Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Western Sieve and today's bonus author interview.
Speaker 1: I'm going to sit down with Phillips, Pays and O'Brien,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to talk about the book that comes
Speaker 1: out today, War and Power, Who Wins Wars and Why.
Speaker 1: I would love to tell you that the topic of
Speaker 1: this book is totally irrelevant to our world today. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: quite the opposite is probably true. And while I hope
Speaker 1: that military power can prove a deterrence rather than anything
Speaker 1: that we actually need to use anytime soon, I become
Speaker 1: less and less confident by the moment that that is
Speaker 1: actually in fact going to be the case. Hence, we
Speaker 1: turn to our subject matter, how on Earth do nations
Speaker 1: acquire the power necessary to deter and prosecute wars to
Speaker 1: their fullest and most successful conclusion. O'Brien breaks this down
Speaker 1: into a number of different chapters where we look at
Speaker 1: things like leadership, society, technology, economics. We're only going to
Speaker 1: have time to talk about a couple here today, but
Speaker 1: it's a very very readable first foray into the subject.
Speaker 1: If you're new into foreign policy, or if you're new
Speaker 1: into this idea of nations and warfare. It also has
Speaker 1: enough detail that for those of you who are very
Speaker 1: experienced in this field, this is going to be a
Speaker 1: good book for you to pick up as well. It's
Speaker 1: one of those that really does have something for everyone.
Speaker 1: So without further ado, and as always, the link is
Speaker 1: in the show notes, so if you'd like to pick
Speaker 1: up a copy, you can just click the link. You
Speaker 1: can buy. You can buy wherever you want to. I
Speaker 1: always just pull one link in, but pick it up
Speaker 1: wherever you want. You'll enjoy the book a lot. It
Speaker 1: clocks in it somewhere right around two hundred and thirty pages,
Speaker 1: so it's a reasonable read if you're getting on a
Speaker 1: plane or something like that, but it's also good to
Speaker 1: just pick up and put it back down. So without
Speaker 1: further ado, then, and after these quick messages, let's jump
Speaker 1: into the interview. All right, and welcome back. As I
Speaker 1: mentioned before, I'm sitting down today with historian Phillips Payson O'Brien,
Speaker 1: and we are talking about his most recent book, which
Speaker 1: is War and Power, Who Wins Wars and Why. It's
Speaker 1: an excellent, concise and really really readable. As I talked
Speaker 1: about in the introduction, overview of a concept and some
Speaker 1: ideas that are probably of a lot of relevance to
Speaker 1: the world right now unfortunately, which is what does one
Speaker 1: need to do to be success in combat and or
Speaker 1: maybe deterring that in the first place. I want to
Speaker 1: start out by asking about something that you bring up
Speaker 1: right away in the start of the book. You talk
Speaker 1: about how power, both in times of peace and war
Speaker 1: depends very much on what you say, the ability to design, build,
Speaker 1: and manipulate. And you can't see this, but I'm doing
Speaker 1: air quotes stuff, and I was hoping it could start
Speaker 1: by explaining to the audience what you mean by that
Speaker 1: and why it's so important.
Speaker 2: Well, one of the things I wanted to say to
Speaker 2: people is not to provide a theory which explains everything,
Speaker 2: but to provide a framework to understand what makes the
Speaker 2: state powerful and then how that power might interact in war,
Speaker 2: because I didn't like people having theory like these are
Speaker 2: great powers. These are not great powers, and that means something.
Speaker 2: I don't know what that means. People would say that
Speaker 2: Russia is a great power, ukrained not or I'm a realist.
Speaker 2: I have this theory which explains how power works, and
Speaker 2: then none of these things ever seem to work. So
Speaker 2: I sort of say what makes a state powerful in
Speaker 2: terms of the interaction of power, particularly in war, And
Speaker 2: I came up with sort of what you might say,
Speaker 2: a basic what you need to do, and then how
Speaker 2: does that shaped. The basic thing you need is economic
Speaker 2: and technological power. If you're not an economic and technological power,
Speaker 2: you're never going to be a great military power or
Speaker 2: win war. So just you know that's not going to
Speaker 2: work in state to state wars. That's different from SAT counterinsurgencies,
Speaker 2: but in state to state wars you need the ability
Speaker 2: to make stuff, as I said, because when you go
Speaker 2: into a war, what you have at the start of
Speaker 2: the war is going to go. It's going to be
Speaker 2: eaten up amazingly quickly and shockingly short time periods, far
Speaker 2: far quicker than people think. So it's your ability than
Speaker 2: to make new stuff which will determine the course of
Speaker 2: the war and well you can fight. So that's the foundation. Now,
Speaker 2: not everybody who can make stuff is going to be
Speaker 2: a great power, the powerful state, because then you need
Speaker 2: the other factors to work with that, and that's your leadership,
Speaker 2: your society, your political structure, your allies, these different elements
Speaker 2: all need to work together. But if you can't make stuff.
Speaker 2: You're not even going to get to that point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I suppose just for reference in for those
Speaker 1: who don't have the book in front of them, and
Speaker 1: since it came out today you probably don't. But these
Speaker 1: are all topics when we're talking about economic, technological strength, leadership, society,
Speaker 1: and structure. These are components of the book that you
Speaker 1: walk through one at a time, and I think that
Speaker 1: that's what really gives it its kind of overall structure.
Speaker 1: One of the topics that I wanted to ask about
Speaker 1: that's kind of early on in the book as well.
Speaker 1: You start to talk about population and land, which I
Speaker 1: have you know, our audience, you know, we love, we
Speaker 1: love ourselves some classical realm in this podcast, and we
Speaker 1: love some of those things. And I think so a
Speaker 1: lot of times when we focus on societies of the past,
Speaker 1: you think about population and land as extremely important when
Speaker 1: it comes to fighting and prosecuting a war successfully. You argue,
Speaker 1: in especially in the modern context, that population and land
Speaker 1: play limited roles in determining actually a country's power. Why
Speaker 1: is that and how recent of a phenomenon is that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the book itself, I mean it is
Speaker 2: from nineteenth century today you might say, I make references
Speaker 2: back to the Napoleonic era, so I'm not trying to
Speaker 2: say throughout all of human history, but it is worth
Speaker 2: noting the United States has never been the most popular
Speaker 2: country in the world, and in fact nowhere close to
Speaker 2: being the most populous country in the world. Nowadays it's
Speaker 2: you know, it's one fifth the size of China, or
Speaker 2: you know, significantly smaller than India. So the idea that
Speaker 2: you know, just being large is what makes you powerful
Speaker 2: seems to me a little bit off in terms of
Speaker 2: population and even in greater counterput, Russia geographically is the
Speaker 2: largest country in the world, but it's certainly not the
Speaker 2: most powerful. So you know, if if you can translate
Speaker 2: your large population into your ability to make things and
Speaker 2: be economically and technologically productive, then you can be a
Speaker 2: great power. But just saying your big inn and of
Speaker 2: itself is not not that useful. That you know, who
Speaker 2: are the biggest countries in the world today, Well, you
Speaker 2: have you have India now, which is the biggest, then China,
Speaker 2: then the US, but then countries like Indonesia or Pakistan
Speaker 2: are incredibly large countries for hundreds of millions of people,
Speaker 2: and in and of itself, that doesn't make them the
Speaker 2: powers that you would think for those populations.
