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Richard Wolff: China, Russia, Iran, and World War III — Transcript

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0:01[music]
0:07[music]
0:10When you look at the world right now and
0:13you think of the war in Ukraine, general
0:16European rearmament, the US, Israel,
0:20Iran war, China's obvious continued
0:24economic rise.
0:26What do you think is the big global
0:28picture that most mainstream
0:30commentators are missing?
0:33>> Um, I'm afraid it is the decline
0:37of Europe above all else. The decline of
0:40a quote unquote West Europe and the
0:44United States. Um, the United States
0:49started its decline much later than
0:51Europe. It basically
0:54inherited the European empires, but they
0:59were in the process of disappearing. And
1:01so the United States got them. And then
1:04he's not in the process of losing them
1:06because they learned across the latter
1:10half of the 20th century and now the
1:13beginning of this one that having
1:15crawled out from under European
1:18colonialism,
1:20they now have to crawl out from
1:22underneath the United States's inherited
1:26reworking of that system uh without the
1:29formal colonialism. Although you can
1:32tell Mr. Trump is reacting to that in
1:37his own blind way by fantasies of taking
1:42Greenland or making Canada into a 51st
1:46state or snatching Panama, whatever
1:50comes to his mind as he tries to prevent
1:55what is unfolding
1:57as he can see it, which is as I say half
2:00blind. Meanwhile, China, and it's not
2:03just China, it's everybody who's
2:06hitching their horse
2:09to that cart or put it hitching their
2:12cart to that horse, whichever metaphor
2:14works better. Uh, but the Chinese rise
2:17is relentless. It crosses more and more
2:21categories of product. They dominate now
2:24in electric vehicles. They dominate in
2:27the technology to harness energy from
2:30the sun and winter and wind. Um they are
2:34they are becoming producers of modern
2:37technologically advanced medication.
2:40They are becoming equal to the Silicon
2:43Valley in every new technical AI or
2:47agent AI. I mean wherever you turn it's
2:50just and their population is enormous
2:53and their commitment to doing this is
2:56enormous and with these advantages
3:00they've taken the steps to build that uh
3:04that
3:06initiative belt and road to go to Europe
3:08directly they have built an alliance
3:11system the bricks which is vibrant and
3:15alive
3:17um and they're watching watching the
3:18West implode.
3:21Uh they're watching this split between
3:23Europe and America. People should
3:26understand that has been a problem for
3:29the rest of the world, the alliance
3:31between the United States and Europe for
3:34quite some time and that's gone now and
3:37or in the process of disintegration
3:40and that means that the oper options and
3:44you can see it among other places in the
3:47Middle East. Iran has brought the United
3:51States to another defeat militarily.
3:55There's no way around it. The Iranians
3:58are in the driver's seat. All kinds of
4:00pretense, but that's very American to
4:02deny everything uh so as to not have to
4:06deal with it, but muddling by in that
4:10way, which we could do when we were the
4:12sole hegeimon after 1990. But even
4:15before I like to remind people being an
4:19economist, the United States
4:23uh for example now has a GDP in the
4:27trillions, you know, 3040 trillion
4:30dollars.
4:32Russia's GDP is three or four trillion.
4:35It's not the same class. It never was.
4:39The so-called conflict between the
4:42United States and the Soviet Union was a
4:44mirage.
4:46If it had any truth, if it had any, it
4:49had to do with nuclear weapons. They had
4:53those and that was serious and that was
4:55a problem. No question. But other than
4:58that, and that's why it's so important
5:01to understand that the the relationship
5:04with China now is completely different.
5:08Yes, they have nuclear weapons, too. So,
5:11they got that going for them. But unlike
5:14anything Russia or the Soviet Union ever
5:17had, China is a is an economic
5:20competitor, a real one, a serious one.
5:24Their GDP is in the high teens, 18, 19,
5:2820. It's not the American, but it's
5:30catching up and it's in that league. And
5:33nobody else is in that league, including
5:37Russia.
5:39And yet the alliance, which the decline
5:43of the United States and Europe made not
5:46only possible, but by denying all of
5:49what I've just said, Europe is actually
5:52accelerating
5:54the alliance of Russia and China, which
5:57means that there's one part of Europe
6:00and only one
6:02that's hitched its horse to the Chinese
6:06rocket ship and is being carried up.
6:10Americans, for example, do not want to
6:13understand that you you're not going to
6:16defeat Iran and its missiles and drones.
6:20Why?
6:21Because Iran has an endless supply. I
6:26mean that literally endless supply,
6:31right? The Caspian Sea is a sea shared
6:34by Iran, large part of Iran and Russia.
6:38So boats can carry anything in Russia to
6:42Iran without crossing any other border
6:45answerable to no one since the Russians
6:48dominate the Caspian Sea militarily.
6:52And Russia has an immense border with
6:55China and China has a bigger
6:57manufacturing base now than all of
7:00Europe combined.
7:03The Chinese are producing drones the way
7:06they produce toothpicks
7:09limitlessly
7:11and they can give them to the Russians
7:13who can bring them to the Iranians. So
7:16what are you doing? You're not going to
7:19prevent them and they're going to bomb
7:21your bases all over the Middle East
7:24until you leave. That's their policy.
7:27That's what they say.
7:31And the ability of the United States
7:34to stop it is zero.
7:38And we watch the twisting and the
7:41turning and the bluster and the bluff
7:44and but after a while it is revealed for
7:48the kind of sad pretense
7:52which is all that it is.
7:55And that's all that's left when you've
7:58denied for so long what's going on. All
8:02that's left is to kind of slink around
8:05and babble a lot. And we elected a a a
8:09professional bluster blabberer and he
8:11does that for us. But it just sustains
8:15the denial.
8:17It just sustains the denial.
8:21Unless, of course, he means it and he
8:23will use nuclear weapons and blow their
8:27what did he say? Get rid of their
8:29civilization.
8:31That kind of talk, irresponsible as it
8:35surely is, is also the talk of a
8:38desperado that this you don't talk like
8:41that until you got no no cards left. So,
8:45you play the one remaining card hoping
8:48nobody notices. It's the bluff you
8:51typically get from someone who had
8:53nothing else. We're in that position and
8:56we're twisting and turning.
8:59And as you go down and you you do
9:01everything militarily,
9:05we live in a country in which the
9:07president has announced he's planning a
9:10budget of $1.5
9:13trillion
9:15defense budget for next year. This year
9:18it's 900 billion. That's an increase of
9:222/3 66%
9:25in one year.
9:28That's crazy.
9:30Why? We are already the country that
9:33spends more on military than the next 10
9:35combined.
9:37What is this?
9:40It it's either reasonable you're going
9:44to try to hold the whole world together
9:46by by by spending on a scale that even
9:49this country has never seen before.
9:54And who are you going to borrow from?
9:56The rest of the world. But guess what,
9:58Jack? The rest of the world won't lend
10:01anymore.
10:02The Chinese are busy reducing their
10:05exposure to American securities. The
10:08Japanese can't afford it anymore.
10:12The rest of the world won't do it. So
10:14where you going to borrow it from? I
10:17mean, they're really the most serious
10:19problems as an economist that I could
10:22imagine are closing in on the United
10:26States as they are in Europe. And the
10:30desperation is written in the budgets,
10:34in the hysterical politics
10:38in Europe, for example, you know, and I
10:40keep touch you. You and I have talked
10:42long enough for you to know that I keep
10:45touch. I speak French and German. I have
10:48all my life. I I follow the events
10:50there.
10:52The European community, the leadership
10:56particularly of Britain, France and
10:58Germany uh have now done an American
11:02thing. They have demonized their enemy.
11:06Their enemy is now awful. You know, the
11:09way Putin is represented here kind of
11:13like he was another Stalin. The imagery,
11:17the metaphors, they're all the same.
