Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 5/28/26: John Mearsheimer Cooks Neocons On Iran, Russia Ukraine War Escalates, Pope Leo Warns About AI
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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- 0:27Speaker 3: news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
- 0:29Speaker 3: dot com. Very excited now to be joined by our
- 0:32Speaker 3: great friend, Professor John Meerscheimer of the University of Chicago.
- 0:35Speaker 1: Sir, it's great to see you. Thanks for joining us again.
- 0:37Speaker 4: I'm glad to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
- 0:39Speaker 3: Always so sorry you recently took part in a debate
- 0:43Speaker 3: with your co author, doctor Stephen Walt against Mike Pompeo,
- 0:47Speaker 3: the former Secretary of State and Victoria Newland, famous for
- 0:51Speaker 3: many reasons of being one of the preeminent neocons and
- 0:54Speaker 3: very involved in what happened in the Color Revolution in Ukraine.
- 0:58Speaker 3: But there was one particular moment we wanted your reaction
- 1:01Speaker 3: to of your exchange here with Newland and Pompeo on
- 1:05Speaker 3: the issue of Iran.
- 1:06Speaker 1: Let's take a listen, we'll get your reaction.
- 1:08Speaker 5: This is what human decency demands. You don't let a
- 1:11Speaker 5: radical regime close off the global economy by firing Shaheed
- 1:14Speaker 5: missiles into nations that did nothing right. They're firing into
- 1:18Speaker 5: civilians in the United Arab everetts even just this week.
- 1:23Speaker 5: That's just not something that the world can accept. And
- 1:26Speaker 5: so this monster is worthy of the hunt.
- 1:28Speaker 6: You do know, Mike, that we started the war?
- 1:30Speaker 5: No, absolutely, not absolutely not, oh no, no, no, no.
- 1:35Speaker 6: See, they weren't firing those missiles in Welcome Israel and
- 1:39Speaker 6: the United States attacked Iran.
- 1:41Speaker 5: Well do you understand, Well, welcome to nineteen seventy nine,
- 1:44Speaker 5: when the revolutionary regime began to kill Europeans.
- 1:46Speaker 6: You do know that we overthrew the democratic, the elected
- 1:50Speaker 6: government Valtein fifty four. Just for the record, you talked,
- 1:54Speaker 6: you were talking about this. You don't think Iran has
- 1:56Speaker 6: You think Iran's forgotten about that?
- 1:58Speaker 1: No, I suspect that you know.
- 1:59Speaker 6: I think Iran remembers that we supported Saddama, saying in
- 2:02Speaker 6: the Iran.
- 2:03Speaker 5: Iraq war, I know about this. I know that other
- 2:06Speaker 5: countries have history. Do you think Iran as a monster?
- 2:09Speaker 1: No, okay, okay.
- 2:12Speaker 7: I don't think there.
- 2:12Speaker 6: I don't think there's I'm glad I don't live there.
- 2:16Speaker 6: I think many countries do many bad things, including my own,
- 2:20Speaker 6: and I wouldn't call the United States I'm monso.
- 2:24Speaker 8: So do you also remember that we wouldn't have had
- 2:27Speaker 8: October seventh if we hadn't had Iranian support for Hamas.
- 2:31Speaker 6: I wouldn't have had October seventh if we've gotten peace
- 2:33Speaker 6: in the Middle East. And that's a much longer story.
- 2:37Speaker 8: It is, and every single US president has tried and
- 2:40Speaker 8: we'll continue to not very hard, but.
- 2:42Speaker 4: It is very important to emphasize there's no evidence that
- 2:46Speaker 4: Iran even knew about October seventh, much less goodness.
- 2:51Speaker 8: Oh my goodness, I'm sure it is no evidence in
- 2:57Speaker 8: the public.
- 2:57Speaker 4: Record of that.
- 2:58Speaker 7: Oh my goodness.
- 3:00Speaker 1: Wow.
- 3:00Speaker 3: The smirk sur from Victoria Newland whenever you bring up
- 3:03Speaker 3: the genuine fact that there is literally no evidence of
- 3:08Speaker 3: all of that. What's your broad takeaway here? We haven't
- 3:10Speaker 3: gotten to talk to you. Since that debate aired well, I.
- 3:12Speaker 4: Think in that in terms of facts and logic that
- 3:17Speaker 4: we beat them at almost every turn, and I think
- 3:20Speaker 4: that's reflected in their response to my point that there
- 3:23Speaker 4: was no evidence that Iran was involved in the events
- 3:28Speaker 4: of October seventh. I mean, they didn't say, here are
- 3:31Speaker 4: the facts that show you're wrong, or here is the
- 3:33Speaker 4: report that you should read that explains why you're wrong.
- 3:37Speaker 4: They just laughed at me and made fun of me.
- 3:39Speaker 4: And that tells you. I believe that they didn't have
- 3:42Speaker 4: the facts on their side, and in terms of the
- 3:45Speaker 4: points that Steve made, they had no refutation for those
- 3:49Speaker 4: facts because there is no refutation for those facts. What
- 3:53Speaker 4: Steve said was true, and he could have even gone
- 3:57Speaker 4: further and pointed out that last June, the Rangeans were
- 4:01Speaker 4: negotiating in good faith, and out of the blue, the
- 4:04Speaker 4: Israelis attacked them, and then we attacked them. And then
- 4:07Speaker 4: this February, on February twenty eighth, the Iranians were negotiating
- 4:12Speaker 4: again in good faith, and we, not them, started a war.
- 4:17Speaker 4: We attacked them, We tried to decapitate and succeeded at
- 4:21Speaker 4: decapitating the regime. So the idea that the Iranians are
- 4:24Speaker 4: these sort of mindless aggressors who are constantly starting wars
- 4:29Speaker 4: and doing all these evil things against the good guys
- 4:32Speaker 4: Israel in the United States is, as both of you know,
- 4:35Speaker 4: a laughable argument.
- 4:37Speaker 6: Yeah.
- 4:38Speaker 2: I was watching the full debate this morning. I've quite
- 4:40Speaker 2: gotten all the way through, but one of the things
- 4:42Speaker 2: that I thought was really noteworthy is, you know, your
- 4:45Speaker 2: two con opponents. Victoria Neulan doesn't even support the war
- 4:49Speaker 2: with Iran, so clearly she thinks this is not going well.
