Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / "Would The US Defend Australia?" with Cecile Shea

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"Would The US Defend Australia?" with Cecile Shea · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

• 0:00
  Good day, humans. We are but days away from a federal election in Australia. And I could do an
• 0:08
  episode about the election and about what our predictions and prognostications are about the
• 0:14
  political outcome here. I didn't want to. I didn't want to drag your psyche into the horse race
• 0:21
  of politics because at the end of the day, partisan politics is just an outcome of how we try to
• 0:28
  constitute ourselves as a people. The things that we think are important to ourselves
• 0:35
  and how we want to relate to each other and to the future of our country. I think it's a time
• 0:40
  to be grateful for the fact that we live in a place where so many different cultures and so
• 0:44
  many different ethnicities and faiths can coexist. I think it's a moment to be grateful
• 0:50
  for the fact that we live in a place where we can settle our differences at the ballot box.
• 0:55
  And no matter how jaded you might be about the tweedledum and tweedlede nature of the political
• 1:00
  parties, do spare a thought for the fact that the issues on which they agree, the issues on which
• 1:05
  you feel frustrated that there isn't more radical action are to a large extent issues that have given
• 1:13
  us enormous levels of peace and prosperity. The sheer bounty that Western democracies have given
• 1:21
  to us, the sheer productivity and middle classness of the Australian experiment and the experiment
• 1:28
  in similar Western countries is not something we should take for granted. And the people who try
• 1:32
  to target the fraying edges of that democracy who try to point out this way and that way in which
• 1:38
  it's wrong, whether those people are from the left by saying that the West is irredeemably racist
• 1:44
  and based on white oppression, white supremacy, colonialism, and therefore is a worthless project
• 1:52
  that we should tread on egg shells and constantly be cautious about the tripwires that we might be
• 1:56
  triggering for fear of saying the wrong thing or sounding like we might be heaven forbid, Western
• 2:03
  cultural supremacists, Western chauvinists, whether it's that or whether it's right wingers who are
• 2:10
  equally despondent and equally aggressive in saying that we shouldn't stand up for hypocritical
• 2:17
  principles because really we're all just carping and moaning in a big cultural miasma and that
• 2:24
  the strong should triumph over the week. Regardless of what perspective you're coming from,
• 2:30
  if you're attacking the democratic project instead of being involved in it, if you're assuming that
• 2:34
  your opponents have nothing worthwhile to say, if you're more interested in winning fights than in
• 2:41
  understanding your fellow citizens, then you my friend a part of the problem. So let's talk about
• 2:47
  the big things, not the election, the election matters but it doesn't matter as much as holding
• 2:51
  this whole ship together, figuring out how we can live together, having conversations that are big
• 2:57
  and thoughtful and inspiring and sometimes yes uncomfortable.
• 3:12
  Today on the show this is one of those conversations that I really love where I start out wanting to
• 3:18
  talk to a really clever person about one thing and then we just wander off into all kinds of
• 3:23
  uncomfortable territory. A conversation at its best, a conversation like it is when you're just
• 3:28
  having a coffee or a drink or a cocktail or a beer with someone with a brilliant mind and
• 3:34
  Cecil Shea is one such person, she was a US diplomat for more than 20 years, she worked a lot on Asian
• 3:41
  issues, she worked in the Asia Pacific, she was the political advisor to the US Marine Corps
• 3:46
  in the Asia Pacific theater and she was a press attaché and media analyst's chief at the US
• 3:54
  embassy in Tokyo, she's worked at the embassy in Pakistan, in Thailand, in Israel, in Scotland,
• 4:01
  so she knows everything about foreign policy in the United States and I wanted to talk to her
• 4:06
  because she has fascinating ideas about Ukraine and a deep understanding of what Russia might be
• 4:13
  up to and how the West is responding and should respond. I thought it was time for a bit of a
• 4:18
  Ukraine check-in but as she started talking I started realizing this is an interesting person to
• 4:24
  speak with about American power generally especially in the part of the world that I live in
• 4:29
  where there's deep concern about the future of security, the future of China, future of Taiwan,
• 4:37
  how middle-sized democracies like Australia can live in the 21st century when American leadership
• 4:45
  is waning and untrusted and there are these big alternatives to the democratic liberal order
• 4:51
  in the form of Russia and China that propose a very different way of thinking about how countries
• 4:58
  should deal with the world and what happens to the countries who have sat in comfort, some would say
• 5:07
  in smugness in the post-war era throughout the 20th century feeling like we've constructed the
• 5:12
  global order and that's the way that it will always be then all of a sudden Putin shoots an
• 5:19
  arrow across the bow and says no the world doesn't have to be this way the world can go back to being
• 5:24
  a place where countries just send tanks in and start shelling European capitals. Where does that
• 5:32
  leave us all? This conversation contains an enormous number of clues I hope you enjoy as much as I
• 5:38
  did this chat with the world-only Cecil Shea.
• 5:53
  What did you have for lunch? Would I have for lunch? Fist sticks? How about you? What did you have for lunch?
• 6:00
  Well it's 7.40 in the morning. I had some beef jerky and a yoghurt. It was a weird lunch.
• 6:09
  I was in a place before my radio show. Well it's high in protein so yeah exactly that was the only
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  goal just don't have a lot of carbs and then in the afternoon. I'd love to just get your thoughts
• 6:23
  about where we are. After the initial onslaught on Ukraine I feel like everyone was sort of on
• 6:31
  the same page about where we just have to make this untenable. This is something that can't happen
• 6:36
  in the 21st century. If you could parachute back and talk to yourself at the beginning of the
• 6:44
  invasion and tell yourself where we are now would you be pleased or upset or somewhere in between?
• 6:53
  Yeah I'd be pleased. I'd also be even angrier than I was at the time and I was angry at the time
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  because it was our inaction for what 10 or 15 years against Putin's increasingly egregious
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  behavior that had led to this horrible war which is first and foremost a humanitarian disaster
• 7:14
  for the Ukrainian people but also you know for the Russian soldiers who are dying and suffering
• 7:19
  in this war but it's also an economic catastrophe for much of the planet and it could turn and do
• 7:24
  an even larger humanitarian catastrophe this summer if we end up with the kind of food shortages
• 7:29
  that look like could occur. So I find myself being angry for not standing up to Putin sooner and
• 7:35
  that anger has only increased. You know the obvious surprise has been how terrible the Russian
• 7:43
  army is. I mean I knew they weren't going to be as good as people thought they were going to be
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  but I honestly didn't think they were going to be this bad and I just have my appreciation and
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  esteem for the Ukrainian people has also increased and the last thing is it's just a reminder
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  of the fact that leaders sometimes rise to the top at moments when a country or a group of people
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  need them the most. If you had told any of us in January that Zelensky was going to be capable of
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  showing this kind of leadership throughout a war I don't think most of us would have believed
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  but he has turned he has just turned out to be this person of extraordinary ability and capabilities
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  so that's the other thing that has pleasantly surprised me amongst all this horror.
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  Are his extraordinary abilities and capabilities in the realm of strategy or just in the realm of
• 8:44
  keeping a strong spine? Well certainly the strong spine and being able to communicate well
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  at a time when your country needs to know that there is someone who has their backs at the top
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  I mean that's important right I mean Winston Churchill may have been a very fine strategist
• 9:04
  as was FDR but at the end of the day where they excelled was maintaining the morale of their
• 9:11
  populations and Zelensky understands that of course he comes out of television so he knows how to
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  talk to people in ways that they will understand and he has done really a superb job.
