WW3 DEBATE: “We’re On the Brink of Global Collapse”

Hello friends. I'm bringing a brand new live show across the UK and Ireland this October. It's stories, psychology, audience Q&As's, and whatever happens when thousands of overthinkers voluntarily leave the house and end up in the same room together. I'd love to see you there. The last tour completely sold out, so make sure that you snag tickets now using the link in the description or heading to Chris Williamson. Dublin's already sold out. Loads of venues are limited. Tickets are very limited, so get yours now. Chris Williamson. 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 is 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 5 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 that 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 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 30 years Pax Americana has been dominant and now with the rise of other powers, United States refuses to seed its global hijgemony 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 war ii called. So rather than looking at a confrontation like nuclear war between the United States and Russia, we're looking at various smaller elements. Sometimes the United States gets involved. But as to the international conflict, I lived through the 1970s. It was intense in the United States, but it was intense over a very small war. M >> so the idea that there's a global system at this point it's emerging but because it's not emerged yet many of the wars are going to 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 II a true unified global able 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. >> They're having a major effect on the global economy of what's happening in Russia, what 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 a 1930s depression. So for the world, so this would have blowback effects on Africa even though they wouldn't even be involved. So we can usefully talk about whether we should expect a true World War III uh scenario, but we are already seeing global consequences um in ways we haven't seen since World War II. 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 amazingly consequential for our lives. >> 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 United States. So um it is United States that unilaterally without any reason decided to attack Iran which started the war in the Middle East which is right now threatening to destroy the global economy. The war in Ukraine can also be be blamed on United States because um um at the onset of the war in 2020 uh 2022 uh Putin and Nanski would have come to an agreement but Boris Johnson flew into Kiev and convinced Zanski to fight this war. right now in um in Southeast Asia, the United States is withdrawing, but we're seeing Japan being remilitarized 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 earlier this year, it calls for United States withdrawing from the global stage and creating balance of power in 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 Americana. So it is um basically offloading its responsibilities to its regional allies, NATO in Europe, uh Israel and the GCC in the Middle East, and Japan in uh Southeast Asia. >> See, I agree with about 70% 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 taproot 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 in 10 years, not just two years, an [clears throat] 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 1% 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 problems Chris I think uh not sufficient attention to the consequences of these global decisions. So I don't believe that we have uh s over the last 10 years devoted the amount of attention to the consequences of uh issues with Russia and Ukraine, issues with Iran. Uh 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 the idea that we would uh continue to support NATO expansion and and uh um make Ukraine a much much stronger country even after Putin uh takes Crimea in 2014 without serious attention to the consequences. I think this is this is 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 maybe it's not a disagreement it's what I would maybe an extension or I would add to what you're saying. >> I guess people keep debating whether America is losing its grip as a world superpower. 20 years from now, do you think America is relatively stronger or weaker than it is now? >> I would say it's not losing it, it's wanting to lose it. The past 80 years was not been a happy time for the United States. For the United States, the fundamental principle is command of the sea from a 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 Breton and all these other things that put tremendous pressure 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 army could not take Ukraine after five years. This is not a military threat. So no, the cold war is obsolete and the idea that so the American re desire and is to dis and was predictable was to disengage to the extent possible. But what the 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 [clears throat] States is no longer >> doing it. It no longer wants the role it had for the past 80 years. >> But if we look out 20 years, Chris, and you ask the question, well, right now we're 26% of the world's GDP. China's 17% 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 20 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 20 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 2025, while we were bombing Foraux, 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 Cho, this was in Senchen. Most people go to China. First of all, they stopped going after CO and most people who went tend to go to Beijing and Shanghai. I want to see the actual advanced industries on the shop floor. >> For from my point of view, China is a 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 going to go and look at sort of Alibaba, see how they were a little bit ahead of different. I came away with a completely different impression. It was the most important trip. 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. Wuhan, whole cities. So, not just the advanced sector, the health care 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. Uh, 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 if you go from Chicago to say Pittsburgh that's about and down to St. Louis that's about 50 million people give or take. Well, that's about the half moon crescent from Wuhan to Senchan. not identical but pretty close as as because as you know that area 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 not 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 71st. The fundamental problem that China has is it cannot consume the products it produces. Right now, Xi just a few weeks ago announced a plan to make more 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 that has an economy too much, too large for it to consume. It is dependent on exports with the United States being the largest importer of Chinese goods. >> Mhm. >> So when you take a look at China and you take a look at how the the summits are evolving and what's happening there, we see a very 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 Tong went to raise the a rebel army on a long march and bought it back and that's what it did. Now when you look at it from a point of view on a global basis, it is the second largest economy. When you look at it in 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 tremendous capabilities but it's per capita income is very low. So you you see a situation emerging as emerged several times before particularly with the United States. United States was a China >> Mhm. >> of the 19th century. That is to say, first the civil war took place after that an industrial rising that heavily dependent on exports to Europe. So when you take a look at the relationship between 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 70s this 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 of the period where they weren't there we survived the civil war which was really a a big discussion okay so I see United States as constantly dynamically evolving through tension. >> So if I was to categorize at least what I'm hearing so far uh from your side, China very impressive, not just the upward trend but the the integration this almost uh like systemic blending of education in with industry etc etc >> beyond what we're doing. >> Yes. And internal strife inside of America that's worrying. This could cause fracture and fisher from your side. China. Well, it's got some problems. Look at the rural area of this. Yes, you've got uh great development inside of the cities, but those are pockets that are relatively localized. That makes it less. Also, you've got this high export dependency because you can't consume what it is that you produce. And America's been through 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 falter >> where they can't buy it or there's a political shift, the Chinese get into trouble because they must have access to the global market the same way the United States had to in the early part of this century. >> Yeah. >> So when we look at all these things okay we say okay China has evolved dramatically. It has not solved this fun fundamental problem which historically was there. the difference between the coastal regions of South China and the interior. This is what led to the revolution on the Mahatung >> and he didn't solve that problem. >> Jang, give me your perspective. We've seen two two relatively diametrically opposed insights [clears throat] here. Give me yours. >> Yeah. So, I am completely surprised by this, but unfortunately, and my wife's going to get very angry at me for this, but I'm going to have a great 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 American 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 spread throughout the world. Um that's why it's um Pentagon budget is a trillion 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 the financialization. uh but also the Chinese Communist Party because as George points out, China is an export dependent economy. In fact, you can make the argument that what China is doing is free riding on American system, right? Because because when Chinese ships export their goods to Europe, to the Middle East, to the United States, it's it's being 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 through the US dollar. So, um, the China is 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 to United States. That's problem number one. There's a huge problem that we haven't discussed which is the demographic issue where China is aging rapidly because of the one child 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 through the past 20 through the next 20 40 years because of the aging crisis. So China's in a world of trouble. But where I disagree with >> is a bigger world of trouble than America. >> Oh yeah, absolutely. Because regardless of how you feel about the United States right now, the United States is a self-sufficient, resourcerich economy with a very vibrant, energetic, young population. China has the opposite problem, which is that it is extremely extremely exportorientated. 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 kind of going off vibes. Most people have absolutely no idea what's going on inside their body. And that is why I partnered with Function. Function gives you access to more than 160 advanced lab tests spanning hormones, heart health, kidney function, and even detects early signals linked to more than 50 types of cancer. To put that in perspective, your typical annual physical might test 20 markers. Function runs over 160. It's huge. Best of all, you test twice a year and everything lives inside of a simple dashboard. So, you track trends over time, make sure you're moving in the right direction. And this level of testing would usually cost thousands. But with function, it is $365 per year. Just $1 a day to actually know what's happening inside of your body. And right now, you can get $25 off, bring it down to $340 bucks. Get the exact same blood panels that I use and save $25 by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth.com/modernwisdom. That's functionhealth.combottomwisdom. >> So let me just respond in this way. I had exactly their image 10 years ago. Exactly their image. So I first went to China in 1979. Then I didn't go back until 2012. 