What Xi is learning from Putin's war - with Matt Pottinger
As Russia has become isolated globally, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official was asked if Moscow has anyone left in its corner, anywhere in the world. Her response: “Of course, we have them. Look at the reaction of world giants. Those who do not pretend to be giants, but are real giants. For example, it is China. You can see this reaction, can’t you?”
So what exactly is going on between Xi Xingping and Vladamir Putin as tensions escalate between Russia and the West over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?
How does this inform our thinking about whether we are, indeed, in a new Cold War -- and how we need to re-think our entire national security strategy, defense posture, and approach to global affairs?
Russia’s experience in Ukraine – and the West’s response – is a laboratory for the Chinese Communist Party leadership to study as Beijing contemplates its next moves in this Cold War.
To help us understand how China is interpreting events, Matt Pottinger returns to the podcast. Matt lived in and covered China as a journalist for Reuters and then The Wall Street Journal. Then, in his early 30s, he joined the US Marine Corps, and had multiple combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Later on Matt played an instrumental role in the geopolitical story of our time: reshaping the West’s relationship with China, when he served as the deputy National Security Advisor in the Trump administration, and was the architect of the administration’s strategy towards China.
Today, he is regularly called upon by policymakers on both sides of the aisle, to consult on US policy towards China.
Matt has been closely watching the evolving Moscow-Beijing relationship. He’s also just returned from Israel, where he gained fresh insights on what role the final negotiations over a new Iran nuclear deal factor into all of this. We discuss a lot in this episode – from Moscow and Beijing, to Tehran and Jerusalem, and even Caracas and Pyongyang, and how they are all tied together in Cold War II.
Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
[00:00:00] If I'm Vladimir Putin, if I'm Xi Jinping, I'm watching this engaging and say, look, the Americans don't have the stomach for this. As soon as gas prices go high, they start to ease off on maximum pressure campaigns. And we're tough men. We talk a lot about struggle. Xi Jinping is always talking about how, uh, struggling against Uh, the world struggling internally, uh, makes the party, the Communist Party stronger.
It makes the Chinese people stronger in, in his very Stalinist, uh, worldview. And so, you know, for a few years of really tough sanctions are something that can be weathered, uh, when it means expanding, you know, if, if that's the cost of expanding their spheres of influence by invading their neighbors. As
Russia has become increasingly isolated, globally, at a staggering speed, [00:01:00] a senior foreign ministry official was asked if Moscow has anyone left in its corner anywhere in the world. Her response and I quote, of course we have them. Look at the reaction of world giants. Those who do not pretend to be giants, but are real giants.
For example, it is China. You can see this reaction. Can't you? Close quote. So what exactly is going on between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin as tensions escalate between Russia and the West over Russia's invasion of Ukraine? How does it inform our thinking about whether we are indeed in a new Cold War?
And how we need to rethink our entire national security strategy, defense posture, and approach to global affairs. Russia's experience in Ukraine and the West's response is a laboratory for the Chinese Communist Party leadership to study. As beijing contemplates its next moves in this new cold war So to help us [00:02:00] understand how china is interpreting events matt pottinger returns to the podcast matt covered china and lived in china As a journalist for reuters and then the wall street journal then in his early 30s He made quite a career change matt joined the u.
s. Marine corps And had multiple combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Later on, Matt played an instrumental role in the geopolitical story of our time, reshaping the West's relationship with China when he served as the deputy national security advisor in the Trump administration. And was the architect of the administration strategy towards China.
Today, he is regularly called upon by policymakers and elected officials on both sides of the aisle to consult on us policy towards China, but he's also been closely watching the evolving Moscow, Beijing relationship. He's also just returned from Israel where he gained fresh insights on how the final negotiations over a new Iran nuclear deal.
We'll factor into all [00:03:00] of this. We discuss a lot in this episode from Moscow and Beijing to Tehran and Jerusalem, and even Caracas and Pyongyang and how they're all tied together in cold war too. This is call me back and I'm pleased to welcome back to this podcast. My friend, Matt Pottinger, who's a fan favorite, lots of demand for Pottinger.
We get a, you know, a surge in downloads, uh, when Pottinger's on. So Matt, thanks for being here. Hey, Dan, it's great to be back with you. So Matt, we thought there was growing tension between China and the United States. Now there's Russia and Ukraine and Russia versus the West and deepening ties between Russia and China.