• 9:24
  He also knows how to make the big decisions this is we're going to find out exactly what's going
• 9:29
  on behind the scenes sometime at some later point right we don't even actually understand how the
• 9:34
  decisions are being made in his cabinet and among his military leaders but he seems like the kind
• 9:40
  of person who trusts his people to make the right decisions. He's in charge clearly
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  and people respect him for that but he has managed to surround himself with people who have made some
• 9:52
  very good decisions and with some military leaders who again by now are quite experienced they've
• 10:00
  been fighting the Russians since 2014 I don't think Putin realized how much on the job training
• 10:06
  he was giving them all these years and so he's kind of been blessed with some people who've made
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  some good decisions the other thing that he's been really good at is gaining international support
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  and a lot of his success is because of NATO intelligence support US intelligence support I imagine
• 10:28
  that the Aussies are helping where they can obviously Europe is not one of their central theaters
• 10:33
  but he has known how to make an impression and push the right buttons with all sorts of
• 10:39
  different foreign governments to the point where he actually got the Israelis to apologize
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  and Israelis don't do that you know so yeah serving Israel it's not something that comes
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  easily to them it's really it really is not something that comes easily to them and so
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  he knows how to communicate with the people whose help and support he needs right now
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  what did he get the Israelis to apologize for oh you know so this is where I'm going to
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  get a little confused but he it started with the Russians complaining and making some really
• 11:18
  obnoxious statements about about Jews basically of course Zelensky is Jewish and the prime minister
• 11:25
  is also Jewish and and I think quietly now you have Israel saying you know we should have
• 11:33
  supported Zelensky more from the beginning and they are acknowledging that fact of course Putin
• 11:39
  also apologized and he's not one to apologize either so really they you know the foreign
• 11:44
  ministry really stepped into it with with their statements but well he's been Zelensky has definitely
• 11:50
  been been doing the the full court press with the entire world whilst also running the war when
• 11:56
  he when he spoke to the Australian parliament I thought yeah you really know that a Ukrainian
• 12:02
  leader is trying to pull out all the stops when they get down the list of important countries to
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  woo and you get to Australia I mean we say that we laugh a little bit right but but actually
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  in Australia is an absolutely vital country in terms of intelligence first of foremost and he's
• 12:19
  obviously and the Ukrainians have really benefited by by a whole raft of intelligence that is
• 12:26
  that has come from various countries but he also knows that you have a long it's you meaning
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  Australia have a long and distinguished history fighting sometimes in very unfair circumstances
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  in Europe so I think that was also his way that yeah right yes yes that could be true that's
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  the throwback to Gallipoli and exactly yeah and World War Two um we're physically so important
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  then why hasn't Putin taken him out well he may not have been able to you know and this is this
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  is one of the big questions of why have the have the Russians been so ineffective I mean they don't
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  control the skies everyone thought they would control the skies almost immediately we knew you know
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  I mean those of us who were watching closely knew at the beginning and were kind of mystified
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  by the Russians choice to go in in the springtime which is Ukraine's rainy season so we knew that
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  their tanks were gonna have problems mud and tanks are not a really good combination so we knew
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  that wasn't gonna go well but just the degree to which they have not been able to meet any of their
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  early goals is quite striking and really in order to decapitate the government they would have
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  had to take keve they clearly were planning to take keve and they couldn't I mean they gave up on
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  that goal very early so but just to verify I mean I would I'm not I have no idea about these things but
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  I would assume that there are only a dozen places that Zelensky would be and that you don't necessarily
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  need to control the air I mean yet the Russia's army surely has land-based bunker busting missiles
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  that they could hurl at a whole bunch of suspected targets and just obliterate in China city blocks
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  from the land couldn't they you know in theory I we don't really know where he's hiding at all
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  of the times and what kind of facilities they have built since 2014 they've probably built some
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  pretty extreme ones it also appeared particularly in the early days of the war that Russia was trying
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  to avoid creating more enemies than it had to in Ukraine such as by obliterating keve now they ended
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  up causing a lot of damage in keve in the end so it's a good question I mean it's one of the questions
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  that is going to come up later which is did the Russians actually try to assassinate Zelensky
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  and and just fail did they think that they had double agents available to do it and then
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  those double agents backed out on them that's a possibility or did they just decide that making him
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  a martyr wasn't worth it so I mean they've just not been very good at executing a lot of different
• 15:02
  things and and it will be interesting if historians can figure out what the problems were I mean
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  they're lack of of communications ability has been a problem too and we don't know how much of
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  their comms the Ukrainian military has access to but it appears a lot because they have not been
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  communicating in in classified channels they've been communicating on open networks their classified
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  channels seem to have failed at the beginning of the invasion wow that's incredible yeah I mean
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  keeping the military up to speed over the past few decades well they've been using I mean they've
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  been using their cell phones you know they've been text to each other they've been using telegram it's
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  uh it was just like I would run a war I mean it's so the question becomes now well you know is
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  it that the Russians really failed to upgrade after the Georgian invasion because the Georgian
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  invasion even though they succeeded at what they were trying to do it was a disaster you know
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  their tanks were breaking down all over the place the command and control structure was a nightmare
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  they couldn't uh they they couldn't get some of their logistics right to get supplies to the
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  troops and they were supposed to have fixed a lot of these things since that invasion and the
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  reality that we see now is they haven't fixed most things um possibly including communications now
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  then you get into the question well is it that the Ukrainians were able to take the Russian
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  classified communication system out I mean that's a possibility too it it may be that um you know
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  the Russians thought they had good communications but other people were able to just put them out of
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  business so that's another thing that we're the historians are gonna have to look at of course
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  it doesn't help that the Russians are fighting not just against Ukraine but against the Ukraine
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  which is supported by the the all of the military hardware and military intelligence of the the
• 16:53
  West that the West is supplying when you can you just explain how that works like when when
• 16:59
  Zelensky and his senior generals are making decisions about things and we say that they're getting
• 17:03
  intelligence from the West does that mean that they're just getting printouts of what the West
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  understands about Russian troop movements and things what does it mean that they're they're likely
• 17:14
  actually on zoom calls with people you know with the chairman of the joint chiefs or something
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  and they're they're having strategy meetings and getting direct advice from other Western
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  strategists do we know yeah so the way it would normally work I mean it's not Zelensky on the call
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  or even its top generals on the call it's it's their intelligence people with their intelligence
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  contacts in NATO for instance um and I think the West has been print and the US in particular has