10 trips from 2012 to 2015. Then I went back in 2025. In two even as late as 2015, 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 Alibaba, BYD, Xiaomé, 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 CO. So all this building massively development since since co it's that since 2017 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 chi 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 Xiaomé 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 the growth model. 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 CO, when they came out of those problems of the supply chain problem in CO, they jettisoned ahead. They thought they were likely going to get ahead. And if you look at the numbers of what the BYYD production has been this year in 2026, uh what the numbers of Xiaomé 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 collapsing. >> Chinese growth rate is down to a little over 4%. It was previously 5% and it was a 15% growth rate. >> And I'm saying this is the wrong measure. This would be like measuring America's growth rate without noticing electrification in the 1880s, which starts in this really small way. America has been great because since 1880, we have led every technological revolution since 1880. 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 Alibaba. They're building the core infrastructure to be able to beat us. >> If I may, let me ask you this question. Um, so right now, Japan is remorizing 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 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 at sea 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, going to 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 in 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 talking about unifying China. >> If I could, the Taiwan situation has profoundly changed inside of Taiwan. The population is divided almost down the middle with the KMT, thewaming, which is in favor of reuniting with China in some sort of way. That's 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. >> The force island chain. >> H the force island chain. >> Yeah. >> That's the first island chain that they want Taiwan opened. Okay. United States does not have a fundamental interest on Taiwan. So the idea is we see that Xi is coming to the United States and he has said this week we're going to reach many great agreements in the United States. One of the forecast 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 partner. 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 relation 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 oil embargo. We were dependent on the Arabs. The Israelis went to war and they cut it embargo. It was a disaster in 1970s. So if we are too dependent on a country with whom we have hostile relations, that's unsustainable. >> Are you suggesting that the US and China are going to become friends soon? >> We're not going to be have friends. 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 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 4% of 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. 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 basically asked Trump about the Thusidities 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 20 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. Given where we're at at the moment, looking at your respective crystal balls, which country do you think is the most powerful in the world in 20 years time? >> The United States is the only global power. China is a regional power. You cannot push force into the Atlantic and so on. 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 caused it a great deal in many different dimensions and that backing off from that reduces tensions within the United States and so on. >> It's I was thinking that there would be some sort of seesaw probably between China and the US, but maybe there was another player that I I hadn't thought about. Uh it sounds like both are in some form of mild decline. >> They're in flux. So my position is it's up to our leaders who's going to be number one in 2020. 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 26% China's 17. 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 tariffs. 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 $40 trillion in debt, I think the idea that we're going to invest our way out of this in the AI I'm just look, maybe that will all work out, Chris. Okay. And we're going to be fine with 40. >> 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'm worried about. So, I want >> Just one second. Let's hear Let's hear from Professor Jen. So um I think that these past 30 40 40 years of pax americana have been unique in human history. Never before had we we had a power that could span the entire globe that had a 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. M um so the way that I examine how nation states um thrive or die is using three basic criteria which is going to 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? 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 will not be China that dominates it will 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 you can tell me next week what what what you find >> it's more dynamic by far >> absolutely absolutely and it's more in danger it seems and that'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 United States could like keep on electing Donald Trump in the next >> could face plant its way through the next few decades and still >> unfortunately unfortunately that is the case United States and then in the Middle East I believe it is Israel that is most dominant. >> In other news, have you ever noticed how some websites make it ridiculously easy to buy while some feel infinitely harder? Back in my day, I had to walk 10 miles to the local store. >> Aren't you younger than me? >> Yeah, but my dad got a DUI. >> Anyway, the reality is most businesses just get the website wrong. And if your setup is messy, you lose a ton of sales, which is why I'm such a massive fan of Shopify. They power 10% of all e-commerce in the United States, including brands like Gym Shark, Skiims, Aloe, and Mutonic. Because when it comes to converting browsers into buyers, they are best-in-class. Their checkout's 36% better on average compared to other platforms. And with Shopay, you can boost conversions by 50%. So 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/modernwisdom. That's shopify.com/modernwisdom. >> 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 brought up. Obviously, you're talking about civil unrest. I don't know how likely you think civil unrest, proper civil unrest is going to be due to this. So, um, uh, I have coming out, Chris, 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 weeks to be in your mailbox. Um, and I've spent 5 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 Floyd protests, which were uh mostly peaceful, but what does mostly peaceful mean with the George Floyd protests? When 28 million are protesting and 7% are riots and political violence, that's millions of people who are unrest. Um, and then also in January 6, 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. or 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 against democratic protesters even after ICE kills those democratic >> argue that this is not the first time it happened. We had a civil war and 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's throats. It is one of the dimensions of the United States which is based on the fact that there were 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 onethird of the people were for the revolution one third of people were against the revolution onethird of people didn't care >> that was his his reading. So I see the divisions in a very different way than you do. Well, I don't think it's good enough to say that we survived the Civil War because 600,000 people died in the Civil War. So, let's just be clear. We are 40 trillion in debt. The idea that sure, we'll just have a civil war and no problem. We'll get out of this just fine. 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 or you used to shut up, dude. [laughter] All right. Shut up. Okay. >> When you take a look at 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. So you have to have a sense of proportion on what goes on. So when we look at the the division in the United States between World War II between the isolationists and the interventionists, we have constantly approached the world deeply divided. Okay, I saw that mentioned the civil war because that was the most extreme example. But even the world 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 won >> that's a high price to pay. >> Well, they were the point I'm making here is that >> put me in the wall. >> One of the things about the Americans is we're constantly having the feeling we're going to hell. We have the ability to overestimate tremendously our weaknesses and underestimate the tremendous strengths. This is where I have to respect you. I disagree with you. I look at the past as a measure of the culture and its flexibility and viability even under pressure. >> Do you think America is a country permanently in strife internally or is there something unique about the modern >> Well, let me let me also be clear. My book is explaining we're not heading to civil war. 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 scenarios. And we can talk about extreme scenarios. I hope we would never get there. 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. Uh, 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 George is finding it 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 of Americans for the first time since the 1960s 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 terrified that President Trump is going to seize ballot boxes. Now, why would they be terrified of that? Because President Trump said he was going to do that in February. [laughter] 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 going to 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 what's your perspective on internal strife in America >> 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 B.CE 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 e economic center. It's no longer a military power. And there's a huge debate in the Roman Senate about what to do with Carthage. Uh Kato the Elder demanded the destruction of Carthage u 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." Kale the Elder won and they destroy Carthage in the third punic war and then right what happens afterwards complete civil strife. And after the civil war starts, right, with um starting with um um um um it starts about 100 B.CE E um some something called the social war but it never really stops it. So social war then leads to the rise of uh Julius Caesar which leads to the rise of August Augustus Caesar which then leads to all sorts of wars. So that's a problem with United States. The United States is probably the most violent country on this planet like by far. There more there are more guns per capita. There are more guns than people and like America's the only nation to play football. Am I am I correct to say um only Americans play football? Yeah. >> Um so American Americans have this tremendous energy. >> Hang on. Hang on. You're going to have to draw the parallel between there's lots of guns in America and America is the only country to play football. I feel like I missed something there. >> Right. What 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 um by the standards of every other society it's pretty aggressive and >> right the physical contact violence like doing like listening to Metallica and flying F-14s and >> So so with 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 and 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 fall uh civil war. It could also be an emergency 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. >> Why really why >> um if you I mean like you can you can agree or disagree but I think there are certain trends that that are in place that make in internal u 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 baby boomers I I apologize to to both of you, but the baby boomers have monopolized political power, economic wealth, and social status. And if you're a young person, you have absolutely no opportunity. Um, you know, so um, James B. Calhoun in 1960s, he ran a very successful experiment called the rat utopia experiment. He basically put rats in a paradise where there would be no um um, predators free food every day. And all that happened was the rats just turned 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 not able to climb the 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 asked 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 report 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 I it's it's been very worrisome Chris for some time. So a year ago I published a big oped June 2025 in the New York Times. I was explaining this data in this oped 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. 