You, you said this was a kind of new cold war world that we're in. Can you explain what you mean by that? Yeah. You know, just take a look at all the, uh, pivotal events of, of, of, uh, recent days, right? Obviously [00:04:00] Ukraine, uh, but you've also got, uh, an emerging new Iran nuclear deal that's being midwifed, uh, incredibly by, uh, a Russian diplomat.
Uh, you've got North Korea, uh, having just tested its longest range missile, uh, since 2017. Uh, you've got U. S. diplomats reaching out to the Venezuelan pariah, Nicolas Maduro, uh, trying to get him to turn on his oil spigot in return for sanctions relief, uh, reportedly. And you've got Saudi and Emirati leaders who, uh, were refusing phone calls from the president of the United States.
So all these seemingly, uh, disparate developments. Uh, to me, reflect the new cold war that we're in, and it's going to shape politics. It's going to shape markets for a long time to come. And I know that a lot of people really, uh, long have resisted recognizing a new cold war, but I, I, I'm, I'm confident that people who adapt that framework.[00:05:00]
And, and really it's attendant, uh, approach to risk, uh, commercial risks, strategic risks are going to be better equipped to weather the sorts of disruptions and difficulties, uh, that, that we're seeing. And they're going to be a lot more to come. The original Cold War. Was something that the American people had to warm up to, right?
We, uh, remember the great speech that Winston Churchill gave in 1946 in, uh, in Fulton, Missouri. Yeah, when he talked about an iron curtain that's descended. But if you reread that speech, you realize that he's really working to try to persuade, uh, In American public that that might be skeptical of the idea of regarding Russia as an adversary, because we just fought two world wars with Russia on our side.
Um, and, and Churchill talks in that speech about, about, you know, Marshall. Joseph Stalin being his friend and a key ally, nonetheless, he goes on to describe what's happening behind the [00:06:00] Iron Curtain that he describes in that speech. And it's a totalitarian form of government. It's a threat to open societies.
Uh, George Kennan writes, uh, uh, his famous, uh, long telegram, but it really wasn't until a hot war, uh, in the form of the Korean war that, uh, that, that it really began to crystallize in the minds of, uh, of, of a skeptical Western public. And I think that the Ukraine hot war is going to serve the same, uh, role in, in really inaugurating, uh, the second cold war.
So you're saying the Korean war in the fifties. Was necessary to, not necessary, but, but had the effect of focusing the West's mind that it was in this Cold War. It took a hot war to, to force us to settle into the reality of a Cold War and that Russia Ukraine could have, the Russia Ukrainian war could have the same, play the same role.
That's right. [00:07:00] And, uh, it, uh, you know, and there are differences, right? No model is perfect, right? Of course, there are differences between, uh, a Cold War today and, and the original Cold War. Uh, you know, but, you But if we get lost in the nuance of the differences, we're abandoning a framework that actually has a internal logic to it and an explanatory power that will actually help strategists in government as well as investors make better decisions.
Alright, before Russia Ukraine, I just want to get settled on where we are right now. So before Russia Russia's invasion of Ukraine. There were many China watchers that argued that Xi would make a move against Taiwan at some point in the next five years, in the next decade. Others said Wouldn't do it for a while, take a couple of decades [00:08:00] and you know experts in in in one camp believe You know believe China was ascendant and would invade as soon as it, you know, concluded it had the military necessary for the task other experts argued that that that China was in decline and it may attack sooner for fear that it's You know, window of opportunity may be shrinking and then, you know, and others and there's all this back and forth.
Is China biding its time? Will it wait decades and there are these debates happening you and I've been to a million conferences where these sorts of Scenarios are being hashed out and then russia invades ukraine late last month depending on where you stand in Any one of these camps, how did russia's invasion of ukraine change how we think about china potentially?
Invading Taiwan. Yeah, it's, it's having all sorts of, um, uh, of ricochet kinds of effects on, on the minds of people in Taiwan, [00:09:00] uh, certainly, uh, us in the West and, and hopefully on the minds of war planners in Beijing as well, because there's no, there's really no question That, uh, Vladimir Putin miscalculated, uh, about how easy his war in Ukraine would be, right?
