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Good morning, everyone. I'm Kal Raustiala, director of the Burkle Center for International Relations at UCLA. And I'm happy to have our audience back for another one of our zoom sessions, which we hope will come to an end soon and we'll be back to normal. But for the time being, we're going to do a few of these. Today, we are
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really pleased to have our longtime Senior Fellow General Wesley Clark It's a pleasure to have Wes Clark back with us. As I said, He's been a fellow for a long time and a friend of the center and a friend of mine, and I'm looking forward to hearing from him talking about some broad issues related to US national strategy here in 2020, but specifically, in light of what's happening with the COVID crisis. He's He's coming in from Little Rock, Arkansas. So General Clark, let me turn the microphone over to you, or the camera, I should say.
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Kal Thanks very much, and it's great to be with
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This group, I've always been really felt. I've always felt privileged to be part of the UCLA group and my grandson's love out there and so ours feel very close to you. And so thank you all for being here with me today. Now I'm on and everything's working right tell.
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Yes, absolutely. Sounds great. All right. So look, I mean, it is a strange time in America, everybody feels that it's like being on. Like for us in Little Rock. It feels like we're on a satellite orbiting the Earth. We've got plenty of food, water, oxygen, we got each other to talk to, and we can communicate electronically, but we can't get to anybody. We don't know how long this is going to last. And when you turn on the news at night, if you're watching CNN, all you hear is how many people have died in the Coronavirus and what Trump has said and how bad that is. And it's really it's really like an intermission in what's going on.
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Even as we're ramping up this presidential election, so I wanted to step back for a second, take a look at the big picture and ask, where's all this going? What is happening? what's likely to happen? So to do that, of course, you have to talk about, kind of, you have to bring it in and go through first, like the history. So what are the major forces impacting on us? What are the trends we're seeing right now? What are the uncertainties? We started? Let's start back in the 1990s when the United States was a global, not only the global power, but we were pushing for globalism. We work the World Trade Organization. We pull people together. We were strong in peacekeeping operations. We actually started a doctrine called
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R to P the responsibility to protect that came out of the operation I was involved in in Kosovo where we were going to call nations to account
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For how they treated their own citizens. And it was a real high point and in racial law, it was a high point in American policy and American power around the world. 911 came and we entered a new era. And
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it there are a lot of things that have happened. There's the tragic mistake of invading Iraq was never going to work. It was always hooked up. It came out of a split inside the Republican Party, where the hardliners
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resented the fact that Colin Powell, President George Bush, it stopped the assault too soon. They weren't real man. And so there was always a plan inside the republican party to finish the job. Go get Saddam Hussein.
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And one way or another they convinced themselves after 9/11 that they had a reason to do it.
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China when we brought it into the World Trade
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Organization when we talked about it in the 1990s, it was like China, well, you could engage them or contain them. And if you contain them, you could never then go back and engage them because you make an enemy of them. So as President Clinton said, at the time, China couldn't be making the kinds of progress it's making economically, without having a free and more open society where information can be exchanged. And so it was inevitable that democratization would accompany economic development in China, and therefore, not to worry so much about the lingering tendencies of authoritarianism and single party control of the state.
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But after 2008
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China lost its respect for the United States before that China was like, and this is what they told me when I went to China in 2005. I met with President whose Youth Advisory said
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we know that you in Britain were best friends and and and Britain.
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Gave you leadership of the world. So China wants to be best friends with America. So you will give us leadership of the world. And of course, everybody laughs when they hear that because we would never give up leadership in the world of China, not even in 2005. But after 2008, and especially after the civil war that was fought in China, between and Xi Jinping. And after Xi Jinping has consolidated control, China's a much different place. Not only is it more authoritarian, but it's more assertive in the world. And Xi Jinping, the Chinese dream has many characteristics, but one of them is to push the United States out of its traditional role in the western Pacific and away from its traditional allies and friends there. So China is assuming global leadership at the same time, the United States
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was after 2008 with President Obama
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Trying to craft a new Mideast policy trying to withdraw forces trying to end this dysfunctional conflict, this horrible conflict between Sunni and Shia between the Persians in in Iran and the Arabs in Saudi Arabia.
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And
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we ended up with a agreement to freeze the Iranian nuclear program. But we did not get an agreement to freeze Iran, terrorist activities, or its efforts abroad to become a hegemonic power in the region.
