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Foreign Affairs Expert Leslie Gelb: Masters in Business (Audio) · Masters in Business

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  Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio.
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  Speaker 1: This week on Masters in Business, we have a very
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  Speaker 1: special foreign affairs edition of our podcast. You know, given
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  Speaker 1: everything that's been going on around the world, we have
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  Speaker 1: the Chinese currency devaluation, we have Russia invading Ukraine and
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  Speaker 1: annexting CRIMEA were normalizing relations with Cuba, where in the
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  Speaker 1: midst of an enormous policy negotiation about the Iran nuclear deal.
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  Speaker 1: I thought it would be a good good time to
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  Speaker 1: bring in somebody with a broad and deep expertise on
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  Speaker 1: foreign affairs, and I was fortunate enough to somehow talk
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  Speaker 1: Dr leslie Gelb into joining us. You know, if I
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  Speaker 1: read his his curriculum Vita on the air, it would
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  Speaker 1: take up the whole ninety minute podcast. He's just an
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  Speaker 1: incredibly storied guy. Well we get into some of the
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  Speaker 1: broader aspects of what he done. What he's done. UH
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  Speaker 1: started as a just a PhD professor at at a school,
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  Speaker 1: gets recruited by Senator Jacob Javits, was the you senator
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  Speaker 1: from New York State to the U. S. Senate, UH
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  Speaker 1: and from there the Department of Defense, the State Department
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  Speaker 1: to the New York Times to the Council of Farm
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  Speaker 1: Relations just he called it failing upwards, but let's be honest,
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  Speaker 1: the guy is just a fascinating, amazing person. UM. General
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  Speaker 1: McNamara appoints him to the head of the project that
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  Speaker 1: essentially produces the famous Pentagon Papers, which was a broad
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  Speaker 1: and deep look at the U S involvement in Vietnam
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  Speaker 1: while we're still in the midst of Vietnam. It was
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  Speaker 1: sort of a moment of reflection to figure out, Hey,
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  Speaker 1: what are we doing right and wrong and what lessons
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  Speaker 1: can we learn about this for future military entanglements. His
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  Speaker 1: concept of how to UM, how to interact with other countries,
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  Speaker 1: the limits and positives of projecting both military and economic
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  Speaker 1: power quite fascinating. What he has to say UM about
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  Speaker 1: China is amazing. He has some insights as to how
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  Speaker 1: their military works, UH and where it works and where
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  Speaker 1: they've purposefully avoided military entanglements is really quite quite fascinating. UM.
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  Speaker 1: He tells stories about dinners with Fidel Castro and and
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  Speaker 1: presenting to the UH generals of Cuba. Just really really
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  Speaker 1: amazing stuff. I found it absolutely interesting. He is not
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  Speaker 1: without controversy, UM, but usually it's for for good reasons
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  Speaker 1: because he says things that the powers that be don't
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  Speaker 1: like to hear, even though they're fact based and throw
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  Speaker 1: and time and again have turned out to be correct.
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  Speaker 1: Oh I left out in the middle of all these jobs.
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  Speaker 1: He takes a position um in The New York Time
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  Speaker 1: with The New York Times as a a foreign policies
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  Speaker 1: correspondent and ultimately wins a Pulitzer Prize for his work
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  Speaker 1: reporting on Ronald Reagan's strategic Defense Initiative in depth six
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  Speaker 1: part series. Ironically, here's a guy who never so much
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  Speaker 1: has written for a high school paper, rights for the Times.
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  Speaker 1: Wins of Pulitzer just just incredible, incredibly accomplished, unbelievably knowledgeable
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  Speaker 1: and insightful. Given all the things that are going on
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  Speaker 1: in the world, all the really major macro uh situations
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  Speaker 1: that are roiling countries and currencies and economies, and of
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  Speaker 1: course that impacts the market. Uh, what better time is
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  Speaker 1: there than today for a conversation with Dr les galp So,
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  Speaker 1: with no further ado, here's our discussion on foreign affairs
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  Speaker 1: with Leslie. Help. This is Masters in Business with Barry
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  Speaker 1: Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. I have a very special guest
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  Speaker 1: and the timing could not be more opportune. Dr Leslie Gelb,
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  Speaker 1: whose curriculum Vitae, will take up the entire show if
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  Speaker 1: I read it, but I will just give you the
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  Speaker 1: brief overview as to why our guest is so perfect
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  Speaker 1: given everything that's happening in the world, uh these days.
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  Speaker 1: Dr Gelb got his b A and m A from
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  Speaker 1: Tough University before getting his PhD from Harvard in nine.
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  Speaker 1: He then taught government at Wesleyan before Jacob Javits recruited
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  Speaker 1: him to become his executive assistance. Javits was the senator
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  Speaker 1: from New York and one of my favorites. He ultimately
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  Speaker 1: ended up becoming the Director of Bureau of Political Mill
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  Speaker 1: at Terry Affairs. He was appointed by Secretary of Defense
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  Speaker 1: McNamara as director of the project that ultimately produced the
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  Speaker 1: Pentagon Papers. He then moved on to The New York Times,
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  Speaker 1: where he was a diplomatic correspondent, winning the Pulitzer Prize
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  Speaker 1: for Explanatory Journalism for a six part series on the
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  Speaker 1: Star Wars Strategic Defense Initiative. President of the Council of
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  Speaker 1: Foreign Relations, President Emeritus, and the rest of this list
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  Speaker 1: is too long to go into author of numerous books
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  Speaker 1: on foreign policy. Let me just stop there and say,
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  Speaker 1: Dr Gelb, welcome to Bloomberg. Could you be here? So
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  Speaker 1: the timing is really fortuitous. We've been talking about this
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  Speaker 1: some time ago, but here we are with all sorts
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  Speaker 1: of things happening in I ran Uh, Cuba, China. The
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  Speaker 1: world has just really been um just going through all
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  Speaker 1: sorts of of changes. Let's start with with your career
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  Speaker 1: from the beginning. How do you end up going from
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  Speaker 1: a professor out of college to essentially running the office
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  Speaker 1: of a US sender. It was a miracle. You get
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  Speaker 1: jobs initially based on connections who you know where, and
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  Speaker 1: when I was doing my PhD at Harvard, I met
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  Speaker 1: a lot of people. Some of these people were involved
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  Speaker 1: with Republican politics in Congress, and one of these guys
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  Speaker 1: heard that Javits was looking for an executive assistant to
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  Speaker 1: focus on foreign affairs, international economics, defense, so forth, and
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  Speaker 1: recommended me. I went to see Javits and then all
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  Speaker 1: the rest of the career kind of flowed from there
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  Speaker 1: because and this is something your your business people, financial
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  Speaker 1: people will appreciate, is actually justice. I think two jobs
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  Speaker 1: if you show you know how to get things done.
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  Speaker 1: You're in a one cent at the top, and everybody
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  Speaker 1: wants you because it means they don't have to worry
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  Speaker 1: about doing it themselves. They give you an assignment and
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  Speaker 1: it gets and it gets done and gets done at
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  Speaker 1: a decent quality. And I demonstrated that. So the rest
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  Speaker 1: of the career just flowed almost miraculously and without any planning.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, when The New York Times offered me the
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  Speaker 1: job is a diplomatic correspondent, I told A Rosenthal, who
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  Speaker 1: was the executive editor of The Times, I said, I've
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  Speaker 1: never even been on a junior high school newspaper, and
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  Speaker 1: that ultimately, so let's talk a little bit about the Times.
