WAR UPDATE: Harvard Professor on Iran, Russia, China, and Trump’s Dangerous Moves in the Middle East

The Tucker Carlson Show

In this episode of The Tucker Carlson Show, Harvard professor Stephen Walt discusses the long-term global implications of ongoing conflicts

Key takeaways

• The erosion of norms against assassination has made global conflict more unpredictable and dangerous.
• Global defense spending has doubled over the past two decades, signaling widespread anticipation of insecurity.

Main topics

• Global security after wars against Russia and Iran
• Erosion of international norms on the use of force

Notable quotes

"You're going to see a much more dangerous world. I think unfortunately the world agrees with that."

Conclusion

Professor Walt concludes that the current trajectory of global conflict, weakened norms, and declining trust in institutions

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:04) First of all, thanks so much for doing this. Speaker 1 (0:05) Nice Speaker 3 (0:06) to be here. So let's start at the end, the anticipated end. When and if the United States resolves its role in these two wars against Russia and against Iran, what does the world look like, do you think? Speaker 1 (0:18) I think it looks like a substantially more dangerous world, actually, than we've seen for, say, most of the time. After the wars? Yeah, after the wars. Well, it's going to leave the world in, I think, a more precarious condition. condition, and for sort of larger, more enduring reasons than just these conflicts. I mean, the relationship with Russia is not going to improve for a while, even if the war formally comes to an end. There's lots of suspiciousness on both sides now, so that's going to be a problem. China is going to continue to improve its military power. It's going to continue to grow economically. It's going to continue to challenge. the United States and others for influence around the world. So that's going to be a source of tension. We have, I think, in the world today, you're seeing other powers, lesser powers being more active and not always constructively. Think of the role that the UAE has played in the civil war in Sudan. So they're involved in fueling conflicts in a variety of other places. So you're going to see a tripolar world, Russia, China, the United States as the three main powers with some unresolved tensions among them. Continued, I think, concerns about what's going on in Asia and what China's ambitions might be there. And in a situation where no one really trusts America's judgment anymore. And that's, I think. artifact of the war, especially the war in Iran. Let me point to one other thing that I think people sometimes forget about, and that's what we've seen, I think, a pretty dramatic erosion in the normative environment surrounding the use of force. And I mean, you know, I'm a good realist, so I don't think norms in international law are everything, but they're not irrelevant. So one of the things we've seen is essentially a collapse of the norm against assassination. You know, for a long time in world history... Governments didn't try to assassinate each other. Leaders of other countries didn't try and kill each other in conflicts. This was a common practice 500 years ago, and it gradually fell from favor and a norm emerged against it. You can understand why. It was in everybody's self-interest. If you were a king, if you were a prime minister, not to be trying to kill each other. Moreover... Great powers like this norm because it meant that conflicts would be decided on the battlefield where they had all the soldiers and all the wealth and could win. Assassination is a tool of weaker powers. Right. Speaker 3 (2:59) Asymmetrical, of Speaker 1 (3:00) course. Right. And beginning at the end of World War II. when the Allies began to hold leaders accountable, Nuremberg trials, the Tokyo war crimes trials, this idea that what you did as a statesman was sort of separate began to erode. Once that began to erode, then going after a leader. going after Muammar Gaddafi, going after Saddam Hussein, begins to look morally preferable. Why not just take out this troublesome leader as opposed to... Spare the population. Spare the population. You could make this argument. Of course, this is a very dangerous road to go down because now it's becoming a much more common practice. Look at what the United States and Israel do at the beginning of the Iran war. They take out all of Iran's senior leaders. There's at least two problems here. First of all, you don't know who's going to replace them. Of course, we're now having trouble with a more hardline faction in Iran. It also erodes any possibility of trust. I mean, how can you sit down and negotiate a peace agreement with a regime that has killed your senior leaders and might do something again subsequently? And then finally... As that norm begins to erode, others are going to use it too. Others will start using similar tactics and leaders, including American presidents, are going to have to worry much more about this than they did necessarily in the past. All right, you put all of those things together, continued great power competition, eroding norms against the use of violence in a variety of different ways. I think you end up with a much more dangerous world. I think... Unfortunately, the world agrees with that, because if you look at the last 20 years or so, in constant dollars, defense expenditures have basically doubled in the world over the last 20 years. Not just in the U.S.? Not just in the United States. You see this happening in Asia. You see this happening in Europe now. belatedly, but finally happening. And I think that's all evidence that around the world, people anticipate a much less secure environment than the one we've had. Speaker 3 (5:10) Not when we were promised. We were promised by certain factions in American politics, peace based on global trade. Globalizing the economy was supposed to guarantee stability because you don't go to war with your trading partners. That's what they told us. Right. Speaker 