Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with
John mimer a professor at University of
Chicago and one of the most influential
and controversial thinkers in the world
he teaches speaks and writes about the
nature of power and War on the global
stage in history and
today please allow me to say once again
my hope for this little journey am
on I will speak to everyone on all sides
with compassion with empathy and with
backbone I will speak with Vladimir
Putin and with vadimus zy with Russians
and with ukrainians with Israelis and
with Palestinians with
everyone my goal is to do whatever small
part I can to decrease the amount of
suffering in the world by trying to
reveal our common
Humanity I believe that in the end Truth
and Love
wins I will get attacked for being naive
for being a shill for being
weak I am none of those things but I do
make mistakes and I will get
better I love you
all this is Alex Freedman podcast to
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in the description and now dear friends
here's John
mammer can you explain explain your view
on power in international Politics as
outlined in your book The Tragedy of
great power politics and in your writing
since then yeah I make two sets of
points there first of all I believe that
power is the currency of international
relations and by that I mean that states
are deeply interested in the balance of
power and they're interested in
maximizing how much power they control
and the question is why States care so
much about power I in the International
System there's no higher authority so if
you get into trouble and you dial 911
there's nobody at the other end in a
system like that you have no choice but
to figure out for yourself how best to
protect yourself and the best way to
protect yourself is to be powerful to
have as much power as you can possibly
gain over all the other states in the
system therefore States care about power
because it enhances or maximizes their
prospects for survival second point I
would make is that in the real story or
in my story power is largely a function
of material factors uh the two ke key
building blocks of Power are population
size and wealth you want to have a lot
of people and you want to be really
wealthy of course course this is why the
United States is so powerful it has lots
of people and it has lots of wealth
China was not considered a great power
until
recently uh because it didn't have a lot
of wealth certainly had population size
but it didn't have wealth and without
both a large population and much wealth
you're usually not considered a great
power uh so I think power matters uh but
uh when we talk about power it's
important to understand that it's a
population size and wealth that are
underpinning it so there's a lot of
interesting things there first you said
nations in relation to each other are is
essentially in a state of anarchism yeah
well Anarchy basically means the
opposite of hierarchy sometimes people
think when you're talking about Anarchy
you're talking about murder and mayham
but that's not what Anarchy means in the
realist context Anarchy simply means
that you don't have hierarchy there's no
higher authority that sits above States
states are like pool balls on a table
right and in an anarchic world uh
there's no higher authority that you can
turn to uh if you get into trouble and
of course the political philosopher who
laid this all out was Thomas Hobbs and
Hobbs talked about life in the state of
nature and in the state of nature you
have
individuals and those individuals
compete with each other for power and
the reason that they do is because in
the state of nature by definition you
have no higher authority and hobbs' view
is that the way to get out of this
terrible situation where individuals are
competing with each other and even
killing each other is to create a state
it's what he calls the Leviathan and
that of course is the title of his
famous book so the idea is to escape
Anarchy you create a state and that
means you go from Anarchy to hierarchy
the problem in international politics is
that there is no world State there is no
hierarchy and if you have no hierarchy
and you're in an anarchic system you
have no choice but to try to maximize
your relative power power to make sure
you are as we used to say when I was a
kid on New York City playgrounds the
biggest and baddest dude on the Block
not because you necessarily want to beat
up on other kids or on other states but
because again that's the best way to
survive and as I like to point out to
people the best example of what happens
when you're weak in in National politics
is what the Chinese call the century of
national
humiliation from the late 1840s to the
late 1940s the Chinese were remarkably
weak and the great powers in the system
prayed upon them and uh that sends a
very important message to not only the
Chinese but to other states in the
system don't be weak be as powerful as
you can and we'll talk about it but
humiliation can lead to resentment and
resentment leads to uh something you've
also studied which is Nazi Germany in
the
1930s we'll talk about it um
but staying to the psychology and
philosophy
picture what's the connection between
the will to power in the individual as
you mentioned and the will to power in a
nation the will to power in an
individual has a lot to do with
individual's psychology uh the story
that I tell about the pursuit of power
is a structural argument it's an
argument that says when you are in a
particular structure when you're in a
system that has a specific
architecture which is
anarchy the states have no choice but to
compete for power uh so structure is
really driving the story here Will To
Power has a lot more to do with an
individual uh in in the nichan story
where that concept comes from so it's
very important to understand that I'm
not argu arguing that states are
inherently aggressive right my point is
that as long as states are in Anarchy
right they have no choice but to behave
in an aggressive fashion but if you went
to a hierarchic system uh there's no
reason for those states to worry about
the balance of power because if they get
into trouble there is a higher authority
that they can turn to there is in effect
the Leviathan so what is the role of
military might in this uh will to power
on the national level well military
might what ultimately matters as I said
to you before the two building blocks of
Power are population size and wealth you
didn't mention military money I did not
no that's right and it's good that you
CAU that because if you have a large
population and you're a wealthy country
what you do is you build a large
military and it's ultimately the size of
your military that matters uh because
militaries fight Wars and if states are
concerned about survival which I argue
is the principal goal of every state in
the International System for what I
think are obvious reasons then they're
going to care about having a powerful
military that can protect them if
another state comes after them what's
not obvious that a large Nation with a
lot of people and a a lot of money
should necessarily build a gigantic Army
and seek to attain
superpower like dominant sole superpower
status to military might but you're
saying as you see the world today it has
to be that way yeah I'm arguing it is
obvious if you're a state in the
International System uh do you want to
be weak uh if you live next door to Nazi
Germany or imperial Germany or napole
iic France or even the United States the
United States is a ruthless great power
you surely recognize that and if you're
dealing with the United States of
America and you're Vladimir Putin you
want to make sure you're as powerful as
possible so that the United States
doesn't put its gun sits on you and come
after you same thing is true with China
you want to be powerful in the
International System States understand
that and they go to Great Lengths to
become powerful just take the United
States of America when it started in
1783 it was comprised of 13 measly
colonies strung out along the Atlantic
Seaboard over time you know the uh
various leaders of the United States
went to Great Lengths to turn that
country into the dominant power in the
Western Hemisphere and then once that
was achieved in 1900 we've gone to Great
Lengths to make sure that there's no
peer uh competitor in the system uh we
just want to make sure that we're number
one uh and my argument is that this is
not peculiar to the United
States uh if I'm China for example
today I would want to dominate Asia the
way the United States dominates the
Western Hemisphere they'd be fools not
to if I were Imperial Germany I'd want
to dominate all of Europe the way the
United States dominates the Western
Hemisphere why because if you dominate
all of Europe assuming you're Imperial
Germany or Napoleonic France then no
other state in the area or in the region
can threaten you because you're simply
so
powerful uh and again what I'm saying
here is that the structure of the
International System really matters it's
the fact that you're in this anarchic
system where survival is your principal
goal and where I can't know your
intentions right you're another state I
can't know that at some point you might
not come after me you might and if
you're really powerful and I'm not I'm
in deep trouble yeah so some of the
ideas underlying what you've said uh
offensive realism which I would love to
talk to you about sort of the history of
realism versus liberalism but some of
the ideas you already mentioned uh
Anarchy between
states everybody's trying to develop a
military capabilities uncertainty such
an interesting concept uh States cannot
be sure that other states will not use
military capabilities against them which
is that's of enormous importance story
and so interesting because you also say
that this makes realist more cautious
and more
peaceful the
uncertainty because of all the
uncertainty involved here it's better to
approach International politics with
caution which is really interesting to
think about
uh again survival most States interested
in survival and the other interesting
thing is you assume all the states are
rational um which most of the time most
of the time you call this framework
offensive realism C can you just give a
overview of the history of the realism
versus liberalism debate as World Views
well I think for many centuries now the
big
divide uh within the world of
international relations
theory is between realism and liberalism
these are Tim honored bodies of theory
and before I tell you what I think the
differences are between those two bodies
of theory it is important to emphasize
that there are differences among
realists and differences among
liberals uh um and so when you talk
about me as an offensive realist you
should understand that there are also
defensive realists out there and there
are uh a panoply of liberal theories as
well but uh basically realists believe
that power matters that states compete
for power and that war is an instrument
of
statecraft and uh uh liberals on the
other hand have what I would say is a
more idealistic view of the world uh
this is not to say that they're naive or
foolish but they believe there are
aspects of international
politics uh that lead to a less
competitive and more peaceful world than
most realists see uh and I'll lay out
for you very quickly what are the three
major liberal theories today that I
think will give you a sense of the more
optimistic perspective that is inherent
in the liberal
Enterprise uh the first and most
important of the liberal theories is
democratic peace Theory and this is a
theory that says democracies do not
fight against other
democracies so the more the world is
populated with democracies the less like
ly it is that we will have
wars uh and this basic argument is
inherent in Francis fukiyama the end of
History he argues that democracy Triumph
first over fascism in the 20th century
it then triumphed over communism and
that means that in the future we're have
more and more liberal democracies on the
planet and if you have more and more
liberal democracies in those democ acies
don't fight each other then you have a
more peaceful world that was his
argument it's a very liberal argument a
realist like me would say that it
doesn't matter whether a state is a
democracy or not all states behave the
same way because the structure of the
system getting back to our earlier
discussion about International Anarchy
the structure of the system leaves those
States no choice whether they're democ
acies or autocracies and again the
liberal view this first liberal theory
is that democracies don't fight other
democracies and therefore the more
democracies you have the more peaceful
the world can I just uh sort of try to
unpack that a little bit so on the
Democratic peace Theory I guess would
say that in democracies leaders are
elected and the underlying assumption is
most people want peace and so they will
elect peace makers so the more you
democracies you have the more likely you
have peace and then the realist
perspective what says that it doesn't
matter if the majority of people want
peace the
structure of international politics is
such that superpowers want to become
more Super and powerful and they do that
through War you can't make that argument
that you're making about democracies
because if you're saying that
democracies are inclined toward peace
and the the electorate picks leaders who
are inclined towards peace then you have
to show that democracies are in general
more peaceful than non-democracies and
you can't support that argument you can
find lots of evidence to support the
argument that democracies don't fight
other
democracies so the argument I believe
that you have to make if you're going to
support Democratic peace Theory the main
argument you have to make
is that liberal
democracies have a healthy respect for
each other and they can assess each
other's intentions if you're a liberal
democracy and I'm a liberal democracy we
know we have value systems that argue
against aggression and argue for
peaceful resolution of Christ es and
therefore given these Norms we can trust
each other we can know each other's
intentions remember for realists like me
uncertainty about intentions really
helps Drive the train but if you're
talking about two
democracies right the argument there is
that they know each other's intentions
and for you sure maybe democracies
reduce uncertainty a little bit but not
enough to stop the train I think that's
right yeah that's that's right so that's
Democratic peace theory yes the second
theory is economic interdependence
Theory and that's the argument that in a
globalized world like the one that we
live in and have lived in for a long
time there's a great deal of economic
interdependence and if you and I are two
countries uh or if you inm two countries
and uh we're economically interdependent
and we're both getting prosperous as a
result of this economic intercourse the
last thing that we're going to do is
start a war either one of us because who
would kill the goose that lays the
golden eggs it's that kind of argument
so there you have an argument that
economic interdependence leads to peace
and then the third liberal argument has
to do with
institutions uh sometimes referred to is
liberal institutionalism and this is the
argument that if you can get States into
institutions where they become rule
abiding
actors they will obey the rule
that dictate that war is not
acceptable uh so if you get them to
accept uh uh the UN rules on when you
can and cannot initiate a war uh then
you'll have a more peaceful world so
those are the liberal theories and as
you can tell they're very different from
realism as articulated by somebody like
me can you uh maybe argue against the
economic interdependence and in the
institutions that institutions follow
rules um a little bit so the the the
Golden Goose with the golden egg you're
saying that nations are happy to kill
the goose because again they want Power
if they think it's necessary to kill the
Golden Goose yeah because of security
concerns they will do it the point is
that economic
interdependence at its root has
Prosperity as the core variable yeah in
the realist story The Core variable is
survival and survival always trumps
Prosperity so if you go back to the
period before World War I we're in
Europe it's
1913 or early 1914
what you see is that you have an intense
security competition between all of the
great powers on one side you have the
Triple Alliance and on the other side
you have the triple onon you have these
two alliances and you have an intense
security competition between them okay
at the same time you have a great deal
of economic interdependence it's amazing
how much economic intercourse is taking
place in Europe among all the actors
right people are getting prosperous or
countries are getting prosperous as a
result but nevertheless in the famous
July crisis of
1914 this economic Prosperity is unable
to prevent World War I because security
concerns or survival is more important
uh so there are you know going to be
lots of situations where prosperity and
survival come into conflict and in those
cases survival will win
and uh maybe you can speak to the
different camps of realists you said
offensive and defensive can you draw a
distinction between those two yeah let
me just back up a bit on that one and
you were talking about Will To Power
before uh the first big
divide between realists is structural
realists and human nature realists nice
and H
morganth who was influenced by nature
and
therefore had that will to power logic
embedded in his thinking about how the
world works right he was a human nature
realist okay I'm a structural
realist and I believe it's not human
nature it's it's not individuals and
some Will To Power that drives
competition and War what drives compet
ition in war is the structure of the
system it's Anarchy so you're not as
romantic as the human nature realists
yeah there's just a a world of
difference between the two sure it's
just important to understand that so
within that this from the structural
that there's a subdivision also of
offensive and defensive yes inside the
structural realist world right and you
have a handful of realists who believe
that the structure of the
system Fosters competition for sure
security competition but it really rules
out great power War almost all the time
so it makes sense to care about the
balance of power but to focus on
maintaining how much power you have
that's the defense of realism
maintaining how much power you have not
trying to gain more power because the
argument the defensive realists make is
that if you try to gain more power the
system will punish you the structure
will punish
you I'm not a defensive realist I'm an
offensive realist and my argument is
that states look for
opportunities to gain more power and
every time they see or almost every time
they see an opportunity to gain more
power um and they think the likelihood
of success is high and the cost will not
be great they'll jump at that
opportunity just to linger on the human
nature
perspective how do you explain Hitler
and Nazi
Germany uh just one of the more
recent
aggressive expansions through military
might how do you explain that in the
framework of uh offensive
realism well I think that Nazi Germany
was driven in large part by structural
considerations and I think if you look
at Imperial Germany which was largely
responsible for starting World War I and
of course Nazi Germany's largely
responsible for starting World War II
what that tells you is you didn't need
Adolf Hitler to start World War I right
and I believe that there is a good
chance you would have had World War II
in the absence of Hitler right I believe
that Germany was very powerful it was
deeply worried about the balance of
power in Europe and it had strong
incentives to behave
aggressively uh in in the late 1930s
early
1940s so I I believe that structure
mattered however I want to qualify that
in the case of Adolf Hitler because I do
think he had what you would call a Will
