Latest / The Nation Podcasts / Trump’s Global Culture War w/ Stephen Wertheim | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer

Transcript

Trump’s Global Culture War w/ Stephen Wertheim | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer · The Nation Podcasts

• 0:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: The old world is dying.
• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: The new world struggles to reborn.
• 0:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now is the time of monsters.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: With those words from Gramshee, I welcome you to the time of monster's podcast.
• 0:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm G2 here of the nation magazine, which is the sponsor of the podcast.
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: This week, we're going to take up the issue of Donald Trump's foreign policy.
• 0:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: The media pretext for the discussion
• 0:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: strategy by the Trump administration, which I think has clarified a lot of the sort of changes that we're seeing.
• 0:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's many ways in which Trump 2.0 represents a change not just from the Biden administration, but even the original Trump of 2017 to 2021.
• 0:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's been sort of significant changes in foreign policy.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's one of the major areas where Trump is really making a big difference.
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this new strategy statement, I think, offers an opportunity to talk about that.
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: So to do so, I'm very happy to welcome again, as guest Stephen Worthheim, US foreign policy historian, he's the American state crafts senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
• 1:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: So first of all, welcome to the program.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so let's just start with what is this new national security strategy to give an overview of it and maybe think a little bit about how it differs from where the United States has been before and even where crump has been before it really is something different.
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Trump administration, the first Trump administration, produced a national security strategy that wasn't that different, that had a clear lineage in US foreign policy thinking after the Cold War.
• 1:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you might say that the theme of this strategy is no global Cold War instead a global culture war.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: So just to clarify, like in Trump, 1.0, the real emphasis was, as you say, continuity and in particular, the idea that we're in a new era of great power conflict with China and Russia.
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: That is something that the Obama administration had been heading towards and it's something that the Biden administration embraced.
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that would be the kind of major difference, this idea of great power conflict seems
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is the big difference, I think.
• 2:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: But let's not make too much of that.
• 2:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's true that the framing of what America's doing in the world is very much not countering the threats from Russia and China.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, Russia and China are sort of constantly alluded to, often not by name, as engaging in problematic
• 3:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the document is not very specific and conclusive about what exactly the United States will do to be more accommodating to those powers.
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so it's not maybe even more of a rhetorical shift than in that area at least.
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I think it's still significant what I mean, I think like a lot of us were very worried, you know, not just about the trap of a Biden and Obama,
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: that there had been this kind of like bipartisan consensus that we have basically returned to the Cold War era and that the United States has to be focused on countering China and Russia and created kind of military alliances and foreign policy interventions of the Cold War era.
• 3:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: So as you say, you know, one doesn't want to over emphasize how much of a change, but that doesn't kind of significant.
• 3:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's significant.
• 3:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no question.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And in fact, I'd even go further, the National Security Strategy is very explicit.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: in saying that, you know, it's not just that, well, the world has changed, it's become more competitive at its Americas interests to adjust to the strength of new competitors and rivals.
• 4:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: It actually repudiates explicitly the American approach since the end of the Cold War.
• 4:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: So to explicitly says, you know, American foreign policy elites sought, here I'm quoting, permanent American domination of the entire world.
• 4:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And quote,
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it says, that was a mistake, right?
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: That over committed the United States to do things that wasn't directly in America's interest to do.
• 4:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it says, further, the days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over.
• 4:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that's like a clear break.
• 4:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Again, I think we should be skeptical about what exactly the replacement is, but the critique is striking.
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, it is a very significant rhetorical shift from what has really come before.
• 5:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, how does this play on in several different regions?
• 5:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think you were in Europe when the NASA security strategy dropped and that my understanding is that it's causing some concern on that continent.
• 5:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, what does this strategy mean for Europe?
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I awoke in Stockholm to find that I had turned into a cockroach and the national security strategy had dropped overnight.
• 5:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's pretty trippy because the document, it's almost like a different document when it addresses each region.
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: for Europe, plus what it calls the Anglo-Sphere.
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's a great call back for all the fans of the second Bush administration.
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's OK. And so I'm writing that both you and I have done.
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: But mainly, it addresses Europe in this regard.
• 5:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Europe for the document is the realm of civilization with which the United States identifies.
• 6:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: So much so you might say that it intends to interfere.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: in the politics and culture of America's European allies.
• 6:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the document talks about cultivating resistance to Europe's current trend.
• 6:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: It suggests that Europe might not be recognizable Europe within 20 years and warrants that the continent is headed toward civilizational erasure.