And this is a very common mistake that, uh, that leaders make. Authoritarian leaders and democratically elected leaders alike, uh, often Uh, believe that that a war will be more decisive and faster than it, than it turns out to be. Right? How many wars has the United States been in where our president says we'll have the troops home by Christmas and it ends up being, you know, many, many Christmases later.
Uh, and so that was clearly a miscalculation and, and that, that has to at least, um, Uh, penetrate, uh, some of the discussions in thinking of Chinese war planners, [00:10:00] uh, given how confident, uh, their external facing statements have been about how dominant, uh, they would be in a war, uh, against Taiwan, you know, how, how, how they would be able to keep America at bay with these formidable, uh, capabilities that they've built like anti ship ballistic missiles.
Um, And that they would be able to dominate Taiwan. And there's a, there's a cockiness that comes through in, uh, in conversations with, with PLA officers and, and in their internal facing, as well as external facing propaganda. So, uh, you know, hopefully that this is penetrating, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't. Um, too much faith in the idea that war planners are even going to have that great of a, uh, uh, of an influence over the ultimate decision, uh, uh, of whether or not to invade Taiwan, which rests with one man, uh, just, just as the Ukraine decision rested, uh, with [00:11:00] one man in Russia.
Uh, in China, Xi Jinping is the one who's going to decide, uh, whether and when, uh, to use force against Taiwan. And what, what's clear from the statements that he's been making, uh, before this Ukraine invasion, uh, and, and I don't yet have reason to believe that he's changed his perspective is that, that, uh, you know, he's signaling.
a certain amount of intent. He's made clear that his, uh, domestic goals, the Chinese dream that Xi Jinping describes cannot be achieved without the effectively the annexation of Taiwan. So this is an expression of intent that should make us, uh, rather uneasy. And what, well, let, let, let me, let's, I want to go back a little bit.
February 25th, it was a Friday, uh, on the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Xi and Putin have a phone call. What was the significance of that? Phone call as well [00:12:00] as a meeting that putin had had in beijing a couple weeks before that. Yeah So we'll start with a couple weeks before that on the 4th of february the day that the beijing winter olympics opened Uh, vladimir putin met in person with beijing.
He brought a huge entourage with him They had clearly been working for a long time To write this communique That they put out this 5 000 word communique That, uh, declared that the two sides are, uh, now, uh, in some kind of a, uh, of an, of an alliance in essence. Now, this isn't really, uh, what we think of as an alliance in the Western sense of, you know, NATO type alliance where, where one is committing, uh, military defense to the other, but it is something quite.
Powerful and meaningful. Nonetheless, it's something that is described as something that supersedes and goes beyond, uh, [00:13:00] Cold War style alliances. It talks about the fact that there are no forbidden areas of cooperation between the two sides. And that document Uh, the majority of the drafting appears to have been done by the Chinese side because it's, it's, it's pregnant with all sorts of, of language and, and jargon that Xi Jinping is fond of using.
It talks about this community of common destiny for all mankind, which is his sort of his slogan. For remaking world governance to make it safe for authoritarianism and Vladimir Putin for the first time signs on to, uh, the, these formulations. Uh, so was this the first time you have seen the relationship between the two of them articulated and presented to the world in this way?
Was it really? An inflection point, a really new development or was it just on a trajectory? It's it's an inflection point, but it's one that took 10 years to build and and one [00:14:00] that that xi jingping very patiently built From his first days in office the first overseas trip. He took when he came into office a decade ago Uh nearly a decade ago was to was to go to moscow.
And so this this was building for a long time. It was not a It didn't just materialize out of nowhere, um, but nonetheless, it, it signals that, that Xi Jinping, uh, it's sort of the culmination of all of this work that's been laid, uh, to, uh, tie two revanchist powers with, with imperial ambitions together and, and for them to agree that they're going to, Uh, rather than, uh, be, uh, mistrustful enemies of one another, like they've been at so many points of over, uh, recent centuries, including, uh, during the people, the, the, the, the time that Mao Zedong was, uh, in power, uh, basically they're, they're going to, um, now go back to back [00:15:00] and both face out into their respective directions in the world.
What is, what does she get out of this relationship? Well, I, you know, we don't even know the full ramifications, uh, of how bad of a position, uh, Vladimir Putin has put his country. And it looks to me like he's mortgaged his country to China. He's, he's now dependent upon China as the main customer. For, uh, for the gas that they're producing member, they agreed to this 30 year gas deal as part of that, uh, uh, February four communique, um, uh, he, you know, Putin in, he he's, he's got Putin signing on to, uh, his Xi Jinping's vision.