11:20Sodom Hussein was horrible. They're all
11:22Hitler. Literally, they're they're all
11:24Hitler reincarnations.
11:27They're very old in the United States.
11:29It's it's one of the stories I told you
11:32in our first meeting. And that clip has
11:34come back to me a million times. The
11:38clip about the American colonists
11:42in Deerfield. Remember the
11:44>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The savage, the people
11:47whose lives they were transforming and
11:50denying were the savages. They were
11:54beset by savages. What
11:58you you can't ask the question, why are
12:01these people upset? Why are they upset
12:04with us? What is going on? So maybe we
12:08could try to deal with it. Oh no. Oh no.
12:11No.
12:12savages, which is always the way you
12:15justify in advance
12:18a horrible thing you're about to do. If
12:21you listen to an awful lot of Israelis
12:25talk about Palestinians, you'll see that
12:28again.
12:30The dehumanization
12:32of your enemy is usually a sign that
12:36you're doing that yourself. It may may
12:39or may not be true about your enemy, but
12:42it's about you that's really what
12:44matters here.
12:47Ironically, the victims are often less
12:50able to demonize their oppressor than
12:53the oppressors are their victims.
12:57And we're seeing that now, too. Russia
13:01is a loser. Russia lost after 1990
13:06all of its allies from Poland in the
13:09north to Bulgaria in the south and
13:11everything in between. Those were allies
13:14of the Soviet Union. They were what an
13:17earlier generation called a cordon sun
13:21a protection and Russia needed
13:24protection. It had been invaded by
13:27Napoleon. It had been invaded in World
13:29War I. It had been invaded in World War
13:32II by Western Europeans.
13:37I had to learn from the history books a
13:40little statistic I've been using
13:42recently. In World War II, the Russians
13:45lost
13:47general estimate of most people in the
13:49neighborhood of 24 25 million people
13:53died in Russia in World War II.
13:58During World War II,
14:01how many Americans died? Answer:
14:03400,000.
14:06And America had a bigger population to
14:09lose 400,000 than Russia did to lose 24
14:13million. Those two countries are not
14:16going to understand war the same way.
14:21They can't. It's nobody's fault. It's
14:24just you can't have desperate
14:26experiences like that and they leave no
14:30trace. That's crazy. They do. So, Russia
14:35lost its allies.
14:38It lost
14:40its protection.
14:43It feels endangered
14:45over much. Maybe exaggerated. Could well
14:49be. Wouldn't be surprising me.
14:53And then as these countries not only
14:56stop being allies but one by one join
15:00NATO an alliance organized after World
15:04War II to be antisviet
15:08anti-Russian.
15:10So Poland joins and the Czech Republic
15:13joins and so on. And now it comes to
15:16this former part of the Soviet Union,
15:19Ukraine,
15:21and they want to join NATO too. And
15:23Russia said, "No, not going to happen.
15:25Not no more losses. Too many losses. No
15:29more losses."
15:31So Russia invades, breaks international
15:35law, invades. No, no argument. That's
15:38what it did.
15:40But it is reasonable to ask why. And
15:43it's likewise reasonable to ask why are
15:46the Europeans
15:48mobilizing
15:50against a Russia on the grounds that it
15:53has to be held back from invading the
15:57rest of Europe. Russia never did that.
16:02It's the other way around. History is
16:04about Europe invading Russia.
16:08Russia just took four years to move
16:12across one quarter of Ukraine in a war.
16:16Can you imagine what it would take them
16:19now after expending everything they have
16:22in that war to be a threat to the rest
16:24of Europe? It's silly. They're not going
16:28to happen.
16:30Do the Russians feel that way? Maybe. Do
16:33they entertain megalomaniac notions that
16:37one day I don't know all of Europe could
16:39be yeah but they've never acted on that
16:42and there's no evidence that they're
16:44planning to do it and it would be stupid
16:46they don't need it what do I mean well
16:51leans the very great German word for
16:54this leans is available to Russia the
16:59way it is for no one else on Earth, all
17:04of Siberia,
17:06which is now becoming more and more
17:08accessible as the polar ice caps
17:12retreat.
17:13They have
17:15land to develop on, to colonize, to move
17:19population, to discover resources beyond
17:23anything the world has seen. Russia is
17:26the largest country by geography on this
17:29planet.
17:31They don't need it and they haven't done
17:34it and there wouldn't be much reason
17:39and the enmity they would incur and the
17:41opposition they would have to fight
17:44forever
17:45makes it absurd.
17:47And yet we have a a leadership class in
17:52Europe that has built its entire career
17:56now on Russophobia.
18:00to the point that they haven't even
18:04learned the lesson of the 20th century
18:08in which the Europeans
18:12suffered two of the worst wars in human
18:16history that they imposed on one another
18:21which cost them their entire empire.
18:25British Empire, French Empire, German
18:27Empire, Dutch Empire, all gone.
18:31The economies that developed on the
18:34basis of those empires crippled.
18:38So at the end of World War II, they have
18:40nothing. They become secondary to the
18:44United States, hand over their empire to
18:48the Americans who try to keep it going
18:51informally because they couldn't
18:53possibly take it over again, but
18:57informally economically
18:59keep it going.
19:02And so they agree to do without defense.
19:05They have to because they they couldn't
19:07solve the problem. The Europeans could
19:10not maintain a defense,
19:13give their people the social welfare
19:16that their working class fought for.
19:19I need to remind my American audience
19:23that Europeans were more successful than
19:26Americans in obtaining a social welfare
19:30state.
19:32Healthc care is universal and free in
19:34Europe. Higher education is nearly
19:37universal and free in most of Europe.
19:42The social welfare is is just
19:46way above what Americans have now or
19:49have ever had. Our New Deal approximates
19:53what the Europeans already had and what
19:56they have developed. There no way the
19:58Europeans could have developed the
20:00military
20:02and paid for that welfare state
20:06and kept their rich classes super rich.
20:09They did that after World War II by
20:12handing the defense bill to the United
20:16States,
20:18which needed to do that. Offered that
20:20deal. We'll take care of the defense.
20:24You don't have to spend your money.
20:26We'll do it.
20:27But we need to have the empire inherited
20:30so we can make the money. So that's a
20:33cost we can bear. And that was a good
20:35deal for the West in the second half of
20:38the 20th century.
20:41But now with a decline
20:45slowly but steadily
20:47as the colonial explosion, the
20:50anti-colonial explosion works its way
20:54out
20:56and the West can't
20:59leech off the rest of the world the way
21:01it once could.
21:03when it's becoming more expensive to get
21:07the oil which is over there
21:10and it's more expensive to bring the
21:12coffee and the tea which grows over
21:14there etc etc
21:18the deal between the United States and
21:20the Europeans becomes no longer viable
21:25and Mr. Trump arrives and in his crude,
21:30blustery way tells the Europeans, "Get
21:34lost, we're not covering these expenses
21:37anymore.
21:39We have to protect ourselves
21:42as the empire declines. We're not going
21:45to protect you. It's too expensive."
21:49At which point the Europeans freak
21:53because if they have to pay for it
21:55themselves, where's the money going to
21:58come from?
22:00There's only two places it can come
22:02from. They can take it from the
22:05corporations and the rich,
22:07or they can take it from the mass of
22:09people. Well, given who the politicians
22:12are, they are the representatives of the
22:15corporations and the rich. They're not
22:17going to touch them. They are them.
22:20So what are they doing? Dismantling
22:23their social welfare state. Provoking on
22:27the left and the right the political
22:30movements which have their organizations
22:34in Europe the way they don't here.
22:37They have their organizations. So
22:40between the left and the right, Mr.
