From the River to the Sea: Ibaitik Itsasora (182)

Ibaitik Itsasora

Russia is not Enemy@RussiaIsntEnemy

“Einstein said, “I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” This statement reflects the understanding that a third world war could mean the end of civilization. Today, this realization should restrain us from taking extremely dangerous actions in the international arena that threaten our modern civilization.” – President Putin

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Their feet against the dirt, the jagged edges of the rubble, the chemicals spilled out onto the street, the contaminated water, garbage, and raw sewage.

Why? Simple – they cannot afford shoes. After 6, 7, 8 displacements, families leave with whatever they can carry. They walk long distances to find places to shelter. They have been through two winters and two summers, the rain and the dry heat. Babies became toddlers, kids became teens, and teens became young adults, all outgrowing their shoes in the process. And most families can’t afford food, let alone footwear, even though it is necessary to protect against injuries, illnesses, and skin infections.

Help The Sameer Project and our gracious partner in shoe distributions Small Steps raise fund to purchase enter boots. Each pair is only around $10 after commission fees, and they are available in all sizes to protect the feet of Gazas youngest and most vulnerable. Donate to our campaigns to assist:

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Jeffrey Sachs & John Mearsheimer: Spheres of Security to Prevent World War III

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntkc7AWujEU)

How should the security needs of great powers be balanced with the sovereignty of smaller nations on their border? The concept of Spheres of Security limits the activity of other borders of other great powers. Mexico has the freedom to engage in political and economic cooperation with any state, yet Mexico does not have the freedom to host Russian missiles or Chinese military bases. This is common sense and must be applied to all great powers, yet how feasible is such an agreement between the great powers? John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1982. Jeffrey D. Sachs is a world-renowned economics professor, bestselling author, innovative educator, and global leader in sustainable development.

Transkripzioa:

0:02

Hi and welcome to the program. Uh how should uh the security needs of a great power be balanced with the sovereignty

0:09

of smaller nations? Uh we see that states on the border of great powers

0:14

such as uh Russia and the US have historically had their sovereignty

0:20

violated which creates legitimate security concerns. However, we also see that these vulnerable states if they

0:26

invite uh another great power for protection that they risk turning themselves into existential threat to

0:33

the great power uh that neighbors them. So, this is something we’ve seen from Cuba to Ukraine predictably causing a

0:42

very fierce response and in this instance taking us toward a direct war

0:47

possibly nuclear war with Russia. So uh what is the solution to discuss this? We

0:53

are joined by two of my favorite academics, Professor John Merchimer and

0:58

Professor Jeffrey Saxs. And uh welcome to the both of you. Thanks so much Glenn. Thanks for

1:05

bringing us together. So often it’s suggested that the concept of a sphere of security uh could be a

1:13

solution. So uh I thought a good way to start would be for both to I guess

1:18

present your basic ideas on the sphere of security. So if maybe if we start start with you Jeffrey.

1:24

Well thank you very much. I was going to use the same phrase two of my favorite academics and um I I would also go

1:31

beyond that. I think John Mirshimer is absolutely the most accurate precient uh

1:39

foreign policy expert of the United States. uh so when he writes or speaks I

1:44

listen and learn uh and when he doubts what I’m saying I get concerned so uh

1:50

this is will be a very interesting discussion John has been right on so many things uh of course on Israel and

1:58

Gaza of course on the Ukraine war and another that brings me to this issue

2:05

also which is that in his magnumopus if I could call it that at least I consider

2:10

it your magnumopus on uh the tragedy of great power politics. Um you wrote in

2:17

the in the opening of that uh almost 25 years ago that while relations between

2:23

the US and China were uh calm. Uh this would not last. So this is another of

2:31

your predictions that was spoton uh that uh as China rose and you said it

2:37

precisely as China rose in power uh the clash between China and the United States was also I don’t know if you used

2:45

the word inevitable but you said it was going to happen and when I would have viewed that as an economist back in 2000

2:52

I would have said why why should it happen the rise of China is a good thing

2:58

and it will help the us and so no big uh trouble. Well, I would have predicted

3:04

wrong. You would have you did predict right. Uh but I have one problem and

3:11

that’s the one that brings me to this discussion. Your book is called The Tragedy of Great Power Politics and uh

3:20

it predicts that sad to say we’re going

3:25

to have clashes between the great powers and those clashes uh can be much more

3:31

than trade wars. They can be hot wars. And that’s what leads me to a proposal

3:38

that I’ve been writing about and thinking about in recent months

3:43

of a sphere of security as a useful addition and improvement over the idea

3:51

of a sphere of influence. So my idea also uh draws on your thinking John

3:59

which is that there are regional hegeimons but there’s no global hedgeimon and you also say I think

4:06

absolutely rightly and very importantly that there can be no global hedgeimons

4:12

that they’re too far away from each other for the United States to defeat China or China to defeat the United

4:19

States or any of the great powers to defeat each other. We may have slightly

4:24

different definitions of which are the great powers right now, but I would say that this is true of the four that I

4:30

count as great powers, the United States, Russia, China, and India. And

4:36

believe that we are not in a condition where there could be a global hegeimon

4:43

much less any of those four really defeating the others. So what’s the

4:49

problem? What’s the tragedy? For me, the tragedy is that a conflict could

4:54

escalate to mutual annihilation. And I regard that as a very serious

5:00

risk, not as a casual risk or not as a remote possibility. So I have to say

5:07

that a great deal of my thinking is based on the reality of the nuclear

5:13

age. If you put that aside, what I believe probably loses force,

5:21

although even with conventional weapons, a lot of people could die in a full war.

5:27

That would be horrific. So, I don’t think it’s only the nuclear question,

5:32

but for me, it is the nuclear question. I don’t want war between the United

5:38

States and Russia or the US and China or China and India or any uh pairwise

5:45

combination of countries for whom a war could lead to escalation

5:52

leading to nuclear war leading to global Armageddon. And I take very seriously

5:59

the doomsday clock of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which is a heruristic

6:05

and a graphic. But when it says we’re 89 seconds to midnight, I do not just brush

6:13

that off as empty rhetoric, I think it is a reflection of how dangerous the

6:19

world in fact is right now. And you and I know that the nuclear war could be

6:25

India and Pakistan. It could be Israel and Iran. There are many, many pair-wise

6:32

combinations that could lead to disaster. And one of the interesting things about the very powerful book of

6:39

Annie Jacobson uh last year called Nuclear War, a scenario is that the

6:46

first shot in her scenario comes from North Korea. But it quickly spirals into

6:52

a full nuclear war between the United States and Russia because of mistakes.

6:58

and mistakes when you have minutes for survival which is in our nuclear age is

7:05

really a terrible fact. Now what to do about that? My basic

7:12

proposition is that the big countries, the great powers should stay out of each

7:18

other’s lane and make a special effort not to be in each other’s faces. And

7:25

that with that level of prudence and secured even in treaty form in various

7:32

ways, but certainly secured through diplomacy, we’d have a chance to keep

7:38

away from each other. In basic terms, I really don’t think it would be a good

7:44

idea for Canada or Mexico or Cuba again or any Caribbean state or Venezuela to

7:53

invite China or Russia to establish a military base. And if they did, they

8:00

would quickly be reminded that we have a doctrine in the United States, the Monroe Doctrine, which goes back 202

8:07

years. That that’s a no no. and were prepared to defend it as we were and

8:14

came close to nuclear war in the Cuban missile crisis. My basic proposition

8:20

starts with the idea that what’s good enough for the United States should also apply to the United States. If we feel

8:27

that way about our own neighborhood, we should understand that Russia really feels that way about its neighborhood.