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 2024. So I brought it to our National Sheriff's Association. So I'm connected with these. So remember advised White Houses, etc. And I warned them that there's a non-trivial possibility that we're going to see a assassination attempt against President Trump. >> When did you say this? This was the last week of June 2024. >> Now, they listened. I'm just gonna say, Chris, they listened and guess what happened on July 13th at And then what happened in my phone is it blew up because suddenly people were >> Let's get that data. [laughter] I thought it literally blew up. But >> well, no, no, lit. What I'm trying to say is Chris, this is so just as my 20 years of modeling of the Iran war has led to some predictions about what might come in advance. We haven't 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 rearview 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 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 violent time. I simply put that in context of American history and American culture. So if we're doing something that we've never done before and never done before and recovered from and so on is very different from this is unprecedented. 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 possible. If this is a cycle, a process of a cycle that 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 don't seem very relevant because they went away. But if you'd lived through the 1930s with the isolationists deeply in some ways anti-semitic and everything else and 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 crises. Yeah, I suppose. Okay, so your your point is this might not be terminal. This might not be existential to the United States. Exactly. I mean, does [snorts] anybody think even if there was a civil war, there would be some people left and then you've got a country afterward like from the ashes something can come back. >> What came out of that of civil war was the most dynamic development economically perhaps in history. Oh, this is like an accelerationist argument. We could >> No, there it has nothing to do with the causality or this is necessary. >> I'm simply saying to you >> that if you get a fever that you've never had before, well, that's really significant. >> If on the other hand, you had another cold, you don't take it that seriously. I'm trying to put this in the context of the American nature. So, I'm arguing there's a culture, there's a nature, there's a history. I I just want to make two quick >> and one thing though one and one thing is up. Every time we saw it, we were finished. During the 70s, the idea the the the killings, this kidnappings, and everything that were going on, >> well, they went away. 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Plus, they offer free shipping in the US. Right now, you can get a free sample pack of Element's most popular flavors with your first purchase by going to the link in the description below, heading to drinklnt.com/modernwisdom. That's drinklnt.com/modernism. >> So, I would just say two quick points. Number one is I want it on the record. I am not pro- civil war. [laughter] >> Number two, just I just want to be clear. Just want to make sure I'm on the record. Number two, no, hold it. Number two, more more more seriously. So, the point of the research of the book isn't just to give histories of the 60s. It's why did the violence in the 60s 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. drain number one was we had a massive shift in migration of blacks to the the north and the Midwest that would that were not getting political representation that was underneath the black riots Malcolm X the ballot or the bullet in the by the mid1 1970s 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 in the 1960s. 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 1973. 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 protest 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 just >> you think that there's another decade of this. >> Yes. Because of the social changes. We can talk about those shifts. 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 world world with mostly uh foreign policy elites for the last 30 years. I'm now trying to do that with the public. >> Do you reckon there's going to be internal strife for the next 10 years? >> Right. So um back to the young man problem. So right now there's a very popular phrase called hypergami. Uh I'm not sure if if you know the what hyperam means. You know what it means. >> Why are [laughter] you looking at me as hypergamy? He's saying that's because I'm a high value male. >> That's right. That's right. Yes. Yeah. So, so the problem is that the majority of ma young men are not able to find a suitable mate. Uh because one way to reduce um 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 some 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 about Greenland. Uh >> do you think that realistically America would try and colonize Canada, Greenland, and Venezuela? Not just, oh, we're going to take a couple of leaders here and have soft power. They would actually try to do >> Yes, I do. Because there's no one to stop the United States from doing this. Why Why wouldn't the United States just take Alberta? What's stopping United States from just taking Alberta? And And >> is that not like >> Canada 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 [snorts] what I um so having studied violent populism um I um watched over 200 of President Trump's speeches as he was running for president. 200 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 8 a.m. You're already three hours late because you can't and you can still barely see the stage, by the way, and you have to wait 10 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 are 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 330, you still get a seat. So it was 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. >> But come on, bombastic this guy gregarious talkie. Like, isn't this a cool talk? Realistically, he's going to go to China. >> Hold it. Hold it. That was all fine, Chris. Until after the election. It wasn't just uh talkie-talkie. It got seriously serious. [laughter] Okay. So, so I'm not telling you I'm not telling you I immediately jumped to the conclusion, oh, that would be a 99% 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 remitt? >> I I think it turns hugely on um what happens with this election in 2028. 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 Jang is talking about will come to be. Uh because these are this is what I mean by it's up to us, Chris. This is wild. I did not think that I was going to find out that we were maybe going to invade Canada and Greenland and Venezuela. >> Why not? >> I just it seems so int. so absurd and and 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 70% 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 20% probability, this changes everything. The idea then if it's even 20% likely and notice what's happening with Carney, notice what's happening with the leaders. I don't think Carney believes it's 80% 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 1908 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 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. >> I I I wasn't dismissing it. I didn't even know that it was an option on the table. 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 US. So, I think that >> no way. All of this talk, all of this talk that people the processors, the microch all of the the China into Taiwan. And >> so, I've been arguing for decad >> more likely that we're going to go into Canada, Venezuela, or >> if China plays its cards right, Taiwan is going to fall right into China's lap. I've been so President Chen brought me to Taiwan in January 2003. I was one of five air power experts. This was the president of Taiwan, okay, for a two-day conference with the president of Taiwan. He wanted the answer to the question, this is January 2003. 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 2 days I was with the president and also with the top of the air force and we were discussing the no kidding discussions here and also got windows into their national security and I got the polls that is the internal polls which there was nothing classified inside 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 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 going to want to make money in China. >> And you already talked about that. What I want to do is not deny any of these things. put 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 as for example immigration right from the beginning of the founding there was a dread of migrants. The Scottish Irish that came here were marginalized profoundly and so on so forth. Okay. Along with these evolutions of uh immigration and so on 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 wanted 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 absolutely on what's coming. I simply have a different sense of proportionality that it's not as profoundly serious as we who have never experienced it before would want to make it be. There is precedent for it. There's a manner in which the Americans have historically gone through this. My pointing to the Civil War was soon to 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 eventually you break 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 >> Well, my point 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, not even isolate. Do do you think it's perfectly normal for a United States president to invade a country with no reason with no strategy, with no plan at all to win the war? >> 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 9/11 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 French ship and sailing New York Harbor. At this point, we've had very few casualties on the American side. And two days ago, a a commander of the RGC, a very senior commander, stood up and said, "We've got to stop this war. The people are not are suffering and everything else." All I am 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 on the you're seeing evolutions in Iran with very different outcomes. 