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Speaker 1: vary and rates may vary. So while we are rightfully
Speaker 1: focused on what is happening in the Middle East with Iran,
Speaker 1: we've taken our eyes off the ball in two foreign
Speaker 1: policy stories. When I say we the collective, I guess
Speaker 1: political media have a little bit. One is, of course
Speaker 1: the war in Ukraine, and then the other is all
Speaker 1: is the pivot to Asia. I sort of joke about that.
Speaker 1: I'm old enough to remember in Obama's second term the
Speaker 1: pivot to Asia and even the first Trump administration realizing, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole point of being energy independent was
Speaker 1: to then confront China and the pivot to Asia. We have,
Speaker 1: i think, still waiting for that pivot. But my next
Speaker 1: guest has a book on a topic. As you know,
Speaker 1: I've been covering it, probably a bit more than your
Speaker 1: average political podcaster has covered, which is the issue of
Speaker 1: Taiwan and the fact that twenty twenty seven, which was
Speaker 1: a marker that the Chinese had sort of set as
Speaker 1: sort of the is sort of when she wanted the
Speaker 1: Chinese military to be prepared to take Taiwan by force
Speaker 1: if necessary, is suddenly getting a lot closer. Right, object,
Speaker 1: the object in this Mirrea is quite close now, being
Speaker 1: twenty twenty seven. So the question is where's this going,
Speaker 1: where's this headed? And given what's been what we're still
Speaker 1: experiencing with the war in Ukraine, what frankly the United
Speaker 1: States has gotten itself into when it comes to Iran,
Speaker 1: what does this mean for Taiwan. Well, my guess is
Speaker 1: Ike Freiman. He is the authors from of a new
Speaker 1: book called Defending Taiwan, a Strategy to prevent war with China,
Speaker 1: and he joins me. Now, Ike, it is nice to
Speaker 1: meet you.
Speaker 2: Crazy meets you, Chuck. It's a pleasure to be on
Speaker 2: the show.
Speaker 1: So let's start with the premise of your book. When
Speaker 1: you say defending Taiwan and a strategy. Is this a
Speaker 1: diplomatic strategy that you want to outline, A military strategy,
Speaker 1: a strategy of deterrence, a strategy to eventually recognize independence
Speaker 1: for Taiwan? What is it?
Speaker 2: This is a strategy you to prevent a devastating war
Speaker 2: with China, something that I think should be a goal
Speaker 2: uniting democrats, republicans, everyone in between. And a strategy to
Speaker 2: preserve an honorable piece in the Taiwan straight but also
Speaker 2: in the region as a whole. Something we can get
Speaker 2: into on this show is that Taiwan's fate is just
Speaker 2: connected to the fate of the broader region. The United
Speaker 2: States does not support Taiwan independence. We have a long
Speaker 2: standing one China policy. It's decades old, it served us well,
Speaker 2: it's helped to deter war in the past.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you saying that we've had a couple of
Speaker 1: presidents who seem to utter some sentences that put that
Speaker 1: policy in question. I mean, Joe Biden said some things
Speaker 1: out loud that no American president had said when it
Speaker 1: came to promising support for Taiwan.
Speaker 2: That's true, and the One China policy is funny. It's
Speaker 2: a bit like a magic incantation because we talk a
Speaker 2: lot about it, but the substance of it is sort
Speaker 2: of was shifting and evolving. But that's okay, because there
Speaker 2: really is no such thing as a status quo in
Speaker 2: the Taiwan straight there never has been. There's a military balance,
Speaker 2: there's a diplomatic balance. The idea of the One China
Speaker 2: Policy is that on the whole, we support peace and
Speaker 2: stability in this region. We don't take a position as
Speaker 2: to how Taiwan's status is ultimately decided. That's something for
Speaker 2: Taiwan and for Beijing to work out by themselves. But
Speaker 2: we don't want that to be resolved by force or
Speaker 2: by coercion. And especially since Taiwan has become a democracy,
Speaker 2: we want it to be democratically acceptable to the people
Speaker 2: of Taiwan. Why because Taiwan's fate for reasons of geography
Speaker 2: and a whole lot else is just tied up to
Speaker 2: the fate of our treaty allies Japan, South Korea, Australia
Speaker 2: and beyond. And there's no way to prevent catastrophic cascading
Speaker 2: consequences in this region if Taiwan falls by force or coercion.
Speaker 1: You know, whenever great powers shoot themselves in the foot,
Speaker 1: it's usually because they have a leader who's obsessed with
Speaker 1: an historic wrong in their mind, right, it is not
Speaker 1: usually about the current situation. Take Putin with Ukraine. He
Speaker 1: just believes Nope, Ukraine is not a country, it's part
Speaker 1: of Russia. And I get the same sense from she
Speaker 1: right that he views right. You you even say this
Speaker 1: that you label that Tay wants. He sees it as
Speaker 1: a lynchpin to what you call national rejuvenation. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: means it's an ideological obsession, right of the leaders. But
Speaker 1: what is it other? Why do they take aside pride history?
Speaker 1: And maybe that is the strongest reasoning that they want
Speaker 1: what's the practical reason that they want this so bad?
Speaker 2: It's a great question. This is how we should start.
Speaker 2: So as you say, Taiwan is the unfinished business of
Speaker 2: the Chinese Civil War, and especially since Taiwan has democratized.
Speaker 2: Since Taiwan has become this staggering success of one of
Speaker 2: the most open and prosperous and technologically advanced societies on Earth,
Speaker 2: having it across the strait is a bit uncomfortable for
Speaker 2: the Chinese Communist Party, right because it's a living, breathing
Speaker 2: example of what another China could have looked like, a
Speaker 2: China that is both wealthier and more technologically advanced and
Speaker 2: accepted in the international community and free. So that's understandable,
Speaker 2: and season Ping is deeply invested in this issue, but
Speaker 2: so were his predecessors. And you know, to study the
Speaker 2: history of this issue is to see that going back
Speaker 2: all the way to Mao, Chinese leaders have lusted after
Speaker 2: this prize and they have turned it into a domestic
Speaker 2: propaganda object. So the thing to understand, though, is that
Speaker 2: from the very beginning it has always been entwined with
Speaker 2: relations with the United States. When the Communists took over
Speaker 2: the mainland in the fall of nineteen forty nine, Now
Speaker 2: immediately gave his general's instructions to plan an invasion of Taiwan,
Speaker 2: and they looked into what an amphibious operation would look like,
Speaker 2: and they decided can't be done because the island's geography
Speaker 2: is just extremely difficult, and they've been working on that
Speaker 2: problem for seventy years and I think they're not satisfied yet,
Speaker 2: but they're getting closer. Why does it matter. The first
Speaker 2: reason is geography. So Taiwan is a link in the
Speaker 2: first island chain, an archipelago that goes from Japan actually
Speaker 2: starting in the Russian Curl Islands, all the way down
Speaker 2: into the South China Sea. And you sort of have
Speaker 2: to look at a topographic map because in between those islands,
Speaker 2: the sea is often so shallow that you can't navigate through.