To Power I've never used that word to
describe him before but it's consistent
with my point that I often make that
there are two leaders or there have been
two leaders in modern history who are
congenital
aggressors uh and one was Napoleon and
the other was Hitler now if you want to
call that a Will To Power you can do
that I I'm more comfortable referring to
H As A congenital aggressor and
referring to Napoleon As A congenital
aggressor although there were important
differences between the two because
Hitler was probably the most murderous
leader uh in recorded history and
Napoleon was not in that category at all
uh but but both of them uh were uh
driven by what you would call a Will To
Power uh and that has to be uh married
to the structural argument in Hitler's
case and also in Napoleon's case is
there some degree on the human
psychology side that
resentment because of how because of
what happened after World War I led to
Hitler wielding so much power and then
Hitler starting World War II so this is
the The Human Side perhaps the reason I
asked that question is also because you
mentioned the century of humiliation on
the China side so to so to which degree
did
humiliation lead to Hitler and lead to
World War I well the question of what
led to Hitler is a very different
question than the question of what led
to World War II once Hitler was in power
I mean after January 30th 1933 he's in
power and then the question of what is
driving him comes racing to the four uh
is there resentment over the Versa
treaty and what happened to Germany yes
did that matter yes but my argument is
that structure was the principal Factor
uh driving the train in Hitler's case
but what I'm saying here is that there
were other factors well as well
resentment being one of them will to
power or the fact that he was A
congenital aggressor in my lexicon uh
certainly mattered as well so I I don't
want to dismiss um your point uh about
resentment so Hitler in particular the
way he wielded the way he gained so much
power might have
been the general resentment of the
populace of the German populace I think
that uh as a result of um defea in World
War I and all the trials and
tribulations associated with viar
Germany and then the coming of uh the
Great Depression all of those factors
definitely account for his coming to
power I think that one of the
reasons um that he was so successful at
winning over the German people once he
came to
power uh was because there was a great
deal of resentment uh in the German body
politic and he played on that resentment
that surely helped them get elected too
but I think having studied the
it was even more important once he took
over I also believe that one of the
principal reasons that he was so popular
and he was wildly popular inside Nazi
Germany is because he was the only
leader of an industrialized country who
pulled his country out of
depression uh and that really
mattered uh and uh it made him uh very
effective it's also worth noting that he
was a remarkably Charis Matic individual
uh I find that hard to believe because
every time I look at him or listen to
his speeches uh he does not appear to be
charismatic to me but uh I've talked to
a number of people who are experts on
this subject who assure me that he was
very charismatic and I would note to you
if you look at public opinion polls in
Germany West Germany in the late 1940s
this is the late 1940s after the Third
Reich is destroyed in 1945
he is still remarkably popular in the
polls Stalin is still popular in many
parts of Eastern Europe yeah yeah and
Stalin's popular in many quarters inside
Russia uh and Stalin murdered more of
his own people than he murdered people
outside of the Soviet Union and still to
you the ties of History turn not on
individuals but on structural
considerations so so Hitler may be a uh
surface
layer characteristics of how Germany
started a war but not the really the
reason well history is a
multi-dimensional phenomenon oh I hear
and we're talking about Interstate
relations here yes and realism is a
theory about how States interact with
each other and there are many other
dimensions to International politics and
if you're talking talking about someone
like Adolf Hitler right uh why did he
start World War II uh is a very
different question then why did he uh
start the Holocaust or why did he push
forward a holocaust I mean that's you
know a different question and realism
doesn't answer that question so I want
to be very clear that you know I'm not
someone who argues that realism answers
every question about International
politics but it does answer what is you
know one of the big if not the biggest
questions that IR Scholars care about
which is what causes security
competition and what causes great power
War does offensive realism answer the
question why
Hitler attacked the Soviet Union Yes
because from a military strategy
perspective you know there's pros and
cons to that decision pros and cons to
every decision the question is is did he
think that he could win a quick and
decisive Victory and uh he did I mean as
did his generals it's very interesting I
I've spent a lot of time studying German
decision making uh in World War II if
you look at the German decision um to
invade Poland on September 1st 1939 and
you look at the uh German decision to
invade France on May 10th 1940 and then
the Soviet Union on June 22nd 1941
what you see is there was actually quite
a bit of resistance to Hitler in
1938 at the time of jeos Slovakia Munich
and there was also quite a bit of
resistance in September
1939 internally or you mean internally
internally for sure yeah people had
doubts they didn't think the ver mock
was ready and given the fact that world
war one had just ended about 20 years
before the thought of starting another
European war was not especially
attractive to lots of German policy
makers including military
leaders and then came France 1940 in the
runup to May 10th 1940 uh there was huge
resistance uh in the uh German Army to
attacking France uh but that was
eventually eliminated because they came
up with a clever plan uh the man Stein
plan if you look at the decision to
invade the Soviet Union on June 22nd
1941 which is the only case where they
fail they succeeded in France they
succeeded in Poland they suceeded uh at
Munich in
1938 Soviet Union is where they fail
there's hardly any resistance at all
right yeah well and to say that they
failed the Soviet Union I mean my
grandfather F I mean from from the
Soviet Union you know there's a lot lot
of successes early on so there's poor
military I would say uh strategic
decisions along the way but it was uh it
caught Stalin offu
guard maybe you can correct me but from
my
perspective terrifyingly so they could
have been successful if certain
different decisions were made from a
military perspective yeah I I've always
had the sense they came terrifyingly
close to winning uh you can make the
opposite argument that they were doomed
uh but I I'm not terribly comfortable
making that argument I think the ver
mock by the summer of
1941 was a finally tuned instrument for
War and the Red Army was in quite
terrible shape uh Stalin had purged the
officer Corp uh they had performed po
poorly in Finland uh and uh there were
all sorts of reasons to think that they
were no match for the ver moed and if
you look at what happened in the initial
stages of the conflict that proved to be
the case uh the Germans won a lot of
significant tactical victories early on
and if they focused and went to Moscow
as quickly as possible it's again
terrifyingly so could have been uh
basically topple topple Stalin um and
one thing that's that's possible that's
possible fortunately we're not going to
run the experiment again but one could
argue that that had they concentrated as
the generals wanted to do in going
straight for Moscow that they would have
won I mean what Hitler wanted to do is
he he wanted to go into the Ukraine I
mean Hitler thought that the main axis
uh there were three axes the northern
axis went towards Leningrad the central
AIS of course went to Moscow and then
the southern Access Army group South uh
headed towards Ukraine and deep into the
caucuses and Hitler believed that uh
that that should have been the main axis
and in fact in
1942 the Soviets excuse me the Germans
go back on the offensive in 19 42 this
is Operation Blue and the main axis in
42 is deep into the Ukraine and into the
caucuses and that fails but one could
argue that had they done that in 41 had
they not gone to Moscow had they gone
you know had they concentrated on going
deep into Ukraine and into the caucuses
they could have knock the Soviets out
that way uh I'm I'm not sure that in the
end I believe that I I think in the end
the Soviets would have won no matter
what but I'm not 100% sure of that that
so sometimes um maybe you can educate me
but sometimes you know they say just
like when Napoleon winter defeated
Hitler in in Russia I think not often
enough people tell the story of the the
soldiers and the the motivation and how
hard they
fight so uh it turns out that ukrainians
and Russians are not easy to conquer
they're the kinds of people that don't
roll over and fight bravely there seems
to be a difference in certain people
peoples in how they see War how they
approach War how proud they are to fight
for their country to die for their
country these kinds of things so I think
Battle of staling gr tells at least to
me a story of extremely Brave fighting
on the Soviet side and that it's a
component of War I it's not just
structural it's not just military
strategy
it's also the humans involved but maybe
that's a romantic notion of war no I I
think there's a great deal of Truth in
that but let's just unpack it a bit in
the case of uh the Soviet Union in World
War II the counterargument to that um is
that in World War I the uh Russian army
disintegrated uh and uh if you look at
what happened when Napoleon and invaded
in
1812 and you look at what happened in
1917 and then you look at what happened
between 41 and
45 the Napoleon case looks a lot like
the Hitler case and it fits neatly with
your argument but World War I does not
fit neatly with your argument because
the Russians lost and surrendered yeah
and you had the infamous Treaty of BR
lovk where the Soviet Union then cuz
went from Russia to the Soviet Union in
October 1917 the Soviet Union
surrendered large amounts of uh Soviet
territory because it had suffered a
humiliating defeat my argument for why
the Russians let me take that back why
the Soviets fought like wild dogs in
World War II is that they were up
against a genocidal
adversary you want understand that the
Germans murdered huge numbers of Soviet
p
uh the overall total was 3.7 million and
by December December of 1941 remember
the invasion is June 41 by December of
1941 uh the Germans have murdered 2
million Soviet PS at that point in time
they had murdered many more PWS than
they had murdered Jews and this is not
to deny for one second that they were on
a murderous Rampage when it came to Jews
but they were also on a murderous
Rampage when it came to Soviet citizens
and Soviet soldiers right so those
Soviet soldiers quickly came to
understand that they were fighting for
their lives if they were taken prisoner
they would die so they fought like wild
dogs yeah you know the story of the
Holocaust of the 6 million Jews is often
told extensively if uh Hitler won
conquer the Soviet Union it's terrifying
to think on a much grander scam than the
Holocaust what what would have happened
to the Slavic people to the to the
Soviet people absolutely all you have to
do is read The Hunger plan right and
they also had had a plan uh what is it
called Grand planned East I forget the
exact name of it uh which made it clear
that they they were going to murder many
tens of millions of people and by the
way believe that they would have
murdered all the Poes and all the Roma I
mean my view is that the Jews were
number one on the genocidal Hit List the
Roma or the gypsies were number two and
the Poes were number three uh and of
course I just explained to you how many
PS they had killed so they would have
ended up murdering huge numbers of
Soviet citizens as well but people
quickly figured out that this was
happening mhm that's my point to you and
that gave them needless to say very
powerful incentives to fight hard uh
against uh the Germans and to make sure
that they did not win to fast forward in
time but not in
space let me ask you about uh the war in
Ukraine why did Russia invade Ukraine on
February 24th 2022
what are some of the explanations given
and which do you find the most
convincing well clearly the conventional
wisdom is that Putin uh is principally
responsible Putin is an imperialist uh
he's an expansionist that's the
conventional thinking yeah yeah and the
idea is that uh he he uh is bent on
creating a greater Russia uh and even
more so he's interested in dominating
Eastern Europe Europe if not all of
Europe um and that Ukraine was the first
stop on the train line uh and what he
wanted to do was to conquer all of
Ukraine uh incorporated into a greater
Russia and then he would move on and
Conquer other countries this is the
conventional wisdom my view is there is
no evidence uh let me emphasize zero
evidence to support that argument which
part does he would the imperialist part
the sense that he would he sought to
conquer all of Ukraine and move on and
Conquer there's no evidence he was
interested in conquering all of Ukraine
there was no interested there's no
evidence beforehand that he was
interested in coning conquering any of
Ukraine and there's no way that an army
that had
190,000 troops at the
most right could have conquered curred
all of Ukraine just impossible as I like
to emphasize when the Germans went into
Poland in
1939 uh and the Germans you want to
remember were only intent on Conquering
the Western half of Poland because the
Soviets uh who came in later that month
were going to conquer the eastern half
of Poland so the Western half of Poland
is much smaller than Ukraine and the
Germans went in with 1.5 million troops
uh if uh Vladimir Putin were bent on
conquering all of Ukraine he would have
needed at least two million troops I
would argue he'd need three million
troops because not only do he need to
conquer the country you then have to
occupy it uh but the idea that 190,000
troops was sufficient for conquering uh
all of Ukraine is not a serious argument
furthermore he was not interested in
conquering Ukraine and that's why in
March 2020 2 this is immediately after
the war starts he is negotiating with
zalinsky to end the war there are
serious negotiations taking place in
Istanbul involving the Turks and Naf
Tali Bennett who was the Israeli Prime
Minister at the time was deeply involved
in negotiating with both Putin and
zalinski to end the war well if he was
interested Putin in conquering all of
Ukraine why in God's name would he be
negotiating with zinski to end the war
and of course what they were negotiating
about was NATO expansion into Ukraine
which was the principal cause of the war
uh people in the west don't want to hear
that argument because if it is true
which it is then the West is principally
responsible for this bloodbath that's
now taking place and of course the West
doesn't want to be principally
responsible it wants to blame Vladimir
Putin so we've invented this story out
of whole cloth that he is an aggressor
that he's the second coming of Adolf
Hitler and that what he did in Ukraine
was try to uh to conquer all of it and
he failed but uh with a little bit of
luck he probably would have conquered
all of it and he'd now be in the Baltic
states and eventually end up uh
dominating all of Eastern Europe as I
said I think there's no no evidence to
support this so maybe there's a lot of
things to ask there maybe just to linger
on NATO
expansion what is NATO
expansion what is the threat of NATO
expansion and why is it such a concern
for
Russia
NATO was a mortal enemy of the Soviet
Union during the Cold War it's a
military Alliance which has at its heart
the United States of America which is
the most powerful State on the planet
it is perfectly understandable that
Russia is not going to want that
military Alliance on its doorstep here
in the United States we have as you well
know what's called the Monroe Doctrine
and that basically says no great powers
from Europe or Asia are allowed to come
into our neighborhood and form a
military alliance with anybody in this
neighborhood uh when I was young there
was this thing called the Cuban Missile
Crisis the Soviets had the audacity to
put nuclear armed missiles in Cuba we
told them in no uncertain terms that
that was not acceptable and that those
missiles had to be removed this is our
backyard and we do not tolerate distant
great Powers coming into our
neighborhood well what's good for the
goose is good for the gander and if we
don't like great Powers coming into our
neighborhood it's hardly surprising that
the Russians did not want want NATO on
their doorstep uh they made that
manifestly clear um when the Cold War
ended and they exacted a promise from us
that we would not expand NATO and then
when we started expanding NATO they made
it clear after the first trunch in 1999
that they were profoundly unhappy with
that they made it clear in 2004 after
the second trunch that they were
profoundly happy with that
expansion and then in April 2008 when
NATO announced that uh Ukraine and
Georgia would become part of NATO they
made it unequivocally clear not just
Putin that that was not going to happen
they were drawing a Red Line in the Sand
and it is no accident that in August
2008 remember the Bucharest Summit is
April 2008 and August 2008 you had a war
between Georgia and Russia and that
involved at its core NATO expansion so
uh the Americans and their allies should
have understood by at least August 2008
that continuing to push to bring Ukraine
into NATO was going to lead to disaster
and I would note that there were all
sorts of people in the 1990s like George
Kennan William Perry who was Bill
Clinton's Secretary of Defense the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Paul Nitza and so forth and so on who
argued that NATO expansion would end up
producing a disaster which it has I
would note that uh at the famous April
2008 Bucharest Summit where NATO said
that Ukraine would be brought into the
alliance Angela Merkel and uh Nicholas
sarosi the German and French leaders
respectively opposed that decision
Angela Merkel later said that the reason
she opposed it was because she
understood that Putin would interpret it
as a declaration of war just think about
that Merkel is telling you that she
opposed NATO expansion into Ukraine
because she understood correctly that
Putin would see it as a declaration of
war what did the United States and its
friend in friends in Europe do they
continue to push and push because we
thought that we could push NATO
expansion down their throat after 2008
the same way we did in 1999 and 2004 but
we were wrong and it all blew up in our
face in
2014 and when it blew up in our face in
2014 what did we do did we back off and
say well maybe the Russians have some
legitimate security interest no that's
not the way we operate we continue to
Double Down
and the end result is that in 2022 you
got a war and as I've argued for a long
time now we the West are principally
responsible for that not Vladimir Putin
so the expansion of NATO is primarily
responsible yeah to put it in more
general terms what we were trying to do
was turn Ukraine into a western bulwark
on Russia's border and it really wasn't
NATO expansion alone NATO expansion was
the most important element of our
strategy but the strategy had two other
dimensions one was EU expansion and the
third was the color
Revolution we were trying to for orange
revolution in Ukraine and the basic goal
there was to turn Ukraine into a
pro-western liberal
democracy and that meant that you'd have
Ukraine if it worked a pro-western
liberal democracy that was in the EU and
that was in NATO this was our goal and