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 assassinate it? Why assassinate on the first day the alatola who who had fatwa against nuclear weapons? Because he wouldn't this president wouldn't listen to intelligence. >> The head of counterterrorism resigned saying that he will not allow me into his office. He's listening to the Israelis. And presidents make massive mistakes. He confused the people there as a government of Iran. He confused [clears throat] them, killed them. That's not the government of Iran. It's the IRGC. >> On the other hand, no, it's very important to say this wars lasted a few months. >> Okay. We are far from understanding how it will end, but that it will end certain 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 them in context. >> How big how big of a deal is the Iran >> Well, oh, it's a it's it is the biggest deal since going up against Germany in World War II. So Iran is the most difficult challenge we've had since Germany and World War II. So let me give a different window into this. So I've been modeling the bombing of Iran for 20 years. And in the modeling of the bombing of Iran, I started do this in 2005. And here's where I partly agree with George. Um I do this in 2005 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 cuz I was teaching for the Air Force in the '9s. I had a lot of experience. So from 79 to about 2002, we have political tensions. Yes, we occasionally do a war game. But after 2002 and 3, things get much more serious. I start to model the bombing of Iran in 2005. And I did it every year for 20 years. I did this in my classes at the University of Chicago. And what I'm do, I lay out the target set. I lay out what uh there's all changes of course the target set changes for comes on we get um uh the MOABs of 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 Ford 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 90% likely to destroy the centuge industrial uh the the enrichment capability of the uh facility of Ford but we would have virtually no knowledge of whether we destroyed the 60% enriched uranium the actual fizzle material and [clears throat] 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 I take them through this 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 Substack and I said then what would happen is if we bomb for 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 link and connect all the dots. It's because you would become once you bomb for you couldn't track for with high confidence the dispersal of that fizzle material. And we know we have civilian satellites um showing that a couple days before we bomb Fordo stuff's coming out of we have civilian satellite showing that Estafon 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 moved the stuff from Ford to Estafon 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 I think it's secondary because they have been arguing to do this for every year for 20 years. What make 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 spec. 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 28. It starts with the bombing of Foraux. 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 Substack the escalation trap 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 [laughter] 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 to what are we going to see literally tomorrow with Scott Bessett is D-Day. Okay. Now, it's an economic D-Day, but that economic D-Day is the Iran's already talking about further escalation here. If Iran escalates, are we really just going to sit back and say, "Oh, sure. We're going to No, there's a real danger. We're in the spiral phase 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 going to do something as Iran is really doing great damage to our economy and his presidency. We're we're seeing the collapse of the global economy because for the past 30 40 years there's a very simple deal that govern the world which is that the United States would provide production to the GCC and to Japan and in return Japan and the GCC would buy US treasuries and that was a 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 means that these two regions of the world that provided most of world's liquidity, especially United States, they can no longer do so. So what Scott Besson is worried about is um um the GCC and Japan can't buy US treasuries. And so, right, and so what that means is United States cannot refinance its $4,200 debt. This is this is the apocalypse. This is 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 significant split happening in Iran. A speech the other day made by a major leader said, "Look, our people are starving. We cannot continue this war. Okay, the artesh is there which is the secular army. So in other words, look at this war not just from our side and the consequences to us. See the pain 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 20,000 people killed in an uprising before the war. Okay, that division is not gone. >> Iran has been under sections for the past 50 years. It's a poor place. People are used to being poor. Are Americans going to put up with $10 $10 gallon gas prices? >> If you're going to 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 Tik Tocker's highlight reel dressed like a chump? 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That's jim.sh/modernwisdom and modernwisdom10 at checkout. >> So for 30 years I've been studying air power, economic sanctions, blockades. Um I've focused on American political violence. So again, it's the intersection of these military uh action and politics. Uh one thing that's very important to know in advance of what Scott Besson is about to tell us is since World War I, not going back before World War I, since World War I, 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 going, there's going to be a big Substack tomorrow as I put this out. All I want is I want the reporters at that news conference to ask a very simple question. So, the British blockade on Germany in World War I did not defeat Germany, even though it killed over 700,000 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 I and then during World War II and then during World War II 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 1990 to 2003 um it was our American military that kicked Sodom out of Kuwait. And once Saddam was out of Kuwait from 91 to 2003, we had fif we had sanctions that crushed the Iraqi economy by 50% each year for all those years. And what did we have to do? 150,000. 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. >> Now you feel Now you see what it was like when I taught for the Air Force because awful. >> That's [laughter] how they describe it. The prison of pain. He gets you in the data so you can't get out. >> We see Iran as a completely united country. No factions and so on and so forth. Okay, that's obviously an illusion because there are always factions and so on so forth. So I'm not saying that it's economic force, but there were great divisions that we saw before. Those divisions 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 it's like >> so George the external force is bringing those divisions closer together. They're not breaking them apart. >> I profoundly disagree. They can sometimes push them together. Sometimes I say is we did in the Vietnam War. I've seen the >> All I say is what's the case since World War I? All I need is one case. >> One case. >> One case where our external pressure, our economic pressure where we've had and again I just gave you uh four. We have another five. >> I just particularly said and I'm meaning economic pressure. I'm talking about the inherent differences within this vast country. >> Why does that matter? It matters because when the attacks start to happen and the pain starts to rise, they become more powerful in the sense that others look at them and say, "You were right. This was not the government we should have." >> So, but did they not already try and uprise before and that didn't work? >> Of course. No, they killed them all. Now, under these circumstances, >> is that going to stop? >> 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 widen it beyond military pressure. Where is the case that without ground forces bombing alone correct the government? >> And the answer is that the question in my mind is not bombing. Okay. It is the disunityity of the country itself which we saw the weeks before the war began. Is your suggestion that if Iran had sufficient disunityity inside that the government would choose to give up because it's got so much pressure happening internally. >> What I'm saying is the government itself the statement that was made and was transmitted all over the world by this leader of the IRGC a former head of the IRGC that we must not continue this. So I'm saying that the the as in Vietnam [clears throat] the government was US government was complet frequently divided on what should be done. >> I at least from what I know 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? >> All I have is one speech from the former president 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 I saw and everything translated was made up by something, this represented a significant thing. Now the Pakistani uh head of the military is coming to talk to the Iranians. He's may already be there. Okay. There's been talk this morning about Iran being allowed to become part of the the entity that was created. In other words, wars don't end because the bombings. I totally agree with you. They grin through political processes sometimes within countries. You don't totally defeat them, but it we have to be a aware that these are human beings. They're not all fanatics to do die. >> Well, I think there's a difference between do we see all of the citizens of Iran as 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 the the war is going on from the people at the top of Iran and the people at the top of America, regardless of what the people below that, >> but somebody who is at top of Iran, this man >> 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. H that's what that's look here's the since World War I starts with Julio Duh Haye 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 >> we don't want to do it you do it for us >> exactly and this has been a hope and it hasn't happened >> no one I have not talked about toppling and 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. You have to take a look at the internals. So, so one factor that we need to look at is >> that right now the Iranians have chosen to adopt something called the Mosak 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. Doesn't really matter what the leadership wants because you have 31 commanders spread out all over the country and as long as one of them wants to keep on fighting the shooters will remain closed and this war will continue. That's a problem. >> Sounds like decentralization but it might just be leadless 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. Gaddafi 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 theou the supreme leader made a statement saying that he personally didn't agree with theou 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 theou was a compromise and um what the Americans have shown is for the reason they will not abide by the terms of theou and so the Iranians like at some point said screw this we are not going to negotiate. We are not going to compromise. We're going to fight this to the end. So now the hoofies have been brought 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 end it. What's going to happen is eventually the Ukraine war in the Iran war will emerge already. We're seeing that uh after Zalinski uh bombed an Iranian cargo ship in the Caspian Sea and Iran and Zansko 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 II that we said wasn't going to happen at the top of this episode, >> except it's a world. So, >> I mean, it's a Did I say that? >> No, no, he No, he No, he actually thinks World War II is is kind of coming quickly. Here's where my Here's where I would uh So, I see the trends that Jang is saying. I don't want to disagree with the trends. I think January of this year is going to be a focal point moment. >> January of next year. >> Of next year. I mean January 2027 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 100%, 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, everybody will be recalibrating for a post Trump world now or a future Trump world. >> Yeah. How do you feel about this? >> Well, look, the problem is we're trying to see this from an economical lens. And the reason why the MOU fell apart is Israel refused to abide by the terms. One of the major terms of theou signed between the United States and and Iran is that all terms all peace terms that apply to Iran would also apply to Iran's allies, especially Hezbollah in Lebanon. And that required Israel to withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon. Israel refused to do so and Israel has only accelerated its attacks on Hezbollah. So we think that it's entirely between um United States and Iran but Israel 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 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 Aramco facilities are being hit. The um the other strait uh in the Middle East, the the Bab El Mandad 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 look at what the Houthies are Houthies are doing, if you look at the what the IRGC and the Israelis are doing, I would say this is almost like a religious war. It's a crusade. It's an escological 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 Iran. The the Turks are seeking to evolve themselves into a major point, scaring the Israelis to death. And Pakistan itself is evolving dramatically in this war at a very sophisticated state. So when you take a look at the situation of 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 or anything, 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 just bombed [laughter] just >> Turkish officials in in Syria >> by my 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 since the founding of Israel to hold those borders. 