Speaker 1: You're listening to the Buck Sexton Show podcast. Make sure
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Speaker 2: All right, let's do it around the world foreign policy.
Speaker 2: Buck brief here with our friend Bridge Colby. He's a
Speaker 2: former Pentagon official. He's got an awesome book on foreign policy,
Speaker 2: Strategy of Denial. Check it out. Bridge. Great to have
Speaker 2: you back on the program. Let's start with this for
Speaker 2: a second, because you know, we're speaking at a time
Speaker 2: when the world is still reeling from the terrorist attack
Speaker 2: in Israel by Hamas. Iran's fingerprints are all over this.
Speaker 2: We know that what does Iran think it can achieve
Speaker 2: with the actions that it engages in. Is it just
Speaker 2: ideologically driven sadism and hatred or is there a long
Speaker 2: game here that they think they're playing by supporting these
Speaker 2: militant groups that is in some way achievable as a
Speaker 2: nation state.
Speaker 3: Well, great to be back with you, Buck, Always a
Speaker 3: pleasure to be with you, and even on this really
Speaker 3: difficult day or time. Look, I think there is plenty
Speaker 3: of rage in ideology in the Islamic Republic of the
Speaker 3: regime there, but I also think they appear to be
Speaker 3: pursuing a strategy, and I think that's my sense of
Speaker 3: the Israeli assessment as well. It's based on you know,
Speaker 3: the exploitation of terrorism and human suffering and so forth.
Speaker 1: But it is it is a strategy.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know exactly what they're going I mean,
Speaker 3: it's too clear that Iran benefits from this to say
Speaker 3: that they've had no role. Obviously they've been heavily complicit
Speaker 3: in arming Hamas and Hesbala and so forth, but they
Speaker 3: also benefit from interrupting the Israeli normalization with the Saudis
Speaker 3: and others in the region and the quiet that I mean.
Speaker 3: I was in Israel in June, and you know, there
Speaker 3: was a sense that things were pretty much probably more
Speaker 3: secure in Israel than they ever been, that the kind
Speaker 3: of West Bank and Gaza were under control. And I
Speaker 3: think what I assume Mas is trying to do, and
Speaker 3: backed by Iran, is to reintroduce fear and uncertainty and
Speaker 3: anxiety into an Israeli life. Obviously, they're taking hostages and
Speaker 3: they're trying to probably establish more control over the Arab
Speaker 3: population in both Gaza where they have been ascended, but
Speaker 3: also in the West Bank and use that to just
Speaker 3: over time erode life in the Jewish state and ultimately
Speaker 3: try to you know, I think their ultimate goal is,
Speaker 3: as they say, to recapture that territory.
Speaker 2: Do you think that they just view this as an
Speaker 2: incremental approach to the eventual eradication of Israel? I mean,
Speaker 2: that really is their strategic goal. That's not just bluster
Speaker 2: and chest stumping from a bunch of psychopaths.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think they say it consistently.
Speaker 3: And you know, the people who were prepared to conduct
Speaker 3: acts of terrorism liners in the nineteen seventies, but were
Speaker 3: more secular or maybe had more incremental objectives even then
Speaker 3: they might have been more aggressive or ambitious.
Speaker 1: I think those people seem to have been pushed aside.
Speaker 3: And Hamas and Hezbola were the radical groups and the
Speaker 3: Islamic revolutionaries in Iran, and you don't look, I mean,
Speaker 3: obviously these analogies are always kind of limited, but how
Speaker 3: long did the crusaders stay, or how long did very
Speaker 3: in the British stay? You know, you look how long
Speaker 3: colonial anti colonial rebellions that they're probably modeling themselves.
Speaker 1: Not to suggest that as rules in any way a
Speaker 1: colonial state.
Speaker 3: But but I think that's probably the model they have.
Speaker 3: And you know that, as Hochi Minh said, you know,
Speaker 3: we have time and you can kill ten of ours
Speaker 3: for everyone.
Speaker 1: We kill a view, but in the long run will
Speaker 1: outlast you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I know they take this this very
Speaker 2: long view at the expense of the present. That's a
Speaker 2: common theme in a lot of Middle Eastern states and
Speaker 2: unfortunately that you know, the some you know, some amazing
Speaker 2: future will come about if they're willing to engage in
Speaker 2: heinous acts today and justify a lot of tyranny, repression
Speaker 2: and things that generally you would want to avoid. But
Speaker 2: I'm just wondering at this stage, if is it possible
Speaker 2: for Israel to allow a thing called Hamas to continue
Speaker 2: to exist.
