WEBVTT - Nukes, Russia, and Our New Cold War 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:05.040 Welcome to Crash Course, a podcast about business, political, and 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:08.240 social disruption and what we can learn from it. I'm 0:00:08.280 --> 0:00:14.000 Tim O'Brien. Today's Crash Course Nukes, Russia and our new 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:17.360 Cold War. The world has never been a settled place, 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:21.360 but it has been enveloped by sweeping existential challenges in 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:24.960 recent years. The COVID nineteen lockdowns offered a public health 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:29.840 crisis reminiscent of epidemics that once seemed pass a and 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:32.879 that Russian US Cold War from the nineteen fifties, sixties 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:36.000 and seventies that also seemed consigned to the history books. 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:40.440 Well that's back with us too. In other words, everything 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:45.040 old is new again, including frosty global military conflicts and 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:48.839 the looming threat of nuclear confrontations. There's even a hit 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:52.280 movie out about the dawn of the nuclear era Oppenheimer. 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:57.200 Ever since Vladimir Putin sent Russian tanks rolling into Ukraine 0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:01.120 in early twenty twenty two, assumptions about the possibility of 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:03.720 war in the twenty first century have been turned on 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:07.160 their heads. A long absence of conflict in Europe gave 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:10.720 way to a bloody and sustained ground war. Russia has 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:15.560 even warned it might unleash nuclear missiles, China, rattling its 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:19.600 own saber in Asia, looms large in the background, just 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:24.520 as it did in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. The 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.920 primary lesson of the Ukraine War, hal Brands has written 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:32.039 is that nuclear coercion will be essential to prevailing in 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:36.440 the rivalries that define our age. The nukes are now 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:40.400 the new normal. Hal's a foreign policy professor at Johns 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:44.840 Hopkins University, co author of Danger Zone, The Coming Conflict 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:48.320 with China, a member of the State Department's Foreign Affairs 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:52.240 Policy Board, and a Bloomberg opinion columnist, and he joins 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:53.320 Crash Course today. 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:55.800 Welcome Hell, Thanks for having me. 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:58.960 Great to spend time with you. You know, my big 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:02.920 overarching question, if somebody like you who studies and watches 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:06.400 these things, is would you have thought ten years ago, 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:09.640 or say even a year and a half ago, that 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:12.760 this is where Europe and the US would be right 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:14.519 now with Russia. 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:19.440 No, probably not ten years ago. We were still before 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:24.000 the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea, although we had 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:27.800 seen the Russian attack on Georgia in two thousand and eight, 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:31.359 but I think there was still a significantly greater degree 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.480 of hope then in Washington, but especially in a number 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:38.919 of European capitals, that Russia might still make its peace 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:43.400 with the international system that the United States and its 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:46.680 European allies had done so much to construct and maintain 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:50.080 over the years. That obviously turned out not to be 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:53.080 the case, But even I guess a little bit more 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:54.320 than a year and a half ago, if you go 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:57.919 back to the run up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:02.399 there was a significant amount out of disbelief in Washington, 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:06.200 but also even more so in European capitals, that Russia 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:08.320 was actually going to do this, that it was actually 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.480 going to try to wipe a sovereign state off the map, 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:16.720 annex much, if not all, of its territory, and extinguish 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:22.040 its existence as an independent political entity. That just didn't 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:25.920 seem like something that happened in the modern world. It 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:29.360 seemed like something that was ripped from the nineteen thirties. 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:31.640 And so I think it actually took the shock of 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:35.320 the invasion to convince a lot of skeptics that we 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:39.560 had entered either a fundamentally new world or we were 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:42.960 threatened with a return to an older, darker world. And 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:47.080 that has really produced a lot of the intensified transatlantic 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:49.600 cooperation we've seen over the past year and a half. 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:51.760 And some of what we've seen is actually quite remarkable. 