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  Speaker 1: Although there's a lot of career in between Javits's office
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  Speaker 1: and the Times. In between. Um Secretary of Defense McNamara
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  Speaker 1: was that his title at the time, sectors, he was
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  Speaker 1: a Secretary Defense. Appoint you to a committee. The person
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  Speaker 1: running the committee, if memory serves correctly, dies in a
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  Speaker 1: plane crash and you end up taking over the project
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  Speaker 1: or my misremembering, it didn't happen that way. My me,
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  Speaker 1: my immediate boss, Assistant Secretary Defense John McNaughton was promoted
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  Speaker 1: from that Assistant Secretary job to be Secretary of the Navy.
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  Speaker 1: A few days later, he and members of his family
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  Speaker 1: died in a crash. But I was at the time
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  Speaker 1: director of Policy Planning in the Pentagon and another office
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  Speaker 1: for which I was not qualified. I was thirty years
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  Speaker 1: old and I had that job. But then within weeks
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  Speaker 1: of having that job, I was also given the task
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  Speaker 1: of doing what became the Pentagon Papers, the history of
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  Speaker 1: US involvement in Vietnam. And we're going to definitely talk
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  Speaker 1: more about Vietnam a little later. You say you weren't qualified,
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  Speaker 1: but you were awarded from the State Department the Distinguished
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  Speaker 1: Honor Award, which is their highest recognition for the work
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  Speaker 1: you did. So when you say, okay, I went from
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  Speaker 1: Javits to the Defense Department, and I also got the
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  Speaker 1: highest award there too. So that suggests that perhaps you
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  Speaker 1: were somewhat qualified, or it suggests that they give away
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  Speaker 1: the awards. Okay. So that's the other side of the argument.
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  Speaker 1: I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt,
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  Speaker 1: and um, well, I'm gonna have to go to Wikipedia
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  Speaker 1: and rewrite your bio. They give these awards out. How
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  Speaker 1: do I get one of those? Can I just apply
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  Speaker 1: or I don't think they give him out all that often.
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  Speaker 1: And to have one both from the Department of Defense
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  Speaker 1: and and from the State Department, that's a fairly respectable right.
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  Speaker 1: That's a fairly respectable achievement. So now you essentially oversee
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  Speaker 1: the creation of the Pentagon Papers, which details in tremendous
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  Speaker 1: specificity what happened in Vietnam, what the goals weren't, and
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  Speaker 1: where it went wrong. This was supposed to be an
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  Speaker 1: internal study, not released to the public. Correct And so
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  Speaker 1: there I believe there were fifteen copies, some of which
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  Speaker 1: were leaked, parts of which were leaked to the New
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  Speaker 1: York Times. That's right, Ellsberg. Daniel Ellsberg leaked almost a
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  Speaker 1: full set of The Times that he didn't include the
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  Speaker 1: four volumes on the Secret Negotiations. You're listening to Masters
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  Speaker 1: in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest today is
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  Speaker 1: Dr leslie Gelb, an expert on foreign affairs and the
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  Speaker 1: projection of power and influence around the world. One of
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  Speaker 1: the things that you've written that I've always found fascinating
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  Speaker 1: is it's not necessarily just military strength, but it's the
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  Speaker 1: underlying economic strength that really has a giant impact on
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  Speaker 1: foreign policy. Let's start discussing that what is the role
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  Speaker 1: of of the fundamental economic power of a country to
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  Speaker 1: influence its foreign policy. Economics is really now central two
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  Speaker 1: power in foreign policy to power in international relations. Throughout
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  Speaker 1: history it was military power, military force that was the
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  Speaker 1: main arbiter of things. Big countries made demands on lesser ones.
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  Speaker 1: If they didn't obey, they got cracked, they got defeated
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  Speaker 1: on the battlefield. Now, isn't the underlying economic strength of
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  Speaker 1: go back to the Romans or the Greeks, or whoever
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  Speaker 1: we want to look to in history, the ability to
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  Speaker 1: field a large, well equipped, well fed, standing army. Isn't
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  Speaker 1: that a function of their underlying economy. The economy, of
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  Speaker 1: course was important in in in sustaining a large and
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  Speaker 1: effective army, but it wasn't a typical instrument of foreign affairs.
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  Speaker 1: When things came to be settled between tribes or nations,
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  Speaker 1: it was by force. If you look at most international
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  Speaker 1: transactions today, there is very very little force. Historically unprecedented
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  Speaker 1: little force between nations. They used to go out and
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  Speaker 1: fight each other all the time. Uh, it's very rare.
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  Speaker 1: Now you see one nation attack another nation. Almost all
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  Speaker 1: the wars are within nations, within Afghanistan, within Iraq, within Vietnam,
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  Speaker 1: and so forth. That's a huge positive development the amount
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  Speaker 1: of wars and and battlefield skirmishes between countries. So Russia
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  Speaker 1: and the Ukraine that that's an aberration. Well, Russia isn't
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  Speaker 1: in open conventional warfare. They sent in their special forces
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  Speaker 1: and they built up units of you of Russian speaking Ukrainians,
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  Speaker 1: and basically that's how the war is being fought rather
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  Speaker 1: than by main force Russian units. So it was really
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  Speaker 1: they sort of fomented a civil war. Interesting. So, so
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  Speaker 1: back to the economy. Here we are in the early
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  Speaker 1: decades of the twenty one century. Uh, the United States
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  Speaker 1: remains the largest, most significant economy in the world, but
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  Speaker 1: China is, despite their recent stock market issues and they're
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  Speaker 1: slow down in their economy, is soon to be the
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  Speaker 1: largest economy in the world. How does that play into
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  Speaker 1: their ability to project influence around the world. See, China
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  Speaker 1: is a perfect case of what I'm talking about, because
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  Speaker 1: China is the first global power, global great power not
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  Speaker 1: to be a global military power. China has no real
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  Speaker 1: military punch worldwide. China's military strength is restricted almost entire
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  Speaker 1: elite to its borders and to adjacent ceas. Now they're
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  Speaker 1: building up their air force. They're supposedly adding all these
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  Speaker 1: different carrier and submarine groups. They're taking a lot of
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  Speaker 1: their newfound economic wealth and directing some of it to
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  Speaker 1: the military. What does that meanthing more and more of
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  Speaker 1: it to the military. But it's almost entirely in the
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  Speaker 1: Asia Pacific region. To become a world military power, you
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  Speaker 1: need basis worldwide, and you need the capabilities to move
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  Speaker 1: navies and air units around the world. They don't begin
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  Speaker 1: to have this. What what does that say to us
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  Speaker 1: about China's aspirations that this doesn't seem to be a
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  Speaker 1: focus of theirs at least at present. Well, that's the
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  Speaker 1: necessary qualifier, at least at present. What they're doing is
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  Speaker 1: what China has done throughout its history, really uh to
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  Speaker 1: make sure that they were the strongest country on their borders,
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  Speaker 1: and they're shoring that right now. But they in the process,
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  Speaker 1: they are developing a capability to project their military power
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  Speaker 1: further than they ever did before. But there's still nowhere
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  Speaker 1: near it. There a decade or two away from having
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  Speaker 1: that kind of capability. Now I've seen urgent but just
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  Speaker 1: to finish the point. But China counts around the world,
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  Speaker 1: not because it can apply military force in the Middle
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  Speaker 1: East or Africa whatever. No one even thinks of China
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  Speaker 1: momentarily in those places, but because of its trade and investments.
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  Speaker 1: Is there a lesson there for the United States? They?