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  been pretty upfront about the fact that they're providing information including things like
• 17:46
  targeting now there are probably also I know here I'm just guessing I don't know but normally
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  there would be some Ukrainian intelligence officers sitting in NATO offices perhaps in Warsaw
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  perhaps you know in Britain wherever who are then coordinating and looking at some of the
• 18:04
  intel and then passing it back to their own people so I I don't completely understand why some
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  folks in Washington have leaked things I'm sorry are you able to hear those things
• 18:16
  what happened no I can't hear things I can just hear acute pooch in the background like oh yeah
• 18:20
  well she's I don't you're gonna keep hearing her probably but I you know there's been leaks in
• 18:27
  Washington apparently approved leaks saying that we've been helping them with targeting senior
• 18:32
  generals helping them with targeting large ships which was a particularly embarrassing incident
• 18:39
  for the Russian military um I'm just laughing because I saw a meme after they're after
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  their great ship went down which was like written in the in the kind of sort of like a font like
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  it looked like Russian lettering and it said that the the great ship had been had been promoted to
• 18:54
  submarine that's right exactly yeah I mean and it's you know the Ukrainians are good but they're
• 19:01
  they're not that good I mean let's face it right I mean for them to know exactly where the ship is
• 19:05
  exactly where a significant number of generals have been um means they're probably having some
• 19:12
  pretty sophisticated help from countries with really sophisticated intelligence capabilities
• 19:18
  right so the the other interesting thing you mentioned weapons you know some of the most
• 19:25
  successful and deadly weapons the Ukrainians have been using are actually made in Ukraine so
• 19:30
  we have provided them this is public knowledge we've provided them some very advanced anti-tank
• 19:34
  missiles for instance and anti-aircraft weapons but it turns out they don't really need
• 19:41
  ones that are that advanced in a lot of cases because the Russian tanks are slow and they don't have
• 19:46
  a lot of their own countermeasures a lot of their own capacity to fight off some of these anti-take
• 19:51
  weapons and so the Ukrainians are able to use ones that are much less expensive and they're having a
• 19:57
  lot of success with those also so yes we have provided them with a lot of weapons and
• 20:04
  Congress has now approved providing them with a lot more weapons there's been a lot of press
• 20:09
  reporting that the polls went as far as wanting to provide the Ukrainians migs and the US and
• 20:15
  some other countries apparently asked them not to they they thought that would have just been
• 20:21
  too too much that would have been too uh in in Russia's base I heard an alternative theory
• 20:29
  there Cecil which which was that they that the Americans just felt that that you know the amount
• 20:33
  of training and replacement that you would then need for those fire aircraft would make it not
• 20:39
  worth it that they'd get them up and then they get shot down and then it would be complicated
• 20:43
  is that too generous I don't know I think I think that Ukraine has the pilots you know I mean that's
• 20:47
  why that's why they were looking at some of those Warsaw packed countries to supply the former
• 20:52
  Warsaw packed countries because they have the kind of aircraft that the Ukrainians know how to fly
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  and I I don't think that the US would have been too bothered if those were lost because we would
• 21:03
  like those countries to buy NATO compatible aircraft right which is another way of saying to buy
• 21:09
  American aircraft but you know we would like them to buy NATO compatible aircraft so I'm not saying
• 21:15
  what the story that you just presented is not true it could be we'll we'll just not know
• 21:21
  probably for a while but then the mere fact that the polls and I think there was one more country
• 21:27
  whether it was the Czechs or the Hungarians were willing to do that shows you just how much the
• 21:33
  Eastern Europeans are invested in making sure that Putin figures out that he can't do this ever again
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  you speak to us about the mood in in other eastern and central European countries because part
• 21:45
  of the part of what's frustrated me especially in the early days of this was that there was
• 21:49
  an awful lot of hand-ringing on the left and right in the west saying that this isn't how
• 21:56
  fight that you know of course Putin has an understanding of his sphere of influence that in some
• 22:02
  respects mirrors our understanding of our sphere of influence you the United States didn't like it
• 22:07
  when Cuba was going to have nukes at the Monroe doctrine said that you know no one should have
• 22:11
  have the ability to attack the US from the Western hemisphere Ukraine has historically been
• 22:18
  been a Russian a part of Russia so you know why is this this how fight which is all well and good
• 22:23
  if you want but it completely ignores the autonomy and the lives of tens of millions of Ukrainians
• 22:29
  and tens well a hundred million Eastern Central European people who see this very very differently
• 22:35
  from the way that people tend to see it in the in the covered drawing rooms of like intellectual
• 22:42
  American and British and Australian analysts yeah absolutely I happen to have been on some TV
• 22:47
  programs the last few years with say the foreign minister of Estonia and the foreign minister of
• 22:51
  Latvia Lithuania I mean this to them is not an intellectual exercise they are constantly traveling
• 22:58
  around the US appearing on any TV show that they can say you know we have got to do something about
• 23:04
  Russia this is an existential issue for us and we really wish your president would stop talking
• 23:09
  about leaving NATO because that's would just be a disaster for the entire world so yes they feel
• 23:14
  very strongly about this as to of course the polls and the Hungarians one one story that I was
• 23:21
  reminded of today is I was the US consul general in Scotland in 2004 when Ronald Reagan passed away
• 23:28
  and one of the leading businessmen in town was a Scandinavian who had moved to Scotland like
• 23:34
  30 years earlier and I didn't get a lot of condolence calls in Scotland when Ronald Reagan
• 23:41
  died because if you know anything about Scotland you know that they really don't like Margaret
• 23:46
  thatcher there and Ronald Reagan was seen as being her closest supporter but one day the Scandinavian
• 23:52
  gentleman called to express his condolences and and I was a little surprised because if ever there
• 23:58
  were a set of countries that would not have appreciated Ronald Reagan's economic and social policy
• 24:03
  she would think it was Scandinavia but he said look we lived every day of our lives during the cold
• 24:09
  war terrified that the Russians or the Soviets could invade tomorrow it was an ever present
• 24:16
  risk and awareness for us and the fact that Ronald Reagan stood up to the Soviets so strongly
• 24:23
  and eventually contributed to the downfall of the Soviet Union is something for which this gentleman
• 24:30
  and he said and his family will be forever grateful and of course I thought of that because some
• 24:35
  people seemed surprised that Finland and Sweden are suddenly going to join NATO and I think that
• 24:41
  what has happened is you know President Trump's conversations during his four years in office
• 24:49
  scared them they always thought that they could just cooperate with NATO from the outside support
• 24:54
  NATO where they could but staying neutral and you know maintain a decent enough relationship
• 25:01
  with Russia and Finland has a very long border with Russia and now they're realizing they can't
• 25:07
  do that anymore and again for them it's an existential issue so I'm not at all surprised that
• 25:12
  you're now seeing NATO actually getting stronger and growing more which after all is the exact
• 25:17
  thing that Putin said he was fighting against right um why do you think he didn't see that why do
• 25:22
  you think he didn't see that this would bolster NATO because there definitely was a sense at the
• 25:28
  end of the Trump administration and before the Ukraine invasion I think I mean I would have been
• 25:33
  skeptical I would excuse me I would have been one of the people who had said seriously I mean
• 25:38
  are we serious that if if Putin sends some you know some little green man into Estonia and
• 25:43
  for meant some kind of you know anti-democratic uprising that has to be put down and then he has
• 25:49
  a pretext of saying look we're just going to go in and we're going to assist with the peacekeeping
• 25:53
  in eastern Estonia and then all of a sudden before you know it you know a friendly Putin friendly
• 26:00
  government has has risen to power on the back of some phony popular uprising in Estonia and
• 26:08
  you know over the years and the decades he manages to essentially make Estonia a part of Russia
• 26:13
  do you really think that the whole that the US is going to declare war on Russia and create a
• 26:18
  world war so in which case what does NATO really mean is it actually the trip wire that it's supposed
• 26:23
  to be now I think it is now I think people would agree yeah no there there is solidarity there
• 26:29
  exactly the solidarity that Putin didn't want so what was his strategy did he not see it
• 26:33
  I think he had bad intel frankly I think he had bad intel from the US I think that he thought he
• 26:40
  knew more about the West than he actually knew I wonder if he thought that what with a new chancellor
• 26:46
  in Germany that maybe he could take advantage of Angela Merkel being gone and in reality the exact
• 26:52
  opposite has happened right that the current chancellor has been willing to make decisions that
• 26:56
  even ankle and Merkel was not willing to make so I think he he and some of his intel agencies
• 27:02
  misjudged things now when you are in a habit of executing your top generals and your top people
• 27:10
  and terrified you know I look at how many doctors happen to fall out of windows for admitting that
• 27:16
  COVID was a big problem in Russia when people are terrified to tell you the truth you don't get
• 27:21
  the truth so that could also be part of it that he was just not getting good information because
• 27:27
  people were afraid to tell him the truth or that he was making a mistake with the invasion so
• 27:33
  it could have been a variety of issues that he put too much faith in what he was seeing happening
• 27:39
  in the US that he thought that he had divided us on these issues more than he actually had him he
• 27:44
  looked his information campaign in the US has been enormously successful there is no doubt about
• 27:50
