Latest / Saberian History Lectures / American Foreign Policy 1991-2000

Transcript

American Foreign Policy 1991-2000 · Saberian History Lectures

0:01
Okay, so one of the things I get to talk to you
0:03
all about is, and the way the text does it, is
0:09
it talks about American foreign policy in the
0:11
1990s. Yes. Alright, well, I mean, not Smith
0:19
and Valley, but yes. We are going to use the
0:22
map in just a moment. Alright, so the two probing
0:24
questions I have for you are these. How had the
0:28
Cold War previously stabilized the world from
0:32
1951 to 1991. And what I mean by that is, the
0:36
Cold War, if you think about it, while there
0:41
were lesser armed conflicts, Vietnam, Korea,
0:47
the various proxy wars between the United States
0:50
and the Soviet Union in the Third World, you
0:54
did not... have the same type of global conflict
0:58
that you had seen in the world in World War I
1:00
and World War II. You did not have the utmost
1:03
exertion of power ending in a nuclear catastrophe
1:06
as everyone had feared. And so I posit this idea
1:12
to you because believe it or not, y 'all have
1:14
lived your entire lives in the chaotic world.
1:19
Peace does not occur in a vacuum. Peace occurs
1:26
in the balance of power, in the balance of forces,
1:31
in that equilibrium of violence and the potential
1:35
for violence. In that regard, it is not peace
1:41
through surrender. It is peace through a balance
1:44
of terror. And so if you look at the world in
1:48
1991, who are your major combatants? in 1991,
1:55
right before the end of the Cold War. After World
2:00
War II, the world was split into two, the West
2:02
and the East. Now when we talk about the West
2:11
and the East, we're really talking about Europe.
2:16
But there are players in the Pacific that also
2:19
ally themselves with the liberal democracies
2:22
of the West. And here you have in the East, communist
2:33
tyranny. Okay, so who's the lead dog in the West?
2:40
The United States. Who are the allies of the
2:48
United States? Let's name a few. England. I will
2:53
include Canada separately because Canada signs
2:55
itself as a separate NATO member after World
2:58
War II because after World War II, Canada gets
3:01
greater degrees of autonomy from England, although
3:03
the Queen is still the head of state in Canada,
3:07
although they do have an elected president. So
3:10
you have Canada, France, Western Germany, Iceland,
3:20
Denmark, Italy, Turkey, and Greece. And there
3:36
are other European countries in play. Now, these
3:42
nations here, make up a military alliance that
3:48
is still in existence today? Nope. NATO. The
3:54
UN also included Russia and China. Now, also
4:02
allied with the United States, although not a
4:06
Western country, but a liberal democracy and
4:08
an ally of the United States, includes Japan.
4:15
South Korea, and Taiwan. So first of all, communist
4:27
countries. You have the Union of Soviet Socialist
4:37
Republics, or as they use the abbreviation, the
4:41
USSR. And I'm going to leave some spaces over
4:47
here because the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
4:50
does not only include Russia. It includes Russia,
4:55
Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan,
4:59
Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, which reminds
5:08
me, I had this one friend of mine. and she told
5:11
me that her fiancé was stationed in Georgia,
5:15
and I had to delineate between whether or not
5:19
it was talking about Georgia, the southern state,
5:20
or Georgia, the territory in the former Soviet
5:23
Union. And so the way I was able to get that
5:25
point across is, is he in Georgia or Georgia?
5:30
And based on the pronunciation of the R, you
5:32
could ascertain whether or not it was the American
5:34
southern state or if it was the former Soviet
5:36
Republic. Okay. In addition to the USSR, who
5:43
else was in the Eastern Bloc? Say it again. China.
5:50
I'm going to put China over here. Yes. Notice
5:53
I put it off to the side and not in the column.
5:55
Is China a subordinate state to the Soviet Union?
5:58
No. China was an ally of the Soviet Union. China
6:01
was nominally communist. By 1972, China had entered
6:05
into relations with the United States, friendly
6:08
relations, after the Chinese and the Soviets
6:11
had fought an undeclared border war back in 1971.
6:16
Who else? Eastern Germany. Put that down here.
6:21
Eastern Germany. Who are the Warsaw Pact nations?