1 (5:26) And I should have mentioned that. I mean, the other thing that's happening is we're seeing the onset of not an end to global trade, not even a complete end to globalization, but certainly a retreat back from it. Raising of trade barriers, increased protectionism, particularly in high technology, things like that. And I don't think that's going to go away anytime soon. You're going to see a much more. competitive economic environment and what has been called weaponized interdependence, people trying to gain political advantage by using. others' vulnerabilities or others' dependence, the way the United States has weaponized the role of the dollar in the international financial system imposing sanctions, the way Iran has weaponized everyone's dependence on the Strait of Hormuz to advance a political agenda. So all of that's going to contribute. But can Speaker 3 (6:19) we put those cliches to bed? that, you know, democracies don't go to war against their neighbors, that trading partners don't have wars. Like, that's just not, none of that's true. Speaker 1 (6:28) Well, you want to be careful here. There is some evidence that democracies are less likely to fight each other. It's soft evidence. I don't, I wouldn't want to base my entire foreign policy around that assumption. You don't want to completely throw it out. And secondly, the... Again, big macro studies will show you that, in fact, high levels of economic interdependence do make international conflict between the partners less likely. That is to say, there's a statistical relationship there. It is not, however, an absolute guarantee. The fact that you have an extensive economic relationship with someone doesn't mean you won't fight them. It just makes it somewhat less likely. Also, you can make the reverse argument arguably even more powerfully. It's not so much that interdependence causes peace. It's rather that peace causes interdependence. Yes, exactly. When you have a stable political environment. Thank you for saying that. No, you have a stable political environment. People don't think war is very likely. That's right. Then they're willing to trade with someone else much more readily. They're willing to invest in a foreign economy without worrying that somehow that's going to get nationalized or seized because a conflict emerges. And once people begin to see that conflict is likely. And I'm talking to investors here. They quite naturally begin to pull back. And governments encourage them to pull back because they're worried about what the balance of power is going to be, etc. So the optimism of the, say, early 1990s that we're going to head into this wonderful, you know, Fukuyama and Friedman-esque world of globalization, peace and harmony. There was a grain of truth in that. If the world had remained peaceful and tranquil, then interdependence. looks more attractive. But once the world starts to look more dangerous, people begin to worry more about security than they do about wealth. Speaker 3 (8:24) You know, one thing that might make you feel a little better about your life is buying life insurance because life ends and the last thing you want is to leave the ones you love hanging. There's nothing worse than that. If you're providing for a spouse or children or parents, it makes a lot of sense. 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Speaker 3 (9:31) Why have American policymakers been unwilling to be realistic about the rise of China? Speaker 3 (9:39) It seems like everything in the last 20 years, the subtext of a lot of it is like a total unwillingness to deal with the fact that we're not in charge of everything because China has this enormous economy. Speaker 1 (9:50) Yeah. I think there's a lot of factors that went into this. I mean, first, there was a certain degree of just general American hubris, particularly post-Cold War. We've won the Cold War. We have... the magic formula. We have the model for how you organize a modern society. It's got to be a market-based economy. It's got to be based on rule of law. It's got to be open to trading with others. That's the modern world. And this is what you get when you read, you know, Frank Fukuyama, who is, in my view, a fine scholar, but was wrong about that, and some others in the 1990s. That's what we generally believed. And it was bipartisan. Republicans and Democrats largely all subscribed. to this idea. And a key part of that was because we had found the magic formula, this was the answer. China had finally embraced markets and would inevitably become democratic because its citizens would get wealthier. It would be a middle class. That middle class would want freedom and political rights, and it would insist upon being able to express itself, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You could tell yourself a pretty good story for how this is all going to work out. And then once China is a liberal democracy and all engaged with everyone and a member of all these international institutions like the World Trade Organization, we're going to have. Not a perfect world, but the best world we've ever had. Again, nice story. And there was a coherent logic to it. It turned out to be wrong. The Chinese Communist Party was not about to liberalize. They put a premium on political control and had lots of ways of doing it. And we were too eager and too hasty to bring them into all of these institutions, to engage them and help them grow. So one factor was just hubris on our part and overconfidence that we really had the answer and they would inevitably adopt our system or something like our system. Second part was, of course, the short-term interests of American corporations who could make lots of money by shifting production to China. And we're, in my view, so eager to do that that they were willing to accept terms that they probably shouldn't have about technology sharing, about letting it. Chinese, you know, basically learned to do what we had learned to do. And I should be clear here. I don't think the United States should have tried to strangle Chinese economic