Hope for Peace, Prepare for War, with Walter Russell Mead

>> T.S. Eliot: We do not know very much of the future, except that from generation to generation the same things happen again and again. Men learn little from others experience, but in the life of one man, never the same time returns, sever the cord, shed the scale. Only the fool fixed in his folly may think he can turn the wheel on which he turns.

>> Bill Whalen: It's Monday, October 28, 2024, and welcome back to GoodFellows, a Hoover Institution broadcast examining social, economic, political and geopolitical concerns. I'm Bill Whalen, I'm a Hoover's Distinguished Policy Fellow. I'll be your moderator today, and I am happy to report that I'm joined by our full complement of GoodFellows.

That would include the historian Niall Ferguson, the economist John Cochrane, and former presidential National Security Advisor geostrategist historian Lt-Gen HR McMaster. Niall, John and HR are Hoover Institution senior fellows. Gentlemen we gonna do two topics today, in our B Plock we're gonna look at the elections. This is our last show before America goes to the polls next week.

So we're gonna talk about issues that we wish had been discussed but didn't come up. But before that, we're gonna to take a look at the world. And we have a very special guest today, I know one of our viewers is gonna be pleased to see him because not too long ago we received the following email.

It came from a gentleman named Mark in Northbrook, Illinois, who wrote the following quote, please invite Walter Russell Mead, it would be a fascinating discussion. Well, Mark, your message has been acknowledged, mission accomplished. Joining us today, Bard College professor Hudson Institute Distinguished Fellow, the Wall Street Journal's Global View columnist, the one and only Walter Russell Mead.

Walter, welcome to Goodfellas, and I guess you have a fan base out there.

>> Walter Russell Mead: Well, Grant, it sounds like Mark is one really smart cookie.

>> H.R. McMaster: It's long overdue, Walter, great to have you here.

>> Walter Russell Mead: Good to be here as well.

>> Bill Whalen: So, Walter, we're going to look at Israel and Ukraine and let's start with Israel.

Over the weekend, the Israelis responded to the Iranian missile attack with attack of its own. It was not a shock and awe demonstration necessarily. What they did do is they hit several targets, reportedly a building that was a part of Iran's defunct nuclear weapons development program. The Iranian regime quickly said that we could expect a, quote, appropriate response.

I'll leave that to General McMaster to describe what that might look like. But let's talk about the timing of what this says about the US Israeli relationship. Walter, and here I wanna turn you to Niall Ferguson's rather brilliant column in the free press. And here's what Niall noted.

The White House told Israel, don't go into Gaza, and Israel went into Gaza. The White House said, don't tend troops into Rafah, Israel sent troops into Rafah. But White House said, don't send troops into Lebanon, Israel did so. And now here we have Israel launching an attack ten days before the election when we could probably assume that the White House would like to have peace in quiet the Middle east to help Kamala Harris.

Walter, let's talk about what this says about the US Israel relationship. Is this just a byproduct of the odd dynamics between Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu? Or a decade or so from now we're gonna see this as something of a turning point in how Israel and the US get along?

>> Walter Russell Mead: Well, actually, I say one thing you realize is that this is part of a pattern in the sense that Joe Biden says don't, and people do. That's not just some unique Israeli phenomenon. He says to Putin, don't invade, Putin invades. He says to China, don't mess with the Philippines, China messes with the Philippines.

There's a general decline of American sort of dominance, or at least a Biden administration dominance. And it's a little bit more like getting a message from the European Union saying don't than a message from a traditional president, United States saying don't. I think it's always easy in the US Israel relationship to sort of take events, put them in sort of just this unique context, and then we miss the bigger picture.

>> Bill Whalen: One of the things I asserted in my piece for the Free Press was that the Biden administration or the Biden Harris administration's lack of influence over Israel reflected the decline of US Aid relative to Israel's economy and defense capability. But then having written that, I read a report that got published just the other day arguing that actually US Military aid to Israel is at an extremely high level right now.

And so I now feel a little confused and wonder what your take is on that.

>> Walter Russell Mead: Yeah, and I think the US Israel relationship is one of these things that because it's so politically prominent, so many people in America follow this relationship closely who don't follow very much else in foreign affairs.

There's always sort of two faces of the US Israel relationship. There's the president and others using statements about Israel as a way to signal their general attitudes. If you wanna look tough and move to the center, you say Israel has the right to defend itself. If you want to look, accommodating and moving a little bit to the left, you say Palestinians also have a right to live.

Neither one of those involves specifically a change of policy. But you're able to really get a lot of attention for your statements about Israel in a way you're not safe for your statements about Sudan or Bangladesh or a whole range of other things. So you've always got a lot of political noise when people are talking about Israel.

But if you look at the strategic situation, it looks to me as if US Israel interests are not 100% aligned, but more closely aligned than they often are. Where the Biden people really don't want two things in the Middle East. One is a war that drags the United States into it, and the other is an Iranian nuclear bomb or a conflict that just shuts down oil flows.

And so the United States, if it doesn't want a war with Iran itself, it needs for Israel to be active and strong and not to be defeated, say in the war in Gaza or the war in Lebanon. So the Biden administration has been caught with a strategic unity that leads to actually quite high weapons, weapons deliveries and aid.

And a political signaling problem that causes it to emit mixed signals. In fact, the United States is not giving Israel weapons for Gaza out of the goodness, or if you prefer, out of the badness of its heart. It's giving those weapons to Israel because it wants Israel to win, needs Israel to win.

>> Bill Whalen: I'm glad we used the word win, which has been missing from a lot of foreign policy. So I'm kinda optimistic, I wanna run my optimism by you. The attacks over the weekend were spectacular, zero losses. I mean, compare the Iranian missile attack to this one. Once again, it shows something that like we learned in the Gulf War, the amazing superiority of Israel and American weapons and abilities of our soldiers, especially Israeli.