Speaker 1: So and I am actually kind of I've always wondered
Speaker 1: about this in the context of modern warfare, and I
Speaker 1: don't even know if this is something that you could
Speaker 1: potentially speak on, But to me, there are times that
Speaker 1: I look the war in Ukraine, for example, and just
Speaker 1: the efficacy of drones and you know, non personnel occupied
Speaker 1: military operations, and I do start to wonder, is there
Speaker 1: is there a point where a large population in particular
Speaker 1: actually starts to become more of a liability in certain circumstances,
Speaker 1: because if you have a large population, you you first
Speaker 1: of all have to defend it, right and second of all,
Speaker 1: that population is going to consume resources, which then you know,
Speaker 1: you kind of think of like almost like a siege mentality.
Speaker 1: I suppose, you know, going back to the classical world
Speaker 1: where it's like you have a lot of non combatants
Speaker 1: in the city that's under siege, and that's they're going
Speaker 1: to consume resources at the same rate as the people
Speaker 1: who are defending it. You know, is there any way
Speaker 1: that we can make similar analogies today or is that
Speaker 1: just is that too far of an extrapolation.
Speaker 2: It's not too far. Mean, there are examples of that.
Speaker 2: I think China in the Second World War incredibly. I
Speaker 2: think might have still been the most populous country in
Speaker 2: the world China and the Second World War, and yet
Speaker 2: its population is in some ways a hindrance as much
Speaker 2: as a help, because it's got to try and feed
Speaker 2: it and keep it going, and it's not producing a
Speaker 2: lot in the way of military equipment. So that is
Speaker 2: an example. We're having a very large population. I mean,
Speaker 2: we were talking about Rome earlier, and I don't want
Speaker 2: to claim I'm a classicist, but Rome's shape became very
Speaker 2: difficult to defend the size of the Roman Empire, with
Speaker 2: this enormous land border that stretched all the way from
Speaker 2: Holland to North Africa. Yeah, and it was actually now
Speaker 2: it was incredibly difficult to defend that when you started
Speaker 2: having the incursions all the way around it. So the
Speaker 2: size that you have, if it's not matched with a
Speaker 2: population that can make things well led and well motivated,
Speaker 2: is a real problem because you're being pushed and pulled
Speaker 2: in many directions to try and hold onto it. You
Speaker 2: could say that's also with European empires. The European empire
Speaker 2: just became the most impossible to defend because they were
Speaker 2: being pushed and pulled throughout their many different constituent parts.
Speaker 2: So I mean, a nice, unitary state with defensible borders.
Speaker 2: It's flipped on its head. Actually, it's an interesting point.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about it. The United States great advantage, great
Speaker 2: advantage for the past one hundred and sixty years has
Speaker 2: been it's not had a threat on its borders. The
Speaker 2: United States has been this place where there were Canada
Speaker 2: was not a threat in any reasonable way. After the
Speaker 2: Mexican American more, Mexico was not really a threat in
Speaker 2: any way. And because the United States didn't have threats
Speaker 2: on its borders, it was sort of quite contained. It
Speaker 2: had massive strategic advantages. So you could say, your borders
Speaker 2: matter greatly if they're cohesive and defensible and non threatening
Speaker 2: versus large and threatening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting. It's almost kind of like, if you
Speaker 1: want to go back to the old board game risk,
Speaker 1: It's right, it's like, where are your borders and who
Speaker 1: are your borders with? You know, who are your borders
Speaker 1: with matters a lot. You know, we have the United
Speaker 1: States has borders with Canada and Mexico, which you point
Speaker 1: out you since the Mexican American War, those borders have.
Speaker 2: By large been quiet.
Speaker 1: You know, you could talk about maybe a little insurgency
Speaker 1: around World War One, but you know that's that's strange,
Speaker 1: I know, what.
Speaker 2: A risk wanted to go for Asia because it was
Speaker 2: impossible to defend right everyone when you start with going
Speaker 2: something like Australasia or South America because it's only got
Speaker 2: one or two borders, and that becomes you a better
Speaker 2: place to start building up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you kind of think about those choke points. And
Speaker 1: then Rome is a great example here where yeah, it
Speaker 1: has this enormous territory, but it doesn't particularly have defensible
Speaker 1: borders in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: And it's I've.
Speaker 1: Always kind of wondered about it, you know, in the
Speaker 1: context of the First World War two, because you think
Speaker 1: about you know, you think about like a country like
Speaker 1: the British Empire. You know, it has on paper these
Speaker 1: incredible vast reserves of and power, right because the Commonwealth stretches,
Speaker 1: you know, to to India and Australia. There's all these
Speaker 1: areas that you would you would think the British are
Speaker 1: able to draw from, but that doesn't ever seem to
Speaker 1: really happen to a large extent in the war.
Speaker 2: You know, First World War happens. You know, you can
Speaker 2: said the British Empire gets at the British got a
Speaker 2: lot of support from their empire in the First and
Speaker 2: Second World War. It's just the empire decides it doesn't
Speaker 2: want to stay, uh, and the British can't fight to
Speaker 2: keep it. So it's a real sort of interesting question
Speaker 2: on that that they certainly do tap the empire quite
Speaker 2: successfully in the First and Second World War for resources.
