right, And so you see countries in
Speaker 2: Europe and the Transatlantic Community, countries in the Indo Pacific
Speaker 2: doing more together because they're observing either what Russia has
Speaker 2: done or what they fear China might do in the
Speaker 2: Western Pacific and deciding they have to get together to
Speaker 2: strengthen their collective capabilities. And you know, it's maybe worth
Speaker 2: mentioning here that China is engaged in what US officials
Speaker 2: have said is the most significant peacetime military build up
Speaker 2: we've seen since the run up to World War Two.
Speaker 2: The military balance in the region has changed dramatically. China
Speaker 2: has become much more willing to court friction with its
Speaker 2: neighbors and the United States. We've got a preview last
Speaker 2: August and the crisis that followed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's
Speaker 2: trip to Taiwan of some of the ways in which
Speaker 2: the People's Liberation Army might use those capabilities to blockade,
Speaker 2: or bombard or even invade Taiwan. And so there's just
Speaker 2: a much greater degree of anxiety among democratic states, in
Speaker 2: particular in Europe and East Asia, which leads to a
Speaker 2: greater willingness to try to band together for security.
Speaker 1: Hal I want to take a quick break here from
Speaker 1: one of our sponsors, and then we'll come back and
Speaker 1: pick this conversation up. We're back and we're joined by
Speaker 1: Hal Brands, a foreign policy savant and a very elegant thinker,
Speaker 1: and we're talking about war hell. Before we took a break,
Speaker 1: we spent some time discussing Japan in the context of
Speaker 1: the great global Cold War that's taken shape. Let's recall
Speaker 1: that Japan is the only country who've been attacked with
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons by the US during World War Two, So
Speaker 1: let's talk some more about nukes, and specifically, as a
Speaker 1: departure point, I wanted to talk about the movie Oppenheimer,
Speaker 1: which I thought was a provocative, entertaining, and troubling examination
Speaker 1: of what it means to have unleashed this incredible force
Speaker 1: of energy, power and destruction into the world. What lessons
Speaker 1: did you draw from Oppenheimer?
Speaker 2: I think the major message that the movie tries to
Speaker 2: convey and the major insight or take away that I
Speaker 2: got from it was just the intense moral dilemmas that
Speaker 2: are created by nuclear weapons. And so nuclear weapons were
Speaker 2: created in a context where it seemed plausible that some
Speaker 2: of the worst regimes ever seen on Earth might conquer
Speaker 2: much of the Earth, and it was entirely plausible that
Speaker 2: they might develop nuclear weapons of their own. We know
Speaker 2: in retrospect the German program wasn't as advanced as we
Speaker 2: feared it was, but it was hard to know that
Speaker 2: at the time, and so I think that the moral
Speaker 2: case for building nuclear weapons in the first place was very,
Speaker 2: very strong. The challenge, though, is that nuclear weapons are
Speaker 2: kind of the most indiscriminate weapon that humanity has ever
Speaker 2: come up with. When they were used against Japan, against
Speaker 2: cities in Japan, they killed a lot of non combatants.
Speaker 2: And as you got into not just the nuclear but
Speaker 2: the thermonuclear age, so the development of the hydrogen bomb
Speaker 2: and a lot of the follow on weapons in the
Speaker 2: nineteen fifties and after, you were talking about weapons that
Speaker 2: could be civilization shattering in their effects. And so if
Speaker 2: there was a full on nuclear exchange between the United
Speaker 2: States and the Soviet Union, it's not clear you know,
Speaker 2: how much of humanity would have been left after that.
Speaker 2: And so these weapons served important strategic purposes in winning
Speaker 2: World War Two and hopefully deterring World War three visa
Speaker 2: VI the Soviet Union, But they were weapons whose use
Speaker 2: was so destructive that it was hard to understand what
Speaker 2: moral or political purpose that could actually serve. And I
Speaker 2: think that tormented the real Oppenheimer as well as the
Speaker 2: Oppenheimer in the film. And I think that dilemma consumed
Speaker 2: a lot of American policymakers during the Cold War as well.