8:34

And China really feels that way about its neighborhood. As you know better

8:39

than anybody, John, we don’t take Russia’s concerns into account at all.

8:45

And you’ve been making that point for uh at least 11 years since 2014. And I know

8:51

well beyond that as well. And I would start with the golden rule. I’m just

8:58

fine with the Monroe Doctrine uh with a footnote to it. And I think that it should apply to everybody. So when I say

9:06

sphere of security, what I mean is stay out of each other’s neighborhoods with

9:12

your military. This is very important because there’s another term that is

9:17

widely used and widely disparaged. It has a long pedigree in international

9:22

affairs. I don’t know exactly what it dates to. You could probably tell us. Uh

9:28

sphere of influence. And sphere of influence is something different. Uh, it says stay out of our neighborhood

9:35

because I dominate Mexico and the United States and Cuba. Not only should you

9:41

stay out of that neighborhood, I get to pick the governments. Actually, I get to interfere because that’s my sphere of

9:48

influence. Now, that I don’t accept. And I believe that we should distinguish

9:55

between a sphere of security where the great powers respect the other great

10:01

powers and stay out of their lane as I put it or out of their face or out of

10:06

their backyard no matter depending on which metaphor or simile you want to

10:11

use. But when it comes to how the great power acts in its own neighborhood

10:18

there, I believe that the uh smaller countries do need a defense against the

10:27

depradations of the larger countries. But I also think that that’s possible to

10:33

a significant extent, not entirely, but to a significant extent on norms and not

10:40

on the presence of another great power on the border, which is so provocative

10:48

that it leads to the kind of disaster we have underway in Ukraine. Now, in the

10:54

United States, we’ve run this experiment actually quite well. Uh we’ve had two

11:00

Roosevelts as president. Uh the first Roosevelt was a true imperialist uh a

11:06

proud one. Uh and he had the Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. Uh and

11:14

if I could put it in the vernacular, if you don’t mind my saying so, it was we can kick the out of any country we

11:21

want in the Western Hemisphere. There are ours. Of course, we should speak

11:26

softly, but carry a very big stick, as he famously said. Franklin Roosevelt

11:31

said something. And by the way, they were sixth cousins, people should know, not brothers or first cousins or fathers

11:38

and sons. They were distant relatives, but they were actually close in that

11:44

Teddy Roosevelt was a role model for Franklin Roosevelt, who became president

11:49

uh roughly 33 years later. And in his

11:54

inaugural address in March 4th, 1933,

11:59

Franklin Roosevelt said that he wanted to have a good neighbor policy. And he

12:05

added specifics to it. We will not intervene in your internal affairs. We

12:11

will not overthrow you. We will not undertake covert regime change

12:17

operations that your wonderful student Lindseay Oor wrote about. so brilliantly

12:23

in her book on covert regime change where she documented 64 US covert regime

12:29

change operations between 1947 and 1989. Roosevelt said we won’t do it. And they

12:36

didn’t do it during the Roosevelt administration. And I think that that’s

12:42

not a unique period in history where a clearly dominant power exercised a a a

12:50

kind of self-imposed restraint for the long-term good. it another one which I

12:58

want us to talk about which is also discussed in your wonderful magnumopus

13:03

is the so-called confusion peace or the Chinese peace which was a long period

13:10

roughly from the beginning of the Ming dynasty 1368 to the arrival of the British in the

13:16

first opium war in 1839 in which there were almost no wars

13:22

between China the clear hegeimon of the region and the smaller countries

13:31

Vietnam, Korea and Japan. And so that is

13:36

a good neighbor policy over several hundred years. Of course, the Chinese

13:42

wanted respect. They wanted to be known as number one. So like you please Donald

13:48

Trump these days, they went and they cowtowed to the emperor. But the emperor didn’t demand anything of them. uh he

13:54

didn’t demand unfair uh terms of trade. He didn’t def de demand territory. He

14:00

didn’t occupy the other countries. He didn’t extract resources or slaves or

14:06

demand land for settlements or anything else. A bit of cowtowing and respect for the celestial

14:13

the celestial emperor was quite enough to keep the peace for hundreds of years.

14:18

So, in short, and I’ll turn it back over to you, Glenn, I want the great powers

14:24

to stay out of each other’s way, and I want them to give

14:29

recognize that it’s not right for the United States to try to put a military

14:36

base in Ukraine or in Georgia. It’s not right to try to arm the rimlands of

14:44

China. It is dangerous to do so. It’s not

14:50

necessary to do so. It doesn’t actually protect the smaller countries. In fact,

14:55

it makes them vassal states of the larger countries and makes them very vulnerable to manipulations of all

15:02

sorts. And now Donald Trump comes along and demands all kinds of tribute. That

15:08

is real tribute, not just pleasing him with smiles and praise, but money on the

15:13

table. Uh, so I would like the great powers to all have their Monroe Doctrine

15:19

mutually respected and to have their good neighbor policies mutually respected and to get on with decency and

15:28

goodwill. Final final point, a a sphere of security is not an economic exclusive

15:36

zone. Quite the opposite. So Ukraine could trade with Europe if Europe were a

15:43

little bit different from how it envisions itself right now. It could join the European Union. I just add the

15:49

footnote that since it’s militarizing so fast we or trying to we don’t know

15:54

whether joining the European Union is really joining a military apparatus or

16:00

not. But the point is I don’t want to rule out trade. I don’t want to rule out investment. I don’t want to rule out

16:06

tourism. I don’t want to to rule out normal relations. I want to rule out

16:12

missile systems, infantry, military bases, uh, and, uh, threat points that

16:19

can quickly escalate to war with a very short fuse because geographically you’re

16:25

right in the face of the other side. Uh, John,

16:34

thank you Jeff for those comments. Uh, and uh, it’s wonderful to be here with

16:40

two of my favorite international relations theorists on the planet. Uh,

16:45

and uh, I’ve been looking forward to this back and forth for quite a while now. Uh, I have enormous respect for

16:52

Jeff. I want to make that very clear. And furthermore, I want to make it clear that he and I agree on all sorts of

16:59

issues. We agree on the Israel Palestine issue almost completely, if not completely. I don’t know of any

17:05

disagreement, John. And we agree uh on Ukraine, Russia, uh

17:12

and uh I would note that I think that uh

17:17

expanding NATO into uh Ukraine was a catastrophic mistake. Uh so everything I

17:24

say in my subsequent comments, please keep that in mind. Uh, and I also agree

17:30

completely with Jeff that what we want to do, especially with regard to China and Russia, is avoid a great power war.