- 4:52Speaker 2: And Pompeo does support it, but he believes that we're
- 4:57Speaker 2: right now in a very poor position. Of course, his
- 5:00Speaker 2: answer is we just need to do more war and
- 5:02Speaker 2: then that will work it all out. But to me
- 5:04Speaker 2: that was very telling that neither of them could really
- 5:07Speaker 2: defend the current status quo and the level of disaster
- 5:12Speaker 2: that the Iran war has created for the United States.
- 5:15Speaker 4: Yeah. I would also point out to you that Victorian
- 5:18Speaker 4: Ulan made it clear that she disagreed with Pompeo when
- 5:22Speaker 4: he is Secretary of State helped President Trump pull us
- 5:26Speaker 4: out of the JCPOA. She said that we should have
- 5:30Speaker 4: stayed in the JCPOA. She said it had flaws, but
- 5:34Speaker 4: those flaws could have been fixed, and we should have
- 5:37Speaker 4: used it as a foundation to build a better agreement.
- 5:41Speaker 4: And that is actually a fundamental disagreement between the two
- 5:44Speaker 4: of them. So I think it was quite clear that
- 5:47Speaker 4: although they both agree on a lot of issues, they
- 5:50Speaker 4: disagree on a number of important issues. With regard to
- 5:54Speaker 4: the subject of Iran, there's no question it's a disaster.
- 6:00Speaker 4: We have no sort of theory of victory at this point.
- 6:04Speaker 4: There's no strategy that anybody can point to that will
- 6:09Speaker 4: allow us to pull our chestnuts out of the fire.
- 6:12Speaker 4: And although Pompeo was a huge supporter of the Iran war,
- 6:18Speaker 4: he wrote this op ed for Fox News on February
- 6:21Speaker 4: twenty eighth that talks in very glowing terms about how
- 6:25Speaker 4: the war is going to evolve and what a wonderful
- 6:28Speaker 4: move it is by President Trump to start this war. Nevertheless,
- 6:33Speaker 4: given how it's gone south, he has no way of
- 6:37Speaker 4: fixing the problem. He has no solution.
- 6:40Speaker 3: Yeah, that was just the real All they had was, well,
- 6:44Speaker 3: that's why we have to do more.
- 6:47Speaker 1: That's what it ultimately came down to.
- 6:49Speaker 3: It was really ironic, I think actually just even put
- 6:52Speaker 3: in that position where Ultimately, neither could defend how disastrous
- 6:56Speaker 3: the current status quo is. Obviously, Israel was something that
- 6:59Speaker 3: was also hovering over the entire discussion its own influence
- 7:04Speaker 3: on the United States. Well, here we have a very
- 7:06Speaker 3: recent comment from Ben Gavier of Israel. Can you put
- 7:12Speaker 3: C two up here just to get your reactions, sir.
- 7:14Speaker 3: Here Ben Gaverer says Israel will not allow Trump to
- 7:19Speaker 3: make a deal with Iran. And this here you have
- 7:22Speaker 3: a member of these literally Israeli government of the Security
- 7:25Speaker 3: Cabinet saying that they will not allow the United States
- 7:28Speaker 3: to pursue this deal with Iran in the midst of
- 7:31Speaker 3: all of these negotiations and firing and continued allegedcies fires.
- 7:36Speaker 1: What do you make of that comment.
- 7:38Speaker 4: Well, it's very important to understand that the deal that
- 7:43Speaker 4: will be cut, assuming we get a deal, will be
- 7:48Speaker 4: a disastrous deal for Israel. Israel started this war with
- 7:53Speaker 4: a number of goals, none of them have been achieved.
- 7:57Speaker 4: And furthermore, Iran is going to end end up controlling
- 8:01Speaker 4: the Strait of Hormuz. And furthermore, it looks like if
- 8:05Speaker 4: the deal is cut, that Iran's economic future looks much
- 8:10Speaker 4: brighter than it's economic past. This is disastrous for Israel,
- 8:15Speaker 4: and Israel wants to do everything it can to undermine
- 8:20Speaker 4: the deal. This is why the Israelis are bombing away
- 8:23Speaker 4: in Lebanon. This is the principal way they have of
- 8:29Speaker 4: undermining any deal. And what Ben Gavier is basically saying
- 8:36Speaker 4: is we don't like the deal at all. It's disastrous
- 8:39Speaker 4: from our point of view, and we will make sure
- 8:41Speaker 4: there is no deal. And I think he is an
- 8:44Speaker 4: effect saying that, you know, we control the United States
- 8:47Speaker 4: and we'll make it impossible for Trump to strike a deal.
- 8:50Speaker 2: Do you think that they will succeed in that? Not
- 8:52Speaker 2: only do you have you know, escalated bombing in Lebanon.
- 8:55Speaker 2: We can actually put this New York Times tear sheet
- 8:57Speaker 2: up on the screen that the Lebanese are resigned to
- 8:59Speaker 2: a war even if the US and Iran do make
- 9:03Speaker 2: a deal. This is something that the Iranians have said
- 9:06Speaker 2: from the beginning is unacceptable to them, that they want
- 9:08Speaker 2: the war to end on all fronts. You also have
- 9:12Speaker 2: Trump made some wild statements starting to blow up the Omanis.
- 9:16Speaker 2: If they do anything to have control or share control
- 9:20Speaker 2: of the Strait of horror moves, you have an entire
- 9:23Speaker 2: neocon freak count here in the US of all sorts
- 9:26Speaker 2: of influencers, people who have had the ear of the
- 9:29Speaker 2: White House saying no, no, no, you can't stop now,
- 9:31Speaker 2: this would be too disastrous, et cetera. So do you
- 9:34Speaker 2: think that we are close to some sort of, you know,
- 9:38Speaker 2: true conclusion to this war, Well.
- 9:40Speaker 4: You want to understand that we're talking first about getting
- 9:45Speaker 4: a cease fire in place and opening the straits. That's
- 9:49Speaker 4: the first tip in the process. And then once that's done,
- 9:52Speaker 4: you'll have negotiations on the nuclear issue, on the Straight
- 9:56Speaker 4: of Horror, moves, on sanctions, on reparations, on missiles. They're
- 10:01Speaker 4: just all sorts of issues floating around in here that
- 10:04Speaker 4: have to be dealt with, a lot of moving parts.