Speaker 3: Well, I think they've said I think Prime Minister Natanielle
Speaker 3: who did say that they are going to destroy him Hammad.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that that makes a ton of sense.
Speaker 1: And I mean I.
Speaker 3: Totally support Israel's uh, you know, basis and desire to
Speaker 3: retaliate and restore that to terrence. There's also an element,
Speaker 3: of course of justice, but from a strategic point of view,
Speaker 3: they have to be able to say that if you
Speaker 3: do these I mean barbarica acts, some of which in
Speaker 3: some sense are unprecedent sense the Holocaust.
Speaker 1: I mean, really horrible.
Speaker 3: Stuff that there will be punishment way out of proportion
Speaker 3: to you know, the benefits for the attacking actor. The problem,
Speaker 3: of course is what does it mean to destroy Hamas?
Speaker 3: And I assume the Israelis are wrestling with that, so
Speaker 3: I think they'll probably need to come up with a
Speaker 3: definition of that that is, you know, significant enough that
Speaker 3: it means something, but also attainable at a reasonable cost,
Speaker 3: because you know, I'm I think they're mobilizing three hundred
Speaker 3: thousand israelis huge impact on the Israeli economy, on Israeli society.
Speaker 3: It is a free society, it's you know, it has
Speaker 3: democratic politics, of course, much to its credit.
Speaker 1: So I think that's going to be a big part
Speaker 1: of the challenge.
Speaker 3: And unfortunately, this is I assume part of what Hamas
Speaker 3: and presumably Iran and Hesbel and the background are trying
Speaker 3: to exploit.
Speaker 2: We'll come into a discussion of Ukraine here in a second.
Speaker 2: And there's actually some people that are already pointing out
Speaker 2: how some of the munition's shortages that we may need
Speaker 2: to help out with. How the Ukrainian situation exacerbates what
Speaker 2: we might need to do in the Middle East. We'll
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Speaker 2: the so far, the analysis this year is a lot
Speaker 2: of fighting and basically no territorial movement, as in the
Speaker 2: whole breakthrough that we were told was going to happen
Speaker 2: was there was no breakthrough. It looks to be a
Speaker 2: straight up stalemate, and we're funding this as well as
Speaker 2: providing a lot of munitions. What's your take on where
Speaker 2: the Ukraine situation is going and how it's affecting US
Speaker 2: foreign policy priorities in general right now?
Speaker 3: Well, look, I think you're right. I mean I think
Speaker 3: it's an attritional conflict. I think the New York Times
Speaker 3: itself reported that very little territory has changed hands this year,
Speaker 3: and in fact, Russia has seized more territory than Ukraine. So,
Speaker 3: you know, the Ukrainian counter offensive there may still be
Speaker 3: stamina left in it, but I don't think it's going
Speaker 3: to radically up end the war. I think what we're
Speaker 3: seeing as a war of attrition, and it's encouraging that
Speaker 3: we and the Europeans have made some moves to tate
Speaker 3: our defense industrial base. But the thing to bear in
Speaker 3: mind is that's all relative buck And this is a
Speaker 3: really important point that a lot of the kind of
Speaker 3: more traditional, if you will, neo conservative voices in the
Speaker 3: Republican Party underestimate is that that's The Russians are also
Speaker 3: mobilizing for a long war, and the Wall Street Journal
Speaker 3: is reporting on Saturday that they're retooling their entire economy
Speaker 3: for war economy. So you know, they're going to buy
Speaker 3: fewer Mercedes and sobs or whatever, and they're going to
Speaker 3: eat it. Frankly, they're going to their lives are not
Speaker 3: going to be as sort of luxurious as they might
Speaker 3: have been in places like Saint Petersburg in Moscow probably,
Speaker 3: but they're going to allocate more of their money and
Speaker 3: resources as a nation to the military, and we'll see
Speaker 3: how that nets out relatively. But I think, you know,
Speaker 3: a long war is a very difficult conflict for US.
Speaker 3: I think this is unfortunately what the Kremlin is anticipating.
Speaker 1: They're also getting help from the North Koreans.
Speaker 3: People laugh about the North Koreans, but one thing they're
Speaker 3: good at is building missiles and rockets and artillery shells.