6:26
First of all, where is Warsaw? Poland. Yes. You
6:35
also would include Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia,
6:40
Romania. Okay, that V is supposed to be separate
6:45
from the I. Romania. I know, because I'm going
6:49
to deliberately misspell it, and I'm going to
6:51
show you why. No, I'm not talking about that.
6:55
I'm going to make a very obvious spelling error.
6:59
Right. And I have Czechoslovakia. Notice that
7:03
I capitalized the S in Slovakia, because now
7:06
there is no Czechoslovakia. There is a Czech
7:10
Republic and the Republic of Slovakia. So we
7:16
would call these countries here the Warsaw Pact
7:24
countries. Now, China and North Korea are not
7:29
part of the Warsaw Pact, but they are communist.
7:32
And they have their own independent design separate
7:35
from that of the Soviet Union. So far, so good.
7:42
Yes. Yes. Over by China, Laos, and Cambodia.
7:51
Cambodia certainly. And then Cuba as well, right?
7:56
Yes. Although, Cuba, Nicaragua, this is what
8:11
I would call part of the client world. What I
8:19
mean by the client world, these are states that
8:22
are not, they're dependent on the Soviet Union,
8:27
but they're not controlled by the Soviet Union
8:29
per se. In other words, they have degrees of
8:32
autonomy by virtue of their geography, by virtue
8:34
of their politics, by virtue of other things
8:36
in play. So, one of the things that you've got
8:39
going on here, The Warsaw Pact countries, really,
8:42
they've been puppet governments that were created
8:45
by the Soviet Union during the occupation after
8:48
the fall of Nazi Germany. Remember, of course,
8:50
the Germans took over Poland, attacked Russia,
8:53
then Russia goes from the east all the way to
8:56
Berlin and occupies and creates puppet governments
8:59
in the Warsaw Pact. So when I look at the Warsaw
9:03
Pact countries, these governments, as they are
9:06
constructed, are largely a product of Soviet
9:09
control. Whereas China, North Korea has a greater
9:13
degree of independence. Same with Vietnam, Cambodia,
9:15
Laos. These are kind of countries where a type
9:18
of communism emerged and they had received aid
9:21
either from China or from the Soviet Union. But
9:25
they have greater degrees of autonomy. Alright,
9:28
let's get to the bit. Of the countries on the
9:33
board, as of 1991, who were nuclear powers? U
9:45
.S., Russia, China. It is presumed that France
9:51
developed a nuclear weapon. England relied on
9:56
the United States for nuclear capability. They're
10:05
in the client world. We haven't put them up yet.
10:07
And we'll talk about India and Pakistan. So right
10:10
now you're really talking about four or five.
10:13
There's one other nuclear power that I'm going
10:15
to put a question mark because I am going to
10:17
get to India, Pakistan, and the Middle East.
10:18
You notice I've left the Middle East out of this
10:20
equation because the Middle East is part of the
10:23
client world. In other words, they're not ideological
10:25
communists, they're not ideological liberal democracies,
10:28
and so you have a shifting setup in the Middle
10:31
East where the Eastern and the Western powers
10:34
actually, that's the Middle East, Africa, and
10:39
the Americas are where the two major factions
10:41
actually fight their proxy wars. You get what
10:44
I'm saying? Okay, so one other nuclear power
10:49
that I'm going to talk about and we'll put a
10:50
question mark by it. Israel. Does Israel have
10:56
a nuclear weapon? We don't know. How do you know
11:04
if a country has a nuclear weapon? When they
11:09
test, detonate a nuclear weapon, it creates seismic
11:13
activity that can be read at different points
11:16
of the world. So far, Israel has never test detonated
11:22
a nuclear weapon. And so for the longest time,
11:26
really since the 1970s into the 1980s, most of
11:29
the major powers of the Middle East have presumed
11:31
that Israel has a nuclear weapon. If you're Israel,
11:34
why don't you show your hand? Because now no
11:38
one will attack you. It takes the idea of deterrence
11:42
to a new level. In other words, if I show my
11:44
hand, then I might be subject to sanctions under
11:47
the nuclear non -proliferation agreements, I
11:49
might be in the trouble, but if I keep them guessing
11:52
and have one, then they might be less likely
11:54
to use one on me, right? Alright. By the way,
11:59
do we have five nuclear powers in the world now?
12:01
Do we have more or fewer nuclear powers now?