Speaker 2: So there's only a few choke points in between these
Speaker 2: islands that you can actually navigate through. And that means
Speaker 2: China's navy, which is now the world's largest in fleet size,
Speaker 2: is like a burd in a cage. They're trapped in
Speaker 2: these little inland seas, the Yellow Sea, the East China See,
Speaker 2: the South Tennessee, and they want to burst out into
Speaker 2: the wider waters of the Western Pacific to project power globally,
Speaker 2: but they can't do it as long as the US
Speaker 2: has allies and partners all astride that island chain. So
Speaker 2: that's the first reason. A second reason is the semiconductor
Speaker 2: of fabrication facilities on Taiwan. And then the third reason
Speaker 2: is the role that Taiwan plays in the regional economic order,
Speaker 2: and the way that Taiwan might fall would set a
Speaker 2: precedent for China's ability to use economic coercion against other
Speaker 2: countries in the region. And you put these all together
Speaker 2: and you see, if they can get this, all of
Speaker 2: the dominant fall and they can achieve national rejuvenation pretty quick.
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean, I hear the case, but it still
Speaker 1: feels more ideological and caught up in history books, and
Speaker 1: it really is kind of me Chi wants no threat
Speaker 1: to China. China's built this massive economy. China's probably going
Speaker 1: to catch up in the chip space we see. You know,
Speaker 1: you know what is a necessity is the mother of
Speaker 1: all invention, right, they have to innovate here. So this
Speaker 1: still feels like a vanity project more than an actual
Speaker 1: strategic necessity.
Speaker 2: So I think the overall point that it's nice to have,
Speaker 2: not need to have, is right. And I end the
Speaker 2: book with vignette of the last time I was in
Speaker 2: Beijing in twenty twenty three, where I went to the
Speaker 2: National museum in Tiana and Square, and I went to
Speaker 2: this exhibit in the museum called Road to Rejuvenation, which
Speaker 2: tracks the century of Humiliation and then the party's rise
Speaker 2: and rule and season. Pain is obsessed with this exhibit.
Speaker 2: One of the first things he did after taking power
Speaker 2: in twenty twelve is he took the whole polyp or
Speaker 2: standing committee there, and he said, this exhibit records our
Speaker 2: history and our present, and we're going to write the
Speaker 2: next chapter together. And then he added in twenty eighteen
Speaker 2: this glitzy new annex to celebrate his achievements in the
Speaker 2: so called New Era. And it's kind of interesting because
Speaker 2: the museum is packed with tourists from all over China
Speaker 2: and this exhibit the museum is, this exhibit is not.
Speaker 2: It's empty, completely empty. I was there alone for two hours,
Speaker 2: and you can see the scope of his ambition. Military
Speaker 2: stuff is clearly part of it, but there's also a
Speaker 2: whole wall devoted to ethnic minorities where he's smiling serenely
Speaker 2: as the harmonized ethnic minorities sing and dance. And there's
Speaker 2: another about how China is going with green mountains and
Speaker 2: electric vehicles, and there's another of him you know, cheering
Speaker 2: athletes at the at the Olympics, and you see that
Speaker 2: National rejuvenation is about putting China at the forefront of
Speaker 2: literally every human endeavor, literally every human endeavor. It's about
Speaker 2: getting rich, technologically advanced, green, harmonious, culturally advanced. And so
Speaker 2: Taiwan is the lynchment of that arch. But if he
Speaker 2: rolls the iron dice, he has a whole lot to lose.
Speaker 2: And that is the that's the double edged sword of
Speaker 2: his ambition, and that is ultimately why he is deterrible.
Speaker 2: But you have to show him that if he messes
Speaker 2: up over Taiwan, he could put the whole project in jeopardy.
Speaker 1: Well, this, let's get to deterrence here. I am. I
Speaker 1: am a real pessimist when it comes to Taiwan because
Speaker 1: I think that if and this is where I'm not
Speaker 1: going to pretend I'm an expert in how how Chinese
Speaker 1: communist policy decision making comes. But if you're just doing
Speaker 1: game theory in your China and you look at the
Speaker 1: current geopolitical situation, you're never going to probably have a
Speaker 1: more pliant American president than the one you have now.
Speaker 1: The United States is stretched right now financially and militarily
Speaker 1: particularly we're seeing it in the Middleast where suddenly we're
Speaker 1: going to end up not being able to sell certain
Speaker 1: things to Ukraine because we need it for the war
Speaker 1: with Iran. And if there's ever a time to do it,
Speaker 1: it's probably while Trump's still president in this current situation,
Speaker 1: especially since now the appetite with the American public. You know,
Speaker 1: whatever whatever anti China sentiment one can use to rally
Speaker 1: the rally Americans around the flag is a lot harder
Speaker 1: are already due to the unpopularity of this war with
Speaker 1: the run right. And you know, I sort of I
Speaker 1: have always wondered in my head, boy, is it how
Speaker 1: do you sell the American public on defending this island
Speaker 1: halfway around the globe right that American blood and treasure
Speaker 1: should be used to defend this island. I think it's
Speaker 1: just very difficult, just in the current moment we're in
Speaker 1: the lack of credibility American political institutions have with the
Speaker 1: average voter these days, so you're just going to have
Speaker 1: a lot of skepticism. You know how the Chinese think
Speaker 1: better than I do. You're the expert here, Am I
Speaker 1: off a? Am I overthinking? This is this not how
Speaker 1: the Chinese are thinking.
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of truth in what you say,
Speaker 2: but I don't fully agree. I fully agree that the
Speaker 2: remainder of Trump's term is a uniquely tempting moment because
Speaker 2: Trump is so transactional, because he doesn't think strategically.
Speaker 1: Look, the Chinese think they may may be able to
Speaker 1: get our defense of Taiwan as part of the trade negotiation.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, so there's everything out. There's every reason for them
Speaker 2: to try to see what they can get out of
Speaker 2: Trump at the negotiating table, and then, failing that, to
Speaker 2: squeeze him and see what he gives up. And I
Speaker 2: think when we talk about dates, we need to recognize
Speaker 2: it's not a question of whether China does it or doesn't.
Speaker 2: They are already doing it. They are squeezing Taiwan right now.
Speaker 1: It's a coersion right now, every direction.
Speaker 2: It's the Boa Constrictor strategy using every tool of their
Speaker 2: national power, Squeezing Taiwanese airlines to list themselves as Chinese
Speaker 2: on their websites, you know, pressuring third countries to extradite
Speaker 2: Taiwanese nationals to Taiwan to China for trial, you know,
Speaker 2: establishing a like a near permanent presence of drones and
Speaker 2: other stuff all around the airspace and waters around Taiwan.
Speaker 1: Getting other countries that had diplomatic relations with Taiwan to
Speaker 1: drop it. Yeah, and they've coerced a few to do
Speaker 1: that exactly.