Speaker 3: They have like a million people working in artillery factories
Speaker 3: and ammunition factories. We can't even produce on hundred fifty
Speaker 3: five millimeters munitions at that. We are in producing more
Speaker 3: of it, but which the Israelis also need, but at
Speaker 3: the level, not the level of the Ukrainians actually want
Speaker 3: to be able to expend it at.
Speaker 1: So this is the real problem.
Speaker 3: What we should be doing is getting the Europeans to
Speaker 3: really step up, which they're particularly the Germans, are not doing.
Speaker 3: I think the fact that there's a war breaking out
Speaker 3: with our very close ally Israel, and I mean their
Speaker 3: actual sovereign territory is being is being invaded and so forth,
Speaker 3: this just shows us that we can't keep bluffing through.
Speaker 3: I see a lot of the voices, you know of
Speaker 3: this sort of George W. Bush approach saying, hey, we
Speaker 3: got to be active everywhere, and they're completely sort of
Speaker 3: blithely ignoring the fact that we're not in a position
Speaker 3: we should have been. We should have spent some of
Speaker 3: that COVID money that we blew on resuscitating our defense
Speaker 3: industrial base, on being able to bring good jobs back
Speaker 3: to the United States that could skilled welders fix submarines,
Speaker 3: build munitions, But we didn't do that, and we barely
Speaker 3: we have barely touched the problem in the last year.
Speaker 3: I mean, I've been calling for a national mobilization for
Speaker 3: the last year because we've been digging ourselves this hole.
Speaker 3: But that's not where we are in the president I
Speaker 3: just saw him. He was talking, you know, in the
Speaker 3: White House, and he was very moralistic and on his
Speaker 3: high horse, and I.
Speaker 1: Was like, what were you yelling at?
Speaker 3: Man, Like, you're the one who could have said, let's
Speaker 3: actually get a defense industrial base that, by the way,
Speaker 3: would meet a lot of the kind of concerns that
Speaker 3: you know, those of us on the new Right want,
Speaker 3: which brings good industrial jobs back to this country.
Speaker 1: But instead it's a.
Speaker 3: Lot of the green stuff from the climate and all
Speaker 3: this kind of stuff, and they don't want to do
Speaker 3: more on the defense side. So I think we're in
Speaker 3: really bad shape. And I actually I wrote a piece
Speaker 3: the other day in The Spectator saying that we're in
Speaker 3: really bad shape. And I actually underestimated the situation because
Speaker 3: I didn't think about this possibility of Hamas and Israel,
Speaker 3: but the Chinese that the threat has not dissipated in
Speaker 3: the slightest.
Speaker 1: It's probably intensifying kind of thing.
Speaker 2: So where do you think all this goes? I mean, Bridge,
Speaker 2: I was on radio when Russia invaded Ukraine initially, and
Speaker 2: there was that moment when they were making that move
Speaker 2: toward Kiev, and then everyone was saying, oh, they've turned
Speaker 2: them around, and I just said, look, guys, this thing's
Speaker 2: not going to end anytime soon, and it's going to
Speaker 2: end up costing the US when all of a sudden done,
Speaker 2: We're gonna spend a trillion dollars on this war, which
Speaker 2: sounded people were just like, come on, that's insane. And
Speaker 2: now I'm sort of well, it's like two hundred billion
Speaker 2: in counting right now. Where do you think it's going?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think you're you're you're certainly more right
Speaker 3: than those who were dismissing it and hoping the war
Speaker 3: would just end quickly and decisively. I mean, I don't
Speaker 3: think Russia's going anywhere as a great power, and who
Speaker 3: you know, they care a lot about Ukraine. Unfortunately, their
Speaker 3: desire their life, Putin's lust to take over Ukraine or
Speaker 3: establish a dominant position is not just. But unfortunately it's enduring,
Speaker 3: just like North Korea's is via South Korea.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was struck.
Speaker 3: The administration has been pointing out that we've given one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty billion dollars to the Israelis or an
Speaker 3: AID over the last time of fifty fifty plus years.
Speaker 3: I mean, we've given almost as much to Ukraine and
Speaker 3: over in the last year, you know, kind of a
Speaker 3: year and a half.
Speaker 1: So this is a huge amount of money. And that's
Speaker 1: and that's I don't think going anywhere. So I think
Speaker 1: we're in. I mean, where is this all going to go.