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:54.600 And so you've seen Germany, which spent more than a 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:59.760 generation cultivating its addiction to Russian energy, kick that habit 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.520 fairly quickly. You've seen Poland take steps to turn itself 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:07.600 into a major military power. You've seen Ukraine pulled closer 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:10.080 to NATO and the European Union and the West writ 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:13.560 large than anyone would have anticipated. And you've seen the 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:18.440 North Atlantic Treaty Organization be revitalized and expanded to bring 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:20.640 in Finland and Sweden in a way that many people 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:22.520 certainly would not have predicted two years ago. 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:25.799 And why was that? This is one of the curious 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:30.040 things to be given all of the informational and observational 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:33.760 firepower that exists in the digital era, and the amount 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:38.800 of communication and analysis that's available to both policymakers and 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:44.359 diplomats certainly, and to others as well military strategists. Was 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:47.720 it simply that no one thought that Vladimir Putin would 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:50.560 be willing to send tanks over a border. Was it 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:53.720 that simple that there was an appraisal of him as 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:58.760 a person and a decision maker that didn't encompass launching 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:02.719 a very ill considered and possibly self defeating ground war. 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:05.280 I think there were a couple of things going on, 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.120 and first, as a caveat, I should say that I 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:11.400 think the US intelligence community should get a huge amount 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:15.640 of credit for snipping out what was coming, and the 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:19.800 Biden administration for warning everyone what was coming. If you wonder, 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:23.280 you know why the United States has this massive intelligence 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:27.200 establishment that costs tons of money. This is why, right, 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:31.640 because it gave us advanced warning of this major geopolitical shock, 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:35.320 and notwithstanding what I said about people not being willing 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:37.880 to believe it was coming, actually positioned the US and 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:40.760 other countries better than they would have been to respond. 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:42.760 But I think, and just to stay on that for 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:44.120 a sec before you go on to your next point, 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:46.599 is it was very interesting to watch how the Biden 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.760 administration handled that intel and made it public, because remember 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:53.120 they were sort of leaking bits about a massing of 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:56.600 Russian forces on Ukraine's eastern border, and people were like, 0:05:57.240 --> 0:05:59.760 you know, is this wagging the dog? You know, are 0:05:59.800 --> 0:06:03.080 they just trying to manipulate public opinion, etc. Etc. And 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:05.880 what they were saying to people was you should believe 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:07.240 what we're seeing and hearing. 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:10.679 And they were taking away some of the options Putin 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:14.960 otherwise would have had for manipulating the situation to make 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:18.160 it look as though Ukraine had somehow provoked a conflict. 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:19.920 And so a lot of what the US intelligent community 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:22.480 was doing was saying, the Russians are going to stage 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:25.920 this sort of false flag operation, don't believe it when 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:30.000 it happens. So that, notwithstanding, I think there were really 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:33.640 two big things that stood in the way of more 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:38.159 people heeding those warnings and understanding what was coming at them. 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:40.920 The first was that I think a lot of us 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:48.120 failed to understand how much Putin's decision making had atrophied 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:52.360 over his twenty plus years in power, and in particular 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.960 during his two plus years, i guess, almost two years 0:06:56.520 --> 0:07:00.600 of COVID induced isolation and so well. The reason a 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:02.920 lot of people didn't think Putin was going to stage 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:05.200 a full on invasion is because what he was doing 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:08.560 didn't seem to make sense. It made a lot more 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:10.360 sense to think that Putin was just going to try 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:12.960 to nibble away in a little bit more Ukrainian territory, 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:15.040 And the reason we didn't get that is we didn't 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:18.320 realize I think how much decision making had atrophied with Putin, 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:22.800 but also within a regime that had become increasingly dysfunctional 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:27.800 as the level of sycophancy around Putin increased. The second thing, though, 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:31.160 is that I think it was just shocking to people 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:34.760 to think that this sort of thing could happen in 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:38.320 the modern age, right, you know, it looked like nineteenth 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:41.800 century conquest, and so I think it took the thing 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:45.720 actually happening, right and seeing these images of Russian tanks 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:49.200 streaming across the border, learning what the Russians had done 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:53.960 in Bucha and countless other places in Ukraine to realize 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:56.880 that this sort of behavior is still real. Right, it 0:07:56.920 --> 0:07:59.160 doesn't go away. The question is just whether we can 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:00.640 suppress it and keep it at bay. 