WW3 Debate: “We’re On the Brink of Global Collapse” - #1144

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There's a lot to pay attention to right now, given how many global conflicts are happening, shifting political powers, populist uprisings. What do you think's the biggest threat to global peace? At the moment. The biggest threat to global peace, we're about to see in our midterm elections. It's the internal divisions in the United States. Uh those internal divisions have been building for the last five years. They've been normalizing political violence in the United States. Uh they've led to the rise of leaders in the United States that find the use of political violence increasingly normal. That's how we got to the Iran war. And so that um uh a lot of the specifics that we see, Chris, around the world, uh I think it's very important to understand um

There there is a hub. Uh the United States is the most important, the most powerful country on the planet, and what happens internally in the United States can have ripple effects around the world. And so I think it's really important to uh not just talk about all the other issues, but to see The United States is at the center of many, maybe not all, but many of those issues. And what's happening internally in the United States. This is increasingly becoming a house divided. What do you think? I think the United States right now is the greatest threat to global peace.

Because for the past thirty years Pax Americana has been dominant. And now with the rise of other powers, the United States refuses to cede its global hegemony, and this is why we're seeing conflicts all around the world, specifically in the Middle East. I don't see a global conflict coming. Many regional conflicts are coming. Because the global system is restructuring itself.

There is not really a global system at this point as there was During the European Imperial Age or During the Period of uh after World World War Two called. So rather than looking at a confrontation.

Like nuclear war between the United States and Russia. We're looking at various smaller Sometimes the United States gets involved. But as to the international conflict.

I lived through the nineteen seventies. It was intense in the United States. But it was intense of a very small war. Mm-hmm. So the idea that there's a global system at this point. It's emerging.

But because it's not emerge yet. Many of the wars are gonna be regional. Right, so you still see is it right in thinking that Ukraine Iran, whatever happens, Taiwan, China. That these things are separate conflicts rather than part of a single global conflict. Well, I think that we may the three of us disagree about whether or not there will be a World War Three, a true unified global war.

I just want to point out that Right now we're experiencing multiple regional conflicts. They are linked in some ways, but together they are wrecking. the global economy. Major effect.

On the global economy. uh what's happening in Russia, what the u the Russia Ukraine war, what's happening in in the Iran uh conflict. And If we had a conflict with Taiwan and China on top of that.

Even if Those remain three separate arenas, Chris? Uh, we might be heading to something far worse than the nineteen thirties depression. So for the world. So uh this would have blowback effects on Africa.

So We can usefully talk about whether we should expect a true world war three uh scenario, but we are already seeing global consequences. Um in ways we haven't seen since World War Two. We did not see these global consequences in the Vietnam War. For example, uh, we did not see these global consequences with the two what we called forever wars, Iraq and Afghanistan.

We're seeing them now, and that, even if it doesn't become army on army, Chinese army on American that kind of force on force. This is already An amazingly consequential for our wives. I think what's really important to appreciate is that Yes, these conflicts are regional.

But there's a power orchestrating these conflicts, and that is the United States. So um it is United States that unilaterally, without any reason, decided to attack Iran, which start the war in the Middle East, which is right now threatening to destroy the global economy. The war in Ukraine can also be blamed be blamed on the United States because um Um I've onto the war.

In twenty twenty, uh twenty twenty two. Uh Putin and Zelensky would have come to an agreement, but Boris Johnson flew into Kiev and convinced Zelensky to fight this war. Right now in um in South East Asia, the United States is withdrawing But we're seeing Japan being re militarized, and we can imagine that Japan is being supported by the United States. In fact, if you look at the national defense strategy, which was published by the Pentagon uh early this year, it calls for the United States withdrawing from the global stage and creating balance of power in all in each different region. Europe, um the Middle East, and uh

uh Southeast Asia. So you can make the argument that the United States is intent on maintaining its global hegemony. But it recognizes that it doesn't have the military power, the political will to control the entire world as it did in Paris Americana. So it is um basically offloading its responsibilities to its regional allies. NATO in Europe, uh Israel in the GCC in the Middle East, and Japan in uh Southeast Asia. See, I agree with about seventy percent of what he's saying. I I believe well, I think you're really on it. And um I think that the parts I really agree with are that American decisions have been at the tap root of both of these. wars the war with Russia and Ukraine and uh the Iran war that we're experiencing right now. Where I may disagree is I think that they're very much um a function of

uh decisions and decision makers that have been evolving given our internal divisions in our country. I think that we shouldn't look at this as simply a product of a global cycle of empires. I think we need to see that for the last 10 years, we have seen and 10 years, not just Two years an incredible rise of political violence in the United States. That is being driven, Chris, by major social changes inside of the United States, the shift from uh a white majority democracy to a white minority democracy for the first time in our 250 year history. The shift of uh massive wealth to the top one percent over the last several decades. These are having amazing consequences inside of our uh government. It's producing a set of priorities and leaders which are very different. So we are now seeing leaders that find political violence normal.

And what this is what you see with Uh President Trump. both in his first term and now increasingly in his second term, and also some by uh democratic leaders. You're also seeing because of these internal, Chris I think uh not sufficient attention to the consequences of these global decisions. So I don't believe that we have uh since over the last ten years devoted the amount of attention to the consequences of uh issues with Russia and Ukraine, issues with Iran. I think that and I think that because I've advised every White House from 2001 to 2024. I know something about this degree uh of of attention. And I am um

Uh overall. uh observing Not no attention. I think that's not quite right. And and I don't mean that they're they're they're truly uh trivial, but nonetheless Um the uh uh the idea that we would uh continue to support NATO expansion and and uh um uh make uh Ukraine a much, much stronger country even after Putin uh takes Crimea in two thousand fourteen without serious attention to the consequences. I think this is this is uh there there's just not there's there's too much we need to see

As we're becoming internally absorbed. We're having we have less cognitive space. For the thing that I often do. Strategy. in the rest of the world. And that lack of cognitive space has not just been a function of one president, I think it's been a function of multiple presidents. And I think that's really what uh maybe it's not a disagreement. It's what I would say uh maybe an extension or I would add to what you're saying. I guess People keep debating whether America's losing its grip as a world superpower.

Twenty years from now. Do you think America is relatively stronger or weaker than it is? I would say it's not losing it. It's wanting to lose it. The past eighty years was not been a happy time for the United States. For the United States.

The fundamental principle. Come out of the sea. From Long time. Keeping them away from the Atlantic ports.

was essential in this. This draw drew us into Creating NATO. Creating a Economic system.

Based on Bretton Votes and all these other things. That's the tremendous printure on the American economy. Even recently we had to bail out the Japanese. In a way. So

What I see the United States is doing Okay? And these things are not gracefully done ever. Is pulling back From its vulnerability to the world. Not engaging it.

Now the world is not Seeing it that way. Because Various things happened. Okay. One.

The Cold War ended in Ukraine. The Russian could not Take. Ukraine after five years. This is not a military threat.

So no, the Cold War is obsolete. And the idea is That so the American Desire.

Yeah. It was predictable. Was to disengage to the extent possible. Well what DM Americans are doing.

is not increasing their power around the world. It's trying to remove its vulnerability from the world. And the world feels betrayed. So the United States is no longer Doing it. It no longer wants the role it had for the past eight years.

Mm. But if we look out twenty years, Chris, and you ask the question, Well right now we're twenty six percent of the world's GDP. China seventeen percent of the world's GDP. So we still are number one, at least in terms of the numbers. And uh but if we look out twenty years, China has a tremendous advantage going forward, but it's not just the slope of the curve. Um A big thing is happening, Chris, and it's been happening for the last twenty years, which is we are losing the next industrial advance, the next economic revolution, and we're losing it to China. And we're not even noticing it very much, Chris. So

In June of two thousand twenty five, while we were bombing Fourdeaux, I spent two weeks in China touring China's advanced industries. Uh this was in uh Beijing, um and this was in Wuhan, this was in Hang Chou, this was in Sen Chen. Uh most people go to China. First of all, they stopped going after Covid, and most people who went tend to go to Beijing and Shanghai. I want to see the actual advanced industries on the shop floor. From from my point of view. China's in terrifically difficult position. Economically. Well let's let me just explain you can challenge it, George, but let me explain what I mean.

What I saw on that two week trip, I thought I was gonna go and look at sort of Awi Baba, see how they were a little bit ahead of different I came away with a completely different impression. It was the most important tri I've been I was in China in 1979, so I had some experience here. What I saw was not just uplifting of individual companies, Chris, uplifting whole cities. Woo Ha. whole cities. So not just the advanced sector, the healthcare sector, the construction sector. Uh when you look at what's happening in the cities, we're we're we're getting 10% of the idea of what's happening inside of China in the New York Times and in the media.

February. I want to organize a trip to go back to China, Chris. If you want to come, I think you'd find this really interesting because it's what's so I was born in Erie, Pennsylvania. I went to the University of Pittsburgh in the Rust Belt. That's a if you go from Chicago to, say, Pittsburgh, that's about and down to St. Louis, that's about fifty million people, give or take. Well, that's about the half moon crescent from Wuhan To Sen Chen. Not identical, but pretty close, as just because you know that area. Very it's a huge country, but that crescent we're talking about. What China has done, and literally in about uh 10 or 12 years, it has some roots in the 90s, is they have uplifted those in that entire 50 million. People, Chris, they integrate. Why are they ahead? They're not just building companies, their universities are tightly producing the BAs, the MAs, the PHDs. Why can't we produce more Patriot missiles right now? Why can't we just have an operation warp speed?

We don't have the workers to do that because we're not integrating the advanced workforce with the advanced with also advanced health care. And by the way, advanced driver's license. China's cities. Is that China. The rural areas of China are profoundly important. It is the second largest economy in the world.

In terms of per capita income, it's seventy first. The fundamental problem that China has Is it could not consume. The product. It produces.

Right now, she just a few weeks ago announced a plan to Make work. com demands possible in the rural regions. Which are very different from the coastal regions. And so

When we look at China. We look at a country. It has an economy too much, too large for it to consume. Yeah.

With the United States being the largest importer of Chinese goods. So when you take a look at China and you take a look at How do you The summits are evolving. And what's happening there.

We see a very d I see a very different China from you. I see the cities in marvelous shape. The the coastal areas and South China. But that's not the majority of China. The Chinese still have the rural area where

Mao Chi Tung went to raise the A Rebel Arby. On a long march and brought it back. And that's what it did. Now

When you look at it from a together point of view on a global basis, it is the second largest economy. When you look at it its ability to sustain itself It heavily depends on exports. And what are the things that it can't consume what it produces. It can't. It can't possibly. It has tr tremendous capabilities. But its per capita income is very low.

So you you see a situation emerging has emerged several times before, particularly with the United States. United States was a China Mm-hmm. of the nineteenth century. That is to say.

First. The civil war took place. After that. Industrial rising.

And exports. To Europe. So when you take a look at uh the The relationship between the The economic issues and the political issues and so on and so forth.

The nature of the United States. is to simultaneously have deep divisions. And be able somehow to Manage it, okay. So when I look at these events and I lived through the seventies

But this loathing of various patches. If you were not anti war and went in university, You did not come out of that university frequently. So I'm not so impressed by the tensions within the United States. I don't know the period where they were there. We survived the Civil War. Which

Well it's really a a g big discussion, okay. So I see United States is constantly Dynamically. Evolving. So if I was to categorize at least what I'm hearing so far

Uh from your side. China very impressive. Not just the upper trend, but the the integration, this almost uh like systemic blending of education, in with industry, et cetera, et cetera. Yes. And Internal strife inside of America. That's worrying. This could cause fracture and fissure.

From your side. China Well, it's got some problems. Look at the rural area of this. Yes, you've got uh uh great development inside of the cities, but those are uh pockets that are relatively localized, that makes it less im Also you've got this high export dependency because you can't consume what it is that you produce, and America's been through shit before. It can probably put up with it. First of all China is vulnerable. Because it depends on these exports.

Assume that the other economies. Folder. Where they can buy it. Political shift. The Chinese get into trouble because they must have access to the global market.

The same way the US had to indeed. Early part of the century. Yeah. So when we look at all these things, okay. We say, Okay, China has evolved dramatically. It is not solved as far, uh

P Fundamental problem. Which historically was there. The difference between the coastal regions. Sounds trying to.

And the interior. This is what led to the revolution on the Mao Cha Tung. Yeah. And he didn't solve that problem. Jen, give me your perspective. We've seen two two relatively diametrically opposed insights here. Give me your Yeah, so I am completely surprised by this, but unfortunately And my wife's gonna get very angry at me for this, but I I'm gonna have to agree with George on on this issue.

Um, so let me explain my reasoning. So George mentions the vulnerability of American Empire, and that's the US dollar as a global reserve currency. The American people do not want this system. Because essentially the world can become a parasite on America, right? So If America has a global reserve currency, then um then uh America's capital markets are completely free and open and liberal. You cannot control capital flows and this caused tremendous problems. For example, wealth inequality and financial financialization, the hauling out and the American manufacturing sector, okay? That's one issue. Another issue is America needs to guarantee global peace and security. So that's why its army is f spread throughout the world.

Um that's why it's It's um Pentagon budget is uh twenty dollars a year. So the United States assumes a lot of cost. And who benefits from this arrangement? Well, two forces. Wall Street, right, because of a financialization. uh but also the chinese commerce party because as storage points out China is an export

Dependent economy. In fact, you can make the argument that what China is doing is free riding. On the American system, right? Because because when Chinese ships Експорт деру. to the Middle East, to the United States. It's it's been protected by the US Navy. Not this Chinese Navy, the US Navy. China China doesn't even have a blue water navy. It's the Americans that protect. the seas and when Chinese do exchanges when they trade it's for the US dollar.

So um the China's completely dependent on Pax Americana. And so the idea that as Pax America is falling China will rise makes no sense. Um and I mean the reality is, as George points out, China lacks domestic consumption power. Its people do not spend any money. Because its people do not have any money. All the rich people are going where? United States. That's problem number one. There's a huge problem that we haven't discussed, which is the demographic issue where China's aging rapidly because of the one cho policy. China has no workforce. That's why China is spending everything on robotics and on semiconductors and on AI because China doesn't have the productive force it needs to carry it f through the past twenty for for the next twenty, forty years because of the aging crisis. So China's in a world of trouble. But where I disagree with a bigger world of trouble than America?

Oh yeah, absolutely. Because regardless of how you feel about the United States right now, United States is a self sufficient Resource rich. economy with a very vibrant energetic young population China has the opposite problem, which is that it is extremely extremely export oriented. Um, it's a very poor country, very limited resources, it's very dependent on global supply chains, and what's breaking down right now are global supply chains. Tell me if this sounds familiar. You train regularly, you eat reasonably well, you feel fine, but you're just kinda going off

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Sush. Bottom wisdom. So let me just respond in this way. I had exact their image. Ten years ago. Exactly their image. So I first went to China in nineteen seventy nine, then I didn't go back until two thousand twelve, ten trips from two thousand twelve to two thousand fifteen. Then I went back in two thousand twenty five.

In two even as late as two thousand fifteen, I had exactly their image. Here's what happened in this trip, and this is what really are the core things that I'm seeing. Um number one. The Aoi Baba, BYD Xiaome, I didn't just go and look at the shop floors. I met with their executives, they showed me their growth plans.