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And so, that trend was going, look, Russia decided in the 1990s. Reuters knew there was a risk that we might face a resurgent Russia but President Clinton had a relationship with Yeltsin and we have the Chicago School of economists in there and we thought that not much was really going to happen bad and they were just having troubles too.
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getting their feet on the ground at democracy. There were elections and regional governors were elected and it was looking, it was looking reasonably positive despite the corruptions and the lingering influence of the KGB. And this whole change starting in, really in the mid 90s. And finally, you have Jimmy premier call became the Prime Minister of Russia. He said, Russia is a great power. We're never going to be secure. We're never going to accept the leadership of the United States, or the hegemony of NATO in Europe, and we must fight against it.
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Putin became president took a while, in some head fakes. I had a nice visit with President George W. Bush in Texas. But they were never going to be our friends. And in 2008, during the Olympics in Beijing, Russia invaded the sovereign country of Georgia. Still later
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And every year it encroaches a little more with its forces on Georgian territory. It was a test for Putin of how good the Russian military was. Well, they weren't very good. So he's reformed the Russian military. And so he's working to push outwards to regain the Soviet space, got pretty frustrated with what happened in Ukraine in 20 1314. Because it messed up the Eurasia union. But he found a way to get into Syria. He pried the door open to the Middle East. And he's there. President Obama said it might be a swap. He might get bogged down there. But but he's not seeing it that way. At least not super.
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Of course, Russia and China are
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now closer together than they've been for a long time. And we're we're watching this, but what happened to us in at home
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As we faced after 2008, the failure of neoliberal economics in the United States, I know, I know, if you're a Democrat, you're going to tell me it was a great recovery. And every year jobs were added. But if you went to the rust belt, and President Obama knew this and tried to fix it, but he couldn't, because macro economic policies, low interest rates, low inflation,
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good things for the business community, it's not enough to bring those jobs back to America. And so there was disaffection. And now what we're recognizing is actually what we we helped big banks at the expense of small banks in 2008 2009. And in the recovery, we use the Fed, okay, we avoided a depression true and, and, you know, eventually people got employed and under Trump employment rate went down real low, but it didn't trickle down quickly, and we helped Wall Street rather than Main Street and that's a fact.
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We're having to live with. One thing that did change in the United States, though was we became energy, almost totally energy independent in terms of hydrocarbons. They found in the 1980s, that they could go to what they call source rock, where the oil and gas bubble out of this hard rock and they formed pockets. And that's what we were for 100 years. That's what we were finding, refining oil. But we weren't getting at the source of it. Well, through hydraulic fracturing, they learned to get at the source of the oil. And now we're 13 million barrels a day where we were before the last month or so a net exporter of crude oil, we could send it all over the world and we found we could get through as much oil as mankind really could ever need, and certainly enough to destroy the planet. It completely changed the economics and by the way, more than a third of economic recovery from 2010 on
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was due to the oil market.
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Republicans never bought on to the Obama strategy for the Middle East. They had historic relationships with Saudi Arabia
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and, and Israel, and Israel wasn't convinced you could ever defang Iran. So, as a result, the Obama strategy wasn't a real national strategy. It turned out to be just a one party strategy. So where we are today, so that's, that's take those historical facts and forces and look at where we are today. China is assuming global leadership, while the US under President Trump is withdrawing.
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The European Union is has been further weakened by Brexit and the various nationalist pressures COVID the inability to really help these economies, they're still talking about a 500
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In your old bailout, but it's not done yet. It's it means that the European Union, and the great dream of a Europe whole and free from the Atlantic to the Urals is, as it's further diminished from what people hoped for in the 1990s.
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There's no progress in dealing with climate change. We've walked out of the agreements, and despite the fact and the evidence that everything's getting worse and worse, faster and faster, record warrants in the Arctic, etc. We don't have any consensus to move forward. And without American leadership in the world, there will be no progress in dealing with climate change.
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Russia is moving out in the Middle East. Now their plan in the Middle East is they're going to take over serious oil resources. And they're going to then blackmail the European Union into funding that we building
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That destroyed oil infrastructure. They're also very actively engaged in Libya. And they'd like influence in the Libyan regime and working
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through General haftorah. There, Russia's also got a working arrangement with Iran. Now how much they want this versus Saudi Arabia? No, no, they just want to be involved and be able to seek Russia's interest at the expense of everyone else's. So they'll tilt one way, one way, one day, one way or another. They certainly don't want to be tied down to the to the Iranians, but they also want to be friends with the Turks but not tied down and they can use the Saudis from time to time even though right now there is a bit of a dust off over the oil markets.
