John Mearsheimer: West's Failure to Adjust to a Multipolar World

Hi everyone, and welcome back. We are joined today by Professor John J. Merchimer to discuss the rules of a multipolar world order and also the struggles of, uh, the United States, but also Europe, uh, to adjust to this, uh, new system. So, uh, yeah, welcome back. It's, uh, great to have you back.

I'm glad to be here, as always, Glenn. So, um, we saw that after the Cold War, the behavior not just of the United States, but Europe, obviously, began to change after the Cold War. And this was quite natural to a large extent because the bipolar world order had been replaced by a unipolar world order. Now, the different international distribution of power in the 1990s and 2000s were, however, very different than they are today. So, uh, in your opinion, though, how has the shift in a multipolar, well, towards a multipolar distribution of power, uh, impacted what should be effectively the rules of the international system, uh, thinking more about how the U, well, what the US can achieve and, uh, in terms of how it has to act?

Let me just say that the polarity of the system, whether you're in a unipolar, a bipolar, or a multipolar system, it matters enormously. Uh, I was born and came of age in the Cold War, which was a bipolar world. It was the United States versus the Soviet Union. Uh, and then, of course, in 1989, maybe 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, uh, we went from, uh, bipolarity to unipolarity, and that was just a huge change. One cannot underestimate, uh, how much that affected international politics. And I would note that one of the problems is that most people today, uh, who were involved in the policy process or involved as commentators, came of age during the unipolar moment, uh, not during the bipolar moment, uh, or the bipolar era, uh, of the Cold War. And they got used to a situation during unipolarity where the United States and its European allies, uh, were extremely powerful and had all sorts of leverage all around the world. There were countries like China and Russia and Iran and North Korea, of course, that were unhappy with that situation, but there was not much they could do about it because there was a unipolar, that was the United States, and it was backed to the hilt by the Europeans.

But what happens, in my opinion, around 2017, we can argue about exactly when the world went from unipolarity to multipolarity. But we moved out of a unipolar world into a multipolar world. And it's very important, Glenn, to understand that this is the first time since 1945, 1945, before the Cold War, that we've been in a multipolar world. Uh, and a multipolar world is different than a bipolar world. Uh, a bipolar world is a rather simple world because you have two great powers. They're face to face, and they, in a very important way, kind of divide up the world between themselves. That's an oversimplification, but it sort of gets at the essence of what's going on, uh, in bipolarity. But in a multipolar world, like the one that we live in, you have three different great powers, and you also have a host of major powers, countries that are not quite great powers, but, uh, wield a lot of influence in the system. And India would fit in this situation, uh, or in this category.

So we're now in this multipolar world. But the problem is that we have all these policymakers and pundits, uh, and policy analysts who grew up in unipolarity, and they're used to thinking of the world in terms of unipolarity. And many of them still think that the United States is Godzilla and that it can use its economic leverage and its military might to get its way wherever it wants. Uh, but that world has gone away. And you're now talking about, from an American perspective, dealing with the United States, excuse me, dealing with, uh, Russia, uh, and dealing with, uh, China, two great powers. And then you have to deal with countries like India, uh, countries like Turkey, countries like Iran. There are a lot of other important players in the system that you have to deal with. So it's a very complicated world. And also, in this world, America's power has diminished, not in an absolute sense. Economically and militarily, we've grown more powerful over time, but relative to the other states in the system, we've lost power. The United States now faces a peer competitor in China. Uh, the China that the United States faces today is fundamentally different than the China it faced in 1990 or the China that it faced in 2000. And therefore, the United States has to deal differently with China today than it has in the past. And again, I think most American policymakers and policy analysts and pundits haven't really come to terms with that. Uh, there are just limits to what we can do. We, meaning the United States, and really, it's not just the United States, it's the United States and the West. So this is, this is the world that we're in today is just fundamentally different than the world that most people, uh, who are in the policy process these days came of age in.

Well, realists tend to differ a bit on what order is most stable. I was always a bit critical of the, the ability of stability in the bipolar system, simply because if there are two major powers, one side loses, the other side gains, and it's always, it's all zero-sum. But, uh, I, I always have the idea that if you have a third pole or fourth pole, that if A and B weaken each other, then, you know, C will come off and be much stronger. So in the 19th century, you had the British and the Russians, uh, going against each other, and suddenly you have America, Germany, Japan, all, all these other new centers of power, um, emerging. But, uh, how, how do you see, how do you make sense of what's happening now, though, with the United States and, uh, Russia, India, China? Because we just had this meeting at the SCO, and it looked like Trump, for, he had the right instincts for a while. He more or less repeated the caution that we should not push the Russians into the hands of the Chinese. But what happened with India, though? This, uh, is very strange, uh, actions which were, which were made, this, uh, yeah, punishment and even humiliation of the Indians, which made them, yeah, align themselves much closer with these, uh, two other Eurasian giants.