And the other lesson is, so Iran is a paper tiger. I guess there's some S300 aircraft anti aircraft systems that will be for sale real cheap, soon exposed. And a lesson, a bigger strategic lesson, here's what happens if you actually fight back. What the US and NATO could do in Ukraine if they chose to.

Maybe we should just outsource our foreign policy Policy to Israel, people who actually know how to get things done.

>> Walter Russell Mead: Yeah, there's a lot there and obviously, this was an incredible demonstration, as were its attacks on Hezbollah, of just unbelievable mastery of intelligence, of the integration of different military arms.

And it is brilliant but I would check my optimism if I were you, because really, since 1948/49, Israel has had one incredibly brilliant military victory after another. And yet it was Napoleon who said or I guess Talion said it to Napoleon, you can do anything with bayonets except sit on.

And so military victories that don't lead to the desired or a desired political outcome are kind of a fact of life in the Middle East.

>> Bill Whalen: I know it's CTAR's turn, but I want to follow up, so what is the political outcome? Clearly, Israel is sick of 70 years of being surrounded by people who want to destroy it, and that going back to that status quo, as the Biden administration wants to do, is clearly untenable. Vast swaths of territory run by terrorist mafias with missiles, where is the political outcome? I know that's the big question, but you're the big thinker

>> Walter Russell Mead: Well, I think probably a lot of people in Israel, and this should be especially true in Netanyahu's Likud Party, don't actually believe in permanent peace in the way we do in the US.

This kind of instinctive American approach to questions of war and peace is something went wrong, now you have a war, and then at the end of the war, you build a stable structure that will produce peace. Because, of course, peace is the natural situation of human beings, remember what's years ago, I was visiting where Troy used to be in northern Turkey, and you're standing on top of the ruins of 13 different cities built on that spot, all destroyed by enemies.

And from the hill, you can look across the straits and see the Gallipoli monument. So, the idea that somehow the outcome of war should be a nice legal peace secured sort of kind of like after the war will be, the European Union just may not be on the table in the Middle East.

HR let's turn to the question of appropriate response from the Iranians and tell us what you're looking at next in this chapter, are you looking at another exchange between Israel and Iran? Are you looking at Yemen, are you looking at Hezbollah, are you looking at Gaza, what has your attention right now?

>> H.R. McMaster: Well, I'd love to hear what Walter thinks about this, I think what has changed, and it's significantly, is that Iran's been able to get away with it since 1979, it being its use of Arabs, Palestinians, others to fight a proxy war against Israel. And to insulate themselves from any kind of costs associated with the use of those proxies and up to the point in which Iran attacked Israel with the massive missile and drone attack in April and followed up with a subsequent attack.

They've been able to get away with it in large measure because I think of the encouragement of the United States not to escalate this kind of mantra or folly of de escalation. Well, that changed in April, but the Biden administration said, you'll take the win and encouraged just a very meager, really, demonstration by the Israelis, which foreshadowed the second attack in which they took out an integrated air defense system in the interior of the country.

You've seen them do this again along their whole path into these strikes of about 100 aircraft, all of which returned without any damage back to Iran. So, Iran knows that it's extremely vulnerable, I think Iran will try to get back to the way it was, where they can continue to expend every Arab life, every Palestinian life, in their effort to destroy Israel.

And the question is, are we going to let them get away with it? I think what Israel demonstrated is any team that just plays only defense doesn't make any kind of progress or doesn't really have any kind of effect in the competition. Israel went on the offense in a number of ways against Hamas, obviously, after October 7th, against Hezbollah and against Syrian, Iranian proxies in Syria, against the Houthis and against Iran directly. So, I don't know what you think, Walter, but I think what Iran will try to do is escalate this, maybe horizontally, you might call it. I think Iraq is vulnerable now, I think that's where they could try to create a lot of problems with us. They'll continue to use the Houthis, they'll continue to use this proxy army in Syria, but I don't think they're gonna try another direct attack because they got nothing left, I don't think.

And so you'll see, I think, more attempts at assassinations, more attempts at these indirect attacks through proxies. But I think that's the course it's going to take until Israel decides, which I think is going to happen in the next few years, which is to strike Iran's nuclear and more of their missile facilities.

Russell, what's your take on what the trajectory is from this point on?

>> Walter Russell Mead: Yeah, I think I agree with you that Iran is going to sort of look for asymmetrical and horizontal ways of responding to this. That's where they've had the most success anyway over the years and there are lots of vulnerable targets.

If you think about all the Israeli embassies around the world and because the Iranians are insane anti Semites who identify every Jew everywhere with the state of Israel, synagogues, schools, there are just lots of ways that bad things could happen.

>> H.R. McMaster: Even I'm thinking of the attacks in the 90s in Argentina.

>> Walter Russell Mead: Yeah, exactly all of those are possible the other thing I would say, though, is that by teaching Iran that it has a permanent inferiority in conventional war fighting capability, you sort of increasing the strength of people inside Iran who say, well, it's time to go nuclear. Because if Iran had nuclear weapons, then the question of whether you bomb Hezbollah becomes a little bit more complicated and certainly the question of whether you bomb Iran becomes a little bit more complicated.

So I would not be surprised to see inside Iran the people who've been arguing all along, we ought to go ahead and do this, we ought to go ahead and do this, might not be winning a few more debates right now. And then we should understand that, that would put both Israel and the United States in an extremely difficult position because as I understand it, and HR may have better information than I do on this.

Iran's nuclear program is pretty well protected even against conventional, very powerful attacks with conventional bombs. And you might, to really be confident that you have done what you needed to do, you might need to have kind of tunnel battles like you have in South Lebanon and so on.

And that's at the end of a very long air supply line where you have to keep your forces on the ground supplied and ready to evacuate when the job is done and you're in the middle of Somebody else's territory. Whether the Israelis can do that without American help, whether they want to do that without American help.