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in Eastern Europe, Russia has a really strong grip on Ukraine, through their support of the forces in eastern
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Ukraine through Russian diplomacy. And through the absence of actual American diplomatic support for Ukraine in the way we could have supported. We've left this to the Europeans. We put them on Angela Merkel, and Ukraine and these countries have never been strong enough to stand up against Russia. That was the whole purpose of NATO. They're not strong enough now.
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In the 19th century, everybody in the world of geostrategy believe the center of the world was Ukraine. But actually, right now the center of the world is Western Europe. And both Russia and China are contending to dominate Western Europe, just as the United States is engaging in quarrels talking about tariffs, wanting to put pressure on Germany for not paying their share and backing away from NATO.
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This is the top or Europe is
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The center is the cockpit of conflict, because of the great industrial potential. China needs it. Russia needs it to stand against China. And the United States needs it. But we're playing to these sentiments and states that we've been taking advantage of the Middle East. There'll be grinding conflicts continuing. And Kal. I hate to say this, but and we should probably discuss this. But I think it's inevitable that nations are going to move away from a rules based international order. And the accompanying tenets of international law extend to the United States is not there to lead and help enforce. So we may be dominant in certain technologies like medical technologies, and we'll probably maintain that. I mean, it's amazing what we're doing with respect to COVID. More than anybody else faster than anybody else. 20 potential vaccines out there, stuffs already being tested. It's really impressive. We still have
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of great science. And through the system of the market, we have great competition for success. So those forces are still going to play and they'll keep us dominant in most of this along with defense investment through the end of the decade.
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But there are problems. Look, where we are right now is
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we're focusing on China. And at least the republican party has decided China is the winning card to blame for this election. Democrats feel like China hasn't played ball with us very well. And republicans like it, they like an enemy. So this tension with China is going to grow. It's reflected in face to face diplomacy, but it's shipped deployments, the waivers restructured our armed forces, our defense announcements, the United Nations, friction and the World Health Organization.
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We've recast the Defense Department away from
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The terrorist threat and into facing up to the challenge of China in the western Pacific, although to be honest with you, I don't see a strategy for the United States that successful in this.
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In the Mideast, we're trying to get out with NATO. We're clinging on despite the
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occasional statements by President Trump, then bureaucracy is still hanging on to NATO, and will. Meanwhile at home, we've got got national debt raising its head. Okay, how much can I put in 5,000,000,000,007 trillion? Is there a limit and as we start to do this, Republicans say this is an opportunity to go after Social Security and Medicare. When democrats are talking about Medicare for All. Republicans are talking about less Medicare for some, it's just the way the partisan divide is and forget about the student loans.
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Forgiveness that's off the table in a corrupt political environment unless there's a change in governance in Arkansas. It's so bad that actually in response to this terrible covert emergency, the state has managed to prevent abortions in the state. So, I mean, partisanship is alive and well. And what you're seeing here at home is a conflict. Democrats believe the doctors, Republicans want to get the economy open. And much of America's caught in between this divide. It's confusing, and it's difficult. There's some major uncertainties ahead. So where are we going? First of all, is there going to be a second stage of COVID this fall and winter? And how severe will it be? No one knows. But if history is any guide, there will be a second stage. The vaccines won't be out there and available for everyone in time. And so we may end up having to go back into social distancing. will dawn
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Trump being reelected in November. If he is all about us withdrawal from the world will be accentuated. If he isn't. The Democrats will try to take half a step back. But the Trans Pacific Partnership and engagement with some of our allies in Asia Knights still going to be a problem, as well as the relations with China. So it could be two steps in the direction of Donald Trump or maybe a half step back. If there's a change of government.
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We don't know how long China is going to be patient with this. China plays a long game. And traditionally, they don't use force, except when they think they're losing. But under Xi Jinping, there's more pressure. There's more military pressure being brought against Taiwan. We've never said we would defend Taiwan, but we've never said we wouldn't. And so there's a sort of dance going on. The Republicans want arms sales to Taiwan, China objects, China's
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forces out there. We know that if we put aircraft carriers in and around Taiwan, they're vulnerable to being struck. And it only takes the sinking of a single us aircraft carrier in a conflict to be declared the loser if you're the United States. So we have to be very careful during this period. And a lot of it depends on whether China thinks it can win continue to win by playing the long game, or whether President Trump is so successful in turning the whole world against China on the basis of covert and other things that the Chinese feel compelled to take dramatic action with the forces at hand. And finally, we don't know what Putin is going to gain out of this. We know he's running scared in Russia right now from public opinion. If you're a dictator, that usually means you need a distraction. And Ukraine, Ukraine is available for distraction. Maybe not before the election, but certainly in the winter.