12:04
I'd say no. We have more nuclear powers today
12:09
than we did back in 1991. I will get to the breakup
12:22
of the Soviet Union. I mean independent nuclear
12:24
actors. Because even with the breakup of the
12:27
Soviet Union, there were only four nuclear -equipped
12:30
countries in the Soviet Union. Russia, Belarus,
12:33
Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan and Ukraine
12:36
and Belarus all ceded their weapons during the
12:39
1990s as part of the non -proliferation agreement
12:42
in exchange for American aid. So, here's kind
12:48
of the world set up. Let me get to the broad
12:53
trends, and then I'm going to get into some particular
12:56
stuff, and then I'm going to kind of start working
12:59
my way towards the lead -up to the war on terror.
13:01
Poland, Hungary, they drop. Okay, so, USSR falls.
13:11
Warsaw Pact is invalidated. East Germany and
13:16
West Germany merge. Actually, they merged back
13:19
in 1989. Nationalist movements in Hungary, in
13:28
Poland, and two separate nationalist movements
13:31
emerge in Czechoslovakia. This is paving the
13:36
way to the creation of two separate republics,
13:38
the Czech Republic and the Republic of Slovakia.
13:40
So, these guys break up. I want to say Czechoslovakia
13:43
breaks up in the early 2000s. I think it was
13:46
in the 1990s. It was late 90s then. But it was
13:50
98, 99. Yugoslavia breaks into a lot of different
13:58
pieces. It actually breaks into Serbia, Croatia,
14:01
and Bosnia. Okay. Here's a part that's kind of
14:12
interesting, and this is very broad stroke, and
14:14
I want you to get your handle on this for a moment.
14:18
You look at Czechoslovakia. And you look at Jugoslavia.
14:26
Czechs, I want to say they're Catholic. Predominantly
14:30
atheists. Well, nominal. I want to say back in
14:33
the day. I think it's like an after effect of
14:37
like the Soviet. No, but I mean when Czechoslovakia,
14:39
Czechs is an ethnic group. I want to say if the
14:43
Czechs in Texas are any age that they were originally
14:45
Catholic Church influenced. The Slovaks are...
14:50
Orthodox. So here you've got two people, two
14:52
different religion sets, two different languages,
14:54
two different cultures, two different senses
14:56
of history, occupying the same country. Why?
15:01
Why are they under the same political unit? What
15:03
is holding their country together in the period
15:06
of the Cold War that then flies off the handle
15:08
in 1991? Soviet Union. Same with Yugoslavia.
15:16
Serbs? Orthodox, Croats, Catholics, Bosnians,
15:20
Muslims, going back to the invasion of the Ottoman
15:23
Turks. Those people had hated each other going
15:25
back to, you know, 1600s. Why are they in a country
15:28
together? Because Russian Kalashnikovs held them
15:31
together. And when Borostito died, the country
15:35
flew apart. And so what you have in Eastern Europe,
15:39
in a way, is a return to a type of nationalism
15:43
that they hadn't seen in the time of Austro -Hungarian
15:48
Empire, nor in the time of the Soviets. Now,
15:51
what's even more interesting is these countries,
15:55
the liberal democracies, embrace a type of unionism.
16:03
These become the member states of the EU. I left
16:06
out Turkey because Turkey is not part of the
16:08
EU. They tried. But the ironic thing is this.
16:15
So here you have a group of people who having
16:19
now been freed from a distant capital sought
16:22
to govern themselves according to nationalism.
16:25
And these people who were free to govern themselves
16:29
united together. Now what's interesting is NATO
16:34
is a military alliance. The EU is the European
16:40
Union. It is an economic alliance of independent
16:44
states. Why would the powers of Western Europe
16:48
want to come together to form a union of independent
16:52
states? What does that sound like? United States.
16:58
Because they knew that individually they were
17:00
not to be more competitive with another superpower.
17:04
And the United States in many ways helped encourage
17:07
them to form that European common market for
17:10
trade reasons. But here you have the fall of
17:13
communism and another center -seeking tendency
17:16
of international globalism. Kind of ironic. These
17:24
people threw off the chains from Moscow. These
17:26
people put on the chains of Brussels. No? Alright,
17:32
at least I find it amusing. Alright, let's get
17:36
to... Alright, so we're here. Let's go to...