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  Speaker 1: They you look at how much we spend on our
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  Speaker 1: military depending on which study you look at, it's the
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  Speaker 1: next twelve or fifteen countries combined. Are we hurting ourselves
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  Speaker 1: by having uh an over emphasis on on military spending
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  Speaker 1: versus competitors like China. Yeah, it's not the next ten
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  Speaker 1: or fifteen total equal in the American total defense now
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  Speaker 1: it's about eight eight or so of the next most
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  Speaker 1: uh still a big number, Yeah, it is. It is
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  Speaker 1: a very big number. And you know, the Chinese military
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  Speaker 1: budget probably is in the neighborhood of a hundred fifty
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  Speaker 1: billion bucks, and we're still up around five hundred billion.
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  Speaker 1: But it's not just that. It's having experience and being
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  Speaker 1: able to control military technology to make it operational. We've
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  Speaker 1: been in wars, so our military knows how to use
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  Speaker 1: this stuff. China is much less proficient at it. So
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  Speaker 1: what does that mean going forward? Is China because what
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  Speaker 1: I'm hearing from you is China is obviously an economic competitor,
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  Speaker 1: but not really very much of a military threat to
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  Speaker 1: the United States interests. Yes, but China is ensuring that
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  Speaker 1: it controls its borders and the immediate UH water areas.
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  Speaker 1: And that does mean something because we have allies in
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  Speaker 1: that area, South Korea and so forth, Philippines, We have
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  Speaker 1: treaties with these countries, and they feel the threat coming
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  Speaker 1: from Chinese muscling, Chinese muscling into the islands in the
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  Speaker 1: South China Sea and claiming them as part of Chinese
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  Speaker 1: territory and the like. But you see, as much as
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  Speaker 1: the nations of Asia are turning more and more to
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  Speaker 1: the United States for security protection, they don't want to
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  Speaker 1: go too far. They don't want to anger China because
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  Speaker 1: China is still the most important factor in that part
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  Speaker 1: of the world when it comes to trade and investment.
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  Speaker 1: You're listening to mass there was in Business on Bloomberg Radio.
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  Speaker 1: My special guest today is Dr leslie Gelb, author of
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  Speaker 1: many books, winner of numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize,
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  Speaker 1: currently President Emeritus on the Council on Foreign Relations. Is
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  Speaker 1: that correct and an expert on all sorts of issues
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  Speaker 1: related to foreign affairs. Let's start with a really broad
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  Speaker 1: question in the segment. Are we entering a new era
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  Speaker 1: of diplomacy for the United States? It's a new era
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  Speaker 1: of foreign policy generally, because problems are becoming more and
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  Speaker 1: more difficult to solve, not just within our country domestically,
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  Speaker 1: but worldwide, because major powers don't have anywhere near the
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  Speaker 1: power they used to have, and we used to be
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  Speaker 1: able to combine with Europe and get a lot of
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  Speaker 1: things done. And now the problems, as I explained four,
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  Speaker 1: are less between nations where you can apply that power
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  Speaker 1: that leverage more within nations, they have their own political problems,
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  Speaker 1: they have their own civil wars, and it's much more
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  Speaker 1: difficult for the power of the United States or China
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  Speaker 1: or Russia or whatever to influence events within countries rather
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  Speaker 1: than between them. So so you mentioned Europe at one
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  Speaker 1: point in time, I always I thought of Europe as
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  Speaker 1: a great power. You look at the history at least
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  Speaker 1: of of Western civilization, and first it was Spain, and
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: then it was France, and then it was England, and
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  Speaker 1: Europe seemed to be the center of the world. That's
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  Speaker 1: not really the case anymore, is it. For hundreds of years,
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  Speaker 1: Europe was the center of the world, and that's where
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  Speaker 1: power was located. And they went out and they in
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  Speaker 1: effect rule the world, conquered all these territories, created colonies
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  Speaker 1: and the like, including us here in the United States exactly.
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  Speaker 1: And now now Europe is a second tier power at best.
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  Speaker 1: It's military punch is far, far less than it has
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  Speaker 1: been historically. Uh. You know, Germany used to be one
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  Speaker 1: of the great powers of the world, Britain and so forth.
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  Speaker 1: But now they're all they're really all second tier. What
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  Speaker 1: about what about the EU as an economic power. It's
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  Speaker 1: one of the biggest economy is collectively it's one of
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  Speaker 1: the biggest, But it doesn't do a very good job
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  Speaker 1: of exercising economic power because the damn organization is so
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  Speaker 1: bureaucratic and it thinks less in terms of using power
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  Speaker 1: to accomplish difficult things and more in terms of just
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  Speaker 1: getting along without creating problems. Quite quite fascinating. Let let
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  Speaker 1: me shift gears a little bit on you and talk
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  Speaker 1: about oil. I understand the whole economic thesis that strong
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  Speaker 1: economy equals strong um projection of power. Let me ask
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  Speaker 1: a question this way, is the price of oil driving policy,
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  Speaker 1: or is policy driving the price of oil. Well, in
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  Speaker 1: the case of the Gulf States, let's say they have
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  Speaker 1: so much money they don't have to worry about five
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  Speaker 1: extra dollars per barrel, of extra dollars per bowl. They're loaded,
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  Speaker 1: So their primary concern is foreign policy. So why is
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  Speaker 1: the price of oil as low as it is. It's
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  Speaker 1: as low it is because they're keeping it that way,
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  Speaker 1: and they're keeping it that way in anticipation of Iran
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  Speaker 1: joining the oil market again in a major way, and
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  Speaker 1: they want to make sure that Iran can't put its
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  Speaker 1: hand on as many bucks as the Iranian leaders may
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  Speaker 1: may hope, so they're keeping it low. They realize that
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  Speaker 1: Iran is going to have more money and therefore more impact,
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  Speaker 1: but they want to lessen that blow. And Iran has
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  Speaker 1: been a little bit of a troublemaker in the Middle
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  Speaker 1: East to say the least. Yes, Iran has been a
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  Speaker 1: trouble amerker. But if you ask me, Saudi Arabia has
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  Speaker 1: caused the United States far more trouble over the last
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  Speaker 1: thirty forty years than Iran as So let's let's focus
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  Speaker 1: on that. That's fascinating. Let me let me just explain
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  Speaker 1: that because most Americans just aren't aware who on earth
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: funded all these Jahadi's al qaeda isis al Nustra. Whore
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  Speaker 1: Where did these funds come from? Where did the arms
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  Speaker 1: they've been fighting with come from? They come mainly from
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  Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries. They've been financing it,
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  Speaker 1: They've been creating the problem. Are our big partners there
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  Speaker 1: from that part of the world, uh for their own
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: their own reasons, usually religious reasons, and their their opposition
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: to Western values. And you see this most clearly in
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: the thousands of madrasas He's are Islamic schools funded by
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: the Saudis and other Gulf states around the world, and
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: they preach extreme fundamental versions of Islam right and anti
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Americanism and anti American values. So in the last minute,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: we have in the segment why do we think of
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia as our ally because our government lets them
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: get away with it and doesn't make an issue of it.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: But you know, it's a fact that the arms that
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: isis used at first came or financed by the Saudis
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: and the other Gulf states. You're listening to Masters in
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Business on Bloomberg Radio, my special guest today is Dr
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Leslie Gelb, an expert on foreign policy and foreign affairs
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: and the impact of a domestic economy and how it
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: affects the country's ability to project power less segment. We
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: talked a little bit about UH, this new era of
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: diplomacy before before we go back to Iran, let's talk
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: a little bit about Cuba, which I think was a
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: surprise for a lot of people. No one really expected anything,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: uh from a lame duck president, and yet seems to
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: be a lot of diplomatic initiatives that are starting to
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: bear fruit. What what are your thoughts on our change
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: of status with Cuba. I'm glad we're doing it. Overdue, Yeah, way, way,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: way overdue. And the only thing that prevented it really
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: was the power of the Cuban American Foundation, group run
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: by Cuban emigres, who really locked on Cuba policy in
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: many ways like the American Jewish community locked on Middle
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: East policy and on Israel. So they the Cuban American Foundation,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: prevented are doing any kind of opening with Cuba where
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: it didn't make any sense. And here for fifty years
