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The Beginning of the End in the Middle East? · Net Assessment

• 0:08
  Melanie Marlowe: Hello, and welcome to Net Assessment, where we debate the hard choices facing America's national security and foreign policy communities.
• 0:15
  Today, we're going to discuss our foreign policy in the Middle East. Should the United States withdraw militarily from the Middle East?
• 0:22
  Has America's relationship with Israel fundamentally changed? And what are we to make of new security partnerships between countries in the region?
• 0:29
  I'm Melanie Marlowe of CSIS, here with Chris Preble of the Stimson Center, and Zack Cooper of the American Enterprise Institute. How are you?
• 0:36
  Chris Preble: Hello again.
• 0:37
  Zack Cooper: Great. It's the middle of summer.
• 0:40
  Melanie Marlowe: Good. Zack, you look like you're in new surroundings.
• 0:44
  Zack Cooper: Well, yeah, that's because I just came back from physical therapy, so I'm now wearing, like, a T-shirt, which is...
• 0:49
  Melanie Marlowe: Oh.
• 0:50
  Zack Cooper: But I've shifted offices at AEI, so...
• 0:54
  Melanie Marlowe: Are you a bigger cheese now?
• 0:56
  Zack Cooper: No, I'm the same cheese..
• 1:01
  Melanie Marlowe: All right. Chris, what are you up to?
• 1:02
  Chris Preble: Just living the dream. Had a piece just posted at Inkstick this morning on nuclear weapons, which I'm very excited about.
• 1:09
  Melanie Marlowe: Oh!
• 1:10
  Zack Cooper: Were you suggesting we should have more of them?
• 1:12
  Chris Preble: No.
• 1:14
  Zack Cooper: Ah, drats.
• 1:15
  Chris Preble: I was not suggesting we should have more of them. Shocking. We had a piece last week published.
• 1:20
  I mentioned our colleague Ali Perri, who's gone off to law school, but one of the last things he worked on was a paper that we published on the Iran war as a case of
• 1:29
  allied entanglement. So, we published that at Stimson. It actually went live just after Ali left, so I was pretty happy with that piece. Got some attention.
• 1:37
  That was nice. So, yeah.
• 1:39
  Melanie Marlowe: Yeah, that's great. Well, I'm down here in Huntsville.
• 1:42
  It is hotter and more humid than Washington, so I can't complain for at least a week when I get back, but it will be good to see everybody the next couple of days.
• 1:51
  Chris Preble: For listeners, Melanie looks like she's in a really fancy hotel room.
• 1:55
  Zack Cooper: I know.
• 1:56
  Chris Preble: I'm just saying.
• 1:57
  Melanie Marlowe: Which is what Huntsville is known for.
• 1:59
  Chris Preble: I've never been to Huntsville, but you know, that looks like one of the fancier hotels in Huntsville, I'm guessing. So, I'm just saying.
• 2:05
  Melanie Marlowe: Yeah. Well, you know, Hilton, there you go. So, Zack, you’ve got the show today. What are we talking about?
• 2:13
  Zack Cooper: All right. Well, we have a little bit of a war going on still in Iran, now entering its sixth month.
• 2:20
  So, we thought it was past time to talk about the future of the Middle East. And I don't mean after the Iran war, because we have no idea when it's going to end.
• 2:30
  Maybe the future of the Middle East is now, which is just more fighting. And that's what Mike Fuchs is talking about in a new Foreign Affairs piece.
• 2:40
  He wrote it on August 6th. The title is America Must Let Go of the Middle East.
• 2:45
  His core argument is in the subtitle, which says, "The failed Iran war should spur a long overdue withdrawal." So, I thought this was an important piece for us to talk
• 2:55
  about for a couple of reasons. One is there's a lot going on in the Middle East generally.
• 3:01
  We have just this morning, while we're recording, Israel formally rejecting the president's peace plan for Gaza. I guess for Lebanon.
• 3:10
  We have a Saudi, Turkey, Pakistan extended deterrence deal, it looks like. We have a U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal that was just announced.
• 3:18
  Plus, we've got the Iran war on top of all of that. So, there's a lot for us to get into.
• 3:24
  But I think what's most important about this piece is this is a bit of a different argument than we've heard from Democrats for some time, going back, some of whom have
• 3:35
  been arguing, look, that the U.S. should downsize its presence in the Middle East. That's not what Mike is arguing here.
• 3:42
  Mike is actually saying that the U.S. should basically withdraw entirely from the Middle East.
• 3:48
  Whether you agree or disagree with the point, I think what's important is it's probably a signal of where some of the debate within the Democratic Party is moving.
• 3:59
  So, that's why I wanted to talk about it. So, before we dig into all of the specifics, Melanie, Chris, why don't we get into your just general responses to this piece?
• 4:10
  What did you think when you read it? Melanie, why don't we go to you first?
• 4:15
  Melanie Marlowe: Sure.
• 4:16
  I will add to your comment, the Republican Party is discussing this a lot as well, and I think that that will only increase in the coming months and even years.
• 4:24
  And I will say, I generally think that we should reduce our commitments in the Middle East, and I agree with his statement on the last page where he says, "But if the
• 4:33
  United States stays bogged down in the Middle East, it will have more difficulty working with its Asian and European allies to counter Beijing's or Moscow's moves
• 4:42
  elsewhere." And yet, this piece to me is so bad I want to move Marines from Japan to CENTCOM. I think it is facile.
• 4:48
  He gives lots of examples about things of what he doesn't like, which is basically mostly one thing or one country, and if that's what you're going to focus on, then
• 4:57
  there are some fatal omissions that need to be discussed.
• 5:00
  And then he doesn't explain, for example, what the new security partnerships that he talks about many times are going to be. And we do have some interests there.
• 5:08
  We need to consider conflict management. We need to talk about deterring proliferation, which I'm very worried about in the coming years. We have trade.
• 5:16
  There are weapons issues. So, I don't think that we should withdraw completely.
• 5:20
  And I will say, in spite of my criticisms and how much I did not like this particular article on the subject, I think that the total strategic disaster of Iran is going
• 5:29
  to give it a lot of resonance right now.
• 5:32
  Chris Preble: Well, for listeners who were concerned that we were agreeing too much in our recent shows, they will be heartened by this one because I love this article.
• 5:41
  I thought it was fantastic.
• 5:42
  I didn't agree with every single word of it, but both on the substance, I agree with it, and I think the fact that it's coming from Mike Fuchs, as opposed to previous
• 5:52
  folks who have written things along these lines over the years, I think it is a signal that this is becoming more of a mainstream point of view.
• 6:00
  And I guess the real question to me is, what took so long, and why is it this particular war, as stupid as it is, why is it this war that has prompted this debate?