  it and I'm not just talking about attitudes toward Russia I'm talking about tearing us apart in
• 27:55
  the fabric of our society on issues like race and religion and and politics so his people succeeded
• 28:04
  in that and it's something that we have to move past now and heal from but where they apparently
• 28:10
  did not succeed is convincing Americans that Europe doesn't matter oh or that NATO doesn't matter
• 28:17
  and by the way the the Chicago Council on Global Affairs where I'm affiliated we do polling we've
• 28:21
  been doing polling since you know 1973 on American attitudes toward all sorts of foreign policy issues
• 28:29
  and interestingly even during the Trump years attitudes toward NATO toward our alliance with Japan
• 28:34
  toward our alliance with South Korea they really didn't change that much they've been quite
• 28:39
  constant for 50 years now but what do we know about how far that goes I mean I think it's different
• 28:46
  to ask people in a poll when you're calling them at dinner time and they're just trying to say yes
• 28:49
  or no to get you off the phone about whether or not you know should we maintain our relationship
• 28:54
  with those nice democratic South Koreans and Japanese yeah sure but does that mean that Americans
• 28:58
  should be coming home in body bags in the thousands if China tries to take Taiwan maybe not
• 29:05
  yeah I mean you're absolutely right and that's always a question I do think that you know
• 29:09
  look for better or worse that it is very often worse we are a war fighting country I think we try
• 29:18
  to do it for good reasons but the American people time and again have shown that if there's a decent
• 29:24
  communicator in the White House who can explain why it matters to Americans Americans are willing
• 29:29
  to make big sacrifices the question that constantly is asked is would we be willing to go to war
• 29:36
  for Japan over the Senkaku Islands or as you say go to war for Taiwan over China I think what's
• 29:41
  becoming clear now is that it's not just about Taiwan or China or or Japan anymore just like it's
• 29:47
  not about Estonia it's about us it's about freedom in the in this entire world I mean with with the
• 29:55
  in kinds of um meddling in our society that we've seen from Russia with the kind of economic and
• 30:03
  and and um what's the word spying power that the Chinese have there's a lot at stake in in making
• 30:13
  sure that the US is willing to stick up for values and freedom and democracy in countries abroad
• 30:20
  and I do think Americans generally understand that and are concerned about rising influence
• 30:25
  um that has our folks in other countries I'm you know I was I was in Australia a few times about
• 30:32
  10 years ago and there was a lot of concern more concern in Australia at that time than there
• 30:36
  was in the US about what a rising China was going to mean to the region and to Australia so
• 30:41
  yeah I think that there's a pretty big groundswell right now of concern about the future of of
• 30:48
  freedom for all of us given what's happening with AI and new technology. I mean I do feel there's
• 30:54
  been a shift there's been a loss of faith in you know it's such a cliche to say a loss of faith
• 30:59
  in American leadership but maybe a loss of faith less in American leadership and more in American
• 31:05
  I suppose goodness or credibility or something over the past couple of years and
• 31:09
  worthiness I would you know trust worthy knew like it's trustworthiness also yes I do think that's
• 31:15
  right and and even competence I mean there's a there's a sense there was a sense before I think
• 31:21
  before the Iraq war and then we got it again under the Obama administration to a large extent where
• 31:27
  he was a very popular president among other you know Western people outside of the the US just
• 31:32
  in terms of foreign policy that despite Vietnam America would always try to do the right thing and
• 31:40
  and try to abide by the international the international rules that the world had set up
• 31:46
  after World War II and then Iraq did it took a big blow to that you know it gives it gives all
• 31:53
  of the disingenuous people something a big thing to point to that questions America's commitment
• 31:59
  to the global rules based order you know there's no direct comparison between invading Iraq and
• 32:04
  Russia invading Ukraine but honest if you're if you're willing to put aside all the moral questions
• 32:09
  and just look at the technocratic question of when the country is allowed to invade another country
• 32:16
  there was no you know you end justification for Iraq and so that technically was it you know
• 32:21
  against the rules against the law internationally and then when Trump comes in and says and says all
• 32:26
  of this disparaging stuff about NATO and about allies and you don't really care about it people do
• 32:31
  start to think shit I mean especially if you're in a situation like Australia finds itself in
• 32:36
  where it's largest economic trading partner is China and it's largest security partner is the US
• 32:42
  man you're you're stuck with one foot on one boat and one foot on another boat and the boats are
• 32:47
  drifting apart in the river you're going to end up falling in yeah no I agree I the invasion of
• 32:52
  Iraq was probably the singles were strategic mistake that the US has made in a hundred years
• 32:59
  probably even worse than Vietnam and Vietnam was a huge strategic mistake I mean
• 33:04
  and and it has cost us dearly in in terms of deterrent value right I mean your your military is
• 33:11
  only a good deterrence if people are sure that they will be obliterated if they step out of line
• 33:17
  I mean I'm just putting it I'm just putting it very bluntly and so what you want to do is you
• 33:21
  want to never have to show them that you can do that I mean when I take that back you show them
• 33:25
  that you can do it you just have to make it clear you're not going to do it unless provoked in a
• 33:30
  very serious way right and if you do do it you better be as powerful as you as you say you are
• 33:35
  because yeah you know I don't show you that's why yeah you're only holding a pair of twos we went
• 33:43
  into a rock on bad intelligence we executed the war terribly through frankly no fault of some
• 33:49
  of the lower level officers who were asking for x y and z and couldn't get any of it um we had
• 33:56
  like crazy ideas that the Iraqis would welcome us with open arms um not understanding
• 34:03
  fundamental human pride it it it was just it was just so bad from beginning to end um
• 34:12
  and I really feel for these young marines and soldiers and and airmen and sailors who were there
• 34:17
  and they were trying to do their best and most of them were really trying to do their best we
• 34:21
  obviously had some disasters and and with human rights abuses and obogry prison um but it
• 34:30
  those folks were let down by the people making the decisions at the top so but I I do kind of
• 34:37
  feel like yeah what I heard over and over again because I was serving in in the UK during the war
• 34:43
  and then I was serving in Pakistan I was serving in Israel when I kept hearing over and over was
• 34:48
  we need you guys to get better we need you to succeed we need you to get your mojo back and I'm
• 34:54
  kind of feeling like maybe some of that is happening with our support of the Ukrainians that you
• 35:00
  know we are showing that we're that we have we're capable of producing some pretty good intelligence
• 35:06
  and helping people with it um and we're capable of showing international leadership so I'm hoping
• 35:13
  that some of our deterrence is coming back and that some of the world's trouble makers are watching
• 35:20
  because that's really what you need it you know again we don't have these huge exercises and
• 35:24
  display these incredible um this credible amount of firepower that we have because we're going to use
• 35:30
  someday we do all that because we don't want to use it someday so and and we kind of lost that with
• 35:36
  Iraq and and to a lesser extent with Afghanistan we should have done Afghanistan much differently
• 35:42
  that's clear now yeah and maybe this is uh I mean maybe Ukraine is a wake up call that actually the
• 35:48
  best way to make the world feel that the punishment of of stepping out of line is too bad to to make
• 35:55
  it worth doing is actually through the use of international institutions yes and you know and
• 36:00
  economic sanctions and so on uh because you know this is probably putting this is probably worse for
• 36:06
  Russia the way it is now than it would be if we were in some kind of uh more militarized situation in
• 36:13
  which the US was actively militarily involved and then you know everyone ends up wrestling the pig
• 36:18
  and everybody ends up getting dirty here oh would it would it be terrible and you know I think
• 36:21
  one of the things that really is frustrating to me is now that we've seen these complete sanctions
• 36:26
  going to affect and and and how hard they are on Russia's leaders in particular you know I keep
• 36:35
  asking myself well why didn't we do this after Russians went into the commercial heart of London
• 36:42
  and put Polonium in someone's tea to murder him two blocks from the US embassy I mean can you
• 36:48
  imagine if an Arab country had done that in the US or Britain what would have happened
• 36:54
  we would have responded with overwhelming force now admittedly it depends on the Arab country
• 36:59
  if it was the Saudi we would we take it if it was Iranians we wouldn't we we think well thank
• 37:04
  I mean that's very true right we we are very uneven with our expectations of other governments but
• 37:10
  the the fact that um Russia again and again has gotten off so lightly and and part of that
• 37:17
  to be fair can't really completely be blamed on the US because a lot of what we wanted to do was
• 37:22
  vetoed by the Western Europeans who needed the natural gas or who you know rely on money
• 37:30
  and and purchases and a commercial relationship with Russia generally so
• 37:34
  hindsight being 2020 we should have taken much tougher action 2004 2006 2008 and we wouldn't
• 37:47
  be in this mess now but we didn't and hopefully we'll learn and not let other countries continue
• 37:53
  to push push push push push until we just say well now we have to react what was it like serving
• 37:59
  in Pakistan during the Iraq war so that's a very interesting question of course they were far more
• 38:08
  concerned with the situation in Afghanistan because most of the supplies going to the US military
• 38:14
  were traveling by land route through Pakistan there were dedicated air corridors and we couldn't
• 38:20
  approximate fact is we could not have prosecuted the war in Afghanistan without support from Pakistan
• 38:25
  and um and so it put them in a rather odd situation right because they also knew that we were
• 38:32
  eventually going to leave and the Taliban was probably going to take I mean they kept telling me
• 38:36
  this over and over you guys are going to leave and we're still going to be here and what's going
• 38:41
  to happen to us so yeah we agree people shouldn't be playing both sides but we're just looking
• 38:47
  out for our best interests I'm not supporting um some of the decisions that they took but I also