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: we had economic sanctions against them. We tried to tighten
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: the noose around them and every way possible. It doesn't work.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Economic sanctions can hurt a country, and sure it's hurt
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Cuba a great deal, but it can't bring them to
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: their knees. It can't make them capitulate. We face the
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: same issue with Russia and Ukraine and we never learned
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: the lesson. And when the economic sanctions don't work, people
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: start talking about, well maybe we have to go to
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: war now. Haven't the economic sanctions worked with I Ran,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: didn't we get them to really dramatically reduce their nuclear
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: program or not? What? What's the take on that we
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: got them to dramatically reduce it? Which is why I
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: think this agreement is a good one. We can come
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: back to that we did get them to dramatically reduce
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: it UH for ten to fifteen years, unless there's cheating
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: and there's a breakout or so forth. So so let's
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: let's talk go back to the sanction issue. You have
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: a group in America, the number of different Cuban American
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: groups who don't want to see relations normalized is the
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: reason for that. They have a degree of power and
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: a voting block, and once this goes away, their power
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: goes away. At what point did they just become a
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: self defeating, self sustaining, for no more purpose political group.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Thanks too long for that to happen. Well here it
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: is half a century later. What what what do we
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: to make of either of the Cuban American group or
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: the Jewish Amerner group affecting these sort of policy negotiations.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: You know, uh In my wife and I were invited
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: by del cast Vote to Cuba and we had dinner
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: with him one night, the two of us, he and
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: his foreign minister or whatever, and and we we were
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: talking about what democracy was. And I interrupted him and
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: I said, you know, you don't understand that democracy is
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: minorities rule. The Jewish American groups of the primary influence
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: on Middle East policy, the Greeks on Greek policy, the
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: aged on elder elderly. Um. The that's fascinating. That's acting
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: gun lobby, the gun hobby controlling guns. You look issued issue.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Who controls financial legislation, it's Wall Street. And that American
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: democracy is is minorities rule. What did he said? You see,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: that's what I'm talking about. You don't have a democracy. Yes,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: I said, what we do because we have the power
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: to change the minorities who do rule, and that can't
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: be done here in Cuba. You're the minority and you
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: can't be changed. He's a minority of one versus versus
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: an open That's a fascinating, fascinating insight. What what else
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: took place in that conversation with Fidel Castro that was memorable, Well,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: I think almost almost all of it was memorable, but
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: the sense that, look, he is a dictator and he's
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: done some terrible things, and his brother running the country
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: also a dictator. Yes, and they put a lot of
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: innocent people away and there's no disregarding that. And they
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: did foment revolutions and Latin America. Some people thought those
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: revolutions were good, others thought they were terrible. They certainly
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: weren't liked by the United States. So I'm not making
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: any excuses for Castro, but they they are really afraid
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: that the United States was going to conquer them, to
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: come attack them, and they had plenty of reason to
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: believe that. For Castro was well aware of all the
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: attempts that we made on his life. Um. Another meeting
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: we had was with the Cuban Chairman of the Joint
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Chiefs of their Joint chiefs Staff, who gave a long
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: spiel to my wife and me about how they believe
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: we were still going to attack them full scale Americans
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: still still to this day. And when he finished, I said,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: I think there is no chance the United States of
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: America is going to invade Cuba. And then I gave
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: him the reasons why he started to cry. He stood
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: up like we being like tears. Yes, and he came
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: around the table to hug me. Really, you know, that's fascinating.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: I I don't believe that was an act. I believe
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: he really thought the United States was going to invade Cuba.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: That that's absolutely amazing. So we're speaking with Dr leslie Gelb,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: expert on foreign affairs. Let's shift a little bit to Iran.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: I don't get the sense that any of the Mueller's
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: are gonna be hugging anyone from the United States anytime.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Own They won't. Molas are very dangerous guys, really sure
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: they are. So who's driving the atomic desires in in Iran?
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: I think that the Iranian people from everything we know,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: from all the reporting we have going on in that country,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Iranian people support a peaceful nuclear program. Do they really
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: need that given their vast oil reserves, well they think
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: they do. Who we to say they don't. I think
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: we could legitimately say, not only do you have vast
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: oil reserves, you're in the middle of the desert near
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: the equator. If you want to set up solar farms,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: you probably have more energy than you could ever consume
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: in a thousand years. Why on Earth would you need
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: a nuclear program except to build a bomb. They think
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: this is a cheap form of energy. They can They're
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: worried about being able to sell oil in the future
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: as energy um sources change. That's a fifty year concerned.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: But they are concerned about it. Again, everything we know
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: from the reporting countrywide is that there is considerable support
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: for having these nuclear peaceful programs. Uh. Not that the
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: people are calling for Iran to have nuclear weapon. There's
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: no evidence of that at all. None, And even the Ayatollah,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: who we don't like it. It really is a troublemaker,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: keeps repeating they don't want to build a bomb. So
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: what do we think. I don't believe them, by the way,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: I don't think a lot of people believe that claim.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: What do we think the odds of this treaty actually
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: getting past doesn't require approval from the Senate. All they
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: could do is stop it. Do we think that this
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: is actually going to be put into effect, Chuck Schumer notwithstanding, Yeah,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: I think that before Schumer announced his opposition, that they
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: did a vote count in the Senate and they came
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: to the conclusion that a presidential veto two bring the
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: treaty into force would be sustained. So Schumer's vote was
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: not going to So there was a little political horse trading,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: and well, I don't know if there was horse trading,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: but Schumer could go ahead and make his announcement, which
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: I think wasn't based on much substance, uh, without fearing
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: that he was going to kill the treaty off. And
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: and he's appealing to one of those minorities, the Jewish
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: American lobby that's been very vocal about this deal. They've
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: made it an enormous issue, and it's going to hurt
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Israel's standing here in the United States, really, including with
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: people who oppose the agreement. It will because they've gone
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: too far in interfering in American politics. Benjamin net and
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Yahoo speaking in the UN speaking to the on the
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: floor of the Senate. You think that boomerang's back against
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Eventually it will hurt. Yes. So we talked briefly before
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: about oil, and let me pose a different foreign affairs question.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: You know, the United States has been a huge importer
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: of oil for a long time, and now between what
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: we've found in the Gulf and fracking, and we're rapidly
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: approaching the day where the US becomes energy independent. And
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: I'm not talking a century or many many decades. Sometime
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: in the next cold five to ten years, we're going
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: to become a net exporter of energy. When that happens,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: what does that do to our interests in the Middle East?
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: I hope, but lessons are interested in the Middle East
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: because I don't, as you could tell from other things
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: I've just said, place much hope or reliance on our
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Gulf state allies. They've done some great harm, and I
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: think we've you. When you say Gulf state allies, you
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: mean Saudi Arabia, Israel, and I don't mean Israel, just
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Saudi Arabidi Arabia, Guitar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and the like,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: the people who have funded these jihadis all over the world.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Where do you think the Taliban got their arms and
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: money from they got it from heaven. They didn't get
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: it from heaven. So with friends like these, who needs enemies? Indeed,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: So if in the last thirty seconds we have if
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: people want to find your writings, where's the best place
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: for them to to see your your views in your perspectives?