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timeframe, Ukraine is going to be increasingly vulnerable. So what we're entering is a period of movement away from a rules based international order in which the United States was dominant
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increasingly into a period of multipolarity, in which the power blocks reform, reassert their prerogative
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is and move away from International Law and Diplomacy. How we play this as Americans depends on how we vote in November.
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With that, I'd like to stop and count. Let's take some questions and see what the audience is interested in.
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Great, well, that was terrific. So So what we'll do is I'm going to start off with just a couple of questions of my own and then we'll pivot to what what's coming in over the chat.
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So So first of all, that was a great tour of a lot of big issues.
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Let's pick up where you left off, which is the idea that we're moving to a different kind of world. And part. COVID is just an accelerator. It sounds like in your view of that, but we're, we were already moving this way. And that view is not
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is not unique to you. I mean, John Mearsheimer who probably the most well known realist scholar published a piece last year saying the liberal international order is over, and we're moving into a multipolar system. And, you know, here's all the implications of that. So I think it's a view that's out there. And I think it's an important one. The question is, what is it really mean and what does it mean for sort of concrete issues, concrete institutions like NATO like the who the UN, like the World Trade Organization, etc. So, so maybe let's start with the US China dimension first so so it does seem to China is has been Ascendant? Well before COVID obviously.
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Do you think that COVID is going
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To you said, Well, maybe Trump will be successful at making China seem like the bad guy. And there's good reason to think that what do you predict is actually going to happen? And do you think China's kind of global leadership will rise or fall on this issue? So it's really China's really working is very hard right now. So they've had, they've done it on multiple fronts, they pushed back first against the United States with this information. Legend we had brought over to China. Nice try. But they then have managed to dominate much of the world's market for personal protective equipment for ventilators, gloves, face masks, but here's the deal. I'm in a very chaotic supply chain. And there are literally hundreds and hundreds of Chinese factories producing these goods and many of them are substandard. So there's been two consequences to that one is a huge embarrassment for China on that
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When governments who are the purchaser say, This is no good, I mean, we haven't done what we promised. There's been a huge crackdown in China, on my friends was on the phone with a mayor of a medium sized Chinese city for 5 million people. And he said it's too busy to talk. He's got shipments that have been rejected at Shanghai, he's got to bring them back. And he's working factories, so chain of command economy. So the business in China does what the government wants. The government's peddling, like adult really hard underwater to try to improve its take advantage of this period.
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So they've got strong authority, moral authority inside China. They've got control it no other country has in terms of public activities, and at least expressed public attitudes. But whether they can translate that into some broader dimension or not, is unclear is already starting to be some back
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backpedaling by the Europeans on accepting Chinese investments. For example, the Africans have understood that no, Chinese investment comes with lots of strings attached. They basically, you either pay it back or they're taking your land for nothing after you paid for them to develop the port. So it's not as fearsome. It's not as going to be as effective as some people believe. But it is a challenge to American values, and especially to the American business community. Because at the heart of it, we have to grow our our economy. I've got more people coming in he jobs can't take
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money from rich people and just handed out to poor people. We got to give people better jobs. And so China's growing impact in international institutions and in these countries erodes the rule of law erodes the ability to do honest business. it erodes the ability to bring relations
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Soon. And I'll give you an example. So in one country in Africa, we're closer friends with the president. He received a offer from a Chinese firm for $2 billion worth of rail extension to the Indian Ocean. But
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he looked at it carefully. It was going to be financed by China, it was done by China rail Corporation look like a sweet deal. And we got to hold it took it to some European railroad engineers, he said, it's got $600 million
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of slush money in it. And the railroad is substandard. But
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you shouldn't do this. Well, a President went down and met with Xi Jinping in January he did it anyway, because no one else was going to provide the money. So this is the kind of thing that happens in Africa to these countries. This is the way China reaches out. So it's going to be a struggle and that struggle will impact
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The United States on our business community, and it will interfere with our ability to work with our NATO allies on things like Huawei. And do you think that the Chinese leadership is going to be
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more brittle because of the way that they handled COVID. So there was such a cover up initially. And then she disappeared. And then he resorted reappeared and took the lead on whatever policies they were. They were doing. But a number of different China watchers have seen this as a sign that
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the support for the regime is is been reduced because their incompetence has been exposed, and in really deadly way. Do you think that will have larger repercussions? Why should you agree with that? Yeah, I do agree with this. To the extent that there is internal opposition to Xi Jinping, we know this. He doesn't have a total free hand. You never do when you are an authoritarian leader.