Speaker 2: So the question becomes, I think their plan a is
Speaker 2: just squeeze Taiwan to death, or squeeze Taiwan to the
Speaker 2: point where it, like Hong Kong realizes no one the
Speaker 2: cavalry isn't coming. We just have to negotiate, and then
Speaker 2: we signed some piece. They signed some piece of paper
Speaker 2: that says one country, two systems, Taiwan version. And then
Speaker 2: she's in Pinte Claar's victory. And that's that's the Hong
Speaker 2: Kong model. And that's a lot more attractive than rolling
Speaker 2: the dice on an invasion, which is Russia showed in
Speaker 2: Ukraine could go wrong.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing, China has a political calendar too.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty seven is a Party Congress year. And remember
Speaker 2: the last Party Congress year. Granted it was COVID, but
Speaker 2: it was also COVID was over everywhere in the world.
Speaker 2: She's in paying locked everyone in their house for.
Speaker 1: A year, we took advantage of it.
Speaker 2: For another, that's how paranoid he was going into the
Speaker 2: last party Congress to get his third term. So now
Speaker 2: he's going up for a fourth term. He's completely cleared
Speaker 2: out the top brass in the People's Liberation Army. I mean,
Speaker 2: do you really think there aren't more purges coming?
Speaker 1: Well? What do we how should we read these purges?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I thought, I think look as usual, right,
Speaker 1: you know, we Americans, our American political leaders are just
Speaker 1: terrible at putting ourselves in somebody else's shoes, whether it
Speaker 1: was Bush looking into the soul of Putin or Biden
Speaker 1: and his friendship as when when she was vice Premier,
Speaker 1: and frankly the wrong assumptions he made about the related
Speaker 1: personal relationship he had developed with him. I think there's
Speaker 1: been a there's just been massive miscalculations on the American
Speaker 1: side of things when it comes to both Putin and she.
Speaker 1: She's a much she's got a much bigger appetite, I think,
Speaker 1: at least in his head. Then I think a lot
Speaker 1: of us thought, and I don't think we view Chinese
Speaker 1: leaders in the same way we view Russian leaders. I
Speaker 1: guess whatever it is or we just we assumed there'd
Speaker 1: be pragmatism and transactionalism, because for the most part, that's
Speaker 1: how the Chinese have behaved diplomatically around the world. They're
Speaker 1: very transactional, and so I think that is probably given
Speaker 1: us false hope. But internally she's behaving like a paranoid dictator.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, he's not a man who's given a
Speaker 2: whole lot of interviews, So in his biography you can
Speaker 2: read the tea leaves and come up with your own
Speaker 2: psychoanalytical profile.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we seem like we don't know much about them,
Speaker 1: but we don't.
Speaker 2: But we do know that when he was I mean,
Speaker 2: Joseph Tarisian, my former Hoover colleague, is a wonderful biography
Speaker 2: of his father.
Speaker 1: Yes, I've had I've interviewed him for this page picture
Speaker 1: for the same reason because I'm obsessed with trying to
Speaker 1: learn more about she. And it's interesting that it was
Speaker 1: it was easier to write a book about his father,
Speaker 1: and it is about him.
Speaker 2: And Joseph went to all these former archives in the
Speaker 2: post Soviet world. But what you see is, you know,
Speaker 2: a portrait of a young man who was raised as
Speaker 2: much of a princeling as a princely can be, and
Speaker 2: he has everything ripped away from him. He is everything
Speaker 2: ripped away, and he's sent down to the countryside to
Speaker 2: be re educated by pig farmers and his education is disrupted,
Speaker 2: so so he has to get essentially fake degrees later on,
Speaker 2: and his sister kills herself because of the harassment. This
Speaker 2: is a deeply traumatic moment and his his his conclusion
Speaker 2: is he's going to join the party, become redder than red.
Speaker 2: But it's a it's a traumatic experience in his young
Speaker 2: life which shows him that no matter how much security
Speaker 2: and status and fame you have, it can come apart
Speaker 2: very quickly. And I think what we know about him.
Speaker 2: Kevin Rudd, the former Australian Prime Minister, speaks beautiful Chinese
Speaker 2: and has spent time with him. Rudd recalls in his
Speaker 2: book You Know, sitting with Season Ping by a bonfire
Speaker 2: and talking with him about the world and just being
Speaker 2: taken by how afraid he is of color, revolutions and
Speaker 2: all these things that could tear China apart. So I
Speaker 2: think if your Season Ping and you look at this
Speaker 2: Taiwan question, you're deeply skeptical about your your forces. When
Speaker 2: your generals say no, we can do this, I think
Speaker 2: I think you look at this and you say, there's
Speaker 2: a whole lot of ways that this could go wrong,
Speaker 2: that the Americans could use this issue against me, and
Speaker 2: I think you are not in a hurry. I think
Speaker 2: he does want to be the guy who gets it done,
Speaker 2: but I think he's very happy to do this through
Speaker 2: a diplomatic solution that involves signing a piece of paper
Speaker 2: that allows him to declare victory and then kicking the
Speaker 2: reintegration or whatever to his successor. This is the thing
Speaker 2: about national rejuvenation, right. It's a wonderful goal to set
Speaker 2: because the deadline is twenty forty nine, when he'll be
Speaker 2: ninety six years old, so he can claim credit for
Speaker 2: it all. But if there's anything that's not quite many
Speaker 2: loose ends that aren't quite wrapped up, he can pass
Speaker 2: in his successor with no loss of face. And I
Speaker 2: think that's important. He hasn't tied his hands here. If
Speaker 2: you go into the National Museum, it's not like he's
Speaker 2: saving a wall or a trophy case in the exhibit
Speaker 2: for Taiwan. There's just not a mention of Taiwan.
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Speaker 1: And yes, I too, am a customer. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: the purge of the military leaders, because that's another thing.
Speaker 1: What does that tell us about our own intelligence capabilities
Speaker 1: inside the Chinese government? We frankly the West in general,
Speaker 1: Western intelligence agencies, And look, I have my own concerns
Speaker 1: about the equality of intelligence right now because for a
Speaker 1: variety of reasons, we have an American president who doesn't
Speaker 1: trust the IC. You probably have rank and file i
Speaker 1: C members that don't trust the leaders. You also have
Speaker 1: other countries not wanting to share with the US anymore
Speaker 1: because of this. I mean, there's a there's sort of
Speaker 1: a cascade of reasons why we may we may We
Speaker 1: may have bigger problems with our own intelligence apparatus than
Speaker 1: we've had in quite some time. But it feels like
Speaker 1: we're not alone in not fully realizing how that this
Speaker 1: purge was possible. I mean, one of his closest allies, right,
Speaker 1: one of his longest relationships, but I think both politically
Speaker 1: and personally was part of this purge. What's spot? I mean,
Speaker 1: is it just all paranoia? Is it disappointment in the military.
Speaker 1: Is it a concern he didn't have enough control over
Speaker 1: the PLA?
Speaker 2: So unfortunately, I don't know the answer to you.
Speaker 1: Well, we just talked about we have no intelligence.
Speaker 2: We have no intelligence. I'm I'm his open source, right,
Speaker 2: but based on the open source, we have no idea.
Speaker 2: And I think anyone who has confidence that it's one
Speaker 2: way or the other on Taiwan is just pitching it
Speaker 2: op ed because you can spend the story either way.