22:43Macron in France for example is a
22:46minority government. and he doesn't
22:47represent more than 20% of the people.
22:52All the rest of them are either in the
22:53far right or the far left. The dominant
22:57group in the national parliament, the
22:59Assumbre national in France for those
23:02who don't know is the left
23:06led by Je Melon name you don't know
23:10former member of the CP communist party
23:12in France. He's the head. He's a real
23:15leader of France, waiting, waiting for
23:19the disintegration.
23:22We are in an amazing moment. We are
23:25living through the final collapse of
23:29Europe.
23:31The demonization of Russia is a way for
23:35the leaders of of Europe to get their
23:39people or at least a portion of them to
23:42go along with a re
23:47defense focus
23:49saving their industry by giving them
23:53tanks and bullets and planes to produce.
23:56the government buys them because they
23:59can't survive any other way. Let me give
24:02you an idea. Earlier this year, there
24:05were meetings in the United States
24:08between officials of the US government
24:10on the one hand and the leadership of
24:13the German Folks Vagen Corporation,
24:17if not the largest and one of the five
24:19largest
24:21capitalist enterprises in all of
24:23Germany. And the topic of discussion was
24:25moving their headquarters to the United
24:28States.
24:30>> Wow.
24:31>> It's called the deindustrialization
24:34of Europe. It's already well along
24:38between the competition from China which
24:41they cannot match and the fact that they
24:44were surviving on cheap energy from
24:47Russia which the war in Ukraine closed
24:50off. They're done. They can't compete.
24:54They're finished.
24:56Volkswagen didn't decided not to move,
24:59but they also laid off. They announced
25:01it two weeks ago, 100,000
25:05workers.
25:07What?
25:09Try. We're not getting close to we're at
25:14the edge of the cliff. And demonizing
25:17Russia is a way that rationalize
25:21moving the wealth out of the hands of
25:23the mass of people.
25:26Cutting back health care. Cutting back
25:29free higher education. Cutting back
25:32what?
25:33Any hope Europe has
25:36of survival.
25:38For the last 500 years, Europe has been
25:43mostly the center of the universe.
25:47It created the world economy by
25:49subordinating Asia, Africa, Latin
25:52America to the European project and its
25:57outliers, US, Australia, you know that
26:02settler colonialism.
26:06But it's over.
26:08The colonies are done. They won't go
26:10back ever. We are living through the era
26:13of anticolonialism.
26:17Any effort to reestablish
26:21European colonies in the rest of the
26:24world will be met by the kind of
26:26resistance Israelis find in Gaza.
26:32And to pursue in these situation makes
26:35you genocidal.
26:39Genocide is not something that doesn't
26:41have to be explained. Why would people
26:45do that? Why would people who celebrate
26:50their own suffering at the hands of a
26:52holocaust perpetrate another one? That
26:55you have to answer that question or
26:58pretend that it isn't there.
27:02But Europe isn't the center anymore.
27:05Europe is becoming a footnote. The world
27:09economy is divided between the Chinese
27:11and their allies and the Americans,
27:15I was about to say, and their allies,
27:17but there aren't any anymore.
27:20They're so desperate in America, they
27:23savage the allies on either side of
27:26them, Canada and Mexico, let alone those
27:30on the other side of the Atlantic.
27:33We are in desperate times
27:36given the role of Europe in shaping our
27:39cultures
27:40as well as our politics and our
27:42economics.
27:45There ought to be some respect. We are
27:48going through a very difficult time
27:53and we ought to have the compassion for
27:56one another
27:58that we're going through a very big
28:00adjustment.
28:03It's like the tectonic plates of the
28:06earth. You get earthquakes as they move
28:09around.
28:10We are living through
28:13symbolic,
28:15metaphorical, but also economic,
28:17political, and cultural
28:20earthquakes
28:23that are only having more trouble
28:25because we're pretending that they're
28:27not there. that we're using denial,
28:30which most psychologists would argue not
28:34the best way to handle threatening
28:38social, economic, and natural
28:41developments.
28:43I'm an economist, so you know, I I look
28:45at it through the lens of how we are
28:49going about organizing the production
28:51and distribution of goods and services.
28:54What economists kind of do
28:58And and though I haven't talked much
29:00about it, you and I have, which is the
29:03rise of the Chinese as an explosion of a
29:07new source of goods and services and a
29:12society organized,
29:15and it has been now for 70 years,
29:18organized
29:19to win a place in the sun when the world
29:24was dominated by Europe and the United
29:26states.
29:29The communist revolution in China is
29:31very young. 1949 is the conventional
29:35date at which Maetong takes over.
29:40That's not very long ago, friends. 75
29:43years.
29:45And they went to work as did many
29:48colonies.
29:50They went to work in China. How can we
29:54poor country that they were among the
29:56poorest in the world saddled with the
29:59largest population of any country in the
30:02world a combination that was not happy
30:07of poverty and population?
30:10How can we find a way to stop being so
30:14poor to get a lifestyle that
30:19lets you live a lifetime in reasonable
30:22health, reasonable educa? They weren't
30:25revolutionary goals. They were goals
30:29to join what they could see in the rest
30:32of the world.
30:34And they were on their own. They didn't
30:36get any help. I want to remind Americans
30:39the Marshall Plan didn't go there
30:42because they were communists.
30:45I was a young man in the graduate school
30:48learning economics and the biggest sub
30:50field of economics that all of the young
30:52people or almost all of us wanted to
30:55specialize in was called in those days
30:58economic development.
31:01And what were we training to do? learn
31:04how to get rich in a country. You know,
31:08we went back to Adam Smith, the wealth
31:11of nations. He wrote that book to
31:14explain why England in that day in 18th
31:18century was wealthier than Europe.
31:22But that question, why is one country
31:25wealthier than another? What is it
31:27about? How do you deal with that? That
31:31question became pertinent again after
31:33World War II and I was part of that and
31:37many of my colleagues went to work at
31:39the United Nations or the USAID or uh
31:43Marshall Plan uh workg groups and went
31:46all over the world helping people uh but
31:49not all over the world not to China.
31:54And so I have to tell you and I'm only
31:57telling you what you already know.
32:00China is the one country we never helped
32:03and they did better than every other
32:05country that we did help.
32:08Think about it.
32:12You may not like the regime in China.
32:15You may have all kinds of criticism. So
32:18may I. And many of those are deserved.
32:21They have problems like any other
32:23society has problems.
32:26Well, what they set out to do and what
32:29we were all trained to help countries to
32:32do, they did better on their own than
32:36any country in Asia, Africa or Latin
32:39America. None of them are even close to
32:43what the Chinese achieved.
32:47Wow.
32:49What does that mean? That's that's the
32:53question for our time. Certainly one of
32:55the five big questions we ought to ask.
32:58We don't.
33:01Instead, our leaders refer to the
33:03Chinese as aggressive.
33:07How many bases do the United military
33:09bases do the United States have around
33:12the world? About 750.
33:14How many do the Chinese have? One.
33:18One
33:20in Djibouti in Africa. who who is
33:24aggressive.
33:26Only in America does a level of denial
33:30coupled with the demonization of the
33:32evil other take you so far away from
33:37asking the questions you could ask for
33:41which you have plenty of smart people
33:43who could think through interesting
33:45answers that we could then discuss and
33:48among which we would find ways to solve
33:51our problem other
33:54than a lossy war in the Ukraine, a
33:58losing war with Iran,
34:01a seventh fleet menacing China, you
34:05know, in the South China Sea. What What
34:08is this?