• 6:09
  Because, you know, Philip Auerswald had a piece back in The American Interest back in 2007, I guess it was, which was very good. I mean, again, not an obscure journal.
• 6:18
  And then Justin Logan's written about this. Justin had a piece in Politico back in 2014, I think it was. Same thing.
• 6:25
  It's like, you know, making many of the same arguments that Mike is making here.
• 6:29
  But I think, given who Mike is and where he's coming from, I think it's going to have some resonance. And kudos to Foreign Affairs for publishing it.
• 6:37
  So, we'll get into the details, but I agree with it, and I wish that we had come around to this point of view a long time ago.
• 6:45
  Zack Cooper: Just since you raised it, Chris, I should have given Mike a better introduction so people know where he stands.
• 6:53
  He, at the moment, is a director at the Open Society Foundation.
• 6:57
  But he was special assistant to Joe Biden and deputy chief of staff to Kamala Harris during the Biden administration, and had previously worked at the State Department
• 7:08
  under Hillary Clinton as a deputy assistant secretary of state. So, sort of a traditional Democratic foreign policy hand.
• 7:16
  And look, I think he makes what is a surprisingly forceful argument in some ways.
• 7:21
  You know, just to quote him, he says, "It is long past time for the United States to withdraw its forces from the Middle East, stop arming governments that violate U.S.
• 7:33
  and international law, and end its role as guarantor of regional order." Period. That is quite the suggestion.
• 7:40
  And I think part of what is so important about this debate is not just about Iran, it's about Israel, it's about broader Middle East policy towards the Gulf.
• 7:50
  And here's my sense from where some of my Democratic friends are headed, which is, views of Israel within the Democratic Party have cratered.
• 8:00
  You can see this in progressives, right? So, Ro Khanna was just in Israel and had this incident with some settlers. Yeah, I know Melanie's rolling her eyes.
• 8:10
  But clearly he's coming out, attacking U.S. policy towards Israel. But so is Rahm Emanuel, who's a moderate who has deployed with the IDF previously.
• 8:20
  So, I think the Democratic debate on Israel is changing.
• 8:23
  At the same time, the Democratic debate on Iran is going to change however the Iran war ends, because I don't think anyone thinks that Democrats are going to want to come
• 8:35
  in and clean up the mess of the Iran war and try and get towards some sort of JCPOA-plus. That seems totally unrealistic at this point.
• 8:44
  And then finally, you've got the Gulf States.
• 8:47
  And it seems to me that in fact, the Democratic attitudes towards the Gulf States are going to be even worse, because we're probably going to spend the next two years
• 8:58
  with Democrats in the House investigating corruption allegations between President Trump and the Saudis and the Emirates, and Qatar, and this can go on and on, to say
• 9:09
  nothing about the U.S.-Turkey relationship and Trump's approach to that. So, I think we could be in for a wholesale shift of Democratic thinking on the Middle East.
• 9:20
  And as Melanie said, we can talk about what the Republican thinking is, and I think there's a big debate there.
• 9:27
  But I think this piece signals maybe where some significant portions of the Democratic Party are heading.
• 9:34
  But I guess the question for both of you is, as we head into the midterms and then into a presidential race that's not that far away, do you think this is going to be the
• 9:45
  consensus view, that the U.S. should not just downsize, but actually withdraw from the Middle East within the Democratic Party?
• 9:54
  Chris Preble: Consensus is too strong.
• 9:56
  I think there are still a substantial number of Democrats who believe that the U.S. presence is stabilizing, notwithstanding the evidence to the contrary.
• 10:04
  But the argument always goes, "Were we not there, things could be worse." And again, from my perspective, it's like, how? How could they be worse?
• 10:12
  But I think there are still a number of Democrats who believe in the United States for good leadership, however you want to frame it.
• 10:19
  And I think that's likely to continue.
• 10:22
  Melanie Marlowe: You know, 100 members of the House voted against even defensive aid to Israel a couple of weeks ago.
• 10:29
  And I think that there is a significant and enduring shift in the Democratic Party. I don't think that means consensus for withdrawal.
• 10:37
  But I certainly think that, as I suggested at the beginning, I think the relationship has fundamentally changed.
• 10:43
  But I think that it started to be fundamentally changed three or four years ago, even before October 7th, which, if you read the article, you may not know happened.
• 10:53
  And I do want to say, I think that what is going on in the settlements is not only wrong, but it's unhelpful.
• 11:00
  And it isn't that there shouldn't be concern about it with Ro Khanna or other people, but he was staging an incident for drama.
• 11:08
  And there's just places American congressmen can't go, and that's one of them.
• 11:12
  So, it isn't that I think that everything's fine there, because I don't think everything is fine there.
• 11:19
  Zack Cooper: So, let's talk about what it would mean if the United States were to actually withdraw to some degree from the Middle East.
• 11:28
  I think what Mike would be suggesting here is that the U.S. stop providing weapons to Israel, or certainly stop selling weapons at cost, which we certainly do, right?
• 11:40
  Through a variety of different mechanisms.
• 11:43
  Melanie Marlowe: I think he means stop it.
• 11:46
  Zack Cooper: Yeah. You think it may stop entirely.
• 11:48
  Melanie Marlowe: He doesn't like Israel, and he thinks stop entirely, which he talks about other human rights violators like Egypt, but he does not bring up not selling
• 11:56
  to Egypt anymore or stopping aid to Egypt. But okay, go ahead.
• 11:59
  Chris Preble: But hold on a minute. Melanie, are you suggesting...
• 12:03
  I mean, the objection is that there are U.S. laws that prohibit the sale of weapons to countries that are known to engage in systematic abuse of human rights, and...
• 12:14
  Melanie Marlowe: Well, he talks about Egypt doing that.
• 12:16
  Chris Preble: Okay. So, why would you presume that he wouldn't also call for cutting off aid to Egypt?
• 12:21
  Melanie Marlowe: Because he mentions Egypt once and doesn't talk about other...
• 12:25
  Chris Preble: He also mentioned the UAE and Sudan. He talks about the Saudis and Yemen. I don't see this as focused solely on Israel.
• 12:32
  I think the recent instances are a case where the Biden administration, in which, you know, Fuchs served, chose not to comply with U.S. law and was never called to
• 12:42
  account for it. And of course, the Trump administration doesn't care.
• 12:46
  So, the most recent cases involve Israel, but he mentions other countries that are engaged in acts that violate U.S. law, and the implication is that he would also cut
• 12:55
  off arms supplies to those countries.
• 12:58
  Melanie Marlowe: Okay. Well, I guess that is the implication.
• 13:00
  Zack Cooper: Yeah.
• 13:01
  And you know, he does say that Washington, I'll just quote him, "Can break the cycle of military aid to Israel, sort of, emboldening Netanyahu by making military aid
• 13:11
  conditional on Israel's ending its occupation of the Palestinian territories, pursuing peace with the Palestinians, and halting its military campaigns in Iran, Lebanon,
• 13:21
  and Syria." End quote.