Speaker 2: So we don't know why he did it, but we
Speaker 2: can say something about the situation now that he has
Speaker 2: done it. Now that he has done it, he's in
Speaker 2: full control of the PLA. How do you know, Well,
Speaker 2: look at the ORG chart. There's more empty chairs than
Speaker 2: full chairs. So he's now running the show. What he
Speaker 2: doesn't have yet is a new cast of hand picked
Speaker 2: characters who will carry out his wishes. Now we don't
Speaker 2: know why he did it, but we do know that
Speaker 2: it's a little strange to start a war or start
Speaker 2: a crisis that runs a high risk of escalation to
Speaker 2: war if you don't have military officers at the top
Speaker 2: that you trust. I think going into the next party Congress,
Speaker 2: he has some big decisions to make, not just about
Speaker 2: the PLA, but about succession. So far he has raised
Speaker 2: a couple of or a loud rumors to brew about
Speaker 2: a couple of bright young things.
Speaker 1: Like traveling their version of travelings, aren't they right? Yeah?
Speaker 2: And then he has smacked him down with a hammer.
Speaker 2: So the lesson has become the last thing you want
Speaker 2: to be in the CCP is like rumored to be
Speaker 2: the next in line.
Speaker 1: That's like, that's like today's Republican Party in America.
Speaker 2: But yes, something like that, something like that. I wonder
Speaker 2: where we got that from. So so, but seriously, he's
Speaker 2: not getting any younger. You know, there's all these rumors
Speaker 2: about his health. Who knows what's true, right, But he's
Speaker 2: either going to go in with a successor in mind
Speaker 2: or he's going to go in without a successor in mind,
Speaker 2: he's probably going to have more purges he wants to do.
Speaker 2: And if if he wants to move against Taiwan, why
Speaker 2: initiate something that could become an open ended cluster, you know,
Speaker 2: his equivalent of the Russia's invasion of Ukraine or are
Speaker 2: Ron War. When he's got this, you know, he has
Speaker 2: to deliver his work report and he wants everyone to clap,
Speaker 2: and he wants everything to be controlled. Much more likely
Speaker 2: he gets a statement, gets everyone to sign the statement
Speaker 2: that gives him permission to take a harder line on Taiwan,
Speaker 2: and then he comes out of in twenty twenty eight
Speaker 2: with basically a new mandate. Then Taiwan has elections that spring,
Speaker 2: and he's like, okay, guess what the DPP, the current
Speaker 2: ruling party, isn't allowed to win or else? Oh interesting,
Speaker 2: I think that's a much more plausible timetable. Trump will
Speaker 2: be a lame duck. We will be in the midst
Speaker 2: of our twenty twenty eight cycle. Who wants a war
Speaker 2: with Taiwan over twenty.
Speaker 1: Do you see twenty twenty eight actually as the moment
Speaker 1: to move a week er Trump? But Trump's still there,
Speaker 1: and in America that is going to be more focused
Speaker 1: on its domestic situation than wanting to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because because if their strategy is the Boa constrictor strategy,
Speaker 2: then they're just going to keep doing it and at
Speaker 2: some point Taiwan's going to choke unless we intervene. So
Speaker 2: this is that's the problem with thinking about deterrence as
Speaker 2: like we're trying to stop him from doing X. No,
Speaker 2: he's already doing it. So his his threat is you Americans,
Speaker 2: It's on you to draw the line right, and when
Speaker 2: you draw the line, the markets for the Nasdaq collapses
Speaker 2: and everyone panics, and then you are accepting the consequences
Speaker 2: of holding us to account. But it's really on us.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean, look, this is why Oroan's probably
Speaker 1: playing out as about as well for she's interests as
Speaker 1: you could possibly put out. Let me go to the
Speaker 1: It seems as if we know how to do deterrence
Speaker 1: for kinetic deterrence right where we will sell arms to
Speaker 1: Taiwan and we will create new military alliances or call
Speaker 1: them diplomatic alliances that are pretty that are quasi military alliances.
Speaker 1: The QUAD, I think is on its way to becoming
Speaker 1: a you could see how it could become, at least
Speaker 1: as far as Chinese deterrence, a military alliance Japan, Australia,
Speaker 1: the United States, India maybe right, and that's possible. And
Speaker 1: some of this has to do with something that I
Speaker 1: did a couple of years ago at Meet the Press,
Speaker 1: and what I know many a think tank has done
Speaker 1: is when you do the military wargaming of what would
Speaker 1: happen if China invaded Taiwan and we decided to defend Taiwan,
Speaker 1: help aside with Taiwan and help them do it, that
Speaker 1: China wins that standoff seven times out of ten when
Speaker 1: you go through these wargame exercises, So we seem to
Speaker 1: know what needs to be done. If we got into
Speaker 1: an actual kinetic back and forth with China and we're
Speaker 1: trying to fix that, it seems as if we do
Speaker 1: not have an effective deterrence strategy to this boa constrictor
Speaker 1: strategy right that this is it's and I don't know
Speaker 1: what deterrence would work. You've got a Taiwanese population that
Speaker 1: is the more they flex independence, the more that it
Speaker 1: seems that that's worse for them. You know, what does
Speaker 1: deterrence of the Boa constrictor strategy.
Speaker 2: Look, okay, I'm going to agree wholeheartedly with half of
Speaker 2: your question and challenge the premise of the other. Okay,
Speaker 2: So for the last fifty years, really for the last
Speaker 2: seventy years, we have maintained deterrence. Since mal first gave
Speaker 2: his generals the instruction to you know, consider the invasion
Speaker 2: of Taiwan in nineteen fifty. We have deterred aggression. We
Speaker 2: have kept the peace in the region through what we
Speaker 2: call the strategy of denial, which is just showing we're
Speaker 2: militarily stronger. We don't even have to use nukes to
Speaker 2: do it. If China moves against Taiwan, we can defeat
Speaker 2: their ability to put men on the beaches and to
Speaker 2: take the island.
Speaker 1: Well, that was obvious through two thousand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So with the wargames that you cite, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: put any stock at all in those. Basically, war games
Speaker 2: are not crystal balls, they're not simulations of what's going
Speaker 2: to happen there. There games to explore what one side
Speaker 2: or the other might do in specific situations and like
Speaker 2: expand your imagination. So I recently took part in a
Speaker 2: wargame where I was playing China and nukes were involved,
Speaker 2: and like, yeah, nukes to make them realistic. But you know,
Speaker 2: there's a whole lot of assumptions. You say we want
Speaker 2: to do and you know, shoot the shoot at the
Speaker 2: following ships, and you either sink them or you don't.
Speaker 2: But that's just a computer model in the best case.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: As far as I understand, my last book was called
Speaker 2: The Arsenal of Democracy, was about the specific military and
Speaker 2: military industrial parts of this. My best understanding is that
Speaker 2: if we fought China today, a high intensity war in
Speaker 2: the Western Pacific, it would be nasty. Thousands of Americans
Speaker 2: would die, but within a matter of days to a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks, pretty much all of the PLA Navy
Speaker 2: would be at the bottom of the Taiwan Straight most
Speaker 2: of their air force would be obliterated. We would essentially
Speaker 2: maritime wars, air naval wars, the kind we haven't fought
Speaker 2: for eighty years. They work fundamentally differently from land wars.