17:42
Alright, come on now. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Interesting.
17:59
Alright. So... One of the things I didn't get
18:10
a chance to deal with was how the ending of the
18:13
Persian Gulf War in 1991 in many ways sets the
18:17
stage for... The U .S. invasion in 2003 and a
18:22
lot of the destabilization that occurs in 2003
18:25
sets the stage for what you see in the news today.
18:30
So let's sort of go back. So let's go north.
18:45
It's kind of an interesting thing that we've
18:48
got going on here. Baghdad, which means the gift
18:51
of God in Persian, is the capital of Iraq. Iraq
18:57
is not Persian. It's where Babylon used to be.
18:59
But anyway, Iraq from 19, I want to say 80 through
19:07
about 1986, 1987, fights a war with Iran. It's
19:12
called the Iran -Iraq War. We had talked about
19:14
that the other day where the United States was
19:17
providing intel and assistance to both because
19:19
they didn't know which one they liked less. So,
19:23
one of the things that's kind of interesting
19:25
about Iraq is Iraq is Ba 'athist. Ba 'athism
19:33
is a type of, for lack of a better word, national
19:37
socialism used by the Arabs. It's Arab fascism,
19:39
for lack of a better word. Whereas Iran is a
19:43
Shiite Islamic Republic. Baathist Sunni. So the
19:58
conflict between Iraq and Iran was one of ideology,
20:03
and it was one of ethnicity, and it was also
20:07
a war of opportunity. In this case, Saddam's
20:14
Iraq makes war on Iran shortly after the revolution
20:16
because they sense that the Iranian government
20:18
would have been weakened by the revolution. Now,
20:22
Saddam would actually go on to say, look, I fought
20:25
the Iranians to prevent the spread of radical
20:27
Islam into the other kingdoms of the Middle East.
20:30
Because if you look at it, you have the monarchy
20:31
in Saudi Arabia, you have the monarchy in Jordan,
20:34
Syria is Baathist under Hafez al -Assad, that's
20:39
Bashar's father. And Lebanon is kind of an interesting
20:43
place. They're in the throes of a civil war that
20:45
you have fighters from the PLO, Saudi Arabia,
20:50
Syria, everybody's jumping in as a proxy war
20:52
because it's right next to whom? Israel. And
20:58
so you have these groups, and you have Iran,
21:01
you have Iraq. You have Syria helping to fund
21:04
terrorists to basically fight a proxy war against
21:06
Israel because Israel is one of the major regional
21:09
powers in the Middle East. Now, 1990 through
21:15
1991, Iraq invades Kuwait in 1990, and then that
21:21
precipitates Persian Gulf War. Okay, Persian
21:29
Gulf War. What happened? Iraqi army goes into
21:35
Kuwait. The American military pushes them out
21:40
of Kuwait. Now, one of the things that most people
21:43
don't appreciate, and this is why you've got
21:45
to zoom in on Iraq. Iraq is not uni -ethnic.
21:50
It's a multi -ethnic state. Iraq has three major
21:54
ethnic groups. You have the Kurds. You have the
21:58
Sunni Arabs. And you have the Shiite Arabs. Now,
22:07
in this case, I actually have them on the board
22:09
as they would appear on the map. The Kurds are
22:10
in the north, the Sunnis are in the middle, and
22:13
the Shiite are in the south. Now, Saddam is from
22:18
Tikrit. He is a Sunni Arab. And so the Sunnis
22:23
dominate the government, but a large portion
22:25
of the southern population is Shiite, and a large
22:28
portion of the northern population is Kurdish.
22:30
And so here you have a Ba 'athist fascist regime
22:34
holding on to this country by force of arms.
22:38
It has made war on Kuwait. It has been summarily
22:41
routed by the Americans, including one episode
22:45
that I didn't get a chance to tell you about.
22:46
It's called the Highway of Death. So here's your
22:50
basic idea, and this is something for you to
22:52
live in fear if you're ever stuck on a highway.
22:55
So what's the highway of death? Well, as the
22:57
Iraqis were leaving Kuwait... Forget if it was
23:03
an A -10 Warthog or if it was a F -18. But anyway,
23:07
you drop a few bombs on the lead cars in the
23:11
convoy to get them stuck. You drop a few bombs
23:13
on the rear cars so they can't back up anyway.