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, these Israeli, 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 [snorts] a little bit, they bomb uh Syria. They then tell the American ambassador they didn't bomb Syria. Then they say Turkey is our greatest fear built into Israel by n 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. All right. Now when Lun was asked what to do after the battle of Bulge, he 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, not just a minor threshold, is it will determine whether the Democrats control Congress. >> If the Democrats control Congress, which is still an if, but we'll know in January. There is going to be two things that are going to 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 1974 by Congress. Congress has not played much of a role in foreign policy. The last time it got involved was 74 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 one 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 look at all the Democrats that are um uh that were pro-Israel that are losing [laughter] 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 is going to have to calibrate uh Iran, others are going to 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? 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 Warren? And which leader has said we must end 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 if you if you listen to the Democrat 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 Iran war. And the uh real question is going to be Jiang whether or not once they control will it 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 admin the Trump administration which they hate they hate anyway. where it will become difficult will be once the Democrats 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 2028. So, I think these are the real issues and that's why it's about not just what you claim you're going to 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 whether it's just >> Jeff is was just on CNN, I think it was 3 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 for the Senate seat in the primary here on Ford. I was just on a um a podcast with her on the Joy Reed 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 I mean those are at least two people right there. So, so did Heckham Jeffree say that if the de Democrats were to win the House in November, they would immediately try to restrict Trump's war powers and try >> 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, Jiang. 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 one of 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 [snorts] 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. In 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 at in September and or October before the election. So fascinating that uh Trump's positioning and his desire to be seen as 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 that the US has got. Do they want to push further? Do they want to pull back? This is something I've seen in again advised four white houses 2001 to 24 Democrat, two to two 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 that legacy is beyond just getting the next win. Legacy is 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 47 presidents in our history. This there's not that many presidents. a big sample size. >> So I really Well, it's not that. It's that it's that they know they're one of 47 for or 48. It's the other way around, Chris. It's because it's a tiny club. Their legacy is going to be with them after they're dead for a 100red years plus. >> But if he's so worried about his legacy, why did he attack Iran in the first place? >> I think again back to the modeling. Um, I'm just going to keep going back to the modeling because I I made a prediction to my classes for 20 years in a row that once we bomb for >> 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 it was really the only way you could come up with even a a half plausible idea. >> Was your question about why to do the bombing in the first place? >> So, so, so I want to >> take a step back from >> Yeah. Yeah. I I I want to present another theory. Okay. Besides your modeling, >> please. >> So, 1996 U is a clean break memo. Yes. Right. And you you probably know people who wrote that, right? Richard Wolf >> Paul Wolf was from my department. Jen, >> okay. >> 71 PhD University of Chicago. So I know these people pretty well. So so just for for some context for the idiot in the room. Thank you. >> Yeah. The clean memo was uh a proposal to Benjamin Nanyahu and the argument is that that Israel um under Nanyahu should withdraw from the peace law 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 it had to conduct regime change in Iraq and Syria. Also, um Israel needed to be self-sufficient economically and militarily. It need to basically stop being dependent on the United States. You know, if you want to resolve the Palestinian issue that you beat the crap out of them rather than try to compromise, give them land that would just make them more greedy. Instead, you um you uh establish peaceful strength though that those are the exact terms, peaceful strength. Okay, so that's the 1996 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 brick memo, right? Every single point. That's number one. Number two is what's interesting is the people who responsible for the clean brick memo pearl um Douglas 5 went on to work in the Bush administration and they were along with Paul Wolfitz your friend the architects my friend. Okay, sorry no that's going too far but there's three of [laughter] them. Okay, the three of them in the Pentagon were the architects of the Iraq war, right? And then uh after 911, Wesley Clark appears on stage with Amy Goodman. And uh Amy Goodman Amy Goodman is like, "What's the plan?" And Wesley Clark is like, "We're going to go after seven nations in 5 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 was always a plan uh ever since 1996 the clean memo to attack Iran eventually because they've been saying this for the past uh 30 years. And so, isn't that a good reason to attack Iran? So, is that always the plan? So let me first of all number one I 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 2005 on um and I uh was working with the 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 other terrorism expert was predicting that. And I gave it directly to Paul Wolawitz 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 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 this Iraq war became a disaster is all that influenced by Wolfwitz left uh F 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 in World World War II. >> 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 for? 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 adviser, 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 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 matter if if he fires Pete Hath next week or he fires Scott Besset 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 wants to press the button >> and by the way, Abra there's famous Abraham Lincoln famous story in uh Doris Kern Goodwin's of team of rivals where Abraham Lincoln goes around the table asks the entire cabinet and and they all say no no no no and they come to the and Clinton and and Lincoln says I and gentlemen the eyes have it. [laughter] This is what happened. What does Trump have against Iran? He can't even find Iran on a map. >> I mean, he can't. Well, look, I have >> I guarantee you he 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 to 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 for I don't know that at all he understood the consequences but I think then he was sunk Jang 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's sunk for all of history. What's your psychoanalysis of? >> So, so, so let's just look at his pattern behavior in his both his first term and second term, right? First term he comes in office, he he he cancels the JCPA POA, which is the Iran nuclear deal under Obama, right? He's like, we're not doing this anymore, guys. That's number one. Then he recognizes, sorry. Then what he does is he um transfers the American embassy from tele 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 2020, he orders the assassination of General Kasam Salmani who was Iran's de facto ambassador in the Middle East. So for 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 of 1996 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 Israel Project. Sorry, do you know what the Greater is Project is? Um right. So the greater Israel 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 in Iraq. So if you look at the entire map of what the United States has been doing for the past 20 years, attacking Iraq, Libya, Syria, um and now this war which promised to engulf um Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, it seems like this is all to achieve the Greater Israel project. >> I I believe >> but if he was only interested in Israel, why Venezuela? Why Greenland? Why Canada? What I >> have something to do on the weekend. >> Well, what I'm just what I'm pointing out what 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 violence. 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 just term he did not start a war. >> Well, >> he kept his promise. I will not start and violent and after January 6, >> I think uh the process leading up to January 6. And then in chapter five of the book, I track I traced this out that in aftermath of January 6, this has radicalized MAGA. MAGA is not the same uh sort of group political international policy, not just internal. >> Yes. But once you have norm once political violence is normal for you at home, it's a lot easier to use. >> He was in office from way before. >> 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, 2017 to do January 6th. There's a a trajectory that emerges and I think that we we need to see that yes, Israel is playing a role, but there's a lot more that he is doing. So you think the number one reason is this escalating acceptance >> normalization of political violence? It is the thing that is underneath. >> But there's something else to look at. I think there is also in Trump a fear of 9/11 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 9/11 happening with aircraft a ship sailed in with a nuclear weapon to New York Harbor and detonated. 