Speaker 1: There's this one moment during the film where all of
Speaker 1: the scientists involved in researching fission and fusion and the
Speaker 1: use of a nuclear weapon are uncertain whether or not
Speaker 1: even the tests might actually ignite the entire atmosphere. And
Speaker 1: there's this just sort of troubling, you know, moment where well,
Speaker 1: we just have to go for it, and yes, the
Speaker 1: atmosphere may actually get torched by our test, but there's
Speaker 1: no other way to test it. And fortunately, you know,
Speaker 1: they didn't torch the entire atmosphere. But you know, I
Speaker 1: feel some of this now in the present in a
Speaker 1: different way, in that Putin has threatened to use nuclear
Speaker 1: weapons in Ukraine, and he certainly won't torch the atmosphere,
Speaker 1: but he could ignite a broader war, and it's going
Speaker 1: to present this complex response if we were to go there.
Speaker 1: And you recently wrote in a really long, wonderfully all
Speaker 1: encompassing Bloomberg opinion column that the true impact of nuclear
Speaker 1: stockpiles in the world we're in right now is largely psychological.
Speaker 1: And I always enjoy quoting you, but I'm just going
Speaker 1: to quote you here because it's very descriptive, and you say,
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons may be good insurance against invasion, but they
Speaker 1: aren't a full proof guarantee that a country fighting for
Speaker 1: survival won't hit back with attacks on a nuclear armed
Speaker 1: aggressor soil. And so you sort of have these two
Speaker 1: forces in play. One is that the nukes themselves discourage
Speaker 1: overly aggressive confrontations or maybe confrontations at all, and then
Speaker 1: once they occur, because as you've already mentioned, they're so
Speaker 1: indiscriminate in their destructive force that they don't really deter
Speaker 1: conventional warfare in certain theaters. Can you just expound on
Speaker 1: this a little bit and then sort of offer our
Speaker 1: listeners a take on whether or not this is a
Speaker 1: good rule of the road to think about going forward,
Speaker 1: because I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I think there are two ways of thinking
Speaker 2: about the role that nuclear weapons have played in Ukraine,
Speaker 2: and the first way essentially holds that they haven't had
Speaker 2: much effect at all. And so since day one of
Speaker 2: the war, literally Putin has been brandishing nuclear weapons against Ukraine,
Speaker 2: against the West, threatening to use them if certain things happen.
Speaker 2: Russia has the world's largest nuclear arsenal, and yet Putin
Speaker 2: hasn't used nuclear weapons, and the fact that he possesses
Speaker 2: so many nuclear weapons, it hasn't allowed him to win
Speaker 2: the war. It hasn't deterred Ukraine from fighting back and
Speaker 2: even bringing the war onto Russian soil. It hasn't deterred
Speaker 2: the United States and other countries from supporting Ukrainian forces
Speaker 2: as they killed tens of thousands of Russian personnel and
Speaker 2: target Russia's generals and do a lot of things that
Speaker 2: are hugely embarrassing to Putin's regime. And so one way
Speaker 2: of looking at this is, you can have all the
Speaker 2: nuclear weapons, but it's not necessarily a guarantee that you're
Speaker 2: going to prevail in a contest against a weaker, non
Speaker 2: nuclear country, and you may run into the problem that
Speaker 2: actually using nuclear weapons deploying them in battle provokes so
Speaker 2: much global blowback that it's not worth it, and that
Speaker 2: this appears to be the lesson that Putin drew in
Speaker 2: late twenty twenty two when he was making all sorts
Speaker 2: of nuclear threats, and the Chinese and the Indians and
Speaker 2: a bunch of other countries basically said, it would be
Speaker 2: a really bad idea for you to do this, comrade.