the Russians made it unequivocally clear
Ukraine was not going to become a
Western bullwark on their border and
most importantly they made it clear that
Ukraine in NATO was
unacceptable can we talk about the mind
of Vladimir Putin you've mentioned that
this idea that he has aspirations
for uh imperialist
Conquest that he dreams of Empire is not
grounded in reality he wrote an essay in
2021 about one
people do you think there is some degree
to
which he still dreams of the former
Soviet Union
reuniting no he's made it clear that uh
anybody with a a triple digit IQ
understands that it's nuts to think
about recreating the Soviet
Union he thinks it's a tragedy that the
Soviet Union fell apart but as he made
clear in that essay the July 12th 2021
essay and as he made clear in speeches
before immediately before he invaded
Ukraine he
accepted uh the breakup of the Soviet
Union and he accepted uh the status quo
in in Europe safe for the fact he did
not accept the idea that Ukraine would
become part of NATO he's been in power
for over two decades is there a degree
that power can
affect a Leader's ability to see the
world
clearly as they say
corrupt um do you think po has corrupted
of Vladimir Putin to a degree it's very
hard for me to answer that question
because I I don't know him and I've not
studied him carefully uh in terms of his
overall performance over the course of
you know the 23 years that he's been in
power um I've studied him as a
strategist and I've studied how he you
know deals with the West uh and you know
deals with the International System more
generally uh since 2014
and I think he is a first class
strategist this is not to say he doesn't
make
mistakes uh and he admits he's made some
mistakes uh U but uh I think that the
West is dealing with a formidable
adversary here uh and I don't see any
evidence that he's either lost speed off
his fast ball or that power has
corrupted his thinking about strategic
Affairs so he has consistently put as a
primary concern
security as does the United States he's
put for Russia security making sure that
NATO doesn't get close to its borders I
think that's clear yeah I I think as I
emphasized early on in our conversation
that leaders privilege security or
survival over everything else and by the
way he he gave a number of talks uh and
press
conferences uh in addition to writing
that famous article that you referred to
on July 12th 2021 so we have you know a
pretty clear record of what he was
saying and I would argue what he was
thinking in the runup to the war in
February
2022 and if you read uh what he said uh
it's quite clear that he privileged
security or survival he was deeply
concerned about the security of Russia
and Russia is a quite vulnerable state
in a lot of ways especially if you think
back to what it looked like in the 1990s
is you know better than I do uh it was
in terrible shape uh the Chinese talk
about the century of national
humiliation one could argue that for the
Russians that was the decade of national
humiliation and um and it took Putin I
think quite a bit of time to bring the
Russians back from the dead I think he
eventually succeeded but uh it took a
considerable amount of time and I think
he understood that he was not playing a
particularly strong hand he was playing
something of a weak hand and he had to
be very careful very cautious and I
think he was uh and I think that's very
different than the United States the
United States was the unipole it was the
most powerful state in the history of
the world most powerful State relative
to all its possible competitors from you
know roughly 1989 certainly after
December 1991 when the Soviet Union fell
apart up until I would argue about 2017
we were incredibly powerful and even
after
2017 up to today the United States
Remains the most powerful state in the
system and because of our geographical
location uh we are in a uh terrific
uh situation to survive in any great
power competition so uh you have a
situation involving the United States
that's different than the situation
involving Russia they're they're just
much more vulnerable uh than we are and
and therefore I think Putin tends to be
more sensitive about security uh than
any American president in recent Times
Europe on one side China on the other
side it's a complicated situation
yeah and we talked before about 1812
when Napoleon invaded and Moscow got
burned to the ground we talked about
World War I where the Russians were
actually defeated uh and surrendered uh
and then we talked about 1941 to 1945
where although thankfully uh the Soviets
prevailed uh it was uh it was a close
call and I mean the casualties the
destruction that the Soviet
Union uh had inflicted on it by the
Germans is just almost almost hard to
believe
just uh so they are sensitive you can
understand full well or at least you
should be able to understand full well
why the idea of bringing Ukraine up to
their border really spooked them uh I
don't understand why more Americans
don't understand that it just it it
befuddles me I think it to do with the
fact that Americans are not very good in
putting themselves in the shoes of other
countries uh and uh you really if if
you're going to be a first class
strategist in international politics you
have to be able to do that you have to
put yourself in the shoes of the other
side and think about how they think so
you don't make foolish mistakes and as a
starting point Americans tend to see
themselves as the good guys and a set of
others as the bad guys and you have to
be able to empathize that
Russians think of themselves as the good
guys the Chinese think of themselves as
the good guys and just be able to
empathize if they are the good guys it's
like that uh funny skit are we the
baddies consider the United States could
be the bad guys like first of all EMP
like see the world if the United States
is the bad guys and China is the good
guys what does that world look like be
able to just exist with that thought
because that is what the Chinese
leadership and many Chinese citizens uh
if not now maybe in the future will
believe and you have to kind of do the
calculation the simulation forward from
that and same with Russia same with with
other nations yeah I agree with you 100%
and just you know I always think of
Michael McFall at Stanford who was the
American ambassador to uh Russia I think
between 2012 and
2014 and uh he he told me that he told
Putin uh that Putin didn't have to worry
about NATO expansion because the United
States was a benign
hegemon and uh I asked Mike what Putin's
response was to that and uh Mike said
that Putin didn't believe it uh and uh
but Mike believed it he should believe
it and that we could move NATO Eastward
to include Ukraine and in the end we'
get away with it because we are a benign
heiman but the fact is that's not what
Putin saw Putin saw us as a malign
hedgemon and what Mike thinks or any
American thinks doesn't matter what
matters is what Putin thinks but also
the drums of War have been beating for
some reason NATO expansion has been
threatened for some reason so you've
talked about NATO expansion being
dead so like it doesn't make sense from
a geop political perspective on the
Europe side to expand NATO uh but
nevertheless that threat has been uh
echoed so um why has NATO expansion been
pushed from your perspective there are
two reasons one is first of all we
thought it was a wonderful thing uh to
bring more and more countries into NATO
we thought that it facilitated peace and
prosperity it was ultimately all for the
goodh um and uh we also thought that uh
uh countries like Ukraine had a right to
join NATO these are sovereign countries
that can decide for themselves and the
Russians have no say in what Ukraine
wants to do and then finally and uh this
is a point I emphasized before we were
very powerful and we thought we could
shove it down their throat so so it's a
combination of those factors that led us
to pursue what I think was ultimately uh
a foolish
policy we've talked about how Wars get
started how do you hope the war in
Ukraine ends what are the ways to end
this war what are the ways to achieve
peace there to uh end the
the I would say senseless
death of young men as always happens in
War I I'm sad to say I don't have a good
answer to that um I I don't think
there's any real Prospect of a
meaningful peace agreement I think it's
almost
impossible uh I I think the best you can
hope for uh at this point is it's some
some point the shooting stops you have a
ceasefire and then you have a frozen
conflict uh and that Frozen conflict uh
will not be highly stable uh and uh the
U ukrainians and the West will do
everything they can to weaken Russia's
position uh and the Russians will go to
Great Lengths to not only damage that
dysfunctional rum state that Ukraine
becomes but the Russians will go to
Great Lengths to so dissension within
the alliance and uh and that includes in
terms of transatlantic relations so
you'll have this
continuing security competition between
Russia on one side and Ukraine and the
West on the other even when you get a
frozen
peace uh and um or you get a frozen
conflict and uh and and and the
potential for escalation there will be
great uh so I think this is a disaster
that's a a very realist perspective let
me ask you sort of a the The Human Side
of it do you think there's some power to
leader sitting down having a
conversation man to man leader to leader
about this there's there there is just a
lot of death
happening it seems that from an economic
perspective from a historic perspec from
a human perspective both nations are
losing is is it possible for Vladimir
zalinski and and Vladimir Putin to sit
down and talk and
to uh figure out a way where uh the
security concerns are addressed and both
Nations can um minimize the amount of
suffering that's happening and and and
create a a path towards future
flourishing I think the answer is no
even with uh United States in d three
people in the room well I think you if
the United States is involved the answer
is definitely no you have to get the
Americans out uh and then I I think if
you have zinski and Putin talking you
know you have a sliver of a chance there
the Americans
are a real problem look let's go back to
what happens right after the war starts
okay as I said before this is we're
talking March early April of 2022 the
the war starts on February 24th
2022 and as I said to you uh the two
sides were negotiating in Aon buul and
they were also uh negotiating through
Neftali Bennett and the Bennett track
and the Turkish track were operating
together I mean they were not at Cross
purposes at
all what
happened Bennett tells the story very
clearly that they had made significant
progress in reaching an agreement this
is zalinski on one side and Putin on the
other Bennett is talking in person to
both Putin and uh
zalinski and what happens to produce
failure the answer is the United States
and Britain get involved and tells ziny
to walk they tell zalinsky to walk if
they had come in and encouraged zinski
to try to figure out a way with Putin to
shut this one down and worked with
Bennett and worked with
erdogan we might have been able to shut
the war down then but it was the United
States well let me sort of uh push back
on that you're you're you're correct but
so United States paints this like um
picture that everybody's aligned so I
maybe you can correct me but I believe
in the power of individuals especially
individual leaders again whether it's
Biden or Trump or whoever goes into a
room and says in a way that's convincing
that no more NATO
expansion and actually just on a basic
human
level ask the question of why are we
doing all this senseless
killing and look at the interest of one
Russia look at the interest of the other
Ukraine their interest are pretty simple
and say the United States is going to
stay out of this we're not going to
expand NATO and say all that in a way
that's convincing which is NATO
expansion is silly at this point china
is the big threat we're not going to do
this kind of uh conflict escalation with
Russia the Cold War is Over let's let's
uh normalize relations well let me just
embellish your argument okay thank
you did I need it if we say there's a
sliver of a chance that you can do this
and I do think there is a sliver of a
chance let me just embellish your point
Thank you need all the help I can get
two things have to be done here in my
opinion one is uh Ukraine has to become
neutral and it has to completely sever
all security ties with the West
right it's not like
uh you can say we're not going to expand
NATO to include Ukraine but we're going
to continue to have some loose security
arrangement with Ukraine none of that
has to be completely severed Ukraine has
to be on its own okay and number two
Ukraine has to accept the fact that the
Russians are going to keep the four
oblas that they've now annexed and
Crimea right the Russians are not going
to give them back and what you really
want to do if you're zalinski or who's
ever running Ukraine in this scenario
that we're positing is you want to make
sure the Russians don't take another
four oblas to include arke and Odessa
right if I'm playing Putin's hand and
this war goes on I'm thinking about
taking four more oblas I I want to take
about 43% of Ukraine and an exit to
Russia right and I certainly want Odessa
and I certainly want harke and I I want
the two ooss in between as well right
literally or as uh leverage in
negotiation no Ukraine neutrality I want
them literally uh I want to conquer them
literally uh but my point to you is if
we can begin to talk about cutting a
deal now you may be able to head that
kind of aggression off at the pass in
other words you may be able to limit
Putin and Russia to annexing the four
oblas that they've now annexed plus
Crimea that's the best I think you can
hope for but the point is you have to
get the ukrainians to accept that you
have to get the ukrainians to accept
becoming a truly neutral State and
conceding that the Russians keep a big
chunk of territory it's about 23% of
ukra Ian territory that they've
annexed and I find it hard to imagine
any Ukrainian leader agreeing to that
well there there there could be more
Nuance things like no military
involvement between the United States
and Ukraine but economic involvement
sort of uh financial
support So normalizing economic
relationships with Ukraine with Russia I
I think you could probably get away with
that I I think the the the tricky
question there that you would have
answer is what about EU expansion right
and I think EU expansion is probably a
no no for the Russians because most
people don't recognize this but there is
a military Dimension built into EU
expansion it's not purely an
economic uh Alliance uh or relationship
or institution whatever word you want to
use there's a military Dimension to that
and in the runup to the war War uh
actually in the runup to the 2014 crisis
when it first broke out uh the Russians
made it clear they saw EU expansion as a
stalking horse for NATO expansion so EU
expansion is tricky but I I think your
point of close economic relations
between uh or healthy economic relations
to use a better term between Ukraine and
the West is possible I I I think the
Russians have a vested interest in if if
it's a neutral Ukraine they have a
vested interest in that Ukraine
flourishing but that then brings us back
to the territorial issue right well so
do you believe it's possible for
individual human relations to counteract
the structural forces that you talk
about so meaning the
leaders being able to pick up the phone
and make agreements that are good for
Humanity as a whole and for their
individual nations in the long term I
think leadership matters here
uh I mean one of the real problems here
is that there's no trust and on the
Russian side and that has to do with the
Minsk agreements um the uh uh the Minsk
agreements uh which were designed to
shut down the Civil
War uh in eastern Ukraine in the
donbass um really mattered to the
Russians and there were four players
involved in the uh uh the mince process
uh four main players Russia and Ukraine
of course and then Germany and
France and uh I believe the Russians
took the Minsk Accords seriously uh I
believe Putin took them very seriously
he wanted to shut down that
conflict um and uh Angela Merkel franois
Holland he was the French leader and
penko who was the Ukrainian leader those
were the three key players besides Putin
again Holan from France Merkel from
Germany and penko from Ukraine have all
explicitly said they were not seriously
interested in reaching an agreement in
all of the discussions with Putin they
were bamboozling him they were trying to
trick him so that they would buy time to
build up Ukraine's military uh Putin is
profoundly upset about these admissions
by these three leaders he believes he
was fooled into thinking that mince
could work he believes that he
negotiated in good faith and they did
not and he believes that the level of
trust now between Russia uh and the West
is virtually zero as a result of this
experience over Minsk I only bring this
up because it cuts against your argument
that leaders could pick up the phone and
talk to each other and trust each other
at least somewhat uh to work out a
meaningful deal if you're Putin at this
point in time trusting the West is not
an idea it's going to be very attractive
at all in fact you're going to distrust
anything they say yeah distrust anything
the West say but there is individual
humans the way human nature works is
when you sit in the cross from a person
you can trust a human being while still
distrusting the West I mean I I I
believe in the power of that I I think
with the right leaders you can sit down
and talk like over override the general
structural distrust of the West and say
you know what I like this guy or gal
whatever I do hope zilinski and Putin
sit down together and talk have multiple
talks just remember they were doing that
in March and the Americans came in and
the British came in yeah and they
scotched a potential
deal
well uh the other beautiful thing about
human nature there's forgiveness and
there's uh trying again when you're the
leader of a country in an anarchic
system you have to be very careful not
to let uh your trust in a foreign leader
take you too far because if that foreign
leader betrays you or betrays your trust
and stabs you in the back you could die
and again you want to remember that the
principal responsibility of any leader I
don't care what country it is is to to
ensure the survival of their state and
that means that you know trust is only
going to buy you so much and when you've
already
betrayed the trust of a leader uh you
really are not going to be able to rely
on trust very much to help you moving
forward now you disagree with that I
hope you're right and if they can shut
down the Ukraine Russia War uh it would
be wonderful if if I'm proved dead wrong
uh that would be wonderful news uh
my my prediction that this war is going
to go on for a long time and
uh and end in an ugly way is a
prediction that I don't like it all uh
so I hope I'm wrong you wrote that many
in the west believe that the best hope
for ending the Ukraine Wars to remove
Vladimir Putin from power but you argue
that uh this is is in the
case can you explain well a lot of
people thought when uh they were having
all that trouble the Russians were
having all that trouble with progan and
the Vagner group that Putin was
vulnerable and was likely to be
overthrown and what would happen is uh a
peaceloving leader would replace Putin
uh I made two points at the time and I
would make those same two points now
number one he's not
likely to be
overthrown he was not likely then to be
overthrown uh and I think you know as
long as his health holds up I think he
will remain in power my second point is
if he doesn't remain in power and he's
replaced I would bet a lot of money that
his replacement will be more hawkish and
more Hardline than Putin is uh I
actually think one could argue that
Putin was too trusting of the West
before the war
started uh and number two I think one