Um, it's not just that they have been spurting up since COVID. So all this building massively development since since COVID. It's that since two thousand seventeen, essentially the Trump tariffs that were first put on China in 2017 by President Trump, there's been a dramatic uh emphasis To disengage the uh development of the next generation of industries from China from America. So you can't buy. the cutting edge BYD vehicles here in the United States. Uh you can't buy the next level Teslas of Shaume here in the United States. And they're not trying to sell them here. Also, the whole issue with Walmart and um so forth, that's the last generation of what's occurring. They showed me their growth models. They are still export oriented, but they're not export oriented to Europe, and they're not export oriented to the United States, although they take a little crumbs on the on the edges. It is built around Asia. They showed me their growth models they're really counting on are in Asia. Now True, in the short term here, there's some problems with the Iran war and of course Asia. So we talked about that with the actual top VPs, the exact the top executives, and they explained to me that the bottom line is

The more the United States gets sucked into a quagmire with Iran, yes, they will run into some short term problems, but just like COVID, when they came out of those problems of the supply chain problem in COVID, they jettisoned ahead. They thought They were likely going to get ahead. And if you look at the numbers of what the BYD production has been this year in two thousand twenty six, uh what the numbers of Xiaomi has been, uh the numbers at least we can see, uh they're not as good as they were hoping, but they're about at the same level as the last year. So China's not called. Chinese growth rate. It's down to a little over four percent. It was previously five percent, and his greatest price was a fifteen percent growth. And I'm saying this is the wrong measure. This would be like measuring America's growth rate without noticing electrification in the eighteen eighties, which starts in this really small way. America has been great because since eighteen eighty, we have led

Every technological revolution since eighteen eighty. The AI revolution that we're right going through right now. We hope we're going to come out ahead. The stock market's certainly betting on that. I'm telling you, what I saw in China, it's not just about Deep Seek and Awebaba. They're building the core infrastructure to be able to beat us. If I may let me ask you this question. Yeah um so right now Japan is remit rematurizing v rapidly.

Yes. And it's building an alliance with India. The Philippines and Australia. The quad, right? It seems to me in the long term the intention is to embargo China to cut off supply chains. With Ind with India coming into it, Indonesia coming into it, and so on and so forth. So from Japan all the way to India. There is a T. A blockade. That's right. So what is China's response to to this possible embargo? So as I look out here, um, first of all, if you're quite right that there's a military possible consequence here. Um, I think President Xi's question to Trump was exactly the right question. Which was um are you, President Trump, gonna fight here if there's a conflict between China and Taiwan?

And President Trump said he wouldn't answer that question. Because if you uh yes, you have the quad moving forward, but if you take out the United States from that equation, as I think we are heading in that direction, then this is just a very different competition between um uh the quad and china. They might fight. They might decide to fight just the quad and China, but uh and both will go down some, but this is not a sure winner for the quad over China. So I think this would be a very different and notice This is not China provoking the war. That's right. This is this is outsiders attacking China. And what is what did Mao what what happened with Mao? This was a a gigantic revolution inside of China to foreign conquest. So this is not the talk about unifying China if I could. The Taiwan situation has profoundly changed. Inside of Taiwan.

The population is a With the KMT. The Quang Tung. We should just have a

In favor of Reuniting with Try it. In some sort of way. That was about half the population.

The other half the population is very much opposed to it. From the Chinese point of view. Taiwan was a very great danger. Because between Japan and the Philippines, Taiwan was a blocking force. Mm. The first island chain. Yeah.

Yeah. That's the first I've been chain. That they want Taiwan opened. Okay. United States does not have a fundamental interest

On Taiwan. So the idea Is We see that she is coming to the United States. And he had said.

this week we're going to reach many great agreements in the United States. One of the forecasts I had was that this year China and the United States would come to a fundamental understanding with each other. Why? China must have that understanding. The United States is not a trivial

Partners. Okay, it is the number one trading partner. And it is the only military threat. To China. Therefore accommodation is rational for China.

And these talks have been taking place. So what I'm seeing in China Is a tremendous amount of instability in the political system. The economic system is moving ahead properly. But China.

has a fundamental problem. Because as I said, it must have a decent relationship with the United States. And the United States has said to it, we cannot be dependent on China for its imports. If it is also possible to go to war with us. That happened during the Arab Royal Embargo. We were dependent on the Arabs. The Israelis went to war and they cut a bar embargo. It was a disaster in the nineteen seventies.

So if we are too dependent on a country. With whom we have hostile relations. That's unsustainable. So you're suggesting that the US and China are going to become friends soon? We're not going to be a friend. They're not going to be lovers. They simply need each other. And here I agree. So my whole point was not that we must then have conflict with China. In fact, when I was in China, I was giving talks uh arguing that given everything I just said, I think that China uh can rise peacefully with the United States. That's my big position. And it's because when I look out at the growth of power, what is power today?

Power is modernization, technological development. We see that right now with uh the drone with what we're experiencing with Iran. We're not losing to Iran because of Iran's four percent of uh it's because of We're behind in understanding the second precision revolution. What's happening, Chris, is others are evolving. We're used to thinking we, the United States, are on the cutting edge of everything. everything. And what we're learning is we're not on the cutting edge of everything. Now that doesn't mean we have to go to war against China. I was also impressed President Xi said basically asked Trump about the Thucydides trap. Are you are we going to go to war? So I believe these are the right questions. I don't think we're heading to a war with China if we're smart, because what we need to do is develop our industrial base. We need to develop and modernize internally. This is a choice. Back to your question. Will we be Replaced as the world's number one in twenty years.

This is a choice. If we keep fighting these horrible quagmires, if we stop if we don't develop internally here, if we don't catch up to China. The answer is yes. Where we're at at the moment. looking at your cr respective crystal balls. Which country do you think is the most powerful in the world in twenty years time?

The United States is the only global power. China's a regional power. Push force into the Atlantic and so on. Okay. We can. So we're reaching a world that's very different. That doesn't mean that the United States is in decline.

Okay. Certainly I agree with you on many of these things, but I don't think it's fundamental. to the position of the United States. It is the United States. Occupied a position in the world. Which cost it a great deal in many different dimensions.

And they're backing off from that. reduces tensions within the United States and so on. It's I I was thinking that there would be some sort of Csaw probably between China and the US, but maybe there was another player that I I hadn't thought about. Uh it sounds like both They they're in flux. So my position is it's up to our leaders who's gonna be number one in twenty twenty. There's three dimensions of global power.

I would look at dimension number one is uh the country's GDP is a fraction of world product. Right now we're twenty six percent, China's seventeen. But if you look forward here, this could easily flip flop in 20 years. Uh the second is Allies. How many friends do you have in the world? Well, look at what's happened with the terrorists. Look at what's happening with uh Canada right now today. What is happening is in the middle of this gigantic war that we're having with with with uh Iran, we are deciding to alienate uh friends, well who's likely to pick up those friends? It's going to be China. And then issue uh number three is our technological base, our growth. If the world economy goes over a cliff with our forty trillion dollars in debt I think the idea that we're going to invest our way out of this in the AI I I'm just look, maybe that will all work out, Chris. Okay, and we're gonna be fine with forty. I'm laughing my way through the apocalypse. I don't know about you. Well, I'm just trying to explain. These are the problems I want to I'm worried about. Just one second, let's see it. Let's hear it from Professor J. So um I think

that these past thirty forty forty years of Pac Americana Happen unique in human history. Never before had we had we had a power that could span the entire globe. that had a gl for for the first time we had a global reserve currency. Um, never before um had one nation been able to dictate the global economy. So I think Pax American has been unique in human history. And I think we're reverting back to the mean, which is more regional dominance. Um so the way that I examine how nation states

Um thrive or die is using three basic criteria, which is gonna be very different from yours. But first I look at energy. Basically how Hardworking are the people. Second thing is openness, which is

How open are people to change? How How are they how much are they willing to absorb new ideas? And the third is cohesion, which is how much do they value their own neighbor. Use if you if you actually use these three metrics, okay? Energy uh openness and cohesion, you find that in each region, one nation will dominate above all else. So in East Asia, it would not be China that dominates, it would be Japan that dominates. it will be in uh in Europe, it will either be Germany or Poland, one of the two.

Um, Germany is more powerful, but Poland is more cohesive. And and y you can tell me next week what what what you find. It's more dynamic by and it's more in danger. It seems. And that's what it's more energetic. Energy. That's right. And then in in North America it's it's the United States by far. United States is so dominant that it the United States could like keep on electing Donald Trump and that's it. Fortunately, unfortunately that is the case for the United States. And then in the Middle East, I believe it is Ish real that is most dominant.

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Upgrade your business and get the exact same checkout that we use at Newtonic with Shopify. You can sign up for a free trial period by going to the link in the description below or heading to Shopify.com slash. Modern wisdom. That's shopify.com. Slash modern wisdom. Interesting on uh the US's ability to put its both of its feet in its mouth and continue to be a preeminent power. Does that help to Smooth over some

cracks and inefficiencies and instabilities inside of America. The momentum, just the sheer size of it, means that there can be uh issues burbling below the surface that don't get seen for a little while and then eventually the sort of lid gets blown up. Obviously you're talking about civil unrest. I don't know how likely you think civil unrest proper civil unrest's going to be due to this. So Um Uh, I have coming out, Chris, uh a book called Our Own Worst Enemies. America in the age of violent populism. Uh it's pre order now on Amazon. It'll be available in just a couple of weeks to be in your mailbox. Um and I've spent five years studying this problem. Because my work on political violence, what I do, Chris, is I look at where is the biggest threat. to America.

the biggest threat. So it changes from time to time. And what I started to see after the George Flo tests, which were uh mostly peaceful, but what does mostly peaceful mean with the George Floest when 28 million are protesting and seven percent are riots and political violence. That's millions of people who are unrest. Um and then also on January sixth, this is the first time in our history that we've had a violent mob supported by the president of the United States to try to uh stop the constitutional process of changing presidential power in the United States. Then we've had the rise of uh political assassinations and assassination attempts. Uh I could go on and on. This is, I would say, um akin to the 1960s. I agree we've had some periods of violent populism before. The book covers that. But what's different is it's on both the right and the left. The number one fact today is tens of millions of Americans on each side. I don't mean total. Each side of the political spectrum support political violence for the goals that they also support. That's why you're getting uh support for very aggressive ICE tactics that uh against democratic protesters, even after ICE kills those democratic protesters.

We had a civil war. In that civil war we ripped ourselves apart. And then came together again. There's a strangeness in the United States. Most countries that have that kind of civil war.

Could not accommodate itself again. We are historically when we take a look at these various periods in history. At each other throats. It is one of the dimensions of the United States which is based on the fact That the we're an invented country.

Invented not only in the sense that the Constitution was invented. But that the population was invented. There was no Other nations have histories of culture and so on.

We constantly came together. So one of the things that the United States is very good at From the founding. Is being deeply divided. Because as John Adams said.

One third of the people were for the revolution. third of people were against the revolution, one third of people didn't care. Mm. That was his his reading. So I see the divisions in a very different way than you do. Well I think it's good enough to say that we survived the civil war because six hundred thousand people died in the civil war. So let's just be clear. We are forty trillion dollars in debt. The idea that sure we'll just have a civil war and no problem, we'll get out of this just

This is the showing how he we've got to go to the civil war standard to to say we can survive a civil war. No, we will not be able to be anything like we won't even be a regional power. I disagree profoundly. There's a cultural nature. China has a culture. It has a history. It has an evolution. Britain has a history and so on, okay? Thank you. When you take a look at Well you used to.

What Shut up, dude. All right. Shut up. Okay. When you take a look at the And American history. You measure yourself.

And your state of your company. Against something. Otherwise you're constantly in a feeling of This has never been so terrible. Mm-hmm. So you have to find a sense of proportion on what goes on.

So when we look at The act the division in the United States between World War Two. Because And the interventionists. We have constantly

Approach the world deeply divided. Okay. I saw that mentioned the civil war because that was the most extreme example. But even the w the Revolution. was not a joint.

Universal. Uprising. It was deeply divided. And my wife's family. had to move to Canada.

Because after they went to the thing, it's like a high price to pay. One of the things about the Americans We're going to hell. We have the ability to overestimate tremendously.

And underestimate the tremendous strengths. And this is where I have to uh respect you. I disagree with you. I look at the past As a measure.

Of The culture. And it's Flexibility and viability even under pressure. Do you think America is a country permanently in strife internally, or is the something unique about the modern world.

We are heading to violent populism and we're in the middle of violent populism. Can you explain what the difference is, please? Yes. Civil war is where you have armies going toe to toe. Truly we're this is um battle after battle. So we start to see the movies on civil war. These are, I think, the uh extreme uh scenario. And we can talk about extreme scenarios. I hope we would never get there. So I don't find them acceptable, but I don't think that's really what our future is. Um I think our future is more we're more in danger of becoming Turkey. For example, where because we have normalized political violence, it starts to become normal for the president to absorb more and more powers under the presidency. And then also to sort of hide things. So This isn't just happening with President Trump. During um President Biden's presidency, uh we had open borders, essentially. We had 10 million plus come into the country, and yet this was all the image was, oh no, there's nothing happening at the border. It's literally not happening. Uh and that was um uh by a democratic president. So what I'm trying to point out, Chris, is that we're in a world where because political violence is becoming normal and and Georgia's finding well sure, it's just okay. It's just another day in America.

This is what I'm t this is what the book's about. It's about how political violence has become normal for tens of millions Americans for the first time since the nineteen sixties. And this has consequences because it's on both the right and the left, and we're coming to an election. And this midterms, we already have, um, and I was just on many podcasts, we have people who are who are who terrified that President Trump is gonna seize ballot boxes. Now, why would they be terrified of that? Because President Trump said he was gonna do that in February. And so so this isn't just coming out of nowhere. And and my and when I'm on those podcasts, I'm trying to say, yes, that may happen, but we will hold ourselves together, and here's how we're gonna do it. So I'm not trying to tell you we're heading to civil war. I'm also not trying to tell you civil war would just be fine. What I am trying to tell you is uh the way you're going to see um Uh powers absorbed by the federal government, uh things like use of martial law and so forth is because political violence has become normalized. The normalization, which is the difference on your own. Right. So I think like the best historical analogy for the United States right now is the Roman Empire.

And the critical turning point uh for the Roman Empire is uh maybe 150 BCE. And this is the Third Punic War. This is before the Third Punic War starts between Carthage and Rome. At this point, Carthage is basically um destroyed and it's just an ec economic center. It's no longer military power. And there's huge debate in the Roman Senate about what to do with Carthage. Uh Cato the Elder demanded the destruction of Carthage. Um because Carthage would always be a threat to Rome otherwise. Everyone else was like, No, guys, we cannot destroy Carthage because if we destroy Carthage.

What will happen is we will have no external enemy and we will start to tear ourselves apart. Cato the Elder won and they destroy Carthage in the third Punic War and then right w what happens afterwards? Complete civil strife. And after the civil war starts, right, with um starting with um Um Um um i it it starts about hundred BCE, um s call the social war. But it never really stops. It it so social war then leads to the rise of uh Julius Caesar, which then leads leads to the rise of I guess a Caesar, which then leads to all sorts of wars.

So that's a problem with United States. United States is probably the most violent country on this planet, like by far. There are more there are more guns per capita. There are more guns than people. And like America's the only nation to play football. Um so America Americans have this tremendous Energy. I feel like I've missed something there. What I'm saying is that America is a society that uh prides itself on the first amendment and the second amendment. It's a society that is of um by the standards of Every other side, it's pretty aggressive and Right. Physical contact violence like doing like listening to Metallica and flying F fourteen. So so this energy, you can you can either, you know, um direct it

outwards to to, you know, conquering the world, or if you don't direct it outwards, then there's a fear that it becomes um directed inwards, which could lead to civil war. It could be violent populism, it could be a full fault uh civil war. It could also be an insurance very much like the movie One Battle after another. But I I do think that right now at this point uh domestic violence is almost unavoidable. Well yeah. Really.