23:16
And then you just strafe and bomb the heck out
23:18
of everything in between. Raw, unadulterated
23:21
carnage. It wasn't about being humane. It was
23:25
about getting the point across. Now, if you're
23:30
a dissident, Shiite Muslim. Or if you're a dissident
23:34
Kurd and you actually see the government that
23:38
was oppressing you getting torn up by the Americans,
23:40
what might you do? You might start an uprising.
23:45
So in 1991, as Saddam is negotiating the truce
23:50
with the Americans, he's tearing down the barrel
23:52
of not one, but two uprisings. One in northern
23:55
Iraqi Kurdistan and then the other in southern
23:59
Iraq. And so what happens as part of the truce,
24:04
he wants to be able to use his aircraft to put
24:07
down the insurrection. So you have a truce with
24:10
the U .S. You have the insurrections put down.
24:23
And after the insurrections are put down, you
24:26
have a regime of sanctions. Along with the creation
24:31
of a no -fly zone. Alright, so let me tell you
24:36
about why the insurrections were put down. So,
24:42
here's southern Iraq. You have an insurrection
24:47
of Shiite Muslims against the government in Iraq.
24:51
Was it in the U .S. national interest to actually
24:54
annihilate the Iraqi regime at that point? No.
24:59
And if you have a successful Shiite uprising
25:01
that carves Iraq into two or three spots, who
25:07
wins? Who's the big Shiite state to the east?
25:13
Iran. So part of the reason the United States
25:16
was not keen on seeing an expanded Shiite state
25:20
was that a Shiite state would have been friendly
25:22
to the Iraqis. Now one of the other things that
25:25
I'm going to talk about is... Kurdistan. Here
25:31
is Kurdish Iraq. Here is Kurdish Syria. Here
25:37
is Kurdish Turkey. The Kurds are a people without
25:43
a nation state. They're Indo -European. They're
25:46
not Arab. There has been... And the Turkish regime
25:54
has been afraid of Kurdish uprising. for more
25:59
than a generation. Now, the no -fly zone, which
26:02
lasts from the sanctions and the no -fly zone
26:06
goes from 1991 until 2003, allows for the creation
26:13
of a semi -autonomous Kurdish region in northern
26:24
Iraq. So that semi -autonomous Kurdistan right
26:31
here, which argues with its central government
26:34
in Iraq, kind of gets started in the 90s. By
26:38
the way, who's the group that has gotten the
26:45
most kills against ISIS in Syria and in Iraq?
26:49
The Kurds. The name of the Kurdish defense force
26:54
that has gotten the most kills is the Pashmarga.
26:57
literally means those who walk with death. Mag,
27:01
death, pasch, to pass or to walk. Death walkers.
27:05
That sounds like a really cool name for a unit.
27:09
Oh yeah, no, but in this case, this is the group
27:19
that's gotten the most combat kills against ISIS.
27:24
But anyway. But yeah, kind of interesting. Well,
27:28
the other thing that's worth noting, okay, so
27:30
you don't see how here we have an independent
27:33
Kurdistan here and now it's being deployed as
27:35
an ally in modern times. You get the idea. Alright,
27:38
so, that's Iraq. Here's where life gets interesting.
27:45
And I'm going to get into nuclear proliferation
27:47
a little bit more later, but I kind of want to
27:49
go with the chronology. Okay. January 1993, Clinton
27:59
is inaugurated. Within a month of that inauguration,
28:11
George Bush the Elder goes to Saudi Arabia for
28:14
a state occasion. While he's in Saudi Arabia,
28:24
Iraqi intelligence agents try to assassinate
28:26
him. They fail. Now, in and of itself, if you
28:31
try to assassinate the former American head of
28:34
state, by convention, what would be the logical
28:40
response? Retaliation of a sword, up to and including
28:47
regime change, yes? You tried to kill our leader.
28:52
This is something that countries don't do to
28:54
one another if they're civilized, yes? You notice
28:58
that the United States did not make war on Iraq
29:00
in 1993. When did they make war on Iraq? 2003.