could argue that he has not waged the
war against Ukraine as vigorously as one
might have
expected uh he was slow to mobilize the
nation for War uh and he has pursued a
limited war in all sorts of ways the
Israelis for example have killed more
civilians in Gaza in one month than the
Russians have killed over 18 months in
Ukraine the idea that Vladimir Putin is
waging a punishment campaign and killing
on purpose large numbers of civilians
it's simply not true uh all of this is
to say that uh I would imagine that if
Putin leaves office and someone else
comes in to replace him that someone
else will be at least if not more
Hardline than him in terms of waging the
war and certainly will not trust the
West any more than he
has by way of advice let me ask you if I
were to have a conversation interview
Vladimir Putin and zalinski individually
what should I ask them if you me and
Vladimir Putin are having a chat what
are
good ideas to explore what are good
questions to ask what are good things to
say onor off the mic once again that
could
potentially even slightly lessen the
Mount of suffering in the world caused
by this war oh I think if you get an
interview with Vladimir Putin there's
just all sorts of questions you could
ask him and my sense is that Putin is a
straight shooter uh he's also very
knowledgeable about history and he has
simple theories in his head about how
the world works and I think he would
level with you and all you would have to
do is just you know figure out what all
the right questions are and that would
not be hard to do right uh you know you
could ask him why was he so foolish this
is for for example why was he so foolish
is to uh uh trust uh poreno Holland and
Merkel uh in the Minsk
Accords uh you know why after his famous
talk at munic in 2007 where he made it
clear that he was so unhappy with the
West uh did he continue uh to you know
in a very important way trust the West
why didn't he mobilize uh the Russian
military before late September
2022 uh you know once the negotiations
that we were talking about before uh
involving
istanbull uh and uh Naf Tali Ben and
once they broke down you know why didn't
he immediately mobilize more of the
Russian population to fight the war just
all sorts of questions like that and
then you could ask them questions about
you know where uh he sees this one
headed uh what's the best strategy for
Russia uh if the ukrainians will not
agree to neutrality right you know
people like John mirer say you'll
probably take uh close to half of
Ukraine is that true does it make sense
to take
Odessa and John mimer also has questions
about
China your future relationships with
China yeah I mean one really important
question that I would ask him is if the
United States had basically not driven
you into the arms of the Chinese if
there had been no war over Ukraine and
the United States had and its European
allies had gone to considerable length
to create some sort of security
architecture in Europe uh that resulted
in you Vladimir Putin having good
relations with Ukraine what would your
relations with China be uh
and uh you know how would you think
about that uh so there there are just
plenty of questions uh you could ask
him well hope Burns Eternal in my heart
I think probably in Putin's heart and
zelinsky's heart I
hope cuz hope is uh the leap of trust
that we've talked about I think is
necessary for deescalation and for peace
well you realize I have from the
beginning argued
for different policies that were all
designed to prevent this war from ever
happening yes I don't know if you know
this but in 1993 I argued that Ukraine
should keep its nuclear weapons I was
probably the only person in the west who
made that argument and my argument in
1993 this is in foreign affairs was that
there may come the day when Russia
thinks about invading Ukraine and should
that day come it would be very helpful
for prev venting War if Ukraine had
nuclear weapons so military might is
essential for maintaining a balance of
power and peace well if you're
interested in deterring an adversary if
I'm worried about you coming after me
the best way to deter you is to have
military might and if you're Russia and
I'm Ukraine I'm far weaker than you yeah
right and having a nuclear deterrent
would be very effective at convincing
you not to attack me because if you
attack me you're threatening my survival
and that's the one circumstance where it
is
likely that I would use nuclear weapons
to defend myself and given the
consequences of nuclear use you would be
reluctant in the extreme to attack me so
that's why I argued in 93 that if
Ukraine kept its nuclear weapons that
made War down the road much less likely
and I believe I was correct and in fact
Bill Clinton who played the key role in
forcing Ukraine to give up its nuclear
weapons now says he has said it publicly
you can find it on YouTube that he made
a mistake doing that furthermore I
argued in
2014 that it made eminently good sense
not to continue to push to bring Ukraine
into NATO because the end result is that
Ukraine would be destroyed and Ukraine
is being destroyed so I was deeply
interested at the time in making sure
that that didn't happen for the good of
the ukrainians not to mention because
stability in Europe is a net positive
for almost everybody involved but people
did not listen to me then either how do
nuclear weapons change the calculus of
offensive realism because of mutually
assured destruction I mean it's not just
military might it's just so
destructive that you basically can't use
nuclear weapons
unless you want complete destruction
there's no question that the presence of
nuclear weapons makes it much less
likely I'm choosing my words carefully
here much less likely that a great power
would aggress against another great
power it doesn't take that possibility
off the table but it makes it much less
likely because of the reasons that you
articulated uh but with regard to
nuclear use
it's an interesting question how you
think about nuclear use in a mad world I
mean your point that we're in a mad
world is that that's mad Capital mad as
well as mad small letters but let's
stick to the capital letters we're in a
world of mutual assured destruction uh
there's no question that in that
World um uh it's uh unlikely that
nuclear weapons would be used but the
way you use nuclear weapons in that
world is you use them uh for
manipulation to risk purposes
demonstration of fact you you put both
sides out on the slippery slope now what
exactly am I saying here let me talk
about NATO Doctrine during the Cold War
we lived in a Mad World United States
and Soviet Union or The warsa Pact in
NATO both had an assured destruction
capability so you had mutual assured
destruction if the warsa pact were to
invade Western Europe and here we're
talking about West
Germany uh and NATO was losing the war
we said that we would use nuclear
weapons how would we use nuclear weapons
given that we were in a Mad World the
argument was that we would use a handful
of nuclear weapons against the warsa PCT
not through not necessarily against
their military forces
could be in a remote area we would use a
small number of nuclear weapons mhm to
signal to the Soviets that we were
deadly serious about putting an end to
their
offensive uh and that we were throwing
both sides out on the slippery slope to
Oblivion in other words we were
manipulating risk and the last clear
chance to avoid Armageddon rested with
them and then we would tell them that if
you retaliated with a handful of nuclear
weapons and you didn't cease your
offensive against West Germany we would
launch a small another nuclear attack we
would uh explode a handful more of
nuclear weapons all for the purposes of
showing you our resolve right so this is
the manipulation of risk strategy in lot
of the language I just used in
describing it to you is language that
Thomas shelling invented right now fast
forward to the present if Russia were
you losing in Ukraine that's the one
scenario I think where Russia would have
used nuclear weapons and the question is
how would Russia have used nuclear
weapons again we're assuming that the
Russians are losing to the ukrainians I
believe they would have pursued a
manipulation risk strategy they would
have used four or five 30 or4 who knows
nuclear weapons maybe just one in a
rural area that kills very few people
yes exactly and basically that would
spook everybody the Americans just the
mushroom cloud yeah the it's because of
the threat of escalation right again you
your point is we're in a mad world I
accept that and if you have limited
nuclear use right we understand hard ly
anything about nuclear escalation
because thank goodness we've never had a
nuclear war so once you throw both sides
out on the slippery slope even if you
only use one nuclear weapon in your
scenario you don't know what the
escalation Dynamics look like so
everybody has a powerful incentive to
put an end to the conflict right away I
might add to you that there were people
who believed that we would not even
initiate a manipulation of risk strategy
in Europe if we were losing to the warsa
pack during the Cold War both Henry
Kissinger and Robert mcnamar said after
leaving office that they would not have
done it they would have not initiated
nuclear use even limited nuclear that's
what we're talking about here they would
rather be red than dead right that was
is the argument too risky too risky
that's exactly right but if they had
used one nuclear weapon in your story or
three or four in my
story everybody would have said oh my
God we've got to shut this one down
immediately I only tell you this story
or lay out this scenario be as an answer
to your question of how you use nuclear
weapons in a mad world and this is the
answer I this is all very terrifying uh
perhaps in part it's terrifying to me
because I can see in the 21st
century China
Russia Israel United States using a
nuclear weapon in this
way blowing it up somewhere in the
middle of nowhere that kills maybe
nobody but I'm terrified of seeing the
mushro cloud and not
knowing what you know given social media
given how fast news travels what the
escalation looks like there just you
know in in in a in a matter of minutes
how the news travels and how the leaders
react it's terrifying that this this
little
demonstration of
power um the Ripple effects of it in a
matter of minutes seconds what that
leads to because it's like it's human
emotions it's like you you see the
landscape of human emotions the leaders
and the populace and the and the way
news are reported and then the landscape
of risk as you mentioned shifting like
the world's most intense nonlinear
dynamical
system and it it is just terrifying
because the the the entirety of human
civilizations hangs in the balance there
and it's like like
this like hundreds of millions of people
could be dead let's just talk about this
in the context of the Ukraine war
um if uh if the Russians were losing as
I said before which is not the case
anymore but in 2022 it it did look like
that um if the Russians are losing and
they turn to nuclear weapons the
question is how do they use them and
they would use them in
Ukraine and because Ukraine has no
nuclear weapons of its own Ukraine
cannot retaliate it's not a mutual
assured destruction world it's a case
where one side has nuclear weapons and
the other doesn't that means that the
Russians are likely to think that they
can get away with using nuclear weapons
in ways that would not be the case if
they were attacking NATO and therefore
it makes nuclear use more likely okay
that's point one point two is let's
assume that the Russians use two or
three nuclear weapons in a remote area
sweating by the way just just as a
commentary the question terrifying yeah
the question then is what does the West
do now macron has said and Biden has
also I think implicitly made this clear
we would not retaliate with nuclear
weapons if the Russians were to attack
with a handful of nuclear weapons in
Western
Ukraine but then the question is what
would we do mhm
and if you listen to David Petraeus what
David Petraeus says is that we should
attack the Russian naval Assets in the
Black
Sea and attack Russian forces in
Ukraine well once you do that you have a
great power War you have NATO versus
Russia which is another way of saying
you have the United States versus Russia
we're now in a great power War they have
no nuclear weapons we have nuclear
weapons they've used nuclear weapons
what is the happy ending here and just
to take it a step further and go back to
our earlier discussion about moving NATO
up to Russia's borders the point I made
which you surely agree with is that the
Russians are very fearful when they see
NATO coming up to their border well
here's a case where not only is NATO
come up to their border but they're in a
war with NATO
right on their
border what do the escalation Dynamics
look like there you know what the answer
is who knows that should scare the
living but Jesus out of you right and
some of it could be like you mentioned
unintended there could be unintended
consequences there could be a Russian
missile misses and hits
Poland these kinds of things that just
escalate
misunderstandings
miscommunications even uh I mean nuclear
weapon could be boy it could have been
planned to go location X and it went to
a location y that ended up actually
killing a very large number of people I
mean uh
just that the the escalation that
happens there just happens in in a
matter of minutes and the only way to
stop that is communication between
leaders and that to me is a big argument
for ongoing communication you know this
is a story that during the Cuban Missile
Crisis um Kennedy put out the word uh no
aircraft uh under any circumstances or
to penetrate Soviet airspace yeah yeah
and he then found out a few days later
that uh some guy hadn't gotten the
message and had penetrated in an
aircraft deep in to Soviet airspace yeah
and uh this supports your basic point
that you know you know uh bad things
happen and uh and again the overarching
point here is we've never done this
before thankfully therefore we don't
have a lot of experience as to how it
plays itself out uh it it's really a
theoretical Enterprise because there's
no empirical basis for talking about
escalation uh you know in a nuclear
crisis and that of course is a wonderful
thing well in general the uh the human
spe species as a whole is a is a oneoff
is a theoretical Enterprise the survival
of the human species you know we've seen
Empires rise and fall but we haven't
seen the human species rise and fall so
far it's been rising but uh it's not
obvious that it doesn't end in fact I
think about aliens a lot and the fact
that we don't see aliens makes me
suspect it's not so easy to survive in
this complicated world of ours Switching
gears a little bit and going to a
different part of the
world also engulfed in
war let me ask you about the uh
situation in Israel uh why did Hamas
attack Israel on October 7th 2023 as you
understand the
situation what was the reason that
attack
happened well I think the main reason
was that you had this suffocating
occupation I think as long as the
occupation persists the Palestinians are
going to
resist uh as you well know this is not
the first time there has been a
Palestinian Uprising there was the first
inata there was the second inata now
there's October 7th and they're
uprisings besides those three uh so this
is not terribly
surprising uh a lot of people
hypothesized that uh this attack was due
to the fact that uh the Israelis the
Saudis and the Americans were working
together to Foster another Abraham
Accord uh and that the Palestinians
would in effect be sold down the river
uh I think given the fact that this was
in the planning stages for probably
about two years uh and the Abraham
Accords with regard to Saudi Arabia are
relatively new phenomenon I don't think
that's uh the main driving force here I
think the main driving force is that the
Palestinians uh feel oppressed as they
should and that this was a a resistance
move they were resisting the Israeli
occupation so that
resistance the attack involved killing a
large number of Israeli
civilians there's many questions ask
there but one is do you think Hamas
fully understood what the retaliation
will involve from Israel into
Gaza they had to understand I
mean you had you know operation castled
in
200 uh 8 2009 it started I think right
after Christmas 20 8 and it ended right
before President Obama took office uh in
January 2009 and
uh the Israelis periodically do what
they call mowing the lawn where they go
into Gaza and they pound the
Palestinians uh to remind them that
they're not supposed to rise up and
cause any problem uh
so there's no question in my mind that
the uh the Hamas forces understood full
well that the Israelis would retaliate
and they would retaliate in force as
they have done yeah even the metaphor of
Mo the lawn is disturbing to me in many
ways I actually
saw uh Norman filastine I think say that
well then if you use that metaphor then
you could say that Hamas was also the
lawn and it's such a
horrific image because the result on
either side is just the death of
civilians I mean let me ask you about
the death of civilians so during the
attack 1400 Israelis were
killed over 240 were taken hostage and
then in response as we sit
today uh Israel's military response has
killed over 10,000 people in Gaza and
given the nature of the demographics
it's it's a very heavily young
population over 40% of them are under
the age of 18 of those killed that's uh
of course according to Ministry of
Health of Palestinian
Authority so what do you think is a
long-term effect on the prospect of
Peace when so many civilians
die I mean I think it's disastrous
U uh I mean
the only way you're going to get peace
here uh is if you have a two-state
solution um where the Palestinians have
a sovereign state of their own and there
is a sovereign Jewish State uh and these
two states live side by side American
Presidents since Jimmy Carter have
understood this full well and this is
why we have pushed very hard for
two-state solution indeed many American
Jews and many Israelis have pushed for a
two-state solution because they think
that that is the only way you're going
to get uh peace uh between the two sides
uh but what's happened here is that in
recent years the Israelis have lost all
interest in a two-state solution uh and
it's in large part because the political
center of gravity in Israel has steadily
moved to the right uh when I was a young
boy uh the political Center of GRA
in Israel was much further to the left
than it is today and uh it is in uh it
is in a position now the political
center of gravity where there's hardly
any support for two-state solution and
Netanyahu and the rest of the people in
his government were in favor or are in
favor of a greater Israel this just no
question about
that
well on top of that you now have had a
war where as you
described huge numbers of civilians have
been killed and you already had bad
blood between the Palestinians and the
Israelis before this
conflict uh and you can imagine how
people on each side now feel about
people on the other side so even if you
didn't have this opposition inside
Israel to a two-state solution
how could you possibly get the Israelis
now to agree to a two-state solution I
think for the foreseeable future the
animosity inside Israel towards the
Palestinians is so great that it is
impossible to move the Israelis in that
direction and the Israelis here are the
key players more so than the
Palestinians because it's the Israelis
who control greater Israel it's the
Israelis who you have to convince now I
want to be clear here you also
ultimately have to get around the fact
that Hamas right is not committed to a
two State solution but I think that
problem could be dealt with it's
important to understand that Arafat and
the PLO was once adamantly opposed to a
two-state solution but Arafat came
around to understand that that was
really the only hope for settling this
and he became a proponent of a two-state