Well, if you look at what the Trump administration is doing, uh, with regard to the alliance structure, uh, that it's trying to set up or not set up, uh, it makes no sense at all from a balance of power perspective. Uh, it's very important to start by emphasizing that China is a peer competitor of the United States. There's really only one great power in the system, uh, that can give the United States a run for its money. Uh, and that's China. China is a formidable opponent of the United States, both economically and militarily. So if you're in a system where China is your principal concern and you want to contain China, you want to contain China's rise. This is not to argue that you want to start World War II against China, but you want to prevent China from dominating Asia. You then, excuse me, Glenn, you then want to have good relations, um, with Russia and you want to have good relations with India, uh, because you don't want them on the Chinese side of the ledger. But what the Trump administration has done, uh, by continuing the war in Ukraine and treating the Russians quite badly, despite what happened in Alaska, is in effect continue, uh, to push the Russians into the arms of the Chinese. And now what's happened is that as a result of putting 50% tariffs on India and saying all sorts of terrible things about India, uh, Trump has driven the Indians into the arms of the Chinese. So what we, as we recently saw at the SCO meeting in Tianjin, in China, uh, the Indians, the Russians, and the Chinese are all becoming the best of friends, which again, is not in the American national interest. What the Americans should want is a situation where India, Russia, and the United States are the best of friends. But exactly the opposite has happened. Uh, this is just not in our strategic interest. And one can only scratch his or her head and ask, what do the Americans think they're doing? Or to put it more pointedly, what does President Trump think he's doing? This is, it's a, it's a gross violation of balance of power logic. Uh, we live in a multipolar world. The Trump administration believes, to a person, that China has to be contained. Well, if you believe China has to be contained, pushing the Russians and the Indians into the arms of the Chinese just makes no sense at all.

And you can take this even further, Glenn. You can talk about countries like Iran and countries like North Korea as well. Uh, what we see happening here is that the Russians, the Chinese, uh, the North Koreans, and the Iranians have all come together, uh, to, in effect, balance against the United States. Uh, the, uh, Europeans, who of course work with the Americans on the Iran issue. Uh, the Europeans have now pushed for snapback sanctions on Iran. Uh, as you know, with the JCPOA, the agreement between, uh, uh, Iran and, uh, the United States, China, Russia, Germany, France, and Britain. That JCPOA agreement in 2015, we took sanctions, all sorts of sanctions off of Iran, uh, most in theory, not in practice. But anyway, the argument was that if one member of that group, uh, decided to put snapback sanctions, to put the sanctions back on Iran, everybody would go along with that. Well, the Europeans want to put snapback sanctions. They want to put the sanctions back on Iran. And the Russian foreign minister, Chinese foreign minister, and the Iranian foreign minister have just issued a statement saying they consider these snapback sanctions illegal, wrong, and counterproductive, and they're not going to pay any attention to them. So what you see here is that that unified front to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons in 2015 has broken down, and the Iranians, the Russians, and the Chinese are working together. And in fact, the Russians and the Chinese are helping the Iranians build up their defenses for another, uh, possible attack from Israel and the United States. So if anything, US-Iranian relations have deteriorated, making it more difficult to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and making it more likely that the United States will end up attacking Iran again, which is not in our national interest. We should have good relations with Iran. We should be going to great lengths to get help from the Russians and the Chinese to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. But instead, we're cutting in the other direction, and we're pushing the Iranians, the Chinese, uh, the Russians, and the North Koreans together. And of course, just a word or two about the North Koreans. If you noticed when they just had this big celebration this past week, uh, in Beijing, uh, celebrating the end of World War II in Asia, uh, North Korea's leader, China's leader, and Russia's leader, they were all there together, arm in arm, celebrating the victory. So you can see very clearly what's happened here. We've driven, uh, these four countries, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, closer together, which is not in our interest. And now we've pushed the Indians into that same, uh, uh, arrangement, into that same coalition. Uh, this makes absolutely no sense from an American point of view.

But that was a common, uh, warning though in the 1990s against unipolarity because, well, they said it would do two things. One, it would exhaust the resources of the United States and the political West, but it would also incentivize others, other rising powers, to collectively balance the West because, in a unipolar order, in order to be only one center of power, it makes sense to contain all other regional powers. But in a multipolar system, uh, it only, yeah, um, encourages collective balancing. So, for example, encouraging India not, well, to not trade with Iran just means that the Iranians will be more dependent on China. In, I think it was 2012, you had Hillary Clinton arguing that the US should slow down or try to break up the Eurasian Economic Union because it institutionalized too much Russian influence over Central Asia. It was also cited as a reason, well, by many, as a reason why toppling the government in Ukraine in 2014, uh, became a key objective. But, but if Russia doesn't have influence in Central Asia, then China's influence will grow out of proportion. So the, the whole idea of having an, the system working towards a natural equilibrium appears to be undermined. I mean, even in Europe, why, why would it seem, once you shift from unipolarity to multipolarity, having Germany and France have better relations with Russia would be preferable, wouldn't it? Than having now, as we see now, with the SCO agreements being made, all this gas which was supposed to fuel Europe instead going to China? So Russia also becomes more dependent on China. It just seems that, uh, some of this should, should be common sense, but, uh, we're not really doing anything, um, towards this end. Uh, but do you think Trump appreciates that it is a multipolar system? Because he recently now tweeted out that Russia and India have been lost to China. But the whole point of the Russians and Indians isn't that they want to align under Chinese leadership to go against America. They, they see China as being the main partner to, uh, work towards a multipolar system where they're independent centers of power. But nobody wants to join a Chinese bloc, I mean, against America. I think they're more, instead of going against America, they want to, uh, go against American hegemony. But that's two very different things. So do you, do you think Trump sees the world as being bipolar then? Because, uh, I have a hard time making sense of some of these decisions being made.