• 13:23
  Melanie Marlowe: That's a nice sentence. You know what is not mentioned one time in this entire article?
• 13:28
  Hamas, Hezbollah, as I said, October 7th, anything else that is a threat. Who are the Palestinians that they're going to talk to?
• 13:36
  I think that there should be a two-state solution, so I know I sound like I'm being hard on this, but this is what I'm talking about, when Israel is our main partner, and
• 13:45
  maybe there should be discussion about that because we cannot keep defending it like we have been. We do need to talk about that and fix it.
• 13:53
  But when I'm saying that there are big gaps here, it is like there's this big problem, and it's just only Israel, and that there's no threats.
• 14:01
  There is not one mention in here about the threats to Israel in this entire article, and I think that is a big deficiency. Chris, I think you disagree with me.
• 14:11
  Chris Preble: Well, he talks about how Israel's military capabilities are unmatched in the region, both its nuclear arsenal and its conventional capabilities and its
• 14:21
  intelligence capabilities, which have significantly degraded Hezbollah and Hamas, which he talks about.
• 14:28
  So, maybe he doesn't mention them by name, but it is clear that Israel's ability to defend itself independent of the United States has been demonstrated on numerous
• 14:39
  occasions, including in the last four years.
• 14:42
  Melanie Marlowe: No. The United States is there. It doesn't defend itself, and you said the magic words, Chris. It says, there's the question of Israel's security.
• 14:49
  A nuclear weapons state with the most advanced military in the region, Israel is more than capable of defending itself. Is he suggesting they should use nuclear weapons?
• 14:58
  Chris Preble: No, he's suggesting that they have a nuclear deterrent, which means that they have a level of security that most states would envy.
• 15:05
  Melanie Marlowe: They can't defend themselves entirely without using a nuclear weapon. I just don't see that that's true.
• 15:11
  Chris Preble: They've had a nuclear weapon since the 1970s, and they haven't used a nuclear weapon, and they can't defend themselves, Melanie? That's what you're saying.
• 15:18
  Melanie Marlowe: We have just spent a lot of time in the last couple of years expending a lot of missiles and munitions, interceptors, defending Israel.
• 15:27
  They have, as he says, an amazing military and a very advanced tech.
• 15:32
  Chris Preble: Including indigenous tech.
• 15:34
  Melanie Marlowe: Yeah, that's what I mean. And they're making partnerships all over the world, and there's all that.
• 15:40
  But what I'm saying is, there's still a country of several million people, and they have a lot of people around them that lob a lot of stuff, and I don't think that it's
• 15:50
  clear that they can entirely defend themselves.
• 15:53
  Zack Cooper: So, there's so many questions to go down here, but let's stick for the moment on this question of nuclear issues because Chris just wrote about it.
• 16:04
  But I think we're seeing two different potential paths forward here.
• 16:08
  So, the Trump administration has just made this deal with Saudi Arabia, and I want to come back to this in a little bit because there's some real divisions, I think,
• 16:20
  within both parties about this deal. But it is a deal that does not require Saudi Arabia to adhere to the Additional Protocols.
• 16:29
  So, this is a less stringent deal, 123 agreement, for example, than the one that the UAE has and that many others would have if they were to, I think, negotiate nuclear
• 16:41
  deals. We have had recent discussions about Turkey pursuing more nuclear capabilities. Obviously, Iran is headed down this pathway.
• 16:50
  It seems to me that one of the big fundamental questions in the Middle East is whether we're going to continue to live in a world where Israel has nuclear weapons and
• 17:02
  other states don't. It is entirely possible, 10 years from now, that we could be in a world where Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, maybe others have nuclear weapons.
• 17:13
  And I think Mike doesn't say that in this piece, but I think Mike is insinuating that a world of arms control is probably the future in the Middle East, or maybe should
• 17:25
  be the future.
• 17:26
  So, Chris, given that you've just written about this, I'm interested in your views about what should we be aiming for here in terms of the Middle East and nuclear
• 17:37
  weapons?
• 17:38
  Chris Preble: First of all, the Saudi deal was a terrible deal, and the president, sort of, gave the game away when he realized, 24, 48 hours after it was announced,
• 17:46
  that, "Oh, I'm going to add an additional stipulation that the Saudis recognize Israel," which the Saudis refused to do.
• 17:53
  So, lo and behold, once again, the Trump administration has demonstrated they just don't understand how to negotiate these kinds of agreements.
• 18:00
  But it was absurd that they would extend any kind of a deal with the Saudis and not obtain at least the same assurances they received from the United Arab Emirates, which
• 18:10
  include adherence to the Additional Protocol, and so leaving that out just doesn't make any sense.
• 18:15
  I mean, the only plausible explanation, and it's a terrible explanation, it's plausible but still terrible, is that this means that U.S. nuclear power companies, mostly
• 18:24
  Westinghouse, are going to make maybe tens of billions of dollars on this deal, but the security implications were basically just ignored. It's an absurd deal.
• 18:32
  The Arms Control Association published a really good piece on this. I know some of my colleagues here at Stimson are working on one as well. It was a terrible deal.
• 18:41
  And so, to answer your question, Zack, I do not think the United States in particular should be fueling the potential of nuclear proliferation in the region, and that's
• 18:50
  what I believe the Saudi deal risks doing.
• 18:53
  Melanie Marlowe: Oh, Chris, I agreed with you right up until the very end.
• 18:56
  Chris Preble: What? You don't think it fuels proliferation?
• 18:58
  Melanie Marlowe: Well, I think that in the end it might, but you know what? I would rather...
• 19:03
  I mean, as you said, it's just one in a long line of incompetent agreements that the administration makes, and then Donald Trump tries to recover it by tweet the next
• 19:13
  day. There is an actual agreement that does not have what we're talking about in it. And that's a real problem.
• 19:19
  If they can go back and do that, would I rather have the United States be working on that than China? Or Russia? You bet. And that's what I worry.
• 19:28
  Chris Preble: But Melanie, that assumes that if we do not sell them these technologies without the guarantees that we have with, for example, the Emirates, that the
• 19:36
  Russians and the Chinese will inevitably-
• 19:39
  Zack Cooper: Yeah.
• 19:39
  Melanie Marlowe: I don't know inevitably.
• 19:41
  Chris Preble: ... fund. And I don't... Well, that's what you have to believe, because otherwise the argument for doing this just falls apart.
• 19:48
  Zack Cooper: Yeah, there's a piece that Dan Poneman wrote in The New York Times that basically made the case for the Saudi nuclear deal.