17:37

Uh, I think security competition is inevitable, as most viewers understand,

17:42

and as I’ll make clear as we go along, but I want to go to great lengths to make sure that that security competition

17:49

does not uh turn into a hot war between the great powers. Uh, also before I get

17:56

into the nitty-gritty, I want to say that Jeff has actually invented a concept here which is spheres of

18:04

security. Uh, he asked me at one point whether I thought other people had used

18:09

this terminology. Uh, and I actually, as I said in my response to him, talked to

18:15

Lindseay Oor, who by the way is writing a book on spheres of influence. uh and I

18:20

asked her whether she had seen any evidence of people talking about spheres

18:26

of uh uh of security and she said no and I think that’s true. So Jeff has uh

18:33

invented this new concept which in my world is very important and I’m sure

18:38

that’s true in his world. But nevertheless, I’m now going to spend a little bit of time trying to knock down

18:45

his concept of spheres of security. Uh

18:51

now let me just start off by telling you what I think Jeff is doing. And I don’t

18:56

think what I’m going to say here is controversial. and then I’ll point out what I think are the three main problems

19:01

with what he’s trying to do. Uh, in the realist world that I operate

19:07

in, spheres of influence are geographical regions that great powers

19:15

dominate. uh and uh they carve these

19:22

they carve these spheres out and they go to great lengths to keep other great powers out of the region. Uh and they go

19:30

to great lengths to manage the politics of the smaller states that are in the

19:36

region because they’re very fearful that one of those smaller states may form

19:41

some sort of alliance with a distant great power. Right? So this is a very

19:48

realist view of international politics. It spheres of influence are all about

19:54

competition. Now what Jeff is doing is introducing this concept of spheres of security.

20:02

And he wants a situation where great powers recognize

20:08

other states spheres, right? not spheres of influence, but

20:14

other states spheres or neighborhoods as areas that they should stay out of.

20:21

In other words, we should stay out of Russia’s backyard or their neighborhood or their sphere and they should stay out

20:28

of ours. And if that’s true, it in effect removes the incentives for us to

20:34

interfere in the politics of minor powers because we don’t have to worry about those minor powers forming any

20:42

kind of military alliance with the distant great power. So Jeff’s argument

20:47

is that if you get a situation where people recognize each other’s spheres,

20:55

their neighborhoods, and they give uh mutual

21:01

uh there’s mutual recognition of non-inference, you’re not going to interfere. That’s what it’s all about in

21:07

each other’s spheres. Uh you’ll have taken a major step towards a more

21:14

peaceful world. Now, let me just elevate this a bit and talk about what I think

21:20

he’s doing at a more general level. In my world, in the world of spheres of

21:26

influence, uh, which again is a very realist world, it’s basically a zero sum

21:31

world. And where one state gains, another state loses, right? Um, and this

21:39

is captured in the famous security dilemma. Just think about what the security dilemma says. The security

21:45

dilemma says that anything you do to improve your security decreases the

21:52

security of other states. It’s very zero sumoriented.

21:58

And that’s basic realism 101. And and that’s what is at play in Jeff’s

22:04

invention of this concept of spheres of security. He wants to move away from

22:09

that in particular regions as much as possible. And what he wants is a world

22:18

in which you have indivisibility of security

22:23

especially in these regions. And let me just read to you what Jeff says in his written work on this. This is what he

22:30

defines indivisibility of security as. one state cannot enhance its security at

22:37

the expense of another. In other words, he wants a world where one state cannot enhance its security at the expense of

22:45

another. That’s indivisibility of security. It’s very important to understand that is directly at odds with

22:53

the security dilemma, right? The security dilemma again says that anything you do to improve your security

23:02

diminishes the security of the other states in the system and he’s cutting

23:07

against that in a big way. So that’s what he’s doing at the general level. But again, when you go down to the

23:13

specific level, he wants to get away from spheres of influence because spheres of influence are where great

23:19

powers interfere in each other’s sphere and that drives them to interfere in the

23:25

politics of the minor powers in their region. and he wants to create a world

23:30

where there’s mutual agreement that you don’t interfere in the other side’s sphere, the other side’s neighborhood,

23:36

and you basically allow the minor powers in your sphere to be neutral states. You

23:43

stay out of their politics, to put it in Jeff’s rhetoric, you don’t behave like Teddy Roosevelt, okay? You behave more

23:50

like Franklin Roosevelt. Now, I think there are three problems here.

23:57

The first problem is I think it’s actually quite difficult in a lot of

24:02

cases to define what a sphere is. Uh Jeff talks about respective

24:09

neighborhoods. Uh I think if you’re talking about the Western Hemisphere or you’re talking about uh Eastern Europe,

24:18

Ukraine, uh the Baltic states and so forth and so on, it’s reasonably easy to

24:24

define u what a sphere is. But there are lots of places in the world where it’s

24:31

really very tricky. And just take East Asia today. uh if you’re interested in

24:38

granting the Chinese uh a sphere of security, what exactly are the

24:44

geographical boundaries of that that sphere? Does it include Southeast Asia?

24:51

Uh does it include Northeast Asia? Is it all of East Asia? Um you could make that

24:57

argument, but I think there would be a lot of states in the region, not to mention the United States, who would not

25:03

accept that. It’s much easier to accept the fact that Ukraine is a sphere for

25:10

Russia. No question about that. And you can even make the case that it’s easy to

25:16

do that for um uh for the United States in the Western Hemisphere. But I think

25:22

one does not want to underestimate this problem. And I’ll just give you one more example to illustrate what I’m trying to

25:27

get at. Let’s just take Western and Central Europe during the Cold War. Uh

25:34

obviously Eastern Europe is part of the Soviet Union sphere of influence and

25:40

obviously the Western Hemisphere is part of our sphere of influence. But whose

25:46

sphere of influence uh is central and western Europe? Uh

25:53

whose neighborhood is it in? And the answer is that it’s probably not

25:59

naturally a sphere of influence for either one of the superpowers during the

26:06

Cold War. And of course, they competed vigorously over Central and Western Europe in large part for that reason.

26:14

They each wanted to make it their own sphere of influence. But uh if you were to come up with some sort of uh mutual

26:21

agreement on non-inference, I don’t know how you’d treat Southeast Asia today. I don’t know how you would treat um uh

26:29

central and western Europe during the cold war. So it’s very tricky uh sometimes to define what is a sphere.

26:37

This brings us to the second problem which is related. Uh assuming that the world is not neatly

26:46

divided into a series of spheres of influence that are all obvious and where

26:53

you can reach agreement. That means that they’re going to be big portions of the

26:58

planet uh that are not covered by Jeff’s logic. They’re not spheres of security.

27:05

And the question you have to ask yourself is what’s happening outside Jeff’s spheres of security.

27:13

And he does not say you take realism or security competition or balance of power

27:20

politics, call it what you want, off the table in those regions or in those areas

27:27

outside his um uh spheres of security.

27:34

uh and that means you’re going to have security competition between the great powers outside of the spheres.