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 involve this is why his fundamental demand has been the nuclear weapons. Now he attacked them first. He claimed it 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 you know how we will be viewed in history from from that if that were allowed to happen under his watch would be also driving him. >> Do you think the JCPOA was working? It didn't fail. What it was working is another matter. The the fundamental thing was to denuclearize these areas. So if Trump is most concerned about Iran develop a nuclear weapon, why did he withdraw from the JCPOA? >> Because I he wanted more control. I think I have no idea what his went through his mind. He wanted to have a 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 reliance systems. It doesn't want to have dependence on others. He wants that power in 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 Bogler. The fundamental fear was the nuclear 9/11 and he keeps coming back to that. So if he was if he if he were afraid of a nuclear weapon, he should have avoided avoided three things. Okay? One is withdrawal from the JCPOA. Second is do not assassinate the other Kaii because he want he didn't he refused to ever use nuclear weapon and number three is do 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 irrationally 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 of that. I think we could learn to live with it, by the way. So I don't think it means 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 6 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. becomes more normal. You you you um uh because he didn't just rip it up the JCOPA. He thought a pressure campaign would be better. And I think that he uh learned from that failure because 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 political violence. >> He also doesn't really understand power. He overestimates what he has. >> 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 clear understanding of just how much power he has. >> 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 uh against our own allies. Uh then he moves to actual military ideas with Greenland and and our allies Canada. And so what he's doing, Jiang, 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 2003 Iraq war, um some of the people I most respect in the world believe the number one reason we did the Iraq war in 2003 was Israel. I think it's uh what happened after 911. I think 911 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 appreciate about the great project is the major impediment to that thing is actually the US military because the US military provides balance of 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 is 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. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> 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 Iran 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 [laughter] know if this was planned, but it's turning out this way. But one of the problem, if you're right, then and I I did a piece on my professor paper stack on this. What will happen if America truly truly withdraws is a much smaller Israel. >> I think it becomes a nuclear sparta. It doesn't quite get wiped off the map, but a much smaller Israel is. >> Yeah, Israel is much weaker. >> What if Israel took over SNCOM? >> What if all of America's military apparatus, okay, the planes, the troops, all then uh became under the control of Israel, which is happening right now, right? because you have de debacification 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 that Israel is in trouble with the American public. Israel is losing the American public. >> Israel is losing profoundly because [clears throat] 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 might restrain non-state actors. Other it is a massive alliance that threatens Israel. So at this point, Israel is making very strange sounds like, you know, we're going to do something about Turkey. They can't do it. Remember this is a situation in 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 manipulated Trump's thinking. That's was very clear. At the same time, Netanyahu has made massive dis mistakes in overestimating his influence and his power. Do you think Congress will pass the NDAA which will allow Israel to access data and intelligence from the US military? >> Not if the Democrats take I can't imagine that happening. Not if the Democrats and I don't even think if the Democrats don't cuz I think that this is you and and you've been part of the reason it's uh your your attention bringing this attention on social media I think it's been very important Jang 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 7 million Jews surrounded by >> 9 million I think. >> Well 9 million 7 million total Jews. Yeah. Sorry. You got 2 million who don't. >> That's right. 7 million. That is 71 miles wide widest point. >> Yeah. 7 million Jews surrounded by 3 to 400 million Muslims depending on how far you 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 is 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 going to happen a year or two from now when there's no military from America there? Israel, those 7 million are going to be on their own up against those three to 400 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 se it'll be a second tier power at best. >> Israel was successful in wars. It gave an illusion of power. 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 on Israel as well. And there's movements in the United States and 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 going to go that deeply into it. But there is the possibility of accommodation by Israel. Now Netanyahu does not believe in accommodation and believes he must use force in all cases. He can't. Now he's had a peace treaty with Isra 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 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 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 US? >> Oh money. It's it's money. It's Apac. This is in the Israel lobby. John Mirshimer and Steve Walt's book, they lay it out. Um, and it's fun 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 Jewish. >> Very different reason. During cold war, the Soviets had relations with Syria, had relations with Egypt and so on. The cold war was fought there as well. When the Arabs attacked Israel in 1973, okay, it was with Soviet weapons, Soviet training, many cases Soviet tactics imposed. Israel at that point was one of the few countries that was pro-American and it 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 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 destabilizing it was deeply involved in the region and the United States didn't have very firm lies. It had Iran as an ally had Israel as an ally and they were players. So there were so that that situation is obsolete. the Soviets are no longer there and so let's get rid of it. So to answer your question, why is so much power? There's an alliance between Zionist capital um um basically APAC as well as um Christian evangelicals which is about a quarter of the population. Among these Christian evangelicals um maybe a minority are Christian Zionists uh which and they believe that um Israel is God's plan to save the world. So Israel has has to be has to be protected on all costs. Okay. So you have this massive alliance between um Zionist capital and then you have these fanatical Christian evangelicals. Um so one of the most powerful um organizations in United States is something called Christian Christian United for Israel run by someone named John and about 7 million members and all they care about is Israel. So if you're a congressman, you say anything bad about issue, 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 nutso. They're they're they're they're crazy. Um so um you say that okay in November the issue lobby will be taught a lesson but if you got like this alliance in place right between Zionist capital and we're we're talking like a lot of money right they put in like $30 million to defeat Thomas Mass in Kentucky they put in $70 million to defeat um Abdul Aliad in in Michigan that's a lot of money for a primary right they have almost have access to unlimited capital you have someone like um Laren David Ellison who who's able to buy 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 negate the power of of the issue. Well, you're seeing that um Jewish uh representatives running for Congress are losing left and also that so it's not just whether they are Jews running for the American Congress, whether they are the Christian Zionists running for the Congress and u 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 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 Kent 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 Eu Jang 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 going to hold those people to account. They want that Israel's money to be zeroed out >> and that is not realizing that the primary use of Israel is obsolete. Syria does not have Russian bases, Soviet bases. Egypt is not a Soviet power potentially blocking the Suez Canal and so on so forth. So Israel was once a vital asset for the United States under the circumstances. >> Surely as long as Israel has money, it's a vital asset for the United States. >> No, the answer is a lot of countries have far more money than Israel. >> Can they put it into American politics as easily as Israel can >> if that was the only thing that was doing it? the that would be true. 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 owns it because the Soviets are so powerful there. >> The 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 1991, uh, and you can even go back further, but if if listeners will just go back to 1991 and call up on Google and say, give me a chart of annual GDP growth or decline in the United States since 1991 to today. They're going to see some great patterns. They're going to see number one GDP growth goes down during the 19 2007 say housing crisis co but it does not go down during the uh Gulf War in ' 91. It does not go down in Kosovo. It does not go down in 2003 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, so if if it is the case that the American public is turning against Israel, I certainly hope so. How did Thomas Massie, who was one of the um most ardent anti-Israel voices in >> Trump went after him in a big way. You got the So, Trump targeted Massie with in he targeted Marjorie Taylor Green. He targeted Massie. And when you're targeted by Trump, and we know this most from Marjgery 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 a political targeting we're talking about. >> So So let's summarize 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 be Thomas Massie 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. His 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 10 years in fact by 2028 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 I think this is just >> that's what they'll almost run on. >> I think at least one person because yes, almost run on because somebody's going to be blamed for all the wreckage of this Iran war. And who are you going to blame? >> Why wouldn't you just blame Trump? >> Because uh Trump will already be toast by that point. You're going to This isn't This wreckage is going to go on for a while. You need you need an active candidate that >> I'm just saying we don't we're not going to be done blaming people because you know Iran >> this 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 since really all the go back to all the way World War I. There's no bigger >> biggest mess in 100 years. >> Yes. Be not because of the casualty. So we we're used to >> basically been at least on >> 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. >> Oh my gosh it's massive and I I I hope he's wrong. I mean this is where I'm predicting the es you're predicting the other and [laughter] I I think we each hope the other is not quite right but I am really concerned with his analysis because I can't chip away. I brought Jeff Curry on uh my Substack to do these, 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, so he's right here. >> Can you give me Can you I'd like to say Okay, I agree. This will be the biggest crisis if it doesn't end. If it ends, it'll become like those other wars that we've had in past and it goes on. The fundamental question is how does it end? How could it end? And so on 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 has 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? And it's really, >> 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 forly fought or what will happen in the Straits of Hormuz and so on. So if they were in the straits of Hermuz and so on, if they were secured and the war went on, it might have one path. There's another path. >> 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 pirick victory that's going to 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 on 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 75 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 10% 