Why? Um, if you s uh I mean like and you can you can agree or disagree, but I think there are certain trends that that are in place. that make in internal um violence Um unavoidable. So the first is just the wealth inequality, the financialization of society. This is what I was talking about. That's one trend. But another major trend

Um is Um the gerontocracy. The baby boomers. So what's happened is that um baby b baby boomers I I apologize to to both of you, but the baby boomers happen apply to political power. I gotta make wealth. And social status.

And if you're a young person You have absolutely no opportunity. Um, so um James P. Calhoun in the nineteen sixties, he ran a very successful experiment called the Rat Utopia Experiment. He basically put rats in a paradise where there'd be no um um Pet predators. Free food every day. And all that happened was the rats just turn against each other.

And killed each other. And the reason why is young men, especially young men, they strive for social status. If you don't give them social status, if they're unable to climb the social h social hierarchy and find recognition and status, they turn violent. And and and this is just human nature. So we tried to get at this. So this this book uh that I'm coming out with, it's not um it's a product of this five years of research that we've been doing at the Chicago Project on Security and Threats at the University of Chicago. Uh 20 national surveys, this is where all that millions of dollars. So and why we did all that. was to try to answer some of the why questions. So we ask questions such as How worried are you you won't be as prosperous as your parents? That kind of gets at the wealth inequality and the social mobility. Well

We didn't just find out the general answer to that. We wanted to know, did that make you more likely to support violence, political violence? And it turns out The more you think you won't be as prosperous as your parents, the more you support political violence on the right. and on the left. It's a wedge it drives both sides up. We also asked remember I mentioned the second social change, we're transitioning from a white majority democracy

to a white minority democracy. Well, other countries in the world, this has played a huge role in political violence. That's why Lebanon, for instance, has had so much political violence over the years, over the decades. Well, this is not unique to America, but it's happening for us now, Chris, for the first time. And so we ask the question, if you are you uh happy with The transition to a white minority democracy? Or are you unhappy and want to reverse it? And what do we find? If you want to reverse it. You are far more likely to support political violence on right wing issues if you want to keep it going. you're more likely to support political violence on left wing issues. These are not happening in isolation. They're not just swirling around and gee, it's kind of random why we're having a this rise of violent populism now.

There are actual reasons and they overlap with some of what John's talking about, but we're able to get to the data to see, well, let's do some tests here and see, can we really see it in the data? And the answer is yes. And this is why um so uh I it's It's been very worrisome, Chris, for some time. So a year ago, I published a big op ed June two thousand twenty five in the New York Times. I was explaining this data in this op-ed, and I was warning, we're on the brink of major political violence. And what happens? The Charlie Kirk assassination happens. What happens? We get the rise of Operation Midway Blitz and then Metro Blitz. And that wasn't the first time, Chris. So a year before that, this data was showing a rise of anger to the point of violence against President Trump. This was in June two thousand twenty four. So I brought it to our National Sheriff's Association. So I'm connected with these. So remember advised White Houses, et cetera. And I warned them that there's a non trivial possibility that we're gonna see a s a assassination attempt against President Trump. When did you say this? This was the last week of June two thousand twenty four.

Now they listen. I'm just gonna say, Chris. They listened. And guess what happened? Um July thirteenth.

And And then what happened in my phone is it blew up. Because suddenly people were Mystic. Well no, no. What I'm trying to say is, Chris, this is so just as my twenty years of modeling of the Iran War has led to some predictions about what might come in advance. We haven't well but uh that's of course been well known in this at this point. This is not the first time. My work has been studying um political violence not just in the rear view mirror, but with an eye toward giving real decision makers, whether it's chief of staff of the Air Force, West Wing of the White House, uh FBI

Um for uh s I call it strategic intelligence. It's not tactical intelligence. It's where things are heading to see where probabilities of events in the future are shifting. That's my work. I don't I don't disagree with you. We are in a Fine. I simply put that context of American history and American So

If we're doing something that we've never done before. And never done before and recovered from and so on. So when I look at Culture.

I take a look at the Culture itself and its history. And ask the question. Is there a precedent for this? Okay. Have we is this something we've never seen?

If that's true, then there's a radical shift in Possible. If this is a cycle. A process of a cycle periodically happens and comes and goes and is handled in the past. There's a high probability of a counteraction.

Of it. Subsiding. So this is why I go back to things that no don't seem very relevant. Because they went away. But if you'd lived through the nineteen thirties With the isolationists deeply

in some ways anti Semitic and everything else. The tensions that were there. Well I've seen that. So When I talk about the Civil War, it's just to say This was the most extreme event of this sort.

And we survived. So I ask question Not only is a crisis coming, which I completely agree with you on But is it in the nature of the culture of the United States to withstand those? Crisis. Yeah, I suppose it's. Okay, so your your point is this might not be terminal, this might not be existential to the United States. Exactly. But I mean does anybody think like even if there was a civil war, there would be some people left. Right and then you've got a country afterward, like from the ashes, something can come back.

Was the most dynamic Development economically. Perhaps in history. No, it's it has nothing to do with the causality or this is necessary. I'm simply saying to you

But if you get a fever Did you Never had before. Well that's really significant. If on the other hand you had another c cold You don't take it that seriously.

I'm trying to put this into context. of the American nature. So I'm arguing there's a culture. There's a nature. There's a history.

Every time we saw it. We were finished. During the seventies the idea to The k the killings just Kidnappings and everything that were going on.

Well they went away. So I'm saying there's a cyclical process. A quick aside, you've probably heard me talk about Element before, and that's because I've started every single morning the same way for the last five years now, which is a cold glass of water. With Element in it. Element is an electrolyte drink mixed with everything that you need and nothing that you don't. It's a science backed electrolyte ratio of sodium, potassium, and magnesium. No sugar.

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Modern wisdom. That's drinklmnt.com. Flash. Moderness. So I just say two quick points. Number one is I want it on the record, I am not pro civil war. Just want to make sure I'm I'm on the record with it. Number two. No, hold it, number two, more s more more seriously. So the point of the research of the book isn't just to give histories of the sixties, it's why did the violence in the sixties end?

It ends for real reasons. It's not just we burn ourselves out. There were two drivers to the 1960s political violence. They're driven on social change. Drange number one was we had a massive shift in migration of blacks to the the north and the midwest. that we're that we're not getting political representation. That was underneath the Black Riots, Malcolm X, the Ballader, the Bullet. In the by the mid-nineteen seventies, you start to have the black caucus. You actually get some black now, it's not as good as it should be. I'm not trying to say it's perfect, but this is one of the big reasons why that violence comes down. There's a second driver of violence in the nineteen sixties. It's the Vietnam War, the anti-war movement, conscription. What ends? It's not just the Vietnam War ends, Chris. Conscription ended. We end in nineteen seventy three conscription. So I never had to be conscripted. Okay. Something structural has changed. And that took the steam out of the anti-war movement. As soon as the that that's what ended the Weatherman, the Weather Underground. That's what ended

those uh that that violent protests here, both of those issues end. So my point is we can actually look today at the social causes and I can tell you we're likely to have this violent populism for another 10 years. It's not another decade of this. Yes, because of the social changes. We can talk about those shifts and I ask you the question, how does it end this time? This is up to us. And that's my point. My point is that this is not all in historical inevitability and we shouldn't just throw the dice to the wind. We should understand what's happening to us. So that we can make more intelligent decisions going forward. It's not just a prediction of doom and gloom. It's things are going in a bad direction. Let's take that seriously and then let's do something to offset it. That's been my wor world with mostly uh foreign policy elites for the last 30 years. I'm now trying to do that with the public.

internal strife for the next ten years. Right. So um back to the young men problem. So right now there's a very popular phrase called Hypergammy. Uh I'm not sure y if if you know the f what hypergammy means you know what it means. What are you looking at me as hypergamy? He's saying that's because I'm a high value male. That's right, yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So so the problem is that the majority of me young men are not able to find a suitable mate. Uh because one way to reduce

Um, pe men young men's like violent tendencies is to get married, have children, and then become productive members of society. But if like you know, the majority of young men cannot get married Then what's the solution? Well you send them off to war. Right. So um there are two possibilities Ahead.

For the United States. Um How do you deal with these millions of young men who cannot get laid, basically? Well, you send them off send them off to war to die, but if you did that, if you had conscription, it's possible they they would just rather fight you. Okay? So another solution is to Colonize uh North and South America.

To turn the entire Western hemisphere. into a US colony. And they're doing that already with Venezuela. They'll probably do that with Canada. They're talking talking about Greenland. Uh you think that r realistically America would try and colonize Canada, Greenland, and Venezuela. Not just uh oh we're gonna take a couple of leaders here and s w have soft power. They would actually try to do it. Yes, I do, because you just don't want to stop uh the United States from doing this. Why why wouldn't the United States just stick Alberta? What's stopping the United States from just taking Alberta?

And and the part of Wall? Is that not like Can has what army again? Yeah. Yeah. The reason he's saying Alberta is that's where the oil is. So one of the things so this is this is something I was so with my classes at the University of Chicago, so not for the reason of the exact dynamic. I won't quite go that far. But what I um so having studied violent populism Um, I um watched over 200 of uh President Trump's speeches as he was running for president, two hundred all the way through. I went to four of his rallies, which didn't mean you just go to his rallies and listen to a Trump rally, that means you get there at eight AM, you're already three hours late.

Because you can and you can still barely see the stage, by the way. And you have to wait ten hours and you can't move. If you move, you lose your place in line and you're all the way at the back. So that's why those hundreds of people were dropping over there. So what do you do? I surveyed them. I talked to them. I actually literally that's what it surveys. And so I learned a lot about what was underneath uh the support for Trump. I also went to Harris rallies and um It was easier to get there. You get a three thirty, you still get a C so it's a little different there. So but nonetheless, um uh nonetheless, what he is describing uh here, you could see a lot of uh in some of what President Trump was saying, he was planting some seeds. Ah, but come on, a bombastic this g guy gregarious talkie talk. Talkie like isn't this a cool talk. That was all fine, Chris, until after the election. It wasn't just uh talkie talkie. It got serious y seriousy. Okay. So I'm not telling you I'm not telling you I immediately jump to the conclusion, oh, that would be a ninety nine percent likelihood of happening. I work in percentages. Okay, what do you think is the percentage likelihood that Greenland or Canada or Venezuela are uh

brought into the American uh uh remit. I I think it turns hugely on um what happens with this election in twenty twenty eight. So if we are internally divided, as I think there's likely to be, I think this external expansion is likely to go down. However, if it turns out that this is not just we're not internally divided, but we see the mago red wave get stronger and stronger and stronger. There's a very good chance that what um Zhang is talking about will come to be. Uh, because these are this is what I mean by it's up to us. This is wild. I did not think that I was gonna find out that we were maybe going to

Why not? I just it seems so inten it so Absurd and and uh and and this would be It would be invasion. I'd agree with you. Well, I'm not I'm not again the probabilities here. So let's be clear. I'm not saying this is seventy percent likely. So I deal in the world of probabilities. But if we're talking about where there is a world where this is even a twenty percent probability. This changes everything. The idea then, if it's even twenty percent likely, and notice what's happening with Kearney. Notice what's happening with the leaders. I don't think Carney believes it's eighty percent likely.

But if you watch his speech listen to his speech in Munich this year, he certainly thinks this is there's something on the horizon, and President Trump has been talking directly to him about moving the border with Canada and the treaty and abandoning the nineteen oh eight treaty with Canada. This has been a direct conversation with the Prime Ministers of Canada in the last year and a half. This is I don't say it means it's uh it's a certainty, Chris. That's going too far, but to ignore that this is then translating into taking uh Venezuela's oil, uh serious uh war planning now for uh Greenland. The war planning doesn't equal conquest, Chris. But I think we're making a mistake to just simply dismiss it as oh, this is just talk on the side. What do you think is more likely China into Taiwan or the US into one of Canada, Greenland, Venezuela. Oh, I vote for the the latter with the U. So I think that

No way. All of this talk all of this talk that people are the m processes, the microch all of the the China into Taiwan and more likely that we're gonna go into Canada, Venezuela or if China plays its cards right, Taiwan is gonna fall right into China's lap. I've been so President Chen brought me to Taiwan in January. January two thousand and three. I was one of five air power experts. This was the president of Taiwan. For a two day conference with the president of Taiwan. He wanted the answer to the question, this is January two thousand and three. What should Taiwan do if China preemptively attacks Taiwan while the United States is preemptively attacking Iraq? So remember, we had this thing called the Iraq War. Well, for Taiwan, that was a very scary situation. So for two days, I was with the president and also with the uh top of the air force, and we were discussing the no kidding discussions here. And I also got windows into their national security and I got the polls, that is the internal polls, which there was nothing classified in it. So I no NDAs, so I'm not revealing anything that I'm not supposed to be, but I'm telling you that one of the absolute issues here with Taiwan is there's a large part of the population.

That sees growth over there. And they're happy to get some growth called Taipei 101. So there's a whole lot underneath this, Chris. Doesn't mean Taiwan is certain to um uh you know sort of go in China's way, but it what I've been arguing for some time is that if China just continues to grow, then what's going to happen is uh it will eventually dwarf Taiwan even more than it does today. And a lot of folks in Taiwan are gonna wanna make money in China. Mm.

What I wanna do is not deny any of these things. But in perspective. Take a look at a community. Like the United States, which is a community, common value, so on and so forth. Has there ever been deep divisions? How did we handle them?

So when we take a look is for example Right from the beginning of the founding. There's a dreadful. of migrants. The Scottish Irish that came here.

Great. marginalized profoundly and so on and so forth. Okay. Along with these Evolutions of

uh immigration and so on and so forth, which we were built on, we needed Okay. There's also tension within though between those who wanted it and didn't want it. The businessmen want a cheap labor? The others didn't want it. The workers didn't want it. Okay.

So We have to enter these from my point of view, and I agree with you s absolutely and What's coming? I simply have a different sense of proportionality. That it's not as

profoundly serious as we who've never experienced it before would want to make it be. There's precedent for it. There's a manner in which the Americans have historically gone through this, my pointing to the civil war was certainly the point the most extreme. situation that even that we recovered from. When was the last time that you saw something you would say was unprecedented? Internally in America, I see a long

line of Continuum. Including the tensions and everything else. But y e eventually you break uh you're using so much artistic license to say, well, you know, this thing has been it's analogous to something that's occurred before. Is there a time like I'm trying to work out when that's not that cycle hasn't been a little bit my point is before I say This is

Catastrophic, unprecedented, and so on. I have to look back. Most Stable countries. Go through vast cycles. Periods of

Economic. social unrest. So it's not a smooth flying anywhere. I leave in Iceland. Do you think it's perfectly normal for a United States president to invade a country with no reason With no shy G.

No plan at all. I will say Let me see in three months. What happens? First of all. There was a reason.

What was the reason? Basically. He keeps going after nuclear material. Why? Because I was on staff

At times after nine eleven. Doing scenarios. What is the worst case scenario? And it was a nuclear a country like Iran getting nuclear weapons. Putting them on board a friendship. And settled New York Harbor.

At this point, we've had very few casualties on the American side. And Two days ago. Right. A commander of the RGC.

The very senior commander stood up and said, We've got to stop this war. The people are not What I'm saying about this war is When you're in the middle of it. It's extraordinary.

On the other hand, we see One. It's been a very short one. There's been on the American side very small losses. And the Yeah.