Speaker 1: Right right, right, you know, And but I also think
Speaker 1: that there's to an extent, like a war on paper
Speaker 1: is different than a war in real life. Right, you know,
Speaker 1: you have your your Ledger sheet and that tells you
Speaker 1: who you think should win. But that's not always the case,
Speaker 1: right And then I suppose even the American Revolution is
Speaker 1: a pretty decent example of that. But I you know,
Speaker 1: I want to turn to this question that of economic
Speaker 1: So if we're going to say, well, population doesn't play
Speaker 1: a major direct role in determining a country's power, well
Speaker 1: what about GDP and economic power in that case?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's a combination of economic power, productivity
Speaker 2: plus technological advancement. I mean that if you're a country
Speaker 2: that's making is most of your money from a resource extraction,
Speaker 2: you might be very rich in a per capita GDP way. Yeah,
Speaker 2: if you're just pumping oil out of the ground or
Speaker 2: extracting minerals and selling them overseas. But that's going to
Speaker 2: also limit your power in certain ways too, because you
Speaker 2: can't make things out of that money. You have to
Speaker 2: buy everything. And by the way, the end of that,
Speaker 2: if you have to end up buying everything, you're going
Speaker 2: to run into problems because if you can't make it yourself,
Speaker 2: you'll run through it, and then you'll have to just
Speaker 2: buy more, buy more, and you're going to be held hostage.
Speaker 2: You're not going to have any strategic autonomy, which by
Speaker 2: a lot of states are realizing that now and trying
Speaker 2: to actually set up big cocted supply lines. So I
Speaker 2: just think in terms of looking at what you have
Speaker 2: in terms of people and what you can do in
Speaker 2: terms of your economy. It's not just being rich, it's
Speaker 2: being technologically advanced and having the ability to make material
Speaker 2: out of that technological advancement, which, by the way, if
Speaker 2: you look and the book talks about it, if you
Speaker 2: look at the possibility of, say a US China war. Now,
Speaker 2: the problem in the US is going to have is
Speaker 2: that it can't make a lot. The manufacturing base of
Speaker 2: the United States is much less than that of China,
Speaker 2: and the Chinese are making eighty percent of the world's
Speaker 2: drones much more, has a much greater manufacturing capacity of
Speaker 2: military equipment than the United States right now in terms
Speaker 2: of shipbuildings, say, and so the US will have to
Speaker 2: try and find some way to make up for that
Speaker 2: inability to match the Chinese and manufacturing.
Speaker 1: Well, just kind of taking that example, then let's just
Speaker 1: imagine a scenario and maybe not it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be a direct war between America and China. But how
Speaker 1: could a country like the United States make up that difference,
Speaker 1: like in different ways? Like what would you have to
Speaker 1: would you would it be? I mean, let's just assume.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, a manufacturing base is difficult to conjure
Speaker 1: out of thin air. You know, it's not somethings that
Speaker 1: they can do overnight, right, But so what our other
Speaker 1: way is that a country then can compensate for one
Speaker 1: of those deficiencies.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean you could start now, I mean, if
Speaker 2: you end up starting a war and you don't have
Speaker 2: a manufacturing base, there's very little you can do in
Speaker 2: the short term. So it's a question of what you
Speaker 2: can do to start preparing your manufacturing base or strategic
Speaker 2: you're protecting your strategic industries. Now, for instance, one of
Speaker 2: the most shocking things is how the United States has
Speaker 2: basically not become a shipbuilding nation. Yeah, the Second World War,
Speaker 2: the United States just produce more shipping than the rest
Speaker 2: of the world combined, just produced massive amounts of shipping,
Speaker 2: and the United States remained a major shipbuilding nation after
Speaker 2: the Second World War. Now, the United States hardly makes
Speaker 2: a ship. I mean really, it's you could count on
Speaker 2: a hand the number of non military ships the United
Speaker 2: States makes in a year. The Chinese make half the
Speaker 2: world shipping. So the United States, if it doesn't have
Speaker 2: a shipbuilding industry, it's going to be very hard pressed
Speaker 2: to do it. Now, what could the United States do well? Actually,
Speaker 2: the two things that it does have are its allies
Speaker 2: are the second and third largest shipbuilding states in the world,
Speaker 2: and that's the Japanese and the South Koreans, So they
Speaker 2: do have allies with that. Now that means the United
Speaker 2: States actually has to understand the value of allies, and
Speaker 2: right now I'm not sure the United States does understand
Speaker 2: the value of allies and how it could tap them.
Speaker 2: But without allies, the United States basically would go into
Speaker 2: a war without much of a shipbuilding industry, and it's
Speaker 2: hard to see how they would make one off in
Speaker 2: the course of the war if they don't start preparing
Speaker 2: ahead of time.
Speaker 1: Well what about technology? What if the United States instead
Speaker 1: were to say, well, instead of putting our eggs in
Speaker 1: the in the basket of we're going to develop our
Speaker 1: our essentially our manufacturing base, let's just try to get
Speaker 1: to generative AI first. And is there can you get
Speaker 1: to a point? Of course? The other thing that's in
Speaker 1: the back of my mind as you're talking is does
Speaker 1: any of this matter because the United States has nuclear weapons?
Speaker 1: You know? And so does any of it matter at all?
Speaker 1: Because you know, you're in a scenario where the United
Speaker 1: States could and no one has, of course since the
Speaker 1: Second World War, But the United States could in theory
Speaker 1: simply say we're just gonna We're just gonna deploy our
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons. And that's essentially the great balancing Like, is
Speaker 1: there a fair argument there us?