Whether if you're an Israeli faced with the prospect of an atom, Iranian nuclear bomb that you cannot deal with with purely conventional methods. And the Americans aren't helping you do it, do you then think, well, maybe I've got enough. This is why I have my own nuclear weapons.

So, I think we're moving into darker territory where everybody's options are getting uglier. But people, so far as I can see, neither the Iranians are not losing their will to fight and the Israelis aren't losing their will to survive. And as long as we're in that place, escalation of various kinds seems to me to be more likely than not.

>> Niall Ferguson: I'm going to join John in the optimists camp. Rather unusually, I think we're underestimating Israel. We've been consistently surprised to the upside in recent weeks and months by what Israel has been able to do. And it has eviscerated Hezbollah, it didn't just decapitate it three times, it's completely eviscerated its organizational structure.

Hamas is essentially buried in rubble in Gaza, and Iran can't defend itself against Israeli airstrikes at all. Now, I think the thing we're missing here is that Supreme Leader Khamenei is at death's door. And when Prime Minister Netanyahu went on air and addressed the Iranian people saying that he anticipated change in Iran, he wasn't entirely engaged in wishful thinking.

I think Iran is the weak link in the axis that we face, and it's much weaker than we thought. Without its proxies or with its proxies very compromised, it's wide open to attack. My expectation is that Israel will continue to attack Iran and that this will have disproportionate success.

So, Walter, I'm going to take the other side of this. I think we're in a much better place than any of us dared hope for a year ago when, if you remember, we were reeling from the horrors of October 7th.

>> Walter Russell Mead: Well, I hope you're right, Niall. What is it they say an optimist is someone who thinks that things are as good as they could possibly get.

And the pessimist is someone who's afraid the optimist is right. And I do think that everything that you just said, if I'm an Iranian official, makes me think I really want those nukes and I want them fast. And if I'm Putin and I'm worried about the weak link in my chain collapsing.

Then maybe there's some information I could give the Iranians that would shorten the time between where they are now and what it would take to build, you know, to actually weaponize weapons grade uranium into a deliverable bomb. So-

>> H.R. McMaster: In a minute to miniaturize the device.

>> Walter Russell Mead: Yes.

>> H.R. McMaster: Walter, I think they're already doing it. I think the Russians already doing it. What did the Iranians get for the Shahed drones and the missiles? What did the North Koreans get for that matter for what, 6 or 8 million artillery rounds and now troops that are going to be employed in Ukraine.

I think Russia's given them, certainly both of them, assistance with their missile programs, but I think that they are also helping them with their nuclear weapons programs already.

>> Walter Russell Mead: So.

>> H.R. McMaster: And I've seen no evidence about that. It's like kind of a gut feel. I'd like to add another slightly pessimistic question.

>> Niall Ferguson: We keep focusing on Iran entirely, as if this is just an Iran, Israel war. But Arab terrorists have been trying to kill Jews and get rid of Israel since the 1920s. Fatah was around in the 1970s. The PLO was in the 1970s when Iran was still under the Shah.

The various terrorist groups are getting plenty of financing for Qatar from the European Union, from the United Nations. There's lots of people willing to send them money and finance reconstruction of the tunnels. So is this all entirely about Iran or is this even when Iran stops being the central backer are there not forces.

And Iranians are Shiites, the others are Sunnis. They can't wait to start tearing each other apart as well.

>> Walter Russell Mead: Well, again, I just think about the ruins of Troy, and I don't think that we are on the brink of the age of permanent peace in the Middle East.

But,

>> Bill Whalen: I will agree with Niall, though, also Walter. I think we could actually agree on all this that Iran is extremely weak, but Iran has been able to compensate for that weakness through the use of proxies. And its weakness, its profound weakness that the Supreme Leader and other leaders recognize will provide additional impetus to race to a nuclear weapon, I think that's the situation we're in.

And I think realizing that Israel will feel as if it must act, even if it's imperfect, to set back the timeline for Iran to have that nuclear weapon. And so I think in the next couple years maybe at the outside. Now, you're gonna see even more direct strikes against Iran and actually strikes aimed at their nuclear program, as you know, which is dispersed, it's protected.

But like any of these systems, there are critical points or a critical path that could be attacked from a military perspective to at least with the intention of setting back the program in terms of time.

>> Walter Russell Mead: That's right. And we should not forget too that the Israelis have very good connections deep into Iranian society.

Ethnically, I think only about 50 some percent of the inhabitants of Iran are ethnic versions. And not while some many Azeris are integrated, not all of them are happy with the status quo. The Arabs in the oil producing province, feel that the wealth of their province is being sucked out and pumped into Ayatollah projects they don't necessarily go for.

And the Kurds in Iran are no happier with their situation than Kurds in other part of the Middle East. So it's a volatile entity, Iran. And if you're looking at long term possibility of economic isolation and continuing poverty. There's one thing, if you think, well, the Ayatollahs are building a mighty war machine with all of this money and so they're gonna make Iran great.

It's another if every time you come into actual contact with the enemy, they humiliate. So it's one of these situations nobody really knows how all of these forces play out. But you can be sure that people in Jerusalem are staying up late at night trying to think this stuff through and game out different scenarios.

>> Bill Whalen: Walter, since HR mentioned North Korean troops deployed to Russia, let's spend a couple minutes on Ukraine. That war last week with very little fanfare, entered its 33rd month. Tell us if you see an ending to this and more to the point, if you see a good ending to this.

>> Walter Russell Mead: Well, it's interesting when I go back and I look at the early months of the war, there was a lot of talk in the West about should we or shouldn't we offer off ramps to Putin? To end the war. I think now the West is hoping that Putin will give us an off ramp.

And by that what I mean is that he'd be prepared to accept a deal where Ukraine loses a chunk of territory but gets admitted into NATO and the EU. And if that happened, that would look, for the West, like kind of a face saving solution, people are talking about it like the North Korea, South Korea approach.