27:41

So the question you then have to ask yourself is whether you think that security competition is going to bleed

27:48

into the spheres of security. I think Jeff is basically arguing that

27:55

you you can wall them off. In other words, you can wall off these uh these

28:00

spheres of security and that will go a long way uh towards producing a more

28:06

peaceful world. And I understand that at first blanch, but then when you think about it, if you do have these two great

28:13

powers that are competing vigorously with each other around the world, except

28:18

in these um spheres of security, don’t you think that eventually those great

28:24

powers are going to look for opportunities to interfere in the other side’s sphere to gain advantage? because

28:31

you’re in a world where balance of power politics works in large chunks of the

28:38

earth. Right? Jeff is not take in other Jeff is not taking realism 101 off the

28:46

table completely. He’s not saying that his point about indivisibility of security applies across the board. The

28:53

security dilemma, right, and zero sum politics are still at play in certain

28:59

areas. And what I’m saying, as long as that’s the case, the incentives are

29:04

going to be there for the great powers to interfere uh in each other’s spheres and then

29:11

you’re back to spheres of influence. Uh and very importantly when you have a

29:18

world in which one side may have an incentive to interfere in the other

29:25

side’s sphere then the other side has an interest in

29:30

interfering in the other side’s sphere first. If you have a world where there are two

29:35

great powers who have spheres, call them spheres of security or spheres of influence, right? They’re in these

29:42

sphere, they have these spheres, right, that they dominate. Each side’s going to

29:47

want to eliminate the ability of the other side to dominate its sphere,

29:53

right? Uh and furthermore, you’re going to have very powerful incentives to make

29:58

sure you control the politics of the minor powers in that sphere. So what I’m

30:04

saying here is that I think Jeff, unless you can take realism 101 off the table,

30:11

you run the risk that realist competition outside of your spheres of

30:17

security will infiltrate those spheres of sec of of security and turn them into

30:24

spheres of influence. My third and final problem with your argument is uh uh you

30:33

believe that you can give mutual security guarantees. I I’ve used that language a few times and it’s in your

30:40

writings. It’s in your rhetoric and that’s completely understandable and it’s completely consistent with the story you’re telling. Um, in other

30:47

words, what you want is you want these two great powers that have spheres to give security guarantees, mutual

30:55

security guarantees, which is another way of saying guarantees that they won’t interfere in each other’s spheres. I

31:01

think that’s very hard to do in international politics. And the reason

31:07

is that uncertainty permeates international

31:12

politics. Um and furthermore, this is a very dynamic

31:18

world. Change takes place all the time. If you think about the world of the 1990s and compare it to the world uh

31:25

that we live in today, fundamental change is taking place. And you and I are old enough to remember the cold war.

31:31

If you go back to the cold war, then fast forward to unipolarity and then fast forward to multi-polarity today. Oh

31:38

my god, it’s just amazing how much change there has been in our lifetime. and we have not been on the planet that

31:44

long. U so change is constantly taking place and and there’s just all sorts of

31:51

uncertainty that goes along with that change. There’s uncertainty about intentions. Uh I mean who would have

31:58

ever predicted that Donald Trump would be the president uh when we were younger? We surely would have thought

32:05

that was unthinkable. But here we are and who knows who’s going to be the president 10 years from now. So when you

32:13

talk about the intentions of states, you know, you can never be too certain. Uh

32:19

and when you talk about capabilities, right, look at China. If you look at China in 1990 and you look at it in

32:25

2025, it’s like the difference between night and day in terms of capabilities.

32:30

Oh my god, this country is so impressive in terms of its economic might and now

32:36

its military might as well. Uh, and a lot of people thought that was impossible. They thought China would

32:41

grow economically but not turn into the extremely powerful country that it now

32:48

is that it would become a pure competitor of the United States. So what I’m saying to you is in a world where

32:54

there is lots of uncertainty which is the world of international politics

32:59

where uh change takes place all the time and very importantly where there’s no higher

33:06

authority that can make sure those security guarantees stick make sure that

33:12

if I give you Jeff a security guarantee and then violate it I will be held to account I will be punished that doesn’t

33:19

happen in international politics as you know because there’s no higher authority. So my argument would be that

33:27

given the limits of what a mutual

33:32

security guarantee means, states have very powerful incentives

33:38

to gain advantage whenever they can. Uh to get yourself in excellent shape for a

33:47

rainy day. uh things may go south in 10, 15, 20 years, uh who knows, but you want

33:55

to make sure that when things go south, right, that you’re in good shape. And

34:00

the best way to do that is take advantage of the other side. And if you could take advantage of the other side

34:09

its sphere, you’ll do it. And that just

34:14

sort of brings you back to a world of spheres of influence where great powers

34:20

uh are uh competing with each other not

34:25

only to build spheres, spheres of influence in my rhetoric.

34:31

They’re competing with each other to build spheres. Just think about the Cold War competition in Western and Central

34:37

Europe. and they’re competing with each other in terms of interfering in each other’s backyards. Just think of the

34:44

Cuban missile crisis. Just think of all those efforts that we made during the

34:49

Cold War to undermine the Soviet Union uh in its backyard. Um so I think that

34:57

your idea is excellent from a normative point of

35:03

view. I if we could get the world to work the way you want, that would be a

35:11

good thing. I fully understand that. Uh I fully understand how uncomfortable you

35:16

are with my notion of tragedy and how you would love to transcend the tragic nature of international politics as I

35:24

articulated fully understood. But my point is you can’t do that,

35:30

right? And I think if you look at the historical record, there is really no evidence of us succeeding at this. And

35:38

the reason is because I think the basic logic, the basic realist logic that

35:44

underpins spheres of influence almost always trumps almost always

35:50

trumps the basic logic that underpins your spheres of security. So, I’ll quit

35:57

there and turn it over to you Glenn and you Jeff to jump in.

36:02

Yeah, I’ll just uh yeah some quick questions uh for the both of you before you answer each other. That is uh the

36:10

the concept of sphere of security. It has some similarities to what uh President Medved proposed back in 2008.

36:17

That was immediately after the Georgian war. He had a proposal to avoid another one essentially Ukraine today. uh and he

36:24

but he called it a sphere of interest and his argument was that a sphere of

36:30

interest would be conceptually very different from a sphere of influence that is a sphere of influence suggest exclusive influence so Russia should

36:37

have exclusive influence in in Ukraine Georgia and he said this is not what we want or need but he said the concept of

36:44

a sec sphere of interest is different this is recognizing that along our borders we have yeah for historical

36:51

reasons privileged interests Though the difference was that they would not

36:56

demand exclusive influence. However, when foreign actors or other great powers operate along its borders in

37:03

countries like Ukraine or Georgia, they would have to take into account Russian

37:08

interest and also to accommodate uh Russia in those processes. And um so uh

37:16

again um this is uh imp and I would I would just say like implicitly it seems

37:21

that we already practice this in some instances. For example, one could argue

37:26

that Ukraine has the same freedom as Mexico because Mexico can, you know, form any economic partnership, any

37:32

political partnership, but certainly Mexico doesn’t have the freedom, as yet John suggested to join a military block

37:40

with the Russians or the or the Chinese. Uh but again um it seemed like this was

37:47

also common sense uh in the west though because if you remember back in 2008 the Europeans were quite concerned about

37:55

what happens if we start to mess around too much in Russia’s backyard. Angela Merkel argued that it would be a

38:01

declaration of war to pull Ukraine into NATO. Uh but since those days we kind of

38:07

moved a bit away. We seem to use um normative arguments how the world should be. Uh that is you know every country

38:14

has the right to join any military block it wants. Uh which is often confused with the recognition of how the world

38:20

actually is which is uh no great power would accept this and they would go to great length even war as we see to avoid

38:27

this. I guess my my my main concerns three concerns would be given that this

38:33

is kind of common sense. How would it be organized into a treaty as you say we

38:39

have to take into cons into consider your concerns when we are along

38:44

historically sensitive areas along your border. Um I guess the second would be also how do you prevent a sphere of

38:52

security to become denigrate into a sphere of influence?