• 38:53
  understand that they knew what was going to happen eventually or they they thought they knew and
• 38:57
  they turns out they were correct with what also I mean you've got a significant minority of your
• 39:01
  country or patent but possibly even a majority who thinks that what what what are these American
• 39:06
  people doing here anyway exactly and what is a long game here and like I mean who are generally
• 39:11
  sympathetic to the uh the the autonomy presumably of people in Afghanistan well and they you know
• 39:18
  and they remember um you know and no matter how many promises that we make to them people have
• 39:22
  long memories and so they remember that we cut off foreign currency reserves to Pakistan after
• 39:29
  their nuclear test and people were hungry I mean they were down to two weeks of foreign currency
• 39:34
  reserves at one point uh they remember that we took their down payment for f16s and then never
• 39:39
  delivered the f16 so so whenever you try to get them to do something you get all these things thrown
• 39:44
  back at you and even though our reasons for doing those may have made sense at the time
• 39:49
  there's always uh downstream ramifications to any decision that you make in in foreign policy
• 39:55
  but you know to your question I what what was Pakistan's view toward the US I think most
• 40:02
  Pakistanis actually like the US and um they they were a lot more comfortable for instance with
• 40:12
  our development program than with China's development program China was investing a lot of money
• 40:16
  in the country but it was to benefit China and Chinese workers and so there was appreciation on some
• 40:22
  of our development programs on our long-standing relationship with the country um but a lot of
• 40:27
  frustration with uh with our Afghanistan policy and a lot of frustration with what they saw was a
• 40:35
  double standard on the nuclear weapons programs which is that we were willing to forgive
• 40:40
  India for their nuclear weapons program but are not willing to forgive Pakistan for their
• 40:48
  on the question of trustworthiness it's interesting that you say that you give those examples
• 40:52
  about Pakistanis throwing back in your face that you know the the the failure to sell them
• 40:58
  fighter jets and you know with the punishment for the nuclear program this comes back to the the
• 41:02
  word that you used earlier which is trust the trustworthiness of the US and and the sense of like
• 41:07
  can you take them to the bank you know can you take their word to the bank if they say something
• 41:11
  are you absolutely certain that they're going to do it and looping back to other Western countries
• 41:16
  other smaller or medium-sized Western countries like Australia I mean when I was growing up in the
• 41:21
  80s and 90s I think everybody thought that if Australia ever got into trouble then the US would come
• 41:27
  there was a sense that Australia had been in every US adventure and misadventure it was ever
• 41:32
  requested to take part in including Vietnam which most other Western countries didn't participate in
• 41:37
  including Iraq and if the chips were down then the US would feel some sort kind of moral obligation
• 41:43
  to to to jump in I think now if you ask Australians I think a majority would say no they'll come
• 41:49
  if it's in their security interests but at the end of the day you know countries the America will
• 41:53
  behave like any other country in the world which is that it'll do what's in its interest at that
• 41:58
  at the moment it's not going to do something out of some grander principle and that's that's
• 42:03
  that's like almost that's just the triumph of of stock hush politics other it's a disaster for us
• 42:10
  it's it's also a triumph of of kind of lack of education in the United States to not understand our
• 42:16
  our our relationship and how much we rely on other countries and other people you know I will
• 42:22
  say this having spent three years as the political advisor to the half of the Marine Corps that
• 42:27
  is in the Pacific among the military leaders there is a deep sense of appreciation and commitment
• 42:34
  to the US Australia relationship and alliance and one of the reasons that a number of the
• 42:41
  services were so eager to put up rotating presence in Australia is just to make it kind of more
• 42:49
  both more clear the Australians that were there but also more clear to the folks in Washington
• 42:54
  that we have a really unified relationship with our Australian military partners and with the
• 43:00
  government generally but yes it's it it it pains me to hear you say that because I know it's true
• 43:08
  I mean I I know that there are countries now that don't think we're going to be there for
• 43:12
  and it's dangerous it's particularly dangerous when you're talking about countries like
• 43:16
  South Korea or Japan that could build a nuclear weapon tomorrow yeah I don't you Australia could
• 43:22
  also I don't think you guys would I all know but you know if you know other countries felt
• 43:26
  threatened enough they could build nuclear weapons and right now they don't because they think
• 43:29
  we're going to be there for them but what they think we're not going to be there Cecil for the
• 43:33
  first time in my life I've heard I've heard people discussing it in the past year really an Australian
• 43:38
  nuke yeah I don't think it'll happen imminently but yeah you know it's now on the it's now a part of
• 43:42
  the conversation it never has been throughout my life so I mean and that's that's deeply troubling
• 43:47
  not because I don't trust Australia with nuclear weapons but because the last thing that this
• 43:51
  planet needs is 100 countries with nuclear weapons yeah it's dangerous enough having five seven
• 43:56
  or eight depending on how you count countries with nuclear weapons the other thing that you that
• 44:01
  you hear are Ukrainians saying right now is you know the US and Western Europe convinced us to get
• 44:06
  rid of our nuclear weapons you know a lot of the Soviet weapons were in the Ukraine at the breakup
• 44:11
  of the country yeah and you we also looked the other way while you took all of our nuclear
• 44:17
  scientists into Western countries and the thinking was if we moved a lot of their scientists to
• 44:23
  Australia or the US or Western Europe we could make sure they had good jobs with high pay so they
• 44:29
  wouldn't be tempted to transfer their knowledge to countries that shouldn't have that kind of knowledge
• 44:35
  so it was it was well meaning but there were some Ukrainians at the time who even said you know
• 44:40
  if we don't have nuclear weapons what's going to stop Russia from invading us and now here they are
• 44:46
  and and so that's I think that I hope that that's one of the reasons that President Biden is so
• 44:52
  committed to supporting the Ukrainians at this point because we need to tell countries that you
• 44:58
  know even without nuclear weapons we're going to have your back yeah you mentioned a couple of times
• 45:04
  to seal the meddling the meddling that Russia has been doing inside American democracy and the
• 45:09
  the unrest that it has fermented on issues like on sensitive cultural issues like race and
• 45:17
  I had Jonathan Hyde on the show a few weeks ago and you know he is deeply pessimistic about the
• 45:23
  role that social media is playing in the American conversation and all over the the West and
• 45:29
  I keep vacillating between two perspectives here one that you know there are malign actors like
• 45:36
  Russia who are creating fake Facebook accounts intentionally to ferment unrest and mislead people
• 45:43
  and spread misinformation in the United States and then the counter-argument which is that is just
• 45:49
  a tiny drop in the ocean which is sort of nudging things in a particular direction and being a bit
• 45:54
  cheeky and mischievous but really the fundamental problem is a homegrown one and this is us being
• 46:01
  extremified by technology and it's bringing out the worst in us and that ultimately the only
• 46:09
  solution to this is not to blame Russia and try to you know convince social media companies to be
• 46:14
  more responsible but to think long and hard about ourselves and the ways in which we're divided
• 46:21
  where it's on that so I kind of I take three routes because you know I love the theme of your show
• 46:28
  because your message is there's no simple answer or anything right everything is complex so I
• 46:33
  think we're going to need a complex approach because it's not just the US every country in the
• 46:38
  world is either facing this now or it's going to in terms of outside influence so clearly the first
• 46:45
  thing that in primary thing the USS to do is improve our education system and finally deal with
• 46:50
  150 years of racial history and the problem is it's even going to be even harder to do that now
• 46:57
  than it would have been three years ago which is appalling to me I mean you can't even
• 47:01
  they're literally passing laws in some states in this country that that forbid teachers from
• 47:07
  talking about racial history and and until we understand our own history it's going to be
• 47:15
  well we're going to be open to manipulation first of all and secondly it's going to be very hard
• 47:19
  to move forward so that's one of the things that we have to do is we have to both understand our
• 47:24
  own history and then also understand how to be smarter consumers of information and news which
• 47:30
  is probably true of every country the second thing though that that we have to do is and I'm
• 47:37
  going to disagree with you a little bit because I don't think it's fair to ask the social media
• 47:42
  country companies to censor themselves because that's not how capitalism works they're in the
• 47:48
  business of making as much money as possible and so what we're going to need to do is come up with
• 47:53
  some realistic regulations rules and incentives to encourage these companies to
• 48:00
  give people decent information and we used to do that we had a law in this country from the 1920s
• 48:06
  it changed names a few times but it was finally quite firmly codified in the 50s that required
• 48:13
  to television stations to have good even-handed verifiable well-funded news television news sources
• 48:22
  so I grew up being able to turn on the TV and watch Walter Cronkite and Walter Cronkite was telling
• 48:28
  us pretty much the the straight story and if for some reason he made a mistake they'd correct it
• 48:33
  the next night and so we don't have that anymore so we're going to have to figure out how we
• 48:38
  how we can put social media companies on an even playing field because they all have to obey
• 48:43
  the law so what what none of a want to do is be the one company that loses money because they're
• 48:48
  enforcing x and y when the company next door doesn't so I do think we're probably going to
• 48:53
  need to come up with some kind of national plan on on giving people good information and unwarning
• 49:01
  people when they're getting bad information and then the other thing is we need to come together
• 49:08
  and and and fight for and misinformation in a uniform way the way that the Taiwan East did
• 49:15