East Germany, West Germany, not perfect, but we save what we can and build for the future. I'm not actually sure that Putin is in the mood to be so generous and that in fact humiliating NATO and testing NATO, that's as much of his warring as a few more square miles in the Donbas.

So, I would say I don't think our side on the West has yet fully grasped the seriousness and the reality of the situation that it's in.

>> Niall Ferguson: Hey, Walter, I was going to say, look what he just tried to do in Moldova, they're pulling out all the stops from Moldova, you've got the elections coming up in Bulgaria that they're very active in.

They've been successful in Georgia, not a NATO country obviously, but in Slovakia, for example, so I mean, he's not diminished in any way. His efforts to break apart the cohesion of NATO and the EU And Ukraine is kind of the linchpin, I think, from his perspective.

>> Walter Russell Mead: And you look at the elections in eastern Germany and you look at where anti-West parties has had a majority in some places.

And you look at what people now think could be the outcome in the elections in Czechia, and you can look at the growing strength of the far right in France. The West is not getting stronger as this war goes on, not that the war is the primary force driving this splintering, but we are not winning, 33 months into this war, we are not winning.

And go back and replay some of the contemptuous things that people in the West said about how weak Russia was and how stupid Putin was and how wonderfully skilled and purposeful and powerful we were. And think about how that looks against the background of the last 33 months.

We need to pay attention here, we need to up our game significantly.

>> Niall Ferguson: I think it needs to be said loud and clear that this war is being lost. I was in Kyiv, what, six weeks ago, and there is very considerable bitterness in Ukraine about the big talk and the grand speeches that have been made by Western leaders.

The large sums of money that have been pledged, but the significantly smaller sums of money that have actually been turned into hardware that Ukrainian troops can use to defend their country. And there's a special bitterness that the Biden administration continues to place limits on what Ukraine can do, for example, with Storm Shadow missiles that Britain provided.

They can't use them against Russian airfields, the location of which we know from which the Russians launched their attacks on Ukrainian cities, and electrical infrastructure. The Ukrainians know that this is not going well, and they are well aware that they cannot sustain this military effort indefinitely. They are outmanned and outgunned, and you don't need to be HR McMaster to know that that's not a good situation to be in a war.

And yet, Western leaders talk insouciantly about this conflict, seemingly unaware of the reality that Ukraine is losing. And if we carry on, on the trajectory of the Biden-Harris administration, Ukraine will lose the war, and the consequences of that for Western security are really horrific. It's hard to get this thought even into the heads of German leaders, who are a lot closer geographically than the good fellows are to the front line.

>> H.R. McMaster: But if I may, never in history, and I say that with trepidation because I have my historians with me has there been a greater difference between capability and outcome. What the US and NATO could do if we decided this is our war, we're gonna apply the principles of the 1991 Gulf War, which I said we should have on the first day.

This will not stand, we run back to the Russian border in not one instant, we could do it in an instant or in a week, with the kinds of results that Israel is now showing. It's just amazing that the only reason we don't do that is we don't regard that as an important lesson to learn again, and we don't want to do it.

And, the basis, it seems like we're not learning the lesson of Vietnam, when you say things are off or when you want to just play for the status quo, you lose. Isn't there a certain momentum to war that victory and advance builds its own momentum, builds support for the war?

If you say we're just going to sit on the defensive for year after year after year, eventually morale crumbles, even if you have the capability for overwhelming success.

>> Walter Russell Mead: Yeah, I mean, I think the key in warfare is to seize, retain and exploit the initiative, as you're getting to John, and then I think that Walter, I'd like to ask you what you think.

But I'll tell you, when I hear this mantra of de-escalation and escalation management, makes me think of the war managers during the Vietnam War. And it sounds to me like it's oftentimes Robert McNamara, or John McNaughton, or William Bundy throwing their voice.

>> H.R. McMaster: Why aren't they worried about us escalating instead of us worried about them escalating?

>> Walter Russell Mead: Well, it's a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of war.

>> Niall Ferguson: I noticed that we're down to using body counts as the chief measure of Ukraine's success in the war, everybody's saying, it's not going that well, but if you look at the body counts. I'm old enough to remember that's what they were saying during the Vietnam War, that was the metric of choice, and this is-

>> Walter Russell Mead: I will say, though, that, we just talked about Ukrainian weakness, but I think the Russians are extremely weak, too. I mean, we saw that obviously with the Wagner offensive, we saw it again with the Kursk offensive. And even though they're making grinding progress, and I agree with Niall, from what I've heard from Ukrainian friends, there is sort of a crisis of confidence at the moment among some, but not really a lack of determination yet.

And there's angers and resentment, I think as Niall mentioned, it's building, but-

>> H.R. McMaster: So if the West said this will not stand, it would not stand.

>> Walter Russell Mead: Right, but the West doesn't want to say that, okay? Look at public opinion, not just in Germany, not just in France, but in the United States of America, and there is no support for this.

>> Bill Whalen: Yeah, support.

>> Niall Ferguson: Walter, you've made this argument your great essay about the growing dangers, and we're just shrugging at these dangers. What argument do you think that an American leader should make to the American public?

>> Walter Russell Mead: Well, this is the thing. I think the thing that I personally find impossible to forgive the Biden administration for is the absence of the equivalent of Franklin Roosevelt's fireside chats.

>> Walter Russell Mead: The American people need to understand the world situation, they need to understand why these things are happening. And it's not an easy thing to talk about because, for one thing, the average American, while they don't follow foreign affairs in detail, or whatever. They have this sense that all the smart people told us that bringing China into the WTO was gonna make China democratic and America rich.

All the smart people told us that bringing Mexico into NAFTA was going to stabilize democracy in Mexico, reduce immigration across the frontier, and create a burst of prosperity in the United States, etc. And so what you have is a generational failure of American strategy. And I would love to say, well, that was just the other people, and I was over here alone and pure in my corner the whole time.