Speaker 3: Look, we don't know what they're thinking in Tehran and Moscow.
Speaker 3: We can Beijing, we can glean, we can infer, but
Speaker 3: I think the most compelling way of looking at is
Speaker 3: to kind of fit the dots on the line. Putin
Speaker 3: didn't condemn the Hamas attack and the and the rhetoric
Speaker 3: out of Moscow is to say, well, this is the
Speaker 3: price you pay, this is how the you know, this
Speaker 3: is where we're going to pull the Americans away. And
Speaker 3: of course the Iranians have been helping the Russians with
Speaker 3: the drones that have they been using on the front,
Speaker 3: So the Russians owe the Iranians, and meantime, the Iranian
Speaker 3: benefit from Hamas taking this action. That's let's apart the
Speaker 3: Sautas and the Israelis. And who benefits the most the Chinese,
Speaker 3: because it stretches the Americans out. And there are people
Speaker 3: who are acting as if we have no constraints, that
Speaker 3: there is no scarcity, and that's just not serious. And
Speaker 3: I mean, the American people are already fed up with
Speaker 3: the forever wars and they've spent a lot of money,
Speaker 3: and unfortunately, I think we are going to need to
Speaker 3: have to spend more money on defense industrial base, not
Speaker 3: so we get into other wars, but so we can
Speaker 3: help our allies that like Israel, that want to be
Speaker 3: able to defend themselves, be able to do so. But
Speaker 3: that's not where we are right now, and so you know,
Speaker 3: we're in really grim shape. I wish the President would
Speaker 3: have gotten on national television and say, look, people, this
Speaker 3: is the biggest problem.
Speaker 1: This is an opportunity to regrow our industrial base. That's
Speaker 1: not what he did.
Speaker 2: Interesting, you know, the notion of regrowing the industrial base,
Speaker 2: but also the revulsion that it seems certainly the Republican base.
Speaker 2: And I would assume a lot of Democrats have as
Speaker 2: well for the military industrial complex. Rhee On, you know, Boeing,
Speaker 2: how do you how do you square that? Like, is
Speaker 2: there a way to sell revitalizing an industry, basically the
Speaker 2: munitions industries that we have real war fighting capability and
Speaker 2: also the ability to support our allies without sounding like
Speaker 2: being a show for Raytheon.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, I know exactly what you mean.
Speaker 3: I'm an acutely sensitive to this, you know, partially just
Speaker 3: instrumentally being a defense guy. I always I think a
Speaker 3: lot of people, like they hear defense and foreign policy
Speaker 3: people talking about increasing the defense budget, they just tune
Speaker 3: it out. I mean, I was at a hell thing
Speaker 3: with a bunch of Republican congressman a few years ago,
Speaker 3: and they had a bunch of more the defense hawks
Speaker 3: came in and I overheard one of the other kind
Speaker 3: of normal Republican congressmens, Oh, the defense hawks are back,
Speaker 3: you know, and they just they just discount it. So
Speaker 3: I'm sensitive that instrumentally, but also substantively. I think there's
Speaker 3: a reason, I mean, we spend almost a trillion dollars
Speaker 3: a year, and what do we have munition scarcity? I
Speaker 3: mean really, so obviously this system is broken. There's five
Speaker 3: defense primes. In the nineteen eighties we had thirty defense primes.
Speaker 3: We had even more earlier. So to me, this is
Speaker 3: an opportunity for the kind of industrial policy, the new
Speaker 3: thinking that you get out of place like American Compass,
Speaker 3: American Affairs, et cetera. On the left, people like Rocana
Speaker 3: and Matt Stoler, that you could get a bipartisan coalition
Speaker 3: that says, look, we're going to re We understand this
Speaker 3: is going to take government invention. We're not just going
Speaker 3: to fill I mean Greg Hayes, the CEO of Raytheon,
Speaker 3: was saying that they couldn't decouple from China. I mean,
Speaker 3: why would we stuff the pockets of people like that,
Speaker 3: who are you know, basically accountable to their shareholders and
Speaker 3: are not going to be thinking about what's necessarily in
Speaker 3: the country's best And I'm not saying he's a bad guy,
Speaker 3: but I'm saying, like, that's not And a lot of
Speaker 3: I think the traditional Republicans say oh, let's just double
Speaker 3: defense beending, and people are thinking themselves, yeah, really, like
Speaker 3: that's not so. But I do think and I think
Speaker 3: it meets a number of different political objectives and interests.