solution and that's true of makhmud
Abbas who runs the PA in the West
Bank it's not true of Hamas at this
point in time they want a one- state
solution they want a Palestinian State
and of course the Israelis want a
one-state solution too which is a Jewish
state that controls all of um all of
Greater
Israel so the question is can you get
some sort of agreement and I think to
get to your the nub of your question
given what's just happened uh it's it's
almost impossible to imagine that
happening anytime soon the cynical
perspective here is that uh those in
power benefit from conflict while the
people on both sides suffer is there a
degree of Truth to that or for the
people in power to maintain power
conflict needs to continue no I I don't
believe that I mean just to take the
Netanyahu government or any Israeli
government that maintains uh the
occupation what you want is you want a
Palestinian population that submits to
Israeli domination of Greater Israel you
don't want resistance you don't want an
inada you don't want what happened on
October 7th in fact I think one of the
principal reasons that the Israelis are
pounding Gaza and killing huge numbers
of civilians punishing the civilian
population in ways that clearly violate
the laws of war is because they want the
Palestinians to understand that they are
not allowed to rise up and resist the
occupation that's their goal so I think
the Israelis would prefer that the
Palestinians roll over and accept
submission in terms of the people who
live in Gaza to include the elites and
the people who live in the West Bank to
include the elites they would much
prefer to move to some sort of situation
where uh the Palestinians have a state
of their own I think in the case of the
pa uh under abas they would accept a
two-state solution I think what at this
point in time Hamas wants is a one-state
solution but they want peace all of them
want peace um you know the two different
sets of leadership in Palestine and the
Israelis so you think Hamas wants peace
sure but on its own terms that's the
point what does peace look like like for
Hamas at this point in time I think
peace basically means a greater Israel
controlled by Palestine or
Palestinians okay so essentially I mean
it's the whole land is called Palestine
and there's no Israel I think at this
point in time that's their principal
goal I do believe and there have been
hints over time Jimmy Carter has said
this that Hamas can be convinced that a
two-state solution assuming that the
Palestinians get a viable
uh state of their own that Hamas would
buy into that can we say that with a
high degree of certainty no but I think
I think the Israelis should have pursued
that possibility they should have worked
with abas they should have worked with
Hamas to do everything they can to
facilitate a two-state solution because
I think ultimately that's in Israel's
interest now the Israeli government and
most Israelis at this point in time I
believe don't agree with that what do
you think of Israel starting the ground
invasion of Gaza recently on October
27th the question
is uh should they
continue uh until they have finally
defeated
Hamas uh there are all sorts of reports
in the media including in the Israeli
media that they're not going to be
allowed by the United States to continue
this
offensive uh for much more than a few
weeks um the Israelis have been saying
it would it's going to take in in the
best of all possible worlds a number of
months if not a year to finish off Hamas
well it doesn't look like they're going
to have enough time to do that I doubt
whether they can finish off Hamas even
if they're given the time uh I think
they're going to run into Fierce
resistance
uh and when they run into Fierce
resistance and large numbers of Israelis
going to die start to die uh they'll
lose their appetite for this and they
the Israelis surely know at this point
in time that even if they finish off
Hamas even if I'm wrong and they're able
to finish off Hamas another group is
going to rise up to uh resist the
occupation the idea that you can use
what Z Yaba insky called the Iron Wall
to beat the Palestinians into submission
is delusional it's just not going to
happen the Palestinians want a state of
their own they don't want to live under
occupation and uh there's no military
solution for Israel here there has to be
a political solution and the only viable
political solution is a two-state
solution I mean you can't go to
democracy you can't go to a situation
where you give the Palestinians equal
rights inside a greater Israel in large
part because there are
now as many Palestinians as there are
Israeli Jews and over time the balance
the demographic balance shifts against
the Israeli Jews and in favor the
Palestinians in which case you'll end up
with a Palestinian state in Greater
Israel so you know democracy for all
doesn't work uh the Israelis I believe
are quite interested in ethnic cleansing
I think they saw this um uh this recent
set of events as an opportunity to
cleanse Gaza but that's not going to
happen uh the jordanians and the
Egyptians have made it clear that that's
not happening the United States has now
made it clear that that's not happening
and and the Palestinians will not leave
uh they'll die in place uh so uh ethnic
cleansing doesn't work so you're really
left with two Alternatives a two-state
solution or a greater Israel that is
effectively an apartheid state I mean
that's what the occupation has led to
and all sorts of people have been
predicting this for a long long time and
you've now reached the point you know
here in the United States if you say
that Israel is an apartheid state that's
going to get you into all sorts of
trouble but the fact is that Human
Rights Watch Amnesty International and
betum which is the leading Israeli Human
Rights group all three of those
institutions or organizations have
issued detailed reports making the case
that Israel is an apartheid state
furthermore if you read the Israeli
media right all sorts of Israelis
including Israeli
leaders refer to Israel as an apartheid
state it's it's not that unusual to hear
that term used in Israel this is
disaster for Israel in my opinion and
Steve Walt and I said this by the way
when we wrote the Israel Lobby that
Israel is an aparte state which is
equivalent to Israel as an occupier uh
is not good for Israel uh and that
brings us back to the two-state solution
but as you and I were talking about a
few minutes ago it's hard to see how you
get a two-state
solution and the end result of this
conversation is utter despair
because the path to a two-state solution
is blocked by the amount of um hate
that's created by civilian deaths so
that plus the fact that the Israeli
government uh is filled with people uh
who have no interest in a two-state
solution they're
ideologically deeply committed to a
greater Israel they want all the land
between the Jordan River and the
Mediterranean Sea to
be part of a Jewish state they're just
ideologically committed to that and uh
and of course as we were talking about
before with regard to Hamas Hamas wants
everything between the river and the sea
to be a Palestinian State and you know
when you have two sides with those kinds
of views right um um you're in deep
trouble because there's little room for
compromise so what you have to do to get
this to work is you have to convince the
Israelis that it's in their interest to
have a two-state solution and you have
you've already taken care of the PA on
this front the Palestinian Authority but
you've got to convince Hamas that it's
uh its maximalist goals are are not
going to work and it's in its interest
uh to follow in the footsteps of Arafat
and accept a two-state solution but uh
even if you do that at this point let's
say that you know there's a lot of
willing inness uh intellectually on both
sides to do that the problem is that the
hatred that has been fueled by this
recent con uh this ongoing conflict is
so great that it's just hard to imagine
how you can make a two-state solution
work at this juncture uh that's why I've
sort of taken to saying and I hope I'm
wrong here that you know on the
two-state solution uh that that boat has
sailed it's just you know it's no longer
possible well again I believe in
leadership and there's other parties at
play here Other Nations Jordan Saudi
Arabia other other players in the m in
the Middle East that could help that
could help through a normalization of
relationships and these kinds of things
there's there's always hope like you
said Slither of Hope Slither of hope I
think human civilization progresses
forward by taking advantage of the all
the slyther it can get uh let me ask you
about you mentioned the Israel Lobby you
wrote a book probably your most
controversial book on the topic not
probably clearly the most controversial
book I ever wrote so you've uh
criticized the Israel Lobby in the
United States for influencing US
policy um in the Middle East can you
explain what the Israel Lobby is their
influence and your
criticism over the past let's say a
couple
decades well the argument that Steve
Walt and I made actually we wrote an
article first and uh which appeared in
the London Review of Books uh and then
we wrote the book
itself uh our argument is that the lobby
is a loose Coalition of individuals and
organizations uh that push American
policy in a pro-israel
direction uh and uh basically the lobby
is interested in getting Israel excuse
me getting the United States and here
we're talking mainly about the American
government to support Israel no matter
what Israel does and our argument is
that if you look at the relationship
between the United States and Israel
it's unprecedented in modern history uh
this is the closest relationship that
you can find between any two countries
in recorded history it's truly amazing
the extent to which Israel and the
United States are joined at the Hep and
we support Israel no matter what almost
all the time uh and uh our argument is
that that is largely due to the
influence of the lobby the lobby is uh
an extremely powerful interest group now
it's very important to understand that
the American political system is set up
in ways that allow interest groups of
All Sorts to wield great influence so in
the United States you have an interest
group or a Lobby like the National Rifle
Association that makes it well n
impossible to get gun control right uh
and so with the Israel Lobby you have
this group of individuals and
organizations that wield enormous
influence on US policy toward the Middle
East and this
is not surprising given the nature of
the American political system uh so our
argument is that the lobby is not doing
anything that's illegal or illicit or
immoral or unethical it's just a good
old-fashioned American interest group
and it just happens to be extremely
powerful
and our argument is that this is not
good for the United States because no
two countries have the same interests
all the time and when our interests
conflict with Israel's interests we
should be able to do what we think is in
our national interest in America's
national interest but the lobby tends to
conflate America's national interests
with Israel's National interest and
wants the United States to support
Israel no matter what we also argue and
I cannot emphasize this enough given
what's going on in the world today that
the
lobbies effects the lobby has not
been pushing policies that are in
Israel's interests so our argument is
that the lobby right the lobby pushes
policies that are not in America's
interest or not in Israel's interest now
you're saying to yourself what exactly
does he mean by that
what every president since Jimmy Carter
has tried to do as I said before is to
foster a two-state solution to push
Israel which is the dominant
player in Greater Israel push Israel to
accept the two-state solution and we
have run into huge resistance from the
lobby whenever we tried to let's be
blunt about it co Israel right in a
perfect world where there was no Lobby
and an American president was free to
put pressure on Israel to coers Israel I
believe we would have gone a long way
towards getting two-state solution and I
believe this would have been in Israel's
interest uh but we couldn't get a
two-state solution because it was almost
impossible to put meaningful pressure on
Israel because of the lobby so this was
not in Israel's interest and it was not
in America's interest and that was the
argument that we made and uh we of
course got huge push back for making
that argument what's the underlying
motivation of the lobby is it religious
in nature is it um similar to the way
warhawks are sort of militaristic in
nature is it nationalistic in nature
what what's uh if you were to describe
this loose Coalition of people what what
would you say is their motivation well
first of all I think you have to
distinguish between Jews and Christians
you want to remember that there are a
huge number of Christian zionists who
are deeply committed to Israel no matter
what right and then there are a large
number of Jews the Jews are obviously
the most important of those two groups
in the Israel lobby but you know one of
the arguments that we made in the book
is that you should not call it the
Jewish Lobby because it's not populated
just by Jews and Christian zionists are
an important part of that life lobby but
furthermore there are a good number of
Jews who are opposed to the lobby uh and
the policies that the lobby perve and
there are uh a number of Jews who are
prominent
anti-zionists right so and they're
obviously not in the lobby or or if you
take a group like Jewish voice for peace
right Jewish voice for peace is not in
the lobby so it's wrong to call it a
Jewish Lobby but with regard to the
American Jews who were in that Lobby uh
I I think that really this is all about
nationalism it's not so much religion
many of those Jews who are influential
in the lobby are not religious in any
meaningful sense of that term but they
self-identify as Jewish in in in the
sense that they feel they're part of a
Jewish nation and that in addition to
being an American right are part of this
tribe this nation called Jews and that
they have a
responsibility um to push the United
States in ways that
support uh the Jewish state so I I think
that's what drives most if not almost
all the Jews this is not to say there's
not a religious dimension for some of
them but I think that the the main
connection is much more tribal in nature
so I had a conversation with Benjamin
Yahoo and he said fundamentally if
you're anti-zionist you're
anti-semitic so the the the Zionist
project is tied at the hip to the Jewish
project what do you have to say to that
look you can Define
anti-Semitism any way you want right and
you can Define anti-Semitism to
incorporate anti-an
ISM uh and uh I think we have reached
the point where
anti-Semitism is identified today not
just with anti-zionism but with
criticism of Israel if you criticize
Israel people will say some people will
say you're an
anti-semite and if that's your
definition of
anti-semitism it's taken an important
term and stretched it to the point where
it's
meaningless right so when Steve and I
wrote the book uh wrote the article and
then wrote the book all sorts of people
said that we were anti-semites this is a
ludicrous charge but what they meant was
you're criticizing the lobby you're
criticizing Israel and therefore you're
an
anti-semite okay if that's what an
anti-semite is somebody who criticizes
Israel you know probably half the Jewish
Community if not more in the United
States is anti-Semitic and of course you
get into all these crazy games where
people are calling Jews self-hating Jews
and anti-semites because they're
critical of Israel but even people who
are anti-zionists I don't think they're
anti-semitic at all uh you can argue
they're misguided that's fine but uh
many of these people are Jewish and
proud of the fact that they're Jewish
they just don't believe that nationalism
and Jewish nationalism is a force that
should be applauded and you want to
understand that in the American context
there is a rich tradition of anti-
Zionism right and these were not people
who were anti-semites if you go back to
the 30s 40s 50s and the same thing was
even true in Europe there were all sorts
of European Jews who were opposed to
Zionism were they anti-semites I don't
think so but we've gotten to the point
now where people are so interested in
stopping any criticism of Israel that
they wield this weapon of uh calling
people anti-semites uh so uh Loosely
that uh the term has kind of lost
meaning so I I think Netanyahu is is
wrongheaded to equate uh anti-zionism
with anti-Semitism Alan dtz was one of
the people that call you specifically
anti-semitic um so
just looking at the space of
discourse how do
you where's this Slither of Hope for
healthy discourse about us relationships
with
Israel
um between you and Alan dtz and others
like him well I think until there is a
settlement of the Israeli Palestinian
conf conflict there's no hope of putting
an end to this nonsense right so these
are just uses of terms to kind of cheat
your way through the through the
discourse it's shortcut no it's the
silence people right it's very very
important to understand that one of the
lobb's principal goals is to make sure
we don't have an open discourse a free
willing discourse about Israel because
they understand people in the lobby
understand that if you have an open
discourse Israel will end up looking
very bad right you don't want to talk
about the occupation you don't want to
talk about how Israel was created right
all all these subjects are ones that uh
will cause problems for Israel see just
to go to the present crisis okay when
you have a
disaster and what happened on October
7th is a disaster one of the first
things that happens is that people begin
to ask the question how did this happen
right what's the root cause of this
problem this is a disaster we have to
understand what caused it so that we can
work to uh to make sure it doesn't
happen again so we can work to shut it
down and then make sure it doesn't
happen again but once you start talking
about the root causes right you end up
talking about how Israel was created
right and that means telling a story
that is not pretty about how the
zionists conquered
Palestine uh and number two it means
talking about the occupation right it's
not like uh Hamas attacked on October
7th because there were just a bunch of
anti-semites who hated Jews and wanted
to kill Jews this is not you know Nazi
Germany right this is directly related
to the occupation and to what was going
on inside of Gaza and it's not in
Israel's interest or the Lobby's
interest to have an open discourse about
what the Israelis have been doing to the
Palestinians since I would say roughly
1903 when the second alah came to Israel
or came to what was then Palestine right
want to talk about that and we don't
want to talk about from the Lobby's
point of view the influence that the
lobby has right uh it's better from the
Lobby's point of view if most Americans
think that uh American support of Israel
is just done for all the right moral and
strategic reasons not because of the
lobby and when John mirer and Steve Walt
come along and say you have to
understand that this special
relationship is due in large part to the
Lobby's influence that is not an
argument that uh people in the lobby
want to hear so the point is you have to
go to Great Lengths for all these
reasons you have to go to Great Lengths
to silence people like me and Steve Walt
and one of the ways to do that is to
call us anti-semites I think the chapter
or the section of the book where we talk
about this charge of anti-Semitism is
called the Great silencer that's what we
call the charge of anti-Semitism the
great silencer who wants to be called an
anti-semite especially in the wake of
the Holocaust do I want to be called
called an anti-semite oh my God no uh
and uh so it's very effective but you
know it is important to talk about these
issues in my humble opinion and I think
if we had talked about these issues uh