38:58

That is uh if you say well uh NATO has no role in Ukraine because again this is

39:05

a threat to Russian security. Well how do we how do we prevent Ukraine from you know becoming an area of exclusive

39:12

influence of Russia dominance? I mean this could also be a concern on the American side. I mean, nobody

39:18

one recognize you can’t establish military bases along the American border, but also nobody would want to

39:23

see the US, for example, strip Venezuela of its resources. So, we don’t want how

39:28

do you prevent a sphere of security becoming a sphere of influence essentially. And uh the last point was

39:36

yeah, a bit what um John was suggesting. How do you prevent countries from taking advantage? Because again, we’re not just

39:43

pursuing peace. states are also pursuing security competition and for the

39:48

Europeans now one of the reasons I think they don’t want the war necessarily to end is because uh not just for the

39:55

Americans not to leave but also you know we having a proxy now we have hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians which we can

40:01

pretty much use at will to fight the Russians it’s uh it’s very attractive to have that much influence in the

40:08

neighboring country of a great power so anyways those were my main three thoughts so uh But I’ll hand it over to

40:14

you. Yeah. Uh well, there are a lot of issues on the table right now. Let me try to

40:20

take a few of them. First, uh geography still matters in war. Uh

40:29

the time that it takes for a drone or a missile to reach uh the uh capital for a

40:37

decapitation strike matters and is clearly seen to matter by uh the great

40:44

powers. The United States really did not want nuclear weapons in Cuba. Uh and

40:50

Russia really does not want uh the United States military in Ukraine. And

40:58

when they say it over the years, they have said it, we don’t want to be three

41:03

minutes away uh a missile strike. Uh we they they’re quite explicit about it.

41:09

One of the most destabilizing things that the United States did in my view is

41:15

completely underrated, but I think it probably loomed just about as large as anything in the Russian mind, though you

41:22

two would know better than I, and that is walking out of the ABM treaty in 2002

41:28

and starting to put anti-bballistic missile systems, the Aegis systems in Poland and Romania. To my mind, this was

41:36

not a small thing in the Russian thinking. This was seen, it’s claimed by

41:43

Russian security experts as perhaps setting up for a decapitation strike, as

41:49

really undermining uh the balance of power, as really undermining deterrence.

41:57

I credit that argument. I I don’t brush aside that argument. I think the United

42:03

States would go absolutely wild if Russia started building anti-bballistic

42:08

missiles along our rim. So I think while

42:15

I don’t have the maps to show you here, I think we could do much better than

42:20

we’re doing right now to understand that certain areas are just so provocative

42:27

and so risky. And I would put Ukraine very high on that list. And I would put

42:33

Georgia very high on that list. I would put the South Caucuses very high on that

42:38

list. I also want to recall that all the pubs of American neocon foreign policy

42:46

were the friends of Chetchna at the end of the 1990s. I doubt one of them knew where Chetchna really was, but they knew

42:53

it could annoy the hell out of the Russians. uh and so they wanted to use CCNA to weaken Russia and this is what I

43:02

say we need to avoid. So I don’t want to claim that there’s a a clear rigid line

43:11

but I also don’t want to say that the lack of precision means that the idea is

43:17

valueless. The idea actually has should have a military component. If there were

43:23

no military component to it, what I’m saying doesn’t really matter. I think

43:29

that it does matter though. The proximity of the military of the other side really does matter in my view. And

43:38

um that’s the the basic proposition. Uh it raises a hundred issues I’d love

43:45

to spend hours discussing with you, but why did the Soviet Union occupy Central

43:51

and Eastern Europe after World War II? Of course, the normal idea is well, they wanted to make a global communist

43:58

system. But I think the real reason was that they were afraid of Germany remilitarizing and the United States

44:05

refused a neutral demilitarized Germany as a point of principle and instead

44:10

establish NATO and the Federal Republic of Germany as a core part of NATO and at

44:17

German insistence but frankly I wouldn’t have gone with German insistence. I would have gone with the idea that

44:24

Stalin had and that George Kennan had that a neutral demilitarized Germany

44:30

would have been a great benefit for everybody. So, and that I think could have uh brought the cold war to an end

44:37

much uh sooner. Let me turn to the third category

44:42

problem that mutual security guarantees can’t last. Um, and I want to say a a

44:50

couple of conceptual things. I know time is short, but uh, we’re not in a zero

44:56

sum game. We’re in a negative sum game. Uh, when we have an arms race, when we

45:02

have a competition that could spill over to disaster. This is a negative sum game. As an economist, I’m always

45:10

desperately trying to find the efficient outcome. So people who know the prisoners dilemma game, the famous game,

45:18

the so-called equilibrium or the Nash equilibrium of the prisoners dilemma is not a zero sum outcome. It’s a negative

45:25

sum. Cooperation by both sides is better, but everybody has the incentive

45:30

to cheat. So you end up with a cheat cheat equilibrium or what they call the defect defect equilibrium. But that’s

45:38

not zero sum, that’s negative sum. It offends an economist. we’re all for efficiency. In other words, you can make

45:45

both sides better off by reaching the mutual accommodation. And then the endless question is, well, how do you

45:52

enforce that when there’s an incentive to cheat? And what game theory teaches

45:57

us is several different things. One is that if you’re in repeated play, it’s

46:04

more complicated than just oneoff cheating. Uh and so there is an

46:09

incentive to stick by a treaty. Not perfect, but it’s not zero either. Uh

46:16

and so uh the future casts a shadow over the decisions of the present. The

46:22

nuclear arms treaties actually have worked except when the US unilaterally walked out on them. That proves both

46:28

John’s point and my point. John’s point is well the US walked out on them. My

46:34

point is that the Soviets and the Russians actually obeyed them. Uh and

46:39

this is very important. When President John F. Kennedy was trying to uh

46:44

convince the American people of the partial nuclear testban treaty, he said, “Well, this is in Russia’s incent Soviet

46:51

incentive and our incentive to stick by it because it’s mutually beneficial. It’s a positive sum compared to a

46:58

nuclear arms race.” He convinced the Senate by an overwhelming majority and

47:05

the Soviets stuck by the partial nuclear test ban treaty. He also said something

47:11

very important that he was not looking for, you know, the the miracle age when conflicts go away. I think that we’re in

47:18

an nonstop struggle with the reality that John uh portrays. In other words,

47:25

of course there’s cheating. Of course no treaty will last forever. But let’s stay

47:31

alive the next 20 years. Let’s do the best we can. Let’s sign treaties. Try to

47:36

abide by them. Use the reputation effects. Game theory has established

47:42

that there are many many ways to have cooperation in an iterated prisoner’s

47:49

dilemma. Uh it’s reciprocity. Uh it’s indirect reciprocity as they call it

47:55

that you lose your reputation to others. uh it’s uh it’s collective punishment uh

48:02

which brings a higher level of governance above your head than the UN

48:07

Security Council putting on sanctions and so on. None of this works all that well, I admit. But it’s better to stay