Speaker 2: It's not about attrition and holding back reserves. It's just
Speaker 2: about who can deliver the hardest, most effective opening punch.
Speaker 2: And a lot of that has to do with cyber
Speaker 2: and electronic warfare and other classified stuff that allows you
Speaker 2: to fry the other guy's eyes and ears, and we
Speaker 2: have various advantages in those capabilities which are super classified.
Speaker 2: The balance is tilting. It's not as much of a
Speaker 2: sure bed as it was before. But I think it's
Speaker 2: safe to say if China thought they could defeat us
Speaker 2: in a high end conventional war, our problems would go
Speaker 2: way beyond Taiwan. It would be about the defense of
Speaker 2: Japan and the Philippines and South Korea and Australia and
Speaker 2: Guam and Hawaii, and China would be acting in a
Speaker 2: much less cautious and restrained way. However, as you say,
Speaker 2: China doesn't necessarily have to think they could win that
Speaker 2: war if they're confident that they can keep the contest
Speaker 2: in a crisis sort of short of war. And this
Speaker 2: is your question about how to deter the gray zone strategy.
Speaker 2: I think the basic idea should be we need to
Speaker 2: show we're going to push back proportionally to maintain an
Speaker 2: overall stable situation. And that's tricky because let's say they
Speaker 2: have thousands of fishing vessels, civilian fishing vessels which are
Speaker 2: paramilitary trained by the PLA, that are hanging out around
Speaker 2: Taiwan harassing shipping. We're not going to do the same
Speaker 2: thing to China. So we need to stabilize the situation
Speaker 2: in another domain. And it's tricky to establish, like what
Speaker 2: is proportional, But basically, according to these age old traditions,
Speaker 2: we don't have like an explicit military to military relationship
Speaker 2: with Taiwan, Like certain levels of senior US officials aren't
Speaker 2: supposed to go to Taiwan. And as China has proceeded
Speaker 2: with this both constrictive strategy we have it has been disclosed,
Speaker 2: sent more trainers to Taiwan to help them develop their
Speaker 2: forces and that kind of thing. Pushing back in another
Speaker 2: domain to help Taiwan defend itself, improve the confidence of
Speaker 2: the people of Taiwan. That's kind of the best we
Speaker 2: can do. And there's a whole bunch of stuff we
Speaker 2: can do. Energy partnerships, technology partnerships, giving visas to Taiwanese,
Speaker 2: more direct flights. There's a whole lot of stuff that
Speaker 2: we can do that can stabilize an overall balance. But
Speaker 2: we have to threaten China. If you push harder in
Speaker 2: the gray zone, we will push harder to.
Speaker 1: The Let's talk about Taiwan's domestic politics, because there's not
Speaker 1: Look just like Russia did with Ukraine starting fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1: You know, Russia was trying to win it at the
Speaker 1: ballot box, right, They were basically trying to trying to
Speaker 1: win find comp client leaders that would want to stay
Speaker 1: in the sphere of Russia's influence. And then when they gave,
Speaker 1: when they frankly, you know, took a couple of losses
Speaker 1: there for them to decide, all right, we can't do
Speaker 1: this this way. We're going to now try it the
Speaker 1: other way. I think China still thinks they can win
Speaker 1: this when a pr campaign in Taiwan. Is that what
Speaker 1: you think?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? And I think that's another reason not to invade.
Speaker 1: Right, So if you look at the surveys, invade, you
Speaker 1: harden the opposition. I mean, Ukraine's never going to be
Speaker 1: in Russia's sphere of influence in our lifetimes, exactly right,
Speaker 1: exactly too many Ukrainians. Do you think they're angry now?
Speaker 1: And do you think they were angry at the start
Speaker 1: of this war?
Speaker 2: And this raises a really important point about public opinion
Speaker 2: that is missed in surveys. That gets back to the
Speaker 2: point you asked earlier about why would the American people
Speaker 2: go for this? Why would an American president go for this?
Speaker 2: And the answer I'm a historian, so I think about
Speaker 2: these things is sort of pass dependencies. That's why I'm trained.
Speaker 2: But when you look at the history as of great
Speaker 2: power of wars or even great power crises like the
Speaker 2: Cuban missile crisis, these things do not fall out of
Speaker 2: the clear blue sky. They emerge over the course of years, months,
Speaker 2: then weeks through a path dependent arc where someone does this,
Speaker 2: and then we do that, and then they do this,
Speaker 2: and then we do that, and we put reputational capital
Speaker 2: on the line saying hey, publicly, don't do this or else.
Speaker 2: And then by the time it's time for choosing, we
Speaker 2: have skin in the game and backing down means something
Speaker 2: totally different than it did at the beginning. And maybe
Speaker 2: we choose to back down, but we have chips on
Speaker 2: the table now. And that is why I can't think
Speaker 2: of an example in American history where a president has decided,
Speaker 2: for reasons of strategy, we need to go to war
Speaker 2: or we need to go to the brink of war,
Speaker 2: and the American public hasn't come along. This Iran war
Speaker 2: may actually be the first time. This is the first
Speaker 2: time we're an American president. She'll military success was not
Speaker 2: greeted with a decisive approval from the American public.
Speaker 1: But this was also unusual the first three days.
Speaker 2: But he never gave a speed He never gave an
Speaker 2: Oval Office address to the American people saying, hey, listen,
Speaker 2: like I know this is people don't want this. Here's
Speaker 2: my reasoning. He still hasn't even articulated what we're fighting for,
Speaker 2: what the warriams are. I think at Taiwan situation would
Speaker 2: be different. A Taiwan situation, China would China would push,
Speaker 2: and it might be the case that either Taiwan's morale
Speaker 2: implodes or our morale implodes, or both, and then Taiwan
Speaker 2: just gets China gets the prize of that fighting. That's possible,
Speaker 2: but I think equally possible, in fact, probably base case,
Speaker 2: if China starts squeezing Taiwan, we do posturing to try
Speaker 2: to make them stop, and then they do a little more,
Speaker 2: and we do a little more, and we do a
Speaker 2: little more, and they maybe mobilize their forces on side
Speaker 2: of the strait or start doing economic coercion, and we
Speaker 2: start surging ships to the region, and you know the
Speaker 2: market starts getting nervous, and then by the time we
Speaker 2: actually get to the to the precipice, it's a completely
Speaker 2: different situation.
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Speaker 1: use that code. The other thing that I fear is
Speaker 1: about to happen with for those that want Taiwan independent
Speaker 1: is that they flee the country and given what's happening
Speaker 1: with the big chip maker there at t SMC, thank you.
Speaker 1: I was going to say TCMs and the fact that
Speaker 1: they're basically stuck having to build their business in the
Speaker 1: United States now right, something that it's been fascinating to watch,
Speaker 1: where it's so clear that company wishes they weren't doing this.