way back
when it would have gone a long way
towards uh you know maybe getting a
two-state solution which I think was the
best alternative here it it's
complicated and I I wonder if you can
comment on the complexity of this
because criticizing Israel and you know
criticizing the
lobby can
um for a lot of people be a dog whistle
for sort of anti-Semitic conspiracy
theories that you know this idea that
Jews run everything run the world
they're this kind of
cabal and you know
it's it's also very true that people who
are legitimately
anti-semitic are also critics of Israel
in the same kind of way and so it's such
a complicated landscape in which to have
discussions because
um uh you know even people like David
Duke uh who are you know racist don't
sound racist on the
surface I haven't listened to him enough
but like you know there's dog whistles
it's it's a complicated space in which
to have
discussions because it um I mean I
wonder if you can sort of speak to
that um because there's this silencing
effect of calling everybody into Semitic
but it's also true that there is
anti-Semitism in the world like there is
a sizable population of people that hate
Jews there's probably a sizable
population of people who hate Muslims
too
but you know I lot of hate out there a
lot of hate out there uh but the hatred
of Jews has like a long history and so
you have like you know Rolling Stones
have a a set of great hits and there's
just a set of great hits of the ways
conspiracy theories you can make up
about the Jews that are used as part of
the hatred uh so there's like nice
templates for that and I I just wonder
if you can comment
on operating as a historian as an
analyst as a strategic thinker in this
kind of space yeah we obviously when we
wrote the article which we did before
the book gave the subject a great deal
of thought I mean uh what you say just
now is music to our ears I'm talking for
me and about me and Steve uh I mean I
think that you know your point about dog
whistles is
correct look we went to Great Lengths to
make it clear that
this is not a cabal it's not a
conspiracy and in fact in a very
important way the lobby operates out in
the open right
uh they brag about their power right and
this was true before we wrote the
article right and um and we
said in the article and the book and you
heard me say it here first of all it's
not a Jewish law
right um secondly it's not a cabal right
it's an American interest group and and
the American system is designed such
that interest groups are perfectly legal
and some of them are super effective EXA
I mean you hit the nail right on the
head that's exactly right
and you know and there was nothing that
we said that was
anti-semitic by any reasonable
definition of that term and you know
huge numbers of Jews have known me and
Steve over the years and nobody ever
ever said that we were anti-semitic
before March 2006 when the article
appeared because we're not
anti-semitic but look you've got this
interest group right that has a
significant influence on American
policy and on Israeli policy
and you want to talk about it it's just
important to talk about it it's
important for Jews right in the United
States for Jews and Israel to talk about
this the idea that you want to silence
critics is not a smart way to go about
doing business in my
opinion if we were wrong if Steve and I
were so wrong and their arguments were
so foul they could have easily exposed
those arguments they could have gone uh
into combat with this in terms of the
marketplace of ideas and easily knocked
us down the problem was that our
arguments were quite powerful and
instead of engaging us and defeating our
arguments they wanted to silence us and
this is not good right it's not good for
Israel it's not good for the United
States and I would argue in the end if
anything it's going to fall Foster
anti-Semitism I think you don't want to
run around telling people that they
can't talk about Israel without being
called an anti-semite it's just not it's
not healthy uh in terms of the issue
that you're raising right but I still
agree with you that it is a tricky issue
it's I I don't want to make light of
that you know I know that there's this
piece of literature out there called the
protocols of the Elders of Zion and I
fully understand that if you're not
careful you can come close to writing
volume two of the protocol but I don't
believe that we wrote anything that was
even close to that and again I think
that a healthy debate on the issues that
we were raising would have been in not
only in America's interest but it would
have been in Israel's
interest yeah I mean um Underneath It
All is just I wonder why there's so much
hate against groups why it's such a
sticky way of
thinking not just tribalism like proud
of your country and kind of hating
another country but really deeply hating
like hating in a way where it's part of
your identity kind of
hate well just to make a general point
on this issue in our conversation here
today you often talk about individual
leaders and the word individual often
pops up in your vocabulary yes I believe
that we are ultimately social animals
before we are individuals I believe
we're born into tribes we're heavily
socialized and that we carve out space
for our
individualism but we are part of tribes
and or social groups or nations call
them what you want ethnic groups
religious groups but the fact is that
these tribes often crash into each other
and when they crash into each other uh
they end up hating each other uh if you
go to a place like Bosnia right the
croats and the serbs oh my God and then
throw in the
bosniacs which is the term for Bosnian
Muslims and you know Muslims croats
serbs uh oh and uh the tribes you know
hate each other uh and uh in a funny way
that hatred almost never goes away uh
and uh I guess there are some exceptions
to that uh if you look at the Germans
after World War II they've gone a long
way towards reducing I wouldn't want to
say completely eliminating but reducing
a lot of the hatred uh that existed
between Germans and their
neighbors uh but that's really kind of
an anomalous case uh I mean you go
around East Asia today and the hatred of
Japan in a place like China the hatred
of Japan in a place like Korea just not
to be
underestimated and uh so but I think a
lot of it just has to do with the fact
that you're dealing with social groups
that have crashed into each other uh at
one point or another and there are those
lingering effects and by the way this
gets back to our discussion a few
minutes ago about trying to get a
two-state solution between the
Palestinians and the isra Jews now that
you have had uh this horrible War which
is
ongoing it's
interesting to ask to go back to World
War II now you said uh you studied Nazi
Germany in in the 30s from a perspective
of
maybe offensive
realism uh but just to look at the
Holocaust it's sometimes popular in
public discourse today to compare
certain things to the Holocaust people
have compared the Hamas attack on Israel
to the
Holocaust saying things like it's the
the
biggest attack on Jews since the
Holocaust which kind
of
implies that there's a comparison U
people have made that same comparison in
the other
direction what do you make of this
comparison is it comparable is it is the
use of the
Holocaust uh have any accuracy in
comparisons of modern day international
politics is it possible that you could
have another
genocide yes and I would argue that what
you had in Rwanda was a
genocide right the Holocaust is not the
only
genocide I believe the word genocide is
used too Loosely today
uh and as you know lots of people and I
mean lots of people who are pro
Palestinian accuse the Israelis of
engaging in genocide in Gaza I think
what the Israelis are doing in Gaza uh
represents a massacre I I would use that
term given the number of civilians that
they've killed and the fact that they've
been indiscriminate in terms of how
they've been bombing Gaza but I would
not not use the word
genocide uh for me a genocide is where
one side attempts to eliminate another
group from the planet uh I think that
what happened with the Holocaust was
clearly a genocide and that the Germans
were bent uh on destroying all of
European jewry and if they could have
gotten their hands on uh Jews outside of
Europe they would have murdered them as
well that's a gen side and I think with
the hutus and the tootsies you had a
similar situation uh I think with the
Turks and the Armenians during World War
I that was a genocide but I have a
rather narrow definition of what a
genocide is and I don't think they're
many cases that qualify as a genocide
the Holocaust certainly does okay
now what Hamas did doesn't even come
close to what happened to European jeury
between let's say
1939 uh and 1945 although I date the
start of the Holocaust to
1941 if we were you know looking at it
closely but let's just say 1939 when
they invade Poland 1939 to
whated Pals in comparison it's hard to
believe anybody would make that argument
right yes a lot of Jews died uh but uh
uh
hardly
uh hardly any compared to the number
that died uh you know at the hands of
the Germans I mean it just no parallel
at all uh and furthermore Hamas was in
no position to kill all the Jews in the
Middle East just not not going to happen
yeah but there's also levels of things
you know using uh Germans using uh human
skin for lamps there's just levels of
evil in this world yes but you don't see
that with I mean that's not what Hamas
is doing I mean I I I want to be very
clear here I am not justifying the kill
hamas's killing of civilians okay not
for one second but I'm just saying and
and and by the way just to go to the
Israelis and what they're doing in Gaza
right as I said to you before I do
believe that is a massacre and I believe
that's to be condemned the killing of
civilians
uh this is not legitimate collateral
damage they're directly punishing the
population but I would not call that a
genocide right and I would not compare
that to the Holocaust for for one second
I just want to be very clear on that do
you think uh if Israel could they would
avoid the death of any
civilians so you're saying there's some
degree of punishment of collective
they're purposely killing civilians it's
this the Iron Wall they're trying to
beat the Palestinians in the
submission
right there's no way you kill this many
civilians
um if you're trying to precisely take
out Hamas Fighters and by the way the
Israeli spokesman the IDF spokesman has
explicitly said that we are not pursuing
Precision bombing and that what we are
doing is trying to you know maximize the
amount of Destruction and damage uh that
we can inflict on the
Palestinians and uh I I I think this is
a major mistake on the part of Israel
first of all it ends up being a moral
stain on your reputation number one and
number two it doesn't work it doesn't
work the the Palestinians are not going
to roll over and submit to uh Israeli
domination of their life uh um so you
know the whole concept of the Iron Wall
gabatin Sky's term was
misguided um and and and by the way the
iron if you look at what the Israelis
are doing they're trying to do two
things one is the iron wall and that's
where you punish the civilian population
in Gaza and get them to submit the other
thing that they're trying to do is get
Hamas they want to destroy Hamas and the
belief there is that if they destroy
Hamas they've solved the problem but as
many Israelis no including people on the
hard right even if you destroy Hamas
they are going to be replaced by another
group another resistance group uh and
that resistance group will employ Terror
yeah I think you I think you've said
that uh other terrorist organizations
have used the situation in Palestine as
a as a kind of a recruit recruitment
mechanism for for a long time Osama bin
lad made it clear that this was one of
those principal reasons for attacking
the United States right and the United
States attacked back and uh got us into
a 20-year war that
cost the lives of millions of people not
not American but uh human
beings and uh engaged in torture and
torture yeah no I think if you look at
how we reacted to
9/11 and how the Israelis are reacting
to what happened on October 7th uh
there's uh quite a bit of similarity in
that both sides the Israeli side and the
American side uh are enraged right and
they lash out and they go on a
rampage and the end result is not good
is there capacity within Israel or with
within United States after
911 to do something approximating turn
the other
cheek
of understanding the root of Terror is
hate and fighting that hate
with uh not the S naive but
compassion well I I don't think in
either case you're going to turn the
other cheek uh I think well some I what
I mean by that is some some limited
powerful military response but very
limited yeah coupled with a smart
political strategy political strategy
diplomacy yeah that's what they should
have done yeah right but is there
capacity for that or from your offensive
realism perspective it's just the odds
are really
low no from my offensive realist
perspective or my realist perspective
that's what you should do right my my
view is states are rational actors they
should be cunning right they should
think about uh the Strategic situation
they're in and choose the appropriate
response and uh what happens and this is
why my theory is not always correct is
that sometimes states are not rational
and they
misbehave I would argue in the Israeli
case uh that it would have been good
after October 7th or starting on October
7th if the United States
had uh tried to hold the Israelis back
and
countenanced uh a more uh moderate
response more with uh to to SP take some
time just to think about how to deal
with this problem instead of lashing out
I I think given what happened to the
Israelis given how shocked they were
given the level of fear given the level
of Rage they were going to lash out and
I don't believe that was in their
interest I think it would have been made
would have made sense to to think about
it and to think about a smarter strategy
than they're now employing and I think
you know the Americans blew it the
Americans gave them a bare hug and a
green light and said we'll give you all
the Weaponry you need and go out and do
it and uh I don't think that was the
smart thing to do look in the wake of
October 7th the Israelis had no good
strategy right it's it's not like
there's a magic formula that they just
didn't see and we should have told them
what the magic formula was right that's
not true they were in a sense caught
between IR rock and a hard place in
terms of what to do but there's smarter
things and Dumber things and I think the
Israelis lashed out in ways that are
counterproductive I think you know going
on a rampage and you know killing huge
number the civilians is not it's
obviously morally wrong but it's also
just not in their strategic interest
right I mean uh because it's it's not
going to buy them anything right and in
fact it's going to cost them right
because people all over the planet are
turning against Israel uh I saw you know
an Israeli think tank today uh that has
been tracking uh protest around the
world um gave some figures for what it
looked like uh between October 7th and
October 13th in terms of the number of
uh protests around the world that were
pro-israel versus Pro Palestine and then
it looked at the numbers from U October
13th up to the present and I think the
numbers were 69% were Pro Palestinian in
the first six days after October 7th
69% and I think 31% take these numbers
with a grain of salt 31% were pro-israel
so I think it was 69 and
31 um and uh since then since October
13th if you look at the number of
protests around the world 95% have been
Pro Palestinian and 5% have been
pro-israel uh and what this tells you is
that public opinion around the world has
shifted against Israel and if you look
at some of the demonstrations in places
like London and Washington DC it's truly
amazing the number of people who are
coming out in support of the
Palestinians and uh all this again is
just to support my point that it was
just not smart for Israel to uh launch
this bombing campaign right you can make
an argument for going after Hamas and
doing it in a c surgical way or as
surgical a way as possible uh but uh
that's not what they did and again my
point to you is I think that this
punishment campaign is not going to work
strategically in other words they're not
going to beat the Palestinians into
submission they're not going to finish
off Hamas and at the same time by
pursuing this strategy they're doing
huge damage to their reputation around
the world well I just uh yeah in the
wake of October
7th given the geopolitical
context I think there's a lot of
Leverage to be the great ethical
superpower that that demonstrate power
without killing any
civilians and use that leverage
diplomatic leverage to push forward
something like abrahamic Accords with
more nations with with Saudi Arabia push
for peace aggressively peace agreements
this kind of stuff economic
relationships all this kind of
stuff and thereby pressure the
Palestinian Authority you know towards
um perhaps a two-state
solution but I think what you're missing
here just in the Israeli case is that
the Israeli government is not interested
in the two-state solution and you want
to remember that Benjamin Netanyahu who
looks very hawkish when you look at him
in isolation
doesn't look so hawkish when you look at
him compared to the rest of the people
in his cabinet right he he he almost
looks like a moderate he's got a lot of
people who are way out to the right of
him
and these people and this of course
includes Netanyahu are not interested in
the two-state solution so the question
you have to ask yourself is you if
you're if you're Benjamin Netanyahu and
it's July 7th late the excuse me October
7th late in the day what do you do
you're not thinking about a two-state
solution you're thinking about an
occupation that's not going to end and
the question is how do you deal with the
Palestinians given what's just happened
well there's people in the cabinet and
then there's history and history
remembers great leaders and
so uh Benjamin nyaho can look in the
streets of Israel and see the protests
and think of how history will remember
him and I think a two-state solution is
on the table for a great leader well it
was there was he the person who was
going to take advantage of it I don't
think so but well he's a student of
History well at this point the will see
does I mean it's very at this point it's
very difficult um like you said 95% now
or whatever the number is of protests I
think the the window in which Israel has
the the ears of the world they can do
the the big ethical peace act action
towards peace is uh I think as closed or
maybe there's still a Slither but it's
just
um uh the slippery slope of of hate is
has taken off it's quite depressing to
watch what's going I I agree 100%
unequivocally depressing but you know of
course as you talk about the the role of
you us involvement is of critical
importance here for the United
States and the argument you make is that
we should not be involved in
Ukraine at least to the degree we are we
being the United States uh and we should
not be involved in Israel to the degree
we are because it's stretching us too
thin when uh the
big geopolitical contender in the 21st
century with the United States is
China that is that a correct summary
yeah I I I think just on Ukraine we
should not have pushed Ukraine to join
NATO sure uh and once the war started we
should have worked overtime to shut it
down immediately March Yeah March right
and and you remember by the way not to
go back to Ukraine in great
detail in the fall early fall of 2022
the war starts February 2022 there's
March 2022 which we've talked about
which is in negotiations in the fall of
2022 I think it was in
September uh the uh ukrainians had won
two major tactical victories one in
hiran and the other in harke and at that
point in time General Millie who was the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
