International conflicts, including the war in ukraine, the israelhamas war and chinataiwan tensions, this from washington dc. There will be a debate one day. Historians will have a field day. There is disarray. There is the question why . There are potential explanations. Dictators versus democracy struggle. You could argue, a decline in american influence over global affairs. A rise in china. Which factors contribute to the disarray . All of the above. China is not a status quo power. A truly disaffected russia. A shift in power moving around the world, whether economic, military, many more hands. The domestic disarray in this country has contributed. We are less willing to act effectively in the world. The gap between global challenges, pandemics, climate and responses, there is no international community. I dont have a good answer. I will write about it. 30 years ago, the end of the cold war. This writing about unipolar moments. My own view, weve squandered a lot. The u. S. In some ways, overreach in iraq, afghanistan. Also under reached, the obama and trump years. Weve moved away from freetrade. Im grappling with things like rise of china, even disaffection of russia. Was this baked into the cake of russian political culture . What did nato contribute to it . Its not either or. More than a little bit, it is things this country did or didnt do. The russians could have moved on ukraine anytime in the last 20 years. They did in 14. Not in 94 when Boris Yeltsin was there. The chinese could have done provocative actions before. They are doing them now. There is a sense of declining american power. How do you correct that . There is a reality. Our relative position in the world deteriorated, in part because of the buildup of others. Weve got a problem with the defense Manufacturing Base. We face a world now where we have conflicts in two geographies. We could easily have three. We dont have a Manufacturing Base that is enough to deal with one. If i were going to do that, to do anything, we have to backup taiwan, to discourage the chinese from moving there. Ukraine is an indirect effort on our part. What could we do to increase support, expending what we are doing in ukraine . How do we avoid walking away from it . A lot of conversation on ukraine has been status quo. You got opinions about this. What is the path out . We are in a stalemate. Whats the way from here to a solution . Dont underestimate where we are. What an amazing accomplishment, if we have this conference two years ago, and said, two years after a russian invasion, ukraine would still control 80 of territory. Everyone of us would say, where do we sign . Fantastic outcome. Extraordinary accomplishment on the part of ukraine, nato, the u. S. You got a classic problem. Theres a mismatch between the stated goals of the policy and the available means. As desirable as it is ukraine recover all territory going back to 1991, its not going to happen. No matter what. I dont care what we give them. Russia can produce more. In a pinch, north korea and iran and china conceivably would help them out. Ukraine needs to move away from the current strategy. The best way to prevail, we need to define success. Not that ukraine militarily liberates its land. That ukraine becomes a permanent fixture. The way, i would argue, is put 90 of their military calories into preserving what they have. Move away from an offensive strategy, which cannot succeed i believe, to a defensive strategy which can. Much harder for russia to liberate land ukraine holds. They will fail. The russian ability to mount offensive operations, combined arms is not there, and it also reduces material needs of ukraine if they move defensively, which reflects political realities in this country and in europe. The biggest provider of artillery to ukraine eight the u. S. Or europe. Its south korea. This is where we are. Ukraine needs to shift to a defensive posture, then think about regaining lost territory might be the stuff of decades, and it will have to wait for a very different russia that might be willing to trade in exchange for no longer being a pariah. Potential problems. The current russia would take this scenario as a victory. The second is the following russia might be worse. Russia could say that they won but they havent. Remind people of putins goals. Six months. Remarkable. Plus, ukraine integrated into the eu and nato. That doesnt look like victory. You have a thriving western country, which is what putin doesnt want. You are right, his immediate successor might be worse. Ok, may be his successors successor wont be. At some point in russia, Vladimir Putin will be seen as the guy who drove russia over the cliff. With that new ukraine become a member of nato . Possibly. At a risk of getting wonky, instead of article five assurances, you get article four assurances. If turkey wont agree, we get a subset of the willing within, which is increasingly how nato operates, and we extend security assurances to ukraine. Knockoff effects of the war, and i wonder if you think they are permanent. You have a friendship without limits between russia and china. Second, you have a bizarre situation in which russia is dependent on weapons production from north korea and iran. Are those new features of the landscape . The latter is. Russia, iran, north korea, the pariahs. China is not comfortable with that. I was in china a few days ago, if i looked jetlagged, i am. China is not comfortable with the no limits relationship with putin. That is not their economic future. These countries offer nothing to china. They dont mind the authoritarian cabal, they dont mind the u. S. Being tied down militarily. The difference, china is a multidimensional country. The other three are not. They are not comfortable with a friendship without limits despite the proclamation . There are some limits. Theres a lot of grumbling in china about what putin told them. China has placed limits on their relationship. We dont know what china would do to help russia in extremists. We may never find out. Theyve accepted some limits. Stepping away from ukraine, looking at china as china, theres a question whether china is the rising power of popular perception or whether it is a big power in trouble because its economy is not performing, and the giant upside down demographic picture which is not healthy in the long term . There are elements of both. It is still rising. The pile of problems, the demographic, the longterm. China will probably go from 1. 