development. We shouldn't have tried to encourage it as much, but that would have had costs for us. We all benefited from embracing China the way we did. You and I got cheaper goods than we would have had otherwise. Some Americans, a minority of Americans, were really badly hurt by this, the so-called China shock. So there were industries, there were communities that were decimated. But the vast majority of Americans ultimately benefited economically. What all those Americans, including you and me, forgot was that this was also going to ultimately begin to shift the balance of economic power in ways that were more beneficial to China than they ultimately were to us. And that was going to have consequences down the road. China was going to grow. Once China embraced markets, once China got rid of Maoism and got serious about real coin, they were going to catch up. But it would have been better for us, and I think probably better for everyone if this had happened, or at least for most of us, if this had happened more slowly, more gradually than it did. Speaker 3 (13:16) But Speaker 1 (13:16) once Speaker 3 (13:16) it Speaker 1 (13:16) happened... Speaker 3 (13:17) Oh, yeah. And, you know, you look up and China has a bigger, by some measures, a bigger economy than the United States. vastly bigger population like you're gonna have to deal with china you you can't continue to tell yourself it's unipolar in any sense and why wouldn't they have a sphere of influence um Speaker 1 (13:35) well there's two points here uh one let's get to the sphere of influence point in a second but um To me, one of the great, call it tragedies, is that beginning in the Bush administration, there's a real recognition that China is now emerging as a potential peer competitor. You see this in the national security strategies written in the Bush administration. And I know inside the Pentagon, there were real serious efforts made to start preparing for this. The problem is that 9-11 came along and completely blew the Bush administration's agenda. Instead of focusing on great power relations and on China, they focus on the global war on terror, right? And ever since then, you've had every single American president saying they were going to focus laser-like on China. We're going to pivot to Asia. We're going to focus on China. We're going to crack down on Chinese practices. And every one of those presidents, I think this is true of... Bush. This is true of Obama. This is true of Trump won. This is true of Biden. They get blown off course by events elsewhere, usually in the Middle East. And trouble in the Middle East and America's inability to stay out of that trouble has been a great benefit because it's never allowed the United States. Benefit to China. Benefit to China, C.R. Because it's never allowed the United States to do what. serious people in the government wanted to do, which was to focus a lot more attention on that problem. Second question is the sphere of influence issue. So if I were the Chinese, I would like to have a sphere of influence in Asia. I would like to have the United States out, who wants the world's most powerful country, or arguably the world's most powerful country, allied with all of your neighbors and with substantial military forces nearby. If I were China, I would prefer a situation where the United States is essentially out of Asia. And I don't Speaker 3 (15:36) want Speaker 1 (15:36) to conquer Japan. I don't want to conquer Korea. I don't want to conquer Vietnam. That's not necessary, too much work. I just want relations of deference. I want those countries to not be a security threat to me. I want them to pay close attention to my wishes. In other words, I would like a relationship with most of my... neighbors in Asia, similar to the relationship the United States has with most countries in the Western Hemisphere, where they're very careful how they interact with the United States because we tend to be pretty heavy-handed in dealing with them for all those reasons. That's what I would like if I were China. Now, if you're the United States, the question is, is that something you should be happy with? And my view is no, that a China that was as secure in Asia as we are in the Western Hemisphere. We face no serious rivals in the Western Hemisphere. There's no enemy armies about to invade the United States from anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. We can run around the world getting into trouble in lots of places because we don't have to worry about defending our borders, etc. A China that was in a similar position would suddenly be much freer to roam around the world getting into trouble in lots of places. Maybe the Chinese are smarter than we are. Maybe they wouldn't do that. But the possibility would become much more viable. And that might even include starting to form strategic partnerships with countries in the Western Hemisphere. Not just economic partnerships, but strategic partnerships. If China depends on economic resources, maybe it would like to have a military role here. Maybe it would like to form an alliance with Brazil. This is not something the United States has ever really wanted. That's what the Monroe Doctrine was all about. And it's been a great benefit to American security. I think the United States should do what it can to prevent China from dominating Asia the way we dominate the Western Hemisphere. I think that's possible to do, but I worry that we're doing all of the things that you shouldn't do if that was your goal. Speaker 3 (17:42) Well, decisions made in Washington have done a lot to tank the Japanese economy, I think. That's my read. And the president's recent comments about the South Korean president suggest in both countries, which are the key countries that you're talking about, like a withdrawal of American support to some extent. Yeah, it's Speaker 2 (18:01) quite Speaker 1 (18:02) remarkable. I mean, the business with North Korea or North Korea and South Korea is truly baffling. And we can get into that in some detail. Summarize your view of