Speaker 2: I mean, I just can't imagine the US would ever
Speaker 2: use nuclear weapons of war against China. To begin with, one,
Speaker 2: there is a far greater disincentive to use nuclear weapons
Speaker 2: than say, war gamers and nuclear theorists have understood that
Speaker 2: use it the nuclear weapon is a catastrophic decision. We
Speaker 2: have all these war games which end up in nuclear exchanges. Well,
Speaker 2: if you were looking at what should Russia should have done,
Speaker 2: according to a lot of wargames, Russia should have gone
Speaker 2: nuclear by now, all right, Once the Ukrainians attacked Crimea,
Speaker 2: they should have gone nuclear. Once the Ukrainians fought back,
Speaker 2: they should have gone attacked Crymea with nuclear weapons, because
Speaker 2: Russia has nuclear weapons and Ukraine doesn't. But what's interesting
Speaker 2: is Russia hasn't used nuclear weapons because the decision to
Speaker 2: do that is far more, far more difficult than people
Speaker 2: understood before. You are really changing so many things and
Speaker 2: probably destroying the international system as constructed. So if there's
Speaker 2: say a war between the US and China, and what's
Speaker 2: it most likely to be about, say Taiwan or the
Speaker 2: South China Sea, well sor it's not going to use
Speaker 2: nuclear weapons on Taiwan wants to take Taiwan, doesn't want
Speaker 2: to like radiate Taiwan because it's actually close to China
Speaker 2: and the whole point is to force reunification. So the
Speaker 2: Chinese and the Chinese, by the way, have a relatively
Speaker 2: low priority for nuclear weapons and their strategic arsenal that
Speaker 2: they do have nuclear weapons, but compared to say, what
Speaker 2: they could have built over the past thirty years, they've
Speaker 2: been on the whole going at a modest pace in
Speaker 2: building nuclear weapons. So it's hard to look at the
Speaker 2: Chinese and say they're going to use nuclear weapons, and
Speaker 2: that means the United States would have to use nuclear
Speaker 2: weapons about a war in Taiwan and a war in
Speaker 2: the South China Sea. I find that very difficult. I
Speaker 2: just can't see why they would do that. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's not an existential war for the USA. It's not
Speaker 2: US territory that's being attacked. The US using nuclear weapons
Speaker 2: for Taiwan right now, the US government isn't even pledged
Speaker 2: to fight for Taiwan. I think that's very important. The
Speaker 2: Taiwan is not a formal US ally that the US
Speaker 2: has promised to defend Taiwanese territorial aegrity. So I don't
Speaker 2: think the nuclear it's more that the US would just
Speaker 2: not fight. That's more likely than the use of nuclear
Speaker 2: weapons that the US just decides Heck, it's not really
Speaker 2: our area of concern, it's a long way away. China
Speaker 2: is much closer, China is more powerful in this area,
Speaker 2: so it's not worth it for us to go to war.
Speaker 2: That's a far more likely scenario than the use of
Speaker 2: nuclear weapons.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of curious, then, what the value of possessing
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons is. You know, if if they're simply not
Speaker 1: going to be used, then then what's the purpose of
Speaker 1: continuing to produce them at all? I mean, is there
Speaker 1: is it a technology that, because it is simply so
Speaker 1: powerful from a practical standpoint, is not usable in a conflict?
Speaker 1: And then why does why do we not talk about
Speaker 1: AI or artificial generative artificial intelligence the same way because
Speaker 1: we don't know the power yet? I mean, like, what
Speaker 1: what is like, what's the distinction there?
Speaker 2: Well, in nuclear weapons, they do play, I mean they
Speaker 2: have given Russian massive advantages in this war. By the
Speaker 2: Russians threatening the use of nuclear weapons for the first
Speaker 2: few years regularly. That led to much slower delivery of
Speaker 2: weapons to Ukraine and much less advanced systems so that
Speaker 2: Ukraine supporters were definitely deterred against giving Ukraine a lot
Speaker 2: of advanced weaponry, a lot of ranged weaponry because they
Speaker 2: were worried about a Russian nuclear response. So in fact,
Speaker 2: nuclear weapons played a great deal of advantage and have
Speaker 2: helped shape the war in Russia's interest far more than Ukraine's.
Speaker 2: And we can see that, we can see how that
Speaker 2: that really mattered that that because Ukraine didn't have nuclear weapons,
Speaker 2: in some ways it was treated like a second class citizen.
Speaker 2: So there's there's that they have the threatened ability, which
Speaker 2: is real. And the second thing is they are the
Speaker 2: ultimate you might say, territorial integrity weapon. That you there's
Speaker 2: a difference between a war in the South China Sea
Speaker 2: for the US than a war if California is attacked. Now,
Speaker 2: if California is attack then you might want to say, Okay,
Speaker 2: we need nuclear weapons. Is a deterrent to that. So
Speaker 2: I don't think nuclear weapons are are right. In fact,
Speaker 2: I think we're actually going to be going into, unfortunately
Speaker 2: now nuclear proliferation period. I think that's where we're heading
Speaker 2: because people have seen the advantages that Russia accrued through
Speaker 2: having nuclear weapons, and so many states are going to
Speaker 2: be considering that themselves in certain advanced to israel Is
Speaker 2: are crude through having nuclear weapons, and so I think
Speaker 2: there will be more a greater incentive for states to
Speaker 2: develop nuclear weapons in the coming years, and that's more likely.
Speaker 2: The situation is sort of the spread of nuclear weapons.
Speaker 2: Now AI. The interesting thing for AI, I mean I
Speaker 2: prefer in this case autonomous systems over AI when it
Speaker 2: comes to nuclear weapon or weapons as a whole. The
Speaker 2: next sort of real leap forward for autonomous systems is
Speaker 2: fully autonomous systems that you can just send out a
Speaker 2: mass and they will decide what to attack. If anyone
Speaker 2: can get to that stage, that is a massive advantage
Speaker 2: no one. The Ukrainians and Russians are by the way
Speaker 2: working on these systems, but they're still very difficult, almost
Speaker 2: impossible to program efficiently because you have to have the
Speaker 2: ability of the system to identify a target, make sure
Speaker 2: it's not being spoofed, to make sure it's an actual
Speaker 2: enemy target, and then actually decide to attack on its own.
Speaker 2: All right, But a lot of people working on this,
Speaker 2: and if different sides could actually come up with you know,
Speaker 2: and no one has, but if some side could come
Speaker 2: up with a fully autonomous weapon that they can make
Speaker 2: up in mass you know, the Ukraine's going to make
Speaker 2: aiming for eight million drones visit next year or something.
Speaker 2: You know, if you could make a million drones that
Speaker 2: are autonomously directed, that's a really empowerful weapon. You won't
Speaker 2: lose any soldiers. You'll just send these things up and
Speaker 2: they'll actually kill massive amounts of the other side. So
Speaker 2: I think that's the AI advantage of someone can take over,
Speaker 2: you know, real autonomy and make that in mass We're
Speaker 2: not there yet. There's issues of power and computing capability,
Speaker 2: but who knows if there won't be a breakthrough going forward.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I'm still wondering about the difference though, because
Speaker 1: I'm imagining a scenario where a country is able to
Speaker 1: develop autonomous weapons systems and send it out and that'll
Speaker 1: kill a million people. Now, but now it comes down
Speaker 1: to okay, well, now, what's the difference between executing that
Speaker 1: and executing a nuclear strike, which we've all sort of
Speaker 1: decided apparently as a civilization, as a human civilization is
Speaker 1: off limits, like.