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You can never trust even the people that smile and support you. You always have to look behind the facade and their real ambitions and interests. And there's a lot of potential conflict in China. But here's something is very surprising that the East Asian neighbors of China haven't condemned in the same way. They have been grateful to China for the leadership that Xi Jinping, so he doesn't have the same. He doesn't have the same universal condemnation that Trump is trying to put on him. Secondly, appreciate the fact that President Trump and President Putin
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they seem to really work well together. And if you were president Putin and you were worried in the long term about China, there's nothing you'd like more than a US China quarrel.
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Now, the Chinese know this, and they understand exactly who Donald Trump is. So they're in a delicate three way balancing act.
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On the one hand, they have to maintain control, Xi Jinping has to maintain control authority and growth China. Secondly, he doesn't want a conflict with Russia. He wants to use Russia and its natural resources. Third, he doesn't want to conflict with the United States. He still needs to technology. It's got a lot of money tied up in it. And he wants to ride on the coattails of American technology and business elsewhere in the world. So it's a balancing act. But the balance is shifting in China's favor, and against the United States on this. This is what we all
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see, the question is, how do you combat it? So by harsh rhetoric, what you do is you provoke China, and this is really our danger is that Xi Jinping takes the rhetoric. He listens to Donald Trump. He looks at what coming from these European allies, Italy, France, Germany. So you actually you have
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have covered up on COVID. And, and he feels he's threatened. And if China feels threatened, China can take action. Well, we have a huge number of questions. So sorry.
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Yeah, I didn't know. We have about 30 minutes and a lot of great questions, but they're deep questions. So I'm just gonna start with a few. And and then we can adjust accordingly depending on the kind of question they are. But one of them really follows closely on what we were just discussing. So the question is, what what could a democratic administration do to reinstate a rules based international system? So in other words, if we see a change in in the fall, is there anything we can do to address some of these trends we've been talking about, you know, well, you have to start by rebuilding your alliances with Europe. And, and that means working through the various conflicts of interest that have emerged through the Trump period.
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Prices of automobiles and so forth. What happened?
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With Brexit, because you can't move forward with a rules based order without help from Europe. And secondly, you then have to work Africa in a serious way. Africa is the cockpit in which the challenge to the rules based order will be filled first by president of Nigeria was before COVID was in Moscow, someone there by Putin. And Putin said, This is no, this is secondhand information, not first. And Putin said
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you better start listening to and respecting Russia. We want a greater role in Nigeria, and we're there now. You know, he has mercenaries this Wagner group is all over Africa. And they're controlling Central Africa Republic essentially. And he wants to move them into Nigeria. He wants to control the oil market from Nigeria. So
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countries in Africa have always had trouble with rules based order. So you've got to go to Africa, got to have an American presence there. You can't do it without investment. But here's the good news. The
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banks have been changed in the United States. So OPIC, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation is now something else. And with money appropriate from Congress, it can support American economic development in Africa, with American entrepreneurs should be a big step in getting us the right direction. Because when you put your own business people on the ground, and they're complaining about graft and corruption, and you know how you get a license and all that stuff, bring it to the ambassador's, you're putting money in the
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country. Now, you can begin to move this forward. And it's also a pushback against China and what it's doing, but we're going to have to revive the Trans Pacific Partnership in some ways, maybe with a couple of different rules, but we've got to bring our Asian
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allies into this as well as our European allies, as well as Africa. I think I'll stop on that. Perfect. So another question related to Russia, which we only briefly discussed. So if you took the temperature of us Russia relations right now, how would that temperature compare to the animosity during the height of the Cold War? Well,
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it's a very, very complex question to answer because there was a lot of misunderstanding during the Cold War. I mean, here's the thing. American foreign policy is always a reflection of American politics. And so it was convenient during the Cold War to beat the drum against the Soviet Union. President Reagan called it the evil empire. And the people just flocked to that and then when he was able to have a meeting with Gorby and try to bring peace I mean, he became hugely popular even with a left wing democrats are hoping different
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Use it. So when you're looking at relations, you're always talking about domestic politics. Condoleezza Rice told me one time, she said, Look, before they got involved, says, look, we're going to use Russia. They're going to help us, said, You people in the Clinton years, you made an enemy of Russia. We're going to make friends with Russia. Every US administration tries to reset relations with Russia. I think, though, that President Trump is the only one who's been really successful. And I'm really concerned about why. So, you know, he always says you've been tougher on Russia than anybody else is true. There's still sanctions in place. It's true that we've improved our NATO forward presence against Russia with some NATO battalions in the Baltic states. We had a big exercise to be cancelled because of COVID. That was set for late March, early April for NATO, with troops coming in from the United States. But, but that aside, what we've done
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is we've
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that's superficial. What we've done is two things that looked off aren't. So the weapons to Ukraine, they're in storage. I mean, it would take two weeks to get those guided those anti tank missiles out of storage. If Russia ever did come across the line of separation, and out of the dawn boss and they'd never be used, they'd be that the first thing the Russians would take care of through bombing. So there's that the sanctions are bad, but um, we're still making exceptions for them. For example, we've allowed a big Russian aluminum plant to invest in Kentucky. That's why they're calling him Moscow, Mitch, I guess, I don't know. But it gets into the partisan politics it is, um, and on the mower investigation, you know, it looked really bad, but it's being discredited. And so that also eases the friction between the United States and Russia.