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: In two places. One is the Daily Beast. I've written
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: a lot for them over the last eight or nine
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: years or so. And in the National Interest magazine Fantastic,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: we've been speaking with Dr Leslie Gelb discussing foreign policy.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: If you enjoy this conversation, be sure and check out
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: the podcast extras where we let the tape role and
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: we continue the conversation. Uh. Check out my daily column
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: at Bloomberg View dot com or follow me on Twitter
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: at Ridhults. I'm Barry Ridhults. You've been listening to Masters
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: in Business on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome to the podcast extras,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Dr Galb or Less. As you've asked me, Nicole, you
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for doing this. This is really
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: absolutely fascinating to so many things I want to go over.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: We haven't even talked about what's happening with China. And
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: their currency. We'll we'll get to that in a little bit.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Let's go back to the Pentagon Papers, which we really
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: just quickly touched on. Describe what that process was like
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: creating that, what sort of hell broke loose when the
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: Times got their hands on it, and what it meant
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: for the Supreme Court to issue their no prior restraint decisions,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: if if if I'm remembering all those things, uh correctly. So,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: so let's start with creating the Pentagon Papers. What was
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: that process like? Well, it's not like you hear about
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: it because McNamara at first started the project to answer
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: one questions that he and a few other people had
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: set down about ten of those questions were historical and
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: the others were about the pacification program, about the political
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: process and Saigon and could at work and so forth.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: There were a hundred questions that one of his military
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: aids wrote out by hand. Really yeah, and we were
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: to answer them. Then I put together a small group
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: and basically everyone agreed that we would give the same
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: kind of bologny, superficial answers to these questions if we
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: just sat down to to write them and to get
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: some perspective on it. We ought to look at the
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: history of our involvement, sent a memo into McMurray said,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: go do it. Let the chips for where they made.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: So we started to do these monographs, and basically the monographs,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: which very few people have read, are sort of straight
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: recounting of the issue. There's one on pacification that sort
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: of tells you, document by document, summarizing them what the
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: history of how we handled pacification was, or why we
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: made the decision to send in the Marines and March
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: and so forth. And the only sort of analytical parts
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: of the Pentagon papers were the brief summary statements at
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: the beginning of each monograph, which I took the creditor
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: blamed for in my transmission document. And I did so
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: because most of our authors were military and they didn't
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: want to get stuck with having an opinion on this
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: and that to their superiors. So I took responsibility for
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: writing all those analytical statements, which really weren't very analytical
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: or very presumped she was they put more or less straightforward.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: So so within that, within the research and creation of
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: depending on papers, the question that I mean. I was
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: born in sixty one the Vietnam War as a kid
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: was always a background there. And the question that to
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: this day I still can't answer is, so, why do
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: we really go in there? What? What was the point?
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: That was the key question because it applies today too. Look,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Ellsberg created the impression that we got in because our
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: government lied to the American people about the stakes and
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: what was involved and why it was important. But that's
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: just false. It's plain wrong, including Ellsberg himself. Ellsberg himself
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: was a big supporter of the war through a good
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: chunk of the sixties. He joined the Marines, he went
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: over there, and he fought. Uh. The reason we got
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: involved in Vietnam, and it's critical that we understand it
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: for what we get into trouble with today. The reason
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: we got involved is we believed our way into the war.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: We saw Indo China as the cockpit of the war
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: between Soviet Union, Chinese Communism against the United States of America.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: When you say we believed our way in, yes, we
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: thought the biggest threat to the United States was from
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: the from the Chinese Soviet Alliance and from World Communism.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: And just as we saw Berlin as the major focal
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: point for this in Europe, we saw Indo China as
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: the make major focal point in Asia, and people believe
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: we had to stop. I hardly knew anybody in the
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: foreign policy profession who differed with it, including Dan Ellsberg,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: including my buddy David Halperstan. His nineteen sixty four book
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: The Making of a Quagmire ends with a chapter that
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: is the best argument for the domino theory I've ever read. Really, Yeah,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: so we believed our way into the war. But wait,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: so he argues for the domino theory, meaning that if
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: we don't stop them here, it'll be country after country
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: until it's at our doorstep. And yet the book is
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: about in ninety four. That's pretty early to say, hey,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: Vietnam is going to be a quagmire and and for
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: the next decade it was. Indeed it was, and how
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: important it was to win that David's views changed over time,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: David Albert stamps Uh has did mine. I was a
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: supporter of the war. I didn't know anything about Vietnam,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: but to me, it was the crunch point in the
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: battle against communism, and it took a long time for
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: me to evolve. It took a very long time for
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: my foreign policy profession to evolve because we believed in it.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: The same thing happened with how we fight Afghanistan or
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: how we fight Iraq. We believe our way into these
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: wars because we make these decisions without knowing about the
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: countries were getting involved in. You know, on Vietnam, I
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: had read one book. I wrote a good many of
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: the memos of the Secretary Defense to the President of
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: the United States when I was Director of Policy Planning
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: in the Pentagon. And I had read one book on Vietnam,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Bernard Falls the Two Vietnams, and that was more than
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: most people they had read. We have no knowledge of
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: the place. The same applied to Afghanistan. The same applied
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: to Iraq. All of a sudden, we throw in the
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: troops as if force is going to solve centuries of culture, politics,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: and internal problems, and it never does. So, so let's
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: I want to come back to Iraq in a minute.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: Let's let's stay with Vietnam for a second. So if
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: the theory is that we're containing communism and therefore we
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: have to project power all around the world to prevent
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: the domino theory, doesn't that say we really don't have
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: a belief, a strong belief in our own system of
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: capitalism and free markets and open trade isn't because that's
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: how I always I am astonished at the stop communism argument. Well,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: if our system is so vastly superior, and I think
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: history has shown that it is, why can't we allow
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: the system itself to support itself. Why can't the benefits
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: of free markets stand on their own without military invention?
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: Interventions all around the world creating this very very different
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: sort of battle. It's an economic battle, not a military battle.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: Or is that the wrong way to look at this? Well,
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: it depends on the country. In the case of Vietnam,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: it was nationalism that we were fighting. That was the
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: root cause of you know, I was very close to
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: an army officer went out and commanded an air cavalry
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: battalion in one of the main battles that was fought
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: in the central highlands of Vietnam. When you say air cavalry,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: I think of apocalypse now, helicopters round troops. And he
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: was the commander of a battalion who was a lieutenant
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: colonel at the time, and he wrote me a note
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: I was working for Javits at the time, Roman notes,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: saying we we just had first major battle with North
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: Vietnamese forces in the central Highlands of South Vietnam. And
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: I can't tell you how proud I was of of
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: my troops, how well they fought, with such skill and
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: such courage. There was only one problem. The North Vietnamese
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: fought better. And there are only two explanations for this.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: One as they were on dope, and the other is
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: they were on nationalism. And if they were on nationalism,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: boy are we going to have trouble. They're defending their
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: own home country and there's an advantage to that. And
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: Ho Chi Man was regarded by many Vietnamese as the
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: father of Vietnamese nationalism. Uh you know, I don't like
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: his communist system or anything like that, but he had
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: the monopoly of nationalism not only in the North but
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: in the south with the Vietnamese VIETNAMIN forces who were
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: also backing him. And when that's what you have going
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: for you, it's hard to deal with it. Look at
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: at Syria today, you have these fanatics fighting and the
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: people we trained for years in Iraq and armed with
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: the best of armaments. As soon as the ISIS attacked them,
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: they dropped their arms, they took their uniforms, off and
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: ran away. So so let's supply the lessons of Vietnam
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: to Iraq. First question is the same question as Vietnam.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: Why do we go into Iraq? Nobody really believes the
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: weapons of mass destruction? That was well, I wouldn't say that.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: That's so, you know, I was. I was very friendly
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: with George Tennant, who was the director of the CIA
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: at the time, and I asked them outright at the time, Uh,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: do we have a smoking gun on the weapons of
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: mass destruction? And he said, no, we don't have a
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: smoking gun, but all of us very much believed that
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: they do have these weapons of mass destruction programs. Believed
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: our way into another war is that is that we
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: just believe it because here Saddam had attacked Iran. We
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: didn't like Iran, but they attacked them, and it was
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: a seven year war, and they used chemical weapons against Iran.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: They've been using chemical weapons though for a long long time. Well,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: they did have a record of it. They also use
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: chemical weapons against their own Kurdish people. And they had
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: just invaded Kuwait and we had to fight to kick
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: him out of Kuwait. George W. George H. Wright, so
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: we knew he was hostile. We knew he was aggressive, right,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: and there was genuine concern that he had these weapons
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: of mass destruction? Was their proof? No, but there was
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: enough evidence floating around in combination with his behavior over
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: the previous ten years plus to make people feel you
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: had to go after him. Now, they didn't take the
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: next step which they must must take in order to
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: have a rational policy, and saying, then, what are we
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: going to do? What are we going to conduct this war?