Speaker 2: Because it's all radioactive, Okay, that's different, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a horrible the nuclear weapons have the
Speaker 2: long term poisoning that you can send out a million
Speaker 2: drones in Ukraine and you'll destroy one hundred thousand soldiers
Speaker 2: and many tanks and the vehicles and people do not
Speaker 2: react the same as nuclear weapons because it doesn't have radiotivity. Uh,
Speaker 2: and that seems to be the different I mean, what
Speaker 2: what what the difference is? Nuclear weapons is the opposite.
Speaker 2: It's not like targeting one specific thing, it's the destruction
Speaker 2: of a massive area and within that massive area now
Speaker 2: the really scary thing. And if you gave new made
Speaker 2: nuclear weapons autonomous, which was actually the the plot of
Speaker 2: the Matthew Broderick and Ali Sheety film War Games from
Speaker 2: when I was very young, was actually about autonomous nuclear weapons,
Speaker 2: and they set up a system where, you know, an
Speaker 2: autonomous an AI had the ability to decide when to
Speaker 2: launch or not, and that AI seemed to get spoofed
Speaker 2: and almost launched. Now. I don't know if anyone's going
Speaker 2: to go to that, hopefully not in my lifetime. And
Speaker 2: I would be desperately worried if we did go to
Speaker 2: autonomous nuclear weapons. But that's not to say it won't happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to an extent. It's also the one of the
Speaker 1: plots of you know, the Second Terminator film. So like
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot, there's a lot of science fiction
Speaker 1: that's play today. But what's sad is how close to
Speaker 1: reality some of the science fiction is coming. You talk
Speaker 1: about when it comes to the creation of technological strength
Speaker 1: and military power. This idea of relative power balances that
Speaker 1: I actually think is very very important for UNF and
Speaker 1: it's something I talk about a lot as I'm teaching
Speaker 1: as well. I wonder if you could explain what you
Speaker 1: mean by that and why that matters so much.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, let's start with it. One of the
Speaker 2: things that I wanted to write the book is I
Speaker 2: just didn't like this idea of the great powers. Right,
Speaker 2: let's start with that as a concept. I didn't know
Speaker 2: what that meant, what it meant to be a great
Speaker 2: power versus not a great power. It seemed to me
Speaker 2: that actually calling someone a great power wasn't an actual judgment.
Speaker 2: It was a prophecy. We just believe you are really powerful,
Speaker 2: so we're going to call you a great power. And
Speaker 2: we believe someone else is not so powerful, so we're
Speaker 2: going to say you're not a great power. So as
Speaker 2: a prophecy, but it was a prophecy that was imbued
Speaker 2: with sort of advantage. You were considered as people Realists
Speaker 2: would say, oh, well, Russia's are great power, and great
Speaker 2: powers therefore get an interest in what goes on in
Speaker 2: their borders, whereas non great powers while they just sort
Speaker 2: of have to suck it up and see. So I
Speaker 2: didn't like that classification all powers, of course relative. There's
Speaker 2: no absolute power. It's a question of what relative strengths
Speaker 2: different people did. So you have to look at ones
Speaker 2: and say, look at power as something that's constructed from
Speaker 2: these different variables, and different states will have relative strengths
Speaker 2: relative weaknesses within those different variables, I mean, and they
Speaker 2: can change. One of the things that, of course is
Speaker 2: no longer necessarily true, or might not be necessarily true,
Speaker 2: is for you might have argued for many decades being
Speaker 2: a democracy provided certain relative advantages and power when it
Speaker 2: came to war. They were committed, they saw it through,
Speaker 2: they had societal cohesion in doing that. Though now I
Speaker 2: don't know if you'd say democracies are that united. Democracies
Speaker 2: seem to be very divided now, and that is one
Speaker 2: area where people might take advantage of them. So you
Speaker 2: just have to look at power as relative and different
Speaker 2: elements mattering at different times. So I said, I don't
Speaker 2: have a theory to explain all powers. What I can do, though,
Speaker 2: in the book, and I hope I do, is provide
Speaker 2: a framework to say, if you want to see how
Speaker 2: states would interact, take a look at these variables in
Speaker 2: terms of production, leadership, society, political structure, and allies and
Speaker 2: sort of judge those in relative balance with each other.
Speaker 2: And then you get a very different view of who
Speaker 2: is powerful and who is not powerful if you take
Speaker 2: that kind of framework and the relative way. So I
Speaker 2: don't want to have too long an answer here, but say,
Speaker 2: the alliance question is fascinating because the great power idea
Speaker 2: seems to stress individual powers. Well, you know, I don't
Speaker 2: think there is such a thing as a great power.
Speaker 2: There are great alliances. The wars have been won in
Speaker 2: the nineteenth and twentieth century and the twenty first century
Speaker 2: by alliances, not individual powers. And the stronger alliances and
Speaker 2: these are cold wars and hot wars. Individual powers, be
Speaker 2: they Napoleon, France, Hitler's Germany, powers that act very much
Speaker 2: as individualistic powers and treat their allies with sort of
Speaker 2: disdain and don't cooperate with their allies. What's interesting is
Speaker 2: how poorly they actually perform. And so if we start
Speaker 2: trashing alliances, you're really weakening yourself in a way that
Speaker 2: I think people don't fully understand alliances matter. Well.
Speaker 1: I completely agree with you on that. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just hard to find an example from history where alliances
Speaker 1: didn't play, especially especially nineteenth century on Okay, i'll concede.
Speaker 1: You know that years ago, Okay, things may have been
Speaker 1: difficult and more difficult. The shifting sands of the Crusades
Speaker 1: I don't think are particularly apt contemporary example for us
Speaker 1: to look at today. But I completely agree with you
Speaker 1: that alliances are very important, and I wish the United
Speaker 1: States understood that a little bit more, but that's not
Speaker 1: the world that we live in right now.
Speaker 2: I just don't get why the US seems to be
Speaker 2: moving away from the alliances that constructed over eighty years
Speaker 2: and really supported US power. These alliances nat out of
Speaker 2: the alliances with the Pacific States have been huge elements
Speaker 2: of US power, but the United States just doesn't seem
Speaker 2: to value them presently in the way that they used to.
Speaker 2: I think this is something the US will regret. But
Speaker 2: as you say, that just seems to be the reality
Speaker 2: of where we are.
Speaker 1: Well, I agree too. You know, I think of sometimes
Speaker 1: sometimes I think of an alliance like an insurance policy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you do have to pay for it every month, but
Speaker 1: you are happy when you have it.