But all of us are implicated to some degree in a period that I think future historians are gonna look back to and compare to the 1920s and 30s as a period of strategic collapse and failure in the West.

>> Bill Whalen: Walter, that's a nice segue into the exit question for this segment.

And I would like to read you something you recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal, I want to get the panel's thoughts on this. And you said the following, and I quote, World War three is becoming more likely in the near term. And the US Is too weak either to prevent it should war come, to be confident of victory, a more devastating indictment of a failed generation of national leadership could scarcely be Pentagon.

Well, Walter, we're gonna get a 47th president the next few days, or next few weeks. Is the 47th president gonna change this?

>> Walter Russell Mead: Well, of course, we don't know who that is, but I would say that at the moment, I don't see either candidate being ready for the test that history is about to pose.

But on the other hand, what I will say is that sometimes people, some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. So the next president may be like Malvolio here in Shakespeare. But another thing they say is, was that good times create bad men, bad men create bad times, and bad times create great leaders, so it may be that we're just going around this cycle.

But whoever the next president is, they're gonna face an international environment that is far more challenging than either, I think either Canada or the American people are prepared.

>> John Cochrane: Hey, I'd like to ask Walter, to just make a comment on one other, I think, really important topic that's related to this.

Walter, I remembering you and I having lunch in the White House Navy mess with Tom Cotton in the spring of 2017. And I was just beginning at that point to conceptualize the national security strategy was published later that year in December, as the President's National Security Strategy. And our topic of conversation was the interconnected nature of these challenges that we're facing, and of course, those connections are now quite apparent to all of us.

There are some who make an argument these days that we ought to abandon or disengage from competitions in Europe and the Middle East and focus exclusively, for example, on the Indo-Pacific region. What's your answer to that argument as you kinda maybe hearken back with me to that discussion we had, now, which I can't believe was that seven years ago, Walter, eight years ago?

>> Walter Russell Mead: Yeah, look, I think it would be nice if you could say, okay, well, we don't have enough chips to go everywhere. So we're just gonna have to take our chips off the Europe board and the Middle East board, and put them all around Taiwan. I'm not sure that's practical, but I also think what would then happen would be things in the Middle East and Europe so deleterious to our interests and our standing position.

It's like in World War II, at the start of World War II, our Navy had just been destroyed, or a lot of it at Pearl Harbor. And Franklin Roosevelt and his advisors absolutely knew that the United States did not have enough forces for an all out to push to victory in both the Atlantic and the Pacific theaters.

All right. And they made the correct, in my view, decision to focus on the Atlantic theater. But that didn't mean they just abandoned the Pacific theater because that would have been a catastrophe of a different kind. So yes, we have under prepared, we do not have the military forces, the domestic infrastructure needed for the world situation that we're in.

Well, what that means is we're gonna have to start thinking a little bit more like Frederick the Great here, who was in a similar position with huge enemies on all sides, and was dashing back and forth in an effort to stave off catastrophe. We're gonna have to work very hard, get very smart very fast, and we will make some choices that are costly, and that is the nature of the situation that we're in.

But I think to just sort of have a sort of doctrinaire thing of okay, I'm gonna simplify my life by X and Y is not an answer to the kinds of problems that we've got. But the real answer is to start preparing for what is likely to come, but may not come, if people see that we are serious about preparing and that we are ready to engage.

>> John Cochrane: We don't have nearly enough Latin on this show. The last time I saw those words was above the bar of a pizza restaurant in Kyiv that is run by veterans of the war against Russia. The Ukrainians have learned this the hard way, if you want peace, prepare for war.

I would just say in answer to your earlier question, Bill, if you look at the National Security Strategy of the Trump administration, which of course HR did a great part to draft. And you look at the National Security Strategy of the Biden, Harris administration, and you think this is a difficult choice. I have to tell you that the foreign policy of the Biden, Harris administration is what got us into this mess. We lost deterrence January 2021, and the only way to get it back, it seems to me, is to throw these bombs out, it's as simple as that. I finally have an answer to Bill's question.

>> Bill Whalen: And you get the last word, John.

>> John Cochrane: Yeah.

>> Bill Whalen: Christmas comes early.

>> John Cochrane: Yes, it's not just about presidents, it's about the group who advises them. HR was a great national security advisor, we need more like that. CVS pact, I'm gonna blow this one, how do you say, part of the economy?

I have to be the economist, you want aircraft carriers, how many? What percent of GDP can you afford to have aircraft carriers? Better raise that GDP. And so, in fact, restoring sane economic policy is a vital part of being able to have the means, and then you need the will to have a forceful foreign policy.

Europe is discovering it regulated itself to death, a lot of America wants to regulate ourselves into European European stagnation, that will not be good for our foreign affairs as well. Putting big tariffs on our allies. If you have an economy that's global, at least among the people who like us, you're a much stronger economy than you are if you try to hide and protect our current habit of industrial policy, massive subsidies down immense rat holes.

Do for the rest of the economy what we did to EV chargers. The fact that Boeing is falling apart. SpaceX is a great wonder of America under huge regulatory assault for having the wrong politics. A lot of the rest is falling apart. So you need the economic underpinnings to have strength as well as the will to use that strength.

And there's a lot of forces that are out to hurt that as well, that need to be turned around.

>> Bill Whalen: Walter, our time is up, but we sure appreciate having you on this, it was long overdue, and we hope you come back again. And Mark in Northbrook, Illinois, you were right, my friend, it was a fascinating discussion.

Walter, take care.

>> Walter Russell Mead: Thanks, good to see you guys.

>> John Cochrane: Good to see you, Walter, take care.

>> Bill Whalen: Gentlemen, onto our B block, the policy election that wasn't. We have right now in America, with the election just a few days ahead, one candidate calls his opponent a communist, she in turn calls him a fascist.