Evolutions in Iran. With very different. So I simply say, Okay, step back from this extraordinary event. And ask the questions.

And then ask, is it really extraordinary? So if the Reason was a nuclear weapon, why assassinated? Why assassinate on the first day the other tola? Who who had weapons because he wouldn't as president wouldn't listen to Intelligence.

The head of Counter terrorism resigns saying That He will not allow me into his office He's losing his rallies.

And presidents make massive mistakes. He confused The People there as a government of Iran. He confused it.

Kill them. That's not the government of Iran, it's your IRGC. No, it's very important to say these wars lasted a few months. Okay.

Th we are far from understanding how it will end. But certainly. And so on. So When I take a look at this

Yeah, he did a very stupid thing. He Profoundly. He's not the first president to do some very stupid things. The only thing I'm saying is that

We tend to overreact to things. When we don't put'em in context. How big how big of a deal is the arrival? Well it's a it's it is the biggest deal since going up against Germany in World War Two. So Iran is the most difficult challenge we've had since Germany and World War Two. So let me give a different window into this. So I've been modeling the bombing of Iran for twenty years.

And in the modeling of the bombing of Iran. I started to do this in two thousand five, and here's where I partly agree with George. Um I do this in two thousand five because once It is known that Iran is enriching uranium. that's when the military planning of going against Iran really jacks up. And I know because I was teaching for the Air Force in the nineties. I had a lot of experience. So from seventy nine to about two thousand two We have political tensions, yes, we occasionally do a war game, but after two thousand two and three, things get much more serious. I start to model the bombing of Iran in two thousand and five.

And I did it every year for 20 years. I did this in my classes at the University of Chicago. And what I'm doing, I lay out the target set, I lay out what uh there's all changes, of course. The target set changes Fourdeaux comes on. We get um uh the Moabs, uh so we get we get the different technology changes and so forth. But the big thing that uh the modeling always showed is that uh once We, meaning America, bombed the Fourdeaux facility, which only we could do because the Israelis didn't have the large precision ordinance to be able to do it. Once we did that. We would be ninety percent likely to destroy the centrifuge industrial uh the the enrichment capability of the uh facility of Fourdeaux, but we would have virtually no knowledge of whether we destroyed the sixty percent enriched uranium, the actual fizzle material. And that's critical.

Chris, because building a bomb is a piece of cake once you have the enriched material. Most people don't know that. I also teach my students how to build a bomb. So so like take them through the soup to nuts so they really understand. It's the fizzle material. And then the modeling, and this is what I told my class, and I have the slides and so and so forth, and I put them on my sub stack. And I said, Then what would happen is if we bomb Fourdeaux, Then a year or two later we would do regime change bombing. Not just come back and bomb in general. We would literally do regime change bombing. And why would you do regime change bombing? Back to your question kind of win can connect all the dots. It's because

You would become, once you bomb Fourdeaux, you couldn't track for it with high confidence the dispersal of that fizzle material. And we know we have civilian satellites showing that a couple days before we bomb Fourdeaux, stuff's coming out of Fourdeaux. We have civilian satellite showing that Estefan, another site in February of this year, a month before we do the bombing. Uh Iran is digging stuff out. We think that maybe they move the stuff from Fourdeaux to Estefan and now they're digging it out. So this issue of a nuclear weapon, I think is really quite serious. Uh now Israel, I think is playing a role, but I in my mind I think it's secondary because they have been arguing to do this for every year for 20 years. What made the difference here, I believe, was the concern that we couldn't track the fizzle material. And that's still going on to this. day. That's why we're worried about pickaxe mountain, very specif. So what all that means, Chris, is we're in an escalation trap. The trap didn't just start with killing the leader on February twenty eight. It starts with the bombing of Fourdeaux. And that's the stages I published literally several days before we uh killed the leader. I escalation trap, I laid out the stages of what would come, would kill the leader. Is it following your predictive game plan thus far?

Yes. And that's what's so scary about this. It's And what I'm really concerned about is we are coming now to a a serious stage of the escalation trap that's going to start next week and the following week. So I've been laying out on my sub stack the escalation trap the The nightmare scenario for how this is going to escalate to get worse. And that nightmare scenario, which I started laying out in July, was the rise of gas prices in the United States. Well, I don't know if you've been tracking it, but in Chicago, they're going up. And what that is doing, and and what this is doing is it creates the opportunity for Iran. to really uh close and try to shut down Hormuz. Why? So that they can try to damage Trump politically in the midterms to irrevocably destroy his presidency. And why is and what did I say that was going to do

That was going to energize the Trump administration to start fighting back. And what is t what are we gonna see literally tomorrow with Scott Besset is D Day. Okay. Now it's an economic D Day. But that economic D Day is uh the Iran's already talking about further escalation here. If Iran escalates, are we really just gonna sit back and say, Oh, sure, we're gonna No, there's a real danger. We're in the spiral phone of the escalation trap as those gas prices went up. This created a window of maximum leverage for Iran. They're using that maximum leverage to wreck Trump's presidency in the for the midterms. And I think that what President Trump is doing is trying to figure a way to it's not just how to deal with Iran now. It's What does he do to show he is gonna do something as Iran is really doing great damage to our economy and his presidency? We're seeing the collapse of the global economy because for the past thirty forty years there's a very simple deal.

that govern the world, which is that the United States would provide protection to the G C C and to Japan and return Japan and the GCC would buy US treasuries. And that was the deal that made the American economy so vibrant. The GCC now is being destroyed by this war, and because Japan gets most of its oil from the GCC, the Japanese yen is weakening. Which m that you regions of the world that provide most of the what's liquidity, especially to the United States, they can no longer do so. So what Scott Besser is worried about is

Um Um The GGC and Japan can't buy US treasuries. And so right and so what that means is United States cannot refinance. It's forty two hundred dollar debt. This is this is the apocalypse. This is c a catastrophe. This is not just a short war. We should also take a look at the other side.

what iran is experiencing. What is happening in Iran. This is not simply the United States. There's a A significant split happening in Iran. A speech the other day made.

My major leader said, Look, our people are starving, we cannot continue this war. Okay. The Rtesh is there, which is the s secular RV. So in other words, look at this war not just from our side and the consequences to us. See the pain uh pain on the other side.

Okay. So we assume that the RGC is super powerful, can continue to do anything it wants. Has no resistance. We forget that there was About twenty thousand people killed in an uprising.

Before the war. Okay. That division is not gone. You are used to being poor. Are Americans gonna put up with ten dou ten dollar gallon gas prices? If you're gonna spend an hour in the gym, you might as well look hot and feel comfortable while you're doing it. And honestly, who wants to be in the background of a TikTok is highlight real dressed like a chump? Gymshark makes some of the best men's and women's training gear on the planet. And something that I realized a few years ago is that when you actually like what you're wearing in the gym, you show up differently, you train harder, you stay longer, and

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So for thirty years I've been studying air power Economic sanctions. blockades. Um I've uh focus on American political violence. So again, it's the intersection of these military to uh action and politics. Oh. One thing that's very important to know in advance of what Scott Besson is about to tell us is since World War One.

Not going back before World War One. Since World War One Even heavy economic pressure alone, I mean alone without other military force, has never won a major war. never won a major war. All I want and this is gonna there's gonna be a big sub stack tomorrow as I put this out. All I want Is I want to

The reporters. At that news conference. To ask a very simple question. So the British blockade on Germany in World War One did not defeat Germany, even though it killed over seven hundred thousand Ger uh German civilians, and we still had to have ground power to end that conflict. So the economic sanctions on Japan before World War One and then during well two and then during World War Two itself did not stop us from bombing uh its cities using the atomic bomb and then also Russian entry into the war with ground forces.

That's how we defeated uh Japan. Uh if we look at Iraq from nineteen ninety to two thousand three, um, it was our American military that kicked Saddam out of Kuwait. And once Saddam was out of Kuwait from ninety one to two thousand three, we had We had sanctions that crushed the Iraqi economy by 50% each year for all those years. And what did we have to do? You see you get my point. Every time you speak, I feel like I'm treading on eggshell. I'm like I don't want to know what comes next. Well don't want to know what I've never been. We see Iran as a Completely united country. No factions and so on and so forth. Okay.

That's obviously a delusion because there are always factions and so on and so forth. So I'm not saying that it's economic force. But there were great divisions that we saw before. Those divisions Mm.

are still there in some ways. So the question is not just the economic consequences. But also the fact that it's very rare to have a country That is totally united in this way. And this is not the country. So, George, the external force is bringing those divisions closer together. As it's they're not breaking them apart. I profoundly disagree.

They can sometimes push them together. Sometimes I say as we did in the Vietnam War. All I need is one case. One case. One case where our external pressure uh our economic pressure Where we had and again I just gave you uh four another five.

I'm t talking about the inherent Differences. Within This vast country. It matters because

When the attacks start to happen and the pain starts to rise. They come. More powerful in the sense But others look at them and say, You were right. This was not the government we should have.

So did they not already try and uprise before and that didn't work? Of course. No, they killed them all. Now did these circumstances Well, this is the fundamental question. Okay. And all we need is a case, George. Just give us even a case of bombing. So let's it widen it beyond military pressure. Where's the case that without ground forces

Bombing alone the government. And the answer is That the question in my mind Is not bombing, okay? It is the disunity of the country itself which we saw the weeks before the war began. Iran had sufficient disunity inside

The the government would choose to give up. Because it's got so much pressure happening into the same is the government itself.

Try in the middle of the world. by this leader of the R G C a former head of the R G C that we must not continue this. So I'm saying that the the As in Vietnam. The government

Which US government's complete frequently divided on what should be done. I at least from what I know, the tiny amount I know about Iran, I don't get the sense that the government is going to be too concerned about the quality of life of its citizens to give over to what Trump's pressures are going to be. Am I right or wrong? That was published. He is still alive, apparently. So when you take a look at a country Take a look at the fragments within our own country.

And don't assume that this country is totally united or Simply. Afraid of the regime. The regime itself. Is divided. We've seen it.

Unless this speech that My Saw and everything you've translated. Was made up by something. Baby.

This represented I think dividing. Now the Pakistani Uh headed military. is coming to talk to the Iranians. Uh he's re may already be there, okay?

Yeah. There's been talk this morning about Iran being allowed to become part of the For or the entity that was created. In other words

Wars don't end because of the bombings. I s totally agree with you. They grinded the Through political processes sometimes within countries. You don't totally defeat them. Mm. But it's

We have to be a aware that these are human beings. They're not All fanatics ready to die. Well, I think there's a difference between do we see All of the citizens of Iran as

uh supporting a regime that we are concerned about that might be part of global terrorism or something like that. I don't think anybody's making that claim. I think the concern Is no matter what's going on internally, whether it's divided or cohesive, whether they're in support or against, Like. But somebody who is at the top of Iran.

This man. Mm-hmm. Made this speech. But he's no longer in power, right? No, he's not in power. He's not in power. But he has tremendous influence. Mm.

That's what that's look, i here's the since World War One. Starts with Julio Duhay. He wrote a book, Command in the Air, mostly has to do with air power. There's been a hope with either economic blockades or air power, that air power or blockades without a ground force could incite a popular revolt. To topple the government so that we don't want to do it, you do it for us. Exactly. And this has been a host. I have not talked about toppling the government. I am saying that the government itself is split.

In various ways. The RGC is not totally unified. As We go into wars, we are not totally unified, and sometimes disunification. So so one factor that we need to look at is That right now the Iranians have chosen to adopt something called the Mozak Defense, which is a decentralized

command and control um military warfare, which means that It's entirely possible no one is in charge of Iran right now. So it doesn't really matter what the people want, it doesn't really matter what the leadership wants, because you have thirty-one commanders spread out all over the country, and as long as one of them wants to keep on fighting, then short of homosexual remain closed. And this war will continue. That's a problem. It sounds like decentralization, but it might just be leaderlessness. In that way.

It's they run the government through consensus. We saw this with the Taliban and Afghanistan as well. So it's there's different models for how you govern. Some are very rigid top down. Qadhafi ran his government very rigid top. Down. That's absolutely the case. Uh others are more very, very decentralized, fragmented almost. I don't think that's where Iran is. Iran is in this middle of consensus. And it's hard to see because this is where the Supreme Leader, when he made a statement, remember the MOU? The Supreme Leader made a statement saying that he personally didn't agree with the MOU, but he was going to give it a chance and support those who did, which meant there was a division, just as George is saying, and that side of getting a negotiated outcome won in on June 17th. That has now been replaced, I believe, by the other side, the supreme leader side. The and that's what you see with the replacement of the whole command structure of the IRGC in the last several weeks. It's all in one direction. The MOU was a major turning point. Because before the MOU, I think George is right, there were these factions. I agree. And um the MOU was a compromise.

And um what the Americans have shown is For the reason they will not abide by the terms of the MU. And so the Iranians af like at some point said, screw this, we are not gonna negotiate. We are not gonna compromise. We're gonna fight this to the end. So now the Hoofis have been bought into the war and this war is just expanding very rapidly. What do you think is the likely outcome of the Iran war? It doesn't add.

It what's gonna happen is eventually the Ukraine war and the Iran will emerge. Already we're seeing that, uh after Zelensky uh bombed an Iranian cargo ship in the Caspian Sea and Iran and Zelensky was very proud of this. Like you you see Um I can do this for for the Americans. So um it is very likely that all the world powers are brought are brought in. China is brought into the war, Russia is brought into the war. Uh this sounds a lot like the World War Three that we said wasn't gonna happen at the top of this episode. Except it's world. So I mean it's a light fucking Did I say that? No, I'm gonna go. No, he no he no, he actually thinks World War Three is is kind of coming quickly. Okay. Here's where my here's where I would uh so I see uh the trends that Zhang is saying. I don't want to disagree with the trends. I think January

is going to be a focal point moment. January of next year. Of next year. I mean January two thousand twenty seven will be a focal point moment where all the actors, the United States, China, Iran have a chance to reset. Now where they go Here's what I but why January? Keep go back to what I just said, which is Iran has a strategy for the US midterms. It sees the oil inventories running down. It sees its period of maximum pressure. The opportunity here is uh to

destroy Trump's presidency politically, not to knock him out of office, but so that he is the lamest of lame ducks. Well, will that happen or not? We'll know a quite a bit in the first week in January. Now we won't necessarily know a hundred percent, but we'll know a lot of information. And I believe what's going to happen is once we get to the first week in January and Everybody will be recalibrating.

For a Post Trump world. Yeah, or a future Trump world. How do you think Yeah. How do you feel about this? Well look, the problem is we're trying to see this from an economic lens.

And the reason why the MOU fell apart is Israel refused to abide by the terms. One of the major terms of the MOU signed between the United States and I and Iran is that all terms, all peace terms that apply to Iran would also apply to He went allies. Especially Hezbollah in Lebanon. And that required Ізрубивд дроць форси. From sovereign Lebanon. Israel refused to do so, and Israel has only accelerated its attacks on Hezbollah.

So We think that it's entirely between Uh United States and Iran But

Ish real. It has a lot of options. And right now, for the reason we can discuss this, Israel is choosing to um escalate the war. And We and uh also the Hoofies have been brought in. And the thing about the Hoofies is that they are religious fanatics.

They are they are they are very poor people, they live in mountains, and they're not afraid to die. And right now they're fighting this war against Saudi Arabia. So Saudi Arabia Aramical facilities are being hit. They um The other strait, uh in the Middle East, the uh the Bab El Mandat Strait has been closed by by the Houthis. So We're seeing this war escalate. And again, we're trying to see this from economic lens, but if you if you look at what the Hoov Hoofish are doing, if you look at the what the IRTC and the Israelis are doing, I would say this is almost like a religious war. It's a crusade. It's an eschatological uh war. But there's an other dimension we have to see. The Alliance. Between Saudi Arabia

Turkey. And Pakistan. Now if you take a look at the map. Or all around them, these countries.