Speaker 2: Well comes absolutely, I think it usually. I mean, what
Speaker 2: an alliance gives you is so much more than just
Speaker 2: the military forces of your ally. It tends to give
Speaker 2: you better supply lines, international political support, raw materials, so
Speaker 2: many things can come out of allies, and it gives
Speaker 2: you an ability for to have longevity that it's not.
Speaker 2: You know, the United States didn't win the Cold War.
Speaker 2: NATO won the Cold War. It could be said it
Speaker 2: wasn't the United States just acting on its own. But
Speaker 2: we don't tend to often give alliances their due. And
Speaker 2: if the United States ends up losing its alliances, it
Speaker 2: will I think regret the day.
Speaker 1: Well, I think we agree on that. But let's talk
Speaker 1: about one of the technological examples from the book. When
Speaker 1: you're talking about the evolution of technological power, I want
Speaker 1: to talk about dreadnoughts for a while. I find this
Speaker 1: always really really interesting because the British by pursuing this
Speaker 1: essentially undercut the advantage to some extent that they have.
Speaker 1: The moment that that first or not hits the water,
Speaker 1: it makes everything else obsolete. So can you extrapolate, First
Speaker 1: of all, it's everybody what it is I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: because some people aren't don't know. And then on top
Speaker 1: of it, like why is this such a great example
Speaker 1: of how technological strength really changes the battlefield instantaneously?
Speaker 2: Well, the dreadnont I mean in before the First World War,
Speaker 2: naval power, which by the way, was widely recognized as
Speaker 2: I don't want to say the dominant thing, but certainly
Speaker 2: one of you one of the few areas of that
Speaker 2: would strategically determine the next war, was seen primarily in
Speaker 2: terms of the largest warships have flowed, which are battleships. Now,
Speaker 2: Battleships are different from aircraft carriers which come along later.
Speaker 2: Battleships have guns themselves, and they engage by hiring with
Speaker 2: their guns against other battleships or other warships at the
Speaker 2: time within miles, so you know they were within visual contact.
Speaker 2: Is how a battleship operated. The British, who are the
Speaker 2: world's leading battleship nation in nineteen oh five decide to
Speaker 2: actually build the most radical warship that they can, which
Speaker 2: is called the Dreadnought HMS Dreadnought. And what Dreadnought is
Speaker 2: is that takes the concept of a battleship which had
Speaker 2: a bunch of different guns, say four big guns and
Speaker 2: eight small guns or ten small guns, and the British saying,
Speaker 2: now I forget all that, we just want big guns.
Speaker 2: It's all about the heavy broadsides, and they create HMS Dreadnought,
Speaker 2: which basically has a four Dreadnought, eight large guns on
Speaker 2: each side garage capability, and what they've done is created
Speaker 2: a whole new classic warships. Some would say that the
Speaker 2: power of the Dreadnought is so extreme that and it
Speaker 2: can fire so many more heavy shells than any other
Speaker 2: ship afloat that it basically makes earlier vessels seem a
Speaker 2: bit tinker toy, like how are they going to stand
Speaker 2: up to Dreadnoughts. And it sets the stage for the
Speaker 2: Anglo German naval race before the First World War. Because
Speaker 2: what the British have slightly done is by creating this
Speaker 2: new generation of warship has said Okay, in the coming years,
Speaker 2: everyone's going to measure their naval strength by dreadnoughts. But
Speaker 2: they're not going to care about ear leaderships. They're going
Speaker 2: to care just about these dreadnoughts. So it's what you
Speaker 2: make from this point onwards that will decide it. So
Speaker 2: what they had actually done is gotten rid of their
Speaker 2: old advantage and older warships and basically given themselves a
Speaker 2: year and a half construction start. So they traded that
Speaker 2: earlier advantage of mass in vessels for the ability to
Speaker 2: make the first Dreadnought. And what they find, of course,
Speaker 2: when the Dreadnought happens, is that it reveals you might say,
Speaker 2: it separates the men from the boys when it comes
Speaker 2: to industrial technological power, because the Dreadnought is the most
Speaker 2: complex warship, and you could argue it's the most complex
Speaker 2: thing in the world that naval ships. Naval warships were
Speaker 2: the most advanced constructions in the world before the First
Speaker 2: World War. They had the most high tech they cost
Speaker 2: the most. I mean, I give an example that they
Speaker 2: cost something like the dread The Dreadnought class battleships cost
Speaker 2: a hell of a lot more than the Titanic. You know
Speaker 2: that these big cruise liners often seen as the most beautiful,
Speaker 2: largest thing, they were nothing in price compared to an
Speaker 2: actual warship. They cost. These warships cost as much as skyscrapers.
Speaker 2: One dreadnought class battleship by the end of the First
Speaker 2: World War cost as much as the Woolworth Building, which
Speaker 2: would have been the largest building in the world at
Speaker 2: the time. And what happened, very few states can actually
Speaker 2: make them, so it becomes that real test and it
Speaker 2: transforms the whole world naval balance. Really only three states
Speaker 2: can make them in terms of making them in numbers
Speaker 2: and with the industrial ability, and they are not surprisingly
Speaker 2: the three largest industrial technological states in the world. They
Speaker 2: are the British, the Germans, and the Americans. They're the
Speaker 2: only ones that can really engage in a dreadnought naval race.
Speaker 2: Before the First World War, once the dread dot comes out,
Speaker 2: earlier naval powers that were holding on the French, the Russians,
Speaker 2: you might say, the Austro Hungarians, they just can't compete
Speaker 2: in it, so they make a very small number of dreadnoughts.
Speaker 2: They're sort of being left in the dust by the others. Now,
Speaker 2: the United States chooses not to build dreadnoughts the way
Speaker 2: it could. The United States could have competed in the
Speaker 2: dreadnoughts maybe teeth Theodore Roosevelt wanted to, but he doesn't.
Speaker 2: But the British and the Germans then engage in a
Speaker 2: naval race about building dreadnoughts, and it is the intense
Speaker 2: naval competition going into the First World War. The British
Speaker 2: know if they lose that race, they've really lost the
Speaker 2: First World War, or before it's fought, if the Germans
Speaker 2: gained dreadnought advantage the British, the British have no strategic
Speaker 2: future because the Germans can then cut them off from
Speaker 2: the sea lanes if they destroy British dreadnoughts, and Britain
Speaker 2: will starve. So it's fascinating to see just the intensity
Speaker 2: that goes into that. But it just shows also the cost,
Speaker 2: as I said, to engage in the upper echelon technological
Speaker 2: industrial competition before the First World War, only a very
Speaker 2: small number of states can do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we could talk about how that idea persists today.