Speaker 1: They're doing this because they feel like they have to,
Speaker 1: not because they want to. Could the unintended consequence be
Speaker 1: that those that want to fight just leave, and then
Speaker 1: those that stay just want to have peace and then
Speaker 1: become more compliant.
Speaker 2: Possibly, uh, But I think it would take a lot
Speaker 2: to get to the point where all those people leave.
Speaker 2: You know, there's elites. And when I go to Taipei
Speaker 2: and I have, you know, friends who are in business,
Speaker 2: and you know, they're going out to Omakase every night,
Speaker 2: and like some of them have Canadian citizenship for their kids,
Speaker 2: and they've got the ski chalet and Switzerland or whatever.
Speaker 2: And some of these people do exist in Taiwan. But
Speaker 2: for the most part, ordinary people, they don't have a
Speaker 2: place to go. They don't have a visa status that
Speaker 2: allows them to just pick up and go to Japan
Speaker 2: or Australia or somewha else. And it takes a lot
Speaker 2: to walk away in abandon your home. And what could
Speaker 2: happen and what I warnt about in the book, so
Speaker 2: you mentioned wargames, right. The wargames usually start with the
Speaker 2: wargame I played a couple of weeks ago. It started
Speaker 2: with you know, in the pre turn, US Team China
Speaker 2: had blown up a US aircraft carrier. Like, so that's
Speaker 2: like T equals zero, that's like the first turn. But
Speaker 2: that's not in the real world. How a crisis happens.
Speaker 2: The crisis starts happening before those first shots. And usually
Speaker 2: what would happen historically is people would say, well, this
Speaker 2: is basically a non issue. It's a non issue. It's
Speaker 2: a non issue until everyone panics at the same time,
Speaker 2: and then how do you get everyone out of the country,
Speaker 2: Like we thought that the evacuations from Saigon and Cobble
Speaker 2: were hard. Try type ai right, right, Taiwan is a
Speaker 2: is a wealthy, sophisticated democracy with tens of millions of people.
Speaker 2: There's eight hundred thousand foreigners there right now, including tens
Speaker 2: of thousands of Americans. We got thousands of Brits, of Japanese,
Speaker 2: of Germans, of Australians and so on. How do you
Speaker 2: get all those people out? If I'm China, I want
Speaker 2: to put the squeeze on to see if the Americans
Speaker 2: yank their people, because once the foreigners try to pull
Speaker 2: out their citizens, what is that message say to the
Speaker 2: people of Taiwan. You're on your own.
Speaker 1: You're on your own. But doesn't this war not start
Speaker 1: with a I mean you sort of seem to outline
Speaker 1: this not with a shot fire, but with essentially a
Speaker 1: blockade of the island, right, I mean that's the I
Speaker 1: think the wargame I participated and that was the beginning, right,
Speaker 1: and then it got the United States to send military
Speaker 1: you know that that's what triggered the US military response
Speaker 1: of then sending a presence to try to break the blockade.
Speaker 2: I think the blockade is not plan A. I think
Speaker 2: blockade is planned B for a couple of reasons. First
Speaker 2: of all, according to the Taiwan Relations Act, if the
Speaker 2: President wants to ben in Taiwan, the President's going to
Speaker 2: ban in Taiwan. But according to the Taiwan Relations Act
Speaker 2: and probably eighty percent of Congress, a blockade of Taiwan
Speaker 2: is tantamount to an invasion for the reason that China
Speaker 2: is trying now to get the TSMC chip making facilities,
Speaker 2: and they're declaring war'st the people of Taiwan the civilians
Speaker 2: of Taiwan. Blockade means no food, no fuel, nothing in
Speaker 2: or out, and that I think creates such a humanitarian
Speaker 2: emergency that it's just such an appalling thing.
Speaker 1: We're in the middle of doing this right now in
Speaker 1: our hemisphere.
Speaker 2: It's true, it's true, but Taiwan, among other things, is
Speaker 2: the epicenter of the ai Revolution. Ninety nine percent of
Speaker 2: the in video GPUs that that are training the next
Speaker 2: Claude and GPT are coming from Taiwan. You don't want
Speaker 2: China to just seize those let alone sees those factories
Speaker 2: completely intact with all the engineers. So I think if
Speaker 2: they blockade, they create a panic, they get the whole
Speaker 2: world against them, in the same way the whole world
Speaker 2: is against Iran right now.
Speaker 1: Interesting what they could just think a blockade is so
Speaker 1: aggressive that those that might be neutral about this issue thinking, hey,
Speaker 1: this ain't our fight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, much much much, much much more like likely they
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 1: That's what happened with Ukraine, right the invasion. Russia's invasion United,
Speaker 1: you know, brought Europe together in a way that I
Speaker 1: think Putin failed to imagine.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and I think much more likely they do
Speaker 2: what I call it quarantine or some have called an
Speaker 2: indirect control scenario.
Speaker 1: What is quarantine? What what makes quarantine different from a
Speaker 1: black eight?
Speaker 2: What's different is it's not saying nothing can come or go.
Speaker 2: It's just saying we control what comes and goes.
Speaker 1: Gotcha.
Speaker 2: So it's saying, you want to fly from San Francisco
Speaker 2: to Taipei. Cool, connect in the port of Shanghai or Fujo,
Speaker 2: in the airport in Fujo and clear customs.
Speaker 1: And decide whether you clear customs or not.
Speaker 2: Will decide whether or not. Oh, you want to you
Speaker 2: want to export these chips terribly, Sorry, you have to
Speaker 2: go through this port in China. And that means essentially
Speaker 2: Timewan's on it. If we if we give into that principle,
Speaker 2: we're checkmated because we're not going to be able to
Speaker 2: send more diplomats, more military, Taiwan will never be able
Speaker 2: to build the weapons it needs to defend itself, and
Speaker 2: China will seize control over the chip supply chain with
Speaker 2: those factories intact. And that's a much. But then they
Speaker 2: can say we're not waging war against the civilians. We're
Speaker 2: not saying you can't send oil and food, right, and
Speaker 2: then blockade you know, the really medieval stuff. That's a
Speaker 2: plan B, and everyone knows it's there. And if we
Speaker 2: don't play ball, it's always something that they can blockade.
Speaker 2: Is what you're saying is blockade might as well be
Speaker 2: a declaration of war. Correct, Let's let's let's end this
Speaker 2: conversation with something that I think we're I'm constantly you know,
Speaker 2: we all know this. Dictatorships they and slowly.
Speaker 1: Then quickly, yeah, right when things go south with the people,
Speaker 1: they suddenly you know, it's incremental, and then it's it's
Speaker 1: suddenly gone. There's a massive youth unemployment in China. There's
Speaker 1: all of the you know, I've I could continue my
Speaker 1: My optimism about US China relationships are simply that China's
Speaker 1: you know, they've grown a middle class that is going
Speaker 1: to demand some services. Now we see it in our
Speaker 1: more mature economy, and and you know that that can
Speaker 1: be the lynchpin between domestic strife and domestic equility. You
Speaker 1: know this is China's economy has not been great as
Speaker 1: far as they've at least when you and everything is
Speaker 1: by comparison. Yes, they're still growing in a large faster
Speaker 1: clip than than we are. Well, we're two different economies
Speaker 1: or something.