34:10There there's a level here of sheer
34:14childish immaturity
34:16beyond everything else that's making it
34:19so difficult
34:22to get a handle. And if Mr. Trump and
34:25his minions are successful, and by
34:28minions I mean the Supreme Court in
34:31making it impossible to throw him out
34:34with the next elections,
34:36then we'll have this bluster bluff
34:40response of denial for the indefinite
34:43future. And during that time, China will
34:46continue its rise and we will continue
34:51our fall. GDP this year, 2026, in
34:56Europe, will be flat. It'll be going
35:00down in certain countries, Germany,
35:03Britain, and barely rising in certain
35:06others. Here in the United States, we'll
35:10be lucky if we get 2%.
35:13In China, the GDP this year will grow at
35:17least 5%. There it is, friends.
35:22Relentless and in the end, determinant
35:25of where we're going.
35:30Sorry, Robinson. You see, you wound me
35:33up and then like the little bunny, I go
35:36until I hit the wall.
35:38No, I I love it and I I know that our
35:40our listeners love it too. One I mean
35:43there there are lots of things to
35:45comment on, but just one is after all of
35:48these conversations, I find it still
35:51surprising when there are so many new
35:54ideas I've yet to hear. And one, I don't
35:57think I was aware of the
36:01general importance and strategic
36:03significance of Siberia being this huge
36:07undeveloped
36:09swath of land for Russia, especially
36:11given, as you mentioned, um, the polar
36:15ice caps receding.
36:17>> Yeah. You know, we we watch our leader
36:19talk about Greenland, you know, with his
36:22fantasy. The Russians don't have to
36:24worry. Denmark doesn't own any part of
36:27Siberia. They don't have anyone else to
36:30answer to. It's their country from the
36:33Euros all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
36:36They haven't begun to do with that land
36:40mass what they could do with or without
36:43the polar cap. You know, it if
36:47development is what they need, that's
36:50not their problem,
36:52you know. And not only that, China has
36:56shown the world that you can do very
36:58well, thank you, with an enormous
37:01population on a much more constricted
37:04quantity of land.
37:07You know, it's a lesson the Israelis
37:09might think. You know, if you need more
37:12space, you can also go up. You don't
37:14have to go horizontal. You know, it be
37:18it's very very strange.
37:21I remember when when I was a student
37:25at Yale University. Yale University
37:29uh
37:31is a very very very very very rich
37:34institution
37:36on the border of which is a very very
37:39very poor black ghetto and they
37:42literally abut one another. Um,
37:47and so you had a problem for Yale. How
37:52do you
37:54grow?
37:56Well, one area that was proposed by the
37:59naive among them was to grow and
38:02displace
38:03the black ghetto. the land was cheap
38:06because it was a black ghetto, but there
38:10would have been
38:11serious
38:14consequence. It would have been push
38:16back by a black community uh that had
38:19exploded in 1967, the year of the riots
38:23across America. There had been very bad
38:25riots in New Haven. And Yale is a very
38:29rich enclave screaming for the attention
38:33of bitter poor people, especially
38:36because Yale is white and the poor
38:38people are black. So a smarter group of
38:42Yaleies got together and said, "Okay, we
38:46have to grow, but we don't dare not move
38:48the border." So they built up. So for
38:51the first time in the great history of
38:53Yale, they had dormitories that weren't
38:56three or four stories high. The
38:58dormitories are 12 and 15 stories high.
39:02They adjusted.
39:03>> Mhm.
39:05>> You know, Israel can adjust.
39:09>> Well, the the next thing I'd like to ask
39:12has a few ingredients. So one we
39:16mentioned colonialism, the military
39:19budget, nuclear weapons on the one hand.
39:22Then on the other we've got the decline
39:25of US of the US and and Europe. And then
39:29on the third hand we have uh the fact as
39:31you mentioned that you're an economist.
39:34And I'm not sure if Markx has anything
39:37to say about this because you're our
39:40expert on marks, not me.
39:43What exactly is the connection between
39:47war and economic decline?
39:52Uh
39:55economic decline.
39:57Let's start in the the broadest sense.
40:00And here's what we learn. And Markx is
40:03very helpful in this. Uh Markx, in case
40:06you're wondering, Markx wrote about
40:10the decline of European uh dominance. He
40:16was very interested in the Chinese
40:19economy, the Indian economy. He read up
40:22on it. He had lots of commentary on it.
40:25Um just like he had lots of commentary
40:28on the United States, which he found
40:30very interesting as well. Uh, I don't
40:32know if you know, but he was for many
40:35years a reporter, a European
40:38correspondent for a New York newspaper.
40:41And in his capacity as a correspondent
40:44for a New York newspaper, he wrote some
40:47of the best analysis of the American
40:49Civil War you can find anywhere. The
40:53role of slavery, the role of the Civil
40:55War, the dominance of the North, what it
40:58meant, all of that. Um anyway, what
41:02we've learned through Markx and others,
41:04not just him, uh about the decline of
41:07empires is this.
41:10Every time an empire declines, and a
41:12footnote, every empire has which ought
41:15to sink in, the Roman Empire, the Greek
41:19Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Dutch
41:21Empire, the you name it, empire, born,
41:26evolved over time, and then passes away.
41:30So if you are an empire, as everyone who
41:33pays attention knows the United States
41:36has been for the last at least 75 years,
41:40I would say more like 100 125. then you
41:44know we obviously were born and you know
41:47we obviously have evolved and so the
41:50next step uh is that other one the
41:53decline not about whether it's just
41:56really about when and I would argue it's
41:59already underway we've peaked anyway
42:02what we know about all empires that
42:05decline is that when the decline gets
42:08underway the people who sit at the top
42:12of an empire
42:14the richest ones, the ones who run it,
42:16the empire, the Zar, the Tsar, whatever,
42:20you know, the Kaiser, every language has
42:23its name for this. They are the ones in
42:26a position to hold on to their wealth
42:30and power even as it declines.
42:35It's the middle and lower classes, the
42:38working class, which is not in a
42:40position to save itself. And so the
42:43costs of decline
42:45are disproportionately
42:47imposed on the middle and the bottom. We
42:51are living through that. When Elon Musk,
42:56the richest man in the world, stands
42:59there with a chainsaw, if you caught
43:02that image, uh, proudly announcing in
43:06the early days of Mr. Trump's second
43:08term, how he's taking a chainsaw to the
43:12government bureaucracy, getting rid of
43:14the education department, firing all
43:17these scientists and in the CDC and so
43:20forth and so on. This is a theatric of
43:25the decline of social services.
43:29Meanwhile, the defense budget and all of
43:32the perks of rich people are being
43:34improved.
43:37The big beautiful tax cut is a wonderful
43:40offset for the richest among us.
43:44Whatever they might suffer from a
43:46declining government budget for social
43:49services, they can now afford as a
43:51private expenditure because of the taxes
43:54they just got reduced. I mean, it is
43:56obscene what's going on, especially if
43:59you know that history.
44:02But if it if you allow that to continue
44:05as we are allowing it in this country,
44:08you are going to rip this country apart.
44:11Why? Because the mass of people are
44:15going to have sooner or later a
44:18realization that they are being
44:20deprived.
44:22American literature right now is full of
44:25signs of that.
44:27article after article in mainstream
44:30media is talking about how Gen Z is
44:34getting very disappointed.
44:36My students are coming to me. They're
44:38not getting jobs the way I had it being
44:41a professor with tenure at a major
44:43university. My students can't get those
44:46jobs. They're disappearing. My students
44:49are adjuncts. They teach two semesters
44:52over here at this school. Then they run
44:54across town and teach one course in the
44:56evening on Thursdays at that school.
44:58What is that? They can't do any
45:00research. They they they're busy grading
45:03papers.
45:05You know, more power to them. They're
45:07they're heroes and heroins in my mind.
45:09But I understand and so do they.
45:14I'm sitting to here in Manhattan.