Saudi Arabia has no use. For red. The Gee. Turks are seeking to evolve themselves into a major point, scaring the Israelis to death.

And Pakistan itself is evolving. Dramatically in this war. It did very Sophisticate state. So when you take a look at the situation in Iran, let's not just talk about the bombing and everything.

But the geopolitical development. Now today there was a story, I don't know if it's true or not. That Iran is going to be asked to join. This coalition. In other words, submit. Whether they do it or not, whether this is an actual offer I have no idea.

But it was there. But this created a new structure in the Middle East. This alliance. A very different one. with a very powerful country. Israel

Is terrified. Of Turkey. Because they know they do it is bombed. Turkey shows in Syria. Yes, and that was part of it. Because this is a country they cannot defeat.

They've only fought countries along their borders. And they were able for The founding of Israel. The Turkish army.

Is Three times as large. as the Israeli army. And while I don't believe that the Turks really have any desire to fight them.

Is really Shall we say society is built around A commitment to the belief that they're going to try to destroy us. There is a built in paranoia. So

When This ends you know, this problem ends a little bit. They bomb. Uh S Syria.

They then tell the American ambassador they didn't bomb Syria. Then they say. Turkey is our greatest fear. Built into Is real.

By name, by history. is a paranoia. Who is my greatest enemy? I have one. Now they're facing for the first time. An enemy that they cannot because of both geography And military capability.

Defeat. Alright. No. When Runsett was asked. What to do after the battle of Bulger, she said.

Make peace, you fools. And this is the situation that Israel is in. It's an internal crisis. It has reached a point where its military capability is not enough. So the reason I think the midterms are a decisive threshold. I agree. Not just a minor threshold, is It will determine the Democrats control Congress.

If the Democrats control Congress, which is still an if, but we'll know in January There's going to be two things that are gonna happen. And we see this in the democratic policies already. Number one is there'll be tremendous pressure to literally end the Iran war. So we saw this in nineteen seventy-four by Congress. Congress has not played much of a role in foreign policy. The last time it got involved was seventy four with Vietnam to truly constrain the executive. There'll be a battle about this, of course.

But number one is the Democrats wanting to shut down this and that would stop it from becoming a forever war. Which which don't more one more point and then I'll let you the second point is they're going to want to constrain Israel. There's a huge push in the Democratic Party. to shut down all of the th look at all the democrats that are um uh that were pro Israel that are g losing. And they're losing because there's a huge movement inside of the Democratic Party uh to zero out the budgets to Israel. And that means that Come January.

Israel's gonna have to calibrate, uh Iran others are gonna calibrate based on the results of whether the Democrats control Congress. Now we don't know whether the Democrats will control Congress, but what I'm saying is it's too soon to truly project out beyond January. Because come January we'll know are we in a forever war now. And by the way, if the democrats, even though they control Congress, Support the war? Oh yeah. We're in a forever war. So which major democratic leader has come out against the warrants and which leader has said we must And this war right now.

Which which leader. Oh, jeez, almost all of them. I mean, just watch CNN. They come on all the time. So what they're if you if you listen, Zhang, to the Democratic No, well if you listen to the Democratic leaders, this has just been a mantra to end the Vietnam War. I'm sorry to end the the Iran War. And the uh real question is gonna be, Zhang, whether or not once they control will they take responsibility for that. Because right now. It's easy to run against the uh Iran war because gas prices going up, uh, you know, bad mistakes by the administr the Trump administration, which they hate they hate anyway. Where it will become difficult will be once the democrats uh uh assume power because If it turns out that the democrats

Stop the war. And Iran gets a nuclear weapon? Think about that for the Democratic Party. That could bring the Republicans right back in in twenty twenty eight. So I think these are the real issues. And that's why it's about w not just what you claim you're gonna do, but what you do when you're in power. So So I I must have missed the news, but can you name me one major democratic leader with with his children? Jefferies is was just on CNN, I think it was three days ago, arguing that the war should end now. Um I just listened to the woman who just ran um The progressive who just won uh the Senate uh for the Senate seat in the primary here on Ford. I was just on a um a podcast with her on uh the Joy Reid show just two days ago, uh talking about this issue. And she was hugely uh uh against the uh against the war and and thought it was a total mistake and it should end.

So uh I mean those are at least two people right there. So so that ha how can Jeffrey say that if the Dem Democrats worked with the House in November, they would immediately try to restrict Trump's war powers and try to I haven't said anybody has gone that far. That's the next step. That's the real issue here. And that's what I'm saying is you won't be able to know whether they'll do it until they're in power, Zhang. And if they're in power And they support the war for fear that they will lose their political viability, as Hillary Clinton was worried about with the Iraq war, then this will that's how you got a forever war. You get both parties in favor of the war because neither one will stop it. Now you have a forever war. But in this particular case both the Republicans opposed the war because that's

What is the bases on which he won the election was not to get into these forever wars. The Democrats also are doing it. When you take a look at the poll numbers on this war. They're enormously unpopular. Congress tends to do what's popular.

and ending the war is popular not only in the Democrats, but with the Republicans. This is the fundamental difference that I've never seen, which is that his own party feels betrayed. So I think there's One of the things I think the Iranians Are saying.

Let's wait. Let's wait to see if they come apart. The same way I'm talking about Iran having internal problems. We have enormous internal problems. I'm seeing the Iranians trying to put this off.

As long as possible and then try to make a deal. Uh in September and Oc or October It's so fascinating that Uh

Trumps Positioning. and his desire to be seen as a a a competent president and obviously the last couple of years of his legacy Uh That is being used as a

Geopolitical tool. That's almost a weapon that other people can insert themselves into because they know that this is going to be it's a a point of weakness or it's a point of leverage that can be used to play With The incentives the the US has got. Do they want to push further? Do they want to pull that? This is something I've seen in uh again, advise four White Houses, two thousand one to twenty four, two Democrat, two to uh Republican.

Legacy matters. to let's call it the White House, if not the president. I also think the president, but let's just make it the legacy is beyond just getting the next win. Legacy what you're remembered for. And I think this is what is important that we miss when we talk about presidents in the United States. We think, Well, you can't run for reelection again, therefore you don't care anymore about Anything. Uh no, I think what they what I see is

even in their first term, they're thinking about their legacy going forward. And that legacy, there have only been forty seven presidents in our history. This there's not that many presidents. So I really well it's not that. It's that it's that they know they're one of forty seven four or forty eight. It's the other way around, Chris. It's because it's a tiny club, their legacy is gonna be with them after they're dead for a hundred years plus. But if he so what about his legacy Why did he attack Iran in the first place? I think again back to the modeling. Um I'm just gonna keep going back to the modeling because I I made a prediction to my classes for twenty years in a row.

That once we bomb Fourdeaux. Uh but why? We would panic about Iran getting a nuclear weapon in a way we couldn't see, and we would get intel, whether it's Israel or somebody else, that was showing us they were getting intelligence, and we would try to resolve it through regime change. Not because regime change was magically thought to be a better strategy, but But it was really the only way you could come up with even a a half plausible idea. Yeah. So so so I want to take a step back from Yeah. I I I want to present another theory, okay, besides your modeling. Please. So nineteen ninety six, um is a clean break memo. Yes. Right. And you you probably know people who wrote that, right? Very Paul Wolf. Paul W Paul Wolf was from my department, Jack.

Okay, I think it's a 71 PhD. So I know these people pretty much. So just for some for some context. For the idiot in the room, thank you. Yeah, the Climbic Memo. was uh a proposal to Ben Benjamin Nayahu. And the argument is that that is real. Um under Nanyahu should withdraw from the peace low. From the sorry from the Oslo Peace Accords. Because um in order to assure peace in the Middle East.

Israel had to be strong. It had to conduct regime change in Iraq and Syria. Also, um Israel needed to be self sufficient. Economically and militarily. They need to b basically stop being dependent on the United States. And if you want to resolve the Pastan issue, then you beat the crap out of them. R rather than try to compromise and give them land, that would just make them more greedy. Instead, you um you uh establish peaceful strength. Th that those were the exact terms. Peaceful strength. Okay. So that's the nineteen ninety six.

clean brick memo. Why that's important is if you look at the clean brick memo and you look at today, they basically implemented every single point of the clean big memo. Right? I have a single point. That's number one. Number two is what's interesting is the people responsible for the clean book memo Which of Pearl.

Um five. Went on Bush administration and they were along with Paul Wolfridge, your friend, the architects. My friends. But the three of them, okay? The three of them in the Pentagon were the architects of the Iraq war. Right? And then uh after nine eleven, Wesley Clark appears on stage with Amy Goodman. And uh it make up men.

Amy Goodman is like, what's the plan? And Wesley Clark is like, We're gonna go after seven nations in five years. And these seven nations include. Iraq? Uh Syria. Libya? Lebanon?

Uh Sudan, Somalia. And there's one more. Iran. So if I'm just looking at it from like a Like top down. Um Bird's eye view, I would say that this was h was always a plan.

Um ever since nineteen ninety six, the cleanbreak memo to attack Iran eventually, because they've been saying this for the past. Uh Thirty years. And so Isn't that A good reason to attack you, R because that was always the plan. So let me first of all, number one, I ag I agree with your characterization of the cream boy.

Cream break plan. Number two, I agree it was a plan. Um, what I see from two thousand five on, um, and I uh was working with the uh Bush administration about how to essentially calm down the Iraq war. So I had many, many interactions here with the Bush administration because Um, I was warning before we did Iraq that we would touch off the largest suicide terrorist campaign of modern times. Uh we did invade Iraq. We did touch off the largest suicide terrorist campaign of modern times. And who started my center at the University of Chicago? The Chicago Project Used to be on suicide terrorism. It was actually the Bush administration.

Think about that for a moment because suddenly somebody made a unique prediction. Not a weather terrorism expert was predicting that. And I gave it directly to Paul Wolfowitz here. He was Did Iraq anyway. It touched it off anyway. And so now suddenly I'm engaging with uh with them. Um we never in put an army in a certain African country. Think Somalia. That was a possibility. That did not happen. Certain things that did not happen also are important to know. So one of the things that happened during this period after the

um uh the Iraq war became a disaster is all that influence but Wolfwoods left, uh Fife left, um Pearl left, and it's because it became widely understood what the real dangers were of going into Iran. Much I mean, Iraq was already a problem, but Iran is a much bigger I said, the biggest challenge since Germany and World War Two. This was widely understood at the time, and it's widely understood by uh the military. It's widely understood in both white uh Democrat and Republican White Houses. This is not a unique situation. Here. Um, I think you really run into um an issue with why did President Trump bomb Fourdeaux? So I've talked to the people from the administration who have left in detail about this in uh in May. I think you have to understand one thing.

Which is although um President Trump decided to reject Netanyahu in his first administration President Trump has become his own national security advisor, his own secretary of defense, his own secretary of state. If you look at all the decisions that are happening, everybody else is essentially executing his policies. And occasionally he'll get mad at them and blame them for something. But he's not really following closely the advice of any of those people around him. I think what's happening is that um our pres our system gives the president inordinate discretion when it comes to the use of force.

You're saying that this was a personal bias and a whim. I think it was um uh yes, largely so, but I would say it's because I would say that what you're seeing here is that The style of president What what it doesn't mat if he if he fires Pete Hegseth next week or he fires Scott Bessant next week Do we really think the style of the president is going to change? I think that we need to understand that we in our system of government, we have uh given inordinate power to the president. I'm not calling for a change of the constitution, but I am saying

That that means if the president wakes up one day and by the way, Abraham there's famous Abraham Lincoln, famous story in uh Doris Corn Goodwin's of a team of rivals where Abraham Lincoln goes around the table, asks the entire cabinet And and they all say no, no, no, no, no and they come to the pr and Clinton's and and Lincoln says I And gentlemen, the eyes have it. This is what happened. What does Trump have against Iran? He can even find you run on a map.

Well I mean he can't. I guarantee you cannot do it. Well look, I think we've pushed we I I like to talk to people directly. I've never in this case Um everybody I've talked to who's been around this who've actually briefed the president on this.

They only go so far in willing to say why he did certain things. And I'm saying it's because of the way he has chosen make his decisions. There's not the process we're used to seeing here. So what that would mean is, and I've never talked to President Trump, is unless I could actually talk to Trump. I won't go further than I've currently said, because I do think that this is, though, how we got here. And once he did Fourdow. I don't know that at all he understood the consequences, but I think then he was sunk, Zhang, because once he did that and he sees the satellite imagery I'm seeing in the civilian world, and there's probably more. He he knows if they develop if they test nukes on his watch, man, he sunk for all of his own. So so so let us look at his pattern of behavior. And it's both his first term and his second term, right? First term he comes in office

He he il he cancels the J C P POA, which is the Iran nuclear deal under Obama. He's like, We're not doing this anymore, guys. That's number one. Then He recognizes

So then what he does is he um transfers the American embassy from Tel Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Which is one of the most provocative acts an American president has ever done in the Middle East. You don't you don't do that. Okay, that's number two. Number three is he recognizes Israel's control of the Golden Heights. Then the the most dramatic thing he does is in January twenty twenty He orders the assassination of General Hassam Salomani, who was Iran's de facto ambassador in the Middle East. So for Dol this seemed a logical extension of his actions. He is the most pro-Israel president the United States has ever had.

Right? It seems like if you just look at the clean brick memo I'm not six. And you look at what what Trump is doing in Um In the Middle East. It seems like he is trying to create the greater issues project.

D sor, do you want to go to racial project this? Um right. The Great Arturo project. Is um The idea

That um Israel should occupy All biblical lands or the lands that Yahweh God promised to Abraham. And these lands Um extend from Egypt, from sorry, extend from the Nile. In Egypt?

All the way to Euphrates and Iraq. So if you look at the entire map Oh what Unset has been doing for the t past twenty years attacking Iraq, Libya, Syria. Um and now this war which Promise to engulf um Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan. It seems like

This is all to achieve the greater Isle project. I I believe he was only interested in Israel, why Venezuela? Why Greenland? Why Canada? Well, what I'm just what I'm pointing out, when I'm pointing so I agree with you, that's the second most important reason, Israel. I'm not saying it doesn't matter at all. I think that what we need to see is um that first of all, President Trump is really um enthralled with the use of violence.

enthralled with the use of arms. He's part and parcel of violent populism. He's both a cause and a symptom of it at the same time. And it's not in just term he did not start a war. Well He kept his promise I will not and violent p and after January sixth? I think uh the process leading up to January sixth, and then in chapter five of the book I track I trace this out that in Aftermath of January 6th, this has radicalized MAGA. MAGA is not the same uh sort of group political movement. Yes, but once you have norm once political violence is normal for you at home It's a lot easier to use it as well. He was in office from way before China. Well what I'm trying to tell you is that it it there's a there's a trajectory that's emerging. It's not that he comes in planning on you know in two thousand seventeen to do January sixth. There is a tr a trajectory that emerges. And I think that we're we need to see that yes, Israel's playing a role.

But there's a lot more that he is doing. Do you think the number one reason is this escalating exceptional. There's something else to look at. I think there is also In Trump. A fear. Of the nine eleven.

And there's in Ways it should be. Okay. So when you take a look at Iran And their relationship with Al Qaeda. Ruined, but still there.