• 19:56
  And the core argument, and I'll just read from the last couple of lines here, is, "If we squander the opportunity to partner with the Saudis now, rest assured that we
• 20:06
  will lower the bar against proliferation in the Middle East and beyond." And the argument that he's making is that they're going to go get these reactors from China or
• 20:16
  Russia, and that essentially the restrictions are going to be less, and this will be bad not just for U.S. companies, but for U.S. interests more broadly.
• 20:25
  It's interesting. It's, kind of, the same argument that was made for a lot of the Gulf States getting access to more advanced AI chips also.
• 20:34
  Chris Preble: Or weapons.
• 20:35
  Zack Cooper: Or weapons, yeah.
• 20:36
  Chris Preble: You hear this argument made with respect to any weapon.
• 20:39
  It's like, "If we don't sell it, then the others will." That's a very pleasing and simplistic argument, but it doesn't withstand scrutiny.
• 20:47
  And so, I find it to be a very frustrating sort of line of argument, and it doesn't just apply narrowly to nuclear weapons policy, nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
• 20:56
  Zack Cooper: Yeah.
• 20:57
  So, it's interesting because there's a big debate on the right about this, and Matt Kroenig and Henry Sokolski wrote a piece in the journal that was titled “The Saudi
• 21:06
  Nuclear Deal Is a Disaster,” which I don't think I have to go into in more detail. It's self-evident.
• 21:12
  But I think part of the debate here, it's not just about nuclear issues, it's about the future of the Middle East.
• 21:19
  It's about where the region is going and where the U.S. should go.
• 21:23
  And I think Mike's response to all of this would be, who cares if the Russians and Chinese are more influential in Saudi Arabia?
• 21:30
  We've just wasted our time and effort and resources in the region for far too long, and let's get out.
• 21:37
  Chris Preble: I disagree.
• 21:38
  I think in the case of Russia, Fuchs explains that Russia's influence in the region has been significantly degraded by the toppling of Bashar Assad.
• 21:48
  He explicitly references Russia, and Russia has its hands full in Ukraine, and its concerns are much more focused towards Europe than on the Middle East.
• 21:58
  So, I don't think Russia is likely to be a dominant player.
• 22:01
  And for all of the warnings of China becoming a dominant player in this region, which we have heard now for 15 or 20 years, they have not materialized.
• 22:11
  And I think, candidly, that is because the Chinese have watched our experience in the last quarter century and said, "I do not want to suffer the way the United States
• 22:22
  has suffered by wasting our time on this tertiary-at-best region in the world." Because Asia and Europe are more important, full stop.
• 22:31
  Melanie Marlowe: Okay.
• 22:32
  So, I read his Russia statement just like Chris did, and I think it is silly to think that, oh, all of a sudden today Russia is bogged down in Europe, and it's never
• 22:40
  going to try to strengthen the toehold that it has in, for example, Syria ever again.
• 22:45
  Russia is at a very different place than it was 15 years ago in the Middle East, and a very different place than it was three years ago.
• 22:52
  And the last couple of days, it signed an agreement with the current Syrian government, which is not going to be the same Syrian government that's there forever, about
• 23:00
  having the bases be for civilian cooperation and training.
• 23:03
  You don't think that if something else happens in Syria, that Russia's not going to try to go back and grab those bases? Of course they are.
• 23:10
  So, again, I am not making a case for keeping all of the troops. I feel like I'm making a case that I'm not making.
• 23:16
  I am not making a case that we should have as many troops as we do right now, and I think that we probably should consolidate some bases and maybe move them further away.
• 23:25
  But I just don't think that this article answered the questions that I thought it was going to answer.
• 23:31
  Chris Preble: I'm glad you raised that, Melanie.
• 23:34
  So, on the question of the rebuilding of the bases that have been damaged by the Iranian missile and drone attacks, you would not advocate for the reconstruction of all
• 23:44
  of those facilities?
• 23:46
  Melanie Marlowe: Nope.
• 23:47
  Chris Preble: Okay.
• 23:47
  Melanie Marlowe: Definitely not. And I would make sure that we hardened the ones that we have.
• 23:51
  And the other thing that I have to say is, and again, this is the strategic failure of this administration, like looking at the Iran war, you know, I think a lot of these
• 24:00
  countries aren't going to want as big a presence there, or at least not as an overt a presence, because as he acknowledges in the article, it attracts attention.
• 24:08
  And we've talked about this on several podcasts, that's not necessarily a good thing.
• 24:12
  But just like in Europe, where we have said, "You guys need to step it up and have some skin in the game," and President Trump has said that, if the Middle East really
• 24:21
  wants us to be there, they need to have more skin in the game. The problem with the Iran war is we didn't go to ask them about it first.
• 24:28
  And if we were going to start this war, and Saudi Arabia wants us in the Middle East because they think that we're helpful or whatever, then when push comes to shove,
• 24:36
  then they need to send out their Air Force. And again, a different administration might have handled some of these things differently.
• 24:43
  I think the Biden administration was terrible in the Middle East in very different ways. But we cannot be there in the Middle East to police the world.
• 24:51
  Zack Cooper: Can we stick on this for a second? Because...
• 24:54
  So, Mike has a paragraph where he talks about U.S. posture, and he cites some numbers which I think are the most recent available numbers about U.S. posture in the Middle
• 25:06
  East. And I'll just read what he says. And I think some of this is slightly dated, but he's not claiming that it's exactly right today.
• 25:15
  He says: "Currently, there are 2,000 troops stationed in Iraq, 2,300 in Saudi Arabia, 3,500 in the UAE, 4,000 in Jordan, 8,000 in Bahrain, 10,000 in Qatar, and 13,000 in
• 25:27
  Kuwait." And obviously, I think when it says "troops," that should have said "service members." But those are significant numbers.
• 25:36
  Now, my sense is that the U.S. presence recently has really shifted back away from the Gulf, so away from probably Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, and towards Israel
• 25:47
  and Jordan, where it's pretty clear that there's a very large air presence right now.
• 25:53
  And I think the U.S. is operating largely out of Israel and Jordan, in part because it's further away, and we have run out of so much missile defense that if you're
• 26:04
  trying to defend aircraft closer to Iran and the Gulf, it's going to be very difficult.
• 26:10
  But I think Chris is raising an interesting question, which is, to what degree does the U.S. come back?
• 26:17
  And part of what I'm wondering, to connect the Saudi-Turkey-Pakistan collective defense agreement, is whether the Saudis think the U.S. is going to come back in such a
• 26:29
  big way.
• 26:29
  Or is part of the Saudi logic that they need to hedge against U.S. disengagement from the Gulf, not from the Middle East entirely, but from the Gulf, by looking to other
• 26:41
  partners? What do you think?
• 26:43
  Chris Preble: Well, the Saudi-Pakistani-Turkish deal is...