- 10:06Speaker 4: To put it in slightly different language, But up front,
- 10:10Speaker 4: what we're trying to do now is just create a
- 10:14Speaker 4: meaningful cease fire, and that means again shutting down the
- 10:18Speaker 4: war to include Lebanon and opening the straight And the
- 10:24Speaker 4: problem is that the Israelis do not want us to
- 10:29Speaker 4: stop the war in Lebanon, and they don't want us
- 10:33Speaker 4: to stop the war in Lebanon because they want to
- 10:35Speaker 4: conquer territory in Lebanon. They want to defeat hesblah, but
- 10:39Speaker 4: also because they see that is the ideal means for
- 10:43Speaker 4: undermining any kind of agreement, and they don't want an agreement.
- 10:48Speaker 4: The Israelis want to go back to the bombing campaign.
- 10:51Speaker 4: They want the war to restart again in a meaningful way.
- 10:55Speaker 4: And of course President Trump doesn't want this at all.
- 10:59Speaker 4: Trump wants to cut a deal. He understands that he
- 11:02Speaker 4: has no theory of victory here and he's got to
- 11:05Speaker 4: cut a deal to put an end to this. But
- 11:07Speaker 4: the Israelis want to prevent him from doing that, and
- 11:10Speaker 4: Lebanon is the key lever that they have over him.
- 11:14Speaker 4: And of course they have the lawby and the warhawks
- 11:16Speaker 4: and the United States who will back up Israel at
- 11:19Speaker 4: every turn.
- 11:20Speaker 3: Yeah, professor, one of the things that we were really
- 11:22Speaker 3: shocked by this morning was this comment from Trump saying
- 11:26Speaker 3: that he was threatening to blow up Oman if they
- 11:29Speaker 3: do not abide by US demands of opening the Straits
- 11:33Speaker 3: of horror moves.
- 11:34Speaker 1: Let's take a listen, we'll get your reaction.
- 11:36Speaker 9: Now. The Strait's going to be open to everybody. It's
- 11:40Speaker 9: international waters.
- 11:41Speaker 4: Nobody's going to control it. We're going to watch over it.
- 11:43Speaker 9: We'll watch over it, but nobody's going to control it.
- 11:46Speaker 9: That's part of the negotiation that we have.
- 11:48Speaker 4: They would like to control it.
- 11:49Speaker 9: Nobody's going to control It's international waters, and Oman will
- 11:53Speaker 9: behave just like everybody else that will have to blow
- 11:56Speaker 9: them up. They understand that they'll be fine.
- 11:59Speaker 3: We'll have to blow them up. I mean, how is
- 12:01Speaker 3: this going to affect our regional alliances?
- 12:05Speaker 4: We've done so much damage to our regional alliance is
- 12:08Speaker 4: already number one and number two. Trump just talks like
- 12:12Speaker 4: this all the time, so that it's not as shocking
- 12:16Speaker 4: as one would it find it to be if someone
- 12:20Speaker 4: like President Biden or President Bush had said this. I mean,
- 12:24Speaker 4: this is sort of a part for the course for
- 12:26Speaker 4: President Trump. So I think in the final analysis, it
- 12:30Speaker 4: doesn't matter. The Omani's probably just rolled their eyes, just
- 12:33Speaker 4: like everybody else in the United States and in the
- 12:37Speaker 4: golf did. The fact is that we're in deep trouble
- 12:41Speaker 4: in the golf. Before the war on February twenty seventh,
- 12:44Speaker 4: it looked like we had a formidable alliance structure. We
- 12:48Speaker 4: had bases all over the region, and our allies, our
- 12:52Speaker 4: golf allies, all thought that we would provide security for them.
- 12:57Speaker 4: They thought that our security umbrella that was over their
- 12:59Speaker 4: heads a reliable one. But the events since February twenty
- 13:03Speaker 4: eighth have shown that that was not the case, that
- 13:08Speaker 4: the United States could not protect them, that those US
- 13:11Speaker 4: bases in the region were vulnerable, and that moving forward
- 13:15Speaker 4: they have to think seriously about how to provide for
- 13:19Speaker 4: their own security and not rely on the United States
- 13:24Speaker 4: in any meaningful way, because they have now seen what
- 13:28Speaker 4: happened when they relied on the United States. They got clabbered,
- 13:32Speaker 4: and there is always a threat these days that they'll
- 13:35Speaker 4: be eliminated as functioning countries if the war really heats up.
- 13:40Speaker 4: And the Iranians were after their desalination plants and their
- 13:46Speaker 4: energy infrastructure.
- 13:50Speaker 7: Professor Wowie have you.
- 13:51Speaker 2: We also wanted to talk to you about the Ukraine War,
- 13:53Speaker 2: which grinds on and as far as I can tell,
- 13:56Speaker 2: the front lines are more or less stock. The Ukrainians
- 13:59Speaker 2: have made very effective use of drone warfare, which has
- 14:03Speaker 2: helped them overcome some of their manpower disadvantage. You can
- 14:06Speaker 2: put d one up on the screen. There is some
- 14:09Speaker 2: concern and this is a Wall Street Journal article laying
- 14:12Speaker 2: out the case that Putin could expand the war beyond
- 14:16Speaker 2: Ukraine striking inside of Europe, you have also Kiv has
- 14:21Speaker 2: been striking inside of Russia. You've had Russia escalating attacks
- 14:24Speaker 2: directly on the city of Kiv. So just give us
- 14:27Speaker 2: a little bit of an update of war where the
- 14:30Speaker 2: war stands. And if you think that this is a
- 14:32Speaker 2: realistic possibility that's being laid out here in the Wall
- 14:35Speaker 2: Street Journal.