4 to 800 Million People in the next three quarters of a century, which is an enormous shift. Tremendous economic implications. Nearterm economic problems, im employment, bubbles, switching to the export economy from that, a lot of younger people are voting with their feet. People are voting with their wallet. Theres a theory about peak china. Im not prepared to sign on. The idea that china is inexorably rising, that paradigm is off. We are trying to figure out the new path of china. It is slower economically. Xi jinping has made a determination. Hes in year 11. He places privacy on political considerations. Hes willing to pay the economic price for political control. Thats where china is, so long as xi jinping rules. The question, if and when china slows economically and has domestic difficulties, to what extent and how does that manifest itself in Foreign Policy . I dont have a great answer. I want to discourage china from ever thinking if they have problems at home, the way to scratch that itch is to adventure abroad. Thats on us. We can deter that. Taiwan question. Youve staked out a position. The traditional u. S. Position have been strategic ambiguity. If you say you will defend taiwan, you encourage the taiwanese to take reckless actions. If you say you wont, china will take reckless actions. You have now said ambiguity is not the sweet spot. Its not part of u. S. Chinese diplomacy going back to nixon and kissinger. It doesnt change anything about what you might call file status there. It is up to china and taiwan to work it out. We just dont want it to be coercive. We dont want either side to do unilateral things that are unacceptable to the other. I think this discourages the use of force. It lets china know that we will tell taiwan, this is not licensed to act recklessly. Every one of our allies in the region assume we are going to be there for taiwan. If we are not including the taiwanese . Yes. If we are not, that would be the end of the American Alliance system. I think we have a massive state i dont think its impossible to make this work at an affordable price. China knows it uses largescale force against taiwan, it is betting the future of the communist party and the current leadership. They know the economic sanctions could be draconian. The idea that they are going to undertake an assault on taiwan, the odds of that are extremely low. Theres not one chinese general thats ever been in combat let me just point that out the war has not the country has not gone to war since the 1970s. I am much more worried about gray area scenarios. You could have that in the next year. Taiwan has an election any month. I would not be surprised if we see more muscular stuff by chinese aircraft or naval vessels basically telling taiwan because youve got a new sheriff, we are still the bigger sheriff. There will be a little bit of that going on. So you think xi will play out his pressure on taiwan in indirect fashion for the foreseeable future. Yes. The one thing if we could change it it would be a dramatic shift in the u. S. s ability or willingness to come to taiwans aid. The most significant election is ours in november. A lot of countries are looking at, what does that mean for u. S. Willingness to stand by its allies and partners . Every one of them is asking that question. If you are Vladimir Putin, you want to see what happens here, theres no chance of anything negotiated over the last year in ukraine, i think china wants to see what happens here in november and they can recalibrate what they do or dont do visavis taiwan. You are a registered republican for a decades. I dont know if you still are. I was for four decades, and two or three years ago i became unaffiliated, no formal party designation. I hate it but thats where i am. If i may quote ronald reagan, i did not leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me. Just paraphrasing. I raised that as a backdrop to the question you hinted at which is what happens to our alliances in the second trump term, if there is one . On south korea and japan, that is their biggest question. Any country whos dependent on us might say donald trump if he were to win, what would it take for you . How much more would we have to pay . The europeans were asians might ask that. The other would be that you appease china. We are going to appease the big guy on the block, or russia. He will see a lot of talk about greater selfsufficiency. The biggest debate is whether they ought to develop Nuclear Weapons. The most interesting thing going on in asia is the rapprochement between south korea and japan. The u. S. Deserves some credit for mid wiping that camp david. You can see Strategic Partners doing some mixture of a little bit more selfsufficiency and a little bit more collaboration. If they cant put their eggs in our basket, may be more eggs in their own basket or their neighbors baskets. We cant ignore the elephant in the room right now which is israel and hamas. The stated goal of the Israeli Government and netanyahu specifically is to destroy hamas. Can hamas be destroyed . No, it can be seriously weakened or degraded. It can be decapitated with its existing leadership. But its as much a network, a movement. You are not going to get all 30,000 fighters. You will have potential armed resistance or a Muslim Brotherhood ideology. That will be there. So what is the path forward in this conflict . What does the endgame the endgame of this one looked like . I dont think there is an endgame because the israeli have done and without an endgame. They can degrade hamas and they will. They are causing a lot of civilian deaths and casualties in the process which is a separate conversation. But you need a successor governing authority and a success of security provided. I dont see either available. The israelis are going to have to do it. We are looking at, the most likely future, is a gaza which has been just physically beat up really severely, fairly low level physical resistance, and the israelis having a security presence that also governs it and they find some Patchwork Quilt may be of International Agencies to deliver a degree of aid and so far. Thats for the foreseeable future. The only thing that changes that is if the israelis can get a local or arab partner. You cant get that without a political dimension. This is the mystery of the netanyahu strategy to me. He undermined the Palestinian Authority which was the potentially viable