Something comes to mind at times, which is what would happen if instead of nine eleven happening with aircraft A ship sailed in with a nuclear weapon. Does New York Harbor? And that needed it. So given the ideology of Iran

Given the fact that they have Nuclear materials. And so and the presence of Al Qaeda, we can say we can say all the various things we say about Trump in various ways, and I agree with much of them. There's also a rational fear. That can evolve.

This is why His fundamental demand has been the nuclear weapons now. He attacked them first. He claimed it s succeeded, it failed.

Okay. And we really don't know, I think for sure, where the nuclear capabilities are We don't know how to destroy them and we're looking at that. But I think that underneath it, if you take a look at the question of what happens if there's a nuclear weapon Especially the secret one.

Developed in Iran. Given the ideology, what might happen. And I think in many ways When you look at the Yeah.

how we will be viewed in history. From er from that, if that were allowed to happen under his watch. Do you think the JCPOA was working? It didn't fail. Whether was working is another matter. The qu the fundamental thing was

To denuclearize these areas. So if Trump is most concerned about Iran do Develop a nuclear weapon, why did we withdraw from the J C P OA. Because I w he wanted more control, I think. I have no idea what has been went through his mind. He wanted to have direct American control.

on that. He thought that would be more effective. When you take a look at his practices, okay? He clearly doesn't go through a lion systems, it doesn't want to have Dependents on others. He wants that power at his own hand. He can't have it. He does it.

As well. I don't I can't psychoanalyze him, but what I see happening is that And this is something I Wrote on improved. So bokeh, right. The fundamental fear was the nuclear nine eleven.

And he keeps coming back to that. So if he was a f if you if you're afraid of a nuclear weapon He should have avoided avoided three things, okay? One is withdraw from the J C P Away. Second is do not assassinate the other came Kemanai,'cause he One he didn't he refused to ever use no weapon. And number three is to not attack Iran. And Trump Did all three things. Yes. But that doesn't mean that the operational action

didn't have a certain end in mind. So in other words. It was rational to be concerned about it. He proceeded irrational in action. Yes, and I think the choice set is interesting here. So I agree, by the way, with with George that there's a a rational fear of a nuclear weapon with Iran. There is an an element of a rational fear that I think we could learn to live with it, by the way. So I don't think it means that

that once you're concerned about an Iranian nuclear weapon, the solution is the force direction. But I would but but but yeah, I thought you might. But let me say that what we saw with the JCPOA was not just that Trump ripped up the JCPOA, but he replaced it with a maximum pressure campaign. So what President Trump has done very often in his career, and this is what I would say is and this is before January sixth, but he has uh there's a trajectory here, which is he is more and more comfortable with force. Domestically? And internationally. as he becomes as he goes through his presidencies, his two presidencies. And I that's what I mean by the normalization of it. It becomes more normal. Because he didn't just rip it up the JCOPOA. He thought a pressure campaign

would be better. And I think that He uh learned from that failure,'cause it didn't stop Iran, that he should have more pressure. A lot of others of us would say you should learn from that by seeing that the pressure campaign is making things worse. And I think that this is what we're what we're seeing with our president. He finds a lot of comfort In the use of You also

Doesn't really understand. Power. He overestimates what he has. Yeah. He went into that war expecting it to be readily done. He did not understand the mosaic system. He did not care about

responses. So one of the problems have I don't necessarily disagree with Pressure. As a measure. He doesn't understand how to apply the pressure.

Nor Does he have a of just how much power he has. M my question is, if this is just complete chaos, if this is just one guy behaving irrationally Why all events

helping to create the Greater Israel project. That's that's my question. Well and my challenge to you is that explain the Western hemisphere because if you really want to build the Greater Israel project and you look out here over time. What you would like is you'd like President Trump um completely focused on the Middle East, and yet President Trump starts out with his tariffs, again, very which not quite violent, but again very aggressive against our own allies. Then he moves to actual military ideas with Greenland and and our allies, Canada. And so what he He's doing Zhang is it's not that I just again I want to be very clear. I think that Israel is the second most important driver here.

This is this is where I I I just um I think also with the two thousand three Iraq war. Um some of the people I most respect in the world believe the number one reason we did the Iraq war in two thousand three was Israel. I think it's uh what happened w after nine eleven. I think nine eleven created an enormous fear of Muslims in the United States, including with The people at the very top. It wasn't only Israel. Right. So one thing Uh that people don't appreciate a push about the graduational project is the major impediment

to that thing is actually the US military. Because the US military provides power in the Middle East. The US military provides uh protection to the GCC. So if Israel were to become the dominant nation, it would need a way to remove the United States from the equation, right? And this Iran war, it's it's it it is a solution to this problem. Because if the if the Americans send in ground troops, which is part of the escalation trap, then There's then the United States would probably lose this war and the United States would be forced to withdraw back into the Western hemisphere. Hang on, are you saying that Israel managed to convince Trump

To go into a run to do the bomb, which then gets into the escalation trap, which means that you need to put boots on the ground, which means that America ultimately loses Which means that America then has to withdraw to make room for Israel. I do not know if this was intentional. I don't know if it's turning out this way. But what if you're right, Jerry. If you're right, then and I I did a piece on my Professor Pape sub stack on this. What will happen if America truly, truly withdraws is A much smaller Israel. I think it's it becomes a nuclear sparta. It doesn't quite get wiped off the map, but a much smaller israel is much weaker. What if Ishwiel took over Sancom?

What if О в Америкас мілітарі апаратис. Okay, the planes, the troops, all then uh became under the control of Israel, which is happening right now, right? Because you have deep depefication right now in the Middle East, which means that all these um planes, all all this weaponry is now forced to go to Israel. Because it's the only safe space. Under that hypothetical, I agree with you, but what you see with let's take the Democratic Party and about a third of the Republican Party is

They're not having that. So what you see is as that exactly your scenario, by the way, is one of the big reasons why there's been so much anger against Israel. So there's two actors or two two actors that are getting blame for this war in Iran. Which is wrecking the world's economy. It's number one, President Trump, and number two, it's Israel. And both of those are in deep trouble as we go forward. And the Israel's in trouble with the American public. Israel is losing the American public is losing. Profoundly. Біко

Israel has always faced enemies that it could defeat. With this alliance that occurred. With Turkey evolving. Israel is much too weak to do this. Therefore, Israel has to change its fundamental strategy. Which to face the fact that it's a small country.

In an area that doesn't welcome it. Make peace. Try to find ways to enter it. So When Israel takes a look at this alliance that was formed. There are two ways to look at it.

One it re Might restrain Non state actors? Other, it is a massive alliance that threats Israel. So at this point Israel is making very strange sounds like

You know it. We're gonna do something about Turkey. They can't do it. This is a situation which Israel has not found itself in. Where it does not have the military power. To deal with a threat.

So You look at this from two sides. One, yes, I think the Israelis have manipulated Trump's thinking. That was Very clear.

At the same time, Netanyahu has made massive destructions Mistakes. in overestimating his influence and his power. Do you think Congress will pass the NDAA, which will allow Ishrael to access data and intelligence from the US military? Not if the Democrats don't. And I don't even think if the Democrats don't, because I think that this is you and and you've been part of the reason it's uh your your uh attention. bringing this attention on social media, I think it's been very important, Shang, because um I think that the more sunlight that falls on that, the much less likely this is to happen. Israel's grand strategic problem from the beginning, and to this day is it is seven million Jews

Surrounded by million, I think. Well, nine million seven million Jews. Yeah, sorry. No, you've got two million who don't seven million Jews. That is seventy one miles wide's widest point. Yeah, but seven million Jews surrounded by three to four hundred million Muslims Depending on how far you out you want to count with Pakistan. So that ratio the only way you can have Israel the greater project is with American power. So with if you have American power withdraw completely from the Middle East with the way Iran wants it to be, and and that may end up being the outcome, uh then Israel's in deep trouble.

If they can't stop Iran now and those missiles coming into Iran now, with America's presence still there, what's gonna happen a year or two from now when there's no military from America there? Israel, those seven million are gonna be on their own Up against those three to four hundred million. I don't think this means Israel, by the way, gets wiped off the face of the map, but I do think it becomes a at least a a set it'll be a second tier power at best. Was successful in wars. It gave it an illusion.

What is evolving now geopolitically in the Middle East. is terrifying to the Israelis. Particularly with the rise of Turkey. At the same time, the United States now wants to withdraw from these various conflicts and even wants to reduce our the its reliability in Israel as well. And there's movements in the United States in the public and also in strategists and stuff.

The fundamental crisis in Israel is one that the Americans can't solve. because the American public is not gonna go that deeply into it. But there is the possibility of accommodation by Israel. Now Netanyahu does not believe in accommodation, it believes

They must use force in all cases. He can't. Now he's had a peace treaty with Israel with Egypt for many years and it's held. The theory that Antonio has that no agreement with the Arabs will ever be Honored.

In this particular case, um He's wrong. Because of the Egyptians did. Certainly Saudi Arabia has nothing. hostile to Israel. They've been quietly working with them on intelligence matters and a range of things. Okay.

Pakistan has no fundamental interest. In Israel. And Turkey it really has many bigger fish to fry as it evolves. than Israel.

At the same time, Israel does not know how not to call attention on itself. it somehow always gets into it because its grand strategy has been since its founding. Always attack. Be stronger than the other guy. but they've reached a point where they're not, and they won't be.

So the question is how does Israel evolve? In this situation. Along with how does the American relationship with Israel evolve? Very deep questions for these areas. But I think you're absolutely right that Israel is at the heart of this.

As a problem. But at this point it's profoundly weakening. Hour by hour almost. Why is it that Israel's got so much influence? Over the U. No money.

It's it's money, it's APAC. This is in the Israel Wabi, John Meersheimer and Steve Waltz book. They lay it out. Um and it's but fundamentally it's a very simple story, which is that although anybody can give money to elections, it's a it's a free and open process. It just turns out if you look at all the data uh that Jews as a group give more money than any other group per capita. And as a group overall about a third of all money in elections. Is coming from There's very different reason.

During Cold War. The Soviets. Had relations with Syria. Yeah, Relationships with Egypt. And so on.

The Cold War was fought there as well. When the Arabs of attacked Israel in nineteen seventy three. Okay. was with Soviet weapons, Soviet trading. Many case of Soviet tactics.

Imposed. Israel at that point. was one of the few countries that was pro American. And who had a strategic point that it could undermine Egypt, it could undermine these things.

So remember, ever since the Suez crisis The Soviets had gotten involved in it. The Cold War is over now. These are not relevant to this thing. But it's not simply money or something that was that was there too.

But that When the Cold War you take a look at the situation That the Russians had. And the amount of influence they had even in Lebanon and so on and so forth, des destabilizing It was deeply involved in the region.

And the United States didn't have very firm lies in it. It had Iran as an ally. And Israel is a lie. And they were players. So

So That a that situation is obsolete. The Soviets are no longer there. And so irrelevant. So to answer your question why if you have so much power, there's an alliance between Zion's capital

Um Um Basically A PAC. As well as um Christian Evangelicals.

Which is about a quarter of the population. Among Christian Evangelicals. Um maybe a minority. are Christian Zionists. uh which but and they believe that um Israel is God's plan to save the world.

So Ishrael has to has to be has to be protected on all costs. Okay. So you have this massive alliance between um Zionist capital and And then you have these fanatical Christian evangelicals. Um so one of the most powerful um organizations United States is something called Christians Christians United for Israel, run by someone named John Hadjee, and about seven million members.

And all they care about is Israel. So if you're a congressman and you say anything bad about Israel, you have like millions of people literally calling you up every single day bitching at you. Like literally. Um These are the people who are funding uh the West Bank settlement settlers, and they are the main cause of friction between uh The Israelis and the Arabs, um, because these

West Bank settlers are just complete nuts. They're they're they're they're crazy. Um so Um you say that okay, in November the issue lobby w will be taught a lesson. But if you got like this alliance in place, right, between Zionist Capital and we're t we're talking like a lot of money, right? They put in like thirty million dollars to defeat Thomas Mass in Kentucky. They put in seventy million dollars to to defeat um Abdul Al Sayyad in m in Michigan.

That's a lot of money for a primary, right? They've almost have access to unlimited capital. Do you have someone like um Larry David Ellison, who who's able to buy up CBS News and install Barry Weiss. So this alliance is almost unprecedented in American politics. So I don't see how just discuss with Israel can um Um

uh negate the power Well you're seeing that um Jewish uh representatives running for Congress are woozing right and left. And also the uh so it's not just uh whether they are Jews running for the Americ, whether they are the Christian Zionists running for the Congress. And um one of the big things that's um underneath that is that there is a large movement um among the right. So most of the uh the evangelicals are on the right. They're they're not on the left, they're not democrats, they're they're conservatives. Uh Many of the folks supporting, say, Tucker Carlson, uh Joe Ken has run for office several times, um they are uh folks that are extremely unhappy with the role of Israel in driving the foreign wars as they see it. Uh I see it as a secondary factor. They agree with you, Jean, that it's a number one factor. And what they're doing is they're voting the bums out. They're literally voting the bums out and replacing them with new

people who they think um are going to zero out the money for Israel. And I think they're gonna hold those people to account. They want that Israel's money to zero it out. Not realizing that the primary use of Israel Is obsolete. Syria does not have Russian bases, Soviet bases.

Egypt is not a Soviet power. Pot potentially blocking the Suez Canal and so on and so forth. So Israel is once a vital asset. For the United States under the circumstances. No, the answer is

A lot of countries have far more money than Israel can't be. If that was the only thing that was doing it. On the other hand, if you go back to the Cold War And how desperate it was.

The relationship between the US and Israel Doesn't isn't based on money and nobody challenges it. Because the Soviets are so powerful there. The reason this is happening now, this anger against Israel, is not just it's another forever war, it's because this is the war that's hurting the American pocketbook in a serious way. If you go back since Ninet Ny one. Uh, and you can even go back further, but if if listeners will just go back to nineteen ninety one and call up on Google and say, give me a chart of annual GDP growth or decline in the United States since nineteen ninety one to today, they're gonna see some great patterns. They're gonna see number one, GDP growth goes down during the

nineteen two thousand seven, say housing crisis, COVID. But it does not go down during the uh Gulf War in ninety one. Does not go down in Kosovo. It does not go down in two thousand and three when we invade Iraq. It does not go down during the forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This war is different. And the reason it's different is not just it's another war in a long period of time. It's different because this is the war that Americans are feeling it in their pocketbook for real. So if if it is a case that the American public is turning against Israel, and I certainly hope so. How did Thomas Massey who

was one of the um most ardent anti Israel voices in Trump. Trump went after him in a big way. You got the so Trump Trump targeted Massey W he targeted Marjorie Taylor Green, he targeted Massey. And when you're targeted by Trump, and we know this most from Marjorie Taylor Green, this means assassination attempts against you and your kids and your families. So this isn't just a small uh this isn't just uh political targeting we're talking about. So So let's summarize what what you're saying. Number one is you believe money has a significant impact on American politics. Oh yeah. And Zionists have a lot of money to spend. Okay, that's number one. Number two is Trump is very powerful within the um Republican Party. So if he if he targets you, whether you're being Thomas Massey or uh MTG um you will you will you will lose. Right, but I think Trump's influence is waning. I think it's it's up for grabs between now and January. That's what I'm saying, and it's what's driving the escalation trap.

desire to hold on to power is what's really driving the escalation trap between now and January. And and I am willing to I definitely agree it's an uphill battle because of all the money and all the uh sort of uh you know institutionalization as you are explaining it. That's all true. However that can crumble within a period of just a couple of years. I don't think this idea that that it will take five or ten years, in fact by twenty twenty eight, I'm expecting there will be a candidate for the democratic presidency of the United States that will be avowedly anti Zionist, not just kind of on the edges. And and I think this is just what they'll almost run on. I think at least one person because yes, almost run on because somebody's gonna be blamed. For

All the wreckage of this Iran war. And who were you gonna blame you? Why wouldn't you just blame Trump? Because uh Trump will already be toast by that point. You're gonna this isn't this this wreckage. is gonna go on for a while. We don't we're not gonna be done blaming people because uh you know Iran war is One of the biggest messes.