Speaker 2: But the second way of looking at this is that
Speaker 2: even if nuclear weapons aren't used in battle, they still
Speaker 2: profoundly shape the way that this war and other wars
Speaker 2: play out. And so Russia's nuclear weapons have had a
Speaker 2: deterrent effect on the United States. They have deterred the
Speaker 2: United States from getting directly involved in the fighting, which
Speaker 2: I think might well have happened already if we were
Speaker 2: talking about a nuclear United States and NATO confronting of
Speaker 2: Russia that did not have nuclear weapons. They have deterred
Speaker 2: the United States from providing certain capabilities to Ukraine. So
Speaker 2: the United States has been very cautious about providing Ukraine
Speaker 2: with capabilities that can allow Ukraine to reach into Russia
Speaker 2: for fear of sparking escalation. And so Russian nuclear coercion
Speaker 2: is working to an important degree, even if it hasn't
Speaker 2: achieved as much as Putin likes. But US nuclear coercion
Speaker 2: is also working, right, And so if the United States
Speaker 2: didn't have an alliance like NATO that was backed by
Speaker 2: the US nuclear arsenal, I think it's entirely likely that
Speaker 2: Putin would be doing much more to try to coerce
Speaker 2: or bloody the countries that are supporting Ukraine. Right, it's
Speaker 2: not like Putin doesn't know where the weapons that are
Speaker 2: coming into Ukraine are coming from, there being a symbol
Speaker 2: that logistical hubs and staging points and pull in other
Speaker 2: countries not that far across the border. Right, The Russians
Speaker 2: could go when attack these things with their power or
Speaker 2: ground based missiles if they wanted to. They've chosen not
Speaker 2: to because they know that that would lead to a
Speaker 2: war with NATO, which is backed by the nuclear arsenal
Speaker 2: of the United States. And so both sides are actually
Speaker 2: coercing each other to a degree, and so the contours
Speaker 2: of the war have been powerfully shaped by nuclear weapons
Speaker 2: even though they haven't actually been fired off in anger.
Speaker 1: But as I think this through hell and it's interesting
Speaker 1: because mutually assured destruction and coequal coercion and the reality
Speaker 1: of nuclear weapons has created this kind of proxy war
Speaker 1: at this point, with Russia's being supported by other countries
Speaker 1: as well, Ukraine's being supported by the US and other
Speaker 1: countries as well. And this horrible military confrontation is also
Speaker 1: this dance that has gotten everyone into a bit of
Speaker 1: a corner.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's a stalemate just yet, but
Speaker 1: certainly it's gotten to the point where it's not clear
Speaker 1: if Ukraine pushes Russia out of eastern Ukraine that they'll
Speaker 1: stop at the border. It's not clear that Russia would
Speaker 1: stop the wharf that happened. And then what brings this
Speaker 1: kind of a war to conclusion unless there's some sort
Speaker 1: of an escalation. In the absence of a diplomatic resolution,
Speaker 1: nothing will end it unless there's an escalation, And US
Speaker 1: National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has said that America has
Speaker 1: warned Putin of undisclosed catastrophic consequences if Russia went nuclear.
Speaker 1: But even if Russia doesn't go nuclear, the US is
Speaker 1: alsibly going to have to raise the stakes to force
Speaker 1: a conclusion here. So how do you think about those things?