Speaker 1: And I think that that that truly is one of
Speaker 1: the most important takeaways, especially from the first chapter of
Speaker 1: this book, is to understand that when we talk about
Speaker 1: great power status, if we want to use that term,
Speaker 1: we're talking about who can really produce the elite technology
Speaker 1: in this case, because it's not everyone. As you point out,
Speaker 1: you know, this is not something that everyone is going
Speaker 1: to be able to do over and over again. And
Speaker 1: just get the exact quote. By the way, it's that
Speaker 1: you're right about how the construction of the cost of
Speaker 1: building the Queen Elizabeth the Dreadnaught is thirteen point five
Speaker 1: million dollars and that's equivalent to the sixty story Woolworth
Speaker 1: building which is on there. So it just kind of
Speaker 1: puts it in context for you that obviously not everyone's
Speaker 1: going to do it. I was kind of curious as
Speaker 1: I was reading this and listening to talk about what
Speaker 1: did the British know as they were constructing this first
Speaker 1: Dreadnaught that okay, this is going to change everything and
Speaker 1: that we are going to give up one advantage for
Speaker 1: another head start advantage or was that something that they
Speaker 1: only realized after the fact.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, it was done so quickly by
Speaker 2: the British and done by one really driven by one
Speaker 2: Admiral Sir John Jackie Fisher that I'm not sure they
Speaker 2: fully understood what they were doing. I mean, I think
Speaker 2: he saw this as an opportunity to do something spectacular.
Speaker 2: I think they also thought that they were so ahead
Speaker 2: in shipbuilding that what this might do is simply cement
Speaker 2: their advantages. The real shock for the British comes a
Speaker 2: few years after the dreadnought when they actually look at
Speaker 2: what the Germans can make and they're like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: we hadn't realized just what German industrial capacity was when
Speaker 2: it came to shipbuilding, and that Germany was able to
Speaker 2: build more dreadnoughts more quickly than they expected. So I
Speaker 2: think what it did is it isolated the focus on Germany,
Speaker 2: and the Germans actually are shown to be, because of
Speaker 2: their industrial technological light, a different kind of threat than say,
Speaker 2: the French and Russians had been, and that, by the way,
Speaker 2: the French and Russians before nineteen oh five were the
Speaker 2: great threat for the British. The Germans weren't the big
Speaker 2: enemy before in nineteen oh five, the French and the
Speaker 2: Russians were the great naval enemy of the British. But
Speaker 2: the dreadnot. Sort of makes the French and the Russians
Speaker 2: not look that threatening because they can't keep up, but
Speaker 2: it makes the Germans look uber threatening because the Germans
Speaker 2: can keep up. In fact, in some areas where the
Speaker 2: Germans are really excelling, which is high quality engineering in
Speaker 2: industrial machinery, the Germans could out the British were worried
Speaker 2: the Germans could outbuild them. I mean, I don't want
Speaker 2: to know how technical we want to get, but it's
Speaker 2: about actually the gun mountings that the turrets on these
Speaker 2: battleships were extraordinarily common. The most highest and the highest
Speaker 2: and the pinnacle of engineering before the First World War
Speaker 2: was probably a battleship turret because you had to turn
Speaker 2: something that weighed tons and tons and tons precisely quickly
Speaker 2: raise guns up and down. It had to have so
Speaker 2: many working parts, so building the turret itself was the
Speaker 2: most complex part of the warship. But the Germans could
Speaker 2: actually make turrets, maybe even a little more fast, a
Speaker 2: little more quickly than the British. So that's a real
Speaker 2: stunning thing for them to understand. So they didn't know
Speaker 2: what they were doing, but they quickly fed out. By
Speaker 2: nineteen o eight nine what they had done.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about aircraft carriers then, because I think
Speaker 1: most most military thinkers that I talk to now aday
Speaker 1: now will tell me, all right, the most the most
Speaker 1: technologically advanced piece of equipment in the world today from
Speaker 1: the military standpoint is the aircraft carrier. It's it is
Speaker 1: still the gold standard. And my question, you write in
Speaker 1: the book this US carrier dominance remains today. The United
Speaker 1: States is dominant in aircraft carriers, like, but I wonder,
Speaker 1: like is that a relative term? Are we still dominant
Speaker 1: in all cases? Or is it? Should we consider it
Speaker 1: visa v the sphere of conflict. So let's take Taiwan
Speaker 1: for example. Taiwan's a lot closer to China than it
Speaker 1: is to us, right, so that's going to give them
Speaker 1: an advantage in that extent. And also, you know, when
Speaker 1: I think about carriers, are they still dominant?
Speaker 2: Is the question I asked today. The thing about the
Speaker 2: dreadnoughts is they couldn't be sunk by anything but dreadnoughts.
Speaker 2: You're right, the submarines at the time hadn't reached the
Speaker 2: ability to really sink them. So you could look at
Speaker 2: dreadnought to Dreadnot competition and say, that's the problem that
Speaker 2: we would have with aircraft and air carriers now is
Speaker 2: large worships are vulnerable to much cheaper systems. So personally
Speaker 2: I am a real skeptic on the long term value
Speaker 2: of the aircraft carrier. I mean I wrote an article
Speaker 2: on the Atlantic which got a lot of stick not
Speaker 2: long after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: two saying things like tanks and large warships are heading
Speaker 2: towards obsolescence because they can be destroyed by much cheaper systems.
Speaker 2: So it's a balance of what can or can't destroy it.
Speaker 2: So that's why it's different than the Dreadnot, because the
Speaker 2: Dreadnot at that point couldn't be destroyed by anything cheaply.
Speaker 2: The problem that say, the US aircraft carriers would have
Speaker 2: fighting the Chinese is the Chinese can pump out anti
Speaker 2: ship missiles which are much I mean a fraction of
Speaker 2: the cost of aircraft carriers. You could have hundreds and
Speaker 2: hundreds of anti ship missiles not that expensive to build
Speaker 2: in relative terms, and the Chinese have anti ship missiles
Speaker 2: that can you know, they say now reach Guam. So
Speaker 2: where actually would the US aircraft carriers be survivable in
Speaker 2: that modern battle area unless you believe you can shoot
Speaker 2: them all down, you know, provide perfect air defense to
Speaker 2: your carrier battle groups. Then actually that carrier battle group
Speaker 2: turns from being an asset to a target. And I
Speaker 2: would have to say the carrier to me, You'd have
Speaker 2: to convince me that a carrier is survivable in the
Speaker 2: modern battle area to have that advantage. I am not convinced, say,
Speaker 2: in fighting China, that it is survivable personally, you know,
Speaker 2: I think we've we've partly seen it being used against
Speaker 2: people who couldn't fire back for the past forty years.