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. >> We agree there. We agree. The question, >> what's the likelihood of Trump voluntarily ending it? Well, I think this without more for right >> 0%. Yeah. I think that 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 going to play their part. Iran is just not willing to give him the victory that he can. Yeah, they're giving him the middle. In the same way that we say Trump doesn't have the power to do these things, we have to take a look at power of Iran as well. So, one of the things that Trump wants is to end the war and not be a crippled president above all else. >> Y the Iranians seem to be operating trying to push it out. Now, come October, he can't the president cannot make a deal. that they're trying to force him into a position negotiation and they're succeeding because he understands he's going to lose power if he continues this. So now we ask the question psychologically that I can't answer. Does Trump care more about remaining powerful as president or more about beating the Iranians because he started the war and he wanted 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 $2 trillion to Iran. >> $2 trillion in Iran. two trillion dollars to Iran. The United States is $40 trillion in debt. Give two $2 trillion to Iran. Not a big deal. The second thing is >> control Israel, embargo Israel, 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 these seven wars you're fighting right now. Um, come to peace with the Palestinians. So if he does these these these two things he he will be remembered as the greatest president in US history% no first [laughter] 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 really now in the midterms. And if he were to give $2 trillion, 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 No, hold it. Hold it. And $2 trillion. And what then is Iran going to 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 reign, because there's no over. >> Because there's a power vacuum. What has created 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 declining. Well, now the power vacuum is because this is changing. And what's going to fill that power vacuum is critical for the future. Iran, if under your plan, they will fill the vacuum uh 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 wreck Trump's future. >> I did not say give Iran two $2 trillion of gold. I said give them $2 trillion$2 trillion US. Which means that >> it's going to be worthless anyway. Yeah, that's the point. If you want the $2 trillion deal, you want to give them a sucker. If you want the $2 trillion, 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, this is a version of JD Vance's idea of pay for performance. And as I argued before when theou 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 a 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 going to fill the vacuum? It's not about the money per se. It's about power because in international politics, that's what determines outcomes. 20 years ago, um there was a philosophy in Washington called neoliberalism. I'm not I'm not sure if it's still around, but the idea was fading 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 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. That 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 ' 91 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 38% of world product to 62% 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. >> But is it not symbolic to do that? >> It's not about that. NATO at its core is not just a political alliance. What's in article 5 is that once article 5 is declared a US general there's no other decision it's a US general sacure 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 warfighting unified alliance where you decide in advance. The Americans call the shots for everybody. >> Who's going to be in Europe is going to after what they've been through? Who's going to let America run British tropes? >> But 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 forever wars. That he clumsily, stupidly got involved in one is true. But he hid out of a fundamental principle of 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. He hates the Europeans much more than he hates the Iranians. [laughter] He blames I'm serious. He blames the Europeans for his 2020 20 election loss. He thinks that Obama conspired the Europeans to defeat him. That's that's why he went out of NATO. >> I I' I'd be doing a patriotic disservice if I didn't bring it up. Is the UK ever seriously going to 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 1990, that was around 6 to 6 12% of world GDP. What is it today? Just under 4%. So what's happened since 1990? So again, I track power with some key metrics that we can observe. And in 1990, America was 26% of world's GDP. China was 2%. Wow. >> Uh and the Europeans varied from about 5 to 7%, Germany the highest. You look today and America's flat at 26. China's up from 2 to 17. 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. 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 10% of world's GDP at that point. Where are they today? 4%. 4%. 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 ending at the expense of other countries. >> One of the things you should point out however is Japan responded by massively increasing its military power. So it did not simply look at us at the United States and say where are you going? It took action. And China now worries great deal about Japan. The Europeans thought it was an immoral act improper to want to pull back and depend on them. 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. That was a fundamental reason for many years. But why now? So I don't think this should be put into a Trump load. I think with or without Trump, this questioning of whether or not we should remain exposed 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. The Japanese created a much is creating a much greater force along with the Australians and along with the Vietnamese who are now involved in that too. So many things are happening. So I think there are limits to what we can blame Trump for. >> We mentioned this earlier on. >> Well, I wasn't really blaming Trump just to be clear. I was just showing the hole in the argument. >> I understand that. 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 is going to peak 2100 something like that. Maybe >> a weight decline is happening not just in the United States but in Europe as well. the bottom of >> 10 billion maybe and then it's going to 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 is doing is basically trying to speedrun using humans to build robots so that the robots can replace the humans once the humans have off. 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, u geopolitical consequences. So right now we're about 8 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 get around this is with fertilizer right so Middle East is important not just because it provides cheap energy but it 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 going to have millions of people starve to death. Um so there's no way we will reach 9 billion people. Uh you will see massive starvation throughout Africa at some point. >> You think this is going to happen? You don't think? >> Oh, I I think it's baked in 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 I sometimes agree disagree with the other. But from the balance of power, what's happening? America was preeminent from 1991 until this war. America's being knocked back because for the first time since ' 91, 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 I 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. And 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 around the world are thinking this way. That's what I mean by an emerging anarchy. It's not really quite a multi-olar world. It's more fragmented than that. who would be the polls or who would be >> it'll be it'll be a center US and China have aligning interests fundamentally and we are seeing that 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 doesn't occupy countries it uses economic 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 the op United actually operates with more military power. Okay. >> But but in this emerging anarchy you will see greater uh incentives for nuclear proliferation for example with greater incentive 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 noticing Putin has been focusing on Poland. Why would Putin focus on Poland next week to meet the president? >> There you go. >> Ask him if he's got any nukes. The the answer is Poland is the eastern front of Europe. It cannot trust the western front because it's the alliance of the willing. Okay. And with that statement that shows it Poland is evolving dramatically and it has the capability and is discussing becoming a nuclear power. >> There you go. So the question of because when I talk to them I constantly hear back you know we're not counting on the United States. We have 10,000 troops there but we're not counting on the United States. So it's evolving dramatically and it's going to be looking at that. So I agree with you that the need to have nuclear weapons okay or the supposed need for to have nuclear weapons will 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 going to create a strange pole between the two because they have very similar interests. >> I don't disagree with you. I don't disagree with Jiang. What I'm saying is we're moving to a more warprone world. >> Yep. >> Well, the world is fairly full of war for a while. it. But this is about to get much worse. >> What are the places that you're keeping an eye on with regards [clears throat] to conflicts that aren't just going to expand from existing ones now? >> North Korea. North Korea is the big one. >> If I'm North Korea and I'm, you know, I'm poor, but I've got nuclear weapons and Japan, China, South Korea are all distracted, why don't I just extort everyone, right? 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. >> That's right. >> Okay. >> Why is it why is it the case that this uh whatever you want to call it global quasi anarchist world why why is that happening? >> Because we have lived under a certain amount of stability from 1991 when the cold war ended the Soviet you that cold war conflict receded. It was immediately followed by the first Gulf War, which showed America could easily beat Iraq, which was a power trying to control the world's economy. >> People know that daddy can't look after everybody. >> Daddy can't take care of you anymore. Daddy's either too old baby boomer. So maybe, you know, the big too old, daddy's too old anymore, and she doesn't have all his marbles. >> 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 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 you know what? If you go back to 2000, uh the world was perfect, but then [laughter] I'm serious. The world was perfect in 2000. perfect decided to go invade Iraq, >> Libya, Syria and create all this chaos in the Middle East. Um and um then it start 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 the United States becoming exhausted and doesn't want its power. I think it's also hubris. >> So this makes the uh Iran war even more stupid. It it sort of uh expedited something that was already kind of modeled wars and conflict for years. This was the one I modeled for 20 years, year after year in and out. 