Speaker 2: I think you're exactly right if the US wants to
Speaker 2: not just help Ukraine liberate its territory. But and this
Speaker 2: maybe the even harder part, convince Putin to accept that,
Speaker 2: or convince Putin to accept any settlement that leaves Ukraine
Speaker 2: mostly intact territorially viable, economically defensible, militarily, and things of
Speaker 2: that nature. It's going to have to exert more coercion
Speaker 2: than it has exerted to date, and We've already seen
Speaker 2: this dynamic at work in US policy. So the US
Speaker 2: has been more willing, not so much to kind of
Speaker 2: sprint across, but to stick a toe across Putin's red
Speaker 2: lines in this conflict. It's more willing to do that
Speaker 2: now than it was a year ago. And so the
Speaker 2: United States initially said it wasn't going to provide F
Speaker 2: sixteens because that might be escalatory. Well, now we're providing
Speaker 2: F sixteens. The United States initially said we're not going
Speaker 2: to provide a Tackums missiles, basically the longer range version
Speaker 2: of the Himars rockets that the Ukrainians have used to
Speaker 2: good effect. Well, now there's some reporting that the US
Speaker 2: might be sending a tackems to Ukraine after all. And
Speaker 2: I think what this reflects is a realization that the
Speaker 2: US is going to have to do more to help
Speaker 2: Ukraine win this conflict, even if it requires testing some
Speaker 2: of these Russian red lines. And the US has more
Speaker 2: confidence in doing this because Putin has talked a lot
Speaker 2: about using nuclear weapons, or he's hinted at it, at
Speaker 2: least some of his subordinates have talked about it more explicitly,
Speaker 2: and Russia hasn't actually done anything so far, so that
Speaker 2: makes US officials feel that the Russian red lines may
Speaker 2: not be so read after all. But there is a
Speaker 2: bigger question out there, which is that is it going
Speaker 2: to be possible for the US to help Ukraine accomplish
Speaker 2: its objectives without the US intervening more directly in the war.
Speaker 2: And that would be a big escalatory move on the
Speaker 2: part of the United States. It might be warranted morally
Speaker 2: and otherwise, but it would require a much more deliberate
Speaker 2: decision to test Russian red lines directly and to test
Speaker 2: the proposition of whether two nuclear arm great powers can
Speaker 2: fight a conventional war, which is what this would entail
Speaker 2: without nuclear escalation occurring.
Speaker 1: And we've been focusing a lot on Russia, but of
Speaker 1: course China itself strategizes around its own nuclear capability, having
Speaker 1: a nuclear neighbor like Russia, and jousting with the US
Speaker 1: for military dominance. Biden has said at different points he
Speaker 1: wouldn't fight Russia directly in Ukraine, and I wonder if
Speaker 1: draws a happy lesson from that as they watch how
Speaker 1: the US maneuvers in Ukraine and thinks, well, if the
Speaker 1: US isn't really going to confront Russia. Here, nothing's preventing
Speaker 1: us from, say, dipping our toe into Taiwan.
Speaker 2: I think this is a real challenge. You know. One
Speaker 2: of the big guessing games in DC these days is
Speaker 2: what lessons is shizhin Ping learning from the war in Ukraine.
Speaker 2: And you can tell a good news story where Shixhinping
Speaker 2: is learning that conquest is hard, He's learning that US
Speaker 2: intelligence is really good. He's learning that outrageous aggression tends
Speaker 2: to provoke a lot of blowback that you might not
Speaker 2: have expected, and a variety of other bad consequences. And
Speaker 2: if that's the case, that might make him more hesitant
Speaker 2: to use force against Taiwan. He may also be drawing
Speaker 2: the lesson, however, that the United States simply won't go
Speaker 2: to war conventionally against a nuclear arm great power. Because
Speaker 2: this is exactly what Joe Biden has said in the
Speaker 2: context of the war in Ukraine. If you go back
Speaker 2: to the beginning of the war, he issued a tweet
Speaker 2: and made a variety of other statements essentially saying what
Speaker 2: I've just said verbatim that there's no way the United
Speaker 2: States can fight Russia and conflict because that would lead
Speaker 2: to World War three. And we obviously all want to
Speaker 2: avoid World War three. The challenge, of course, is that