29:07
The administration's response, the Clinton administration's
29:10
response, was a punitive airstrike against the
29:15
Iraqi intelligence headquarters, only about 12
29:18
KIA, if that. Sign of strength, sign of weakness
29:30
are just enough to do just enough. But now, let's
29:35
get to where the heart of the war on terrorism
29:39
actually began. Historians will differ about
29:43
where the war on terrorism actually began, where
29:46
the... Al -Qaeda got its idea to attack the United
29:53
States. A lot of people say that the beginning
29:55
of the war on terror was in 1979 when the Soviets
29:58
invaded Afghanistan. That is not entirely accurate.
30:01
While it is true that Afghanistan falls to the
30:06
Taliban after 1989, we'll talk about Afghanistan
30:11
real quick. Afghanistan. 1979 to 1989, occupied
30:18
by the Soviets. After the Soviets leave, you
30:24
have the rise of the Taliban, who stay there
30:27
until... Well, they're still there, but they're
30:31
not the provisional government. Taliban was a
30:34
combination of Wahhabi and Sunni Islam, supported
30:37
by Pakistani intelligence. But that's not where
30:42
life gets interesting. Not Oman. Ah, here we
30:51
are. Somalia. The war on terror in many ways
30:58
doesn't start in the Middle East. It starts in
31:02
Africa. So, you have Al -Qaeda was originally
31:14
started by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al -Zawahiri.
31:18
Ayman al -Zawahiri was from Egypt. He was trying
31:23
to overthrow the totalitarian regime in Egypt
31:27
led by Mubarak. Now, Somalia is where, in some
31:33
ways, aspects of the war on terrorism got started.
31:35
So, Somalia. Somalia has been in a state of civil
31:39
war for over 20 years. 1991 to the present. Somalia
31:56
was a client of the Soviet Union. In other words,
31:59
it was too far away to be in the Soviet Union's
32:01
control, but they were dependent on the Soviet
32:03
Union for weapons, for foodstuffs, for stuff
32:05
like that. A couple of things you also got going
32:07
on. And basically, here's the easy way of looking
32:13
at it. 1991, the Cold War ends, and all of the
32:20
arms and all of the munitions that the Soviet
32:21
Union had built up had nowhere to go. And you
32:27
have Russian officers and Russian soldiers who
32:30
haven't been paid. And so what do some of them
32:34
do? They sell weapons to the black market. And
32:37
some of those weapons found their way in the
32:40
wars of Europe, in the wars of the Middle East,
32:42
and in the wars of Africa. And one of those wars
32:46
was Somalia. Somalia has been in a state of civil
32:49
war for, well, 1991 to the present. That's more
32:53
than 27 years, yes? So, 1991, UN sends in a relief
33:00
operation because in addition to war, what are
33:04
the other horsemen of the apocalypse? Famine,
33:07
pestilence, and death. War, the UN might not
33:11
be able to stop, so they tried to alleviate the
33:13
famine and the pestilence. So this is sending
33:16
in food. Now, one of the things that you're running
33:19
into is if you send in a food relief convoy,
33:21
those convoys were being attacked by the varying
33:23
warring factions, so what do you need to do to
33:26
protect them? You send in US and Pakistani and
33:31
other military forces. So the US had deployed
33:35
troops In support of UN operations. That was
33:42
during George Bush the Elder. So, I want to say
33:48
that was about late 1991, early 1992. 1993, you
33:53
have a mission shift from protection to try and
34:03
help resolve the conflict. So, an American special
34:06
forces team was Sent in in October of 1930, or
34:12
sorry, in October of 1933. This was Operation
34:14
Gothic Serpent. So October 1993, Operation Gothic
34:19
Serpent. The plan was to grab the major lieutenants
34:22
of one of the major warlords, Mohamed Farah Aidid.
34:28
So the plan was, again, you go in with the two
34:31
Black Hawk helicopters, you fast rope in, take
34:33
the building, take the bag and grab. And then
34:38
extract. Well, what they didn't know is there
34:41
were two Somalis perched on top of the rooftops
34:45
with RPGs. They downed two Blackhawks, leaving
34:49
American forces pinned down. Now, here's the
34:51
thing. If you've got your forces pinned down
34:52
in an urban environment, okay, if you've got
34:54
your forces pinned down in any other place and
34:56
you're the American superpower, what do you normally
34:58
do under those circumstances? You call in an
35:02
airstrike. You bring in... Death on a massive
35:06
scale. Now, what's the problem of doing that
35:08
in Mogadishu? It's a massive, well, civilian
35:13
casualties, yes? So, this is actually the story
35:18
of Black Hawk Down. This was by Mark Bowden,
35:21
and it's a film that is worth seeing, but I do
35:25
not have time to show you, nor would I necessarily
35:27
be able to secure administrative permission,
35:29
because I want to say it's rated R, and it's
35:31
very graphic. So if you haven't seen it, it's
35:34
one of those you need to see. I'm sure it is.