palestinian partner. He empowered hamas by turning gaza overtook hamas. What was the endgame supposed to be . Youve dealt with netanyahu over the years. I think we know what his endgame is. A perpetuation of the version of the status quo in izrael. Gaza isolated. Its never been part of the Settler Movement in a serious way. Its been a sideshow. They want to avoid a palestinian state. They want to avoid this coalition. Netanyahu and his colleagues, what they want is a one state, non solution. They want to continue in israel that settlers have grown threefold, fivefold, or whatever, and thats what they want. They dont want to have a final outcome. You dont want to incorporate all these people into israel because now you have a question of citizenship or jewishness. Bb stands for the policy of drift. Things are happening inside that drift. But he wants to avoid making any final status choices. He wants a version of the status quote. He worked inside a u. S. Government that for decades has said, no, the answer is the two state solution. Is that as we speak today more alive or more dead than it was october 6 . It is more dead, it is on life support. As bad as relations were on october 6, they are far worse now. Whats happened in gaza has not created a lot of dubs or people interested in coexistence there. I can make all the arguments against the feasibility and is almost a version of turtle, the worst churchill, the worst approach to deal with this. When the dust finally settles, do you think that thinking will reemerge in israel . Not by itself. I believe it only has a chance of reemerging the most interesting possibility is a u. S. Saudi initiative to put back on the table and have the saudi normalization with israel and that israel is debate, lets have a debate between a Greater Peace and a greater israel, lets do that. I think the u. S. Needs to work with saudi arabia to put that on the table, probably go over the head of this Israeli Government. Many are not ready for this conversation, given the trauma of october 7. But in a few months, we need to put that out there. We need to see an israeli election taking place in that context. Let me ask you one final thing. Put yourself in the shoes of Business Leaders like the people in this room. I am an investment banker. I do this on a daily basis. You are. You are being paid your usual rate here today. [laughter] what is your advice to a business person trying to figure out, how you navigate this world . The first thing to say is, if you are looking through the windshield as opposed to the rearview mirror, the future is far more turbulent than the past. We will look back on the recent past as a golden age of stability unpredictability. Far messier now. And one cant make longterm decisions on just about anything without factoring in the kind of stuff we are talking about. Geopolitics are now anywhere and everywhere. I think ceos have to basically find ways affecting that into their calculus. I think that is a less global world. We are also seen you and i talked about it before. New paradigms. A more turbulent world. And regardless, as i say in this city, irregardless of what happens in the next election, we are moving into a world where the u. S. Has less sway going forward, so its going to be a messier world. Youre going to be operating in a world of greater, not less disarray. Lets start there. Hey, paul, how are you . Thank you. Thank you very much for your thoughts. Im curious, we are in this sort of moment in time where ai is an oppenheim a moment oppenheimer moment for national security. Europe has had its legislation. When you look at it visibly the other giant in the room, china, given where we are with the hardware aspect, in your view, being cognizant of the kind of wet blanket on innovation. Id say two things im not very upbeat about the ability to regulate ai internationally for couple of reasons a couple of reasons. It is actually difficult to regulate something changing by the hour. There is no consensus. The idea that the u. S. And china and others will be able to agree on whats desirable and limit certain things that are undesirable, maybe at the edges, like automated weaponry or whatever, but we should not kid ourselves. There will be ways to exploit that. And it is premature. There is no line between ai and the military sector and the public sector. There is zero chance that you will be able to regulate it and zero chance that you should want to introduce certain types of regulations. I believe its going to happen Unregulated International future. People are not going to want to preclude the upside and there wont be all sorts of abilities to agree, much less monitor or verify. But certain negatives this is not Nuclear Weapons 2. 0. This is a far more decentralized dynamic reality. This talk of ai armscontrol doesnt quite understand the difference about this technology in this moment. [indiscernible] i got it, i think premature regulation is questionable. We should be careful, because there may be enormous upsides we have not figured out. I find a lot of the speaking and writing on this so on rigorous. Unrigorous. A lot of these people are smart about science and technology. They are really dumb about politics. I find this debate truly unsatisfying. On that happy note, i think weve run out of time. [laughter] i am really dumb on the technology. Its part of the problem we have found very few people in this space who can handle both sides of it. Who understand the technology and the policy and other sorts things. They were either in the Engineering Department or Political Science department. Not many people got double majors. Go to any Senate Hearing that deals with social media, you will see the divide is huge. Richard, thank you very much. That was very enlightening. Appreciate it. [applause] announcer this week, watch washington journals special authors a series, each morning with any writer. Thursday morning, Wheeler Parker junior and Christopher Benson discussed their book, a few days full of trouble. Watch washington journal live thursday morning starting at 7 a. M. Eastern with our special holiday authors week series on cspan, cspan now, or online at cspan. Org. Watch the best of cspans q a. Wednesday, craig furman and the president on his book, author and chief author in chief. Listen to q a and all of our podcasts on our free cspan now app. Announcer the house and senate are in recess
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