it, if you don't mind, because I'm confused. Yeah, I don't get it at all. I mean, South Korea is, first of all, been a very stalwart ally for the United States for a long time. 75 years. And moreover, South Korea is a great success story when you think about it from broader American interests. This is a country that when we allied with them initially, it was a military dictatorship. under Syngman Rhee, and not a very nice military dictatorship, but for strategic reasons, we backed them in the Korean War and subsequently. And then over time, South Korea becomes a... quite successful democracy. And it does this, by the way, not because we send the 82nd Airborne to do a regime change, but because the South Koreans, as they developed economically, decided they wanted to become democratic. They were also, many of them had been to the United States, they'd studied here, they liked what they saw, etc. And so South Korea, on its own initiative, becomes a democracy with some encouragement from the United States, but not with us telling them what to do or anything like that. So it's a great success story. The United States. And now to suddenly say, well, I've got a great relationship with Kim Jong-un, you know, a truly odious dictator. And that's the reason why I want to suspend military exercises with South Korea. This is nuts. What Speaker 3 (19:34) is it, though? What's driving this? Speaker 1 (19:38) Partly, I think it's a perennial Trump. tendency to want to distract people from whatever the problem is that he's caused. And he's a genius at this, always changing the subject, getting us talking about something else instead of whatever's going wrong. I think he still wants to go down in history being remembered as some kind of peacemaker, and he still believes maybe he can pull off some miracle with North Korea, alter that relationship. Speaker 1 (20:08) I think that's fanciful. And third, and this I think has been a problem throughout Trump's presidency, is he has this exaggerated ability in his own personal qualities as a negotiator and dealmaker. That if he can just get in a room with people, somehow the force of personality will turn the tide. And this didn't work in his first term. Kim Jong-un picked his pocket in his first term. Kim Jong-un got something that's worth something in world policy. He got a state visit. He got several of them, not a state visit. He got a personal one-on-one visit with the U.S. president, right? Nothing he'd ever, no North Korean leader had ever gotten anything like that before. And what did he give up in order to get that? What concessions did he make in order to get that one-on-one meeting with the U.S. president? Zero. Absolutely nothing. He didn't. compromise on his nuclear program, didn't compromise on his attitudes towards South Korea, didn't do any of those things. He got the meeting and walked away, right? And so Trump, having gotten his pocket picked by Kim the first time around, now wants to go back and do this again. I can't put a rational explanation behind it. Speaker 3 (21:22) Home ownership has always been at the center of the American dream. It is an actual asset, a place people work their entire lives to build, a place of stability and security and real value. Right now, though, too many homeowners are stuck swiping credit cards to cover groceries. There's basically a survival tax of 20 % interest or more. So why keep handing your money to the banks when you could keep it for your family? Interest is what kills you. Our friends at American Financing have a better way. 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That's why I recommend Rougier Ready, a three-in-one treatment that works on your body and your brain. Fast acting, long lasting, prescribed by a licensed physician. Get started at Rougiet.com slash Justin today. That's R-U-G-I-E-T dot com slash Justin. Speaker 3 (23:03) Why do you think we're at war with Iran? Speaker 1 (23:08) I Speaker 3 (23:09) mean, Speaker 1 (23:10) there are the reasons, Speaker 3 (23:11) you know, there are many layers and levels on which we could say true things. But what's the bedrock here? Speaker 1 (23:22) I'll just go through my laundry list. I mean, there has been a bad relationship between the United States and Iran for 40 plus years. We all know that. In my view, Iran has on a number of occasions in the past tried to improve that relationship. They've made the initiative. They did so in the 90s. They did so in the early aughts after 9-11. And each time, ultimately, they get the back of our hand. We sometimes have... flirted with it, but never did anything substantial and eventually rejected their overtures. I think most of that is a function of the U.S. commitment to Israel, the fact that Israel and Iran are deeply at odds with each other for various reasons. And therefore, the political price in the United States has been pretty high. And not all, but some parts of what I have called the Israel lobby, have been pushing for military action against Iran for a long time. Again, it's important to say not all parts. For example, J Street condemned the war when it began this time around. And that's terrific. Speaker 2 (24:35) Good for them. Speaker 1 (24:37) So that's part of it. There's been a sort of thumb on the scale pushing for it. Now, why are we at war with Iran now? It's not because Iran was about to get a nuclear weapon. It's not because Iran was suddenly about to launch some military operation that was a great danger. The proximate cause, I think, was, first of all, Benjamin Netanyahu's visit. to the White House, which he came and gave this elaborate briefing about how Iran was teetering on the edge and sort of all it would take would be a sharp rap. The regime would collapse and we'd have a new day, new opportunities to have a different relationship with Iran, get rid of whatever's left of its nuclear program, et cetera. And he was able to persuade Donald Trump that this was correct. Speaker 1 (25:24) The first time he's successful. Netanyahu's made similar pitches in the past to Biden, to Obama, to Trump, I