Speaker 2: So it's been used in the Middle East, it's been here,
Speaker 2: that's been used in the War on Terror. Well, that's
Speaker 2: against states that can't or or sort of organizations that
Speaker 2: can't damage the carrier, so that it seems useful. I
Speaker 2: would be very wary to make the judgment that the
Speaker 2: carrier still will be an effective engine of war in
Speaker 2: the next war.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to argue with you, by the way,
Speaker 1: because I agree with you. I agree with you very
Speaker 1: very much. I mean, if you're concerned at all in
Speaker 1: the US military that maybe the hooties can shoot something down,
Speaker 1: You're definitely gonna have those concerned about the Chinese. So
Speaker 1: we're on the same page.
Speaker 2: Ask you know, it's a good question, ask the if
Speaker 2: you have a US carrier battle Boombourg British British carriers say, Okay,
Speaker 2: how many incoming missiles can you shoot down? Can the
Speaker 2: other side fire more than that? If the other side
Speaker 2: can fire more than you can absolutely shoot down, Well,
Speaker 2: those carriers are probably going to be sunk or you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of them, and the Chinese can certainly fire
Speaker 2: a heck of a lot of missauce. So I just
Speaker 2: think it's it's something that we just have to you know.
Speaker 2: But it's militaries love to keep what they have, and
Speaker 2: they don't love to give up big. They love to
Speaker 2: keep big, big, powerful ships, and so there'll be a
Speaker 2: real lobbying to try and keep these ships for as
Speaker 2: long as possible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's very very true. I mean, the old
Speaker 1: ada is that the generals are always fighting the last War.
Speaker 1: I don't know how well it holds up, but I
Speaker 1: think of it from time to time. But we've talked
Speaker 1: so much about the tech chapter. I do want to
Speaker 1: move on and ask one last question I want to
Speaker 1: ask it about the leadership chapter. If you would give
Speaker 1: me one prime example from the book as to this
Speaker 1: is why leadership is critical when it comes to war
Speaker 1: and power, I think it would go a long way
Speaker 1: to explaining to the audience the value of this really
Speaker 1: crucial aspect.
Speaker 2: Well, Bick, I mean, every conversation eventually gets to Hitler.
Speaker 2: The Germans didn't have to go to war in nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty nine. Adolf Hitler wanted to go to war in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty nine. States do not behave the same This
Speaker 2: is the thing that drives me crazy say about realism
Speaker 2: and offense of realism is so many theories of state
Speaker 2: behavior that states sort of are the same. You know
Speaker 2: that all states are trying to maximize their power in
Speaker 2: an unstable world, so all states are trying to expand,
Speaker 2: where all states are trying to make themselves more powerful,
Speaker 2: but actually states pay very differently. Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty two. There was no Russian consensus to
Speaker 2: invade Ukraine. In fact, a lot of Putin's advisors clearly
Speaker 2: didn't want to do it. There's that very famous TV
Speaker 2: scene where he publicly humiliates his advisors who were skeptical
Speaker 2: about the invasion, some very nervous about it. But he
Speaker 2: wants to do it, so he for the forces it.
Speaker 2: He forces the issue to be done, so that the
Speaker 2: idea that somehow leaders don't matter. It matters in the
Speaker 2: United States, whether for Ukraine, whether Joe Biden is president
Speaker 2: or Donald Trump in these matter. And so we have
Speaker 2: to get a bit away from our theories which assume
Speaker 2: states are quite similar to say, actually, individual personalities matter.
Speaker 2: A lot of people don't like that because they don't
Speaker 2: like they call it, oh, with a great man idea
Speaker 2: of history. Well, by the way, it's not great. These
Speaker 2: guys are not great, and I think that's important. But
Speaker 2: if you don't look at the leadership of a country,
Speaker 2: you will miss out one of the fundamental areas. But
Speaker 2: I say, when it will go to war, how it
Speaker 2: will fight the war, and what is driving it strategically?
Speaker 2: These are people making decisions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I echo that thought process back. I understand the
Speaker 1: desire to get away from the quote unquote great man
Speaker 1: theory of history. I get it to a large extent.
Speaker 1: But you can't ignore the power that someone like of
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin or ajijingpaning exercises over their political system, and
Speaker 1: to ignore that, I think is absurd. Quite frankly, I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to be mean about it, but I do
Speaker 1: think it's that ridiculous.
Speaker 2: I mean, you would think any I mean a new
Speaker 2: any Russian leader would probably want to get out of
Speaker 2: this ridiculous more. But Putin can't. Here it's Putin who's
Speaker 2: invested this war in his own leadership, So you know
Speaker 2: this war is not in Russian interest, It's in Putin's interest,
Speaker 2: and so I think you have to understand his personal
Speaker 2: role in US.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's very true. And I talk about
Speaker 1: the war. I always talk about, well, you have to
Speaker 1: talk When you tell me who is this good for?
Speaker 1: I say, well, is this good or bad? I say, well,
Speaker 1: good for who? Because that's a huge difference whether the
Speaker 1: continuing conflict in Gaza is good for Israel or good
Speaker 1: for bb Net and Yahoo, I think are two different questions.
Speaker 2: Or even whether there is national interest. That's one of
Speaker 2: the things if we use this phrase national interest and said, well,
Speaker 2: what the heck is that? I don't see a nation's
Speaker 2: interest in many of these decisions. I see individual leaders interests.
Speaker 2: I see in many ways nations doing incredibly stupid things
Speaker 2: that I would say are against their interests. So we
Speaker 2: use the phrase national interest as if that is clear,
Speaker 2: but in many cases I would argue it's not, it's
Speaker 2: leadership interest.
Speaker 1: I think it's a great point, and I also think,
Speaker 1: because we're out of time, I think it's a great book.
Speaker 1: I hope that everybody picks up a copy of it.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed it. I loved at the setup of it.
Speaker 1: I loved every chapter. I thought it was very easy
Speaker 1: to digest and understand whether this is your first foray
Speaker 1: into foreign policy, war and so on and so forth,
Speaker 1: or you're an old hand at the till you know,
Speaker 1: either way you're going to enjoy it. And so thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on. It was a great conversation.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for having me.