Before I answer that question, Glenn, let me just make one quick comment, uh, on what you said about our policies, American policies, or Western policies during unipolarity and what they mean for the multipolar world we're now in. I think the best example of a foolish policy, uh, during unipolarity that's come back to bite us in multipolarity is NATO expansion, um, especially NATO expansion into Ukraine. As you know, very, very well, in April 2008, we made the decision, the West made the decision, NATO made the decision to bring, uh, Ukraine into NATO. And we've doubled down on that decision at every point since then. And the consequences here are just disastrous, uh, for all concerned, as you were pointing out. But we had, uh, a great deal of hubris during, uh, the unipolar moment. And this is more true of the United States than it was of the Europeans. But the Europeans were willing to go along with the United States. This was especially true of the British. And we collectively thought that we could run the world, uh, that we had the wind at our back, and if other countries didn't like it, we would just shove things down their throat. This is how we approach NATO expansion. We understood from the get-go that the Russians were opposed to NATO expansion, but in 1999, we shoved it down their throat. In, uh, 2004, we shoved the second big tunch down their throat. And then we thought we could shove the third big tunch, which would include Ukraine and Georgia, down their throat, uh, in April of 2008. And of course, it didn't work out, and it has made for a terrible situation, one could argue a catastrophic situation in Europe, uh, in the multipolar era. But I just wanted to sort of add to what you said.

All right. On Trump, a very interesting question. You want to remember when Trump comes into office, this is January 2017. His administration, in the very first year they are in power, introduces the word multipolarity into the national security dialogue in the United States. Uh, the word multipolarity is not present, uh, in the Obama administration. Um, and, uh, it's, uh, President Trump who talks about, uh, multipolarity, and they talk about the Chinese and the Russians as the other two great powers. Furthermore, Trump, when he comes into office, abandons engagement with China, which was, uh, a very liberal policy designed to make China rich and turn it into a liberal democracy on the assumption we would all live happily ever after. It's Trump who ends engagement and adopts containment in this multipolar world, as his administration describes it. Furthermore, as you remember, Trump wanted to have good relations with Russia, with Putin. And if he had succeeded at that, and we had had no NATO expansion into Ukraine, the United States and Russia would have much better relations today than exists. Now, what happened? What happened is that as a result of Russiagate and the power of the deep state, Trump ended up being every bit as antagonistic towards the Russians as his predecessors and his successors. And as we all know, he was the first president to provide offensive arms to the Ukrainians. So what happened with the coming of President Trump to the White House in January 2017 is that we, in a very conspicuous way, moved into a multipolar world. Number one. Number two, we put a great deal of emphasis on containing China and abandoning engagement. But with regard to Russia, we continued to push the Ukraine, uh, situation to the point where it was guaranteed that the Russians were going to end up allied with the Chinese, which didn't make any sense. So that's the first Trump administration. Then we get the second Trump administration, which of course starts on January 20th of this year. We're clearly in a multipolar world now. There's just no doubt about that. Uh, and, uh, Trump is interested in containing China, apparently, uh, and it looks like he's interested in improving relations with Putin and with Russia more generally. He looks like, in the beginning, that he's interested in doing, uh, in his second administration, visa vie Russia, what he was unable to do in his first administration. But it doesn't work. He does it in such a ham-fisted way that he makes virtually no progress in settling the Ukraine war, and relations between the United States and Russia, uh, despite appearing better on the surface, are pretty much the same as ever. The Russians don't trust us at all. The Russians are clearly closely allied with the Chinese, and they understand full well, uh, that they should remain closely allied with the Chinese because the problem with President Trump is that he changes his mind every other day, and you can't trust him. Uh, the Indians found that out, as we discussed earlier. The Russians have found that out on countless occasions. They talk to him, they think they have an agreement, and then a couple days later, Trump changes his mind. So the end result of all this is that the Russians and the Chinese, as we were saying before, are as close together as ever. Uh, the Indians are now reasonably close to both the Russians, uh, and the Chinese, because of Trump's foolish policies. So in a very important way, Trump has good instincts. I think, you know, in terms of his basic instincts on, uh, on the nature of, uh, international politics and what our relationship should be with countries like Russia and China. Again, I think his basic instincts are correct, but in terms of execution, he gets a failing grade. And that's why the United States is in so much trouble today.