Uh, and, and his, uh, overarching jargon and slogans, uh, uh, for, uh, advancing China's role in the world. Uh, and I, I have to imagine that Xi Jinping got a guarantee [00:16:00] of some kind that if, if and when he moves on Taiwan, uh, the Russians will be there. to provide support in international organizations, maybe also to provide some form of, uh, of, uh, military distractions in the western Pacific where, uh, even though Russia is not the kind of player that it was during the Soviet days, it still has, uh, bombers and, uh, and, uh, interceptors and.
Uh, you know, naval vessels that that do ply those waters in ways that could could complicate or distract, uh, a response by Taiwan and Japan and the United States to a crisis in the Taiwan Strait. So they've agreed to scratch each other's backs on their imperial ambitions. What is what is and that and and what is so they they agree to scratch each other's backs on, on one another's imperial ambitions.
What beyond that does Putin get out of it? And, and, and the [00:17:00] reason I ask is because of the time at which these efforts to isolate really tighten the economic noose around, around Moscow is increasing. There is this concern in the West that Putin could have a safety valve. In his relationship with China economically, is that what Putin gets out of this?
Yeah You know if if the war had gone really quickly as I think it's clear putin must have expected um He You know, may have calculated that that the sanctions would have been, um, less potent, uh, that they might have been more reminiscent of the 2014, you know, the sanctions from the West that followed his 2014 annexation of Crimea, which were, um, you know, real, but nothing like, um, the sorts of sanctions that, um, uh, that have been stitched together Uh, this time, and I think that he would have been looking to [00:18:00] China to be a, uh, a release valve, you know, to allow for some circum, uh, navigation of those, uh, of those sanctions.
Xi has interest in cooperating with Russia to support, as you say, support one another's, uh, each other's imperial ambitions. But it also seems that this is like a laboratory for Xi. He gets to watch Russia invade Ukraine, see how the West responds, which could inform Xi's own thinking about a possible move against Taiwan.
So, what do you think Xi, I mean, you're not inside his head, obviously, but you're talking to a lot of sources inside China, and, uh, What, as an observer, do you think Xi is, is learning? What is Xi learning from Putin's experience invading Ukraine? Yeah, you know, Tom Tugendhat, who's a member of parliament in the United Kingdom, described [00:19:00] Russia as China's tethered goat to, uh, to sort of gauge the international response to a war of aggression.
And I think that that's right. I think China is very carefully watching all of the Western response. Um, I think that The response has been, uh, belatedly, but, but nonetheless, uh, importantly, very formidable and, and that, that is, that is registering on, uh, on, on China's, uh, uh, you know, uh, experiment, uh, clipboard here, uh, but what they're really going to be looking for is staying power.
And they're also going to be measuring the military response because these are hard men. Staying power of the Western response in terms of the economic sanctions. Yeah, in, in, in every respect. And um, and you know, these, these men, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin have. Uh, ample reason to believe that the West [00:20:00] is not going to have the staying power, uh, uh, that necessary to deter, uh, uh, these kinds of actions.
I mean, obviously Putin judged that, that, that we weren't going to, uh, uh, that we were, we were going to have a more feckless response than we've had. Uh, I, I think otherwise it's probably unlikely that he would have. That he would have, uh, rolled the dice. Uh, but look at some of the things that, some of the reasons why it would have been reasonable to expect them to see that we would not have much staying power.
Um, you know, 2008, uh, Vladimir Putin attacked his neighbor, Georgia. And it was only, you know, a year later that, that we, the United States showed up again with a literally with a reset button, um, 2014, uh, sanctions he was able to weather now more recently, you've got, um, uh, Vladimir Putin's own diplomats are brokering, uh, the, these negotiations between the Biden administration and the Ayatollah in Iran, [00:21:00] uh, to return to, uh, you know, some version of the, uh, yeah.
Uh, of the JCPOA nuclear agreement that, um, uh, of 2015, which president Trump left a few years later, um, and, and part of that agreement, if it, if it is finalized will certainly include massive sanctions relief for the Iranian regime. So that was a, that was what we were calling a. A maximum pressure campaign, financial pressure and sanctions campaign against Iran that we're now about to, um, uh, potentially end.