Speaker 2: China is also a nuclear armed great power, and so
Speaker 2: if China attacks Taiwan, the United States has to choose
Speaker 2: between fighting a nuclear armed great power and letting Taiwan
Speaker 2: be conquered. And China has been developing its own nuclear
Speaker 2: arsenal very rapidly, not just strategic nuclear capabilities, so things
Speaker 2: that can reach all the way to the United States,
Speaker 2: but so called theater nuclear capabilities, things that are perhaps
Speaker 2: a little bit more useful in terms of actually fighting
Speaker 2: a regional war against the United States. And it's entirely
Speaker 2: plausible that if China did move against Taiwan, it would
Speaker 2: couple that with warnings to the United States saying this
Speaker 2: is a fight over China's territorial integrity. If you get involved,
Speaker 2: we reserve the right to use nuclear weapons. And that
Speaker 2: threat would be very difficult for the United States to
Speaker 2: deal with. And so one of the challenges the Biden administration,
Speaker 2: i think has faced over the past couple of years
Speaker 2: is trying to disabuse Hijinping of this notion that the
Speaker 2: United States would only support Taiwan in the same way
Speaker 2: that it has supported Ukraine by sending weapons and other
Speaker 2: things without actually getting directly involved. But if Xijinping thought
Speaker 2: that America's actions in Ukraine spoke louder than its words
Speaker 2: about Taiwan, he might be wrong, but he wouldn't be
Speaker 2: insane to draw that conclusion. So I worry a little
Speaker 2: bit that the declaratory statements we've made about nuclear weapons
Speaker 2: in the Ukraine context may actually be somewhat unhelpful in
Speaker 2: the Taiwan context.
Speaker 1: So many scary things to worry about, interesting things to
Speaker 1: think about. Let's take one more break and then we'll
Speaker 1: come back to the show. I'm back with how Brands,
Speaker 1: who's educated me about how the world works. How we've
Speaker 1: been talking about the chill wins of our current cold
Speaker 1: wars in twenty twenty four as an election year. So
Speaker 1: talk to me about how you assess the Biden team's
Speaker 1: foreign policy conduct thus far, taking into accounts some of
Speaker 1: the things we've already discussed.
Speaker 2: I think, on the whole, the Biden team has done
Speaker 2: a pretty good job on foreign policy. I think there
Speaker 2: were definitely some hiccups or stumbles early on. The Afghanistan
Speaker 2: war ended in a way that nobody can think particularly
Speaker 2: good things about there were a variety of other challenges.
Speaker 2: There are a variety of challenges that are still out there.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that the administration has much of a
Speaker 2: viable Middle East strategy at this point, for instance, But
Speaker 2: on the two biggest issues, which are the Ukraine War
Speaker 2: and the competition with China, I would certainly give the
Speaker 2: administration passing marks, and I think they've done pretty well.
Speaker 2: So I think the administration has done pretty well in
Speaker 2: imposing a huge cost on Ukraine and using that war
Speaker 2: as an opportunity, tragic as it is, to rally the
Speaker 2: larger free world community. There are times I wish the
Speaker 2: administration had done a little bit more, a little bit
Speaker 2: faster to support Ukraine, but most of my critiques would
Speaker 2: be kind of quibbles at the margin. With respect to China,
Speaker 2: I think the United States as a country needs to
Speaker 2: go faster to develop the sort of capabilities and coalitions
Speaker 2: that would ensure stability in the Western Pacific. But the
Speaker 2: Biden administration, to give it some credit, has done remarkable
Speaker 2: things in terms of strengthening and expanding US coalitions and
Speaker 2: that part of the world. Again, there are things I
Speaker 2: would critique this administration, like the last one is a
Speaker 2: bit of a disaster when it comes to the economic
Speaker 2: elements of US policy in the Indo Pacific, namely the
Speaker 2: absence of a meaningful trade policy. But as I mentioned,
Speaker 2: that's a bypartisan failing, and so it's hard to get
Speaker 2: particularly mad at the Biden administration as opposed to the
Speaker 2: sort of broader US political class for that particular shortcoming.