  during their last election I was actually in Taiwan observing the election it was really
• 49:20
  oppressive the way that that relatively small country organized to respond to
• 49:27
  you know China being able to put a hundred thousand two hundred thousand soldiers on computers
• 49:32
  every night and flood the country with bad information so and we've seen other countries in
• 49:39
  Europe also respond to it I think Estonia did some other countries in the lead-ups to their
• 49:43
  election really appeal to patriotism and mount an education campaign so that people recognized
• 49:52
  when they were being manipulated by outside sources so I think it's going to take all three of
• 49:56
  those things to respond I worry because I don't think the US wants to do any of them right now
• 50:01
  I mean as much as other countries have been successful I don't see us doing what Taiwan is doing
• 50:05
  I don't see us doing what Estonia has has done I don't see us dealing with our own history the
• 50:10
  way that Canada is trying to do I just I I wish I was more optimistic and and maybe I shouldn't
• 50:17
  be so pessimistic because we have a habit of eventually doing the right thing when we'd extinguished
• 50:22
  all the other options but it's going to be hard well if Taiwan had a political system and if
• 50:28
  Estonia had a political system in which you needed a 60% super majority to get any law passed and
• 50:34
  in which you know 20 to 30% of the population could vote for senators that would hold a majority
• 50:40
  who could veto everything then you know maybe they wouldn't be doing what they're doing either so
• 50:45
  there are probably structural democratic things that they have to change in the US before
• 50:49
  it's feasible to get any laws passed um let's just go and reverse order of those things that
• 50:53
  you just mentioned that's interesting so foreign misinformation what what explain to people what
• 50:58
  Taiwan does they're at the front of the pack aren't they on social media they've done well I mean
• 51:03
  they actually have someone on the you know they have a cabinet level official who is was
• 51:08
  responsible for responding to missing information and disinformation coming into the country for
• 51:13
  the for the election and it was really a public private partnership with a lot of volunteers also
• 51:19
  in Taiwan they happen to use to a great degree a social media company called Line which is also
• 51:25
  very popular in Japan and I think in Korea um and they had all kinds of volunteers just kind of
• 51:31
  trying to monitor what was going on with Line and encouraging people to help their parents spot
• 51:38
  false information um and they actually created bots so if you saw something that you thought might
• 51:44
  not was not true you could text it to one certain address and get a response saying we affect
• 51:50
  check this and it's not true or we affect check this and it is true so um that also that also
• 51:56
  presupposes that the public has faith in the cabinet minister precisely and in the information
• 52:01
  it's coming out and you know one of the things that I kept seeing over and over in Taiwan is of
• 52:05
  course they lived under martial law until the eighties right they are so deeply appreciative of
• 52:10
  the democracy that they have built and the freedom that they have is probably the freest country
• 52:14
  of the world right now and certainly in Asia they've actually surpassed Japan in terms of their
• 52:18
  generals um human rights and civil rights there and they cherish it they cherish it
• 52:24
  deeply you you saw that on election day they they do not take any of that for granted
• 52:29
  and so they uh they managed to overcome and um and it and it was really impressive to watch but
• 52:38
  and it also took you know speaking of extraordinary leaders they have a wonderful president president
• 52:43
  Sai who was reelected no election and she um she had the foresight to realize that they were going
• 52:51
  to indeed a a national response to this yeah it's funny isn't it Cecil when the wolf is at the door
• 52:58
  then you appreciate what the wolf might take away yes in a sense in the west in the rest of the
• 53:03
  west we're just so maybe so we just take for granted so much that that uh peace and democracy is
• 53:09
  the norm that we're willing to play footsie with alternative ideas and we're tearing it all down
• 53:14
  in a way that uh the people wouldn't countenance in a place where there's a real threat right next door
• 53:18
  like Taiwan um the second thing that you mentioned uh that needs to be done is combating misinformation
• 53:25
  within the US and within western countries here i'm more much more pessimistic than you because i
• 53:29
  i'm not sure that the social media that the actual problem of social media is quote-unquote misinformation
• 53:35
  per se that's a problem and you could outlaw it and you could require uh you know a certain
• 53:40
  amount of truth in advertising so to speak on social media platforms but until you address the fact
• 53:46
  that their profit is based on getting us to spend more time on those websites which means getting
• 53:53
  us to click and comment and like and share posts which is inherently biased towards i mean i
• 54:01
  call them an extremification machine uh you know these algorithms are always going to favor content
• 54:06
  that either reinforces prejudices that we already have or scares us with things that arouse us i
• 54:14
  mean it it's an arouse on machine it operates functions at its best when we are activated so that
• 54:19
  we want to engage with it nuance you know common sense reason the cool you know the cool the cool
• 54:27
  tepid cup of tea that we sort of need to all get along is not something that's favored by the
• 54:32
  algorithms on social media and it just couldn't be because it's not as activating as more extreme
• 54:37
  stuff so until the whole business model of the of the industry is yeah uh is changed i don't know
• 54:43
  well i don't know what you do about that well you know i mean i i i agree with you but i also
• 54:48
  you know i watch some of these crazy things that people are believing in and these are people
• 54:53
  who are older than i am you know i my mom lizard palm springs which is a retirement community in
• 54:58
  southern california and uh we have neighbors who are in their seventies and they honestly believe
• 55:03
  that the covid vaccine contain nanobytes so that Warren Buffett would know their every move and i
• 55:09
  just want to say to these people Warren Buffett doesn't think you're that interesting um but they
• 55:15
  they have convinced themselves or rather been convinced of of a lot of very strange things and i
• 55:22
  think about it a lot and i think the part of it is that we all as human beings need to
• 55:27
  belong to things that make us feel like we are special and make us feel like we are contributing
• 55:33
  and one of the appeals of q and on is that you feel like you're a part of something bigger than
• 55:38
  yourself and you're doing your own research and you're you know you can spend hours and hours
• 55:43
  talking the over the internet with other people and at least our society has become one of people
• 55:50
  who are lonely in many cases um cut off do not have anything to be a part of that they can feel
• 55:59
  like makes them bigger than they actually are right well why do young americans join the marine
• 56:05
  core rather than the air force the air force pays more money almost from the beginning
• 56:12
  basic training is a lot easier in the air force there's a lot from there's a lot more opportunities
• 56:17
  gathering skills that will help you in the job market later on but the marines of all
• 56:23
  assault themselves as the few the proud the marines be part of something bigger than you are test
• 56:30
  yourself and i i feel like in the modern world americans are looking for that and i feel like
• 56:36
  social media and some of the groups on social media are taking advantage of that so yeah if we
• 56:43
  could somehow return to i you know pta's or more volunteer networks or you know have some
• 56:50
  presidents who asked people to sacrifice once in a while it's been kind of disappointing through
• 56:55
  the Ukrainian thing i kept thinking that Biden would get on tv at night and say look i know we all
• 57:00
  want to help the Ukrainian people biggest thing we can do is cut our fossil fuel consumption by
• 57:07
  five percent yeah right now which will give more gas for western europe so they will buy into
• 57:14
  our sanctions um i mean he hasn't done that yeah but the culture war stuff that would come out of
• 57:20
  that i mean it would all become about how he's a paternalistic you know quasi dictator who's trying
• 57:26
  to you know snatch your s u v away from you um i mean i think you're completely right about
• 57:31
  diagnosing that loss of community and that sense of community the people is striving to get on
• 57:36
  social media i i do still disagree that the main problem is is misinformation in the sense that
• 57:44
  i think that the the nanobots that Warren Buffett is putting into the vaccine and the QAnon
• 57:49
  conspiracies these are the five percent tip of the iceberg and underneath that is a lot of stuff
• 57:55
  that's not untrue but is a different slant on actual problems that people get radicalized inside so
• 58:03
  i mean just to take that you're you know you're you're pointing to the way that we need to improve
• 58:07
  education and american needs to have a racial racial reckoning with itself and that there are bills
• 58:12
  being passed that are preventing teachers from teaching you know the history of slavery and so on
• 58:17
  and i think this is a good example where both sides share some blame for uh not misinformation but for
• 58:25
  hysteria and for turning the dial up to a point at which it's inevitable at a backlash is what
• 58:31
  happened like yeah i agree yeah to take young kids in a in a school class and separate the white
• 58:37
  kids and the black kids and teach them that the that the white you know that the white kids are
• 58:42
  different and the black kids are a different and that we are an iridimably racist country that was
• 58:47
  founded on our onslavery that endures to this day and that it's him you know that that there is
• 58:52
  something intrinsic about your race that to this day makes it inescapable like these are ideas
• 58:58
  that are needless that are needlessly going to rile up a lot of the american population into
• 59:02
  into backlashing and saying hang on what happened to the ideals of Martin Luther King or everyone
• 59:06
  supposed to be created created equal what happened to a colorblind society why to why does my six
• 59:11
  year old have to be taught that their race is important i thought we were trying to get beyond race
• 59:15
  like that's you know the left has played has played i think a an equally uh foolish role as the
• 59:23
  as the right in this at and and it's largely because we all get extremified because we're all
• 59:28
  shouting each other on on social and and there's this this yeah i don't even want to use the word
• 59:33
  cancel culture but we have become a culture if you don't say the right thing you are ostracized
• 59:38
  and so and so you know where is the politician or the regular human being who these days can say