45:17I just watched basically young people
45:2335 years of age and younger
45:27do the work of winning the mayoral tea
45:31election a few months ago for a young
45:35Muslim socialist self-proclaimed
45:40who's the mayor of our city now.
45:43This is a city with an enormous Jewish
45:46population.
45:48He's a Muslim who when asked, "What will
45:51you do if Benjamin Netanyahu visits New
45:54York?" His answer was, "I will have him
45:57arrested."
45:58The majority of the Jews of New York
46:01voted for this guy.
46:05He is the mayor. He is a social serious.
46:08He's a member of the DSA and all of that
46:10that implies.
46:13How could How's this possible? Because
46:15those young people are angry and upset.
46:19They were taught to expect and believe
46:22that they would live a certain kind of
46:25standard of living, have a certain kind
46:27of job. Not exactly this one or that
46:30one. Maybe not their number one choice,
46:32but that they would they don't have
46:34that. They have zero security
46:39in a declining situation.
46:43I have a a daughter very close to me.
46:48She doesn't think there will be a social
46:49security when she gets to be my age.
46:53She just doesn't believe it'll be there.
46:55Where' this come from?
46:58No one ever told her it won't be there.
47:01She just is picking up and all her
47:04friends are the same.
47:06their whole attitude towards the country
47:09is completely different from what I grew
47:11up in.
47:14So I think we are already well underway
47:17and the country is being torn apart. In
47:19one part of the country the decline in
47:22their situation is made them turn to the
47:25right. That isn't surprising. This is a
47:27country that has flirted with the right
47:29wing all its all my life.
47:32It has repressed the left and encouraged
47:35the right. If people get under pressure
47:37and don't like the consensus anymore, of
47:41course they will go to the right. At
47:43least at first,
47:45if the right doesn't do anything for
47:47them, then they'll go left. I think
47:49that's what's going on in the country
47:52right now. And I think it will continue.
47:54And it's beginning to scare the people
47:57at the top as they notice. We just had
48:00another election and several more
48:02socialists won to sit in Congress from
48:06the New York area and I believe it's
48:09happening uh in Colorado, in California
48:12and so on and it will happen more.
48:16So when the empire declines,
48:20after a certain point, the people on top
48:23realize, uhoh, we're holding on,
48:29but the situation is getting away from
48:31us. Here in America, the rich are
48:34holding on. They got wonderful tax cuts.
48:36They love Mr. Trump. Oh yes, he
48:40overstates it. Oh yes, he's screwed. But
48:43boy, has he taken care of us. I want to
48:46remind everyone his top priority, his
48:50first priority in his first presidency
48:53was the tax cut of December 2017, the
48:57biggest tax cut for corporations and the
49:00rich in our country's history. In his
49:03second term, his first and biggest
49:06priority was what he called the big
49:09beautiful tax cut. remember just a few
49:12months ago. And that was another gift to
49:14the same people.
49:17He's showing them, don't worry, whatever
49:20else I do. A war here, a an outrage
49:24against immigrants over there.
49:27Ugly. Yeah, but I'm going to take care
49:29of you. And he did. And that's how
49:32declines of empires usually work. But if
49:36you keep doing that, you will eventually
49:39produce so much tension at the bottom
49:43where you've unloaded all the costs that
49:46people will begin to rebel. We're at
49:49that point now.
49:52So now what do you do? Now you got a
49:55real problem.
49:58If you continue what you were doing,
50:02you are now on the edge of provoking
50:05what?
50:07Well, you could provoke in other cities
50:10what ICE discovered in Minneapolis,
50:13which is you can mobilize an entire city
50:16to throw you out
50:19and then what? That's one question.
50:22Well, one answer to that question, let's
50:25call it the hegsth answer, is to 66%
50:29increase in military and literally
50:32organizing ICE as a private army on top
50:36of your regular army.
50:39The repressive, many empires have tried
50:42that. That never works.
50:46Between
50:49the end of the social services because
50:51you don't have the money anymore
50:54and the overwhelming
50:57costs of the military,
50:59it blows up. It just blows up. That
51:02doesn't work. What else can you do?
51:05Well, you can entertain
51:08fantasies
51:10in America right now. The fantasy is
51:16we can control the Middle East. You
51:18can't.
51:20We grab Greenland won't be easy.
51:24Grab Canada won't be easy. Retake the
51:28Panama Canal won't be easy.
51:32What have you got?
51:34Demonize China. We can do that. But we
51:38will certainly do that.
51:41But where does that won't solve much?
51:46We for 25 years we have tried to slow
51:48down China's development. And maybe we
51:52did.
51:54Maybe we slowed it. For much of the last
51:5775 years, they were growing,
52:00excuse me, between five and 9% a year.
52:03They now grow around 5%. So maybe United
52:06States gets some credit for break but is
52:09still way ahead of us.
52:13So then to imagine we're going to be
52:15more successful in the future than we
52:18have been in the past. There is no
52:20reason to believe that.
52:24So my conclusion is
52:29that that we are a shrinking empire.
52:33Let me take a small microcosm to show
52:36the importance.
52:38Iran is now going to be forever
52:45in control of the Strait of Hormuz,
52:50which remains a major passage for large
52:55parts of the world's international
52:58trade, not just in oil and gas, liqufied
53:02gas, but also in derivative products
53:07from oil and gas that include
53:10fertilizer,
53:12jet fuel,
53:14helium, and several other important
53:17commodities.
53:20And it's going to be a cost. Ships that
53:24go through that canal
53:27are going to give some money to Iran
53:30because Iran is going to police it. Iran
53:33is going to control it. Iran is going to
53:36keep it clear and Iran wants some of the
53:42wealth
53:43that its area makes possible. It's
53:47taking advantage of its geography
53:51just like lots of other countries take
53:55advantage of their geography
54:00and always have. But it's a cost for the
54:03United States. It didn't have to pay
54:06that. We are all going to pay a little
54:09more.
54:10Even if the the things we buy do not
54:14themselves cross the straight of Hermuz,
54:17they rely on something in their
54:20production that does and that will of
54:23course cost will filter through.
54:27And then there are all the other
54:28countries that are watching Iran figure
54:33out how to become
54:36a player in the world economy,
54:40not just a source of wealth for others.
54:45And if I had time, I would take you
54:47through the history of Iran.
54:51For a century, Iran has been the play
54:55thing of Western European and American
55:00colonial powers.
55:03Initially, the British Empire as so much
55:06of that region was divided between the
55:09British and the French.
55:14Back in 1953,
55:16an effort was made by the Iranian people
55:20to elect a government, which they did
55:23democratically, reasonably democratic
55:26election, puts into power a man named
55:29Mosedc became very famous
55:32and his election in 53, he was committed
55:36to a campaign make the oil underneath
55:40our land that Allah has provisioned. ed
55:44us with
55:46become a source of wealth for the
55:48Iranian people, not the British who
55:52controlled it.
55:55Immediately the United States and
55:57Britain, CIA, MI6 went to work and
56:02overthrew the Mozc government
56:06and installed their own leader, a man
56:10named Sha Palvi. And that was the sha of
56:14Iran who ran the country from 53 to the
56:18late 1970s.
56:21He was a dictator. Who cared? Nobody.
56:25He car operated with the SAD, which was
56:28the the secret police.
56:31Uh generations of Iranians left the
56:35country because it was a dictatorship.
56:39Many of them moved to Los Angeles. Many
56:44of them moved to Paris. There are huge
56:47Iranian expatriate communities in all
56:50those places that were exiles from the
56:53colonization
56:55of that country.
56:58In the 1970s,
57:00the religious leaders, the Ayatollas and
57:03the Mullas of their branch of Islam rose
57:07up in revolution against the sha of
57:10Iran. He had to leave the country which
57:13he did and he went into exile. Where did
57:17he go? He went to the United States
57:20where he was welcomed by uh Kissinger
57:24and Nixon and all the rest. uh
57:28to his real home which is here in the
57:31United States and the Mullers and the
57:34Ayatollas took over.