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President Trump can call President Putin. So I would say it's a much different relationship now. And it's much more dangerous. During the Cold War, the Iron Curtain protected Russia from the west, or Soviet Union from the west, but it also protected the west from the Soviet Union. So people that came over there that were spies and intelligence agents, they were big baggy suits. They couldn't speak good English. And everybody can learn what, you know, he's from Bulgaria, right? I mean, it was so obvious, and now they're integrated with us. There are 10s of thousands of Russians here in the United States, the series on the Americans on Netflix, which I'm sure many of you have seen, I mean, that's not fiction. That's true. And there are Russian hit squads all over the world that are able to travel freely, which they couldn't during the course.
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old war. So it's a much more dangerous time for America. RT, by the way is brought broadcasting from Kansas City. And I regularly turn down an opportunity to be on RT, it is a Russian propaganda means and somehow it's broadcasting from Kansas City. So
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the tensions are lower the threat is greater.
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Interesting, interesting. Let's stick with Russia for a second. So another question that came in.
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How do you think the issue in Ukraine will resolve? Will Ukraine concede territory to Russia? Is there a realistic possibility that Russia will withdraw? What do you predict? Well, I think it's frozen politically because even though it's Zolensky, President Zolensky, the comedian who was elected and is a novice in politics, politics is just common sense. So he came in, everybody in the West said, Hey, you got to put in a you got to get called lucky.
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So the oligarch who controls the banks and he said center of corruption, he was your big factor, you got to get him out. And so at first it looked like that's what was gonna happen. But there was pushback, and Zolensky Like most politicians, he moves with the forces that act upon him. So Zolensky was invited and allowed back in his people came back in to some extent, the hardline reformer was pushed out of the Prime Ministership, the guy who's close to his own skin, Hell is reported to have relations with the Russian mafia, which of course is the way it's Putin's intelligence arm of action out there. And there Zolensky is trying to balance the forces off. He doesn't have strong enough support from the United States to really be able to stand up to Russia. So he's playing rogue widow with them. He takes the punch he backs up a little bit. I think is hard to
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in the right place, I think there are a lot of people in Ukraine who will stand firm against Russia encroachment. And I think and Putin as long as it's a very low cost. It's it's on the shelf. It's a crisis on a shelf waiting to be used at the appropriate time by Putin. Until then, it's a bleeding sore for Ukraine, and a continuing daily challenge for Zolensky. So my prediction would be
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unless something dramatically changes in Russia, before the election, nothing to like the election.
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And then it could well become the first crisis a democratic president has to face. Great. So question about China. There's many questions about China, but I thought this one was especially interesting and you were a longtime consumer of intelligence. And the the questioner asks with the growing influence of Huawei and and their 5g deployment, will this erode American intelligence sharing with historic partners?
40:00
Create major security interests with with European allies that adopt Huawei technology, for example, the UK. So So how is this going to change the way? Our sharing the Five Is and other other intelligent sharing arrangements we have operate going forward? No. Well, it's the risk real. Let me just add on How real is this Huawei risk is there is some debate on that is, it is a real risk. And let me just add on to the Huawei risk by saying that there was a Chinese drone manufacturer who just traded a bunch of free drones to some of the cities, municipalities in the United States. They were connected to the Chinese cloud. So everybody in the intelligence community understands that these drones were flying over taking pictures of pipelines, you know, electric grids, and so forth, all of which is considered critical infrastructure, and all of which is fed back into China's artificial intelligence targeting engines that are preparing in the eventuality that they had to take action, how would they do it? Do they have all the facts they need?