said now is the time to negotiate
because this is the high watermark for
the ukrainians yeah Millie understood
that things were only going to get worse
and the White House shut Millie down and
said we're not negotiating so we have
blown a number of opportunities here to
head this problem off at the pass uh and
uh but that's my view there and uh with
regard to the Israelis my only point
about Israel is that it would be better
for Israel and better for the United
States if we the United States were in
was in a position the United States was
in a position to put pressure on Israel
from time to time
as Steve and I say in the book we should
be able to treat Israel like a normal
country right the fact is that countries
sometimes do stupid things this includes
the United States and Israel and if
Israel is pursuing a policy that we
think is unwise we should be in a
position where we could put pressure on
Israel yeah that's our argument right
but
anyway we goofed both with regard to
Ukraine and with regard to the Middle
East East and we're now up to our
eyeballs in alligators in both of those
regions and as you describe my view this
is not good because the area of the most
strategic importance for the United
States Today Is East Asia and that's
because China is there and China is the
most serious threat the United States
faces do you think there will be a
war with China in the 21st century I
don't know uh my argument is there will
be there is right now a serious security
competition and uh at the same time
there is a real possibility of War
whether or not we avoid it is very hard
to say uh I mean we did during the Cold
War we had a serious security
competition from roughly
1947 to
1989 and uh and we thankfully avoided
war probably came the closest in 19 1962
with the Cuban Missile
Crisis but uh we avoided it and I think
we can avoid it here is it for sure no
you've said that China won't move on
Taiwan militarily in part because it's
uh as you said amphibious operations are
difficult why will China not move on
Taiwan is in your
sense uh in the near future well it's
because there's this body of water
called the the Taiwan straigh MH which
is a big body of water and getting
across water uh is very difficult unless
you can walk on water so geography still
has a role to play in the 21st century
oh yeah I think geography is very
important big bodies of water really
matter yeah in an Ideal World you'd like
to have the Pacific Ocean between you
and any potential adversary you know
6,000 miles yes 6,000 miles of water
hard to get across I if you're a country
and I'm a country and there's land
between us I can take my Panzer
divisions and I can go right across the
land and get into your country or attack
your country and you of course can take
your Panzer divisions and come across
that same piece of land but if there's a
big body of water between us your Panzer
divisions can't go across the water and
then the question is how do you get them
across the water and that's very tricky
and in a world we have lots of
submarines and you have lots of aircraft
and you have missiles that are landbased
that can hit those surface ships it is
very very hard to you know to attack
across a body of water and all you have
to do is think about uh Normandy you
know the American invasion of Normandy
June 6th 1944 coming in on Omaha Beach
right uh oh boy that was really
difficult but there is a growing
asymmetry of military power
there that even though it's difficult
that is correct so I I guess that is
correct so I recently had a conversation
with Elon Musk and and he
says
that uh you know China is quite serious
about the one China policy and it seems
inevitable that Taiwan will have to be
if you look at this pragmatically in the
21st century it seems inevitable that
Taiwan will have to be a part of China
and so we can get there either
diplomatically or militarily like
um what do you think about the
inevitability of that kind of idea when
a nation says this is a top
priority for us
um what do you think about them meaning
it and what do we do about that there's
no question it's a top priority for them
and there's no question they mean it but
it's also a top priority for us not to
let them take Taiwan why exactly because
it's an important strategic asset uh
many people will say it's because
taiwan's a democracy but that doesn't
matter that
much uh it's
because uh of two strategic reasons the
first is that uh if we were to let
Taiwan
go it would have hugely negative
consequences for our alliance structure
in East Asia to contain China we need
allies we have an alliance structure and
our allies Japanese South
Koreans Filipinos
Australians they're all counting on us
to be there for them and if we say we're
not going to defend Taiwan the Chinese
attack they're going to say I bet if the
Chinese attack us the Americans won't be
there for us uh so the it have
uh a damaging effect on our alliance
structure which we cannot afford cuz
because containing China is a wicked
problem it's a powerful State you were
getting to this before when you talked
about China versus Taiwan so that's the
first reason second reason is you want
to bottle up the Chinese Navy and the
Chinese Air Force inside the first
island chain you don't want to let them
get
out uh into the Pacific you don't want
them dominating the Waters of East Asia
you want to bottle them up again inside
the first island chain and you can only
do that if you control Taiwan if you
don't control Taiwan they get out into
the Philippine Sea into the Pacific and
the Western Pacific and cause all sorts
of problems well you saying all that
you've also said the century of
humiliation Japan and the United States
are a source of that humiliation for
China
don't you think they see the other side
of that absolutely and in the interest
of avoiding a World
War I guess the question is uh how do we
avoid a World War it
doesn't um seem like the military invol
involvement in the conflict between
China and Taiwan is the
way well I I don't want there's no good
answers here I'm just saying there are
no good which is the the less bad option
well what you want to do is you want to
make sure that you
deter uh China from invading Taiwan you
want to avoid a war you and I are in
complete agreement on that we don't want
a war but we want to contain China we do
not want to let China dominate Asia that
that's what the Americans are
principally concerned with here and it's
what China's neighbors are principally
concerned with this includes the
Japanese the South Koreans Filipinos
Australians and the Taiwan East we they
don't want and we don't want China to
dominate the region so we have to
contain it but at the same time and this
should be music to your ears we not only
want to contain it we want to make sure
we don't end up in a shooting match with
the Chinese because this could be
disastrous so you have to have a very
smart policy you have to build powerful
military forces and you have to make
sure you don't do anything that's
provocative on Taiwan for example the
last thing you want want is for the
Taiwanese government to declare its
independence because the Chinese have
said if Taiwan does that we'll go to war
and of course we don't want that so my
view is you want to smartly build up
your military forces and you want to do
everything you can to contain China uh
and at the same time not be
provocative so a big component of that
is making uh sure your military the US
military is bigger than the Chinese
military not necessarily uh it's an
interesting question uh a lot of people
think that to make deterrence work right
you have to be able to beat the chines
and therefore you need a much bigger
military uh and I don't think over time
that's possible right I think it's
probably not even possible now to beat
the Chinese in a war over Taiwan or a in
a war in the South China Sea I think
what you want to do is make it clear to
the Chinese either that they will be no
winner in other words you don't have to
win but you want to make sure they don't
win okay it's it's it's a lose
lose uh proposition if they go to war
over Taiwan or what have you uh and if
you can't do that right you think that
they're so powerful that they're
ultimately going to win you want to
convince them that Victory would would
be a pic victory in other words they
would pay a god awul price to win the
war you follow what I'm saying so excuse
me the best strategy for deterrence is
you win China loses second best strategy
is a stalemate nobody wins third best
strategy is they win but they pay a God
awful price and the fourth possibility
which you don't want is they went
quickly and decisively right uh if
that's the case then you don't have much
deterrence what is a world with China as
the sole dominant superpower look like I
mean a little bit underlying our
discussion is this kind of idea that us
is the good guys and China is the bad
guys first of all you know the you know
dividing the world into good guys and
bad guys seems to
somehow miss the Nuance of this
whole human civilization project we're
undertaking but what does the world look
like where China is the dominant sole
superpower in a unipolar
world well I I don't tend to think of
the world in terms of good guys and bad
guys as a good realist I I think that
you know states are States they're all
black boxes you know I don't
discriminate between democracies and
autocracies but having said that I am an
American americ and as an American I'm
interested in the security of my country
the survival of my country so I want the
United States to be the most powerful
state in the world which means I want
the do United States to dominate the
Western Hemisphere I want us to be a
regional hedgemon and I want to make
sure that China does not dominate Asia
the way we dominate the Western
Hemisphere it's not because I think
we're the good guys and they're the bad
guys guys uh if I were Chinese and I
were in Beijing and I were XI jinping's
National Security adviser i' tell him
what we got to do is make sure we
dominate the world or dominate our
region and then do everything we can to
undermine America's position in the
Western Hemisphere right that that be my
view uh so I guess you could say I do
view the world in terms of good guys and
bad guys cuz I'm an American and I more
like us and Them versus Us and Them
that's that's a nice way to put it yeah
it's US versus them not so much good
guys versus bad guys is it possible to
have a stable peaceful world with a good
balance of power with where it's China
and us as superpowers you it's a bipolar
world no longer unipolar yeah okay so
you're hypothesizing a world where they
dominate Asia yeah and we dominate the
Western Hemisphere I I believe there
would be uh a great deal of security
compet comptition intense security
competition between those two
superpowers the definition of intense
matters here so it could be
small small military conflicts or it
could be extremely large unstable
military conflicts well conflict let's
use the word War okay so I I distinguish
between security competition and War and
what I'm telling you is you'll have an
intense security
competition where there's no shooting or
if there's shooting it's mainly proxies
that are doing the fighting much like
the Vietnam War right uh or you could
have a case where one of those
superpowers was involved in a war
against a proxy of the other superpower
Korean War think the Korean War the
United States fought the Chinese who
were allied with the Soviets at the time
but uh a war between the United States
and China just like a war between the
United States and the Soviet Union
during the Cold War that's what you
really want to invoid avoid so I think
you'd have an intense security
competition right you'd have wars
involving proxies of each of those two
superpowers and you would probably have
some Wars where one of the superpowers
was involved in a proxy right with the
other super one of the super other
superpowers proxies so it seems likely
then if that's the case then it would be
Taiwan is the proxy and us fighting
China through the proxy of Taiwan what
yeah well that would assume the United
States but you want to remember you're
hypothesizing a situation where China
dominates Asia oh already has dominated
yeah it's already dominated Taiwan uh I
see we we well where do you find the
proxies Australia the Middle East could
be a good case oh wow right Persian Gulf
right oh boy and then our discussion of
Israel becomes even more dramatically
yeah well Israel Israel gets involved I
think I think in this scenario if you're
talking about a us China
competition right and you're talking
about the Middle East I think it's the
gulf it's it's the Saudis the Iranians
the Iraqis it's the oil don't you think
it could be Israel versus Iran with
some very 1984 kind of dramatic
Partnership of Iran Russia and China
versus United States Europe and um
Israel I think that's possible yeah I
think that's possible yeah now that I I
mean I hadn't thought about it uh until
you said it but yeah I think that that
that is possible isn't isn't that
terrifying yeah well that you know in
your scenario where China already
dominates Asia and we dominate the
Western Hemisphere uh I think you start
talking about we the most likely
places uh that the United States and
China go
head-to-head or or fight through proxies
uh I I think it is the goal for the
Middle East and the scenario that you
posit I mean one one question I
have I don't know about you but for me
unlike with the Soviet
Union and I know I was born there but
even outside of that the cultural
Gap the the the loss in Translation the
communication gap between China and the
United States seems to be much greater
than that of what was the former Soviet
Union and the United
States I see two cultures intermingling
and communicating is one of the ways to
deescalate future
conflict it's an interesting question I
mean at a sort of an abstract
theoretical level my argument is that
great Powers Act according to realist
dictates and they understand the those
realist dictates and uh that could lead
to cooperation or it can lead to uh War
uh it depends U I would say just in the
case of the Soviets a lot of people
describe the Cold War as an ideological
competition above all else it's was
communism
versus liberal democracy or communism
versus liberal capitalism whatever
uh I actually don't believe that I I
believe the Soviets were uh realists to
the core uh I believe Stalin was a
realist par
exellence uh and that ideology did not
matter much in Stalin's foreign policy
and I believe if you look at Soviet
foreign policy uh after World War II you
know throughout the Cold War they were
realists to the core uh and uh and I
think in those days the Americans were
realists right uh lot of liberal
ideology floating around out there but
the Americans were realists and I think
one of the reasons you avoided uh a
shooting match between the United States
and the Soviet Union from 47 to uh
89 uh was because both sides I think uh
understood basic balance of power
logic us China competition is somewhat
different first of all the Chinese are
realists to the core uh I I've spent a
lot of time in China I basically have
rock and roll I'm basically a rock and
roll star in China uh the Chinese you're
kind of a big deal in China I love it
the Chinese are my kind of people
they're realists right they speak my
language yeah it's the United States
that is not very realist American
leaders uh have a very powerful liberal
bent and tend not to see the world in
realist terms I Believe by the way just
going back to our discussion of NATO
expansion I think our inability to
understand that NATO expansion was
anathema to the Soviet to the Russians
was do in large part to the fact that we
just during the unipolar moment didn't
think of international politics from a
realist perspective and didn't respect
anyone who thought about International
politics from a realist
perspective if those various American
administrations starting with the
Clinton administration had put their
realest hat on they would have
understood that NATO expansion into
Ukraine was not a good idea but we had
this thoroughly liberal view of the
world that dominated our thinking and
it's gone away somewhat since we've
moved into multipolarity but not
completely and uh this makes me a little
nervous right to pick up on your point I
mean the United States is thinking about
the world in ways that are somewhat
different than the Chinese who are real
is par Excellence so
that's fascinating so the Chinese are
pragmatic uh about thinking of the world
and
um as a competition of military Powers
all the ways in which he described the
realist perspective so that I mean
that's a that's a that's a hopeful thing
right
if uh we can achieve stability and a
balance of powers through that military
competition yeah I I actually think
that's right I think if the United
States just let me talk a little bit
about the United States to get at the
issue you're raising if the United
States pursues a smart containment
strategy MH given what you just said and
I said about the Chinese I think we will
avoid war the problem with the Americans
is it's not just the
liberalism it's the possibility that we
will pursue a roll back policy in other
words during the Cold War uh we pursued
containment it was whenever anybody
talked about American Grand strategy
towards the Soviet Union was Containment
containment containment we now know from
the historical record that the United
States was not only pursuing containment
it was pursuing roll back we were trying
to roll back Soviet power to put it
bluntly we were trying to wreck the
Soviet Union
okay and I would not be surprised moving
forward with regard to China if the
United States pursues a serious roll
back policy and uh so you're saying
throughout history United States was
always doing that always where's that
from why why can't we respect the power
of other nations because they may be a
threat to us we well I mean you don't
look you don't respect the power of
other nations you fear the power of
other nations well fear and respect to
Nextdoor neighbors depending on the
neighborhood you're living in but I I
just mean it's it could be very
counterproductive to try because if you
can empathize with they if if you assume
they rational actors you trying to roll
back will
create um would lean into the
uncertainty of potential conflict so you
want to avoid the uncertainty of
potential conflict caution right well
yes and no look your point is you want
to empathize you want to be able to put
yourself in the shoes of the other side
yes I agree 100% but with that right
it's very important if you're a first
class strategist to be able to do that
but it's the same time there is this
competition for power taking place and
what you want to do is maximize how much
power you have relative to the other
side and the other side wants to
maximize how much power it has relative
to you so you have this competition for
power right uh that's taking place all
the time and that's taking place at the
same time you want to have empathy or
you want to be able to put yourself in
the shoes of the other side so those two
things kind of go together right it just
feels less threatening to build up your
thing versus try to hurt the other
person's thing the other group's thing
right but if you build up your own power
you were building up your capability to
hurt the other side right but like you I
guess you don't rattle the saber just
just work on manufacturing
Sabers well that I agree with I I think
that you know the United States you know
uh wants to make sure it has a big stick
in East Asia for purposes of containing
China and avoiding a war right again I
want to be clear I'm not advocating uh
that we start World War III but the
point is you want to have a big stick
and you want to make sure that you don't
overstep your bounds in terms of using
that big stick this is the danger with
rollback right that you get too
aggressive and you precipitate a war
right and you also just have to be very
careful what you say and to go back to