In modern history. It's the biggest mess. It's the biggest mess since we have had in our country since the since since really all the go back to all the way World War One. There's no bigger biggest mess in a hundred years. Yes. Bec not because of the casualty. So we we're used to it's the economic consequences that are so big. And as you're hearing, and I agree with his economic analysis here, he's talking about massive economic economy. The economy Oh my gosh, it's massive. And I I I hope he's wrong. I mean, this is where I'm predicting the predicting the other. And I I think we each hope the other is not quite right. But I am really concerned with his analysis because I I can't chip away. I brought Jeff Curry on, uh my sub stack to do these in you know, sort of like what you do here, uh here because I think he's just an amazing economist and so forth. He's right there. I mean, can can you can I'd like to say

Okay. I agree. This will be the biggest Right. If it doesn't end.

If it ends, it'll become like those other wars that we've had in the past and it goes on. The fundamental question is How does it end? How could it end so and so forth. We don't understand I don't understand fully the nature of political systems in Russia.

Or in Iran and how they continue the wars. So Before we're ready to say this is the biggest disaster, I would say, yes, if it continues, it will certainly be that. So far. It is not created.

The kind of crisis in the United States, for example. That Vietnam did. By far. So it's a question of how does this end? How long would it have to go on for?

If it goes on for another year, would you say it's the biggest crisis? I have no way to see it. because I don't know the consequences nor do I know how to for the foot what will happen in the Straits of Hormuz and so on. So if they were in the Straits of Hormuz and so on, if they were secured and the war went on, it might have one But Trump don't you see, George, that Trump's effort to end the war quickly with a victory for Trump is what is likely to create the Pyrrhic victory that's gonna go on and on the answer is I probably agree with you.

But I'm not certain. Because I'm not certain about How Iran is evolving. So

I agree with you certainly that if this war continues The consequences will be massive. I also agree with you that Trump will have a great deal of difficulty ending it at his own terms. But there's a variable there. That we have to take seriously.

The internal capability. We do have to put some probabilities between now and November, which is what, seventy five days? I think between now and November to expect Iran to implode, which is possible. I wouldn't I would say possible, but I wouldn't even give it a ten percent chance between now and November. I think they're using the election To try to force Trump into a position that he has to end it. Even by making massive concessions. Zero percent. Yeah, I think what you're seeing is the opposite. He he is more likely to use force or and it's starting with economic force.

to get a symbolic victory and I don't think Iran is gonna play their part. Iran is just not willing to give him the victory that he can walk Yeah, they're giving him the middle finger. Trump doesn't have the power to do these things. We have to take a look at power of Iran as well. So What are the things that Trump wants

is to add the ward. And not be a crippled president. Above all else. Yep. I Irani seem to be operating. Trying to push it out.

No. Comed October. He can't The president cannot make a deal.

They're trying to force him into a position negotiation and they're succeeding. Because he understands he's gonna lose power. If he continues this. So now we ask the question psychologically that I can't answer. Yeah.

Trump care more about Remaining powerful as president. Or more about beating D. Iranians because you started the war do you want to be successful. I have no idea which way it goes. But the Iranians I think are sophisticated.

And are using it. And using the election. As a bargaining chip. If Trump wants to win this war. And bring

world peace and prosperity. He he needs to do two things, okay? If he does these two things, I guarantee you this war will this war will end. United States will come up on top. And these two things are One. give two trillion dollars to Iran. Two twenty dollars in your red. Two trillion dollars in red.

The United States is forty twenty dollars in debt. Give two twelve two two twenty dollars to you, right? Not a big deal. The second thing is Control Israel. embargo issue of saying like if you misbehave, we will cut off arms to you guys And we'll no longer support you. Right. So withdraw from Lebanon, stop this

Seven wars you're fighting right now. Um Come to peace with the Palestinians. So if he does these these these two things, he will he will be remembered as the greatest president. In US history, no no first of all first of all, I I think so.

So I think that The problem with the plan, first of all, I I think that um containing Israel is becoming uh more and more part of President Trump's repertoire. He's not doing as much as I think he should be, but it's become the bigger part is your first point. The key problem President Trump faces is he's trying to end this conflict between now and the midterms or now and say January, but But really now in the midterms. And if he were to give two trillion dollars What would happen is Iran would say, Sure, we also want you to pull all your forces out.

Fine. Trump pulls all the forces out and two trillion dollars. And what then is Iran gonna do? It's going to likely topple. the governments in the Gulf States. It's not going to sit back and say, oh sure. Because they've got free rain because there's no other power vacuum. What is created it what's been created now, and this would make it even worse. is a power vacuum where it used to be America preeminent, Israel on the rise, Iran declined. Well now the power vacuum is because this is changing. And what's gonna fill that power vacuum is critical for the future. Iran, if under your plan They will fill the vacuum for Iran, and this will wreck Trump. Future. This is they it's not just Trump won't viscerally do it. This is just going to ruin Trump's future. I did not say give Iran two two trillion dollars of gold. I said give them two trillion dollars.

Two trillion US dollars. Which means Oh, it's gonna be worthless anyway. If you want the two trillion dollars dealing, no you want to give them a sucker deal. If you want the two trillion dollars, okay, you need to participate in the global economy. You need to make sure the Middle East is able to send oil to East Asia. Well, no, this is a version of Davy Vance's idea of pay for performance. And as I argued before when the MOU was coming up, I Vance's whole approach to this as a business deal, I think was completely misguided. What Iran is doing is not a business deal, pay for performance like uh like playing a football player. What what they want is power. Power. is what's at issue. So that's why I'm describing as there's a power vacuum, who's gonna fill the vacuum. It's not about the money per se. It's about

power because in international politics That's what determines outcomes. Twenty years ago, um, there was a philosophy in in Washington called neoliberalism. I'm I'm not sure if it's still around, but the idea was trading fast. Well, the idea was that trade would promote peace, right? So if you wanted peace in the Middle East, you just trade it with Iran. Iran has a lot of oil, you let them sell the oil. And and then you have peace. Yeah.

Is there anything wrong with that idea? There's nothing inherently wrong with it as long as you had a big protector like uh the United States that could enforce the stability on which that deal rested. And this is your point about how globalization is coming unglued. So uh I agree. I wrote a piece in Foreign Affairs laying out that what's happening uh with the Iran war is America as protector of the global rules of power, meaning stability for commerce, is simply coming unglued. So it's not just here in the Middle East, it's going to be around the world and what uh in ninety one When America won this stunning victory in the Middle East, it wasn't just confidence that America could police the sea lanes in the Middle East. There was confidence America could police the sea lanes globally. That's why trade went from thirty eight percent of world product to sixty-two percent of world product. Think about that, because it became cheaper to trade. You didn't have to worry about instability as much. Now instability is back. What does that mean? Trade is more expensive, more risky, insurance rates. And what does that mean? Anything that becomes more expensive.

You get less of it. Do you think Trump's really serious about pulling out of NATO? Oh, I don't think it even I I think NATO's already dead in terms of the key element of NATO because it's not symbolic to do that. It's not about that, NATO at its core, is not just a political alliance. What's in Article Five. is that once Article five is declared, a US general

There's no other decision. It's a US general sack your who commands All the NATO troops, not just US troops. All the NATO troops, the British troops, the German troops. France not in NATO for this reason. And that is what NATO is. NATO is a unified it's it's a war fighting unified alliance where you decide in advance the Americans call the shots for everybody.

Who's gonna be in Europe is gonna after what they've been through. Who's gonna let America run British troop? But should you also remember that the Americans don't want to be exposed there. Always in when you're looking at Trump. Okay.

And he was serious about these for ever wars. That he clumsily, stupidly got involved in one is true. But he Hit uh

A fundamental principle the United States. We did not want to be involved in these wars, these endless wars that we lost. It never helped. There's actually a much simpler reason. Trump really hates the Europeans. Hates the Europeans much more than he hates the Iranians. He blames I'm serious, he blames the Europeans for his twenty twenty twenty election loss. He thinks that Obama can spar the Europeans.

To defeat him. That's that's where he went out of Nano. I I'd I'd be doing a patriotic disservice if I didn't bring it up. Is the UK ever seriously gonna be considered in discussions of world powers moving forward again? Well, if you so I look at percentages of a country's world product compared to world product. If you look at the UK in nineteen ninety, that was around six to six and a half percent of world GDP. What is it today?

Just under four percent. So what's happened since nineteen ninety? So again, I track power with some key metrics that we can observe. And in nineteen ninety, America was twenty six percent of world's GDP, China was two percent. Wow, uh, and the Europeans varied from about five to seven percent, Germany the highest. You look today, and America's flat at twenty six. China's up from two to seventeen. And what's happened to all those Europeans? They're down by a third or more. Who's the sucker here? So people say we've been uncle suck. This is my one of my complaints against uh this argument that America's uncle sucker. No, we played the Europeans here, not the other way around. And Japan. So this is why I don't worry about Japan was

Um, over ten percent of world's GDP at that point. Where are they today? Four percent. Four percent. So if you just this is all world bank numbers, people listening can go and Google it, you will see that we have been enormously privileged by this period called the Cold War. Which this war is the British ending. At the expense of other countries.

Is Japan responded. By massively increasing its military power. So it did not simply look at us at the United States to say, Where are you going?

Yeah. Took action and China now worries might a great deal about Japan. The Europeans thought was an immoral act. Improper.

to want to pull back and Depend on. The American point of view was The EU is larger than China economically, there is no possible reason

Why? We should be the primary defender of Europe, though is it fundamental reason for many years. But why now? So I don't think this should be put into Trump Load I think with or without Trump

This questioning of Mm-hmm. Веорно ви щоремай експлуат. in NATO and what NATO should evolve into. would have been put on the table.

By Any president at this point. The China example is very much what Europe should have done. We pulled back from

That Japanese. Created a much Mm. is creating a much greater force along with the Australians

And along with the Vietnamese were now involved in that too. So many things are happening. So I think there are limits to what we can Well I wasn't really blaming Trump, just to be clear. I was just showing the hole in the argument. I'm simply saying that. There's a very reasonable redefinition of Europe after

Ukraine Defeated essentially Russia. We uh we mentioned this earlier on changing demographics specifically in China, but this is happening globally. Looks like global population's gonna peak. Twenty one hundred, something like that, maybe. Weight decline is happening not just in the United States, but in Europe as well. This is the bottom of Ten billion maybe. And then it's gonna do this, unless there's some intervention that we can't yet foresee. When it comes to you guys. planning out how you think about the future geopolitically

How much of a uh curveball Is the potential changing demographics. Obviously we've got AI and robotics and automation coming in at the same time, but what it seems like China's doing is basically trying to speed run using humans to build robots so that the robots can replace the humans once the humans have fucked off.

Wha how do you think about global population decline playing into your models moving forward? So this war in the Middle East. Um people don't really appreciate the um geopolitical consequences. So right now we're about eight billion people. But if you talk to economists, they'll tell you that the earth by itself can only support about two billion people.

The way we we get around this is with fertilizer. Right. So Middle East is important not just because it provides cheap energy, but also provides a lot of fertilizer. um to the world. I can't remember the exact number, maybe a quarter to a third of the world's fertilizer. So if a quarter to a third of the world's fertilizer goes offline for a year then you're gonna have millions of people starve to death.

Um so there's no way w w we'll reach Not done people. Uh, you will see massive starvation throughout Africa at some point. You think this is gonna happen? You don't think it's all it I I think it's big deal already. So I I agree, maybe for a slightly different um angle on this. Which is so I think about power, balance of power. You're hearing me come everything from a balance of power perspective. That's why sometimes agree, disagree with the other. But from the balance of power, what's happening? America was preeminent from nineteen ninety one. Until this war. America's being knocked back because for the first time since ninety one, a state

Beat. America. Just think about that. And everybody's learning that lesson. That America can be beaten. Well, that means America's global influence that we call it the world empire. You can call it American hegemony. This is now fading fast.

What's going to replace it, we could say it's multipolarity. I think it's going to be more fragmented than that. I think you're going to see uh you might even call it a emerging anarchy that's going to occur. And under those conditions here, this is because the states that used to be under uh America's protection. They're not under America's protection before. You're talking we're talking about Japan building force. Notice we're not saying Japan getting America to come and help it. We're talking about Japan on its own. Many states around the co around the world are thinking this way. That's what I mean by an emerging anarchy. It's not really quite a multipolar world. It's more fragmented than who would need the US and China. Have aligning interests.

Fundamentally. And we are seeing the diplomatic process playing out. I think it will succeed with an understanding. Okay. But at the same time.

China is not the Soviet Union. It does it occupy countries. It uses economic f influence in those countries, investment and so on and so forth. So it's a very different country, not too different from the United States in the way it operates as well. Although there's apps.

Yeah, I say actually operates with more military power. But but in this emerging anarchy, you will see greater uh incentives for nuclear proliferation, for example. With greater incentives, and you already saw that with Saudi Iran, Saudi Arabia, uh, you will see this um uh these incentives start to spread as a result of this war. What will also happen as a result of the incentives for proliferation is concerns about preventive wars, preemptive wars to stop that. So we've worried about for some time Poland might start to think about going nuclear. People are already already noticing Putin. has been focusing on Poland. Why would Putin focus on Poland? I'm going to Poland next week to meet the president. There you go.

Poland is the eastern front of Europe. It cannot trust the Western Front because It's the allies of the willing. Okay. And With that statement. That shows it.

Poland is evolving dramatically. And it has the capability it is discussing becoming a nuclear power. There you go. So the question of 'Cause when I talk to them I I can't constantly hear back. You know? We're not counting in the United States. We have ten thousand troops there, but we're not counting in the United States.

So it's evolving dramatically. And it's going to be looking at that. So I agree with you. There's a need to have nuclear weapons. Okay, or the supposed need for to have nuclear weapons. We'll create it.

But at the same time I see the economic alliance between the United States And China. And I think that's going to happen. Is good.

Create a strange Polls. Between the two. Because they have very similar interests. I don't disagree with you. I don't disagree with Zhang. What I'm saying is we're moving to a more war. Prone.

World. Yep. Well the wonder fairly full of war for a while. with regards to conflicts that aren't just going to expand from existing ones. No. North Korea. No, Chris the big one. Yeah.

If I'm North Korea And I'm You know, I'm poor. But I've got nuclear weapons. And Japan, China, South Korea all distracted.

Why don't I just extort everyone? Right? Wha why not why not just like, you know, hold a gun to everyone's head and like just say pay up or I'll just blow you all up? China itself has tensions with North Korea. Okay. Why is it why is it the case this uh whatever you want to call it, global

Quasi anarchists. World Why? Why is that happening? Because we have lived under a certain amount of stability from nineteen ninety one when the Cold War ended, the Soviet Union that Cold War conflict receded. It was immediately followed by the first Gulf War Which showed America could easily be

Iraq, which was a power trying to control the world's economy. Daddy can't take care of you anymore. Daddy's either too old baby boomer. So maybe you know the daddy's too old. And I've not gotten anymore. And I'll also assert the other thing. The United States doesn't want that role. So it's not only they can't do it. It doesn't want to do it. So it's it's strange to think that you can have a A globe with a bunch of different nation states, individual cum countries who are competing with each other and sometimes in tension with each other, but you still kind of need somebody in charge.