Speaker 2: And so I think foreign policy is an area where
Speaker 2: the administration hasn't done everything right, but they have a
Speaker 2: decent record DURAN in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: It's also about a long time since any administration of
Speaker 1: any political stripe has had to really think in a
Speaker 1: real time way about multi theater engagement with very robust opponents.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, and this is an area where I
Speaker 2: think it is probably fair to give the administration a
Speaker 2: little bit of criticism in the first year. One of
Speaker 2: the things the administration argued in the first year was
Speaker 2: that it basically just needed to park the confrontations with
Speaker 2: Russia in Iran so it could focus on China. I
Speaker 2: think that rhetoric was probably a little bit unhelpful in
Speaker 2: the impact that it had on Vladimir Putin, because it
Speaker 2: may have helped convince him that if he pushed hard
Speaker 2: in Ukraine, the US would be distracted and unwilling to
Speaker 2: respond as strongly as it actually did. But I think
Speaker 2: the administration has started to get a better handle on
Speaker 2: that strategically the last couple of years. It does raise
Speaker 2: a larger question, though, which is that the US has
Speaker 2: been moving toward a military strategy over the past ten
Speaker 2: years or so that's essentially premised on the idea that
Speaker 2: the United States would not need to fight more than
Speaker 2: one significant war at once. That shift was necessary in
Speaker 2: a way to help the Pentagon focus on the demands
Speaker 2: of competition and potentially conflict with China as opposed to
Speaker 2: getting pulled in a lot of different directions. But if
Speaker 2: you just look at the way the world is going today,
Speaker 2: it's unfortunately not that hard to imagine scenarios in which
Speaker 2: the US might face violent instability in Eastern Europe and
Speaker 2: East Asia, or East Asia and the Persian Gulf at
Speaker 2: the same time.
Speaker 1: If polls are to be believed, Donald Trump is highly
Speaker 1: likely to be the Republican nominee for president if he
Speaker 1: winds up in the White House again. How do you
Speaker 1: think about the second Trump administration's foreign policy as it
Speaker 1: enters this very perilous world we're living in right now.
Speaker 2: I think it would be really dangerous and really bad.
Speaker 2: Just to be perfectly honest with you, I think that
Speaker 2: Donald Trump brings a unique combination of incompetence, illiberalism, and
Speaker 2: unilateralism to US domestic policy and US foreign policy, and
Speaker 2: that would be a pretty destabilizing element on the international
Speaker 2: stage right now. Yes, Trump would do some things that
Speaker 2: you know, a card carrying China hawk like me would appreciate.
Speaker 2: He would be economically fairly tough with the Chinese, but
Speaker 2: you know, Trump has shown very little understanding of why,
Speaker 2: for instance, Taiwan matters strategically. He would also.
Speaker 1: Where it is on a map, perhaps.
Speaker 2: Like where it is on a map the role of
Speaker 2: plays in the First Island chain. I think he would
Speaker 2: probably pursue a policy of omnidirectional antagonism, so he would
Speaker 2: annoy the Chinese while also picking fights with US allies
Speaker 2: in the Asia Pacific. And certainly it would be bad
Speaker 2: news from Ukraine's perspective, because Trump, you know, as was
Speaker 2: the case during his first term, continues to kind of,
Speaker 2: you know, read the lines that the Russians might have
Speaker 2: written for him on the Ukraine War and how the
Speaker 2: United States needs to extricate itself from that fight. Whether
Speaker 2: he would actually do that or not is a different question,
Speaker 2: but certainly the prospect that Trump might become president is
Speaker 2: one of the things that Putin is looking to as
Speaker 2: a means of salvation in the Ukraine War. He can
Speaker 2: hold out hope that Trump will be elected and the
Speaker 2: US will drop out of the Ukraine Coalition. I think
Speaker 2: it'd be more complicated than that. But what I think
Speaker 2: is an important What Putin thinks is important. So I
Speaker 2: think the reality is that countries around the world, in Europe,
Speaker 2: in Asia, and the Middle East are already trying to
Speaker 2: figure out what a second Trump presidency would mean for them.