48:14

alive and try these things and make them work as best we can than to just say

48:20

that we’re in a war of all against all almost as an inevitability. because I I

48:27

really don’t believe that and I think that the idea is

48:33

let’s do it now things will change someone will violate this let’s go back

48:38

to the logic of positive uh some games or negative sum possibilities and redo

48:45

it if we have to in the future so I don’t deny the difficulties but I also

48:50

think that both the formal game theory if you could say and historical

48:55

experience shows there are periods of peace that are actually constructed and

49:01

they’re constructed in part on treaties and mutual agreements and they last for a long time and then they don’t last and

49:07

then you have a big risk of war. I’m very worried that the logic that of that

49:15

yes it’s going to happen, war is going to happen. I just hate the nuclear

49:21

reality of it right now, which is that we’re I do believe in this concept of

49:27

the nuclear revolution that something’s really truly horrifically different now

49:33

in our reality. We really have a nuclear sort of damocles over our head. So we have to try even harder to get this

49:41

right. Then the third point that John mentioned which was number two in his counting which is that we would have

49:48

continued competition elsewhere and I think a perfect case of that would be

49:53

Chinese and US competition in Africa for example. Uh everybody wants cobalt,

49:59

everybody wants copper, everybody wants the resources. Everybody wants the votes perhaps in the UN whatever. And so

50:08

Africa is not in either America’s or China’s or Russia’s or India’s sphere of

50:16

security. It’s just far away and so there will be competition there. Now

50:22

what would one say about that? I would say yes that’s true. I would of course try to avoid it. My main uh logic on

50:31

that case would be to go to the Africans themselves and say get into that union

50:37

because you’re a lot safer in an African Union of 55 countries than being picked

50:43

apart by the major powers. But I think Africa is exactly the kind of playground

50:49

of competition that John is talking about. It’s real. It’s true. But it’s

50:55

much less likely to devolve to nuclear war and much more likely to it could

51:01

even be local skirmishes or even wars or coups or other things no doubt but I it

51:07

is unlikely to be the trigger of a nuclear war because uh even literally

51:13

there’s more time in space it’s not in in the other face. So bottom line for me

51:22

is we do have mechanisms of cooperation that are imperfect but are real. We

51:30

cooperate more than single period prisoners dilemmas or hawk dove games in

51:38

the jargon imply. We’re better at that because we know how dangerous they are.

51:45

being negative sum means there’s really an advantage to holding to a cooperative

51:51

outcome and we can use so-called trigger strategies which are if you break this

51:58

agreement I’d break 10 agreements in the future or other kinds of uh means

52:06

treaties literally or uh reputational costs to make a difference and just to

52:14

add one point on this. The West, the US and Europe thought, I

52:21

believe that when the Ukraine war escalated, Putin would be isolated worldwide.

52:28

And they spoke as if, oh, the whole world knows this man’s a tyrant. And of

52:34

course, it didn’t happen. A point that the three of us have been making constantly. President Putin is very well

52:39

respected. Thank you. Uh in well over a 100 countries in the world. Why? Because

52:46

he’s not seen to have violated norms the way that the west portrays him as

52:52

violating the norms. If you go to a leader in Africa or to a leader in Asia,

52:57

they say, “Why did the US provoke this war?” They don’t see this as the

53:03

unprovoked war that the US claims it to be or that Europe claims it to be. Putin

53:09

did not incur a high reputational cost from this war because in my view in

53:16

substance what he did was provoked as John Mirshimer explained to us all in

53:23

2014 and so in my view this is an example of reputation matters but Putin

53:31

didn’t lose reputationally only in the bubble of western propaganda

53:37

not in the worldwide opinion because it was seen to be a violation of a norm by

53:42

the US. Why are they so aggressive? Why are they pushing NATO? Why are they trying to be in Ukraine? Why did they

53:48

overthrow a government in February 2014? And on and on. And in that sense, it

53:54

seems to me this idea that reputation can help to secure agreements, not

54:01

forever, but better than just outright

54:07

we’re locked in struggle viewpoint is a real point and a constructive point and

54:13

we should use it constantly uh because we need to stumble forward generation to

54:20

generation without blowing ourselves up. And I very much love President John F.

54:27

Kennedy’s peace speech of June 10, 1963. I wrote a book about it because I like

54:32

it so much. And one thing he says I think is very important. He says, “Peace is a process, a way of solving

54:39

problems.” So it’s not a grand solution. It’s not the end of realism at all, but

54:46

it is a process that we should use to our advantage, to our mutual advantage.

54:54

I have a number of uh points I want to make to Jeff and to you Glenn. Um,

55:01

first of all, just on the United States and China competing in Africa, I

55:08

actually think the real competition will come in the Middle East because, as you know better than I do,

55:14

Jeff, the Chinese economy depends very heavily on imported oil from the Gulf.

55:21

And uh, the Persian Gulf has long been an area of great strategic interest to the United States. But if you think

55:27

about it, competition between the United States and China in the Gulf bleeds into

55:35

competition in that sphere of security that you want to create in East Asia.

55:42

Because if I’m the United States and I’m competing with the Chinese in the Middle East, I know they have a bluewater navy

55:50

that is coming out of East Asia going through sa Southeast Asia through the

55:55

straits of Malaa and heading, you know, towards the Persian Gulf. So what’s

56:02

going on in East Asia, especially Southeast Asia, has an impact on what’s

56:09

going on visa v the Chinese in the Middle East. So you can see where a

56:14

competition in the Middle East, which as you correctly pointed out is not naturally a sphere for either one of

56:22

those great powers, can have an impact on how the United States thinks about

56:28

interfering or not interfering uh in East Asia, especially in Southeast Asia.

56:33

This is uh the point that I was making before. Just another quick point. Uh, you talk

56:41

about there have been long periods of peace. Uh, I would not use the word peace, although I fully understand what

56:47

you’re saying, Jeff. My argument is when you’re dealing with great powers, you have constant security competition.

56:55

Sometimes that security competition is more or less intense. There’s no question about that. You’re not at each

57:01

other’s throat every day. But the name of the game is to make sure that the

57:06

security competition remains a security competition and doesn’t turn into a hot

57:11

war. I think all three of us are in total agreement on that point. And again, we live in a nuclear world and

57:18

the last thing we want uh is a real war. And basic argument is that it’s

57:24

important to understand and I probably shouldn’t say this but I’ll say it but

57:30

to accept my logic because it’s so powerful and you want to work around it.

57:38

In other words, what I’m saying is you can’t take my logic, my tragedy of great

57:43

power politics logic off the table. It’s just baked into the system and you want

57:49

to recognize that and you want to work around it. So that that’s the argument

57:55

that I’m making. I’m not making the argument that we want to go out and strangle the Chinese tomorrow and we just got to do more to hammer the

58:02

Russians. That’s not my argument. My argument is understand how this world works. Understand the tragic nature of

58:08

international politics and do everything you can to manage it. But John, if I

58:13

may, I don’t want to interrupt, but No, go ahead. In in a way, that’s what I’m trying to do, which is to say, okay, at least keep

58:21

a distance because you’re so prone to stumble into conflict. At least no, have

58:26

the sense. Don’t go to Ukraine and Georgia with NATO for God’s sake. Why don’t Americans understand that that and

58:34

we agree on that point, but I I say it as a point of principle. Stay out of

58:39

their neighborhood for heaven’s sake. Exactly. For your reason, which is it’s so easy to stumble into crisis.

58:46

Well, my respect, to put it mildly, my response is not

58:52

directed at you, but it’s directed at those people who thought we can we could and can expand NATO to

58:59

include Georgia and Ukraine. Yes. They do not accept my logic.