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:03.840 And not to be forgotten. He rolled into Crimea in 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:07.160 twenty fourteen, so eight years earlier he had already sort 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:10.280 of done an opening act to a land grab. Yes, 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:13.120 from his side of the ledger. Do you think the 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:18.760 US pull out from Afghanistan and Ukraine moving more warmly 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:25.080 toward NATO membership also encouraged him to act or one 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:27.120 of those, both of those, none of those. What do 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:28.440 you think about those things? 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:31.800 I think Putin definitely got stuck in a trap of 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:35.840 his own making, in the sense that his aggression in 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:40.559 twenty fourteen, which you mentioned and after, really left Ukraine 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:43.959 with no choice but to move closer to the West 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:46.000 in a way that I think would have been quite 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:50.320 controversial in Ukrainian politics. Prior to the taking of Crimea 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:53.559 in twenty fourteen, Ukraine was actually quite divided on the 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:56.600 question of, you know, whether it wanted a Western identity, 0:08:56.640 --> 0:08:58.560 whether it wanted to move closer to NATO in the 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:01.559 European Union, or whether it wanted a close affiliation with 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:04.800 Russia prior to that, but you know, by burying his 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:08.440 teeth in the way that he did, Putin basically left 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:12.440 Ukraine's only option for maintaining its territorial integrity such as 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:16.040 it was, and perhaps even survival as moving closer to 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:19.080 the West. And then as that happens, Putin says, oh, 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:21.280 Ukraine is moving closer to the West. I really don't 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:24.040 want that. I'd better do something to prevent that from 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:27.080 being consolidated. And so, even though Ukraine was not on 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:29.360 the verge of being admitted to NATO or anything like that. 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:32.400 In early twenty twenty two, I think Putin was genuinely 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:37.559 worried by the westward drift of Ukrainian policy. He didn't realize, 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:39.920 or at least chose not to acknowledge, that that drift 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:43.240 was largely a result of his own actions on the 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:46.479 first issue he raised, which is the pullout from Afghanistan. 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:51.600 It's really difficult to say for certain. In general, I 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:56.199 think it's bad for US policy when the US fails 0:09:56.280 --> 0:09:59.760 in a major undertaking of some twenty years, when there's 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:02.520 achaotic rush to the exits and so on and so forth, 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:06.240 and so I wouldn't be shocked if, at the margin, 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:09.400 right it was some small percentage of Putin's calculus was 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:13.800 influenced by this view that the United States was weak, 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:16.559 that it was in decline, that it was losing resolved 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:19.120 to pursue its interests in an assertive way in the 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:22.080 international system. And he might have gotten some of that 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:24.400 impression from Afghanistan. But I think if it mattered, it 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:27.720 mattered mostly at the margin. I think the invasion was 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:32.080 mostly about his perception of the strategic situation in and 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:33.680 around Ukraine, and. 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:38.640 So regardless of causation, here we are. And what do 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:41.040 you think are some of the most significant things that 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:43.480 have changed. You talked a little bit earlier about the 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:47.240 militarization of Poland, the expansion of NATO, include Finland and Sweden, 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:50.160 things that would have been unheard of. But what do 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:52.160 you think are some of the other sort of big 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:55.319 tent pole changes that this is catalyzed. 0:10:56.440 --> 0:11:00.000 I think there are three. The first is the revival 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:02.760 and reconsolidation of what we would have called the free 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:05.760 world back in the Cold War. And so the Ukraine 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:09.920 War has obviously led to greater cohesion and greater effort 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:13.960 within NATO, but it's also had that effect on the 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:16.440 other side of Eurasia, in East Asia and in the 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:20.680 Western Pacific, where the war has given momentum to the 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:24.760 defense reforms that Japan and Taiwan are making. It has 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:27.400 led to fears that aggression in Europe might be a 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:30.280 prelude to aggression in Asia, and so it has facilitated 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:34.120 US coalition building efforts visa VI China. And so what 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:36.960 the Ukraine War has done is it's strengthened kind of 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:41.200 the free world, the Democratic alliance blocks on both sides 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:44.679 of Eurasia and also led them to do more together. 