35:40
Again, U .S. forces were pinned down. Allied
35:43
and American forces had to fight their way through
35:45
the city using ground vehicles. And that was
35:50
the Battle of Mogadishu. Now, that was a disgrace.
35:52
It was a victory of an American arms, but it
35:55
was a national disgrace. Insofar as this. What
35:58
the world walked away with... from the Battle
36:01
of Mogadishu. First of all, the U .S. began withdrawing
36:05
after the Battle of Mogadishu, after they had
36:08
gotten what troops they can. The U .S. pulled
36:10
out. And the image of American Army Rangers being
36:16
dragged dead naked in the streets of Mogadishu
36:19
while Somalis were jumping on the wreckage of
36:23
an American aircraft, here are the United States
36:26
that come on a mission of mercy, and this is
36:29
what we were repaid with. That tragedy informed
36:36
much of the policy of the Clinton administration,
36:39
where now that the Cold War is over, the question
36:44
is, is the U .S. and NATO obliged to police the
36:49
world? Is it our job to be the world's policemen,
36:53
or should we only exercise power in our national
36:58
interest? And so the experience of Somalia in
37:05
1993 kind of keeps the United States from intervening
37:09
in other conflicts around the world, but in Africa
37:11
particularly. And it emboldens... Other enemies
37:17
of American interest. This is what I call the
37:20
paper tiger syndrome. Osama bin Laden actually
37:24
references the U .S. withdrawing from Somalia,
37:27
talks about the weakness of the United States.
37:29
He says they are paper tigers. Our brothers saw
37:32
this in Somalia. And so that American pullback
37:37
from the stage actually sets the tone for a number
37:40
of other atrocities and civil wars. If you actually
37:43
look at Africa as a whole, you have in the 1990s
37:46
civil wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone. You have
37:53
a genocide in Rwanda. And in many ways, that
38:05
was the... And actually, you also had a civil
38:11
war in Algeria and Angola, but anyway. So you
38:15
have a number of conflicts going on around the
38:18
world left by the chaos when the great powers
38:22
are not exerting themselves in the world and
38:24
everybody's not on eggshells because you don't
38:27
have to worry about the Soviets and the Americans
38:28
starting World War III. Because one of the other
38:31
things you had was in the client world, everybody
38:33
was pretty much on a tight leash because you
38:36
didn't want to make the move that started World
38:37
War III. Because what happens if you start World
38:40
War III? Everybody dies! It's kind of like the
38:45
great line back when, during the Cuban Missile
38:48
Crisis, Fidel Castro sends a telegram to Nikita
38:52
Khrushchev. He said, Cuba is prepared to die
38:55
gloriously in the defense of communism. Nikita
38:57
Khrushchev's response, yes, but Russia is not
38:59
prepared for Cuba to die gloriously in the defense
39:01
of communism. You get the idea. All right, so
39:05
now let's get to... No, I do not know what weapons
39:13
that World War III will be fought with, but World
39:15
War IV will be fought with sticks and stones,
39:17
Albert Einstein. Okay, so let's get to... Now,
39:22
the one place the United States does intervene...
39:25
There are two places that the book does reference
39:27
that the U .S. intervenes with. One, and I don't
39:30
feel a great need to go into them because the
39:31
book talks about them already. One is Haiti,
39:33
which is Haiti in America's sphere of influence.
39:39
It's in the Caribbean. Monroe Doctrine. The other
39:43
one was Bosnia. Bosnia, as I talked about, Yugoslavia
39:51
had broken up between ethnic factions. The U
39:53
.S. intervenes and actually helps negotiate a
39:58
peace. These are the Dayton Accords. This was
40:00
Dayton, Ohio. I want to say this was the late
40:02
90s. But now... Let's get to the nukes. Alright,
40:11
so. I have just enough time. Alright, let's go
40:20
to Asia, shall we? Can I erase this? Yes. So,
40:39
China, North Korea, Vietnam. Japan, Taiwan, Philippines.