• 59:47
  what Bill Clinton said in the 90s which is abortion should be uh safe available in rare you know
• 59:52
  no one can say that anymore where is the person who like Barbara Jordan in the 90s Barbara Jordan
• 59:57
  was a congresswoman from Houston uh could say you know we need to be welcoming for immigrants but we
• 1:00:05
  also need secure borders and there needs to be a price paid for hiring folks who you are not supposed
• 1:00:13
  to hire no one can say that these days it's either open up the borders and let everybody in or
• 1:00:18
  oh my god they're all coming to you know to ruin our country and it is so hard to find anybody who
• 1:00:26
  will look for a nuanced position on any of these emotional issues and if you try to come up with a
• 1:00:30
  nuanced position while you're just you know one side or the other one side for now call you names
• 1:00:36
  totally and you get hounded out of mainstream institutions which is why you know most people most
• 1:00:41
  of my peers in America are people who have gone independent and have gone to a sub stack I mean
• 1:00:47
  you hear Andrew Sullivan saying that you hear Barry Weiss saying that you hear Jesse Singles saying
• 1:00:51
  that you hear Sam Harris saying that but these are people who are outside of the the mainstream if
• 1:00:56
  you want to be in an institution you largely have to tow a specific ideological line you know John
• 1:01:01
  Hight is is just still in NYU and you know and uh you know John McWater is at the New York Times but
• 1:01:08
  you know I'd be interesting to see in 10 years if that if that's still the case um let's talk
• 1:01:13
  about energy you mentioned you know one thing that we could all be doing for Ukraine would be
• 1:01:16
  cutting down on on energy what's the current state of play in terms of Germany and Italy
• 1:01:22
  getting energy from Russia how quickly is that being wound down and what's the next step
• 1:01:28
  yeah so it it seems like well first of all we're lucky we're going into summer right so that's
• 1:01:33
  step one um Italy is having a rough time in Germany which is interesting um and Austria of course
• 1:01:41
  has vetoed the latest round of of potential sanctions on on Russian energy and it's going to be hard
• 1:01:49
  and you know I mean I'm a typical California island two cars in a motorhome I'm not going to sit
• 1:01:54
  here and criticize you know the Germans for not wanting to walk around in a freezing cold house
• 1:01:59
  and have to walk everywhere um so I totally get that it it's hard but and these are the kinds of
• 1:02:05
  things that are particularly hard to fix in an emergency situation so it's a reminder for everyone
• 1:02:12
  including the US again although we have tried to become more energy independent over the last 30
• 1:02:18
  years it's a reminder for all of us that we really need to move much more quickly toward renewable
• 1:02:24
  energy um I don't like the idea that there's talk again of building more nuclear power plants but
• 1:02:30
  I also don't like what's happening now and I certainly don't like global warming so we're going
• 1:02:36
  to have to have some difficult conversations on some very emotional topics and in the meantime we
• 1:02:42
  should be putting solar panels on everyone's roofs and building more windmills and and um building
• 1:02:50
  better cars and electrifying vehicles as quickly as we can I mean there's still a lot that we can do
• 1:02:56
  both in Europe and in the US and do we end up getting I mean what's the game plan beyond
• 1:03:06
  the immediate crisis let's sort of just play this out in our heads like if if you how what are the
• 1:03:11
  various options of the way that the Ukraine war ends and how does how does European energy look in each
• 1:03:17
  case yeah so you know I think the Europeans in particular they're leaders genuinely do want to
• 1:03:26
  slap different sanctions on the Russians and hold them to it and I think that they generally don't
• 1:03:34
  want to be paying for their energy and rubles which the Russians are now demanding that they do
• 1:03:41
  the degree to which they can do that particularly of this war goes on in other six months and we
• 1:03:46
  start getting into cold weather again that that's really a big question the US can help
• 1:03:53
  we need to export more liquefied natural gas and other fuels to Europe that probably means we
• 1:04:00
  should all cut back a little bit more and it may be by the fall depending on how quickly we can move
• 1:04:07
  that we will have put more port capacity because you know that's one of the things that's holding
• 1:04:11
  this back in Europe is we could probably ship them more liquefied natural gas and some other
• 1:04:17
  fuels right now but the ports can't handle it they're not used to accepting that much fuel from the US
• 1:04:26
  so if we can modify some of the structures and the infrastructure to get these fuel some of this
• 1:04:33
  fuel to the places that it needs to be you know we could probably continue doing this
• 1:04:41
  for a while but it's kind of getting it ramped up first of all and then hopefully moving to
• 1:04:46
  alternative fuels because we just we can't keep doing this somewhere we can't keep doing it for
• 1:04:51
  the planet I guess you know Australia has been hit harder than most countries the last few years
• 1:04:58
  in terms of climate change and if what we have now is baked in we can't afford to have it get
• 1:05:05
  any worse so we're going to have to make these changes no matter what but in the short term a lot
• 1:05:11
  of it I think is probably going to depend on how much we can change the infrastructure in Europe to
• 1:05:16
  get them more of the fuel that they need yeah I mean Australia is by far the most vulnerable rich
• 1:05:22
  country to climate change and has just endured a horrendous summer of floods off the back of a
• 1:05:28
  horrendous summer of bushfires which brings up the green situation I don't know if you would plan
• 1:05:33
  to talk about that but that's why big concern right now let's definitely let's get to that I'll
• 1:05:38
  also just flag that this Saturday Australia goes to the polls and it if you if you trust polls
• 1:05:44
  anymore then it looks like the conservative government that's been in power for almost a decade
• 1:05:48
  will be voted out and the central left party will will be voted in and and the number one issue
• 1:05:55
  for for labor and greens voters is climate and I think it's number two or three for voters overall
• 1:06:01
  so that you know I think the backlash has happened here and the connection has happened in
• 1:06:06
  voters minds between all of these climate events that we're enduring and that people are so
• 1:06:11
  fed up with and this rated relationship to coal but yes let's go to let's go to grain what's
• 1:06:16
  going to happen so there's a couple of issues some of which are already we're already living with
• 1:06:23
  there's going to be a cooking oil shortage this summer it's already started because it turns out
• 1:06:28
  that who know that Ukraine is a major supplier of sunflower oil in the world and to develop countries
• 1:06:36
  you know people are like oh so french fries might cost more right fish and chips might cost more
• 1:06:41
  what you need to remember is that in developing countries in in the world's poorest countries
• 1:06:46
  cooking oil provides a major percentage of their calories it's it's concentrated and it's
• 1:06:53
  satiating so you can't just tell people go eat more rice or go eat more bread because first of all
• 1:06:59
  there's going to be a bread shortage but even beyond that your kids going to be hungry in two hours
• 1:07:03
  so it's the cooking oil is really important and and if there's a cooking oil shortage in a country
• 1:07:08
  like Pakistan and I was in Pakistan when there was a cooking oil shortage you end up with
• 1:07:13
  rioting in the streets so it's it's really a serious problem add to that the fact that Russia and
• 1:07:18
  the Ukraine together and produce a big percentage of the world's wheat as well as some other grains
• 1:07:26
  and you could be looking at bread shortages in Egypt for instance you know a poor highly populated
• 1:07:33
  country and we can't afford to have Egypt destabilize we can't afford to have Pakistan destabilize
• 1:07:40
  we can't afford to have massive famine in Africa and and then there's the situation in Afghanistan
• 1:07:46
  where it appears already half of the people are food insecure so it could get worse so the grain
• 1:07:52
  shortage caused by a combination of the fact that it looks like Ukraine may not be able to plant
• 1:08:01
  in a large part of Russia may not be able to plant their crops this year and at any rate with
• 1:08:06
  with the with the sanctions they may have trouble selling their wheat overseas
• 1:08:11
  along with the fact that Australia had the floods which you just mentioned which is going to cut
• 1:08:15
  down on their agricultural exports and you know the US has had a couple of rough years we've managed
• 1:08:22
  to get through them but one of the things again this is where we kind of need a little more
• 1:08:28
  leadership from Washington we need to stop producing corn and soybeans for ethanol and produce
• 1:08:35
  some for food that we can export the problem is that might cause cause the cost of gasoline to go
• 1:08:40
  even higher and that would be a political liability so there's a lot to do now this is where you
• 1:08:47
  hope that your leaders are all communicating and making plans right because this is where you
• 1:08:50
  hope that the US Department of Agriculture is talking to the Australians and I know it's kind of
• 1:08:55
  pasture planting Susan but um into the Europeans and to Monsanto and the other seed producers
• 1:09:01
  and saying what do you guys have in terms of short season seeds available
• 1:09:06
  because if we can get to the point where Ukraine can plant wheat you know in July instead of May
• 1:09:14
  that could help the situation a little bit maybe I mean but how are things going to be different
• 1:09:18
  in eight weeks yeah I mean I well it in parts of the Ukraine of Ukraine if if they have the people
• 1:09:25
  because that's the other thing right it's not just uh and if they have the tractor so it's not
• 1:09:29
  just if it if things in parts of Ukraine are quiet enough that they can get some crops in the ground
• 1:09:35
  what's if the farmers are at the front if the housewives who works the farms have been able to come
• 1:09:41
  back from from being refugees if the tractors are still in existence I mean there there's a lot
• 1:09:47
  that would go into that but I think we have to try to do everything that we possibly can now or
• 1:09:51
  it's going to be just a horrific year for could be a billion people.
• 1:09:56
  Pardon my agricultural ignorance Cecil but why does it have to be Ukraine I mean there's a lot
• 1:10:02
  of land in the world and it's not all covered with forests there are a lot of fields there are a lot
• 1:10:06
  of untilled fields across Europe uh why can't you just go this is going to happen we have to have
• 1:10:13
  a martial plan like we have to get crack and and treat this like a wartime situation which is what
• 1:10:17
  it is uh so let's create so many million acres of uh of new farmland and let's get going.