Uh, same thing with Nicolas Maduro. We had a sort of a maximum pressure campaign and sanctions on his regime after he, uh, obliterated, uh, democracy and obliterated the economy of Venezuela. Uh, now it looks like we're offering sanctions relief there. So, if I'm, if I'm Vladimir Putin, if I'm Xi Jinping, I'm watching this engaging and say, look, the Americans don't have the stomach for this.
As soon as gas prices go high, they start to ease off on maximum pressure [00:22:00] campaigns. Um, and we're tough men. We talk a lot about struggle. Xi Jinping is always talking about how, uh, struggling against, uh, Uh, the world struggling internally, uh, makes the party, the communist party stronger. It makes the Chinese people stronger in, in his very Stalinist, uh, worldview.
And so, you know, for a few years of really tough sanctions, uh, uh, are something that can be weathered, uh, when it means expanding, you know, if that's the cost of expanding their spheres of influence by invading their neighbors. So, you know, John McCain famously said Russia is basically a gas station masquerading as a country.
Uh, while Russia's role in the energy, uh, sector is, is extraordinary, China's role in every aspect of the global economy is at a whole other level. Russia's economy is about the size of, you know Spain's or Italy's. You can't compare it to China's. So could she also be calculating whatever economic pressure they're putting on Russia?
They'll never be able to put on us. Well, look [00:23:00] at the, as you mentioned, I mean, China's economy is, uh, you know, at least 10 times the size of Russia's it's integrated into the supply chains of every country in the world in ways that Russia's certainly are not. Russia is not really a high tech power. Um, there are certain things they're good at like jet engines and.
Uh, for fighters and so forth, but, but they are not a broad based, uh, tech player the way that China is so, so, you know, if, if I'm an investor, I, I'm, I'm listening very carefully when I hear, um, uh, the secretary of commerce of the United States, uh, uh, warning China as she did, uh, you know, admirably the other day in saying, look, if you try to help Russia.
Skirt the sanctions that the West is placed on Russia for, for its unprovoked war against Ukraine. Um, we're, we're going to come after your, uh, system as well, your banking system and so forth. So, uh, you know, that's a warning shot. Um, [00:24:00] but, uh, will the threat of sanctions be. sufficient to, uh, stay Xi Jinping's hand.
I think that ultimately he's going to be looking at, uh, military will on the part of the United States and our allies as, as, as really the, the most important indicator, uh, of, of whether or not to try to, uh, uh, take advantage of what he sees as a window of opportunity to take Taiwan this decade. From a military perspective, Putin had been assembling forces along Ukraine's border for some time to the point that it, you know, it peaked at something like 150, 000, if not higher, uh, in terms of, uh, troops arrayed along the Russian Ukraine border and even he's, Into into parts of Ukraine before the formal invasion and and that took a long time and we were watching it and the famous Biden administration leaks about what Putin was about to do.
There was a lot of like pre game show, [00:25:00] uh, time and and it gave the West time to prepare and in in in the event that that Putin actually did make the formal invasion. Do you think she's take away from that is don't allow. A lot of buildup time. If you're going to strike, if he's going to strike Taiwan, do it quickly.
No buildup of forces, no real kind of, you know, gradual escalation of, of activities, uh, just, and not these endless diplomatic meetings, just go. Yeah, well, the Chinese are very, um, uh, good at strategic surprise. It's, it's part of their, Uh, their doctrine, you know, going back a really long time, going back centuries, the idea of strategic surprise and deception.
And of course, strategic surprise is a much more powerful instrument than tactical surprises. So, uh, there has been a lot of work that China's done in recent years to try to move its [00:26:00] forces. Um, it permanently within proximity of the Taiwan Strait in ways that, that, uh, shorten the warning time that, um, uh, you know, uh, American, uh, intelligence, uh, and, uh, military.
Uh, planners, you know, sitting in Honolulu, sitting in Washington, D. C., you know, they're trying, they're trying to shorten the amount of time of warning that we would have in advance of, uh, of a fight. But all that being said, there would still need to be a buildup, uh, that, um, uh, that I think that we would detect.