Well, it seems that, well, the NATO expansion, um, it made a lot of sense, I think, in the 1990s because if, if there is a unipolar distribution of power and one pursues this hegemonic peace where you don't have to take into consideration the security of your opponents, rather just make sure you're so dominant that it doesn't really matter what other countries like Russia thinks, then of course it makes sense to expand NATO because what this entailed was, well, strengthening the US role in Europe, but also recognizing if Russia would be within these NATO structures, it wouldn't be the same kind of institution that would bring the Americans into Europe. And again, Joe Biden, he made this comment in the Atlantic Council back, I think it was in 1997, where he said, "Oh, the Russians warned us that if they, if we expand NATO, then they're forced to look towards China for as a partner." And then, you know, he said, "Well, I told him, 'Yeah, go ahead. While you're at it, if that doesn't work, go try to partner with the Iranians.'" And the whole room just burst into laughter, like, because America and the West was the only game in town. And they knew this, that the worst deal he gave to the Russians was the only deal on the table. And, uh, the US Secretary of Defense under Clinton then, William Perry, made a similar comment that, yeah, everyone in the administration knew this would alienate the Russians, but it didn't really matter anymore because they were weak. So all of this kind of made sense when there's a unipolar distribution of power. But when expanding this to NATO, and now Russia has the ability to push back and fight, and indeed winning this proxy war against NATO, given the new distribution of power, which we kind of have to recognize, what is the way to rescue the situation now? Because, uh, this NATO expansion, which for me gave birth was good to cement the unipolar moment from the 1990s and 2000s, it doesn't really make much sense anymore now that the Russians are capable of again, winning on the battlefield, withstanding economic pressures, finding new international partners, strengthening China, which is now the main rival to the United States. What, what, what does the political West do in this situation? Because it's, it's, um, it's very hard to change course now, it seems.

I just want to go back to your comments on, uh, the decisions that were made in the 1990s, especially with regard to NATO expansion. Uh, your rhetoric sort of implied that we were thinking in balance of power terms at the time. I, I think that people like Secretary of Defense Bill Perry, George Kennan, Paul Nitze, and a substantial number of other people, many of whom were quite hawkish during the Cold War, thought of NATO expansion, uh, in, I think, balance of power terms. In other words, they thought that if we expanded NATO, the Russians would react, uh, and we would be in real trouble. And the Russians, in their mind, would act according to basic realist logic. Uh, and that's why they opposed NATO expansion. But of course, they lost the fight. And the people who dominated the discourse, people like Anthony Lake, Strobe Talbott, and President Clinton himself, did not think in balance of power terms. It's very important to understand that we were not expanding NATO in the 1990s, in the first part of the of, uh, the 21st century, because we thought Russia was a threat. That kind of rhetoric is dominant in the West now. That was not our view, uh, in the 1990s, for sure. Bill Clinton thought that he could expand NATO and create this giant zone of peace that included both Eastern Europe and Western Europe. What he wanted to do is take those institutions that dominated in Western Europe and spread them eastward. He wanted to create a zone of peace, a Europe that was whole and free. He, he did not view this as anti-Russian. Clinton was fully aware that the Russians would be unhappy, but he thought that he could assuage their fears and that NATO could be expanded and we could live happily ever after. Michael McFaul, who was fully on board with this whole enterprise and was, uh, the US ambassador to Moscow at one time, has told me that he told Putin on a number of occasions that NATO expansion was not a threat to Russia. It was not designed, uh, to cause problems for the Russia, for Russia. It was designed to make Europe more peaceful. Uh, it was only after the crisis broke out on February 22nd, 2014, that we changed the rhetoric, and the Russians became dangerous, and NATO expansion had to happen to contain these evil Russians. But that's not what was driving thinking about NATO expansion before then. Again, it's very important to understand that this was the period of liberal hegemony. This is when we had these liberal ideas in our head, um, that we thought, uh, should dominate, uh, how we thought about American foreign policy.

And just to switch gears for a second here and drive my point home, you want to understand that the United States played a key role in turning China into a great power. We helped on purpose to fuel Chinese economic growth, allowing China to join the WTO in 2001, which both, uh, the Clinton administration and the Bush administration fully supported, really, uh, fueled Chinese growth in the early part of this century. And we were doing that on purpose because we thought that if China became really powerful, it would become a democracy, and because democracies don't fight each other and democracies live together happily, that this story would have a happy ending to it. That was our belief. And remember, I told you that it was President Trump when he became president for the first time in 2017. He was the person who jettisoned, uh, or got away from engagement, this policy that was designed to make China rich. And what Trump did was he adopted containment. But we had a fundamentally different view of how to think about dealing with China before 2017. And it was a very liberal approach. It, it, it basically believed, uh, or was, let me put it differently. It was basically premised on the assumption that the world had changed and balance of power politics didn't matter anymore, and that the United States could live comfortably, peacefully, with a really powerful China. Right? And the same logic again applied, uh, with regard to NATO expansion. The Clinton people were not looking to pick a fight with Russia. As you know better than I do, Glenn, Russia was a military and economic basket case in the 1990s and early 2000s. There was no need to think about containing Russia back then. And that's not what they were doing. They were, in their minds, spreading this liberal regime that existed in Western Europe eastward. And we're going to make Europe more peaceful. And of course, it all backfired. It backfired in East Asia. The United States created a peer competitor. Can you believe that? The United States purposely created a powerful China that's now a peer competitor. And in Europe, we pushed NATO expansion on the belief that this would lead to a more peaceful Europe when it's had exactly the opposite effect.

Now, this brings us to your question, sort of, what do we do now? I have no answer to that because, uh, the elites who run, uh, Europe and the foreign policy establishment in the United States are deeply opposed to reaching any sort of accommodation with the Russians. And as you and I both know full well, uh, the Russians are going to win this war. What exactly that victory looks like is hard to say, but the Russians are going to win. They're not going to lose. NATO, and this includes the United States and the Europeans, are not going to be happy about that at all. And you're going to have a fundamentally conflictual relationship, even if it doesn't involve shooting, between the West on one side, allied with Ukraine, what's left of Ukraine, and the Russians on the other side. So we're in trouble for as far as the eye can see.