41:00
So Huawei is a real threat and it through Huawei they have access to communications and date they would not otherwise have. Will it destroy our intelligence sharing? well look. No it won't. It makes our reopen allies more vulnerable, it gives China more traction in those societies but we have many say of protection our intelligence and out intelligence activist and as long as that intelligence n sharing is valuable to allies which it is they'll work double hard to convince us that they're safe. There's a sort of Five Is agreement so we only really share sensitive intelligence with Canada and Australia, New Zealand and UK. We don't share with France and Germany for example and certainly not Italy Thought theres a lot of stuff we don's share with anybody. You never know what you do't know in the intelligence business so I'm confident we'll hang on to what we've got but it's never really about Huawei. The greatest risk is always human penetration. Our greatest failures
42:31
Have been with people who were inside our intelligence community who for whatever reason decided to throw upon The doors, take money, give up. Now it happens with Russia too but Russia has a way to relatable. We haven't been nearly as hard hearted, let's say, as others have.
43:00
Couple of questions that came in, actually more than a couple about the question of international institutions and you mentioned this a few times in your opening remarks about what the implication would be of a retreat from a rules based order. So the first question is what do you think of the trump administration's push to defund the World Health Organization? So maybe answer that in terms of what does it mean for COVID and global health but also is it a sign of something Bigger?
43:26
Yeah well its a problem for us. What you'd like is you'd like to be able to have these international institutions to jump to what we believe is our own US national interests. I mean we're not a disinterested part in this. Its not like Americans come from Mars and say "all you people of earth come together and do what's best for everybody" no, we use these institutions to support our own interests really our integrates comes from domestic politics but also you have see it in the broadest framework. Theres tremendous networks of international cooperation in the medical field that has nothing to to with the World Health Organization. theyre cooperation of respect, of shared business ventures, of scientific ideas that are exchanged between people. One of my friends in the Los Angeles area is working on corona and he's working with people in Italy because he knows them and trusts them. It has nothing to do with the WHO. Now what we need the WHO for is medical intelligence early warning and to protect and be helper for American response in things like the ebola crises where we used them. They are an organization who can help us. So when we turn our back on them we make life more difficult for ourselves.
45:00
I'd also add that it seems like one of the criticisms we've heard from her right but also across the spectrum was that The Who was overly credulous about Chinese claims and part of the problem is thatChina has become huge funder of these organizations and wields a lot of power. That not only seeds the train but also tin this case can eat to you know worse outcomes for infectious disease, which can be a really bad thing. But a related question on international institutions. So uh General Clark can you comment on the current state of the International Criminal Court and its current prospects and do you have a good anecdote from your experiences there's?
45:41
I want to come back to tICC bc I want to just..Kal you brought up something we have to have one more word on. China has a whole of society approach, It has a national strategy. It uses these institutions. There's not a single Chinese representative in these international institutions what till speak up on his own accord like Well this is my opinion not what they say in Beijing but as a real chins businessman I want to tell you how it is in China. Are you kidding>? He'd get is head cut off. But that's also how how it is in most countries. Now here I'll give you a real instance. In the United Nations we have a committee on geosynchronous satellites. And this is done because otherwise we'd have all the satellites orbiting in one sport. And there's an American representative and there's a French representative. The American representative is a woman who got some satellite and stout telecommunication experience that is from private business. She doesn't take instructions from the American government. So when it came to Iran trying to put a geosynchronous satellite up the French said you should help us and go tot the SU government and they sad you ware right this would be really bad if Iran got this orbiting position but the US committee woman decided I think Iran has the legal right to have a satellite so I'm voting against the American interest on this and the French came to me and hates aid How? What kind of government has its participation in international organizations lime this? No one would do this. There must be some secrete reason you're against French and that's why you're voting this way. Tell us the truth! But there wasn't and that's the different with the Chinese, it's not just the money Kal, they know what they want and they go after it after after after it. The Trump administration for the pandemic was like that's an Obama thing let's get rid of time don't need it. TIs' the same way the Bush administration treated Richard Clark before 9/11 when he said you're going to have a real problem with Osama bin Laden, they said nah that's a Democratic thing. It's the exact same thing.