There has been about $16 billion spent in America on elections top to bottom on the ballot right now, and I challenge you to find serious policy debates around the country. So let's get into a couple policy topics here for a few moments. I leave it to you to decide if to do something in your own policy wheelhouse or go outside your lane if you want to.

HR, why don't you kick this off? Do you wanna talk about something in the world of defense or national security that you wish had been discussed in deeper depth?

>> H.R. McMaster: Well, how about everything, Bill? I mean, everything. And I think in particular, really just to tie into what Walter was just sharing with us.

We just don't have the defense capacity, and we have the kind of the triple whammy in defense these days of a bow wave of deferred modernization, a lack of just the size, of the force to be able to cope with the many contingencies that we're operating in right now.

Let alone what we might anticipate in terms of additional crises or an intensification of these contingencies and commitments. And then we have this recruiting issue as well. Nobody really talked about the strengthening of national defense and what it would take not only from just a increase in the defense budget perspective.

But also the important types of reforms that are necessary, such as multi-year contracting and the need to incentivize a reinvigoration of our defense industrial base. So, hey, I mean, that would be number one of many topics I wish had been discussed substantively.

>> Bill Whalen: All right, John, the world of economics.

>> John Cochrane: Well, I'll do a little economics. I mean, I'll say the obvious things about economics. We need attention on long run growth. I wish there was any attention to fixing the things that are obviously broke versus do we add whipped cream or do we add cherries on top of the ice cream sundae?

When you look at the rhetoric from the candidates, it's tiny twiddles, that would make sense if everything else were running smoothly, but everything else is a screaming mess. Now, candidates say what they say cuz that's what the electorate wants, I guess, but it's shocking that we're not having an end of stagnation thing.

But I think the more important issue is not the economic issue. I'm turning into one issue voter on lawfare and the politicization of everything, the intelligence agencies, by deeping into presidential politics. Tunisia had an election and they threw the opposing candidates into jail five days before the election.

The fact that America has tried to throw a presidential candidate in jail is just shocking. The politicization you saw at the censorship that's going on. I'm a little bit annoyed at presidential candidates saying they don't like the First Amendment, they wanna stack the Supreme Court, get rid of the filibuster.

So the sort of central loss of liberty and the politicization of everything. The politicization of industry going after Elon Musk because of his tweets and he gets a regulatory onslaught. There's a reason he's involved in politics. So really I think that's the major issue that I wish more people were mad about, although lots of people are pretty darn mad about it.

>> Bill Whalen: All right, Niall, choose a policy, any policy.

>> Niall Ferguson: Well, I'll say what John thought was so obvious that it didn't need to be said, but it actually does need to be said. Neither candidate has a remotely serious plan to bring the finances of the federal government into balance.

In fact, it's a competition to see which sailor is drunker in terms of spending relative to revenues. We're coming into the next presidential term with deficits above 5% of GDP as far as the eye can see. And the Congressional Budget Office typically underestimates the growth of the debt, all its estimates point upwards, but the reality will be even worse at this rate.

And as I think I may have said before, Ferguson's law states that any great power that's spending more on interest payments than on defense won't be great for much longer, the US is there right now. This is the year when the lines cross. And neither candidate has remotely touched on this.

And everybody who assesses the fiscal outlook will tell you it's one really large increase in the federal debt versus one even larger increase in the federal debt. That's shocking, and given what we've just been discussing with Walter and what HR just said, the strategic consequences of fiscal irresponsibility could be very serious indeed.

That's the issue that's been conspicuous by its absence, and it really should be the most important issue. And if I could put in two cents on that issue, the choice is not European taxation, which gives us European stagnation of growth. Slashing spending through a grandma from the back of the train, those spending can be reined in lots of.

But growth, the way to get rid is to lower the debt to GDP ratio is to raise the GDP. So it all comes down to growth, which means mostly getting out of the way. End of sermon.

>> Bill Whalen: Okay, gentlemen, there's a journalist named Mark Halperin who recently went on Tucker Carlson's podcast and he said the following with regard to the scenario of a Trump victory.

And he said this election will be, and I quote, the cause of the greatest mental health crisis in the history of the country. I think tens of millions of will question their connection to the nation, their connection to other human beings, their connection to their vision of what their future for them and their children will be like.

And he added, I think there'll be alcoholism, there'll be broken marriages. How many of you guys are going out and buying Prozac between now and next Tuesday?

>> Niall Ferguson: Well, I'm fine. In fact, I'm impressed at my own psychological equilibrium given how incredibly annoying this election has become. I'm a big fan of Mark Halperin and I think he is onto something that the backdrop to this election, if you look at the data, is serious deterioration in public health, especially in mental health.

This applies predominantly in the literature to young people, but if you actually look at the data, it's affecting all age groups. And the most shocking phenomenon in America in our times is surely the rise in deaths of despair, that is alcohol-related or drug-related, firearms-related. I mean, more Americans have died from deaths of despair in the last ten years than died from COVID, we thought that was a large number.

So I think Mark's onto something here. For a lot of people, the politicization of everything that John just spoke about has a psychologically deranging impact. Young people think that the The world is going to end if Trump wins, America is going to be plunged into fascism because that's the mantra of the Harris campaign.

Donald Trump is Hitler, we're back to that, I can't believe we're back to that. But anybody who believes that is gonna be deeply frightened if Trump wins. And conversely, if Trump loses, a lot of people who think that the republic is threatened by the Democrats will also be extremely worried.

So, I think this is the really unpleasant shadow side of our very polarized politicization of everything.

>> Bill Whalen: John.

>> John Cochrane: I'll agree, I'm less worried about their mental health than about their actions. And I think we are seeing what the, all of us have been for a year now saying, God, I really don't want that to happen.

A very, very close election, which will then lead, it will be contested right, left and center, people who have whipped themselves up into a frenzy. I read the New York Times on Sunday, always a mistake. And the entire review section was, well, I guess the party line now is Trump is Hitler.