Speaker 3: I mean, one of them is what I'm talking about,
Speaker 3: having more weapons A, so we're ready and so we
Speaker 3: have peace through strength.
Speaker 1: To use the cliche, but it's kind of true. B.
Speaker 1: We can give weapons to countries like Israel, more to Ukraine,
Speaker 1: South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, so they can fight the who
Speaker 1: are ready to fight. We can help them do that.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, bring back good, hard paying job,
Speaker 3: good you know, hard working, good paying jobs back to
Speaker 3: this country. We don't like, we don't have enough welders
Speaker 3: for our submarine force. We're just gonna need to create them.
Speaker 3: And those are good jobs, and then they'll be white
Speaker 3: collar jobs and blue collar jobs and what have you.
Speaker 3: I think that's the way that we talk about it.
Speaker 3: But it's very important. I think you're absolutely right, Buck,
Speaker 3: it's very important that this not be seen and not
Speaker 3: actually be just a gift to the established players who
Speaker 3: are just going to keep doing what they're doing.
Speaker 2: Yes, because it certainly seems like the big defense contractors
Speaker 2: people have had their have had their feel of the
Speaker 2: run up and costs that incur all the time, and
Speaker 2: somehow the lack of sustained large scale war fighting capability
Speaker 2: that we have at the same time, right, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, we're getting really fancy planes, but do we
Speaker 2: have enough artillery shells? I mean, these are important things
Speaker 2: to figure out.
Speaker 3: Fixed ships, like basic things. And and so it's like
Speaker 3: we're spending people say, oh, we're not spending enough on defense.
Speaker 3: We'll like spilling and spending a trillion dollars.
Speaker 1: Shouldn't we get a better output?
Speaker 2: You would think? So, I want to talk China with
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Speaker 2: by Palm Beach Research Group. All right, Bridge, So China's
Speaker 2: watching all this stuff going on, Russia, Ukraine War, Israel
Speaker 2: Hamas war. How are they sitting on the sidelines and
Speaker 2: positioning themselves and benefiting and strategizing.
Speaker 3: Well again, I mean, I don't know what's going through
Speaker 3: Xijinping's head, but I'm looking at them and I'm saying
Speaker 3: they're doing pretty much everything consistent with actually preparing for
Speaker 3: war with the United States. They're training their conventional forces,
Speaker 3: they're building them up. They're building them up in a
Speaker 3: way that assumes they've solved the Taiwan problem. They're building
Speaker 3: up their nuclear forces. They're sanctioned trying to sanction proof
Speaker 3: their economy. They're conditional conditioning the Chinese people for suffering.
Speaker 3: I mean, Chijin Ping is saying, get used to it.
Speaker 3: There's going to be rocky waters. Okay, that's happening. Okay,
Speaker 3: if you're China, then if you think about it kind
Speaker 3: of inferentially or deductively, you say, what would be the
Speaker 3: best situation. If you're going to attack Taiwan, if you're
Speaker 3: going to take on the Americans, that's like a cosmic
Speaker 3: roll of the dice.
Speaker 1: And what's the lesson of Putin?
Speaker 3: Putin has given a masterclass on what not to do
Speaker 3: if you're an aggressor. You know, don't attack in twenty
Speaker 3: fourteen and then wait eight years. Don't assume the other
Speaker 3: guy's going to fall apart. Don't take for granted that
Speaker 3: the Western Allies are going to be disunity, unified, et cetera. Okay,
Speaker 3: if you're cheated in opinion, you take that, I mean,
Speaker 3: it's pretty common sensical, then you basically, I think you
Speaker 3: benefit from trying to stretch the Americans as much as possible. So, actually,
Speaker 3: from China's point of view, I think the current situation
Speaker 3: in Europe is actually optimal. Like they don't even necessarily
Speaker 3: want a total Russian victory because now they Russia is
Speaker 3: totally dependent on them and it's tying down the Americans
Speaker 3: and by the way, the Europeans as well.
Speaker 1: Oh, and then there's a major war that breaks out
Speaker 1: in the Middle East.
Speaker 3: And the United States might get involved in that, and
Speaker 3: its attention is directed towards that well, you stretch the Americans,
Speaker 3: you stretch, You stretch to stretch, and that gives you
Speaker 3: a you the best opening possible. I'm not saying they're
Speaker 3: going to do it tomorrow, but I am saying I
Speaker 3: think there's a very very real risk in the coming years.