- 14:37Speaker 4: Well, I think you have to separate the war on
- 14:41Speaker 4: the ground from the air war. And when I talk
- 14:44Speaker 4: about the air war, I'm talking about this strategic bombing
- 14:47Speaker 4: where the Ukrainians are using drones and missiles to strike
- 14:52Speaker 4: deep into Russia, and the Russians, of course are doing
- 14:54Speaker 4: the same thing vis a v Ukraine. That's the air war,
- 14:58Speaker 4: and then there's the war on the ground. There's no
- 15:00Speaker 4: question that with the coming of drones, it's very difficult
- 15:04Speaker 4: to make rapid progress on the ground, but the Russians
- 15:09Speaker 4: are nevertheless making progress in Ukraine. The idea that Ukraine
- 15:15Speaker 4: has turned the tide on the battlefield and is rolling
- 15:18Speaker 4: the Russians back, or will someday roll the Russians back,
- 15:23Speaker 4: is not a plausible argument. The Russians are winning on
- 15:26Speaker 4: the ground and you want to remember that they've already
- 15:29Speaker 4: conquered twenty percent, roughly twenty percent of Ukrainian territory, and
- 15:34Speaker 4: they're not going to give that territory up. Ukraine is
- 15:38Speaker 4: never going to recover that twenty percent that it's already lost.
- 15:42Speaker 4: The only question is how much more territory will the
- 15:45Speaker 4: Russians conquer, and they will conquer more territory. So that's
- 15:49Speaker 4: the ground war. The air war is where things are
- 15:54Speaker 4: getting dangerous and there what's happening is that the Ukrainians
- 15:58Speaker 4: are using more drones and more sophisticated drones to attack
- 16:03Speaker 4: deep into Russia, and they're hitting oil refineries and they're
- 16:08Speaker 4: killing lots of Russian civilians, and the Russians are reaching
- 16:13Speaker 4: the point where they're saying enough is enough, and they
- 16:17Speaker 4: bomb Kiev on Sunday night in ways that they have
- 16:22Speaker 4: never bombed that city before. They really turned the dogs loose,
- 16:26Speaker 4: as I like to say, and they're threatening to do
- 16:29Speaker 4: even more. They've warned European countries to remove their diplomatic
- 16:36Speaker 4: staffs from Kiev because they are obviously intending to hit
- 16:41Speaker 4: targets that might include those diplomatic installations. But the real
- 16:48Speaker 4: worry is that the Russians will hit targets inside of
- 16:54Speaker 4: Eastern Europe or even Western Europe. There are voices inside
- 16:59Speaker 4: of Russia that say it's time to take off the
- 17:02Speaker 4: gloves and to go after targets in Europe because the
- 17:06Speaker 4: Europeans are assisting the Ukrainians in these attacks on Mother Russia.
- 17:12Speaker 4: The argument, which is quite correct, is that there is
- 17:15Speaker 4: no way that the Ukrainians could attack Russia, could attack
- 17:20Speaker 4: deep into Russia with drones and missiles the way they're
- 17:22Speaker 4: doing now without significant assistance from the West. And if
- 17:26Speaker 4: that is the case, we the Russians have to attack
- 17:30Speaker 4: into the West if they're going to be allowed to
- 17:33Speaker 4: attack into Mother Russia. So it looks like there is
- 17:38Speaker 4: a serious possibility that at some point in the future
- 17:42Speaker 4: the Russians will attack NATO countries and that would be
- 17:46Speaker 4: potentially disastrous.
- 17:48Speaker 3: Now what we've also seen, sir compit with D three
- 17:50Speaker 3: up here on the screen. I took note of this yesterday.
- 17:53Speaker 3: Zelenski in a new letter to President Trump and to
- 17:57Speaker 3: Congress saying that he urgently needs patriot interceptors. And in
- 18:02Speaker 3: the letter, basically what he says is that they're going under.
- 18:05Speaker 3: Like you just said, they sustained Russian attack. You have
- 18:07Speaker 3: these drones and hypersonic missiles that are now being used
- 18:10Speaker 3: by the Russians, which definitely do show an increase in
- 18:13Speaker 3: the air war.
- 18:14Speaker 1: What should we make of this then? From the Ukrainian side?
- 18:17Speaker 3: So if the Ukrainian if the Russians are going to
- 18:18Speaker 3: escalate their attacks, then the Ukrainians I assume, will escalate
- 18:21Speaker 3: even further in terms of their drones, not just oil refineries,
- 18:25Speaker 3: but at other more strategic targets.
- 18:27Speaker 1: What they're asking for patriot interceptors.
- 18:30Speaker 3: The Trump administration also is in a bit of a
- 18:32Speaker 3: bind because of what just happened with Iran. They can't
- 18:34Speaker 3: just give them over. They have to really husband their resources.
- 18:37Speaker 3: What will this look like if things continue to go further.
- 18:41Speaker 4: Well, I think that there's no question we have used
- 18:46Speaker 4: up so many Patriot missiles, so many THAD missiles, tomahawks,
- 18:51Speaker 4: on and on in the war against Iran, that we're
- 18:56Speaker 4: in a situation where there are great limits on the
- 18:59Speaker 4: world weaponry that we can provide to the Ukrainians. And
- 19:05Speaker 4: of course this includes patriot missiles, and Patriots were their
- 19:08Speaker 4: best defensive weapons, and they're out of Patriots and therefore
- 19:14Speaker 4: they're wide open to attacks from Russia. And what Zelenski's
- 19:20Speaker 4: trying to do is convince the Americans that they should
- 19:23Speaker 4: send patriots to Ukraine to help Ukraine fend off these
- 19:27Speaker 4: Russian attacks. But the fact is that we don't have
- 19:30Speaker 4: patriots to give them. We've expended so many weapons in
- 19:34Speaker 4: the war against Iran. So this means that Ukraine is
- 19:40Speaker 4: wide open to attacks from Russian missiles and from Russian
- 19:44Speaker 4: drones for the foreseeable.
- 19:46Speaker 2: Future, Professor leout for us, let's say that Russia does
- 19:51Speaker 2: go forward with a strike drug strike on a NATO country.
- 19:55Speaker 2: What do you think would happen? Then?
- 19:57Speaker 1: You know, what does that look like?
- 20:00Speaker 2: Do you believe that the US would be likely to
- 20:02Speaker 2: take in that scenario?