your favorite argument you want to be
able to have empathy or put yourself in
uh the shoes of the other side because
if you do something you want to think
smartly about what that other side how
that other side is going to see your
action and how they're going to react
right and and mostly focus on the
carrots have a giant stick laying around
but never mention it just focus on the
carrots well occasionally you have to
mention the stick right no everyone
knows the stick is there there is some
truth in that right I mean yeah uh but
you know and words matter a lot it feels
you know this uh current President
Biden's meeting with xiin ping and I
think the wars exchanged there are
really important I have a notion the
leaders can stop Wars just as much as
they can start
wars well leaders matter there's no
question about that no question but just
on on red Eric you want to remember that
Putin has on more than one occasion very
subtly rattled the nuclear sword oh yeah
and it has been very effective yeah
because Joe Biden has paid attention and
Joe Biden wants to make sure we don't
end up in a thermonuclear war and thank
goodness uh he's thinking that way so
all Putin has to do is mention the
possibility of nuclear war just to go
back to Taiwan you know a switch areas
of the world
if you're interested in containing China
and you're interested in
deterrence and let's go back to those
various scenarios where the Chinese win
we win Chinese win but they do it at a
costly at Great cost one could
argue that that discussion that I laid
out before didn't take into account
nuclear weapons and all President Biden
or any of his successors has to do is
just very subtly uh rattle uh or or or
or or employ the nuclear threat you know
uh and just sort of remind the Chinese
that you know you start a war over
Taiwan it could easily escalate into a
nuclear war you want to understand we
both have nuclear weapons and if either
one of us is put into a desperate
situation we may turn to those nuclear
weapons and oh by the way jingping you
want to understand that we're out here
in the water and using nuclear weapons
in the water it's not
that it's not the same as using War uh
nuclear weapons on land so we may very
well use them I'm not saying we will but
anyway a little saber rattling yeah
right let me just zoom out on human
history what makes Empires collapse and
what makes them last when they
do when you look at human history in
your sense
thinking about the United States perhaps
as an
Empire I don't view the United States as
an Empire uh what's the what's the def
so to you Empire is a thing that seeks
expansion
constantly yeah I I think it's a country
uh that incorporates
different uh regions or areas around the
world uh into sort of a giant sphere of
influence without
incorporating those
territories actually into the state
itself so you had this thing called the
British Empire and it controlled areas
like
India uh uh North
America uh and Kenya just to pick a
couple instances at different points
Singapore would be another example
Australia would be another example Le so
these were all entities that were part
of the British Empire right and the
United States has taken a stabit Empire
after the Spanish American war for
example uh with regard to the
Philippines and Cuba and Puerto Rico but
we never got serious about it there's
never been an American Empire this is
not to say the United States is not an
incredibly powerful country that go all
around the world building military bases
and stationing troops Here There and
Everywhere but we're not running an
Empire the way the British Empire was
run or the French
Empire uh so the question for me is why
did those Empires go away the why did
the British Empire go away if you ever
look at a map of the world in 1922 after
World War I it's truly amazing how much
of that map is controlled by Britain
right they had a huge Empire and it
disappeared probably by far the biggest
in terms of area Empire and human
history I think so I think that's right
it almost has to be yeah right right uh
it's crazy crazy yeah it's and then no
longer no longer is the case yeah now I
I going be clear the the Americans have
wielded maybe even greater influence
than Britain did when it had its Empire
but I don't believe we have an EMP
Empire that bears any resemblance to the
British
Empire so the question is what happened
to that British Empire what happened to
the French Empire what happened to the
Belgian Empire what happened to the
Dutch Empire these were countries that
had colonies all over the planet the
Dutch East Indies right Vietnam was you
know French Indochina where where did
those Empires go two factors finish them
off number one nationalism nationalism
became a very powerful force in the 19th
century it began to rear its head in the
late 18th century it became a very
powerful force in the 19th and certainly
in the 20th can you explain nationalism
here nationalism is the idea that these
different nations that were part of the
Empire like the Kenyans wanted their own
State nation state this is my point
about the Palestinians right this is
Palestinian nationalism what is Zionism
Zionism is Jewish nationalism Jewish
nationalism think of Theodore herzl's
famous book it's called the Jewish State
nation state think of the word nation
state that embodies nationalism nation
state Jewish State Palestinians want
their own State two- State solution
right can't beat the Palestinians into
submission right the Indians wanted
their own State The pakistanis Wanted
their own State the Kenyans wanted their
own State Singapore wanted its own State
oh the Americans wanted their own State
this is called the American Revolution y
right so that's the first reason
nationalism that these Empires
disappeared the second reason is that
from a cost benefit analysis uh they no
longer made any sense uh and it was the
coming of the Industrial Revolution once
the Industrial Revolution comes an
Empire is basically an albatross around
your neck I would argue that the British
Empire was an albatross around Britain's
neck in most of the 20th century some my
friends disagree with that and think
there were all sorts of benefits uh from
the British Empire but you want to
remember that in the 20th century the
three countries that really were
powerful were the United States Germany
and the Soviet Union those were the big
three did any of them have an Empire
no that's a good car in the industrial
world yes you don't need you know uh an
Empire right what you need is a powerful
manufacturing base well the the cost
benefit analysis is different before the
Industrial Revolution there's been many
empires there's no question that Empires
uh came and went right I mean yes right
and or if do just look at the British
and the French uh in the Seven Years War
1756 to
1763 the British win they get Canada
right and that's why you know Quebec
Montreal all these big French speaking
areas are now part of uh Canada right uh
so borders change and you know C
countries got established the United
States being one and remember South
American Central America were once
completely dominated by the Spanish and
in the case of Brazil the
Portuguese but uh they all in the 19th
century got their
independence right and what I'm saying
to you is in the 19th and in the 20th
century there were two forces that were
really driving the train one is
nationalism and then the other is the
Industrial Revolution which changes the
cost benefit
analysis almost too crazy of a question
but if you
look let me calculate let's say 500
years from now and you you you you John
M sh Som travel through time and are at
a bookstore looking at the uh entire
history of human civilization in a
single book what role does US play like
what's the story of us over the next 100
200 300
years is it a big role small
role well that's a long time if you you
ask me let's just say the next hundred
years yeah that's okay I think that's
still tough that's still tough but
actually you know I think we're in
excellent shape M and here's the reason
going back to the beginning of our
conversation you asked me you know about
power and I told you the two principal
building blocks of Power are population
size and wealth okay and therefore you
want to look around the world and you
want to look at what you think the
demographics are of countries like
Britain uh the United States
uh
Iran uh China Russia pick your country
moving forward right what the
demographics look like and how wealthy
of those are those countries likely to
be what you discover very quickly and is
that almost every country around the
world is
depopulating over
time right Russia's going to be much
smaller China's going to be much smaller
uh 100 years from now than both of those
countries or it's best we could tell
United
States American women are not having
lots of babies these days no question
about that but we have immigration we're
an immigrant culture you're a perfect
manifestation of that you're perfect
you're now an American that's wonderful
we need more people like you right so
when I hear Donald Trump and other
arguing that immigration's a terrible
thing this is
ridiculous immig ation is what made us
great right it's when my relatives came
over in the middle of the 19th century
from Germany and Ireland right that's
fascinating like you know because you
know there's been a huge
concern America and other developed
nations are not having enough children
but you you just made me
realize in the long Arc of History the
United States has gotten really damn
good at integrating immigrants and you
and like helping them flourish the whole
diversity of uh that that makes up
America there's a Machinery of
integrating other
cultures yeah yeah just very quickly on
this Sam Huntington's book who are we
yeah uh which in many ways I I love that
book but it has one fundamental flaw and
a number of people told him beforehand
that that flaw existed and he didn't fix
it but Sam argues in the book that we
have large numbers of Hispanics in this
country and we're doing a very poor job
of integrating them into the mainstream
and they're not becoming Americans and
because many of them are concentrated in
the southwest of the United States
unlike other ethnic groups that were
spread out all over God's Little Green
Acre right we're going to have uh this
cohesive group of
Spanish-speaking Americans right who we
going to want to break away and the
United States is no longer going to be
you know a reasonably coherent nation
state he's wrong the all the evidence is
that Hispanics are integrating into the
American
mainstream uh more quickly and more
effectively than the European econom uh
the European immigrant groups that came
starting around 1835 if you look at
immigration from Europe into the United
States leaving aside the original wasps
who came over and founded the place the
immigrants start coming in large numbers
in 1835 and we really don't shut the
door until
1924 right starting this is a crude
overview starting in 1835 and running up
till about
1885 it's mainly Germans and Irish
that's why Germans are the largest
ethnic group to ever come to the United
States and the Irish are right behind
them these are the European ethnic
groups we're talking about then starting
in 1885
uh polls Jews and Italians start coming
right uh and the Germans and Irish keep
coming and this is why Ellis Island is
opened I think it's 1893 Ellis Island is
open because Castle Garden in New York
which had handled all the previous
immigrants coming across the pond Castle
Garden couldn't handle them all so they
opened up Ellis Island that's why
somebody like me I can't find my distant
relatives records in Ellis Island
because they came through Castle Garden
right whereas lots of Jews I know lots
of Italians I know they can find their
relatives records in Ellis Island
because they came through Ellis Island
the point is you had all these
immigrants who came in roughly between
1835 and 1924 when we shut the gates
this the only time we've ever really
shut the gates in a meaningful way right
and this is what made America great
right all these people and they made
lots of babies right so in some sense
make America great again means getting
in getting more immigrants in well we
open the gates again in' 65 MH closed
them in 24 open them in 65 I'm
oversimplifying the story here because
we didn't completely shut them we almost
completely shut them in 24 opened in 65
and we've had huge numbers of immigrants
flowing in these immigrants who have
been flowing in since 65 are not
Europeans they're not mainly Europeans
they're mainly Hispanic anics and
Asians if you look at those Hispanics
and Asians they're integrating into the
American mainstream at a much faster and
more effective clip than was the case
with those immigrants who come came in
in the 19th century and early 20th
century the Irish oh my God you know
they were treated horribly there's a
book a very famous book that's been
written called when the Irish became
White just think about the title of that
book there was discrimination against
all these groups right and the worst
discrimination of course was against
Chinese Americans right uh but we've
gotten much better and what we should do
moving forward is redouble our efforts
to integrate immigrants into the
American mainstream you know Hispanics
you know Asians of All Sorts because the
fact is that America is rapidly reaching
the point where it's not going to be an
allwhite country right uh I have five
children and two of my children are was
it Generation Z gen
Z gen Z is the last majority
white uh generation right subsequent
Generations are not majority white uh So
for anybody who's bothered by this I'm
not bothered by that but for anybody who
is bothered by this they better get used
to it because Americans aren't making
enough babies that we can continue to
grow uh population wise in a robust way
so we need immigration and we're an
immigrant culture and this is a great
virtue it has been a great virtue over
time it should be a source of hope not
worry that's my view that's my view and
America when it works is a place that is
very attractive to immigrants and
immigrants can do very well here and and
then the real key moving forward is
inter marriage right and you have a huge
amount of in marriage right somebody was
telling me not too long ago that the
highest intermarriage rates in the
United States are among Asian women
Asian-American women Asian women and
anglos right and uh I say wonderful uh
and uh great yeah no the more love love
uh is the fastest way to integrate yeah
well you don't what you want to do is
you want to eliminate difference yes
right you want to eliminate difference
right it's like you know people who say
I'm an anti semi right I have two
grandsons who Adolf Hitler would have
thrown into a guest chamber one of whose
first name is John and middle name is
Mir shimer right yeah this is what you
want yeah right Steve Walt's wife and
his two children would have been thrown
into a gas chamber by Adolf Hitler right
this is what you want you want
intermarriage now there are a good
number of people in some of those groups
especially among Jews who don't like
inter marriage right but they've lost
because I haven't looked recently at the
data uh the data among um for inter
marriage rates among uh basically
secular Jews but it used to be around
62% large numbers of Jews marry goam and
they've lost because of inter marriage
inter marriage helps fight tribalism
destructive kind of tribalism exactly
calling me an
anti-semite they haven't met my
grandsons my son-in-law nieces that I a
niece that I have nephews that I
have brother-in-laws that I have Jewish
right come on and this this gives a
really nice hopeful view of America is
is the integration of different
different cultures different kinds of
peoples that is a unique property of
America yes but just to go back to where
we started it was not smooth in the
beginning all things are rough in the
beginning what advice would you give to
a young person today about how to have a
career they can be proud of or life they
can be proud of well I think it's very
important to make sure that you do
something in life that really interests
you my mother used to use this phrase
floats your boat you want to do
something that floats your boat or to
use another one of my mother's phrase
phrases you want to get up you want to
do something where you get up out of bed
in the morning with a bounce in your
step right so I I think that you know if
your mother and father want you to be a
lawyer and they're pushing you to be a
lawyer and you don't want to be a lawyer
you want to be a policeman be a
policeman right don't do what other
people want you to do because it's very
important to find a job and occupation
that you really
love uh the second thing I would say and
this has to do with your point about um
humility
uh uh you want to think about the
humility uis index my friend Steve
vanever who teaches at MIT he and I
invented this concept we call it the uis
humility index and you want to have a
healthy dose of humility but you also
want to have a healthy dose of
uis you want to think you can change the
world you want to think you can make
things better for yourself you want to
take chances you want to think sometimes
that you know better than other people
do huis is not a bad thing but at the
same time you have to have humility yeah
you have to understand that a man or a
woman has his or her limits and you want
to listen to other people people you
want to be a good listener right uh so
always remember the importance of the
uis humility index and the importance of
having healthy doses of both uus and
humility speaking of humility you're
mortal like all humans are do you Ponder
your mortality are you afraid of it are
you afraid of
death I'm not sure I'm afraid of death
uh I I don't want to die because I enjoy
life so much too much fun yeah I you
know given how horrible the world is
today I hate to I hate to say that I'm
having too much fun but do I find what I
do interesting and gratifying I I I do
uh I just love what I do uh and I love
studying you know International politics
and I love being intellectually curious
about all sorts of subjects I love
talking to you about this and that uh I
mean this is really wonderful and I
often tell people you know thank
goodness I'm only 28 years old because I
do try to behave like I'm only 28 years
old but I am well aware of the fact that
uh as my mother used to say nothing is
forever and that includes me and when
you're 75 going on 76 you understand
that you have a limited number of years
left uh and I find that depressing um
because I've been I've been very lucky
and uh and I feel like I've won the
lottery and uh I'm very thankful for
that and I I'd like to you know make it
last for as long as possible but uh I do
understand that you know nothing is
forever yeah the finiteness of things
yeah you never think that when you're
young I mean you know you think uh
you're going to live forever and you're
just not going to get old I never
thought this would happen that I would
become 75 years old well you you got you
got so much energy and boldness and
fearlessness and and and excitement to
you that I'm I'm really grateful to see
that especially given how much I'm sure
you've been attacked for
having uh bold ideas and presenting them
and not
losing yeah not losing that youthful
energy is beautiful to see thank you not
becoming cynical John it's a huge honor
to speak with you that you give me so
much time and so much respect and so
much love I this was a really incredible
conversation thank you so much for
everything you do in the world for
looking out into the world and trying to
understand it and teach us and thank you
so much for talking with a silly kid
like me is my pleasure thank you very
much I thoroughly enjoyed it awesome
thanks for listening to this
conversation with John mimer to support
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me leave you with some words from
Plato Only The Dead have seen the end of
War thank you for listening and hope to
see you next time