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Nobody doubts for a second that the United States military
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: isn't gonna steamroll over the National Guard. But after that,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: and now, the current thesis that I keep hearing is
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: ISIS is essentially the reconstituted uh Saddam troops and weaponry
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: that laid low for a few We don't even know that,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: we know that some of Saddam's officers are involved with them,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: but that these are you know, Sunnis who escaped from
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: Iraq and are now Syrians fighting for ISIS. I think
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: that's exaggerated. So so this brings us back to the
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: original question. September eleven happens in in two thousand and one,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: we go after Afghanistan, which is where these attacks um come.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: From By the way, you mentioned our friends, the Saudis
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: funded a lot of the uh not only the Taliban,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: but a lot of the hijackers themselves were Saudies, so
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: so they were very much involved. So we go into
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Afghanistan and then somehow not to by two thousand and
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: three we tax some some how we change and shift
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: our focus to Iraq. It was was that a prudent
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: either foreign policy or military response to where we were
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: at the time. It was dumb, and I endorsed it
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: at the time. So you you you indorsed it, but
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: now you're saying that was after three months, and I
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: saw it. That's the fastest reversal of everybody was. It
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: was fast. But I was for it initially, and when
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: it was clear they didn't have the weapons of mass destruction,
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: I opposed it. And on top of it, I saw
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: we had no idea what we were doing. There been
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: no plan for fighting the war. That that's so so
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: it seems, you know, it's it's funny. There's a joke
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: about people in finance and and it it's essentially says
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: um no tour people in finance or notorious for refusing
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: to learn from experience in history, But I it sounds
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: like finance people don't really hold candle to military people,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: nothing like foreign policy people and making mistakes, the same
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: mistakes over and again, which is why over time I
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: developed the philosophy that guides me and thinking about foreign affairs,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: that you're going to make the mistakes, they're inevitable, podcasts
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: smart you want because we're involved in various parts of
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: the world where our knowledge is slight and where our
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: power doesn't add up to our desires, and we're going
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: to make mistakes. And the most important thing you can
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: do is keep your mind open to the possibility that
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: you did make a mistake, so that you can see
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: it and fix it and not caused the blunders and
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: the suffering that we do when we persist in our mistakes. So,
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: speaking of persisting in mistakes, let me ask you a question,
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: which was worse the errors in Vietnam or the errors
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: in Iraq? Um? I think Vietnam really was. You know,
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: we we lost over fifty thousand men killed ten times
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: what we lost in Iraq. And people forget, but we
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: had five hundred and fifty thousand troops in Vietnam and
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: nearly old draftees not a whole lot of voluntary conscripts.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: That's a very different war than sending a hundred thousand
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: people who were volunteers to another contra. Absolutely, and the
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: ramifications domestically to the Vietnam War looks like it was very,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: very significant. Iraq has created some pushback, but nothing like
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: what we saw in the nineteen sixties. I think that's right.
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: Sixties really was a revolution inside the United States, and frankly,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: I think it caused a lot of people, two good people,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: to stay away from politics. I think the quality of
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: people who run for office today hold office today are
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: as good as were when I was a young man
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: in Washington. You know, it's funny. Let's let's shift gears
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: and talk about politics a little bit. So. I grew
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: up in Nassau County out in Long Island, very Republican area,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: and Jacob Javits was my senator. And whenever I try
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: and describe and and people on the left and right,
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: none of my friends believe me. But it's absolutely true.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: I described myself as a Jacob Javits Republican all right,
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: And four quick bullet points, low taxes, balance budgets, no
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: overseas adventures, and keep the government out of people's bedrooms.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: It's pretty pretty fair statement those four uhs, because he
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: actually was pretty much of a hawk on foreign policy.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: He was a big supporter of the Vietnam War. Well,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: when I got to when I learned who he was,
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: he had reversed himself and following the Vietnam War, I
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: recall him saying things like, look, if we're gonna project powerful,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: gonna go to war overs ease, it can't be for
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: some abstract theory. It has to be to protect uh,
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: the United States and not so I didn't. I was
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: too young to know him when he was a hawk.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: I knew him as no overseas misadventures. Yeah, he became
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: the author of the of the law that sort of
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: gave Congress a chance to say no to momentary involvement
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: after thirty days. That that's how I know him, as
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: opposed to maybe how he began when I when I
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: was a uch much younger child. But the funny thing
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: about that corner of politics, that on the spectrum a
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: fiscally conservative, socially progressive, call its center right political position.
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: You can't find that amongst the Republicans anymore. The whole
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: spectrum has shifted so much that what was once a
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: center right possession position now seems like it's a left
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: wing position. Uh so, what does that say? How much
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: of that traces to the reaction the pushback to to
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: Vietnam socially and just the parties becoming more extreme and
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: from my perspective formally thinking I'm center right and suddenly
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: finding myself center left. To me, it looks like the
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: right wing has gotten the left wing has gotten some
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: extreme elements, but the right wing looks like it's really
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: tacked to an extreme um political position, some of which
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: is the Reagan Coalition starting to fracture and people um
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: really tacking to that far right base to to get
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: we see it in the primary part. By the way,
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: that's the most you're gonna hear me say about anything
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: this whole interview. But I'm really curious as to your
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: view on how the this political spectrum in the United
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: States has shifted. We always had nuts on the left
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: in the right. When I worked for for Javits, they
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: were there, to be sure, but they were kind of marginals.
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: The difference not that they were marginalized, it's that they
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: were what I would call five or so national interest
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: senators of both parties who if an issue were really important,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: would put politics aside and try to get something done.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: So if it was critical and you needed a law
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: pass that in order to solve a problem, they would
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: get together and do it. So what happened to that
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: it disappeared. You see, they all left party first, so Bradley,
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: Sam Nun etcetera, etcetera, youth, centrist, moderate, they all left
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: the place because they got totally frustrated with American politics.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: And it began at the time of the Vietnam War.