- 20:04Speaker 4: Well, if you listen to the rhetoric that comes out
- 20:06Speaker 4: of Russia from sort of the principal proponents of this perspective,
- 20:11Speaker 4: and these this perspective enjoys widespread support inside of Russia,
- 20:18Speaker 4: especially among the elites. The argument is that you would
- 20:21Speaker 4: launch limited conventional attacks against the West, and if that
- 20:27Speaker 4: didn't convince the West to cease and desist from helping
- 20:31Speaker 4: the Ukrainians to attack into Russia, deep into Russia. Then
- 20:36Speaker 4: what the Russian should do is think about using nuclear weapons,
- 20:41Speaker 4: not large numbers of nuclear weapons, but just a handful
- 20:43Speaker 4: of nuclear weapons to send a very clear signal to
- 20:47Speaker 4: the West that the Russians mean business. But the Russians
- 20:51Speaker 4: field they have to do here is established to terrence.
- 20:54Speaker 4: The Russians believe, and I think quite correctly, that the
- 20:58Speaker 4: West thinks that they can help Ukraine attack Russia and
- 21:04Speaker 4: there'll be no price to pay for the West. The
- 21:07Speaker 4: West gets a free ride here. It just can help
- 21:09Speaker 4: the Ukrainians punch away at Russia. There's no real deterrent
- 21:15Speaker 4: in effect against the West, and the Russians believe they
- 21:19Speaker 4: have to establish a deterrent and they want to do
- 21:22Speaker 4: that with conventional weapons, or they're talking about doing it
- 21:24Speaker 4: with conventional weapons, but their argument is if that doesn't work,
- 21:28Speaker 4: they'll use nuclear weapons. The Russian perspective here is basically
- 21:32Speaker 4: that the West doesn't understand that they're dealing with a
- 21:36Speaker 4: nuclear armed adversary, that we live in the nuclear world,
- 21:40Speaker 4: and that when you begin to threaten the Russian homeland
- 21:43Speaker 4: and you begin to kill Russians in large numbers, that
- 21:48Speaker 4: you are creating a situation where the Russians are going
- 21:51Speaker 4: to have an incentive to strike back, and to strike
- 21:54Speaker 4: back in serious ways, and to try to convince the
- 21:57Speaker 4: West that we live in a world where nuclear deterrens
- 22:01Speaker 4: should obtain you and the West may have forgotten about that,
- 22:05Speaker 4: but we're going to remind you that we live in
- 22:07Speaker 4: a world where nuclear weapons may be used, and we
- 22:10Speaker 4: will use nuclear weapons if necessary to restore the terrence.
- 22:15Speaker 4: So that's what's going on here, and it's a very
- 22:17Speaker 4: dangerous situation because the West and Zelenski don't seem to
- 22:22Speaker 4: care about Russian red lines. The West and the Ukrainians
- 22:27Speaker 4: seem to think that they can just pound away at
- 22:29Speaker 4: the Russians and get away with it.
- 22:31Speaker 3: And if you look at the Iran situation, they were
- 22:33Speaker 3: only able to establish a terrence by inflecting immense economic
- 22:36Speaker 3: damage on the world, and by doing that they were
- 22:39Speaker 3: able to demand a ceasefire. You know, Russia can read
- 22:42Speaker 3: the news just like anybody else and say, okay, we
- 22:44Speaker 3: have to do something similar.
- 22:46Speaker 4: Absolutely, And by the way, just to go to the
- 22:49Speaker 4: back to the Iran case. When you look at the
- 22:51Speaker 4: Iran case and you tie that into North Korea, you
- 22:55Speaker 4: see that North Korea was smart to get nuclear weapons,
- 22:58Speaker 4: and that Iran should have gotten nuclear weapons because the
- 23:02Speaker 4: Israelis and the Americans definitely would not be attacking Iran
- 23:06Speaker 4: if it had nuclear weapons that could hit Israel. And
- 23:10Speaker 4: the reason they're doing that is because they think they
- 23:13Speaker 4: can get away with it, They can get a free
- 23:15Speaker 4: ride because Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons. Yeah, and your
- 23:18Speaker 4: point about the parallels between the Iranian case and the
- 23:23Speaker 4: Russian case, I think is right on the money. That's
- 23:26Speaker 4: the lesson that the Russians have taken from what the
- 23:29Speaker 4: Iranians have done.
- 23:30Speaker 2: Well, this is what really scares me because, first of all,
- 23:33Speaker 2: it seems that, you know, enough time has passed that
- 23:35Speaker 2: we've become complacent about the fact that we do live
- 23:38Speaker 2: in a nuclear armed war and what that means in
- 23:42Speaker 2: terms of the level of devastating, life ending destruction can
- 23:46Speaker 2: be wrought. We also live in a time where basically
- 23:48Speaker 2: every other taboo has been thrown out the window. We
- 23:51Speaker 2: all watched a genocide on our live feeds every day
- 23:54Speaker 2: and no one with any power stepped in to do
- 23:56Speaker 2: anything about it. You know, we call war peace now,
- 23:59Speaker 2: we say that arounds the aggressors. You know, we in
- 24:02Speaker 2: Israel are the ones that bomb them. So every previous
- 24:05Speaker 2: taboo seems to have gone out the window. The only
- 24:08Speaker 2: one that seems to remain at this point is the
- 24:11Speaker 2: nuclear taboo. And it makes me wonder how long that
- 24:15Speaker 2: is going to be able to hold up.
- 24:17Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree with everything you said, And just to
- 24:20Speaker 4: sort of reinforce your point, Crystal, you want to remember
- 24:25Speaker 4: that Ukraine invaded Mother Russia, yes, in August of twenty
- 24:33Speaker 4: twenty four. And you also want to remember that Ukraine
- 24:38Speaker 4: and both of these operations were with assistants from the
- 24:41Speaker 4: United States, and Britain attacked one leg of the strategic
- 24:45Speaker 4: nuclear triad of Russia. And as I've pointed out on
- 24:50Speaker 4: a number of occasions, this was unthinkable during the Cold War.