57:38Immediately the United States went to
57:40work
57:42to try to unseat them again now that the
57:46empire all had been inherited by the US
57:50and we've had nothing but enmity
57:53from the late 70s to today between the
57:56United States and Iran culminating in
58:00the war a year ago June of 2025 when
58:05Israel and the United States attacked
58:08Iran. American
58:10memory being what it is, you may not
58:13remember. It was called the 12-day war,
58:15which will give you an idea of how long
58:17it lasted.
58:20But
58:22never give up. You [ __ ] them. You
58:25claim to [ __ ] them. Mr. Trump
58:27announced we, I'm now going to quote
58:29him, obliterated their nuclear
58:32potential. Well, as I mentioned to you
58:35earlier, you can't do that because Iran
58:38is allied with Russia and China and the
58:41nuclear potential there exceeds anything
58:45you can blow out blow up without
58:47yourself being blown up. And that
58:50craziness we haven't arrived at yet.
58:56So now what has happened? Iran figured
59:00out over the last 50 years of continuous
59:04hostility from the United States after
59:08having suffered a a generation of
59:11dictatorship imposed by the United
59:13States and the overthrow of their
59:15elected government by the United States.
59:18Who's afraid of whom here? With what
59:22justification?
59:24Americans actually were told, "You got
59:27to be worried about the Iranians.
59:30They may have nuclear weapons and use
59:33them against us." Maybe, maybe, maybe. A
59:37long history of actual who attacks who
59:41versus a maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe.
59:44Americans go for that kind of reasoning.
59:47If you want to savage the other, that's
59:49the kind of argument you kind of need,
59:52especially when you have no real
59:53evidence. But the real importance of
59:56Iran is none of that.
59:59Too many other countries have too
1:00:01similar a history. The importance of
1:00:04Iran is they won. They came, they
1:00:08figured out over the last 50 years how
1:00:12to defeat the United States. They're
1:00:16never going to defeat the United States
1:00:18in wealth and power. They're a country
1:00:21of 90 million people with very limited
1:00:24resources. We are a country of 330
1:00:28million people with huge resources.
1:00:32So they understood they knew they
1:00:35understood how to defeat this country.
1:00:38You focus everything we can do. We got
1:00:41this straight of Hormuz. We got the
1:00:43water. We got the missiles. got the
1:00:44alarm. Here's how. And they went to work
1:00:49and they did it. It's like the Chinese,
1:00:52they went to work to build a competing
1:00:55economic powerhouse and they did it.
1:01:01You know, the American colonists after
1:01:02they fought this the two wars with
1:01:05England, the war of 18 the war of 1776
1:01:09and then the other one, the war of 1812,
1:01:11the same issue. When they were finally
1:01:13independent, they went to work to become
1:01:17a powerful economy. And they went from
1:01:19being a poor backward North American
1:01:22colony into being the American dominant
1:01:26global economic power.
1:01:29All that the Iranians and the Chinese
1:01:32are doing is that
1:01:35they have to find a different way
1:01:37because they face a different set of
1:01:39circumstances. But focusing in that way,
1:01:42the irony is that the Iranians showed
1:01:46other countries how to do it. They're
1:01:49learning it in Oman right now. They got
1:01:52a piece of that straight also. They're
1:01:55working with the Iranians to control the
1:01:58straight of Hormuz together.
1:02:02All the other countries in the Gulf that
1:02:05sit on oil and gas, you can bet right
1:02:08now, this is very important, they are
1:02:14busy rethinking everything.
1:02:18That's why the war in Iran is important.
1:02:21Every country is rethinking everything.
1:02:26Every country realizes, whoa, we thought
1:02:29the United States ran the show. They
1:02:33couldn't run this show. They've been
1:02:35bested. They're going They can't control
1:02:38this.
1:02:40They can't.
1:02:43We thought they could.
1:02:46We have military bases in in Bahrain, in
1:02:50Kuwait, in the United Arab Emirates, and
1:02:53so on. We had the military bases there
1:02:56to protect us. The Americans said they
1:02:58would protect us. They didn't. We're
1:03:02target practice for the Iranian
1:03:04missiles. And they get here all the
1:03:07time.
1:03:08Israel's Iron Dome. Does that protect
1:03:11Israel? Not at all. These powerhouses
1:03:16aren't.
1:03:17We've hitched our futures to the wrong
1:03:21horses
1:03:23and we got to change. We've got to
1:03:26rethink. We got to send a delegation to
1:03:29Beijing to talk to the Chinese about
1:03:33covering our bets.
1:03:37We can't be the American friend. That's
1:03:41too dangerous. Look at what Look at the
1:03:44missiles that hit us.
1:03:46Look at it. Look at We don't want this
1:03:49anymore. And the Iranians are in a
1:03:51position to do that to us any time they
1:03:56want to.
1:03:58Uh-oh.
1:03:59Uh-oh. Now what? Every country, but also
1:04:04every large company, including every
1:04:06large American company, they won't tell
1:04:09you about it, but they're having
1:04:10meetings right here. And I'm I'm I'm
1:04:13blocks away. I'm living I'm talking to
1:04:15you from Manhattan, uh, downtown New
1:04:17York City, few blocks from me. They're
1:04:20having meetings all the time. I know
1:04:22some of them personally. How do we
1:04:25reconfigure our supply chain? Can we get
1:04:29around this trade of Hormuz? Is that
1:04:32cheaper or more expensive than paying
1:04:35something to the Iranians to get our
1:04:37ships through there? Should we stop
1:04:41relying on petroleum and go electric?
1:04:45Oh, but we can't go electric because the
1:04:47United States is 100% tariff on Chinese
1:04:51electric vehicles.
1:04:53Well, let's send our lobbyists to
1:04:56Washington to get the tariffs reduced so
1:05:00we can get the same highquality, lowcost
1:05:03electric truck that our competitors
1:05:06around the world are buying from China
1:05:09every day.
1:05:12Everything is changing, including here
1:05:14in the United States. The adjustment to
1:05:18the changing global economy is fully
1:05:21underway.
1:05:23And in that story,
1:05:26Europe is
1:05:29fading into a place we will in the
1:05:32future look at for mainly quaint
1:05:36historical tourism.
1:05:41I should stop there.
1:05:45Well,
1:05:47Rick, I hope you know that even though
1:05:49we we have these conversations for our
1:05:52audience, I get so much out of listening
1:05:56to you speak and I always learn so much
1:05:58every time we talk. So,
1:05:59>> I I tell you what I'm doing. I I try
1:06:04I try to ask myself
1:06:08the questions that should be being asked
1:06:13as a general conversation of the United
1:06:15States. These are the questions that our
1:06:18newspapers, our journalists, our
1:06:20magazines,
1:06:22we should be having a debate. How do we
1:06:26handle this?
1:06:30You know, I I used it once before
1:06:32talking to you. I'm going to use it
1:06:33again. I hope you don't mind.
1:06:36>> No.
1:06:37>> The British had to figure out they
1:06:40fought two wars in the United States to
1:06:44prevent this colony from being lost to
1:06:46them.
1:06:49And and they lost them both. They sent
1:06:52entire armies to the United States to
1:06:55fight that war. the way we the way the
1:06:58US sends armies to to the Middle East or
1:07:01the Far East or Vietnam or Afghanistan
1:07:03or wherever we send our armies
1:07:07very very expensive and then you lose on
1:07:10top of it. So after the second one after
1:07:14the war of 1812 the British made a deal
1:07:17with the United States a deal.
1:07:21And here's how the deal went.