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's really notable here, right?
• 6:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: What we don't see is,
• 6:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: in emphasis on Russia as a key threat to Europe and thereby to American interests.
• 6:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: The challenge with respect to Russia, according to the document, is more that the United States should
• 6:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: should seek strategic stability as it calls it with Russia and kind of like keep Europe and Russia from coming to blows.
• 7:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the emphasis is on the United States essentially intervening in European political arrangements in the name of civilization and freedom in Europe.
• 7:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: even though I think there was a sense that it wasn't a huge surprise given that they had heard much the same rhetoric from Vice President JD Vance toward the beginning of the administration when he gave a big speech in the Munich Security Conference in February.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I mean, this is, it seems we coming out of the sort of van swing and I would also add Elon Musk as a sort of like key Trump ally who's had his own conflicts with Europe, particularly over regulation of social media.
• 7:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, and more broadly, like this conception of Europe as being sort of, um,
• 8:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: under cultural siege seems to be on becoming out of this sort of Steve Bannon, ethno nationalist wing of the party, you'll go back to Pat Buchanan.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like this is definitely something that has existed in the Republican Party for some time, but it's now coming to the fore as actual like a policy statement.
• 8:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's entirely correct.
• 8:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think the question is, what exactly the Trump administration might be prepared to do to bolster the political fortunes of anti-EU far-right parties in Europe?
• 8:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we've seen a lot more talk about that than action.
• 8:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: But my sense is that like the main concern
• 8:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: ruling parties have current governments that are pro EU governments is not so much that the US will intervene.
• 9:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just that the US looks even more unreliable to them as a security guarantor.
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: actually been pretty impressed with my interactions with a range of Europeans in the last year that they seem to understand that they cannot depend on the United States, but then the bind that they're in is that they will depend on the United States for security, for several years to come.
• 9:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: They had hoped that at the NATO summit over the summer that they had kind of stabilized the situation, Trump seemed very happy with this 5% pledge of pledge by NATO allies to spend 5% on defense and military-related purposes.
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's really a 3.5% pledge in terms of actual military spending as a percentage of GDP.
• 9:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so there had been some hopes that they had turned the corner, and now this national security strategy confirms that they have not, and they're just not going to win if they had a robust economy.
• 10:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: If things were looking really good for the EU, then the Trump administration would be saying that Europe has become a feat and oversivolized, and it's so wealthy, it's doing
• 10:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: So there's just no winning right now for Europe in the mind of right-wing Washington at least.
• 10:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think they're starting to get to have a message.
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, as you said, Europe does seem to be getting aware of this.
• 10:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I have to say, like, for my point of view, it's a little bit tardy.
• 10:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I, as you thought, go back to, like, when Trump was first rising in 2015 and 2016, I wrote about it at the time that I think the, the wise course for Europe would be to start, like, trying to become more independent.
• 10:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, like Marshall its own resources because, you know, United States where Trump is a part of a figure is not going to be a long term reliable ally.
• 11:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it seems like if they're coming to this conclusion, it's like at the last possible moment and like they haven't, like, you know, taken like really a decade that they've had to really move in the direction.
• 11:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, absolutely.
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think there's a good book to be written that traces Europe's reactions in the Trump era and it's a temp to grapple with with what to do.
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think Europe is considerably late.
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I agree.
• 11:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think actually it's a frustration of some people in Europe, but a lot of people in the Trump administration today that it's taken this long for Europe to start.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: at least sounding serious about sholdering most of the burden for its own defense.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: In fairness, however,
• 11:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Trump, one, did not really do the things that would have incentivized Europe to become defense independent.
• 12:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, Trump put forward all kinds of nasty rhetoric about NATO allies needing to step up, but he didn't remove many U.S. military forces and assets.
• 12:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: from Europe.
• 12:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: He didn't present any kind of plan for transitioning to European leadership of European defense.
• 12:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: He actually boosted US defense spending and he continued the pattern of other administrations to pressure Europeans to buy American weapons.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And thereby, you know, boost our defense industry when Europe, if it's going to be more autonomous needs to be buying European and the Trump administration today continues to send mixed messages in in that regard.
• 12:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, I think both sides kind of deserve blame for flirting with European autonomy, but not really willing that outcome.
• 13:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, they just need to be a contradiction that we've often seen in the sort of Trump Magga foreign policy.
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, what is the goal here?
• 13:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is it actually for the United States to become less entangled with these alliances?
• 13:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or is it to make these into protection markets where the U.S. profits are them by selling weapons?