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: The people who unfortunately didn't get frustrated with the extremists,
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: particularly on the right. Uh, they decided that this was
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: their great opportunity to go in and control politics. And
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: they've been fairly successful. Yeah, including in defeating moderate conservatives.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: Which is astonishing to think that that battle between the
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: right and the far right is being won by the
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: far right. That's not usually it's always been the center
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: holds and and that's where the power lays, but that
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: seems to be changing. They want it hands down, except
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: for presidential nominees. Reagan being the exception people bring up,
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: and in fact, Reagan was not a crazy right wing
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: president at all. He was a conservative president. The argument
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: is not by any means. The argument is that Reagan
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: couldn't get nominated today. I don't think he could. That's
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: an astonishing, that's an astonishing He raised repeatedly. Well, let's
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: he first, he had a huge tax cut. He took
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: that top rate way down. He got rid of all
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: those crazy you know, tax shelters and real estate shelters
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: and all those things, which is why some guy named
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump was not happy with him way back when
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: UM but slowly raised taxes to balance the budget. You know,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: today you have the pledge UM, you have Grover Norquest.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: You so that center right moderate or or even just
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: ordinary conservative, they don't seem to really be finding a
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: voice UM in politics today, interestingly divided on foreign policy
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: national security, where you have the Tea Party guys like
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: the Polls who tend to be touch isolationists very much.
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: In fact, he isis caused Rand Paul to back off
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: of that UM. But they're very much isolationists. And I
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: respect the hey, we're spending way too much on the
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: military argument from on Paul Um. Rand Paul seems to
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: have less of a commitment to that than his father
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: did less because he's running for president and he thinks
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: he's got to modify it for that. I think for
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: that reason is Dad ran for president and never changed anything.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: Dad was more of a true believer. So so let's
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: see he's to say the least. So so let's come
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: back to um, the Middle East policy. We we talked
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: about Iraq, Um, what's going to happen with our relations
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: going forward with Israel? Um? Are they going to be
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: chasened by their overreaches there? Are they going to have
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: a possible change of leadership? What what happens? There's no
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: chance of a change in leadership position inside Israel, and
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: there is overwhelming opposition within Israel through this agreement with Iran,
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: and none of that is going to change. Obama has
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: tried to compensate by offering Israel some arms, some high
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: tech arms that he had previously denied them, but that's
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: not going to change their mind about any of this.
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: And we're going to go through a few years of
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: just very nasty talk from Israeli leadership about Democrats because
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: of their support for this. Hillary is trying to avoid
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: it by as usual, not taking a position strong position
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: on it, but you'll you'll get a lot of anti
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: democratic feeling from Israelis as far as American Jews are concerned.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: The polls show SI are in favor of with Iran
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: and about twenty are posted very much against it. So
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: if you have six of US Jews disagreeing with Israeli's
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: supporting President Obama, what does that mean for the odds
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: of this policy, this, this um treaty actually becoming the
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: law of the land. Well, I I think it will.
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: At least the people who do the vote atting say
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: that a presidential veto will be sustained in the Senate.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know about the House, but in the Senate
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: that's really the only place that matters. If you can't
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: override into both houses, that's it. This becomes law. Is
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: there any chance down the road that there's a detant
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: between Israel and Iran? Is that something that's possible not
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: for a long time to come. Look, I've spent a
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: good deal of my life working on arms control, even
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: though I didn't believe arms control was arms control. I
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: think arms control was managing relations with an adversary. And
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: if you look at the history of all the arms
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: control treaties we reached. They didn't solve the problems. They
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: minimize the problems to varying degrees. They lessen the problem,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: or they put the most serious problems off into the
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: future where there was a better chance of managing them.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: We've kind of forgotten that arms control agreements are not
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: agreements of surrender by one party to another. You're you're
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: trying to bargain with another state that has its own
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: interests and it's not going to give certain things up,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: and you make agreements to lessen the threat, which this
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: agreement absolutely does. Even the critics say the main point
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: is well inten to fifteen years, they can decide they
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: don't want to abide by this anymore. It's a long
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: time as opposed to Tuesday exactly, And that's the central
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: point to keep making the people. But it's hard to
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: get through when the hysteria has reached the proportions it has.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: There certainly are histrionics coming out, and it's a coming
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: up on a presidential election year, which just amplifies that
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: even more. All Right, so let's let's shift gears and
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna take you to a different part of the world.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Russia and the Ukraine. So you had
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: said previously that they had set up Russian Ukrainian speaking
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: Russians and special forces within Ukraine, and we're fomenting civil
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: descent the Russians. What's their endgame? What does Putin want?
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: He got Crimea, what does he want from Ukraine? Yeah?
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: I think what what he wants is to establish Russia
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: again as a major power and wants to be treated
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: as a as a major power. Is Putin not treated
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: as a major power. I think that there's a lot
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: to show from a Russian point of you that we
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: diminished them, and we diminished them in all sorts of ways,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: certainly economically economically, including in Ukraine, where the Europeans made
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: a proposal in effect to incorporate Ukraine into the European
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: economy and push Russia aside. It's intolerable to give a
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: caution history and to somebody like Putin. The central thing
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: about Russians and foreign policy for hundreds of years is
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: they like to flex their muscles. They like to be
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: the great power, they like to be treated like the boss.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: And they lost the Cold War. The country was diminished
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: in size and in power all these respects and then
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: you know, here we do this with Ukraine. We bring
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: the Baltic States into NATO. These are states that used
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: to be part of the Soviet Union and now they're
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: under NATO. Uh. It looked like we were going to
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: bring in Georgia and Ukraine, and Tonedo was as well.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: And I think Putin has been fighting against all of this.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: Now I wouldn't give him the right. These countries don't
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: belong to this, but as a great power, he has
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: a right to a say in those countries and what
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: happens there, just as we would have a right, uh
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: to to what happens in our hemisphere. People have forgotten
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: about the Monroe Doctrine, which is a pretty blatant assertion
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: of US authority and rights in the hemisphere. What if
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: China would open up military bases in Mexico, what do
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: you think we would do about that? We would go insane.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: So you have to understand it from Putin's point of view.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: The second thing you have to understand is that on
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: their western borders, Russia has military superiority over the United
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: States and the West. You see, people don't know that though,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: um about World War two of Germans. If they weren't.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: If Hitler didn't attack Russia, the outcome could have been
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: very different, There's no question about it. But here today
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: people think, you know, Russia is on its knees on
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: its borders western western borders with Ukraine. Yes, aircraft, air defenses, whatnot.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: A couple of months ago, the the Supreme Allied Commander
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: for NATO, General Breedlove Americans. Sure. He was on Christian
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: almanpor on CNN on CNN, and he was saying this
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: to her, that they have a massive military on the
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: border and they can trump us militarily whatever we do.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: We want to put a more eight to Ukraine, they
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: can put in even more to their supporters in eastern Ukraine.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: You want to start shooting bullets, they can shoot more
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: bullets right on their borders. Beyond their borders, we have
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: the superiority. But on their borders they've got it. And
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: Christian responded when he was finished, Wow, no idea, no idea,
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: She said, wow if you if you know World War
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: two history. And I don't call myself a military history buff,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: but I read Keegan's book, and I read a lot
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: of the big um fascinating stories about what took place,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: not too long ago. I was in St. Petersburg, you know,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: you see some of the old memorials and what took
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: place there. Russia always has had a massive European looking
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: military force they have. Let me tell you the end
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: of that conversation. Now she says, wow, and then she says,
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: but then, what would you do about it? He said, well,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: of course we've got to keep up our military strength,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: but we need diplomacy. This is a general saying this
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: to the general, And I've had loads of conversations with
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: senior NATO generals. They all say the same thing. You