1:07:24Okay, you beat us, say the British,
1:07:29but we would like to isolate
1:07:32your victory from the rest of the
1:07:34immense British Empire, which as you
1:07:37know, the sun never sets on because we
1:07:40have an empire in Asia, we have an
1:07:42empire in Latin America a little bit,
1:07:44and we have an empire in Africa.
1:07:48So, how about this?
1:07:51You don't bother us in Asia and Africa
1:07:57and we won't bother you in Latin
1:08:00America. Take the whole thing. Leave us
1:08:04with the Bahama and Bermuda and the
1:08:07islands and that and you know that the
1:08:09little bit we have there. Don't mess
1:08:12with that. But the rest of Latin
1:08:14America, you we know that in America as
1:08:17the so-called Monroe Doctrine because it
1:08:21was finalized under President Monroe,
1:08:25but it was an outgrowth of a deal. And
1:08:29you might think of it as a deal in which
1:08:32the British ruling class says to itself,
1:08:37we can hold on
1:08:40to most of our wealth, our power,
1:08:43everything that we've made possible in
1:08:46the British Empire by ripping off India
1:08:50and the rest of our empire. We can live
1:08:54with the loss of North America
1:08:57as long as it doesn't infect other parts
1:09:02of the world. We don't want the Indians
1:09:05and the Africans to realize what the
1:09:07Americans did.
1:09:11And the United States said, "Great.
1:09:14in exchange for you not sending another
1:09:16army
1:09:18and working a deal maybe with the French
1:09:20that we have to worry about. You come at
1:09:22us because the French had a history in
1:09:24Canada and the French had a history in
1:09:27Mexico. Whoa.
1:09:30So, we cut a deal. All I'm saying is the
1:09:34United States might want to think about
1:09:36that and ask itself the question,
1:09:41might the Chinese mean it when they say
1:09:47they would like to make a deal?
1:09:50Give them the room to grow
1:09:53and become wealthy too, which is what
1:09:56they ask.
1:09:58Make room for them.
1:10:01Will it cost you a little? Yes. But your
1:10:05effort to stop the Chinese is one big
1:10:08fat failure. So what have you got to
1:10:11lose?
1:10:12You might avoid a horrible war. You
1:10:16think a war in Europe or a war in the
1:10:20Middle East is dangerous. You're going
1:10:23to go up against the Chinese,
1:10:25four times your population.
1:10:28Now almost you're equal economically
1:10:31with a nuclear weapon arsenal. I mean
1:10:35are you kidding? You're going to be that
1:10:37stupid?
1:10:40No, I don't think so.
1:10:42And I think you can have a basis. We
1:10:45should be talking about this. I ask
1:10:47myself the qua then I try to answer the
1:10:51question or even to let my imagination
1:10:54help me try to answer it from different
1:10:57perspectives
1:10:59and I tell you the benefit of doing that
1:11:01exercise is it you get a larger better
1:11:06inclusive story to tell picture to paint
1:11:11about what's going on and if I have
1:11:14anything to offer any of the audiences I
1:11:17deal with it's an attempt to try to
1:11:20understand.
1:11:22It's a very human thing. No matter what
1:11:25the problems are, if you understand
1:11:28them, it's a big step forward. Even if
1:11:31you can't solve them, to understand
1:11:34them, you know, why do we go to a
1:11:36therapist? We're having trouble uh in
1:11:39our relationships, in our studies, in
1:11:42our work. And we go to a person who
1:11:45helps us think through our own evolution
1:11:48as a person to help us understand
1:11:52where these problems come from. In that
1:11:55understanding
1:11:57is a therapy. It's therapeutic to do
1:12:01that. Well, I'm trying to be therapeutic
1:12:04about the dilemmas we face collectively,
1:12:08socially, nationally.
1:12:19We've spoken about nuclear weapons with
1:12:23regard to Iran, and we've also spoken a
1:12:26bit about Europe's rearmament and the
1:12:29war in Ukraine. And I'm wondering if you
1:12:33think that
1:12:34there is a genuine possibility of
1:12:38nuclear war in either sphere or both.
1:12:44I'm afraid my answer is much as I wish I
1:12:48didn't say this. I think the potential
1:12:51is there and I think it's serious and I
1:12:54will tell you why.
1:12:56>> In both places.
1:12:58>> No, I'm I'm thinking of Europe. uh in
1:13:01the Middle East,
1:13:03Iran isn't going to do it probably
1:13:05because it doesn't have the weapons. And
1:13:07if it did have the weapons, which it
1:13:09doesn't have. Uh there's no evidence
1:13:12that it has them. Um if it did have
1:13:15them, it would be self so
1:13:18self-destructive to use them that it's
1:13:22hard to imagine. I don't think the
1:13:24United States the stakes aren't high
1:13:26enough and the risk too high.
1:13:30There is one player in that situation
1:13:32who might that's Israel. Uh and might
1:13:36they use it? I think so.
1:13:39Um and their situation is becoming
1:13:42desperate.
1:13:43Uh their alliance with the United States
1:13:47is now more what shall I put it frayed,
1:13:50questionable, in trouble than I have
1:13:54ever seen it in my lifetime. So
1:13:57uh
1:13:59are they in a position of desperation? I
1:14:02think so. Without the United States,
1:14:06they can't survive. They have been now
1:14:08on a war footing for
1:14:11many years. They're not a very big
1:14:14country. 78 million people. I'm talking
1:14:17about the the Jewish part. The other
1:14:20part is so repressed and suppressed that
1:14:23I'm putting it out of the story. It's
1:14:25part of the story at a very crucial
1:14:28part. They have not defeated neither
1:14:31Hamas nor the Palestinians.
1:14:34But the seven or eight uh Jewish
1:14:38citizens of Israel have worked
1:14:42themselves into their they made a
1:14:45decision that military uh was the way to
1:14:49secure themselves and in the process you
1:14:53know I'm a Hegelian on some level uh
1:14:57they've made themselves deeply insecure
1:15:01so insecure that they might do something
1:15:04crazy like use a a nuclear weapon uh on
1:15:10on on on Iran. Extraordinary.
1:15:14But no, I think the greater danger is in
1:15:16Europe. And the reason is the stepbystep
1:15:20uh escalation. what what John Mirshimer
1:15:24uh who has a great deal of wisdom about
1:15:27these issues uh even though he and I are
1:15:30politically light years apart he's a
1:15:33person you can learn a great deal from
1:15:35he's a I I assume you know who he is
1:15:38he's a political science professor at
1:15:40the University of Chicago um very very
1:15:43very insightful about these things
1:15:46anyway
1:15:48uh he calls it the escalation ladder
1:15:51here. Uh it was Russia that invaded
1:15:55Ukraine uh back in February of 2022.
1:16:00Um the West immediately lined up behind
1:16:04Ukraine
1:16:06um but promised not to escalate.
1:16:09Uh it did then escalate. It it brought
1:16:12in tanks when it had said it wouldn't.
1:16:15It brought in
1:16:17step after step. Uh and now finally in
1:16:21recent uh months, two or three months
1:16:23now, it has provided Ukraine with an
1:16:28endless supply of drones which Ukraine
1:16:31has used to bomb uh St. Petersburg, to
1:16:36bomb Moscow. Um now, so far the damage
1:16:40they've been able to do is not very
1:16:42great. The Russian capacity to knock
1:16:45these things down is very developed and
1:16:49they're no doubt developing them more.
1:16:52But direct attacks on the hinterland in
1:16:54Russia is a major escalation.
1:16:58And they did not do that in the first
1:17:01several years of the war.