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can have one or the other, but it seems like they've been trying to do both.
• 13:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And drops that your friends can't be forgiven for not being quite sure what Trump is doing, because I don't think Trump is quite sure what he's doing.
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it also seems like, I mean, this is something I've sort of wrestled with myself like, why is there such a status quo bias?
• 13:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like it does seem like, even now, I think there might be people in Europe who think like, well, let's just wait this out.
• 13:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: and have a Democrats back in office.
• 14:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: We can go back as some version of the status quo.
• 14:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, this is where we'll reluctance to move beyond the status quo.
• 14:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm very curious, what's the basis of that?
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is it just institutional hybrid, a lack of imagination?
• 14:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's some of that, I think.
• 14:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: part of it is that for Europe to become independent of the United States, it entails real risk.
• 14:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: First of all, it entails commitment to spend more on defense with European populations.
• 14:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, there's a risk of once the United States is stepping back.
• 14:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, first of all, Europeans don't want to kind of force the United States to get out of the way.
• 14:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: The United States has said for a very long time for decades, going back to the 90s that Europe should not be autonomous that there should be no duplication of NATO efforts that are led by the United States.
• 15:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Europe has some tough challenges to confront if it is going to take the lead in collective defense.
• 15:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: For example, who will command NATO forces?
• 15:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right now, all European actors agree that the Supreme Allied Commander will be American and they will obey those commands.
• 15:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now,
• 15:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Should that figure be German?
• 15:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Should that figure be Polish?
• 15:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, there's going to be some real challenges that are that are opened up that somewhat understandably European leaders haven't wanted to confront so long as the United States was not actually being decisive in forcing Europe to confront them.
• 15:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think we should also clarify that right now, like least in terms of NATO, like there isn't as significant change.
• 15:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I mean, even the Trump administration is not saying that they're gonna be withdrawing from NATO, right?
• 15:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, or even cutting back on security obligations as they exist.
• 16:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: So there's a way in which like, everyone is still tied into that sort of status quo.
• 16:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm concerned about that.
• 16:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I actually think your insight may help to explain this rhetoric on civilizational erasure in Europe.
• 16:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because if the message was just that Europeans are capable of standing on their two feet, the United States doesn't have vital interests threatened on the European continent right now and for the foreseeable future, then you would think the conclusion of that analysis would be, and so the United States will be systematically pulling back from the continent.
• 16:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: and being fully supportive of Europe as it exists right now, taking over.
• 16:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And yet, that's not what the administration is doing.
• 16:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: So in a way, this whole business with restoring European greatness as the document calls it gives it a kind of alibi for not pulling back because it doesn't trust, I suppose, the current European ruling classes.
• 17:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: to do a good job.
• 17:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: So in this weird way, the rhetoric papers over a continuing indecisiveness within the Trump administration.
• 17:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, that's a really good point.
• 17:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think what I've heard anyone articulate before, but it really points to the danger of this strategy, which is always, I think, in foreign policies, sort of like uncertainty or lack of clarity.
• 17:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: He is, you know, I think what makes war is more likely.
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think both the American and the European side, there's a great deal of uncertainty.
• 17:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think maybe one area where this is sort of like playing out is also in negotiations to end the Russian Ukraine war and do you want to give a sense of like where things kind of stand now and if there's any possibility of any real development?
• 18:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, the Trump administration several weeks ago put forward what was called a 28-point proposal as a basis for further negotiations, and then seemed to be ramping up pressure on Ukraine to accept that proposal or take it seriously and give it response and open up a negotiation.
• 18:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's been shuttle diplomacy back and forth with members of the administration talking to the Ukrainians and Europeans,
• 18:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: of members talking to the Russians.
• 18:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's really hard to gauge exactly what is on the table right now, and both sides in the conflict do not seem eager to accept anything that's on the table.
• 18:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: But these events are in motion, and
• 18:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is, you know, it wouldn't be completely shocking, I think at this point, if we do get some kind of negotiated outcome in the next six months, I was pretty skeptical that the war would end anytime soon when Trump took office, but we do seem to be getting closer to some sort
• 19:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Trump just seems to be very much intent on pushing both parties to talk and zero in on what the terms might be.
• 19:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he's thereby kind of showing the Ukrainians and Europeans that there are hopes that Trump would swing around to become consistently supportive of Ukraine.
• 19:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're just not going to materialize.
• 19:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 19:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, it doesn't seem like Trump does want to earn that FIFA peace price.
• 19:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: So he's already got it.
• 19:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's already got it.