• 26:46
  Especially because of the Pakistanis' involvement, is mostly about nuclear weapons, you could argue, or the potential for nuclear weapons.
• 26:54
  Whereas there also was progress being made in the teens, I would argue, on not just greater security cooperation among the Gulf States, but even something approaching a
• 27:05
  modus vivendi between the Saudis, the Emiratis, and the Iranians. Is that, like, these countries have to figure out a way to coexist.
• 27:13
  And has the U.S. presence discouraged precisely that kind of diplomacy? I would argue that it has.
• 27:19
  And this is what folks like Barry Posen mean when they talk about reckless driving, and they talk about the moral hazard that's associated with believing that the United
• 27:29
  States has your back no matter what.
• 27:31
  You don't feel the need to make concessions that are in your long-term interest, and I think that's exactly what the Saudis have, from time to time, failed to do.
• 27:41
  And again, I think not consistently.
• 27:43
  Sometimes they have understood the importance of trying to reach some kind of an agreement that would dial down the pressure in the region.
• 27:52
  Melanie Marlowe: I think Saudi's first call would be to Bradley Cooper and not to Islamabad if something really happened.
• 27:58
  I think that they will still hope that the United States will come, and that they will still mostly be planning on that.
• 28:04
  I think that all three of these countries are basically hedging to some extent. Maybe Turkey a little bit less on the hedging side and more feeling its power right now.
• 28:13
  It has a huge army. It has a booming defense industry.
• 28:16
  They're seeking all kinds of opportunities to export their weapons to other countries, countries that may not be able to get them from the United States anymore.
• 28:25
  It's fine.
• 28:25
  I don't maybe have as much hope or confidence, I don't know if it's confidence, that Chris has, maybe it's hope, that these countries would come to great security
• 28:34
  arrangements. I think that there are nasty issues between some of these countries, and they have long memories and millennia to be stewing about some of these things.
• 28:43
  And I think that conflict is just as likely to arise in the absence of the United States as it is with us gone.
• 28:49
  Chris Preble: I mean, that is the part that we can't rerun the tape, right?
• 28:53
  Melanie Marlowe: Yeah.
• 28:54
  Chris Preble: Is that the United States has been present in the region in significant numbers since the Carter Doctrine, right?
• 29:01
  Since the overthrow of the Shah in '79, and then subsequently on the ground since the Gulf War of 1991.
• 29:06
  And so, since that time, since the United States had a naval presence throughout the 1980s and then the land presence since the 1990s, we have seen a number of hot wars,
• 29:16
  not just low-boiling wars. And now the most recent and the horrific one is in Yemen, as well as, of course, the Israelis in Gaza, which we've already talked about.
• 29:25
  And so, do we actually believe that there would be more conflict in the region than there has been over the last 25 years in the absence of a U.S. military presence?
• 29:35
  I think that's a hard case to make.
• 29:37
  Melanie Marlowe: Okay. Well, this brings me to something that I thought was a not very powerful argument that he made.
• 29:43
  In this section called The Fears and the Facts, he says, "Some will argue that withdrawing the U.S. military from the Middle East carries serious risks.
• 29:50
  Those risks are real but manageable. Start with energy markets and the fear of disruption to oil and gas exports. If the United States retreats...
• 29:58
  For years, Washington assumed that the U.S. presence in the region upheld freedom of navigation.
• 30:03
  Yet it was the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran that closed the Strait of Hormuz, and the U.S. military was unable to forcibly reopen it, casting doubt on the efficacy of
• 30:11
  stationing the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain." That doesn't make sense.
• 30:14
  Maybe having the Fifth Fleet there for a long time did help with freedom of navigation until the United States made that fatal error.
• 30:21
  So, I'm not disputing that the United States inflicted this wound on ourselves and on many of our partners and basically the rest of the world, but that argument just
• 30:29
  does not follow to me.
• 30:31
  Zack Cooper: Well, I just want to ask, Melanie, because I think this is a fundamental issue. So, there are two different ways that the Iran war could, sort of, end.
• 30:42
  One is that the U.S. forcibly reopens the strait. I think for a couple of months it seemed like that's what was going to happen.
• 30:51
  That does not seem like something that President Trump is considering anymore.
• 30:56
  Instead, what he seems to be leaning towards is some sort of deal with the Iranians in which they allow the strait to reopen in exchange for a cessation of hostilities or
• 31:08
  some other concessions from the United States.
• 31:12
  In that second world, it's not clear that having substantial numbers of U.S. forces in Bahrain would be a future guarantee of-
• 31:21
  Melanie Marlowe: No.
• 31:21
  Zack Cooper: ... stability in the strait, right?
• 31:23
  Melanie Marlowe: Yeah. I don't disagree with that, but I'm just saying that I don't think that necessarily in the past you can disprove that it was.
• 31:30
  Zack Cooper: Yeah. But in a strange way that... Obviously the Iran war is not over, nor do I think it's going to be over anytime soon.
• 31:38
  But it's very possible that the end of the Iran war could lead to a lot of experts, and certainly a lot of people in the public, feeling like, look, actually having more
• 31:49
  forces in the Persian Gulf does not help secure even the Strait of Hormuz, in which case there's really no strong logic for doing this, right?
• 31:58
  Melanie Marlowe: Yeah. That may be how we end up.
• 32:00
  I mean, especially if we end up with tolls and things like that, and there's just, like, now it's all about the money, and so, you know, there's not worry about freedom
• 32:08
  because it's not going to be freedom of navigation, it's going to be you're paying to go through here a lot. Like extortion, so.
• 32:14
  Chris Preble: Yeah. I mean, I just think that we haven't talked much about the oil argument. That was the third argument for why the United States is in the Middle East.
• 32:23
  And I think that argument was also fundamentally flawed because it misunderstood the motivations of the states in the region for wanting to get their product to market.
• 32:32
  And the way they get their product to market is mostly through the Strait of Hormuz, although there's been some diversification through pipelines, and there's likely to
• 32:42
  be additional diversification over the next 10 to 15 years, but that's going to take some time.
• 32:47
  In the meantime, the reason why the Iranians have not previously closed the Strait of Hormuz in spite of enormous pressure being put on them economically for decades now
• 32:57
  and militarily on numerous occasions, is because it was only within the last six months that they've seen their regime survival in danger, like truly existential.
• 33:06
  And you would only resort to extraordinary measures in the face of existential danger, and that's exactly what we've seen.
• 33:13
  And what the Trump administration was told before the war started, the likelihood of them closing the strait precisely for that reason.
• 33:20
  And again, we've talked about this for decades now.
• 33:23
  I just think that the notion that the Fifth Fleet has been instrumental to ensuring that Saudi, Kuwaiti, and yes, Iranian oil reaches the global energy market is false.
• 33:33
  I don't think that's true.