41:03
Okay. Okay. China increases trade with the United
41:09
States. Also, China gets Hong Kong back after,
41:18
I believe it was 100 years. Hong Kong was a British
41:21
colony that they had leased from China going
41:23
back to the imperial government. In 1995, their
41:28
lease ran out and was not renewed, so Hong Kong
41:30
becomes part of the People's Republic of China.
41:35
Prince Charles gave a rather gripping goodbye
41:38
speech. He went to Hong Kong to lower the British
41:41
flag himself. I remember it because that was
41:45
back when he and Princess Diana were still together
41:47
-ish. Diana would die in 1998 or 1999, I forget.
41:52
Anyway, North Korea in the 90s begins development
41:55
of a nuclear weapons program. That was under
41:57
Kim Jong -il. That was Kim Jong -un's father.
42:01
I also remember when Kim Il -sung died. That
42:03
was the founder of the state. So, begins working
42:05
on a nuclear weapons program. Vietnam. Communist
42:10
country. From 1975 to 1995, did not have any
42:18
diplomatic relations with the United States.
42:20
In the 90s, U .S. establishes diplomatic relations.
42:25
And now we trade with Vietnam. Japan begins a
42:33
decades -long recession in the 1990s. Taiwan
42:40
has been a regular client of American arms. They
42:44
get a very generous arms package from us every
42:46
year. Philippines originally asked the United
42:51
States to leave the naval base at Subic Bay.
43:00
All right, so let's get to the nukes. The end
43:05
of the Cold War held out the promise of a world
43:09
of less nuclear tension, but I think history
43:12
will show that it created a world of more nuclear
43:14
tension. So, let's go to the Nuclear Gun Club.
43:17
Right now, as I look at this middle of Asia map,
43:19
who has nuclear weapons? China has nuclear weapons.
43:25
China perennially gets into armed conflict with
43:28
what major power in Asia? Go south. India. So,
43:35
India joins the nuclear gun club. India has a
43:46
frontier war with Pakistan. Pakistan in 1998
43:51
test detonates a nuclear weapon and also in that
43:54
same year has a coup. What would be the problem
43:59
of having India and Pakistan both with nuclear
44:01
weapons? Hindus and Muslims don't get along very
44:07
well. Pakistan was originally part of the English
44:10
colony of India. They break away shortly after
44:13
the Hindi get their independence. They create
44:15
a country called Pakistan. Pakistan is not an
44:18
ethnic group. Pakistan, by Farsi, means the land
44:22
of the pure. In this case, a pure Islamic state,
44:26
free from the corruptions of Hindu idolatry.
44:31
You can see this, you know, India and Pakistan,
44:34
they do have the feels for each other, but it's
44:36
not the warm, fuzzy feels. It's the I want to
44:38
kill you feels. Yes. Now, here's the thing. If
44:45
Pakistan has a nuclear weapon, who else might
44:48
want a nuclear weapon? Iran, who is currently
44:51
working on a nuke now. Now, who else might already
44:55
have a weapons of mass destruction arsenal that
44:58
they used in the Iran -Iraq war that they used
45:00
against their own people in 1991 and is also
45:03
very close to the other presumed nuclear power,
45:06
Israel? Iraq. And so the major concern of the
45:11
late 1990s leading up to the invasion of 2003
45:14
is this massive, the domino theory that everyone
45:19
was afraid of in the 1950s for the spread of
45:22
communism. Those dominoes were falling not to
45:25
communism but to nuclear arms. And so I try this
45:30
to you for a moment. Was the unipolar moment,
45:35
was that Pax Americana really so peaceful? Or
45:40
was it that without the fear of nuclear annihilation,
45:45
that a new Pandora's box would be open? And so
45:52
in the 1990s, you have a unipolar moment, but
45:56
you have an America not willing to play the global
45:59
hegemon. And that shine from the world stage
46:04
would create a vacuum. And that vacuum would
46:09
embolden the enemies of nation states to try
46:13
and to succeed in their acts of terrorism forever
46:17
changing the world. Questions, problems, concerns,
46:20
revelations?