• 19:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: But he wants to prove that he deserves it.
• 19:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's still like the NFL Peace Prize, the NBA Priest Peace Prize.
• 20:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if he cares about baseball, but you could invent one there too.
• 20:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but I have to say it here's a like engaging in terms of foreign policy, you know, even though I in the nation have been critical on on many areas like it doesn't seem like at least on the Ukraine Russia front like we have this terrible situation where crap is the grown up in the room
• 20:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: how he kind of realizes that the status quo is untenable, that the continuation of the war makes those sounds and that some sort of ceasefire at least and Ukraine reconstruction is the path to go forward.
• 20:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you want to say anything about like how we got to the situation where Trump of all people is offering the sort of mature path.
• 20:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't know if he's the grown-up in the room, but he's making relatively speaking.
• 20:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sort of directionally he seems to be correct and wanting to make a determined effort to figure out how the war could actually be brought to an end as soon as possible.
• 21:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think we just have to think about the failure of the Biden administration to pursue that goal.
• 21:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: in a dog-ed banner in its three years of the conflict.
• 21:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Biden administration, I think in many ways, had the right goals.
• 21:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: on paper.
• 21:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: It actually always said that it was aiding Ukraine to strengthen Ukraine's hands on the battlefield so that Ukraine's hand would be stronger at the negotiating table.
• 21:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: It never really expected Ukraine to win an absolute victory that would eject Russian forces from all rightfully Ukrainian territory and yet
• 21:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: it decided not to push either party to come up with terms it would accept to end the war during its tenure in that, I think created this polarized choice for the American electorate last year where I think probably most Americans, believe Ukraine is in the right.
• 22:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's fundamentally the victim in this conflict, that's worthy of
• 22:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: of American support and sympathy.
• 22:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: But on the other hand, we should have an endgame for this war.
• 22:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's going to end and compromise that we want a president who is going to pursue peace.
• 22:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we'll be got with us like polarized choice where you had Trump saying, you know, my priority is ending this conflict as quickly as possible, but he's all over the map in terms of which side he seems to sympathize with.
• 22:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then the Biden Harris ticket talking about standing strong with Ukraine, but giving no real sense of how it expected the war to ever come to an end.
• 22:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no.
• 22:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's right.
• 22:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean at some point there has to be a larger reckoning with Biden because I think both with in Europe and in the Middle East, there was a real reluctance to carry through the actual work of diplomacy of the goshiti with adversaries.
• 23:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that has created a situation where Trump was much more viable alternative.
• 23:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: On the European side, I am a bit puzzled again.
• 23:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, one could have a lot of critiques of Trump, but certainly the handling of Ukraine and Russia has been erotic.
• 23:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's shifted a lot and said different things.
• 23:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: But to me, it's like very unclear, like, what exactly the Europeans are hoping.
• 23:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: to achieve by their like with holding for negotiations as long as possible and by you know adapting some of this maximalist rhetoric of you know a completely rolling back Russia like what is the thinking or what's the goal there is it just like part of negotiation that you want to put forward your most powerful case or are they genuinely unwilling to think about a negotiated settlement.
• 23:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's a great question.
• 23:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think the answer, it's evolving.
• 23:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Over time, I think earlier this year, the European goal seemed to be to prove to Trump that it's the Russians that stand in the way of peace and thereby hope to get Trump much more supportive of Ukraine and then move on from there.
• 24:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that was not completely an unsuccessful effort.
• 24:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ukraine came out in support of an immediate unconditional ceasefire, which was appealing to Trump, Russia rejected that.
• 24:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: But,
• 24:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now Trump sees that that's not a pathway forward and so he is pursuing a kind of comprehensive settlement.
• 24:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think frankly many European leaders they don't want to open up the difficult question of what exact compromises ought to be made.
• 24:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: They have rhetorically inflated
• 24:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: the stakes in Ukraine to say that it's existential for Europe, that aggression cannot be rewarded.
• 25:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And yet, it's just always been the case that the war was going to end in some kind of unjust piece or ceasefire.
• 25:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think,
• 25:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: It would have been hard, for example, even for Joe Biden, had he gotten to a piece that was maybe even a better piece than what you crane may get today or tomorrow to explain why the mission looked like a success.
• 25:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: If he had to say, well, Russia's going to
• 25:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: gain control over rightfully Ukrainian territory.
• 25:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's not going to be war crimes, tribunals for the perpetrators in the Kremlin.
• 25:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're lifting sanctions on Russia, et cetera.