Speaker 2: I don't think they are. By the way, the data.
Speaker 1: Interesting, you think the numbers are. They're fudging their numbers
Speaker 1: a little bit. But the point is it's pretty clear.
Speaker 1: This is they've got an issue. They've got cranky middle class,
Speaker 1: they've got youth unemployment, they have their own population issues.
Speaker 1: How stable are things domestically in your view? You know, again,
Speaker 1: it's like with Russia, that economy is horrendous, and yet
Speaker 1: you know they're just for now sticking with them because
Speaker 1: there isn't an obvious alternative at the moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think you said it best. In
Speaker 2: an authoritarian regime, things are stable until they're not, because
Speaker 2: no one wants to go against the guy with the guns.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: China has some massive structural headwinds, and I think the
Speaker 2: way to think about their economy is the only way
Speaker 2: they have left to grow is through exports, which is
Speaker 2: another way to say this is the only way they have.
Speaker 1: Well, that's deterrence.
Speaker 2: That's great, stealing growth from other countries, sure, but.
Speaker 1: In some ways, if they don't have stable relations around
Speaker 1: the world, they can't grow.
Speaker 2: Yes, So that's this is the economic piece of min deterrence.
Speaker 2: Concept in the book. I think, you know, the first
Speaker 2: question with economic deterrence is if we go to the brink,
Speaker 2: do we have a contingency plan for the crisis and
Speaker 2: we do not just barrel into the crisis or that
Speaker 2: thinking that markets are going to go crazy, you know,
Speaker 2: prices will go up.
Speaker 1: How do we deal with this?
Speaker 2: So you need a plan for that, But then you
Speaker 2: also need a plan how do you use a Taiwan
Speaker 2: crisis as an opportunity to reset the world economy on
Speaker 2: terms that are more favorable to the rest of the
Speaker 2: world and less favorable to China and the you know, India, Brazil, Indine,
Speaker 2: these countries may not take our position exactly on Taiwan,
Speaker 2: but none of them want to be hollowed out the
Speaker 2: way the American rust belt was by just the tsunami
Speaker 2: of Chinese experts. And that's the world that China wants,
Speaker 2: a world where China makes everything and you they're the
Speaker 2: factory and you're the farm. Like they want to turn
Speaker 2: turn us into Argentina. That's the goal, and no one
Speaker 2: wants that. And so how do you build a coalition
Speaker 2: of not just your allies but the whole rest of
Speaker 2: the world and say if God forbid, deterrence fails over Taiwan,
Speaker 2: whatever happens over the fate of Taiwan, we have an
Speaker 2: idea for how we're going to re set use this
Speaker 2: to reset the global trading system in the way we're
Speaker 2: China can't pull this stuff anymore, and then you're taking
Speaker 2: the juice out of their economic machine. One hundred million
Speaker 2: people in China are employed making stuff for export. You
Speaker 2: take those jobs away, that is what implodes their regime.
Speaker 2: But you can't do that overnight. It's a ten year,
Speaker 2: fifteen year project.
Speaker 1: Well, and it's now a twenty year project, right because
Speaker 1: this president has set back economic relations with every single
Speaker 1: country on this gloat on this earth with his tariff
Speaker 1: policies that have completely shaken up relationships. I mean, look
Speaker 1: at this deal that China cuts with Canada. We work
Speaker 1: for the last decade to keep Canada from doing these
Speaker 1: deals with China, and now, understandably, so what choice. If
Speaker 1: you're in Canada's shoes, you look at it like, we
Speaker 1: can't we can't trust the Americans at this moment. For
Speaker 1: our for our economic We're gonna have to We're going
Speaker 1: to have to play ball with everybody. I mean, how
Speaker 1: much has this tariff strategy of Trump's made it harder
Speaker 1: to rally what you just described here, which would be
Speaker 1: very rational economic deterrence of China. How much, how much?
Speaker 1: How much of a setback this has been.
Speaker 2: It's been one step forward but two steps back. And
Speaker 2: the reason is China is so big of a challenge.
Speaker 2: China is a third of global manufacturing. You cannot just
Speaker 2: stop buying stuff from them overnight. Won't work. They're in
Speaker 2: every supply chain and you can't tell other people to
Speaker 2: do that either. So we learned this on Liberation Day.
Speaker 2: We're like, we're going to go called Turkey on trade
Speaker 2: with China. Ooops that that's not gonna work. And countries
Speaker 2: that are even more dependent on trade with China are
Speaker 2: never going to do that. But what we have discovered is,
Speaker 2: you know, no credit to the Trump administration on this,
Speaker 2: just credit to China's predatory trade policies. China is hollowing
Speaker 2: out the industrial base of the European Union, like Europeans
Speaker 2: are raising the populist parties because Volkswagen is dying, right,
Speaker 2: The economic heart of the European Union is dying. And
Speaker 2: it's if you go to India, if you go to
Speaker 2: South Korea, it's it's the same thing. They're being swamped
Speaker 2: by Chinese products. So the solution is, in principle, as
Speaker 2: many countries as possible should put up tariffs on China,
Speaker 2: and they should take them down on one another. Because
Speaker 2: what broke the global trading system is not that trade
Speaker 2: itself is bad. It's that we allowed a communist country
Speaker 2: that doesn't play by the rules into the system.
Speaker 1: Yeah, boy, it'd be nice if if America created this coalition.
Speaker 1: Maybe we could call it the Trans Pacific Partnership and
Speaker 1: it was a alliance of of Asian Pacific countries not
Speaker 1: named China and the United States. Oh wait, we tried that.
Speaker 2: TPP isn't coming back, but some version could really use it.
Speaker 2: Version of it, some version of it is. And you
Speaker 2: already see the beginnings of this with the US deal
Speaker 2: with Japan. Just announce on the Takaichi visit. There's going
Speaker 2: to be co op collaboration on economic security, supply chains,
Speaker 2: critical minerals. We're working with the Europeans on this stuff.
Speaker 2: Why because China is so big of a challenge that
Speaker 2: actually this time we don't have a choice but resetting
Speaker 2: the terms of this international trading system. If we're doing
Speaker 2: it in peacetime, it's going to be step by step.
Speaker 2: It's going to be political and messy. What we should
Speaker 2: be thinking about is if God forbid, deterrence fails with China,
Speaker 2: there's the question of what you do economically on day
Speaker 2: one to prevent the financial crisis, and then there's the
Speaker 2: question of what you want the world to look like
Speaker 2: on day one hundred, day one thousand, day two thousand,
Speaker 2: after the immediate hostilities are over. This is like a
Speaker 2: break the glass scenario. So if this happens with China,
Speaker 2: our trading, our economic relationship with them won't be the same.
Speaker 2: Maybe we'll have some probably we will not break it entirely,
Speaker 2: but it won't be the same. So what what is
Speaker 2: our vision for what it should look like? And that
Speaker 2: is the contingency plan that we should be doing now.