• 33:34
  I think that what motivated those states to want to get their oil to market is it was their main source of revenue and remains their main source of revenue.
• 33:43
  Without it, they have nothing or almost nothing.
• 33:45
  They've managed now, of course, to build sovereign wealth funds, so they're trying to diversify, but that process is going to take a little while.
• 33:54
  In the meantime, their main priority is to get the oil out of the ground, out of the Gulf, and to consumers elsewhere in the world.
• 34:01
  And that's going to continue whether the Fifth Fleet is in Bahrain or in Oman, or frankly anywhere in the vicinity. It's just not essential to ensuring the flow of oil.
• 34:11
  Zack Cooper: There's also a fundamental question from an American perspective, which is, how much do you want to be subsidizing oil that's going not into U.S. hands but
• 34:24
  into Chinese hands in particular?
• 34:27
  Chris Preble: Right.
• 34:28
  Melanie Marlowe: Yeah.
• 34:29
  Zack Cooper: And I'm not suggesting that I necessarily agree with this argument, but I do think there are some whose view is, look, if there is great instability in the
• 34:38
  Middle East, specifically in the Gulf, at some point other countries are going to have to get involved.
• 34:44
  And obviously, Donald Trump has been screaming for U.S. allies to get involved, and they're not going to do it because in most cases I don't think they have the
• 34:53
  capability to really help substantially.
• 34:55
  But I can imagine a world in which if the strait was really closed and it was clear that the U.S. wasn't going to intervene, because the U.S. is more energy independent
• 35:05
  and less dependent on the strait as a result, that maybe the Chinese in particular would be boxed in and would have to use their political influence to try and convince
• 35:14
  the Iranians to reopen the strait. Now, would that work? I don't know.
• 35:18
  But I can foresee an argument that some people might make that says, "Look, let's give this problem to the countries who are now more dependent on that source of energy."
• 35:28
  Melanie Marlowe: So, great.
• 35:29
  A lot of these countries have realized that they are heavily dependent on this, including partners, and they should be picking up some of the burden for that.
• 35:38
  Chris Preble: But the difference will be, I predict, that if that were the case, if the Chinese, for example, were to attempt to use their influence, it would be
• 35:47
  political and economic influence.
• 35:49
  They would not create the equivalent of a Fifth Fleet for the Persian Gulf and send Chinese vessels based somewhere in the region to keep the strait open.
• 35:57
  They would not do that because only the United States has been stupid enough to do that. It's just stupid.
• 36:04
  It's an idiotic policy based on a fundamental misreading of the way that oil and energy markets work, and yet it has sustained for decades.
• 36:12
  And so, you can sense from the tone of my voice my frustration, is why has it taken us so goddamn long to figure this out?
• 36:19
  Zack Cooper: Well, Chris, I think this is really fascinating.
• 36:22
  So, my understanding is that the Chinese almost built a large military facility at Khalifa Port in the UAE, which is north of-
• 36:31
  Chris Preble: Almost.
• 36:31
  Zack Cooper: ... Abu Dhabi. Yeah, I think the U.S. weighed in to actually encourage the UAE to not do this.
• 36:38
  But can you imagine a world that was a little different in which the Chinese had a substantial PLAN Navy detachment in the Gulf?
• 36:48
  Melanie Marlowe: Yeah. Guess what? I can. I can imagine them doing that in Peru where they have built ports. I can imagine some of these BRI things.
• 36:55
  You think that they're building this navy and in 50 years we're all going to be in the same situation? I don't think so.
• 37:00
  I'm not saying they're going to become expeditionary, they are going to go do that, but boy, do I think they want options? You bet.
• 37:07
  Chris Preble: I can imagine lots of things. And yet as a historian, I do not see a lot of evidence that the Chinese have in the past used to go expeditionary.
• 37:15
  You know, what was the last time? Zheng He? I mean, like, my gosh, it's been hundreds of years.
• 37:21
  Melanie Marlowe: No, I just acknowledge that, but I cannot see the future.
• 37:26
  Zack Cooper: Okay. So, I have two last quick questions for you, which are unfair, and I didn't tell you I was going to do so that you couldn't prepare for them.
• 37:37
  So, five years from now, I want to know what your baseline expectation is for the amount of U.S. military forces present, and how many countries in the region have
• 37:48
  nuclear weapons, right? The baseline would be Israel and no one else on the nuclear weapons side.
• 37:55
  And I think the rough order of magnitude in terms of current forces present would be something like 30,000. Is that somewhere in the ballpark of that?
• 38:06
  Chris, since you have particularly strong feelings on the nuclear side.
• 38:11
  Chris Preble: Yeah. I think the answer is, I do not believe there will be more nuclear weapon states.
• 38:16
  Not nuclear weapon states, I think you might have threshold states that have some combination of enrichment capability and perhaps, the critical red line is, you know,
• 38:25
  research into weaponization, which the Iranians were caught cheating on in the aughts.
• 38:29
  So, I don't believe there will be more nuclear weapon states five years from now than there are right now.
• 38:35
  There may be more nuclear-capable states, but not nuclear weapon states. I think that there will be fewer troops in the region, but not zero.
• 38:42
  And I think there will continue to be a U.S. naval presence in the region, much to my frustration, and much to the stress that will continue to be imposed on the U.S.
• 38:51
  Navy precisely for that reason.
• 38:53
  Zack Cooper: Melanie?
• 38:53
  Melanie Marlowe: I can't believe it. I basically agree with Chris.
• 38:56
  Zack Cooper: Look at us. We've come full circle.
• 38:58
  Melanie Marlowe: My one caveat is I think if there is a nuclear weapon state, I don't even want to say this out loud, but I'm worried it's going to be Iran.
• 39:05
  Zack Cooper: I think that's totally possible.
• 39:07
  Melanie Marlowe: Oh, okay. I'm not joking. I am actually quite worried.
• 39:12
  Chris Preble: No.
• 39:12
  I think the leadership that is currently in Iran is probably more favorably disposed towards nuclear weapons than the leadership that was killed in the days after the
• 39:21
  start of Epic Fury.
• 39:22
  Zack Cooper: Well, on that note, we've really just left our listeners in a great positive place.
• 39:30
  Melanie Marlowe: I can keep going.
• 39:32
  Chris Preble: Wait, is that it? I thought you had something else.
• 39:35
  Zack Cooper: No.
• 39:36
  I think the big takeaway from this is, look, the Iran war, for six months, has been fundamentally changing not just how the Middle East operates, but how Americans think
• 39:47
  about the Middle East.
• 39:48
  And for this president and his team who came in arguing against really deployments in the Middle East and regime-change wars in the Middle East, to be stuck in one, it
• 39:59
  suggests that there's this core challenge in U.S. policy there, which is both that I think Americans generally don't understand why the U.S. is there, right?