• 25:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 25:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, I mean, it was always going to be like a tough sell, but to me, like I think there's a lot to criticize the European position.
• 26:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because as you say, they're rhetorically making the stakes very high.
• 26:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a big such a struggle.
• 26:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: But without actually putting in, as we've discussed before, the actual commitments, resource commitments to like sustain the war.
• 26:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, I think you're absolutely right.
• 26:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, I think what's puzzling now is that Europeans were supposed to be from Venus and we're good at diplomacy and Americans were from Mars.
• 26:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now it's like the opposite.
• 26:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Actually Europeans are building up because they're preparing for a war with Russia by 29, many leaders say.
• 26:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: But yet they have really no diplomatic game with the Kremlin.
• 26:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, I mean, it's a very puzzling position.
• 26:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, I wanted to just very briefly talk about the other components of the National Security strategy.
• 26:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: As you said, in Europe, there is this kind of, largely a cultural program, bringing the cultural wars to Europe.
• 27:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: In Asia, I think it's very interesting that it's sort of framed purely in economic terms, and that does seem to be at least a partial shift from seeing China as the new Cold War rival and part of this great game of international diplomacy.
• 27:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: So China's still a rival, but an economic one primarily.
• 27:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, so that's the framing, you know, the Asia section is subtitled when the economic future prevent military confrontation.
• 27:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the ultimate stakes in Asia, according to the document, are economic.
• 27:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And yet, then the document turns around and
• 27:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: with a degree of specificity that doesn't exist for any other part of the world says that the United States needs to work with allies and partners to restore a favorable military balance and
• 27:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: deter aggression anywhere in the first island chain, which means Taiwan, it has specific language about the strategic importance of Taiwan.
• 28:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: It says ideally the United States would preserve military overmatch.
• 28:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: uh, to deter China from attacking Taiwan, you know, that would be a very demanding thing for the United States to try to do at this point, uh, and yet it has this interesting word ideally as if to suggest, well, maybe we can't do it.
• 28:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's a kind of odd to compromise document that is trying to take a kind of muted attitude toward a strategic competition with China, but it's definitely not specific about how, in any way, it would actually do something that Beijing would find favorable.
• 28:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's very interesting.
• 28:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And one season sort of contradictions in Trump's Asia policy as in the European policy.
• 29:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like Trump himself seems to have moved into this thinking that it's an economic relationship.
• 29:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think particularly since the tariff wars have been really rough, taking more consultatory language.
• 29:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: But there are people within the administration, I'd definitely think one can name a bridge call be as an example, who are still
• 29:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this sort of ambiguity, like it plays itself out in ways that I think are it's a very risky of sometimes using aggressive language and then sometimes walking back.
• 29:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think, you know, there's a recent incident where the new Prime Minister of Japan, you know, was making very harsh statements about Taiwan, possibly with the encouragement of the United States.
• 29:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then the United States actually challenged her on it.
• 29:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: So to be that indicates a very contradictory foreign policy that's being tugged at in different directions.
• 29:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: But what year sense of that?
• 29:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think you're right.
• 29:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think Trump is on the lead in a lot of those respects.
• 30:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: In some ways, Trump himself seems to be maybe more willing to accommodate Chinese positions than the national security strategy is.
• 30:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: The national security strategy is like accommodating basically by not trying to hype rhetorically geostrategia competition with China and to
• 30:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: to make preventing military confrontation the goal, but Trump is out there in appears authorizing the export of high-end semiconductors to China that can be used for artificial intelligence.
• 30:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: He reportedly told the Japanese Prime Minister to
• 30:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Cool it on rhetoric surrounding Taiwan.
• 30:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: The administration also earlier denied the president of Taiwan, President Lichenda, a transit visit in the United States.
• 30:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: So Trump seems to want a kind of positive relationship as Xi Jinping.
• 31:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's part of his kind of personalist style of the leaders of the big powers of the world are going to work out problems in establishing understanding for managing things.
• 31:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: The problem is that that is like we have a competition that in so many ways is structural.
• 31:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so Trump will presumably leave office in three years.
• 31:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: then what?
• 31:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Moreover, Trump himself is pretty erratic and I don't think that he's going to convince Putin or Xi that his personal qualities constitute the long-term direction of American foreign policy and therefore they can trust him.
• 31:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, no, I mean, that received me the sort of one of the central contradictions, like how much of this is Trump's personal style and but then you're also trying to implement like, you know, structural change within the government that includes a lot of people that don't necessarily agree with you.