It might, it wouldn't be the, the slow, uh, weeks long buildup that we saw months long really, uh, buildup. Uh, on the Ukraine border, it would be quite quite a lot shorter than that, but we would nonetheless Get some warning that something was afoot and so that you know I I think that xi jinping is going to continue to try to [00:27:00] compress those time Scales so that he can can have the element of surprise if he chooses and it's why we need to be planning yesterday And taking steps yesterday uh together with taiwan Uh, to, uh, to turn them into the proverbial porcupine that, uh, that, that would be very difficult to swallow.
I know you just returned from Israel, and you, you, and you talked a little bit already about, about the negotiations around the Iran, uh, return to the JCPOA, or to the, uh, Iran nuclear deal. Do you tend to view these countries as some sort of access? Moscow, Tehran, Beijing?
Yeah, you know, the, um, the, the Iran has depended upon China in particular, uh, for economic relief amid the [00:28:00] maximum pressure campaign that, uh, you know, the financial sanctions that, that we and, and the West have, have been, uh, pursuing against. Uh, Iran, uh, particularly over the last four years, uh, it relies on Russia, uh, for some of the military support in the region.
Uh, you know, both Iran and Russia are, uh, in Syria in a big way. That's not always a comfortable sort of, uh, uh, um, uh, alliance, if you will, there. I think the Russians would be happy to see Iran, um, uh, uh, find other, uh, uh, uh, Patches to play in, uh, but, uh, there's no question that Iran is, is dependent on, on its relationships with Beijing and, and, uh, and Moscow, uh, to try to ameliorate the effects of, uh, our maximum pressure campaign.
So, uh, look, I, if, if this deal does get done, I think it [00:29:00] will be a, a significant mistake, uh, by the Iran administration. If the, yeah, if the Iran nuclear deal Uh, is is completed from what we're hearing, you know, based on on reports we're hearing from. Uh, you know, press accounts and leaks and, uh, informed governments that are, that are watching this, uh, it looks like the terms would, uh, be much worse, not longer and stronger than the 2015 deal, but in fact, uh, more, more problematic than, than even the 2015 deal, which had.
Which had so many flaws, uh, you know, that they, they would be allowed to keep advanced centrifuges that would give them a shorter timeline to a breakout. Uh, they'd be able to keep, uh, partially enriched, um, uh, uh, nuclear material. Uh, you know, there might even be a poison pill that's being, uh, uh, negotiated that would make it, uh, uh, you know, impossible for a future president.
Uh, to withdraw from the deal [00:30:00] or that would give, give, uh, Iran significant, uh, benefits. Uh, if, if in fact the U S were to withdraw. So I, I think this is a mistake. I think it actually makes a conflict more likely, not Ness, not less likely. And that's because it's, it is existential, uh, for Israel. If, uh, the Ayatollah gets the bomb and, and, um, You know, why does he want the bomb, right?
It's if you if you read things that the Ayatollah has said over the years, his strategy is really to turn Israel into the equivalent of Seoul, Korea, right? Where, you know, Seoul over the decades in its standoff against North Korea has become less and less willing Um To incur, uh, risk, military risk, uh, you know, artillery and rocket fire because they've grown, uh, uh, you know, more risk averse in, in a time of real prosperity.
And that's what the I told is seeking to put, to put Israel into that kind of a box, uh, [00:31:00] as well. And to give himself. Uh, a nuclear umbrella that would allow him to pursue conventional, uh, uh, military action as well as terrorist and proxy military, uh, actions on, on a much greater scale throughout the region.
Things, things that could, uh, uh, put Israel at an existential risk. Last question before we let you go. There's a tendency in some of these foreign policy debates to, and I see it increasingly now, while American public support is surprisingly quite high and, and unified in the need to somehow Reverse Russian aggression and defend help Ukraine defend itself, whatever that means and people define what we should be doing differently But you you on the other hand among some policy elites you hear this argument Well, it's a distraction from China that we shouldn't be focused on what Putin's doing in his own quote unquote backyard We should just be focused because it's because to do so is to distract what [00:32:00] from the real threat, which is China Do you think these threats can be compartmentalized whether it's Iran?
Or russia or china and let's not focus on this one We'll put this one in a box so we can focus on that one Or do you do you have to have a holistic approach? The events of of recent weeks have shown us that you cannot compartmentalize Uh these these different problems they are they are linked to one another autocrats watch these signals uh, and and act in response to how uh much uh Resolve they they gauge The United States is having, uh, and they coordinate with each other.