Speaker 2: They're trying to hedge their bets now so that they
Speaker 2: are not caught out if Trump is reelected. And if
Speaker 2: Trump is reelected, it would make it far harder to
Speaker 2: make the argument that the Biden administration has tried to
Speaker 2: make that. Yes, there was this period when Trump was president.
Speaker 2: It was very disruptive, but that's not the real American
Speaker 2: foreign policy. The real American foreign policy is what we're
Speaker 2: seeing now. If Trump gets a second term, I think
Speaker 2: it's much harder to make that argument, and so you
Speaker 2: just inject a much higher degree of uncertainty about the
Speaker 2: long term future of US foreign policy as.
Speaker 1: Well, and every other global player has to consider an
Speaker 1: unpredictable but powerful US with unclear strategic goals and a
Speaker 1: very itchy but unstable trigger finger in the Oval Office.
Speaker 1: You know, if you could wave your magic diplomatic wand
Speaker 1: across the globe looking at you know, essentially at what's
Speaker 1: going on in Eastern Europe right now, and what's going
Speaker 1: on in East Asia in terms of militarization and this
Speaker 1: lurking cold war, how would you like to see it resolve?
Speaker 2: Well, ideally you would see Russia and China become, you know,
Speaker 2: willing constructive members of the US led international order. And
Speaker 2: I don't say that simply because I'm an American and
Speaker 2: I like a US led international order for that reason,
Speaker 2: although I'm sure that's true to a degree, but because
Speaker 2: the international order that the US and its friends have
Speaker 2: built since nineteen forty five has helped deliver the most peaceful, prosperous,
Speaker 2: humane world we've ever lived in. If you had to
Speaker 2: pick a seventy five year period in history in which
Speaker 2: to live. You'd pick this one for that reason, and
Speaker 2: I think it would serve a lot of people's interests
Speaker 2: around the world of this international system where to continue
Speaker 2: and it were to thrive. And moreover, the fact is
Speaker 2: that the world is healthier if it has a China
Speaker 2: and Russia playing constructive role in the international system, because
Speaker 2: these countries make up a huge chunk of humanity to
Speaker 2: make up a huge chunk of the Earth's surface, and
Speaker 2: it's kind of hard to imagine a stable international system
Speaker 2: if Russia and China are permanently excluded from it. So
Speaker 2: that would be my wish. The reality, unfortunately, is that
Speaker 2: I just don't see any prospect of this happening anytime soon.
Speaker 2: It's certainly not going to happen on Putin's watch in Moscow,
Speaker 2: and I worry that it's not going to happen on
Speaker 2: Che's watch or perhaps even after that in China. And
Speaker 2: so I think realistically the objective of the United States
Speaker 2: has to be to strengthen the international order around Russia
Speaker 2: and China, to limit their ability to do it harm,
Speaker 2: whether through violent aggression or economic predation, and try to
Speaker 2: build as strong as possible a community of like minded
Speaker 2: states that are committed to the international order because they
Speaker 2: recognize the benefits that it holds for them. Unfortunately, that's
Speaker 2: also a recipe for a fairly long, protracted, difficult, dangerous
Speaker 2: standoff with Moscow, Beijing and some of their confederates around
Speaker 2: the world. But I think that's the best we're likely
Speaker 2: to get in the coming years.
Speaker 1: I always like to ask folks at the end of
Speaker 1: the show what they've learned as you look at the
Speaker 1: events of the last year and a half in a
Speaker 1: tight time frame, What do you know now that you
Speaker 1: didn't know then?