• 40:09
  If you look at the polling data. And yet American presidents, when they're put to the test, keep investing more and more.
• 40:17
  And I don't think we know how this is going to end, but my gut sense is that the article that Mike wrote is pointing us in the most likely direction that the Democratic
• 40:28
  Party would go, which is a pretty substantial drawdown.
• 40:31
  And I think maybe some of what kept the U.S. in the Middle East in the past, which was in large part Israel and fears about Iran going nuclear, that actually the last two
• 40:42
  years have undermined both of those political arguments within the Democratic Party. So, I think Mike's pointing to maybe where Democrats will go.
• 40:52
  We could have another show about where Republicans are, which I can just tell you is, I think, a much more fraught discussion.
• 41:00
  But I think his piece is really important and is probably going to be a central piece of Democratic foreign policy debates over the next two years.
• 41:10
  Melanie Marlowe: Definitely. I agree with that. Okay. All right, let's have some grievances.
• 41:15
  Frank Costanza: "The tradition of Festivus begins with the airing of grievances. I got a lot of problems with you, people. And now, you’re going to hear about it!"
• 41:25
  Melanie Marlowe: Chris, do you have any more grievances in you?
• 41:28
  Chris Preble: Oh, I've got lots of grievances.
• 41:30
  Actually, my one grievance is, sort of, overarching, and it's not towards any one person, it's just, sort of, the situation.
• 41:36
  I'm aggrieved by Ross Douthat's departure from The New York Times for CBS and 60 Minutes, for lots of reasons.
• 41:41
  You know, I mean, coincidentally, we just talked about Douthat's interview with Bridge Colby in the last show.
• 41:47
  Melanie Marlowe: We get results.
• 41:48
  Chris Preble: Yeah.
• 41:49
  I think Douthat is one of the folks in the mainstream media who comes from a conservative, right-leaning perspective, and yet is, I think at times, sympathetic to a
• 41:58
  rethinking of the strategic vision of conservatives. And so, I'm grateful for that.
• 42:03
  I fear that he won't be talking about foreign policy for 60 Minutes, and that would be a loss. So, it's a loss for The New York Times.
• 42:11
  And hopefully they'll replace him with somebody who is similarly right-coded and also an occasional skeptic of intervention, but I won't hold my breath.
• 42:20
  And as for 60 Minutes, I just think it's another sign that they...
• 42:24
  And CBS is just, the influence of Ellison and Bari Weiss and others, sort of, moving the entire news organization in, I think, an unfortunate direction.
• 42:33
  So, I'm aggrieved by the entire situation.
• 42:36
  Melanie Marlowe: Okay. Zack?
• 42:37
  Zack Cooper: All right. So, my grievance may surprise some folks, but it's with the Russia sanctions bill. And to be clear, I like Russia sanctions.
• 42:47
  I actually like Iran sanctions, too.
• 42:49
  So, I'm not against the actual sanctions that would theoretically be open to the president to put on Russia, Iran, or the countries supporting them.
• 43:00
  I am, however, against giving the president more tariff authority when he has shown, not in one case but in multiple cases since really the last 18 months, that he is
• 43:11
  going to take whatever tiny amount of authority is given to him and run wild with it.
• 43:17
  And if you read the Russia sanctions bill closely, it is quite expansive in what the president can do.
• 43:24
  And you can say, "Oh, but maybe he won't do that." But I mean, he's driven a truck through IEEPA. He's currently trying to do the same thing with other authorities.
• 43:36
  And I think if you ask, like, why is the Trump administration so excited about this thing that might give them tools to put more pressure on Russia?
• 43:46
  I think that's the reason.
• 43:48
  And I understand why it's really hard, especially in the Senate, for senators to vote against a bill named after Lindsey Graham just after he passed, and which is
• 43:59
  purporting to be tough on Russia and Iran.
• 44:02
  But I think we're going to look back at this a couple of years from now and believe that this was yet another exercise in the Congress giving the executive branch more
• 44:14
  authority when it actually should have been limiting the executive branch's authority, especially in the economic sphere.
• 44:23
  Melanie Marlowe: Yeah. I was really sorry they couldn't split that. That was quite unfortunate.
• 44:28
  Especially as that was happening, I think that the president was putting national security tariffs on trombones and tubas because, you know, our national musical
• 44:37
  instrument reserve is running low. I don't know what is going on here. I know, you just have to laugh, or you're going to cry. Okay.
• 44:45
  Well, my grievance is with the Pentagon for revoking the security clearance of former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall.
• 44:52
  And I'm not holding a candle for Frank Kendall or anything, like, I think he was fine, but what enrages me is, he just gave a comment to The New York Times about the
• 45:01
  Qatari Air Force One that everybody could see did not have the defensive countermeasures that the current Air Force One has.
• 45:08
  And you know, the president had to take the old Air Force One out of Ankara last month after the NATO summit, and they tried to prosecute a bunch of journalists for
• 45:17
  reporting on that.
• 45:19
  And when that got shut down out of court, you know, The New York Times had a story on this, and then Kendall said, "Time didn't permit all the normal Air Force One
• 45:28
  modifications, so some mix of security, communications, and support is missing." And then he said, "Frankly, I'm surprised to see this plane used outside of the United
• 45:37
  States." So, to that, the Pentagon spokesman immediately tweeted that his security clearance was revoked for his unauthorized disclosure of classified information
• 45:47
  regarding Air Force One's capabilities to a media outlet.
• 45:50
  And it's not that I want to see the next administration retaliate and do the same thing to all of the people that this has been done to, but it would certainly be fair.
• 46:00
  Like, I think there's too many people walking around with clearances, and it's not about the clearances, it's about the petty spite that is the fuel that this
• 46:09
  administration runs on. And it's embarrassing, and I have a huge grievance, and I wish that they would knock it off. Okay. Chris, an atta?
• 46:17
  Chris Preble: My atta, you know, I'm not a fan of participation ribbons.
• 46:21
  I don't think you should really shout out individuals or organizations when they're simply doing their job, especially a government agency.
• 46:31
  But I'm actually going to give an atta to the Congressional Budget Office for scoring the Navy's new battleship program.
• 46:38
  It turns out that when you create a battleship with...
• 46:42
  I don't know, maybe they were using Grok, and you, like, take every single thing you can possibly imagine and you put it on the ship, and then you say, "Oh, we're going
• 46:53
  to make it nuclear-powered," someone is going to come along and do a cost estimate on what this ship is actually going to cost.
• 47:02
  And yet we count on the Congressional Budget Office, among others, to actually do that, and that's what they did.
• 47:09
  So, for those of you scoring at home, take a look at the report.
• 47:13
  I'll include a link in the show notes, but here's the bottom line, the total cost of the Navy's new nuclear-powered battleship program would be about $275 billion over
• 47:25
  the 2027-2056 period. The first ship would cost $23 billion. $23 billion. You don't have to be an expert in naval construction.