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:48.480 And so it's really interesting that South Korea has quietly 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:52.040 been one of the most indispensable members of the coalition, 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:56.400 supporting Ukraine by supplying artillery, ammunition and things like that. 0:11:56.480 --> 0:11:59.400 Japan and Taiwan and Australia have joined in the sanctions 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:02.360 and helped in other ways as well, because there's an 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:05.520 increasing recognition that what happens on one side of the 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:07.720 Asian land mask can still matter for countries on the 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:10.280 other side. So thing one would be kind of consolidation 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:14.319 of this free world community. Thing two, unfortunately, is a 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:16.800 greater integration of what you might think of as the 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:20.240 axis of Eurasian autocracies. And so the war has pushed 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:23.840 Russia closer to China, because as Russia is cut off 0:12:23.880 --> 0:12:25.960 from the West as a result of its own actions, 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:29.680 it has few strategic alternatives other than too deep in 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:33.800 its relationship with China. It's gotten a much deeper military 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:36.600 relationship with Iran as well, So it's not just Russia 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.160 selling Iran gear anymore. It's Iran providing Russia with drones 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:42.360 and artillery and maybe some missiles that it's used on 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:47.559 the battlefield. And so you're seeing overlapping closer relationships between 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:52.280 Eurasian autocracies that have in common they're shared antipathy to 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:55.520 a US led international order. So that would be thing two. 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:58.480 And then thing three is you get what you might 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:00.840 think of as non alignment to point ozh, but you 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:03.839 get a whole bunch of countries around the world that 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:07.240 basically say, we prefer to avoid choosing a side in 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.440 this right. And it could be Brazil, which gets tons 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:14.079 of fertilizer and other things from Russia and under Lula 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:17.720 in particular, is not particularly desirous of following the United 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:22.280 States into a geopolitical and ideological showdown with the Eurasian autogracies. 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:24.960 You've got India, which is aligning ever more closely with 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:27.680 the United States on China issues but not doing anything 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:30.240 of the sort with respect to Russia. You've got countries 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:32.760 throughout Southeast Asia and Africa and a variety of other 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:36.480 places that have basically said, either we don't have a 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:39.680 dog in this fight, or a pox on both your houses. 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:42.360 Because yes, the war is bad in terms of food 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:46.040 security and international economic security, but so are the sanctions, 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:48.120 and so in some ways the international system we have 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:51.000 now is coming to look a little bit more like 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:53.920 the Cold War, where you've got these two opposing blocks 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:56.760 that are consolidating, and then a large group of countries 0:13:56.800 --> 0:13:59.559 that are trying to sort of navigate the territory in between. 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:02.120 You know, I love how that you respond in bullet 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:05.600 points and lists and numbered things as a It makes 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:07.720 it a life, you know, very apprehensible and easy, and 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.000 that you call it thing one and thing two like 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:12.840 Doctor Seuss. You like the Doctor Seuss. So foreign policies, Oh, 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:15.679 I'm glad we've arrived there. You know. One of the 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:19.840 other extraordinary things to me about the consequences of this 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:24.400 war is that Germany and Japan are rearming. And that's 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:27.840 another one of those who would have thought, especially anyone 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:31.800 who's interested in our student of World War two, that 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:35.320 you know, we'd be eighty ish years on where everyone 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:39.240 is advocating rearming Germany to deal with a more aggressive 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:42.760 Russia and rearming Japan to deal with more aggressive China. 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:45.080 That also just seems extraordinary to me. 