- 24:54Speaker 4: The idea that we would allow one of our allies
- 24:57Speaker 4: to attack into Russian territory, it's just not in the
- 25:01Speaker 4: realm of possibility during the Cold War, and the idea
- 25:04Speaker 4: that we would let one of our allies, with assistance
- 25:07Speaker 4: from US, attack one leg of the strategic nuclear triad
- 25:11Speaker 4: of the Soviet Union was again unthinkable. But here we
- 25:15Speaker 4: are in the Ukraine War, and we've helped the Ukrainians
- 25:18Speaker 4: to invade Russia. We've helped the Ukrainians to attack the
- 25:23Speaker 4: strategic nuclear triad of Russia. And also it seems that
- 25:28Speaker 4: we helped the Ukrainians launch a decapitation attack against Putin.
- 25:34Speaker 4: It's not for certain, but it certainly looks like that.
- 25:37Speaker 4: And you really wonder what the United States and what
- 25:40Speaker 4: the British are thinking when they helped the Ukrainians do this.
- 25:44Speaker 4: And of course the Russians understand exactly what's going on,
- 25:46Speaker 4: and that's why the Russians are deeply committed to re
- 25:50Speaker 4: establishing or maybe I should say establishing deterrence and making
- 25:55Speaker 4: it clear to the West and to the Ukrainians that
- 25:58Speaker 4: this just has to stop, and to make it stop,
- 26:01Speaker 4: they're willing to go up the escalation ladder. And then
- 26:04Speaker 4: of course the questions we've been talking about is whether
- 26:07Speaker 4: or not they're willing to use nuclear weapons and break
- 26:09Speaker 4: the nuclear taboo, so to speak.
- 26:12Speaker 1: Great point.
- 26:13Speaker 3: Well, thank you very much, sir. As always, we deeply
- 26:15Speaker 3: appreciate your time.
- 26:16Speaker 4: This is my pleasure, thanks for having me on the show.
- 26:22Speaker 1: Joining us now is Brendan Steinhauser.
- 26:24Speaker 3: He is the CEO of the Alliance for Secure AI.
- 26:29Speaker 3: It's going to join us to talk about the Pope's
- 26:31Speaker 3: new and cyclical forty thousand words.
- 26:33Speaker 1: On the topic. Thank you very much for joining us.
- 26:35Speaker 7: Man, good to see you, Thank you for having me.
- 26:38Speaker 3: Absolutely all right, So, Brendan as a Catholic, as an
- 26:40Speaker 3: AI expert, let's go and put this up here on
- 26:43Speaker 3: the screen. Some of the main takeaways from the Pope
- 26:45Speaker 3: leos and cyclical on AI. Why don't you break us
- 26:49Speaker 3: breakdown for us some of the more important themes from
- 26:52Speaker 3: this long in psyclical, what it means in this modern
- 26:55Speaker 3: age of AI and of digital transformation.
- 26:57Speaker 1: That we'll get into some of the specifics.
- 27:00Speaker 10: Sure, I think Pope Leo the fourteenth, of course chose
- 27:03Speaker 10: his name as a nod to Pope Leo the thirteenth,
- 27:08Speaker 10: who came about in the Industrial Revolution. And so this pope,
- 27:11Speaker 10: who's a mathematician by training, understands the unique challenge that
- 27:15Speaker 10: AI poses. This is going to be transformational, and so
- 27:18Speaker 10: he really in the encyclical looks at all these different
- 27:20Speaker 10: aspects of the human experience, everything from jobs in the
- 27:23Speaker 10: economy and the dignity of work, to data privacy, to
- 27:28Speaker 10: automated weapons drones flying around making decisions about who to
- 27:33Speaker 10: kill or not kill, and he also looks at things
- 27:36Speaker 10: like transhumanism, some of these more interesting sort of and
- 27:40Speaker 10: challenging questions that we face about what it means to
- 27:43Speaker 10: be human. And so he's looking at the whole picture here,
- 27:47Speaker 10: and I think he's really done it in a thoughtful way,
- 27:50Speaker 10: and he's brought in a lot of experts to comment on. Okay,
- 27:53Speaker 10: where do we go from here and what does Catholic
- 27:55Speaker 10: social doctrines say about all of this and what should
- 27:57Speaker 10: we do?
- 27:58Speaker 2: Talk a little bit more about that lens of what
- 28:01Speaker 2: it even means to be human, because part of the
- 28:04Speaker 2: message was that there's always this impetus to use a
- 28:08Speaker 2: machine to quote unquote perfect humanity, but part of humanity
- 28:12Speaker 2: comes through the struggle inherent to being a human being.
- 28:16Speaker 2: So talk a little bit about about that lens, because
- 28:19Speaker 2: I think that could be really important for stitching together
- 28:22Speaker 2: the kind of broad coalition to rein in AI and
- 28:24Speaker 2: make it a tool to benefit humanity that I think
- 28:27Speaker 2: we all would like to see come together.
- 28:31Speaker 10: Absolutely, he talks a lot about how AI and all
- 28:34Speaker 10: tools should be used to serve humanity. It should be
- 28:37Speaker 10: to enhance our productivity and to make us better, and
- 28:41Speaker 10: that we shouldn't be.
- 28:42Speaker 7: Serving the tool, but the tool should serve us.
- 28:45Speaker 10: And he talks about how technology can have a dehumanizing effect,
- 28:48Speaker 10: especially if it replaces human beings and replaces us as
- 28:51Speaker 10: workers and as the people making decisions on planet Earth.
- 28:55Speaker 10: He talks about how God gave us this special place
- 28:58Speaker 10: on Earth, gave us stewardship, and I think he's very
- 29:01Speaker 10: concerned about AI that develops into something kind of super
- 29:05Speaker 10: intelligent with the rise of robotics. You put those two
- 29:08Speaker 10: together and you could have a very bleak and dark future,
- 29:11Speaker 10: and so he talks about avoiding that.
- 29:13Speaker 7: But yeah, I think the dignity of.
- 29:14Speaker 10: Work and sort of the future of jobs in the economy,
- 29:17Speaker 10: social inequality, concentration of wealth and power, those are the
- 29:21Speaker 10: things that I think most people can relate to, and
- 29:22Speaker 10: I think those are the problems right before us.
- 29:25Speaker 3: There was one line. Maybe you can explain it to me.