• 1:10:24
  I mean that's a good question and I'm you know I I'm in the Midwest so I'm a lot more familiar
• 1:10:29
  with growing crops here in this bread basket than I am with what can be done in say France now
• 1:10:35
  France does here we've been making fun of France all these years for protecting its farm industry
• 1:10:41
  right now it's really good that they've been protecting their farm industry all these years
• 1:10:45
  because they can actually do exactly what you've described which is yeah we also said they were
• 1:10:49
  over investing in nuclear and now they're laughing on the exactly like we don't need to
• 1:10:55
  import any Russian gas baby exactly exactly so um yeah it and you know the other thing is this might
• 1:11:03
  be a year where your high-minded ideals of not using GMO seeds have to be put on the backburner
• 1:11:09
  for a year or two if if GMO seeds are going to give them a better yield um so but again this is
• 1:11:16
  where leadership is going to count right there's already talk here well maybe people need to plant
• 1:11:20
  victory gardens maybe people should be going to include their backyards here in the US if uh if
• 1:11:25
  prices are going to be this high um we're not going to be hungry I mean it's it's almost kind of
• 1:11:31
  like people people are freaking out because food prices have gone up eight percent and I agree
• 1:11:36
  that for poor people it's really rough but I I just it's it's the world's poorest people who are
• 1:11:44
  literally in danger of starving you know the world food program leader said the other day
• 1:11:48
  she goes the problem we're having right now is we're going to have to take food away from hungry people
• 1:11:53
  so that we can give it to starving people right so it's a serious situation but I think your point
• 1:12:00
  is very good which is the world's leaders need to come together and think creatively and try to
• 1:12:04
  increase their production other ways yeah I mean you would have to imagine that if you got all
• 1:12:09
  of the agricultural powerhouse countries uh together and just ask them to increase their output by
• 1:12:15
  15% and paid them handsomely to do so we could figure out a way to do it if you put Brazil and
• 1:12:20
  Australia and New Zealand and the US and you know all these Canada uh and Western Europe together
• 1:12:26
  there's there's got to be a lot of capacity we're not operating at 110 percent
• 1:12:30
  right I did I there were there were weather problems in Latin America this year um that has cut
• 1:12:36
  particularly the soybean crop in a couple of countries down there I mean maybe this is like a
• 1:12:41
  maybe this is like a vision of things to come that as the as the climate gets more and more chaotic
• 1:12:45
  we're going to have more and more ups and downs like this and and and it's a warning that we have
• 1:12:50
  to be more thoughtful right because a lot of the soybeans and the corn crop in the world are
• 1:12:54
  are going to feed um stock animals yeah for people to eat meat and so if people ate less meat
• 1:13:02
  there'd be more um more of these grains and and and legumes going directly to people's diets so
• 1:13:10
  yeah I we're going to need to change a lot of the different ways that we eat and look at life as
• 1:13:16
  climate change continues can you put your progress like I just had on uh before we wrapped to
• 1:13:22
  and tell me if if I fast forward to I have I have toddlers I've twins I will four and uh I think
• 1:13:30
  about what the world will be like in the middle of a century when they're in middle age what
• 1:13:34
  what will America be like and what we're trying to be like and what will rush to be like
• 1:13:40
  so America's going to go one of three ways either that we're going to become to cut literally two
• 1:13:45
  countries um which I sadly think could happen at this point um or we're going to get through this
• 1:13:52
  like we've gotten through other crises in our country you know we've been through rough spells
• 1:13:56
  before we've fought an entire civil war and we're going to come out stronger at the other end
• 1:14:01
  we're going to deal with our our um history and our issues and we may not all still like each
• 1:14:07
  other as much as we should but we'll at least be able to get along or we'll just kind of fall
• 1:14:13
  into some scary level of of authoritarianism I mean I used to think it could never happen
• 1:14:20
  all right yeah you just never thought it could happen in a country like the U.S. but um
• 1:14:25
  what the way things are right now I do kind of I do kind of fear that if we don't come out of it
• 1:14:31
  within the next five or ten years people could be looking for drastic solutions um so I
• 1:14:39
  I guess I'm enough of an optimist that I think we're going to get through this but
• 1:14:44
  but we're at a dangerous point in our history there's no doubt about it
• 1:14:48
  when you say America could become two countries I used to joke when I lived in New York that
• 1:14:53
  uh Lincoln should never have fought the civil war and uh that you should have should have
• 1:14:57
  just allowed two countries to exist because one would be an impoverished agricultural uh
• 1:15:02
  hellhole it would be essentially a third world country and then the the arc I guess you would have
• 1:15:08
  an you know just the coasts maybe with an arc across the top uh that would be a capitalist economic
• 1:15:13
  powerhouse a place of liberalism and tolerance and diversity where the world's greatest minds
• 1:15:19
  all wanted to flock uh and it would uh would not be dragged down by having to send uh payments to
• 1:15:24
  Alabama all the time if Alabama wants uh wants to be Alabama let them go um nowadays if I thought
• 1:15:30
  if I think about America becoming two countries it's harder to have that sunny sort of gag
• 1:15:37
  because so much of the culture even in progressive liberal coasts has become semi-authoritarian
• 1:15:47
  I mean you said we're not gonna talk about cancel culture but there is I worry that the
• 1:15:52
  the group think and the stifling cultural atmosphere in academia and the media
• 1:16:00
  in New York and California is just as un conducive to the kind of crazy experimental uh
• 1:16:08
  throw shit at the wall and see what sticks uh frontier capitalist libertarian mentality that
• 1:16:14
  made America great that I'm not sure who would be the the winner in that if there was intellectual
• 1:16:19
  freedom in Austin and no intellectual freedom in New York I I don't know who wins that race
• 1:16:28
  I worry about that too and you know I mean I've been watching some things that are even
• 1:16:32
  happening in high schools you know it's it's spread down that far and out to uh you know people
• 1:16:37
  being fired and pushed out and ostracized over really innocuous statements um and the irony is
• 1:16:45
  it tends to be a rich people phenomenon like they don't want to do the things that would really
• 1:16:49
  make things better right they don't want to actually you know let poor people move into their
• 1:16:54
  neighborhoods no build some multi-level housing in in their wonderful neighborhoods so that more
• 1:17:00
  people could enjoy their excellent schools I mean they never want to do the things that would
• 1:17:03
  really make a difference so instead they just say you can't say that word yeah it's a universe
• 1:17:09
  the educated academic game I mean right or you or you can't invite that speaker because it might
• 1:17:13
  hurt us too much did you read the book the coddling of the American mind oh sure yeah that's going
• 1:17:17
  to hunt the first salvo yeah absolutely I mean it's a it's a fabulous book and it is true we we've
• 1:17:23
  just I mean there's a certain level of insanity that is going on in some corners of the United
• 1:17:29
  States and it's affecting the mental health of an entire generation and and so I take your point
• 1:17:37
  and I do worry about kind of that necessary the you know the demand for conformity from the left also
• 1:17:45
  um but there is a lot of anger about the Supreme Court and abortion right now yeah and I
• 1:17:54
  I really feel like this could be something that is just going to divide us to the point where it
• 1:17:59
  will be really hard to to come back together and and I'm talking about people who who don't
• 1:18:05
  think in extreme terms and and and you know who are willing to have a conversation about you know
• 1:18:12
  six-month abortions right or or you know what is acceptable and what it's not and and
• 1:18:20
  how what other things could we do to lower the abortion rate that's what the tragedy and all of this
• 1:18:26
  is you know we could be talking about better research for birth control and better sex education
• 1:18:33
  and schools and and all sorts of things and instead of talking about things that would really
• 1:18:39
  lower the abortion rate in this country we we just start at an all or nothing
• 1:18:44
  situation that is going to tear our country apart not just on the abortion issue but on a lot of
• 1:18:49
  other issues too if it's any consolations to see I I uh I think this is a wake-up call for America
• 1:18:56
  I mean I think there are a few ways that this abortion thing could go I think it's entirely possible
• 1:19:01
  the John Roberts will convince Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett to to punt this and not to make
• 1:19:07
  that the decision and just to say we're going to allow the Mississippi law to where is it to
• 1:19:11
  Mississippi to stand wherever it's from and that that's a 15-week rule and we're not going to rule
• 1:19:18
  on row and we'll wait we'll leave that for another day I think that's entirely entirely possible if
• 1:19:22
  that doesn't happen then I don't think that I mean either nobody will vote for either look this
• 1:19:30
  will put the question back in the place where it exists in all other democracies which is in
• 1:19:34
  the legislature and it'll require people to figure out how they want to legislate this and if
• 1:19:40
  Republicans go so overboard that they try to ban it federally from the moment of conception then
• 1:19:45
  they will be an unelectable party even given all of the electoral biases towards the Republican
• 1:19:50
  party I mean the geo it'll it'll require a reckoning at which people are actually at which at last
• 1:19:55
  there are actual practical consequences for Americans voting I mean I'm quite sympathetic to
• 1:20:00
  Ezra Klein's theory he believes that a lot of the dysfunction in America comes from the fact that
• 1:20:05
  there are no real consequences to voting because the the filibuster and the way the Senate is
• 1:20:10
  constructed and the electoral college and the hysteria and the partisanship means that it's all
• 1:20:14
  performative so no laws actually get passed so no party actually has to sit with the consequences
• 1:20:20
  of the things that are proposing so we so you're playing a kabuki dance in other countries in
• 1:20:24
  parliamentary democracies where actually you have to live with the consequences of our votes
• 1:20:28
  because our politicians ultimately are required on some level to implement the things that they say
• 1:20:32
  was in America none of it happens there there's no law making um you know now they will be
• 1:20:38
  and the other things countries with very powerful high courts like we have and a few other countries have
• 1:20:43
  the politicians have an out because they always know if they pass an egregious law the court will
• 1:20:49
  overturn it right yeah or they don't have to pass a law that's going to be unpopular with some
• 1:20:54
  other donors because the court took care of it for them so while I disagree with the decisions
• 1:21:00
  that are being made by the strict constructionists on the Supreme Court I I understand their
• 1:21:08
  frustration with with elected leaders not having the courage to do their jobs and just leaving
• 1:21:15
  everything up to executive orders or to court decisions so you like a talk to you all day but
• 1:21:21
  we've had a very wide ranging channel you I'll let you go back to your dog
• 1:21:26
  she says she's sorry she said I could I could detect when she was approving of what you were saying
• 1:21:33
  it's like having a peanut gallery constantly on it on a trip thank you lovely to talk to you
• 1:21:39
  nice talk of you Josh thanks a lot
• 1:21:40
  bye