Speaker 2: That's a great question. I think that the period since
Speaker 2: February twenty twenty two has underscored a bunch of things
Speaker 2: for me. I think one thing would be the events
Speaker 2: in the last eighteen nineteen months are a reminder of
Speaker 2: how fragile international order is. We take for granted that
Speaker 2: we live in this world where global trade is possible,
Speaker 2: where great power war is rare, where democracy is widespread,
Speaker 2: But that order is really just the product of the
Speaker 2: efforts of the states that are sustaining it. And what
Speaker 2: the Ukraine War indicates is that there are actors out
Speaker 2: there with dramatically different preferences for how the world should work. Right,
Speaker 2: Vladimir Putin does not want to live in a liberal
Speaker 2: international order. He does not want to live in a
Speaker 2: world where territorial sovereignty is considered sacer sancti, does not
Speaker 2: want to live in a world where human rights are
Speaker 2: widely respected in democracy is the dominant form of government.
Speaker 2: And so the war reveals the way in which the
Speaker 2: world would change if these sorts of actors got the
Speaker 2: upper hand. And so that's perhaps the first lesson. The
Speaker 2: second lesson, though, I think, is how much gas there
Speaker 2: still is in the tank when it comes to American leadership.
Speaker 2: And we had heard a lot of talk after the
Speaker 2: Trump era or after the global financial crisis before this
Speaker 2: about how we're moving out of an era of American power,
Speaker 2: moving into a multipolar world, how the world has changed fundamentally.
Speaker 2: But when Russia attacks Ukraine, the fundamental rally point in
Speaker 2: Europe was NATO, which the US led alliance. You see
Speaker 2: off the chart demand for more American engagement in that
Speaker 2: region and elsewhere you see how countries are clustering around
Speaker 2: the United States. And so one of the fundamental enablers
Speaker 2: of American influencing the international system is the fact that
Speaker 2: the United States supports a concept of international order that
Speaker 2: is attractive or at least acceptable to lots of other
Speaker 2: powerful states in the world, particularly advanced democracies, and so
Speaker 2: when a crisis like this happens, they try to do
Speaker 2: more with the United States rather than less, and that
Speaker 2: has the effect of further shoring up this order that's
Speaker 2: under threat. And so you can look at this in
Speaker 2: a couple of different ways. The war underscored for me
Speaker 2: the fragility of international order, but also in some way
Speaker 2: the resilience of it.
Speaker 1: You know, Al, I could talk to you for the
Speaker 1: rest of the day, but we have run out of
Speaker 1: time in our little visit, so I'm going to have
Speaker 1: to call it quits. But thank you so much for
Speaker 1: spending time with me today.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Tim, I really enjoyed the conversation.
Speaker 1: Hal Brands is a foreign policy professor at Johns Hopkins University,
Speaker 1: and he's a Bloomberg opinion columnist. Here at Crash Course,
Speaker 1: we believe that collisions can be messy, impressive, challenging, surprising,
Speaker 1: and always instructive. In today's Crash Course, I learned that
Speaker 1: no matter how much a might be wishing for a
Speaker 1: peaceful revolution to all of the compla and dangerous conflicts
Speaker 1: that are brewing in the world right now. The need
Speaker 1: to end them might involve something other than just diplomacy.
Speaker 1: What did you learn? We'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: You can tweet at the Bloomberg Opinion, handle at Opinion
Speaker 1: or me at Tim O'Brien using the hashtag Bloomberg Crash Course.
Speaker 1: You can also subscribe to our show wherever you're listening
Speaker 1: right now, and please leave us a review. It helps
Speaker 1: other people find the show. This episode was produced by
Speaker 1: the indispensable Anamasarakus, moses On Dam and Me. Our supervising
Speaker 1: producer is Magnus Henrickson, and we had editing help from
Speaker 1: Sage Bauman, Katie Boyce, Jeff Grocott, Mike Nize and Christine Benden.
Speaker 1: Bilart Blake Maples does our sound engineering, and our original
Speaker 1: theme song was composed by Luis Gara. I'm Tim O'Brien.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week with another Crash Course