- 29:28Speaker 3: I'm secular, But where are the temptation of erecting a
- 29:31Speaker 3: new tower of Babel? He says, I ask everyone to
- 29:33Speaker 3: abandon the construction of yet another tower of Babel and
- 29:35Speaker 3: to join forces in building up the common good so
- 29:38Speaker 3: that humanity will never lose its beauty in the world
- 29:40Speaker 3: once again, will come to recognize the human heart as
- 29:42Speaker 3: the place where God desires to dwell. What does that
- 29:45Speaker 3: warning mean in the context of Ai.
- 29:48Speaker 10: Yeah, the Tower of Babel metaphor has been used a
- 29:51Speaker 10: lot with AI, and it was interesting to see it
- 29:53Speaker 10: in the first page of this and cyclical, And it's
- 29:56Speaker 10: the idea from the Old Testament where the people of
- 29:59Speaker 10: the world were trying to build this tower to their own,
- 30:02Speaker 10: to their own glory. They were trying to essentially come
- 30:04Speaker 10: together with one language and sort of a homogeneous culture,
- 30:08Speaker 10: and they were glorifying themselves instead of God, and so
- 30:11Speaker 10: that was seen as a great mistake, and people were scattered,
- 30:14Speaker 10: and they then were scattered about the world and different
- 30:16Speaker 10: languages and couldn't communicate with each other. And you know,
- 30:19Speaker 10: the metaphor has to do with kind of with what
- 30:21Speaker 10: we might be building now, which is this kind of
- 30:23Speaker 10: all powerful thing that is to the glory of humanity
- 30:26Speaker 10: instead of God, and that we're trying to use technology
- 30:29Speaker 10: to almost become godlike. And so I think he sees
- 30:32Speaker 10: that very clearly, and I think, you know, this is
- 30:34Speaker 10: an idea that is very prominent not only within sort
- 30:37Speaker 10: of Catholic tradition, but Christianity. Broadly, and I think the
- 30:40Speaker 10: Tower babble also kind of also, you know, people are
- 30:43Speaker 10: familiar with it outside of religious communities, but I think
- 30:46Speaker 10: it's a powerful symbol of human beings should not be
- 30:50Speaker 10: trying to do something that either you know, replaces God
- 30:53Speaker 10: or that makes themselves the gods, where they're actually replacing God.
- 30:57Speaker 7: And so that's the idea broadly.
- 30:58Speaker 10: But I think, look, this is something we can all
- 31:01Speaker 10: sort of understand that the technology could become so powerful
- 31:05Speaker 10: that it becomes dangerous.
- 31:07Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean it's sort of radical at this
- 31:12Speaker 2: point to say that the technology should actually serve humans
- 31:16Speaker 2: rather than the human serving technology. And I think that
- 31:18Speaker 2: shows you how far afield we've gotten from in the
- 31:21Speaker 2: development of these products, and how little we have really
- 31:26Speaker 2: thought as a society about what we want these tools
- 31:28Speaker 2: to do and to be and how we want to
- 31:30Speaker 2: deploy them, versus how the ai oligarchs and the Trump
- 31:34Speaker 2: administration have decided that they want to go forward with this.
- 31:38Speaker 2: And I wanted to ask you about a few developments
- 31:40Speaker 2: in terms of the Trump administration's approach. We can put
- 31:43Speaker 2: E one B up on the screen here. I found
- 31:46Speaker 2: this report to be very unsettling. They say US law enforcement.
- 31:50Speaker 2: This is from Wired magazine Daniel bogoslaw over there. US
- 31:53Speaker 2: law enforcement warns of anti tech extremism as AI hatred grows.
- 31:59Speaker 2: This is based on the NSPM seven, the National Security
- 32:03Speaker 2: Presidential Memo seven, which extructs the Department of Justice to
- 32:06Speaker 2: target anyone holding a variety of views. One of those
- 32:10Speaker 2: views that they are now putting out here is quote
- 32:12Speaker 2: unquote anti tech extremism. And in order for you, according
- 32:17Speaker 2: to the reporting in this article, to sort of get
- 32:19Speaker 2: flagged as a potential anti tech extremist, all you need
- 32:22Speaker 2: to do is potentially be holding a strong opinion on
- 32:25Speaker 2: data center development in your community, or attending an anti
- 32:30Speaker 2: data center protest or another protest of one of the
- 32:34Speaker 2: large tech companies. And it strikes me that this is
- 32:37Speaker 2: arising at a time when there truly is a bipartisan
- 32:41Speaker 2: reckoning with this technology and increasing backlash against the direction
- 32:46Speaker 2: that they're going in.
- 32:48Speaker 10: Absolutely, yeah, this is a really dangerous thing. And we've
- 32:50Speaker 10: seen this play out kind of in previous administrations and
- 32:53Speaker 10: in this administration, where this is used to chill free speech,
- 32:58Speaker 10: it's used to sort of go after your political enemies.
- 33:01Speaker 10: I think it's really dangerous and it's a bipartisan problems
- 33:03Speaker 10: certainly over the course of American history, but it's something
- 33:07Speaker 10: that should really make all Americans come together and say,
- 33:10Speaker 10: we reject that. We don't want that, because you know,
- 33:13Speaker 10: if you support something like this and then you know,
- 33:15Speaker 10: the other political party gets into power, you don't want
- 33:18Speaker 10: them coming after you. And I think this is really
- 33:20Speaker 10: just an excuse to go after you know, mostly peaceful
- 33:23Speaker 10: protesters and people who are raising questions. But you know,
- 33:26Speaker 10: my response is kind of like, good luck, because you're
- 33:28Speaker 10: talking about like eighty five percent of Americans have these concerns,
- 33:32Speaker 10: and you know, the data center fight that's happening across
- 33:35Speaker 10: the country is very local, very organic, very bipartisan. I mean,
- 33:38Speaker 10: you see people on the left coming out people on
- 33:41Speaker 10: the right. You see you know, these protests happening in
- 33:44Speaker 10: conservative areas and more liberal areas, cities and suburbs and
- 33:48Speaker 10: rural areas. So good luck calling eighty five percent of
- 33:51Speaker 10: Americans extremists. Are there some people that you know have
- 33:56Speaker 10: done some things on all sorts of political issues over
- 33:59Speaker 10: the years that are that are yes, and those people
- 34:01Speaker 10: should be dealt with individually. But this has a chilling
- 34:03Speaker 10: effect and I think that's exactly what they want, because
- 34:05Speaker 10: they see that people are rising up and they don't
- 34:08Speaker 10: trust the truck trust the tech oligarchs, and they want
- 34:12Speaker 10: to have their freedom, and they are very skeptical, skeptical
- 34:15Speaker 10: about what is happening.