59:05

I do. I know. Okay. But I’m just saying they don’t. And if they my argument all along

59:12

has been if you understood basic balance of power logic you would not try to

59:18

extend NATO into Ukraine and into Georgia because in my rhetoric that is

59:26

clearly a wellestablished sphere of influence for the Russians and

59:32

they will fight to the death to prevent you from turning Ukraine into a

59:37

launching pad for missiles. right? That can hit Russia. So, we’re in we’re in complete agreement on that. But the

59:44

only point I’m trying to make to add a nuance is if we call it a sphere of

59:50

security in Ukraine, not a sphere of influence, we free ourselves,

59:57

I think, from a legitimate argument. But what about the Ukrainians? And my view

1:00:03

is they have the right to trade with who they want, but they don’t have the right to host whoever they want militarily.

1:00:10

That’s my point. And and that’s the difference. Okay. Well, I I as I said, I think that

1:00:18

getting mutual agreement Yeah. and making it stick is very difficult. I

1:00:24

want to make another point and I’m going to go to great lengths not to get into the weeds here but prisoner’s dilemma is

1:00:31

fundamentally different than the logic that I lay out and the reason is that

1:00:38

prisoner’s dilemma does not involve relative gains. In other words, it is

1:00:44

not concerned about what I gain as a prisoner versus what you gain as a

1:00:51

prisoner. Jeff. I only care about what Jeff does in the prisoner’s dilemma in

1:00:57

terms of whether it maximizes my utility. I get the best possible deal

1:01:02

for myself. So, I care about what Jeff does. So, I get a good deal. What

1:01:07

happens to Jeff in the end, I don’t care about, right? Whether Jeff ends up more

1:01:13

powerful than me or not, it doesn’t matter in prisoners dilemma. All I care about is my own utility to polit science

1:01:22

speak. My logic is fundamentally different. My logic is that I care

1:01:28

greatly what happens to Jeff, how much power Jeff gains as a result of playing

1:01:36

out the prisoner’s dilemma versus how much Jon gets. Relative power matters

1:01:42

greatly. Or to put it in slightly different terms, relative gains underpins my realist logic. Whereas

1:01:51

absolute gains, right? You only care about your own gains in prisoner’s

1:01:57

dilemma. So I think that prisoners dilemma is not analogous to what I’m talking about. Now let me make two other

1:02:04

very quick points. One is just on Germany. Uh I actually think that we got

1:02:10

the best solution. uh we basically cut it in half uh and we had the cold war.

1:02:16

Your argument is no that we should have had a neutral Germany. We should have let Germany uh reunify after the war. Uh

1:02:26

and it becomes neutral. It’s largely disarmed. Sort of like what we did after

1:02:32

World War I but without the punitive side. Okay. Without the punitive side. But the

1:02:40

problem is you cannot be certain what Germany will look like in 20 or 30

1:02:46

years. You cannot guarantee me that that

1:02:51

unified Germany even if it is neutral in 1945 or 46 whenever

1:02:59

will be neutral in 1996. And I don’t want to take a chance. So I

1:03:05

think we came up with the best solution. We just cut it into pieces. And by the

1:03:10

way, this raises the question of what you would have done with Germany in 1918. Knowing what we now know, what

1:03:18

would you do with Germany in 1918? It was an incredibly powerful state in

1:03:23

1918, right? In terms of latent power. Wow. And what do you do? Uh, do you

1:03:32

treat it in a benevolent way as Kane’s advocated and as you surely believe? Do

1:03:38

you bring it back into the so-called community of nations? You’ve just fought a war, a world war against this country.

1:03:45

Uh, if you could have divided it in half in 1918 and kept it divided, you would

1:03:52

have avoided World War II. So you want to understand that this inability of

1:03:58

ours uh to figure out what the future looks like gives states very powerful

1:04:05

incentives to behave in ruthless ways at the moment so that they stave off

1:04:11

disaster down the road. My final point I want to agree with you and this is the whole business of geographical proximity

1:04:18

and the idea of putting missiles in a place like uh uh like Ukraine uh and

1:04:25

even putting ABM systems in Eastern Europe. Those ABM systems by the way

1:04:30

could have easily been used to launch offensive missiles. Yes. Against Russia. Right.

1:04:36

Look, in the Cold War in the 1980s, the Reagan administration was in power and

1:04:42

we now know, we knew it at the time, at least most of us did, that we were itching to develop a first strike

1:04:48

capability against the Soviet Union. And given that they had a massive number of missiles, uh the way you did it was with

1:04:55

a decapitation strategy. And I remember people used to say, well, we won’t get

1:05:00

all of the Soviet missiles. some will be left and there will be, this was the phrase that was used at the time, a

1:05:06

ragged retaliation. And the reason that we needed Star Wars was to deal with the ragged retaliation.

1:05:14

But remember, we were talking about putting Persians and ground launch cruise missiles, medium-range missiles.

1:05:20

This is what the uh intermediate range ballistic missile treaty or missile

1:05:26

treaty the INF was designed to eliminate. The Soviets were glad to have an INF

1:05:33

treaty because they viewed those Persians and Glickhams in Western Europe

1:05:38

as part of a decapitation strategy. So you’re absolutely right that the idea

1:05:45

that we could take Ukraine and use it as a launching pad against Russia was a

1:05:51

prescription for disaster. And I think any good realist, and this includes the

1:05:57

three of us, understands that that was asking for big trouble. And needless to

1:06:03

say, we got big trouble. And then, of course, what do we do? We double down. We let Ukraine

1:06:10

launch attacks. Exactly. Against

1:06:15

Russia’s strategic nuclear weapons. Just think about that. Not only that, to take

1:06:20

it a step further, we allowed Ukraine to invade mother Russia, right? So, you can

1:06:28

fully understand why from a Russian point of view, this is categorically unacceptable for Ukraine or for Georgia

1:06:34

to be in NATO. Uh, as you pointed out, and uh I think from your point of view

1:06:41

uh and from my point of view and certainly from Glenn’s point of view, this was a remarkably foolish move.

1:06:47

May I just uh mention one point and then I hope we could do another show to discuss Germany in 1918 and Germany in

1:06:54

1945 because it would be absolutely phenomenal. But uh the point I would

1:07:00

make is that uh your model of relative power uh is perfectly uh of course

1:07:08

rigorous and and logical but it it is still an equilibrium of a negative sum

1:07:14

in the sense that think of each side playing hawk or dove of course in the

1:07:20

traditional way and because relative matters both sides end up playing hawk.