Increasingly, the autocrats coordinate with each other. So that's why, again, to return to what we're talking about at the top. If you use a sort of a cold war approach, um, it, it forces you to confront the fact that we have to deal with all of these threats. Uh, and, uh, uh, simultaneously, uh, you can't just get Iran out of your inbox by cutting a [00:33:00] deal that, uh, in fact sends a signal, for example, to the North Koreans that now's the time to start popping off missiles.
You know, the North Koreans are watching this, this deal that's getting negotiated with Iran. They know that that Iran is on the verge of, Of blackmailing its way out of a maximum pressure sanctions regime. And so what do you think North Korea is going to do? They're going to do exactly what they did the other day.
They're going to start provoking us with long range missile tests and potentially nuclear tests again. So these things are related. What that means is that we have to. massively, uh, uh, increase our defense spending. I think people forget how little we actually do spend on defense today in, in historical terms as a percentage of GDP.
We're spending about half of what we spent, uh, in the 1980s. So what, we're about three and a half percent now? Yeah, maybe three, uh, 3. 6 or so, uh, you know, in the [00:34:00] 1980s we were spending twice that and the 1980s wasn't even the peak of our Cold War, uh, spending as a percentage of GDP. We need to significantly ramp up our spending.
We need to spend the money a lot better than we're doing. But in the meantime, uh, we, we've got to spend more, uh, we need more capability so that we can, uh, uh, you know, credibly. back up both our NATO allies as well as Taiwan. I don't disagree with those, uh, like my friend, Bridge Colby, who argue that, uh, you know, uh, you know, a Taiwan, uh, war would be even more devastating for our interests than what's happening in Ukraine.
He's right about that. Uh, but. We just need to spend twice as much. We need to, we need to, uh, knuckle down in all of those areas. Uh, we're clearly not up to the task of, of playing, uh, a mediocre hand strongly. And the United States has never been very good at negotiation and, uh, You know, [00:35:00] and, and to think that we're going to be able to, to do what Putin does, uh, at least before he invaded Ukraine, which was to play a weak hand strongly.
The United States is not really good at that. We need to have a strong hand to start with. And that means that at a minimum, we should be spending as much, uh, in increases each year as China does, right? They just announced, I think a 7. 7 percent increase in their defense spending. Um, if they're the so called pacing threat that we keep hearing about, why are we not keeping pace with their defense spending?
Yeah, I mean, just before we go, we had Fred Kagan on recently, and he pointed out that up until really the last couple decades, the U. S. defense strategy, defense posture, defense budgeting was undergirded by the need to have, be in a position for the U. S. to fight two wars simultaneously in two theaters. I mean, you know, simultaneously, and that, um, not that we wanted to be fighting two wars, but our adversaries needed to know we were able to, you know, walk and chew gum at the same time [00:36:00] if we needed to.
And right now, our adversaries know that if they can just bog us down or get us distracted in one place, it really limits our abilities to operate in another theater. That's right. We've got to return to that idea of being able to fight two wars. Call it one and two half wars, right? Because we've got to be able to deal with a crisis in the Middle East.
You know, I think the odds that Israel will believe that it's, you know, that it's hand has been forced and that it needs to take action to reduce Nuclear infrastructure in Iran. I think that the odds of that go up if this deal that we're hearing about gets signed between Iran and the United States, so we need to be able to to, uh, be a major player.
Um, uh, and factor in that kind of a scenario as well as, uh, in Europe, uh, and, and to be able to fight a full on war against China in the Western Pacific. That's our [00:37:00] best shot at avoiding war is, is the peace through strength, uh, that would require us to be able to, like, like Fred told you, you know, fight two wars.
It's a deterrent strategy. It's not saying we want to fight those wars or we should fight those wars, but our adversaries got to believe that we're capable of doing it. So we don't have to, Matt, we'll, we'll leave it there. Hopefully we'll have you back as always. Uh, thanks for taking the time. Uh, always lots to, uh, to learn from you.
So, so it was really great of you to spend some time this morning with us. It's great to be with you and, uh, and, uh, look forward to the next conversation. Great.
That's our show for today. If you want to follow Matt's work, he's a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover institution, a think tank at Stanford university. You can check out his published work at Hoover. org. Call Me Back is produced by Ilan Benatar. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.[00:38:00]