Yeah. And now there's nobody in charge. So yeah. You know what? If you go back to two thousand Uh the world was perfect. But then I'm serious, the world was perfect in two thousand. Pretty perfect. Nickelback was about to come along. Decided to go invade Iraq. Libya. Syria.

And create all this chaos in the Middle East. Um and um then it started to sanction Russia. NATO start to expand westwards And uh then you have this conflict in uh Ukraine between Russia So Um

I mean, I think it's hubris. Uh so it's not just Then United States becoming exhausted and doesn't want its power. I think it's also hubris. uh Iran war even more stupid. Oh yeah. It it sort of uh expedited something that was m already kind of other predictable wars and conflict for years. This was the one I modeled for twenty years, year after year, in and out. Why? And it was because this was the next German This was the biggest

problem if we took it on that we would find for United States since Germany and world. That's what I'm asking. But we will be debating this, Chris. For decades. If it's some I I will agree with you that if it extends. It will be on that. It has not extended Let's not overestimate it yet. If

You say This is a insane move. Which If you give it enough time, and it's not that much time, presumably eighteen months or two and a half years or something like it's a really big deal. Like if you if you are We don't need to worry about it. It wasn't that big of an error if we don't reach the end of the gang plank. It's like no. Like you're already on the plank. You're walking. There's water either side of you. If you just about managed to turn around and reverse directly. And the difference between life and death is how far you go down the plank.

Oh I agree. It doesn't make me think that I'm less comf comf confident about the decision. Yeah. But it it it really is like Oh, this was the worst thing you could do. This was absolut yes, and I think this was where Um, the real issue with President Trump walling himself off from anything like strong advisors. So if you just look at the advisors around Trump. I'm sorry, this is just an extremely weak group of advisors. It's not as well. I will also say Vietnam was far worse than this war from the American point of view. Exactly. But for the American this was the

Moment. That's why after Vietnam, we could just shift over to deal with Europe, try to defend the so Europe from the Soviet Union. This war, we're not shifting. Yes. Like that oh what was the motivation? Was it some deeply sought after analyst fueled thing? It's like no some guy just woke up and decided to press a button. You will think How was it that we allowed power to be centralized so much behind the one that you may have a famous commercial by Hillary Clinton in 2016, which is the red phone is ringing, it's three AM, and that means that was the phone to the nuclear weapons. Who do you want to answer that phone? This is the way we've built our constitution, Chris. And I one person makes that decision. But I would argue that Don't overestimate.

Okay, if you extrapolate all the way forward. Okay. But see the forces that are Making Iran itself Consider what to do. And so on.

So yes, if this war continued. It would have massive effects. He's already had significant effects. On the other hand Do not assume that we understand.

At this point. Just how far Iran can go as well. Yes, one man started this war. Okay. He's failed to win it.

But do not assume That this war cannot end except Go on forever. I I I very much hope that it does. Well when I say January, we'll know the answer to that. So January kind of a point of no return for it. It's a point it's a it's a it's an inflection point because in January Either President Trump will have the uh wherewithal to be able to continue the war

Or he won't. And that's because of the Democrats in Congress. So the Democrats will either win Congress or not, and if they win Congress, they'll either act to shut down the war or not. We will know this in January. The damage has already been done. T like a lot of the facilities, the energy f facilities of of the city have been shut down. It's gonna take almost six months. Let's assume the war ends today or today. It takes me six months to restart all these facilities. Yes. Well then six months it'll get better then. So we're talking about a fundamental shift in the nature of life on earth.

Which could happen. But not in the shorter run. Well well wait a minute, but his I don't think the two of you are as far apart because remember you're speaking in very, very broad strokes. What he is saying is that even by January, my my threshold, um, he's very concerned about the debt crisis. He's very concerned about the world he's worried about the world economy. So and your point is even if we have a a world recession or depression, we'll recover. You two are not as far apart as you might think. Uh but The point is I think that we are at a bookend with this war. The one thing that won't come back

Is confidence in America as the protector of that global system. That's not coming back for decades. This is exactly What we in Texas want. Because we have

Бікозві серд. During the Cold War. I to fill the gap. Oh. And there's really I desire in the United States in the public

Not to have this role. Okay. Among those of us working this we this is a natural thing they should we should have this role. But when I talk to my neighbors the idea that we are responsible for the world. And one of the reasons this hostility

From the Texas Republicans. Well, Toward Trump. Very much so. Is that he did what he promised he wouldn't do, get us involved again. Yes, and I'm not arguing uh for taking care of the world to take care of the world. I'm saying that America's primacy is not coming back.

Is there a And again, I will say That means it's economy. Well, the economy losing the if if we are if this is right then the future of social security is is not long for this world. Um and that's a tremendous problem. I have a ninety seven year old um uh mother in law. And I am seeing already that we are horrendous in this country at I've been um uh taking care of people in their nineties. And we're going to have more people living in their nineties. What if social security goes away as a result of this war? I don't know how the connection can be made that would ha be possible. Well, this is his more his area than mine.

Production and trade and everything else is critical to the world. It's the debt pro it's these financial underpinnings that are being stressed. When you look at world trade You look at who consumes it. And who can't consume it. You know still has role.

Okay. Artificial intelligence now accounts for fifty percent of GDP growth in the United States. fifty percent of GDP growth are are these these AI data centers. Guess who's financing these data centers? The G G C

So imagine a scenario where this war continues, the GGC is no longer able to provide any financing. The bubble, the AI bubble burst. You have like millions of unemployed Americans. I mean

the consequences will will be very dire. There's different models that may play out. That may be one of them. But I see it happening. Somewhat differently. Which is that the United States

Dominating the Western Hemisphere. Not having the price to pay. And In terms of defense and everything else. May well get by.

So the issue here is not that the world isn't changing. I think we all agree that a radical new system is emerging. Okay. We may not agree on what it would look like, but it's certainly gonna be different. At the same time I don't view this evolution as catastrophic.

From the American point of view or from the global point of view. Is there a a conflict Or a war. Or a Area of focus that everyone's preparing for right now that probably won't happen.

Is that something that a lot of attention is being paid to Nucle nuclear war will not happen. Why? Because um there's no incentive for these nations to blow themselves up.

Mad. It's yeah, it's it's madness, right? Mutual assured destruction. Yeah. Yeah. Which is why we haven't had any such voice. Right. So I I don't see any scenario where nuclear weapons are used, even tactically. Um, I think that before the war started on February twenty eighth, I put the odds of a nuclear weapon being used by the United States in this conflict,'cause I modeled for twenty years, as under five percent. By Israel at about 15%. So just to tell you where this has been. I've now essentially been doubling those over time because the nature of um the players, so the modeling is agnostic to the decision makers, right, over time because you have different presidents come in.

But what we've already seen is that uh President Trump um is already inordinately looking into nuclear weapons. Uh a dolphin, which is a nucle which is a nuclear uh arms carrying submarine by Israel. Israel moved it into the Red Sea within firing range of Tehran. Now these are not by themselves disposed. These are these are just movements. So I understand that. But nonetheless, um these are encouraging Iran to move forward to do nuclear tests. So as you look at Uh I'm not saying uh so as you just look at strategic interaction. So that's what a model is. It's not just one player, it's strategic interaction. Uh the reason I've up my percentages is because I've seen actions by Israel and the United States that I believe are increasing Iran's incentives to do nuclear tests.

And that once Iran would actually literally prepare to do nuclear tests. If we see those coming. That is another interaction. So that's my dynamic that I'm concerned about, but it's not at the level of fifty seventy percent. Right now Iran cannot give up a nuclear weapon because of a fat one place. So for the Fatwa to be rescinded, the supreme leader would need to organize a council and they wouldn't need to There's no chance that they could subvert the religious doctrine. It's a theocracy. It's it's like saying let's ignore the first amendment of the Constitution. Yeah, but that could be arranged pretty quickly. And they're about to ri withdraw from the NPT, possibly. So they're already talking about which are these under the hood as we bulk that

Power. Okay. Iran would only develop a nuclear weapon if Israel United States were to attack first. Right. But if you're Iran uh sorry, if you're Israel United States, you use it tackling nu nuclear weapons, say maybe on Pegas Mountain, right? Building building a deliverable nuclear weapon is Much more complex.

Than testing one. All sorts of elements. Come together. It would take time. Well that's true for hydrogen generation two weapons, but not atomic weapons, fat man and little boy. So fat man and little boy are undergraduate Well no, Fatman and Little Boy are delivered on uh was delivered on aircraft. This was not a put into a m the second generation was miniaturized to put into the missile. But once we look I d I I simply am saying that

Developing a nuclear weapon. And testing it and making sure it works. Takes a lot of time. pretty sure this country can conquer this problem. Over a period of time, yes. Well just pointing out it's it's you're you're raising it to the bar it must be miniaturized and look like our if once we go back to World War Two level nuclear weapons, which just have to keep keep in mind Um killed well over a hundred thousand people in those two explosions. North Korean plenty of problems.

Well that's because they went to miniaturize it to I'm just pointing out that Iran may go much more quickly to a time. I see the risk of nuclear war even with Iraq. Down the road with plenty of time to do it. We've got to test two nuclear devices, I I think that the odds that we're gonna look at those two nuclear tests

Let's say it's an October surprise. I totally agree. If they test two nuclear weapons in October, are you telling me, George? No, we're gonna look at those two nuclear tests and say don't worry, folks. If they it's gonna be years before they could hit New York. Two nuclear devices. You're absolutely right. I am saying, however, knowing something about the Developing nuclear weapons. That first test will probably fail and so on and so forth.

There is time is all I'm saying. Okay, nothing more than that. What should people be paying the most attention to let's say the next Two years.

Something like that. People that are listening, what are the Uh warning signs nuclear tests coming out of Iran. One of those. Uh what are the uh little hurdles in terms of timing. You mentioned November, you also mentioned January. What would be the big inflection points that you guys are paying attention to in the next two years?

is whether we will see the democrats win one or both houses of Congress and seeded peacefully. Seated peacefully. So we need to understand that Um what we saw Uh and

November two thousand twenty. was an election did not go President Trump's way. Now we have not seen President Trump as president. Have that happen again. He is about to be president.

And we're gonna see in November two thousand twenty six, will an election not go President Trump's way? And if it doesn't go President Trump's way, is he going to do anything to disturb the process of it going and that will go on for months because the election is November third. Seeding the Congress is January third. If that's what I'm really focused on. Because if that goes south. All of these issues are gonna get much, much, much worse. Vowing. Is the US China?

Economic ontage. And reducing Tensions within that. If those two countries get together The global system changes possibly

With proper presidents. stabilizes in a different form. So I'm looking at that as the most Critical thing coming. My question is will the United States target critical civil infrastructure in Iran?

Next. one or two months if I start sorry the state starts targeting power plants Or these these election plants are not. This war is now out of control. We are now beyond the escalation trap. Um it's it's complete madness. Even if it's done remotely, it doesn't need to be boots on the ground, it doesn't need to be nukes. If the States targets Iranian power plants

Iran will target In any way. In any way. Iran will target all of the Middle East. Energy infrastructure. The pipelines, the energy fields. It's easy to do w with drones. I I agree with this. I just put the d internal problem a little bit higher, but I agree with his assessment that and this is part of my nightmare. It's not like these two things existing separately. They actually go toget that's what I'm trying to say. These things actually go together. And then I gave this

presentation to my sub stack about the four steps that would be the nightmare scenario just in the Iran War. And this is uh this is the critical step because once you hit and I uh when I taught for the US Air Force in the 1990s Targeting electric power plants was one of the critical things we studied for months and months. We fortunately did it in the unclassified world, so that I was I'm able to talk about this. We brought in people that ran the power plants, the engineers that built them. So I I have a fair idea of the different places you would target the plants. what the consequences are. And there's a great paper that if uh people are listening uh by Thomas Griffith called Targeting Electric Power. He was a military officer when he wrote this paper. It is the best paper on the consequences of targeting military power Uh and on my sub stack I wrote a lengthy piece what targeting Terron would really mean for the people of Tehran. When you take out the electric power in Tehran for a month.

And I walk through it. Uh but not good, I imagine starvation. Oh my God. Oh yeah. It's much because all of the uh so much of the food, twenty five percent of the food in Tehran is r under refrigeration, and that includes all the supermarkets, all Th there's so much that is and then you really start to run out of the ability to pump water. So things like water pumping stations in the Middle East where you depend on water. So there's uh there's so much of detail underneath the summary of Uh um droughts, starvation, um, mass evacuations of the city, but where do these ten million people go? It's not like they just run to some other place and turn on the faucet. So this is the the targeting of electric power is is much worse than it's actually worse than a nuclear option.

To do that would be worse than using a tactical nuke on Pickaxe Melbourne. In terms of destruction, quality of life change. In terms of the escalation ladder of all right. Oh, the escalation ladder, civilian. No way. So if you hit You're saying if you hit power plants with Any kind of missile.

That's more than the super clear. There's two aim points on the electric power, and and this is a target set that we've uh the American Air Forces have mentioned. So Well, in order to understand why not to do it, to be qu And by the way, from the moment of Tom Griffith's paper, and we did this in the mid nineties until right now, we've not targeted electric power. So that paper for twenty years has been the warning to of the warning to all the generals and CENCOM. This is what it means to target electric power. And it shows and so what you are um uh what you are seeing in and the plan itself. So if we could imagine I don't see a good thing to use as a plant, but you can hit the um the cables. that connect the plant to the grid, the electric power grid. That's like blowing a fuse in your home. That knocks it out for like a four. Yeah, about a week. Okay. Maybe two at most, but maybe we've probably about four or five days. But if you hit the holes.

The actual generating holes, those are each special made. They're gigantic. They're much bigger than this whole building. And it takes six months. to even design them and produce them, much less bring them back in. So once you go after the halls. So when President Trump his his rhetoric here is worrisome because he's talking about When he's talking about uh these massive consequences. This would be fit. This would fit with the description of going after the hulls, and you're not bringing this back with the red cross, and you're not going to come in and you're not going to support this with a giant bur Berlin airlift of massive water to all these people. This is this is going to be this would be much more horrendous.

Um, and if you take out Tehran, that's ten million people. It wouldn't be long before you took out another like ten different nodes and the entire seventy percent of the population would be without electric power. It's a it's a much bigger problem than people realize. That is scary. That is terrifying. Gentlemen, I appreciate you all. Uh this is I I don't know whether I'm reassured, but I'm definitely more educated. Uh which is nice. Where should people go to check out everything that you've got going on? Uh I'm on YouTube and Substack Predictive History. Oh yeah.

Uh I'm on Substack here, Escalation Trap, Professor Pape, and starting tomorrow, a brand new YouTube channel that's coming tomorrow afternoon. Uh Pape on the politics of force. So stay tuned. And any book. And and the new book coming, Our Own Worst Enemies, America in the Age of Violent Populism. And my nightmare scenario was always that we'd have a election as can this contentious with an international crisis and they're both happening. And uh for me, geopolitical futures dot com is what you could visit. And I'm of the opinion humanity will survive again. as extremely improbable as might seem.

Beautiful. Gentlemen, I appreciate you all. Thank you very much. Thank you. Goodbye, my beauty. That was great. Thanks so much. George? George? Thank you very much. That was awesome. That was awesome. Enjoy that.

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