Yeah. The, no, I don't doubt that there was genuine assumption, um, linked to the liberal assumptions about how the relationships would work out. Again, in liberal theory, they assume that, uh, yeah, democracy leads to peace, economic interdependence leads to peace, shared institutions lead to peace. So with the economic growth of China, you have the middle class, they demand democracy. Now you have peace. Economic interdependence between the US and China, peace. And of course, more integration of China into shared institutions. Then also common rules, the anarchy is reduced. Also peace. Of course, in the, if you look at the world from their realist lens, uh, a stronger China would, of course, uh, unleash a direct competition between the United States and, uh, and China. But the same logic also was flawed with Russia, though, that it was, uh, the argument that NATO was then just a democratic community. It was no longer aimed to contain Russia. So the Russians shouldn't be concerned. However, as soon as Russia began to push back, it immediately, well, so it converted back to the Cold War containment, uh, objective, which we now see. So it's, um, I guess what I'm missing is a bit of the, in all of the West, is some, um, reflection on some of the wrong assumptions which are assumptions which were made, and some course correction, but I haven't really gone there yet. Uh, I did want to ask about Europeans, though, because, uh, I can see, you know, how the United States should reposition itself in the international system that is, um, accommodate other centers of power, that is Russia, India, in order for, you know, not to push them too far over to the main adversary. But what, what do the Europeans do? Because they have been just linked to the United States intimately since World War II, but, um, in a multipolar system, the Americans have less interest in Europe. They have other priorities. They, the world isn't Eurocentric anymore. Um, so, so how, how should the Europeans act? Because the US has been important for the past 80 years. It's been a pacifier within Europe to prevent us from going at each other's throat. But it's also been a very important actor for the Europeans to remain relevant after World War II, as well. So, um, what is the, what is the pathway? How does Europe, I guess, adjust to a multipolar world? Because bipolarity, we had to be with us. It protected us from the Soviets. The unipolar world order, it was, uh, we had a great ambition. The EU was supposed to be collective bargaining power. We're supposed to, you know, be the other leg. The, the collective hegemony of the political West was supposed to be US and Europe again, enduring relevance in the world. But in a multipolar world where the Americans are leaving, and what do the Europeans do? Because we haven't really been, as you said before, in a position like this since, uh, before the Second World War.

I just want to repeat what you said in slightly different words because it's so important what you said. The Cold War was focused on Europe. You, for anybody who did the Cold War, the central front in Europe was the centerpiece of the conflict. Uh, so Europe mattered enormously to the United States during the Cold War. U, and East Asia took a backseat. Um, and then came unipolarity, and the United States and the Europeans were joined at the hip during unipolarity. We stayed in Europe. Uh, as you pointed out, Glenn, we remained the American pacifier. And of course, NATO expansion, if you think about it, just means more American involvement, not less American involvement, because the Americans are now concerned with, uh, extending the pacifier over the eastern half of the continent, not just keeping it over the western half. And then unipolarity goes away, as you say, and we're in multipolarity, and the consequences for Europe are enormous. Uh, I'm repeating what you said because it's important that we, that that viewers just understand what's happened here. Uh, Europe just doesn't matter that much for the United States. And let me just say a few words about that. Uh, first of all, almost everybody agrees, certainly in a national security establishment here in the United States, that the principal threat the United States faces comes from China. And that necessitates a pivot to Asia, which means a pivot away from Europe. Uh, and that's a momentous decision. As I like to tell people, for the entire history of the United States up until about 2017, Europe was the most important area of the world for us outside of the Western Hemisphere. Europe was always more important than Asia. Uh, and that was because the most powerful states in the system besides the United States were in Europe, not in East Asia. Uh, Nazi Germany was far more of a threat to us than Imperial Japan was. Well, that world has gone away. Uh, the principal threat that we face is in East Asia. So East Asia, by definition, is more important to us than Europe is. This is the first time that that's ever happened. And of course, this is what underpins the pivot to Asia. And this is really significant for Europe. Second point I'd make, uh, which is closely related to this, is the third great power in the system is Russia. And despite all this crazy talk in Europe about how Russia is going to, uh, conquer all of Ukraine, then conquer Eastern Europe, and pretty soon after that, it's going to be on the beaches of Dunkirk. This is, you know, this is just craziness. This is not going to happen. Russia is having a tough time conquering, uh, the eastern fifth of Ukraine. Uh, the idea that this is the second coming of the Wehrmacht, they're going to conquer all of Ukraine and then move further westward is just not a serious argument. Um, so there's no reason for the United States to be in Europe from the perspective of great power politics. Should we be in Europe to contain Russia? No, because there's no serious threat that Russia is going to dominate Europe. And in fact, we were foolish to expand NATO, uh, past, uh, 2004, because we created this crisis, which is not in our national interest. It's dragged us into Europe. In fact, the United States should be pivoting to Asia. So you have this situation where the United States has no real incentive to stay in Europe because East Asia is a much more important theater, and the Chinese are there, they have formidable military forces, and the United States is going to need all the help it can get trying to contain China. So staying in Europe does not make a lot of sense. This is disastrous from a European perspective because the United States has served as a pacifier. The Europeans, for good reasons, I don't blame the Europeans at all, don't want us to leave because as long as you have Uncle Sam in Europe, NATO is intact. You have the pacifier in place. And nobody has to worry about Germany rearming, right? And nobody has to worry about the Russians, because the Americans are there. Uh, but you take the Americans away, and, uh, it's a very different situation because Europe is then on its own, and it quickly becomes apparent that Europe is not a political entity by itself. That Europe is a collection of different states, uh, that have all sorts of collective action problems, that have all sorts of different security concerns. If you're Spain, you think about Ukraine very differently than if you're Poland, obviously. Uh, and then if you factor in history, relations between countries like Germany and France, Germany and Denmark, and especially Germany and Poland come to the fore, and the United States is not there, uh, you know, to act as a pacifier and solve collective action problems and smooth ruffled feathers. Um, so from a European perspective, uh, the key is to try to keep the Americans in. Uh, and that would be tough to do under any circumstances because of the structural imperatives here, the fact that East Asia is so important to the United States. But it's especially tough because Trump is the president, and Trump basically loathes the Europeans. Uh, the Europeans, of course, understand this. They don't talk much about it because they understand that you have to constantly kiss up to President Trump, uh, and be nice to him and so forth and so on, but they understand that he loathes them, and he would be perfectly happy to put an end to NATO and get out of Europe. Uh, so it's going to be very difficult for the Europeans moving forward, uh, to keep that pacifier in place.