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 in [laughter] world that's what I'm asking we're we're trying to we're trying to tell you the reasons but we will be debating this Chris for decades >> if it's I will agree with you that if it extends it will become that it has not extended let's not overestimate it >> okay but I I understand on that but if you say this is a insane move which if you give it enough time and it's not that much time presumably 18 months or two and a half years or something like it's a really big [laughter] deal like if you you >> 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 no like you're already on the plank. You're walking. There's water either side of you if [laughter] you just about manage to turn around at the end and then reverse your direction. And the difference between life and death is how far you go down the plank. Oh, I agree. So, that is I disagree, but it just I'm less com confident about the decision. >> You get a little wind that pushes you off the >> Yeah. Um but it it really is like Oh, this was the worst thing you could do. >> This was absolutely Yes. And I think this was where um the real issue with President Trump walling himself off from anything like strong advisor. So if you just look at the advisers around Trump, I'm sorry. This is just an extremely weak group of advisers. It's not >> and Natalie Harp as well. I >> will also say I don't want to get into the some of that. >> Vietnam was far worse than this war. From the American point of view only a global point of view, it was not that terrible. >> Exactly. >> But for the Americans, 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, >> dude. If this if this turns out if if uh history looks back and does its analysis and finds out that one guy one morning just decided to press the button. >> Yes. >> Like that. Oh, what what was the motivation? Was it some deeply sought after analystfueled 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 one famous commercial by Hillary Clinton in 2016 which is the red phone is ringing. It's 3:00 a.m. 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 one person makes that decision. 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. It has 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 very much hope that it does. >> Well, when I say January, we'll know the answer to that. >> Is January kind of a point of no return for 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 to like a lot of the facilities the energy facilities of of the have been shut down. It's going to take them 6 months. Let's assume the war ends today or tomorrow 6 months to restart all these facilities. >> Yes. Well, then 6 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 this 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 book end 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 >> to end it is this is exactly what we in Texas want because [laughter] we have because we served during the cold war to fold the gap uh and there's really a 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 there's hostility from the Texas Republicans with 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 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 for America 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 97year-old um uh mother-in-law and I am seeing already that we are horrendous in this country at I've been um at taking care of people in their 90s and we're going to have more people living in their 90s. What if social security goes away as a result of this war? >> I don't know how the connection can be made that would h be possible. >> Well, this is his more his area than mine. >> Well, I would argue that the American production and trade and everything else is critical to the world. >> It's the debt, it's these financial underpinnings that are being stressed. >> They're crucial. When you look at world trade and you look at who consumes it and who can't consume it, the United States still has a role. Okay. Artificial intelligence now accounts for 50% of GDP growth in United States. 50% of GDP growth or these AI data centers. Guess who's financing these data centers? The GCC. >> So imagine a scenario where this work continues. The GCC 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 in 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 going to 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 there something that a lot of attention is being paid to a type of >> nuclear war? nuclear war 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 wars, >> right? So I I don't see any scenario where nuclear weapons are used even tactically. >> [snorts] >> Um, I think that before the war started on February 28th, I put the odds of a nuclear weapon being used by the United States in this conflict, cuz I modeled for 20 years as under 5%. By Israel at about 15%. So just to tell you where this has been, I've now essentially been doubling those over time because um 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 nuc 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 just 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 so as you just look at strategic interaction. And so that's what a model is. It's not just one player. It's strategic interaction. Uh the reason I've upped 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 50 70%. >> Right now, Iran cannot develop a nuclear weapon because of a fatwa in place. So for the fatwa to be rescended, the supreme leader would need to organize a council and they would need to >> there's no chance that they could subvert the religious doctrine. >> It's a theocracy. It's it's like saying like, you know, let's ignore the first amendment of the constitution. >> Yeah. But that could be arranged pretty quickly. >> Well, um >> and they're about to withdraw from the NPT possibly. So they're already talking about what? So these are these under the hood. >> They need to revoke that fatwa. Okay. According to their system, >> so Iran would only develop a nuclear weapon if Israel or United States were to attack first, right? But if you're Iran, oh sorry, if you're Israel, United States, you use a tactical nuclear weapon say maybe on Pickax Mountain, right? What >> building the deliverable nuclear weapon is much more complex than testing one. You have to have all sorts of elements to come together. It would take time. >> That's true for hydrogen generation 2 weapons but not atomic weapons. Fat Man and Little Boy. So Fat Man and Little Boy are undergraduate. Well well no fatman and little boy are delivered on uh was delivered on aircraft. This was not a put into a the second generation was miniaturaturized to put into the missile. But once we look >> I I simply am saying that developing a nuclear weapon and testing it and making sure it works takes a long bit of time. >> Well, if North Korea the 212th poorest country on the planet can do 60, 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 miniaturaturized and look like our if once we go back to World War II level nuclear weapons which you just have to keep keep in mind um killed well over 100,000 people in those two explosions. North Korea plenty of problems >> nuclear program in North Korea lasted many years. >> Well, that's because they went too miniaturized. I'm just pointing out that Iran may go much more quickly. >> One thing I want to do is >> I see the risk of nuclear war even with Iraq down the road with plenty of time to do it. Just we're talking about things you're wean test two nuclear devices. I I think that the odds that we are going to look at those two nuclear tests, let's say it's an October surprise. >> I totally >> if they test two nuclear weapons in October, are you telling me George? We're going to look at those two nuclear tests and say, "Don't worry, folks. It's going to be years before they could hit [clears throat] nucle two nuclear weapons in Octo." >> You're absolutely right. >> I am saying, however, knowing something about developing nuclear weapons, that first test will probably fail and so on 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 little hurdles in terms of timing? You mentioned November, you also mentioned January. >> What are the bad signs or some of the good signs? >> Just what should people be paying attention to if this is the sort of uh change which occurs? What would be the big inflection points that you guys are paying attention to over the next two years? Number one inflection point I'm tracking and again building on what I just told you about January is whether we will see the Democrats win one or both houses of Congress and seated peacefully seated peacefully. So we need to understand that um what we saw uh in November 2020 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 going to see in November 2026 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 3rd seating the Congress is January 3rd if that's what I'm really focused on because if that goes south all of these issues are going to get much much much worse >> I I see the positive one evolving is a US China economic onant 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 Iran start sorry United States starts targeting power plants or the desalation plants on mass 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 United 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 and it's easy to do with drones. >> I I agree with this. I just put the 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 are existing separately. >> They actually go that's what I'm trying to say. These things actually go together. And then I gave this presentation to my Substack 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 a 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 people are listening 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 Substack, I wrote a lengthy piece what targeting Thrron 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. you you would you it's oh yeah it's much because all of the uh so much of the food 25% of the food in Thran is under refrigeration and that includes all the supermarkets all 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 there's so much of detail underneath this summary of uh um droughts, starvation, u mass evacuations of the city, but where did these 10 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 much worse than most people. Oh my gosh. It's actually worse than the nuclear option to do. That would be worse than using a tactical nuke on pickaxe >> in terms of destruction quality of life change >> in terms of the escalation of death. 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 >> well well just to beious 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 force has had many >> designed it yeah [laughter] >> so well in order to understand why not to do it to be and by the way from the moment of Tom Griffith's paper and we did this in the mid '9s until right Now we've not targeted electric power. So that paper for 20 years has been the paper to of the warning to all the generals and sencom this is what it means to target electric power >> and it shows and so what you are um uh what you are seeing in in the plant 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 Yeah, about a week. Okay. Maybe two at most, but maybe really about four or five days. But if you hit the holes, the actual generating holes, those are each specialmade. They're gigantic. They're much bigger than this whole building. and it takes 6 months to even design them and produce them, much less bring them back in. So once you go after the hulls, 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 holes. 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 berlin airlift of massive water to all these people. This is this is going to this would be much more horrendous. Um and if you take out Thrron, that's 10 million people. It wouldn't be long before you took out another like 10 different nodes and the entire 70% 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. 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, Escaluation Trap, Professor Pap. And starting tomorrow, a brand new YouTube channel that's coming tomorrow afternoon, uh Pape on the Politics of Force. So stay tuned. >> And a new book. >> And and a new book coming, Our Worst Enemies, America in the Age of Violent Populism. And my nightmare scenario was always that we'd have an election as this contentious with an international crisis. And they're both happening. >> Heck yeah. >> And uh for me, geopolitical futures.com is what you can visit. And I'm of the opinion humanity will survive again as extremely improbable as it may seem. >> Beautiful gentlemen. I appreciate you all. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Goodbye my beauties. >> That was great. Thanks so much, >> George. George, thank you very much. That was awesome. That was awesome. Enjoyed that. >> Thanks, Chris. >> Congratulations. You made it to the end of a podcast episode without dying. Now, here's another one. Go on, watch it.