The entire review session was, Trump is a fascist, Trump is Hitler, Trump must be stopped at any cost. Which, once you convince yourself of that, the end of the Constitution, we all want to stop, be the one who stops Hitler. So I worry about the actions, I worry about civil unrest, I worry about lawfare going into it.

I worry about constitutional crisis or when it comes, depending very narrowly on what happens in Congress. Congress doesn't certify the election, if Trump wins now, now what happens? So I think we're in for a period, a narrow Trump victory could lead to a period of great unrest. A narrow Biden victory would also lead to a lot of unhappiness, a lot of, I'm sorry, a narrow Harris victory, a lot of legal challenges and so forth.

But Trump doesn't hold the power of government. Trump, he could say, I wanna call out the National Guard, but he can't do it because he's not president. He doesn't run the intelligence agencies, the Justice Department, all the rest of it. So he'll make a lot of noise if it's a narrow loss, but in the end, I don't think that noise can go very far.

Still, I think it's gonna be an extremely contentious outcome because of actions of people whip themselves up into a frenzy about the end of democracy.

>> Bill Whalen: HR I dare you to be an optimist.

>> H.R. McMaster: Please. Sadly, I think what we're talking about are centripetal forces that are pulling us apart from one another.

And, the two extremes, actually feed on each other. And the reaction to something that Donald Trump says on the far left is sometimes much worse than what Donald Trump says and vice versa. So I think what we really need at this stage is leadership that brings us together to restore our common identity as Americans and gets to the politics of addition and begins conversations with what we can agree on so we can get a lot done.

But, I don't see either candidate being able to deliver on that. So I agree with Niall, I wanna be more optimistic, I agree with Niall and Mark and John. I mean, I think that we're all seeing this, that we are in a time that demands a strong leadership.

And I don't think many Americans see that in either candidate. Walter talked about this as well earlier, about how these challenging times could impel either one of those candidates, if they're elected to greatness. I mean, I would hope that's the case, but we are in need of more effective leadership that restores our confidence in who we are and restores our confidence in our democratic institutions and processes, through real reform, not papering it over.

Because as John mentioned, there are some real reasons for a lack of confidence in our institutions. But, I wish I'd be more optimistic, at this moment, guys, I mean, I'm not super optimistic.

>> John Cochrane: There's a real reason for the partisanship. There was a wonderful Christian Muth article in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday, which made the point, we now have an imperial presidency.

We elect a dictator for four years, we rule by executive order, not by law. So when the stakes become so high, when you're electing someone for four years who rules by decree, who can spend hundreds of billions of dollars and screw you, Supreme Court. You can't afford to lose a battle because you lose one battle, you've lost the war.

So what that leader needs to do is not just lead my team to victory and use these tools, but bring us back to the norms of what you do is you shift the needle in an election. You don't attempt to wipe out the other side. And that's the fundamental structural problem, I think, leading to the partisanship.

So that's another, a great leader doesn't just take us in one direction. A great leader brings that compromise and norms back together by limiting his or her own power.

>> Bill Whalen: Okay, Niall, let's close out the segment. Who does elections better, the US or the UK and tell us one surprising thing you're looking for next Tuesday.

>> Niall Ferguson: Well, the thing that's good about UK elections is that the technology is very straightforward, and you vote in your constituency, for the candidates in that constituency, and you mark across by the one that you want to win. And as the results come in, there is no meaningful debate about their legitimacy, despite some legislation that was passed, bipartisan legislation, to improve the US process since 2020.

I think we can all agree that if it's a very close result, it will be contested by whichever side looks like it's losing. So I think it would be wonderful if we could, between now and 2028, address some of the absurdities in our electoral system and get voting back to being something that is as straightforward as it is in Britain.

Identification should be necessary for people to vote, I can't think of any other democracy where that's a contested issue, I could go on and on. Can I just enter a plug for a sobering movie that I watched on the very long flight back from Sydney? Civil War is a reminder that any country can descend from stability into chaos.

And as it's happened in the United States once before, I think it behooves us to think about what it would look like if it happened again. The film does a very good job of imagining the United States descending into a kind of giant Bosnia. And it has one absolutely unforgettable scene in it that is worth watching the whole movie for.

So just maybe, as one's thinking about how to conduct oneself in the wake of this election, watching that movie might disincline you to take extreme action. How's that helpful man, that's not helpful. I mean, I watched the gas station scene, I had to turn it off after the gas station scene.

I mean, I think you're gonna encourage the exact behavior that Mark Helper was warning about. I disagree, HR, I think it's very important that we understand the consequences. Okay, I'll watch it, I'll watch.

>> H.R. McMaster: I'll go back and I'll I will for sure. What you're saying is that when you use bombastic rhetoric, you've gotta think that maybe some people will actually listen and take it.

Maybe there are consequences, yeah, I'm just.

>> Niall Ferguson: You have to remember, the reason I say this is that people in America somehow think this can't happen to us. Remember, Sinclair Lewis says it can't happen here. But you and I have seen countries when they've descended into civil war.

I went to Bosnia, I've seen what happens when neighbors turn on neighbors. And it seems ex anti incredible that people who've lived side by side. Can kill one another, but it happened there and, of course, it happened in the United States in the 19th century. I just think in an atmosphere in which it seems possible, in fact, it's cheap to accuse your opponent of being Hitler.

Even after two assassination attempts, there's a desperate need for Americans to step back from this brink and remind themselves it can happen here in just the same way that the United States could lose Cold War II. I mean, you'd agree with me, I'm sure, that Americans don't think enough about the consequences of defeat.

Whether it's in Ukraine, whether it's what would happen if Iran actually took out Israel with a nuclear weapon. We don't think enough about these bad scenarios, and I think it's that lack of awareness of the downside that leads to irresponsible action in the present.

>> Bill Whalen: All right, well, gentlemen, we'll leave it there.