Speaker 3: And China's behavior suggests a country that's you know, oh,
Speaker 3: and then they're not going to pay any cost they
Speaker 3: don't have to. They're saying, oh, we'd like to help
Speaker 3: both parties in Europe and also in the Middle East.
Speaker 3: So everybody's kind of trying to curry favor with the Chinese,
Speaker 3: so they're not going to us up if a war
Speaker 3: does happen in the Pacific.
Speaker 2: What is the relationship like right now with China and
Speaker 2: Russia specifically.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's the closest has been since
Speaker 3: the nineteen fifties in some ways, perhaps even closer at
Speaker 3: the leader level.
Speaker 1: I mean, they have deep, deep engagement.
Speaker 3: I mean, the Russians are clearly the junior partner, but
Speaker 3: I don't think they certainly Putin thinks he has an alternative.
Speaker 1: And so what are the Chinese doing.
Speaker 3: They're basically they are getting you know, secure natural resources,
Speaker 3: energy supplies, possibly food and other things from Russia. And
Speaker 3: by the way, the Russian military industry could potentially help
Speaker 3: them out. And what are they doing in return, Well,
Speaker 3: they're not providing weapons, but Russia's good at producing weapons
Speaker 3: and can get.
Speaker 1: It from Iran and North Korea.
Speaker 3: They're propping up the Russian economy by you know, basically
Speaker 3: with money, which is by far the most important thing.
Speaker 3: So they don't tick off the Europeans and the Americans
Speaker 3: enough to cross their threshold, but they achieve the goal anyway,
Speaker 3: So I think it's a And then I think to myself, Okay,
Speaker 3: if we think back to that stretching the United States problem, well,
Speaker 3: China's really bailed Russia out. I mean Russia needs. If
Speaker 3: China weren't around, Russia would be up a creek, probably
Speaker 3: without a paddle. If you're in that situation, you're in
Speaker 3: a long war with the West, and there's no way
Speaker 3: there's going to be a there's not unlikely to be
Speaker 3: a deal, and that Putin's going.
Speaker 1: To cut a deal.
Speaker 3: And by the way, I don't think the Chinese would
Speaker 3: necessarily agree to back him in making a deal. Well,
Speaker 3: then you know, maybe you get payback. I think there's
Speaker 3: a very real possibility that the Chinese decide to go.
Speaker 3: If I were Chijinping, what would I do? I would say, Hey, Putin,
Speaker 3: I really bailed out. Now it's your turn to help
Speaker 3: me out.
Speaker 1: I want you to do X y Z.
Speaker 3: Doesn't mean they're gonna invade Germany or something, although anything's possible,
Speaker 3: but it's it does mean, hey, I'm going to make
Speaker 3: things even worse in Europe to distract and tie down
Speaker 3: the Americans.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the Chinese economy here and just second
Speaker 2: it first up. You know you can see if you're
Speaker 2: watching this, then you should because you should be subscribed
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Speaker 1: A b I had a beard for one year.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, I mean I've known Bridge like I met
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Speaker 2: never seen him with a beer before. So I got
Speaker 2: to send him a one blade. But before we before
Speaker 2: we let you go, you see this stuff about about
Speaker 2: what is it evergrand and China, and you know the
Speaker 2: economy there is there a chance. There are some folks
Speaker 2: out there, including one or two we're friends of mine,
Speaker 2: who are always like, the Chinese economy is about to implode,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't really happen, but it could. What do
Speaker 2: you see going on with China economically, because that's obviously going.
Speaker 3: To play a big role in all of this, well
Speaker 3: from a strategic point of view, from a national interest
Speaker 3: point of view, I think we have to bet on
Speaker 3: the you know, we have to bet.
Speaker 1: We can't. We can't bet on winning the lottery.
Speaker 3: So maybe it'll fall apart, but it seems pretty unlikely,
Speaker 3: and I think we need to prepare for the downside risks.
Speaker 1: So to me, that kind of settles it and more
Speaker 1: and more to the point, I think, you know, the.