Well, I think this also explains why the Europeans are, I guess, behaving so differently from the rest of the world because, well, when the world was bipolar, either you choose one camp or the other, but by marrying one, you also isolate yourself from the other. So, so it was easier, I guess, to have unity in Europe under the bipolarity. And again, with unipolarity, what I heard as well from the central bank chief of Hungary and others was, well, America was the only game in town. If you wanted to prosper, you would ride this wave, so you went with the US. But, uh, a multipolar system, it offers a lot of attraction to many countries around the world because, unlike the bipolar or unipolar where we kind of have to accept who's, who's the boss, in the multipolar system, you can diversify your ties. It's not just great for economic prosperity, but it also gives the opportunity for small and medium-sized countries to have a much greater political autonomy. Look at Turkey. No one can tell them what to do. The bipolar, unipolar order, they had to fall in line. Now, anyone pushes them too hard, they can have a swing strategy. They can lean to China, US, you know, they, they, no one's telling them what to do anymore. So, a lot of countries see this as attractive. It's just, uh, the Europeans, though, they really bet everything on, uh, on essentially extending this unipolar moment. And, uh, to the extent where they cut their ties with all other centers of power. First the Russians, now the Chinese, you mentioned before Iran, this snapback sanctions. I recently spoke to them, previous or former advisor to the Iranian nuclear team, and he was saying, well, this was the only reason we still even listen to the Europeans is because they had the possibility of doing these sanctions. Now there's no, they have no more value for us. There's no more reason to, you know, talk to them. So it's, it's just, we're, we're cutting ourselves off from everyone, only the United States, and then hoping that this will be rewarded by the Americans to show our loyalties. But instead, um, it puts the Europeans in an even more exposed position because if you only have one partner, you know, as Trump put forward a trade agreement, the Europeans have to sign anything that comes in front of him. All the leaders have to sit nicely on the chairs in front of his desk and call him daddy, as you know, he almost looks at them with contempt for being so spineless and unable to stand up for their own national interest. It's, uh, um, there's a feeling that after the Ukraine war, because some Europeans think it's a good idea to only align with the US to strengthen the political West. Other believe we have to adjust to multiparity by diversifying ties. So I guess my question is, do, is it only the Ukraine war that's holding the Europeans together in the multipolar world, or do you expect Europe to begin to fragment more once the Ukraine war is over and people will adjust differently to this new distribution of power? Because as you said, if you're Greece or Latvia, in a multipolar world, there's very little that unites your interests anymore. I mean, surely they would begin to drift apart if you don't have a, you know, war to unite you.