• 47:33
  You don't even need to be an expert in much of anything to know that $23 billion for a single ship is utterly insane. Shut this thing down now.
• 47:43
  Melanie Marlowe: We could get a couple of aircraft carriers for that.
• 47:45
  Chris Preble: Exactly. And you know what I feel about that. I'd rather buy two aircraft carriers for the cost of $23 billion one battleship.
• 47:52
  Melanie Marlowe: Yeah. I know. Ugh. Okay. Zack?
• 47:55
  Zack Cooper: Is that...That was an atta boy.
• 47:57
  Chris Preble: It was an atta. It was an atta.
• 47:59
  Zack Cooper: Yeah? Okay.
• 48:00
  Melanie Marlowe: That sounded like a, you know, grievance, but it is an atta. It is.
• 48:04
  Chris Preble: CBO doing their job. Thank you, CBO. Way to go.
• 48:08
  Melanie Marlowe: Yes.
• 48:08
  Zack Cooper: All right. Well, this is also a half an atta. So, Secretary Rubio was in ASEAN recently for a foreign ministers meeting, and it got zero press.
• 48:19
  But if you actually read the announcements from the U.S. side, it was fairly substantive.
• 48:26
  So, it's nice to see American leaders back in the region and actually trying to provide some positive value, which I think folks are looking for there.
• 48:37
  I guess I also have to note then that Bridge Colby, he's also out in the region now, and gave a speech which seemed pretty critical of us, not explicitly us, but those in
• 48:49
  the chattering classes who he attacks throughout the speech. Let me go on the record.
• 48:56
  Melanie Marlowe: For what? For wanting to get out of the Middle East and pivoting to Asia?
• 48:59
  Zack Cooper: You know, he has many complaints with the global elite.
• 49:03
  Or as he says, "I acknowledge that this is a different reality than what you might hear if you confine yourself to listening only to the panjandrums of the global elite
• 49:13
  or their most prominent outlets."
• 49:15
  Melanie Marlowe: If you use that word, you're part of the global elite. I'm just going to lay that down right now.
• 49:20
  Zack Cooper: Yeah.
• 49:20
  But in all seriousness, this was Bridge's first trip out to the region, and I've been very critical of him and others in the administration for not understanding what's
• 49:30
  going on out there, because I think that at times they don't listen.
• 49:33
  But I bet after they get back from this trip, and I think you saw this with Rubio, too, the more time they spend out in Asia, the better equipped they are to understand
• 49:42
  what the critiques of the United States actually are. And I think there are a lot of critiques.
• 49:48
  And I don't want to blow them up unnecessarily, but I actually think what Secretary Rubio did was a real effort to try and provide, like, some economic benefits to the
• 49:57
  region and demonstrate that the U.S. is a reliable partner, and that kind of stuff is sorely needed. So, he and his team get my atta for the show.
• 50:05
  Melanie Marlowe: Great. Okay.
• 50:06
  Well, my atta goes to my colleagues at CSIS, Mark Cancian, Chris Park, Tom Karako, everybody in the Missile Defense Project, and basically everybody at CSIS, for doing
• 50:15
  accurate estimates, for doing their best to do accurate estimates on the munitions expenditure rates in the Iran war right now.
• 50:22
  And they are doing this as people accuse them of leaking and people accuse them of aiding and abetting the enemy and wanting Iran to win, and I have found that really
• 50:31
  reprehensible.
• 50:32
  I acknowledge, I think that there are real leakers, and whoever's leaking memos about war plans and those kinds of things, they should be hunted down, and if they have
• 50:41
  done that, they should get fired. And at the beginning of the conflict, I applauded satellite companies that were withholding imaging for 24 or 36 hours.
• 50:49
  I think that in a war there are legitimate things to be withheld. But this is all public information.
• 50:55
  You can go on JBooks for years past, and you can look at what is in there. You can look at tracking and make all sorts of kinds of estimates.
• 51:03
  And so, it is really important that we have these kinds of discussions.
• 51:07
  And what is really galling to me is a lot of the people who are upset about this information being discussed are the same people who didn't want to have any discussion
• 51:16
  about whether or not we should get into this conflict in the first place.
• 51:20
  And they have no problem going out and saying whatever they want all the time about the conflict, but they just don't want any of this information about, you know, what
• 51:29
  we can legitimately be doing out there. So, my atta to everybody at CSIS. Congratulations, and I'm proud to be part of you. Okay. What do you have coming up?
• 51:38
  Chris Preble: I will be recording our next show from Hilton Head, in all likelihood. So, I'm very excited about that.
• 51:44
  So, we're looking forward to spending some time down there. But in the next week and a half, I have to actually do work. So, I'm going to do that.
• 51:52
  We have some meetings here at Stimson that I'll be participating in.
• 51:55
  And one other article that I have coming out with a colleague, I should be able to vlog that the next show, so.
• 52:02
  Melanie Marlowe: Oh, good.
• 52:02
  Chris Preble: I'm actually producing content.
• 52:04
  Zack Cooper: Wow.
• 52:05
  Chris Preble: I know.
• 52:06
  Melanie Marlowe: We should talk about it. My turn to pick.
• 52:08
  Chris Preble: Written content, as opposed to just my normal blathering.
• 52:13
  Melanie Marlowe: Zack?
• 52:14
  Zack Cooper: Let's see. So, I just finished up co-chairing a conference which is called the China Forum, which is a gathering of a lot of China watchers.
• 52:23
  So, the University of California, San Diego hosts that. It was a really good discussion.
• 52:28
  And then I've got a couple of days to actually write, like Chris, because I have due dates coming up.
• 52:34
  You know, you agree to these due dates at the start of, like, the summer, and they're like, "Oh, yeah, September..."
• 52:41
  Chris Preble: It's like, "Ah, it's months away."
• 52:43
  Zack Cooper: Like, "I could write all these things by September." And then you realize halfway through August that you haven't written any of them. Yeah.
• 52:49
  Chris Preble: Now it's almost September.
• 52:51
  Melanie Marlowe: What could possibly happen?
• 52:52
  Zack Cooper: Yeah.
• 52:54
  Melanie Marlowe: Good. We're looking forward to that.
• 52:54
  Well, I have just gotten back from actually some exhausting but really good travel, and then I'm here in Huntsville this week, and then I have a bit more.
• 52:56
  And it's fun getting out and looking at what newer and innovative companies are doing, and I hope that they can contribute to our national security. Okay.
• 52:58
  Well, thank you for listening to this episode of Net Assessment. If you enjoyed it, please rate us at your favorite podcast platform.
• 53:00
  Thanks to the Stimson Center for hosting us and to University FM for producing us. Until next time, be well.