1:07:26

Uh, and that’s the point in this uh in uncertain world. If the other side plays

1:07:32

dove, great. And if the other side plays hawk, you better play hawk. And that’s

1:07:37

very much true in your sense as it is in the prisoners dilemma. And the point I’m

1:07:43

making is that hawk hawk is worse for both than dove dove. The relativity is

1:07:51

the same in both cases. One is an arms race or open war. In other words, costly

1:07:58

uh waste of resources either moderate or disastrous. And the other is uh peace

1:08:07

based on a mutuality. And your realist position fully uh

1:08:16

rigorous is that the hawk hawk position even more than in a prisoner’s dilemma

1:08:23

of the typical sort is the equilibrium of that because how could you dare play

1:08:28

dove? And so getting to dove dove, you say, is so hard and in an uncertain

1:08:34

world and no higher authority and changing circumstances. And I’m saying even in that situation,

1:08:43

we can figure out how to make Dove Dove stick for a while because Meterik or

1:08:50

Bismar did it for a while until Vilhelm II kicked Bismar out or the Chinese, the

1:08:57

Japanese, the Koreans, and the Vietnamese did it for a few hundred years. uh

1:09:04

we can figure out ways to just back off enough so that we’re not maximally

1:09:10

hawkish. Uh and we agree on the specifics in in Ukraine, for example, and I just want to generalize that uh in

1:09:18

terms of clarification. It doesn’t sacrifice Ukraine to say you

1:09:24

can’t join NATO because you can trade with us and we’re going to invest with you and Russia’s not going to be able to

1:09:30

claim that it’s their sphere of influence.

1:09:36

But they are right to say don’t put your missiles there. But let me just tell you

1:09:42

what I think the fly in the ointment is. Let’s assume that you and I are two states, right? And we’re both satisfied

1:09:49

with the status quo. The last thing we want to do is aggress against each other or anybody else. We like the status quo.

1:09:57

Okay. And your point is that in that world to behave as two doves is the

1:10:04

smart thing to do and it would be ridiculous for us to behave as hawk hawk

1:10:10

because we’re both satisfied with the status quo. So let’s be doves, right?

1:10:16

My point is I cannot be sure that you’re a dove and you can’t be sure that I’m a

1:10:24

dove. And even if you Jeff can be sure today that I’m a dove, you cannot be

1:10:30

sure in a year or two years or three years that I will remain a dove. Right?

1:10:36

It’s the intentions that are so tricky here. I can’t be sure

1:10:42

what your intentions are, and you can’t be sure what my intentions are. So, the

1:10:49

safe thing to do is for me to assume that you’re a hawk. And the safe thing

1:10:56

for you to do is to assume that I’m a hawk. And what that ends up is creating

1:11:03

a tragic situation. I know, but it’s not safe. That’s the problem. That’s the tragedy. Yes, that’s

1:11:10

a tragedy. I’m not arguing that it’s safe. That’s not the argument, right?

1:11:15

It’s it’s it’s a terrible situation. But, you know, I I would just point out to you, Jeff, in the Cold War, right,

1:11:22

when if you’re in the intelligence world and you were looking at the Soviet Union, this is in the Cold War, we

1:11:30

actually got to the point where we could really assess Soviet capabilities very well. you know, you can pretty much see

1:11:36

everything that they had, overhead satellites and the like, right? What we

1:11:41

could never agree on, and we had huge debates that raged to this day, is

1:11:47

whether or not the Soviet Union was a statu quo power, as you describe it. I think your description, by the way, of

1:11:53

what Soviet intentions were at the end of the cold at the end of World War II is correct. the last thing they wanted

1:12:00

was a world war with the United States. Yes. After what had just happened to them. Uh they had more than enough

1:12:07

security at that point in time because they had effectively solved the German problem again as you were saying. But if

1:12:14

you go back to what the Americans were thinking at the time, there was a huge dispute in this country. Lots of people

1:12:20

thought like you and I do, but lots of people thought the opposite that they were primed to conquer all of Europe.

1:12:27

They wanted world domination. This is what communism is all about and so forth and so on. So the point is we couldn’t

1:12:34

tell what their intentions were. And the end result is we looked at their capabilities and we assumed worst case

1:12:41

about their intentions. And again this is the tragedy but they should have taken our course.

1:12:46

That’s the point. Well uh we have to start to wrap this

1:12:52

up. Uh I just thought to finish on a positive note I just let me comment why I think this sphere of uh security is a

1:12:59

very well I I I like it as an idea and that’s because uh in Europe all our efforts to develop a panuropean security

1:13:06

architecture that is based on the Helsinki Accords from 75 to the charter of Paris for a new Europe in 1990 to the

1:13:13

establishment of OC in 94. We always introduced two principles which were in conflict. The the one was indivisible

1:13:20

security. So one should not enhance security at the expense of the other. But the second is everyone has the right

1:13:26

to pursue their own foreign policy. Now this to some extent is contradictory

1:13:31

because let’s say Ukraine should have the freedom to join NATO if it wants to.

1:13:36

However, then of course this breaches the principle of indivisible security. But you know these two things they they

1:13:42

can actually be harmonized. That is if uh you have a sphere of security

1:13:47

essentially this is the approach because then the indivisible security becomes a responsibility of the great powers that

1:13:54

is no one is forcing NATO to to roll into Ukraine. This is uh again it’s a

1:14:00

responsibility of the great powers and uh I think this is where NATO failed with its you know open door policy and

1:14:07

you know NATO expansionism was almost like a law of nature and what happened then is the Russia NATO disagreements to

1:14:15

create a common Europe or conflict was transitioned into a Russia Ukraine conflict in instead because now the

1:14:21

Russians could make a deal with NATO. Now they have to stop the Ukrainians and uh I think uh yeah for for this reason

1:14:28

we have war because NATO ignored indivisible security and then Russia ignored the sovereign rights of uh uh

1:14:36

Ukraine to do what it wants and um anyways I think therefore all our ambitions to have this panuropean

1:14:41

security architecture. it kind of misses one component. And I think the sphere of security can help to well fill this in.

1:14:47

But again, I’m um I also consider myself a very hardcore realist, but also with

1:14:54

some uh idealistic inclinations. So I I would like to hope that there’s some uh opportunities to

1:15:00

reform there. Uh anyways, any final thoughts before we uh wrap up? No, just how grateful I am always to

1:15:08

learn from both of you. uh and uh I hope we can come back and talk about some of these other issues because they’re

1:15:13

really fascinating and the history is very important because it helps to inform very much our way of

1:15:20

understanding the present. Yeah, I agree with that completely, Jeff. And I would also note that uh if

1:15:25

you think about the future of Europe and the fact that the American pacifier appears to be disappearing and that the

1:15:32

European states are going to be on their own more than ever, uh the whole question of how that plays out is

1:15:39

directly relevant to what we’re talking about here today and and actually even has um some relevance uh in terms of

1:15:48

what happened with Germany in 1918 and after 1945 just all sorts of big

1:15:54

questions of an empirical nature or a historical nature floating around out

1:15:59

there that have lots of relevance for the future. So, we should definitely talk about those issues.

1:16:04

Great. Thanks again. Great to be with both of you. Thanks so much. Bye all.

1:16:10

Byebye.

oooooo

Geure herriari, Euskal Herriari dagokionez, hona hemen gure apustu bakarra:

We Basques do need a real Basque independent State in the Western Pyrenees, just a democratic lay or secular state, with all the formal characteristics of any independent State: Central Bank, Treasury, proper currency¹, out of the European Distopia and faraway from NATO, being a BRICS partner…

Euskal Herriaren independentzia eta Mikel Torka

eta

Esadazu arren, zer da gu euskaldunok egiten ari garena eta zer egingo dugun

gehi

MTM: Zipriztinak (2), 2025: Warren Mosler

(Pinturak: Mikel Torka)

Gehigarriak:

Zuk ez dakizu ezer Ekonomiaz

MTM klase borrokarik gabe, kontabilitate hutsa da

oooooo

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