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: need diplomacy. You need to work a kind of relationship
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: with the Russians where they are treated like a major power.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: You don't give them the Baltic States or Ukraine, but
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: you take their interest into account. Look, how do you
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: how do you judge where the Russia matters? Russia is
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: no longer a global superpower, but they are a great power.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: And how do you measure that? You measure it in
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: terms of whether Russia can help or hurt us in
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: various parts of the world, and they can. Who can
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: help us more than any other country in dealing with
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: what's happening in Syria and Iraq. It's Russia fighting terrorism.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: Russia has one of the best anti terrorist operations in
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: the world. Intelligence in terms of nuclear proliferation, Russia is
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: a major partner of ours. Look, they just didn't with Iran.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: They by the way, fascinating the Russian interest in Iran
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: and how much they were really a key actor in
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: helping that treaty move forward. They were there, were central
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: to it. And in the case of their states on
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: their western borders, they can hurt us unless you have
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: some diplomacy that takes their interests into account, doesn't give
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: them control of these countries, but gives them a say
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: so that they're treated like a major power like we
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: would expect to be treated on our borders. So given
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: you know, if it would have been a president like
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: George Bush who wasn't a big believer in in diplomatic efforts,
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: I would say, well, of course we're not having any
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: luck with Russia. But the present administration I ran Cuba elsewhere. Um,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: although we seem to not be very successful with China
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: on certain diplomatic efforts, why isn't this an administration recognizing
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: what generals like breed Love says, and and paying Look,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: no one expect the United States to pay homage to Putin,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: but it sounds like he's looking for some respects, some recognition,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: and some input into the decision making process. Given how
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: helpful he was in Iran. Why aren't we having a
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: better engagement and better relationship with Russia? A good question.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: There there are a lot of people inside even this administration,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: who think they can knock Russia to the floor. Well
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: what's the upside of that? Why? Why? You know? I
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: think they're just dead wrong. But there're people inside and
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: people they consult on the outside who have this point
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: of view, and not all generals agree with Breathlow, the
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and testifying before the
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: Senate a few weeks ago, said the Russia is the
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: biggest threat security threat of the United States. So you
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: have people who say these things and then they don't
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: say what they're going to do about it practically. Yeah,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: you know, the in St. Petersburg, there's a memorial to
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: the civilians. During World War Two, the Germans encircled the city,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: which is really very much on the western border. It's
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: long before they went deep into the Russian winter. Further
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: further east, and they tried to starve the city out.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: And I'm trying to some ungodly number of civilians died
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: in St. Petersburg, just insane, insane numbers. And the Russians,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: these are really tough people. They didn't it went a
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: year or two. They didn't surrender, they didn't give up.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: They kept the Germans at bay. Not a lot of
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: cities could have survived with the Germans put St. Petersburg through.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: Anyone who thinks that you're gonna just shove the Russians
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: over and they're gonna topple, you just have to read
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: military history. That ain't gonna happen. Do you need to
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: go back to Napoleon. That's not gonna happen. But you see,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: it's not just it's not just to Russia. It's we
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: thought we would do it with Cuba. We thought we
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: could do it with Iran, and none of economic sanctions,
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: political pressure, even military pressure did not bring these countries
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: to their knees. And what do people want? Do they
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: want to go to war with Iran? What do they
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: think the consequences of that would be? Did we want
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: to invade Cuba? Only some nuts wanted to invade Cuba.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: So I only have you for a couple more minutes.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: Let me go to some of my favorite few short
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: questions that I ask all my guests, and then we'll
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: we'll get you out of here on time. Um. So
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: aside from Senator Javits, who were some of your early mentors, well,
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: I would say Clark Clifford, who replaced McNamara's secretary Defense,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: was a a major influence in my life because he
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: really brought home to me the importance of thinking through
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: strategy before you made your first moves on any area
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: of importance. And if it took two weeks to do
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: it or whatever, you take that time to do it
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: before you start moving. Otherwise you get you trap yourself.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: Sounds like it sounds like common sense, but it's pure
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: common sense. But it isn't done. You can see it
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: time and again and in decisions made by presidents after presidents.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: So aside from Clifford, let's let's talk a little more philosophy.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: What what thinkers influenced your approach to either foreign policy
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: or or economics. Yeah, I would say the Realist school.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: Henry Kissinger was my PhD advisor, are really and I
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: was his teaching fellow and his courses there. Uh. And
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: and he's a realist. If if nothing, he's a realist.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: And I think that's basically the the framework I've adopted
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: in dealing with the with the world. I believe in power.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: I don't think you get things done through what we
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: like to call soft power. Uh, that we persuade people,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: we understand their interests better than they do. We think
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: our values are going to get them to restrain themselves.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: It just doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. What happens is power,
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: where you get people to do things or not to
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: do things because you change their calculus about their interests,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: what they're gonna gain, what they're gonna lose. And if
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: you can't affect that calculus, you're not going to be
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: able to achieve what you want. Pure carrot and stick.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: It's pretty much that. Yes, So we talked about the
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: shifts in in politics. What major shifts have you seen
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: take place in diplomacy and are these a good thing
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: or a bad thing? Yeah. I don't think we've adjusted
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: to the world of the twenty one century US in
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: the United States, our foreign policy mostly US really Yeah,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: because we have more responsibility than any anyone else. There's
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: any any problem anywhere in the world, people immediately turned
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: to the United States, and unfortunately, to often we try
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: to go respond to it without knowing what they're doing,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: without thinking through a Clifford Clifford's approach, actually give it real,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: real thought. Um, what what are some of your favorite
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: books that that have influenced either you're thinking or changed
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: your mind about different aspects of FIGN policy. I think
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: mainly history books. I try to immerse myself in history,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: mainly to see how things went wrong and on those
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: few occasions, how they went right, to give myself more
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: of a finger feel and intellectual appreciation of the difficulties
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: of dealing with problems that you can't control, where you
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: have to use your power, and the power can't make
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: things in and in and of itself come out the
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: way you want. Let me let me shift up my
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: second to last question. I always ask people, um, what
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: advice they'd give to a millennial or someone graduating college
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: about their career. But let me ask you it slightly differently. Uh,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: someone comes to you just graduating career, graduating college and says,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: I'm interested in a career in in the State Department
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: or foreign affairs or diplomacy. What sort of advice would
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: you would you give them? I would say, first, demonstrate
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: to your boss that you know how to get things done,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: which means you think through the strategy. I'm sensing a
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: theme here. You think through his strategy and you figure
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: out how to deal with people well enough to move
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: the pieces along so that in whatever it takes a
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: week or three months, your boss sees you've accomplished it.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: And if he sees that you're going to get ahead.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: LA question, what do you know today about foreign affairs, diplomacy,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: military power, economic might that you wish you knew when
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: you began fifty years ago. I think, uh, that I
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: should have had a better appreciation of what our power
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: could accomplish in different places at different times, and what
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: it could not accomplish. Limitations on the projection of and
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: what you could do to what you could do what
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: you couldn't do. Fantastic, Dr Gelb, thank you so much
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: for being so generous with your time. There's so many
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: things we didn't get to, but I know you have
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: other places to go. Today we've been speaking with Dr
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: Leslie Gelb on the impact of the economy and projections
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: of power. If you enjoyed this conversation, look an inch
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: high or lower on Apple iTunes and you'll see the
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: other fifty or so shows we've done. Um be sure
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: and check out my daily column on Bloomberg View dot com.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: Follow me on Twitter at rid Halts. I want to
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: thank Mike bat Nick, my head of research, for helping
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: us out. Charlie Volmer is our producer, and our engineer
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: today is Matt Ryan. I'm Barry Rich Halts. You're listening
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.