48:17
Now onto the ICC. You have its peaked really. It was always ponderous and difficult unless you conquer a country you can't get access to what you need to do and the information to prosecute. The case of Rwanda for example. Basically we could prosecute Hutus. In the case of the Balkans it was hard because we had to fight for every scrap of information. We never did get the Serb files. It's really legally scrupulous. The commercial Malaysian airline that was shot down in Ukraine in 2014 d nothing has happened yet except more information from Russia. Look, I believe in these institutions and I believe we need to strengthen them. If I had my way the US would be a part of the ICC and wouldn't duck it and our soldiers would follow International law and set the sample. But it was politics it wasn't that the Clinton administration didn't believes in it they couldn't get it through Congress. It's the American view of the world. That's why so much depends on this election.
49:48
Yeah so let me ask about the election. People have asked about your claim that we're reiteration or a rules based order is dying. What do you do. About that? What ill American strategy look like in a less rules based order? Or related. You know Joe Biden, you know people who are likely to be in power. If Biden wins, what is he likely to do about the grand strategy questions we've been discussing?
50:25
On the first, the slide away from international institutions is inevitable. We have resisted the rebalancing of the UNSC for some 25 years. It was clear that at some point China was going to have to come on. They came on but what about India what about Brazil? Why's it France that still is on the SC? Maybe you need more permanent members. Maybe make it larger. But we never want to focus on that. We didn't even want to pay our dues to the United Nations! So in part because we have resisted retooling these organizations because we couldn't see a broader interest than our own national politics we've let this institutions court of slip away form us. It's going to be difficult for any president in dish term barring some catastrophic event in the international community tp totally reverser it. It's too hard. If the Democrats had swept Congress in 2008...they DID sweep Congress in 2008 and what did we get from it>? Did we get labor reform? No. We got Obamacare but even then..So even if Joe Biden comes I he's going to have a hard time reshaping many of these forces that are already there. That's the problem. He's certainly going going to make up with our allies, he's going to reinforce NATO, but we don't want bad relationships with Russia or China. We're not going to make an enemy of Putin. Every president wants to be friends with these people. So we're still going to have to help Israel in the Middle East, we'll still want to be friends with Saudi Arabia. We'll try to do something with Iran, resurrect that strategy try to bring Iran back in a and we'll try to work through international institutions. But America is a very different system that China and Russia int hat a Democratic president cannot really control and impact the business community. Even Trump has a hard time.
53:41
There's an asymmetry there that makes it hard for Americans to compete in a sort of ratchet period. We can hold the line or we can collapse it but to go back and restrengthen these institutions is going too take e a re-envisinog of American and re-evnisioning of American business way form quarterly statements...And I know that some f your listeners who were big fans of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, you think all of that's coming but I can tell you those are really unpopular measures and if the Democrats are elect4ed they''ll have to think they way very carefully though the tradeoffs that are involved. The inside story of why there's not public option in Obamacare is that while it was being consider there was a meeting at the Haye-Adams Hotel and a bunch of big lobbyists said that the Pharmaceutical and healthcare companies said "hey bud listen. We understand you're talking about a public option. I prose you we''ll bout 500,000,000 of lobbying against you and defeat your bill if we put a public option in." There was not public option. Because democrats were pragmatic. This is the kind of political reasoning the Democrats generally exhibit and that's why I say its hard barring some catastrophic event to move past that even if the Democrats win the White House, the Senate and the Congress there will be pragmatic reasoning.
55:51
Was it Will Rogers that said I'm not a member of any organized party, I'm a Democrat?
55:57
And it's true today as it was 96 years ago. It's the way it is. the two parties are totally different. I respect the people in both parties not of these are earnest and sincere people trying to do what's right of there country as they see it but the charge form young people that oh these parties are the same, they're absolutely different, different and orientation and capacity. But I just want to say this for the listeners. Those of you that are in college that are young people please think about what this election is going to mean and vote. You always hear what young people think but you don't see the young peoples impact on the election results. I'm one of the graybeards now, one of the ghost patrol people you see when you walk through the neighborhood with all the old people and they're the ones that vote. They've got Social Security and Medicare to protect, while you've got student loans and much longer in this country than any of us do. So it would be wonderful to see 50, 60, 70% youth turnout in this election. I'm hopeful.
57:32
General Clark, thank you so much for doing this, I really appreciate it. For all of you watching and listening, we hope we see you on June 3rd when we talk about Governor Jerry Brown with Jim Newton and have a great day. Take care everyone
Transcribed by https://otter.ai