Yeah. I think, just based on your last comment, uh, I think that one of the reasons that the Europeans, uh, want to continue the war in Ukraine and keep the Americans deeply committed to that war is that that will keep the American pacifier in Europe. Uh, in other words, I think when European elites, uh, look at the Ukraine war, they don't just simply think about winning the Ukraine war to contain Russia. I would guess that a number of them understand that Russia is not that great a threat. Uh, but what they really want to do is keep the Americans in the fight, and they're doing everything they can to keep the Americans in the fight. Uh, and that's because they want to keep the pacifier in place. Um, but it's not clear that they're going to succeed at that. Uh, the war is going to end at some point. There's going to be all sorts of recriminations. Uh, and, uh, the Americans are slowly but steadily moving to pull out of Europe. Uh, there's been no one big decision that's made, but in a very incremental way, you can see the United States, um, slowly heading toward the exit. And of course, I think the Europeans understand that, the European leaders understand that, and they're trying to stop the Americans before they get to the exit. Uh, they may succeed at that. Who knows? But, uh, they have a very difficult task. But then if the Americans do leave, or the Americans greatly reduce their presence and influence in Europe, I think what you're going to see is powerful centrifugal forces, uh, come into play. I mean, these are independent states. Uh, there's no such thing as Europe, uh, as a separate nation state. You know, people have gotten used to talking about Europe as if Europe were a single entity. It's not a single entity. It's comprised of a series of nation states. And what's allowed us to talk about Europe as if it were a single state, uh, and to pretend that the EU is a single state, uh, is the fact that you have this pacifier in place. As I've long argued, NATO underpins the EU. You take NATO away, and I think the EU's future will be much less rosy because, uh, security, uh, underpins economy, and the EU is underpinned by NATO. So the Europeans, the different states in Europe, are going to have to think long and hard individually, uh, about how they deal with, uh, security. And by the way, you see this in how, in terms of how they think about dealing with Ukraine. There's not a lot of agreement in these meetings, uh, that Macron and, uh, Starmer put together about how to deal with Ukraine moving forward. It's not like everybody wants to ante up troops to station in Ukraine once the shooting stops. Uh, obviously countries like Britain and France do. Germany seems to be on the fence. Poland is not on the fence. Poland doesn't want to put troops in Ukraine. And I would imagine that, you know, if you look at relations among various states over in Eastern Europe, uh, over Ukraine, you'll see all sorts of differences. I've read a number of articles on how the Poles and the Hungarians, uh, have very bad relations these days, and a lot of it revolves around, uh, the Ukraine issue. And, you know, Poland and Hungary are basically frontline states in Eastern Europe. And then, you know, you throw in the French, the British, the Germans, and it's just hard to imagine how you're going to get consensus on important issues moving forward. And again, to be, uh, to repeat ourselves here, this is why, uh, the Europeans want the American pacifier. They want the Americans to solve these collective action problems.

Well, I, um, well, we've already taken a bit of a lot of your time, but I do want to have one last question, though. In the multipolar system, what is, what do you see the role of Russia, or what, what would be the ideal policy for Russia, assuming, you know, advancing Russian interests, security interests in a multipolar system? Because, well, again, for me, my initial dream, or still dream, was always to have a common Europe as a source for peace, you know, but more or less was done with the French and Germans after the World War II, would have liked to have seen with the Russians and the rest of the Europeans after the Cold War. Again, it would be good for everyone in terms of prosperity. It would also be a powerful pole of power in a multipolar world. Uh, cuz the alternative seems to be the redividing the continent and reviving the Cold War logic makes Europeans too dependent on the US and makes Russia too dependent on China. So, but on the other hand, I, I don't see this as, uh, as, as being a possibility anymore. Indeed, I wrote a book almost a decade ago with the title "Russia's Geoeconomic Strategy for Greater Eurasia," where I, like, outlined an economic theory for, essentially, econo-realist economic theory for how they need a balance of dependence. So not put all their eggs in one basket. And, uh, yeah, I more or less argued that China had to be their main partner, but they also had to not be too dependent on China. So diversify, get the Indians, Iranians, everyone else on board. I, uh, yeah, I ended up getting Putin's advisor on, uh, Eurasian integration, Professor Karaglov. I actually had him write the introduction, and I went to work for him in Moscow afterwards. But, but the irony is, this is not what I, you know, I ideally, I would, you know, would want to see this common European home, which, you know, the idealist, I guess, in me was hoping for. But realistically, it looks as if the goal, the main interest for Russia, the best thing for Russia would be simply to align itself now closer with the Eurasian powers. So I, I was wondering if you, how, how you see this? I mean, if you were advising the Russian government today, what would you tell them to do?

Well, I think I agree in large part with you. Uh, there are

There are three great powers in the system: China, the United States, and Russia. I think from China's point of view, it would be best if Russia was closely aligned with China against the United States. From the United States's point of view, it would be best if Russia was aligned, um, with the United States against China. Uh, that raises the question: What is Russia's best position?

My view, and I think this is exactly what you were saying, is that Russia doesn't want to be too close to either one of them. It wants to keep its distance. Uh, it wants to have very good relations with the West and it wants to have very good relations with the Chinese. It wants to sit on the fence. That would be the best strategy. Uh, and I've talked to people in Moscow. You've obviously talked to many more people there than I have, but I've talked to people in Moscow who say that that is the optimum strategy. Uh, and if the United States and China want to get into an intense security competition in East Asia, the best thing the Russians can do is stay away. Don't get involved. Uh, and I think that's smart, but it's impossible for the Russians to pursue that policy because of hostility from the West, which has driven the Russians into the arms of the Chinese. So, they have no choice at this point in time, uh, but to have closer and closer relations, uh, with, uh, with China.

By the way, Glenn, I think if you look at the Indians, the Indians have historically played this game. They played it during the Cold War. Uh, the Indians were very smart. They were, uh, I think the word we used to use was non-aligned, right? They, they didn't want to align with, uh, the Soviet side or with the American side in the Cold War. Uh, and if you look at how the Indians are behaving these days, I mean, they were moving towards the United States, but given Trump's recent behavior, as we talked about at the start of the show, they've moved more towards the Chinese. But the Indians are very savvy. They're very sophisticated, and they fully understand you don't want to get too close to the United States, and you don't want to get too close to China.

And one final point on this: this can be married to your point that in a multipolar system, there's just a lot more flexibility, right? In the Cold War, again, if you're in Europe, right, you just didn't have much choice as to which side you aligned with. If you were in Western Europe, you aligned with the United States. If you're in Eastern Europe, you aligned with the Soviet Union. Just not a lot of choice. It was a rather simple, uh, world where the two superpowers had huge amounts of course of leverage. Yes, there were countries like India that were not aligned, but by and large, you had to pick sides, especially in places like Europe. But that world has gone away. Uh, and, uh, and it's just, it's a much more fluid world.