On to the lightning round. All right, our first question speaking of mental health crises, there appears to be the one in the upper tiers of American journalism. I'm referring to the Los Angeles times and the Washington Post, having internal meltdowns over the two publications decisions not to endorse a presidential candidate in this election.

Question for the three of you, does this really matter? And what I'm interested in, newspapers are a dying breed, they have failing circulation. I'd note that Donald Trump went on Joe Rogan's podcast the other day, he got 26 million views in 24 hours, that's far more attention you'll get any of those publications.

What do we make of this, Niall?

>> Niall Ferguson: I think it's pitiful. As if it matters what the LA Times says about an election. The self importance of journalists at some of these legacy periodicals is just breathtaking, who cares? That's my question.

>> Bill Whalen: John, do you care?

>> John Cochrane: I think it's actually maybe a step to healthiness.

There used to be a separation between news and editorial at these places that kinda broke down. The Wall Street Journal has never officially endorsed a candidate. So, you can go on and be healthy in that way. Publishing OP EDS from people who endorse candidates and explain their versions is a useful thing.

So a small step towards an attempt at institutional neutrality, which I see even at the New York times though I just made fun of it earlier in the show, I think is a welcome step of reform. We'll see if it works or if they all fall apart as Niall forecasts.

>> Bill Whalen: Nature.

>> H.R. McMaster: Yeah, I think the mainstream newspapers, the ones mentioned the New York times others have lost a great deal of credibility. I mean, I refer back to Barry Weiss's essay when she left the New York times. But there are other venues, right? There are other new forms of media, the free press, where you can read, Niall, reliably now as well.

So I think that everybody's got to make their own decisions, and I think we got to let the free market decide, John, don't you? I mean, where people go for their news.

>> Bill Whalen: All right, speaking of the free market, we have a questions for Professor Ferguson and Professor Cochrane.

The University of Chicago economist, James Robinson, recently went on NPR and said, quote, it is a well established fact that every economist agreed on that free market model adopted in the 1980s has generated enormous inequality and basically has done nothing for the majority of people. John, Niall, agree or disagree?

>> Niall Ferguson: Well, this is Nobel derangement syndrome, where receiving a Nobel Prize causes you to become deranged. It happened to Paul Krugman very tragically, I like Jim Robinson. And I can only assume that in the excitement of winning the prize, along with two co-authors, he was drawn into reckless replies on an NPR interview, it's easily done, I can imagine.

>> John Cochrane: I'll just say three Pinocchio's on the facts. It's interesting.

>> John Cochrane: This gets repeated over and over again. It's simply not true that either the middle class is dying or that inequality has gotten dramatically worse under rapacious capitalism blah, blah, blah, blah. We won't get into the facts now.

It is an interesting fact. Now, I've watched these guys, this is no change in opinion. It's simply when you win a Nobel Prize, people put a microphone in front of your face and there's a temptation to spout your stupid political opinions.

>> John Cochrane: And I think a good ethic is, at least between when it's announced and when you receive a Nobel Prize, shut up about political matters would be a good thing to do.

And maybe then other people would be less critical of you as I was on my blog, about exactly those political statements.

>> Bill Whalen: Okay, and finally we're gonna end the show on a somber note. Phil Lesh, the Grateful Dead co-founder and bassist, passed away last week at the age of 84.

HR, you're the closest thing we have on this show to a resident deadhead, your thoughts on the man of the band's legacy.

>> H.R. McMaster: Hey, what I think is really notable about Phil Lesh, who was a founding member of the Grateful Dead, what's notable about the the Grateful Dead is there's no mediation really between them and their fans.

I mean, they're directly connected to their audience. And that audience is loyal and enthusiastic, because I think there's just genuine with each other, we could use a lot of that. It was that kind of empathy and the ability to connect with one another the way the Grateful Dead over so many years now and dead in company.

You'll connect, connect with and Phil Lesh did with their audience. And what I want to read is from Mickey Hart's tribute to Phil Lesh. He said, Phil Lesh changed my life. There are only a few people who you meet in your lifetime that are special, important, who help you grow spiritually, as well as musically.

And I think for all of us, who are teachers, and professors, and serving as a military officer, I think that's what you can hope for. I mean, if there's gonna be something on your gravestone is that you hopefully it's something along the lines of being able to make a positive contribution to other people's lives and to leave behind a legacy in others.

So I just wanted to share that perspective from Mickey and Phil Lesh, rest in peace.

>> Bill Whalen: John and Niall, the Grateful Dead ever crossed your paths, John?

>> John Cochrane: Yes, they were part of the 1970s folk rocky, universe that I still inhabit showing my age. And I think we can have a little bit of nostalgia for a time when people went to conference concerts, perhaps under the influence of some other substances.

But went to concerts, enjoyed them, enjoyed the crowd, enjoyed the band, and weren't staring at their phones the whole time.

>> Bill Whalen: Niall, how does the dead tie into your musical heritage?

>> Niall Ferguson: I somehow completely missed the Grateful Dead in my musical education. I'm not quite sure why that was, maybe they just weren't big in Britain.

But I do often cite them as an example of an oxymoron when people ask me to define oxymoron.

>> Bill Whalen: And we're gonna leave it on that note. Great conversation, gentlemen thanks for doing this today. Our viewers should know that you're gonna get a lot of good fellows. In the month of November, in addition to this show, we're doing one a couple of days.

After election, we're recording on November 7th. Our guest will be Brett Stevens, the New York Times columnist. And then shortly before thanksgiving, we're gonna do a show with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. And in between those two, we're going to give you an episode that we recorded the other week at the Hoover Fall Retreat with the Lord Andrew Roberts doing historical counterfactuals.

So you don't wanna miss any of those. On behalf of the good fellows, Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane, HR McMaster, our guest today Walter Russell Mead. We hope you enjoyed the show, as always we appreciate your viewership, until next time, take care. Thanks for watching.