- 34:16Speaker 3: Brennan, this also happens in conjunction. Let's put E two
- 34:18Speaker 3: up there on the screen. This was a fascinating incident
- 34:21Speaker 3: where Trump was about set to sign an AI executive order.
- 34:25Speaker 3: The executive order, as least as we understand, it would
- 34:28Speaker 3: have required some of these AI companies to submit their
- 34:31Speaker 3: models for review or at least like some level of
- 34:35Speaker 3: safety review. It was literally hours away from being signed
- 34:38Speaker 3: when it was pulled at the very last minute. The
- 34:41Speaker 3: inside reporting is that David Sachs, who works in the
- 34:44Speaker 3: current administration, called the president said that this would set
- 34:47Speaker 3: back the US AI edge over China.
- 34:50Speaker 1: What do you make of this development.
- 34:54Speaker 10: I think David Sacks is not really serving in the
- 34:56Speaker 10: best interest of President Trump. He's serving in his own
- 34:59Speaker 10: financial and tr and his you know cronies in you know,
- 35:03Speaker 10: big tech. I think that it's it's frankly bad politics
- 35:06Speaker 10: for Sas to encourage the President to do this. I
- 35:09Speaker 10: think the President was on the right path. I think
- 35:11Speaker 10: the Chief of Staff Susie Wiles understands this and has
- 35:13Speaker 10: been briefing the President on the national security implications of
- 35:17Speaker 10: AI and on the politics of this. So I think
- 35:20Speaker 10: it's a grave mistake, and we want to see the administration,
- 35:23Speaker 10: you know, continue to try and do something here to
- 35:25Speaker 10: protect the American people.
- 35:26Speaker 7: And I'm afraid if they don't.
- 35:28Speaker 10: Not only will we have a huge cyber incident cyber
- 35:31Speaker 10: attack this year, potentially you know, for their own political reasons,
- 35:35Speaker 10: they should do this as well, because if they don't,
- 35:38Speaker 10: it could be really bad for them in the midterm elections.
- 35:40Speaker 10: So I think it's a bad political move, but more importantly,
- 35:44Speaker 10: it's harmful to national security. And I think there are
- 35:47Speaker 10: people within the administration like the Treasury Secretary, Susie Wiles,
- 35:51Speaker 10: a chief of staff, and even I think Pete Hegset,
- 35:53Speaker 10: despite this war with Anthropic at least reportedly been talking
- 35:57Speaker 10: about some of the dangers that advanced poses to national
- 36:01Speaker 10: security and cybersecurity. So we need the administration to turn
- 36:04Speaker 10: the ship, and frankly, if they don't, there's going to
- 36:07Speaker 10: be a political backlash in November and beyond because the
- 36:10Speaker 10: politics of this.
- 36:11Speaker 7: Are very clear.
- 36:12Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it's still early days for this
- 36:15Speaker 2: to be central in twenty twenty six, but I fully
- 36:18Speaker 2: expect AI to be central to the debates in twenty
- 36:22Speaker 2: twenty eight, and there are a lot of candidates who
- 36:24Speaker 2: are starting to look inform their opinions accordingly, what do
- 36:27Speaker 2: you see as the most sort of dire immediate threats
- 36:31Speaker 2: from AI development. I know we had the Mythos release
- 36:35Speaker 2: which wasn't released, but certain actors got it, and you know,
- 36:39Speaker 2: others who were unauthorized were able to gain access to it,
- 36:41Speaker 2: and I think that was a bit of a wake
- 36:43Speaker 2: up call for people. But what do you see as
- 36:44Speaker 2: the most immediate term risks that we should be on
- 36:46Speaker 2: the lookout for.
- 36:48Speaker 7: It's a good question.
- 36:49Speaker 10: I would say the biggest risk does relate to a
- 36:52Speaker 10: cyber incident, and that's mostly because the capabilities of AI
- 36:56Speaker 10: are doubling about every four months, and sobilities are growing rapidly.
- 37:01Speaker 10: We're not able to keep up with the protection side
- 37:04Speaker 10: and patching the vulnerabilities. If we don't have a safety
- 37:07Speaker 10: and testing and evaluation effort in the federal government, then
- 37:12Speaker 10: those capabilities are just going to outpace our defenses, and
- 37:15Speaker 10: then you think about a bad actor, whether it's a
- 37:17Speaker 10: terrorist group or an extremist or a state actor like
- 37:20Speaker 10: China using one of these models, distilling one of the
- 37:23Speaker 10: models and then using it to attack us. That is
- 37:25Speaker 10: a thing that really keeps me up at night in
- 37:27Speaker 10: the next you know, six months to nine months. But
- 37:30Speaker 10: at the same time, you have you know, rapid job
- 37:33Speaker 10: displacement happening. I mean, we've tracked over one hundred and
- 37:35Speaker 10: thirty thousand jobs lost so far due to AI going
- 37:39Speaker 10: back to next year or last year, excuse me. And
- 37:41Speaker 10: I think that's a great concern as well, because you know,
- 37:44Speaker 10: if that continues and there's no place for those folks
- 37:47Speaker 10: and they're not able to go into a new job,
- 37:50Speaker 10: we could have high en employment, we could have.
- 37:52Speaker 7: Social and political instability.
- 37:54Speaker 10: We could have even you know, more serious kind of
- 37:57Speaker 10: concentration of wealth and power and social inequality that is
- 38:00Speaker 10: not good for society, that is not good for our country.
- 38:02Speaker 10: And so I think both of those things are huge
- 38:05Speaker 10: problems that really are solvable if we get to work.
- 38:07Speaker 3: Yeah, Brendan, really appreciate your analysis here, man, Thank you
- 38:11Speaker 3: for joining.
- 38:11Speaker 7: Us, Thank you so much.
- 38:14Speaker 3: Thank you guys, so much for watching Friday Show tomorrow,
- 38:16Speaker 3: See you all then.