And by the way, Glenn, if you go to Europe and you start thinking about what the future looks like for Europe and European countries, let's assume that the American pacifier by and large goes away and, uh, the United States loses its leverage in Europe. The question the Europeans then face is how do they deal with China versus how do they deal with the United States? Uh, because from a European point of view, if the Americans are no longer the pacifier, you want to have good relations with the United States moving forward. No question about that. But you also, I would think, want to have good relations with the Chinese, especially economically. You want to trade extensively with the Chinese. I mean, if you think about this war in Ukraine and what it's helped do to European economies, it's really quite stunning. Uh, I, I was reading the newspaper before I came on the show this morning talking about the German economy and the European economy more generally over the next two years and what we should expect. It is a very dismal picture, to put it mildly, and a lot of this, not all of it by any means, but a lot of it comes from the Ukraine war. Uh, I think the Russians, you know, were an important economic ally of Europe and losing that economic ally has had big costs.

Well, moving forward, I think the Europeans, if they're smart, they want to think about, you know, trying to, uh, have good economic relations with China as well as the United States. And if anything, if they're smart, they'll go to great relations to restore good economic relations with Russia. It's in their interest. Uh, and they'll have the flexibility to do that. Not, not, not completely, but they'll have a lot of flexibility, uh, if they're not beholden to the pacifier.

Yeah, I always make the point that, uh, because we always see this, uh, very complicated, uh, strategies how to split the Chinese from the Russians, but one doesn't really need to split them. I think if the, if the hostilities between the West and Russia comes to an end, there will be a natural equilibrium forming that is that the Russians don't want excessive dependence on the Chinese either because this is asymmetrical interdependence. The, the Russians will always be more dependent on China than China is on them. And this translates into very unfavorable political influence. Uh, and, uh, yeah, so however this insistence on trying to break the Russians, I, it just looks like the best thing for the Russians now is to point all their guns to the West as a deterrent while all reorganize all their economic connectivity towards the East. And it's just a disaster. Imagine the gas meeting they now had, this, uh, they signed the Power of Siberia 2 with the Chinese after 10 years. This is all the Arctic gas which was supposed to go to Europe and fuel our economies for decades is now heading to China. I mean, this is, it's such an exercise in self-harm.

You know, you try to explain these things to people in Europe that perhaps, at least advance the argument that perhaps, you know, we should drop this NATO expansion, put an end to the war, but they almost look at you as if you're a traitor. Like they're really stuck, I think, in the unipolar mindset that, uh, this is somehow a treason against the liberal hegemony, the priority of liberal democratic values. I don't know. I can't really make sense of the position anymore, but it's, it's hard to understand. Really is hard to understand.

But, you know, Glenn, I hadn't thought about this until just a moment ago listening to you talk. One could argue that if the United States leaves Europe, uh, or or takes enough of its troops out that it really loses its political leverage over the Europeans and the Europeans are on their own. They're in a new world. Uh, and how they think about the world will change in fundamental ways. Uh, when you're when you have the Americans on top of you, right, acting as a pacifier and you're working overtime to keep the pacifier in place, you're going to adopt a set of policies that are very different, I think, than the policies that you would adopt, uh, if the United States was not there.

One could argue, I haven't thought this through, but one could argue that if the United States basically pulls out of Europe, uh, and, uh, in substantial ways or or completely, uh, the Europeans would then smell the coffee and they would then move to end the Ukraine war. Uh, you, you can continue to push the Ukraine war as long as you see that as a way of keeping the Americans in and the Americans are in and the Americans are paying a lot of the costs. But once the Americans are out and they're not paying the costs and it's the Europeans who are paying the costs of that war and their economies are in deep trouble, you know, they'll think differently. Uh, and again, it gets back to our discussion of multipolarity, right? We're in a multipolar world now and the Europeans who probably don't understand this because the European mindset was established during the bipolar world and the unipolar world and what you were saying before is we're in a multipolar world and in a multipolar world, I, it's a different set of structural, uh, constraints. So I think one could argue that if the American pacifier goes away, you will see a fundamental change in how European countries, not Europe, because I don't think we'll be able to talk about Europe the way we have, uh, up to now. I think European countries will end up behaving quite differently towards Russia and even towards China.

Yeah, possibly. Yeah. So it would be an adjustment, a very painful one, it seems. Uh, anyways, uh, thank you for letting me pick your brain. It's, um, yeah, you know, it's a very fascinating topic though, and, uh, it seems like a lot of our problems are caused by the reluctance to accept the multipolar realities. You know, I think even the people who argue that the unipolar moment has real possibility for creating a more peaceful world, they still have to recognize that simply the reality is there is no unipolar distribution of power anymore. And I think, yeah, the cost of, um, ignoring these realities are quite high. So, but, uh, yeah, thank you again. I appreciate your time.

It was my pleasure. I actually learned a lot going through these different issues because we are moving into a new world and, as you know, making sense of what's going on and where we're headed, uh, is not easy to do and that's why conversations like this, uh, are so important and so useful. Thanks.