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:49.560 Yeah, And I think it's probably important to note that 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:54.480 Germany's rearmament is a bit more aspirational, whereas Japan's is 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:56.760 happening in real time, and so the Germans have made 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:59.440 a variety of commitments to get to two percent of 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:02.760 GDP for their level of military spending, which is the 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:05.040 standard within NATO, at least it's supposed to be the 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:08.640 standard within NATO, but as is often the case, there 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:12.680 have subsequently been delays and modifications such that you know, 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:15.920 the moment when we get a Germany that wields meaningful 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:20.160 military powers still some years in the future. Japan's rearmament 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:24.120 is remarkable by historical standards, and so at the end 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:28.160 of twenty twenty two, the Japanese government pushed through a 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:32.360 series of reforms that would see defense spending increase by 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.720 about seventy or eighty percent over a five year period, 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:41.520 that would see Japan acquire more offensive military capabilities like 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:46.080 Tomahawk missiles and things of that nature, and would basically 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:51.800 help Japan make this transformation from what it was in 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:54.360 say the nineteen fifties, when it was basically a strategic 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:58.840 protectorate of the United States, to a real regional military 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:04.160 power and maybe America's most important single ally in the 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:07.200 world because of geography, because of the capabilities it has 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:08.360 and things of that nature. 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:11.640 Do you think it's an overstatement given all of these 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:14.440 big global chess pieces that are moving around, and these 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:19.720 realignments of oversea powers in new combinations and in very 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:23.280 clear ways. Now it's not foggy. There are very purposeful 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:28.440 alliances being formed for largely military and strategic reasons. That 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:32.640 the risk of global war hasn't seen so pronounced since 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:35.440 the early nineteen sixties. Or is that an overstatement. 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:39.160 No. I think the basic statement that the risk of 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:42.680 not just war but great power war, so war between 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:45.640 the most powerful actors in the international system. I think 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:49.080 that risk is higher, certainly than any time since the 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:53.000 end of the Cold War, and maybe even since the 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:55.240 hottest part of the Cold War, So the period of 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:58.480 crisis in the late fifties and nineteen sixties which you 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:03.520 referred to. Tend to think that the alliance building we're seeing, 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:06.040 in the coalition building we're seeing, is more the symptom 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:09.560 than the cause, right, And so you see countries in 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:12.760 Europe and the Transatlantic Community, countries in the Indo Pacific 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:17.680 doing more together because they're observing either what Russia has 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:21.520 done or what they fear China might do in the 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:24.320 Western Pacific and deciding they have to get together to 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:28.920 strengthen their collective capabilities. And you know, it's maybe worth 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:33.399 mentioning here that China is engaged in what US officials 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:37.919 have said is the most significant peacetime military build up 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:40.520 we've seen since the run up to World War Two. 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:43.960 The military balance in the region has changed dramatically. China 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:47.120 has become much more willing to court friction with its 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:50.399 neighbors and the United States. We've got a preview last 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:54.560 August and the crisis that followed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:57.040 trip to Taiwan of some of the ways in which 0:17:57.119 --> 0:18:00.560 the People's Liberation Army might use those capabilities to blockade, 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:04.399 or bombard or even invade Taiwan. And so there's just 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:10.120 a much greater degree of anxiety among democratic states, in 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:13.840 particular in Europe and East Asia, which leads to a 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:17.280 greater willingness to try to band together for security. 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:19.440 Hal I want to take a quick break here from 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:21.879 one of our sponsors, and then we'll come back and 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:29.040 pick this conversation up. We're back and we're joined by 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:32.560 Hal Brands, a foreign policy savant and a very elegant thinker, 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:36.680 and we're talking about war hell. Before we took a break, 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:39.199 we spent some time discussing Japan in the context of 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:42.680 the great global Cold War that's taken shape. Let's recall 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:44.720 that Japan is the only country who've been attacked with 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:48.359 nuclear weapons by the US during World War Two, So 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:52.520 let's talk some more about nukes, and specifically, as a 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:56.160 departure point, I wanted to talk about the movie Oppenheimer, 0:18:56.440 --> 0:19:01.160 which I thought was a provocative, entertaining, and troubling examination 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:05.680 of what it means to have unleashed this incredible force 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:09.359 of energy, power and destruction into the world. What lessons 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:11.480 did you draw from Oppenheimer? 