Speaker 2: You're not going to have like a perfect plan, you know,
Speaker 2: in a in a desk and you take it out
Speaker 2: of the envelope, but you can agree on principles, the
Speaker 2: basic ideas of like how that system should be organized.
Speaker 2: Those are the conversations we should be having now to
Speaker 2: imagine that the world after wouldn't necessarily just be economic
Speaker 2: mutually sure destruction, there's another way through, you.
Speaker 1: Know, you're actually outlining and this look, I kind of
Speaker 1: think that we ought to be thinking like that, that
Speaker 1: we're basically about to have another Cold War in the
Speaker 1: best case, right, And in some ways, isn't that what
Speaker 1: you're articulating, Like let's let's let's put together a plan
Speaker 1: to effectively win a Cold war against China kind of.
Speaker 2: But this, this situation is different from the Cold War
Speaker 2: and some fundamental ways, and the biggest one is that
Speaker 2: we're all economically interconnected.
Speaker 1: No, right, the Soviets had no economic skin in the game, right,
Speaker 1: It made it easy to isolate them, and it made
Speaker 1: it easy for them to then, you know, make a
Speaker 1: common cause with those isolated with them exactly.
Speaker 2: And what's different about the world now is that not
Speaker 2: only are we and the US and China deeply economically interconnected,
Speaker 2: but even if you imagine a world where we get
Speaker 2: divorced or we just like pretend to get divorced, we're
Speaker 2: still going to be trading with each other via Mexico
Speaker 2: and Europe and India and everyone else. So there's no
Speaker 2: there's no universe in which you bifurcate the world, and
Speaker 2: it's just like China on the one side and US
Speaker 2: and everyone on the other. It's going to be a
Speaker 2: trifurcated world where like, if deterrence collapses and we have
Speaker 2: to reset the economic relationship, we're going to be trading
Speaker 2: some with them. Maybe we'll still buy their nikes, but
Speaker 2: we won't buy their iPhones or something. And then there's
Speaker 2: a whole lot of countries in between the trade with
Speaker 2: both sides, and we don't want those countries to sell
Speaker 2: our nvidio chips to China, and we don't want those
Speaker 2: countries to sell components that China can sabotage remotely access
Speaker 2: or something into us. And so that means you need
Speaker 2: to reimagine how the whole economic system is wired. Because
Speaker 2: you actually have to have control over the entire supply
Speaker 2: chain nowhere goods are coming from, know where all the
Speaker 2: components come from. That's a completely different architecture. You need
Speaker 2: institutions that don't exist to do that. But that may
Speaker 2: be the world that we're moving towards.
Speaker 1: Well, like, this was pretty thought provoking, and you know,
Speaker 1: you dealt with so much nuance, it's hard to turn
Speaker 1: this into a fifty fifteen second social media bite.
Speaker 2: Come on, now, Well, it's podcasts like yours that help
Speaker 2: us dig into the details.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, it's it sounds like you don't think
Speaker 1: this is inevitable, and you're actually assume at this point
Speaker 1: that we're probably not going to have a kinetic hot
Speaker 1: Connecticut kinetic military exchange with China this decade. I think
Speaker 1: you see work. Just the way you're speaking, you seem
Speaker 1: pretty confident that I know you said hope, but that if.
Speaker 2: We if we do, I think we'll win, but are
Speaker 2: not ready.
Speaker 1: That is what you're saying.
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of uncertainty, but I like
Speaker 2: our odds more than theirs.
Speaker 1: And you think she is reality based enough to know this.
Speaker 2: It's so basically, it's just really really hard to get
Speaker 2: tens of thousands of guys across the taime went straight.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is like, this is one of the
Speaker 2: nastiest waterwiess in the world. You've got like fifty mile
Speaker 2: an hour winds, fifty foot waves in the islands in
Speaker 2: the middle of the strait.
Speaker 1: The trees go aside, Well just wait till we have
Speaker 1: you know, sharks with lasers on them as well.
Speaker 2: Right, and and undersea drones and all the and the Yeah,
Speaker 2: lots of lasers involved, but like, what you really don't
Speaker 2: want to do if your season paying is put fifteen
Speaker 2: thousand troops on the beaches and then be unable to
Speaker 2: supply them and watch them get massacred. So a lot
Speaker 2: has to go right for him. There's many pathways that
Speaker 2: are just passive least resistance.
Speaker 1: This I should have asked as sooner. But it's a
Speaker 1: question I'm meant to ask.
Speaker 2: Is the.
Speaker 1: You know, there's always been this question. Boy, the Chinese
Speaker 1: military hasn't been tested. How would they test themselves? Is
Speaker 1: there another action they might take that has little that
Speaker 1: we don't care about, that they may do that they may,
Speaker 1: you know, in some ways the way the Russians you know,
Speaker 1: went into Georgia and things like that, or is there
Speaker 1: some is there some way that they that that they
Speaker 1: would want to test their military might on a soft target.
Speaker 2: So you ask, you ask you is there a way
Speaker 2: that they can test? I think the thing to understand
Speaker 2: is that they have a direct pipeline of knowledge from
Speaker 2: the Russia Ukraine War, and they have a direct pipeline
Speaker 2: of knowledge from our ran.
Speaker 1: And that's their that's their test.
Speaker 2: They're using this as they are supplying the entire Russian
Speaker 2: military industrial ecosystem, but particularly Russia's drone base. And then
Speaker 2: just as importantly, they're learning the counter drone tech, right,
Speaker 2: the electronic warfare mainly that you use to kill drones.
Speaker 2: And then I am sure they've got a whole lot
Speaker 2: of spooks in Ukraine, yep, trying to buy up Ukrainian
Speaker 2: know how. So they're seeing both sides of that war
Speaker 2: in a way that we're not. That's the first thing.
Speaker 2: And then the second thing is in the Middle East,
Speaker 2: they're watching all they're seeing how we do a high
Speaker 2: intensity bombing campaign, and if we go in with special
Speaker 2: forces and Marines, they're going to see that too, and
Speaker 2: they're going to learn from that. And I wouldn't be
Speaker 2: surprised if they will have some advisors on the ground
Speaker 2: in Iran, very very quietly. But still it's like studying
Speaker 2: in a textbook. It's not the same thing as actually
Speaker 2: fighting for the thing. And as we said it you're
Speaker 2: in this conversation, it's one thing to learn how to
Speaker 2: fight a land war over years and years and years.
Speaker 2: It's another thing when you're fighting a war in the
Speaker 2: air and at sea, where basically everything's decided in the
Speaker 2: first forty eight hours, because if you lose your key
Speaker 2: assets in the first forty eight hours, there's no way
Speaker 2: you can come back and win, and that it puts
Speaker 2: more of an impetus on us to win quick and
Speaker 2: go big. I don't think they want to fight a
Speaker 2: war with us. It's too right.
Speaker 1: This is terrific. I really appreciate it. Good luck with
Speaker 1: the book again. The book is called Defending Taiwan. Make
Speaker 1: sure I get it right and reading Defending Taiwan a
Speaker 1: strategy to prevent war with China. Like I said, very nuanced,
Speaker 1: very rational, and a very important conversation. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Chuck.
Speaker 1: Appreciate it.