Speaker 3: Best analysis I'm seeing is that the Chinese are running
Speaker 3: into structural headwinds that day back for decades. You know,
Speaker 3: Shijinping's own economic moves may be slowing the economy as well,
Speaker 3: but I mean, like we see with the Huawei phone
Speaker 3: and things going on, unfortunately, I think they are continuing
Speaker 3: to you know, grow and make significant progress. I think,
Speaker 3: you know, the best assessment, you know, is that there
Speaker 3: is probably going to be a significant slowdown in the
Speaker 3: Chinese economy with from like say the seven percent world
Speaker 3: but probably in the realm of like two to three
Speaker 3: percent real growth.
Speaker 1: Two three percent growth, it's a lot lower than it
Speaker 1: used to be, pretty high by OECD standards.
Speaker 3: I mean, the German economy is going to contract this year,
Speaker 3: our economy unclear, Other economies like the British economy, I believe,
Speaker 3: had trough times.
Speaker 1: So two to three percent, it's all relative.
Speaker 3: And you know the other thing I say, there's a
Speaker 3: huge number of people in China, especially including people who
Speaker 3: have not yet reached like high levels of economic development.
Speaker 3: There's still large levels of catch up growth available to China.
Speaker 3: So I think the prudent assessment is that they're going
Speaker 3: to continue to grow, even if at a slower rate.
Speaker 2: Now I was, I mean, I was going to end
Speaker 2: with that, but actually I want to ask you something
Speaker 2: just out of my own curiosity. You know, your assessment
Speaker 2: of this. You talked about China, how it might be
Speaker 2: preparing for war with the US, and you see some
Speaker 2: of those some of those movements and some of that underway.
Speaker 2: At its core is the Chinese regime. The Chinese Communist
Speaker 2: Party of today was Shijinping as its dictator. Effectively, is
Speaker 2: it just an oppositional regime to the liberal world order
Speaker 2: or is it a hostile and existential threat regime to
Speaker 2: the world order? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So look, I mean I think part of what makes
Speaker 3: this situation so dangerous is that is that I don't
Speaker 3: think China is totally irrational for thinking about going to war.
Speaker 3: In fact, in some ways it is quite rational. And
Speaker 3: a lot of this has to do ultimately, what this
Speaker 3: is about is economics and growth and commerce and prosperity
Speaker 3: and so forth. And I think what China appears to
Speaker 3: want is what I think of as like a secure,
Speaker 3: large economic sphere where they have a lot of scale
Speaker 3: and they could orient the world's economy, particularly Asian economy,
Speaker 3: around them, and then use that leverage to command the
Speaker 3: world economy. Why would they want to do that? Because
Speaker 3: it's awesome because you can you get to live better,
Speaker 3: because you get to boss everybody else around.
Speaker 1: And that's not I don't think they're like, I don't you.
Speaker 3: Know, chese in opinion, he's not not a great human being,
Speaker 3: I don't think, to say the least, but he's not Mauzadoon.
Speaker 1: He's not Paul Pott.
Speaker 3: I actually think if we were facing a non communist
Speaker 3: Chinese regime or government, we might face very similar problems.
Speaker 3: And that's what this sort of like the tragedy of
Speaker 3: great power politics is. The problem is if China achieves
Speaker 3: that goal and they appear to believe that we are
Speaker 3: trying to strangle them with our economic sanctions, that's part
Speaker 3: of the problem, a little bit like what happened with Japan.
Speaker 1: In nineteen forty one.
Speaker 3: They were the bad guys, but we kind of put
Speaker 3: them in a corner with our oil and sanctions in
Speaker 3: nineteen forty one, but without the military strength to deter them.
Speaker 3: I think if China succeeds in that respect, because people
Speaker 3: rightly are saying, well, you know, Taiwan doesn't appear to
Speaker 3: care a lot about its defense, why should we care.
Speaker 3: It's have a world away. The problem is Asia is
Speaker 3: the world's the center of the world economy, and if
Speaker 3: China dominates that, we're all going to be working for
Speaker 3: them basically, and that means in their system, we're going
Speaker 3: to be working basically for Shijinping. And that's why Taiwan
Speaker 3: and the first island chain are so important, and unfortunately
Speaker 3: that's all kind of theoretical. But then I look at
Speaker 3: the data points that we see and they're consistent with
Speaker 3: what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: That's what really scares me.
Speaker 2: Bridge Colby everybody, A Strategy of Denial is his book.
Speaker 2: You should pick it up and uh Bridge, always insightful
Speaker 2: and appreciate your expertise. My friend. Good to see you.
Speaker 1: Thanks, Bob, good to see you too.