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:16.560 I think the major message that the movie tries to 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:20.520 convey and the major insight or take away that I 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:24.879 got from it was just the intense moral dilemmas that 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:28.879 are created by nuclear weapons. And so nuclear weapons were 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:34.200 created in a context where it seemed plausible that some 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:39.520 of the worst regimes ever seen on Earth might conquer 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:43.879 much of the Earth, and it was entirely plausible that 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:47.280 they might develop nuclear weapons of their own. We know 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:50.600 in retrospect the German program wasn't as advanced as we 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:52.440 feared it was, but it was hard to know that 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:54.919 at the time, and so I think that the moral 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:59.520 case for building nuclear weapons in the first place was very, 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:03.360 very strong. The challenge, though, is that nuclear weapons are 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:07.520 kind of the most indiscriminate weapon that humanity has ever 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:11.720 come up with. When they were used against Japan, against 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:15.360 cities in Japan, they killed a lot of non combatants. 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:18.639 And as you got into not just the nuclear but 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:22.639 the thermonuclear age, so the development of the hydrogen bomb 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:25.280 and a lot of the follow on weapons in the 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:28.719 nineteen fifties and after, you were talking about weapons that 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:32.440 could be civilization shattering in their effects. And so if 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:35.320 there was a full on nuclear exchange between the United 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:38.840 States and the Soviet Union, it's not clear you know, 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:41.920 how much of humanity would have been left after that. 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:46.560 And so these weapons served important strategic purposes in winning 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:50.480 World War Two and hopefully deterring World War three visa 0:20:50.560 --> 0:20:55.000 VI the Soviet Union, But they were weapons whose use 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:59.840 was so destructive that it was hard to understand what 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:03.800 moral or political purpose that could actually serve. And I 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:07.000 think that tormented the real Oppenheimer as well as the 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:11.360 Oppenheimer in the film. And I think that dilemma consumed 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:14.560 a lot of American policymakers during the Cold War as well. 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:17.679 There's this one moment during the film where all of 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:21.359 the scientists involved in researching fission and fusion and the 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:24.560 use of a nuclear weapon are uncertain whether or not 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:29.000 even the tests might actually ignite the entire atmosphere. And 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:32.800 there's this just sort of troubling, you know, moment where well, 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:34.680 we just have to go for it, and yes, the 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:38.400 atmosphere may actually get torched by our test, but there's 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:41.359 no other way to test it. And fortunately, you know, 0:21:41.400 --> 0:21:44.439 they didn't torch the entire atmosphere. But you know, I 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:46.879 feel some of this now in the present in a 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:50.520 different way, in that Putin has threatened to use nuclear 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:54.359 weapons in Ukraine, and he certainly won't torch the atmosphere, 0:21:54.960 --> 0:21:57.800 but he could ignite a broader war, and it's going 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:02.119 to present this complex response if we were to go there. 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:06.480 And you recently wrote in a really long, wonderfully all 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:10.560 encompassing Bloomberg opinion column that the true impact of nuclear 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:15.320 stockpiles in the world we're in right now is largely psychological. 0:22:15.760 --> 0:22:17.639 And I always enjoy quoting you, but I'm just going 0:22:17.680 --> 0:22:20.440 to quote you here because it's very descriptive, and you say, 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:23.840 nuclear weapons may be good insurance against invasion, but they 0:22:23.880 --> 0:22:26.520 aren't a full proof guarantee that a country fighting for 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:30.000 survival won't hit back with attacks on a nuclear armed 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:32.600 aggressor soil. And so you sort of have these two 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:36.080 forces in play. One is that the nukes themselves discourage 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:40.119 overly aggressive confrontations or maybe confrontations at all, and then 0:22:40.160 --> 0:22:43.560 once they occur, because as you've already mentioned, they're so 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:48.200 indiscriminate in their destructive force that they don't really deter 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:52.479 conventional warfare in certain theaters. Can you just expound on 0:22:52.520 --> 0:22:54.959 this a little bit and then sort of offer our 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:57.840 listeners a take on whether or not this is a 0:22:57.880 --> 0:22:59.959 good rule of the road to think about going forward, 0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:01.000 because I'm not sure. 0:23:01.920 --> 0:23:03.960 Yeah. So, I think there are two ways of thinking 0:23:03.960 --> 0:23:06.960 about the role that nuclear weapons have played in Ukraine, 0:23:07.320 --> 0:23:10.680 and the first way essentially holds that they haven't had 0:23:11.000 --> 0:23:13.840 much effect at all. And so since day one of 0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:19.960 the war, literally Putin has been brandishing nuclear weapons against Ukraine, 0:23:20.040 --> 0:23:24.160