• 32:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to finally touch on the last area where it's in some ways the obverse both Asia and Europe where the United States is becoming much more interventionist.
• 32:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it does seem to be like almost reverting to the sort of classic Republican Party, unilateralist foreign policy view of, you know, like withdrawing from Europe and being more active in the Western Hemisphere.
• 32:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: So what was the National Security Strategy say about that?
• 32:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like as I guess a new site for a conflict involving drugs and immigration and how the
• 32:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so the Western Hemisphere, according to the document, is the realm of serious threats to American security.
• 32:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: As we talked about, you know, Europe is kind of the realm of, we'd like to save European culture.
• 32:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Asia is the realm of economics and Western Hemisphere totally different.
• 33:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: So here we have, you know, the expression in a big national security document.
• 33:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: of, I think what Trump has stood for for a long time, which is that the real threats to the security, the integrity of the United States, cross borders, that's people crossing borders, that's drugs coming into the country.
• 33:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: So there's lots of rhetoric about, you know, my mass migration constituting in invasion, which I think, you know, according to the Trump administration is,
• 33:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: not a metaphor, right?
• 33:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's how they view it.
• 33:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is a security threat on that's qualitatively similar to a foreign country taking up arms to invade the country.
• 33:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: So what do they say about Western here?
• 33:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have a sphere of defense.
• 33:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, they talk a big game.
• 33:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: They announce this trunk corollary, which is not well defined, but seems to be about making sure that Russia, China, and other anonymous fear actors don't own or control strategically vital assets, like the Panama Canal, potentially that could be extended to economic infrastructure,
• 34:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: That seems to be the point, but actually the strange thing about the document is you wouldn't know that these boat strikes that have killed upwards of 80 people so far are going on.
• 34:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: You wouldn't know that the United States is in a confrontation with Venezuela.
• 34:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: that could turn into a kinetic military action to try to oust the Venezuelan leader Maduro.
• 34:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Venezuela is not even mentioned by name, so it's kind of a very sort of abstract presentation of U.S. asserting ownership of the Western Hemisphere.
• 35:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so once you're sent to us to why this shift has happened, as you say in the strategy, it's presented abstract forms.
• 35:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think the actual news that we're seeing, it's very different, not only is it not abstract, but it's not I see at all, really, to do with like, outside intervention, and this is not the Monroe Doctorant in a sense that, like, there's no real way
• 35:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: in which China and Russia are intervening in the Western Hemisphere.
• 35:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it is like a sort of a returrent to a kind of gun both diplomacy at a sort of resource extraction diplomacy, I mean, I think the Trump administration has been very blunt that one of the motives for the Venezuelan action is access to Venezuela and oil.
• 35:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: So what's your sense of where this is coming from?
• 35:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is it like the sort of rubio wing Florida wing of the party or are there other factors at work?
• 35:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think one issue is that Trump has kind of always been here in terms of wanting to take a tough and militarized approach to migration and the drug war.
• 36:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Another more structural factor is that the United States is losing relative power and influence.
• 36:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: overseas, and Trump himself sees that and doesn't think that the stakes of escalation or conflict are worth much of a cost, but the Western Hemisphere is a place where the United States is dominant and can take actions, be fitting a dominant power, and Trump
• 36:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: clearly likes that.
• 36:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And frankly, a lot of the American elite like that kind of thing.
• 36:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: They some of them even want to dominate everywhere still.
• 36:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And spend like three times the defense budget that we have.
• 36:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's a kind of longer term reason why the U.S. is turning in this way toward an emphasis on how it could throw its weight around in the western hemisphere.
• 37:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then, yeah, we get to these more like immediate factors of Trump's administration, having figures who disagree profoundly about what America should do in the world, but can all agree that at least in principle, the United States should have a sphere of influence in the Western hemisphere, and it should do whatever is necessary to make sure that foreign
• 37:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: through their weight around, at least eventually, and should deal with the migration and drug issue?
• 37:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it does seem to connect well with Europe.
• 37:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: In a sense, it is also a kind of cultural war policy.
• 37:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is sort of seeing things in kind of civilizational terms with migration as a kind of major threat.
• 38:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it ties in with ways in which international
• 38:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: under the Trump administration.
• 38:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I think we've covered a lot of ground here.
• 38:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's probably just certainly a lot of work to be said.
• 38:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: But for now, I think we should leave it here.
• 38:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: I want to think my guest, Stephen Worthheim, once again, for like, you know, like a really illuminating discussion as to where American foreign policy is going.
• 38:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: My pleasure.
• 38:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.