1:17:04Uh and during that time, Russia slowly
1:17:08but methodically
1:17:09defeated the Ukrainian army. even though
1:17:13it was financed and equipped by the
1:17:16United States and Western Europe
1:17:20to the point that that the biggest joke
1:17:22about the war in Ukraine traveling
1:17:24around the world is that the West
1:17:27decided to fight the Russians down to
1:17:30the very last Ukrainian. Uh, in other
1:17:33words, the Ukrainian people pay the
1:17:36price for a war between the European
1:17:40West and the America on the one hand and
1:17:42Russia on the other. During that time,
1:17:45that war has been escalated every step
1:17:49of the way. We are now at a point where
1:17:53Putin and the Russian leadership,
1:17:57and I should say that unlike Mr. Starmer
1:18:01in England, he's already gone. Uh, but
1:18:03Mr. Macron in France or Mr. Mertz in
1:18:07Germany or Ms. Maloney in Italy or Trump
1:18:11in the United States,
1:18:14the popularity of the polls Mr. Putin
1:18:17has puts all of them to shame. He is
1:18:22extremely popular in Russia. I only
1:18:25mention it not to justify him or
1:18:28polling. neither of which I'm a great
1:18:31lover of. But you don't see the daylight
1:18:35between leader and follower that you see
1:18:38on the other side.
1:18:40We we we can't know what Mr. Zalinsk's
1:18:44position is because he hasn't allowed an
1:18:47election since the time of his service
1:18:50ran out. He's not his term is over was
1:18:53over quite some time ago. He forbade new
1:18:56elections. He operates as a dictator.
1:19:01Whatever you think of that, that's the
1:19:03reality that we have.
1:19:06The Russians have announced that this
1:19:08latest provocation for them, this latest
1:19:11escalation
1:19:14will be responded to and they are taking
1:19:17their sweet time to decide how to
1:19:21respond to the fact that they that the
1:19:25IR the Ukrainians are using drones and
1:19:29you know even if you shoot down 90% of
1:19:32them 10% get through they do damage They
1:19:35start a fire here. They blow something
1:19:38up over there. And they have done that
1:19:40particularly in the Crimean area of uh
1:19:44of that Russia took over. Uh but also in
1:19:47Moscow and St. Petersburg, their two
1:19:50most important cities. I mean, I'm
1:19:53trying to get you to think about what it
1:19:56would mean to the American mentality if
1:20:00there were drones bombing New York and
1:20:04Washington as we were speaking now. So
1:20:08Mos people living in Moscow tonight will
1:20:11go to go turn off the light and climb
1:20:14into bed and it will occur to them that
1:20:18the noise they're hearing is a drone
1:20:21blowing up something next door a mile
1:20:25away or in your bedroom. Who knows?
1:20:29>> As an American, it's hard to imagine
1:20:31that happening at home,
1:20:32>> right? But that is and for the R for the
1:20:35Russians
1:20:36please understand they have not had this
1:20:40since 1945.
1:20:45Right? So for 75 year more than 75 years
1:20:50they have not had to worry about this.
1:20:55They may have worried that there might
1:20:56be a nuclear war someday, but not bombs
1:21:00going off, you know, on the bus ride
1:21:04between my home and the office where I
1:21:06work, the downtown Moscow or something
1:21:09or St. Petersburg or other places where
1:21:12the these drones have done damage,
1:21:15particularly oil refineries, gas
1:21:17stations, things like that.
1:21:20By the way, the damage done by Russia in
1:21:24Ukraine is much greater. The Russians
1:21:26send over huge swarms of of drones and
1:21:30the Ukrainians have a degraded uh air
1:21:34defense system so many more of them get
1:21:36through. So, I don't want to be
1:21:38misunderstood here. The damage is
1:21:40happening on both sides. But it didn't
1:21:44happen before inside Russia. It happened
1:21:48to the parts of Ukraine that the
1:21:50Russians have controlled for years now.
1:21:53Those have been bombed and and so forth.
1:21:57But this is an escalation. And the
1:21:59Russians have said if you escalate, we
1:22:04will retaliate. Don't do it. It's a red
1:22:07line. And that red line has now been
1:22:10repeatedly crossed. Okay. So here's
1:22:13where we stand. Everyone who pays
1:22:16attention,
1:22:17which unfortunately is a minority here
1:22:20in the United States, but everybody who
1:22:22pays attention
1:22:24is now I'm one of them. I am now waiting
1:22:28to see with great worry what the
1:22:32retaliation
1:22:34of the Russians will be.
1:22:38Their foreign minister
1:22:41Lavrov has twice now said in the last
1:22:45several weeks twice he has urged Western
1:22:50diplomats including Americans
1:22:54who have offices or headquarters in
1:22:57Kiev, the capital of Ukraine to leave
1:23:01Kiev.
1:23:03He's telling them it is not safe for you
1:23:08to stay there. We're letting you know so
1:23:12you can get take the time, get out of
1:23:15there. Well, that's a none too subtle
1:23:18hint at what might be coming. So, one
1:23:22possible retaliation
1:23:25because they have they have bombed uh or
1:23:29droned Kiev already. would not be the
1:23:32first time, but they are able to send
1:23:35over a much greater
1:23:38impact, a much greater number of drones
1:23:42and missiles. And a footnote, if you pay
1:23:45attention, you will know that the
1:23:48Russians have shown the world a new kind
1:23:52of missile has a name. It's called
1:23:55Orchnik.
1:23:58that if if you don't know this, it's
1:24:00because you're not paying attention. I'm
1:24:03not giving you any secrets. I'm not I
1:24:05don't know any secrets to give you uh
1:24:08I'm just telling you what's in the
1:24:09newspapers and what's verifiable in the
1:24:12newspapers.
1:24:14The Orreshnik is a missile against which
1:24:17the West does not yet have a defense.
1:24:21So, they send it, we get it. It ain't
1:24:24going to be stopped. It's not going to
1:24:26be interfered with. It has a speed and
1:24:29it has a structure. I'm sure the
1:24:31Americans will given the what we do, we
1:24:35will figure out a way to defend against
1:24:37it just as the Russians figure out ways
1:24:40to defend against America. But for the
1:24:43time being, in this moment, you can't
1:24:46defend against it. Um, so one
1:24:50retaliation will be massive
1:24:54destruction of their capital.
1:24:59I I s suppose they're trying to force
1:25:02Zalinski
1:25:04to leave as well. If Zalinski leaves
1:25:08Kiev,
1:25:09the damage it will do to his standing
1:25:12inside Ukraine uh is enormous. And so
1:25:15that may be what they're after.
1:25:18The second option is that they will
1:25:21change their strategy and whereas
1:25:24initially they had wanted only to take
1:25:27that eastern end of Ukraine called the
1:25:30Donbas. It's the name of that area most
1:25:34of which the Russians already have, but
1:25:36they don't have all of it yet.
1:25:40The idea was that was they would take
1:25:42that and stop leaving the rest of
1:25:44Ukraine, most of it
1:25:47to be its own country.
1:25:49They may now change that and they may
1:25:52add the one port of importance that
1:25:56Ukraine has on the Black Sea and that is
1:25:59the city of Odessa, a long old city of
1:26:04of Russia uh which will then become
1:26:07Russian again instead of Ukrainian. Uh
1:26:10so that may be how they retaliate by
1:26:13taking that city which they haven't
1:26:15taken yet.
1:26:18And then there are two questions. If
1:26:20they do that, what then will the
1:26:23Europeans do? Because then the Russians
1:26:26will have retaliated to an escalation
1:26:29with an escalation of their own. And so
1:26:32then in a sense, you know, the ball goes
1:26:34in the other court. Will the Europeans
1:26:37feel that they then need to and what
1:26:41will they do
1:26:43at that point? The question becomes,
1:26:48whatever the Europeans do,
1:26:50let's assume for the moment that they
1:26:54don't revert to nuclear weapons,
1:26:58which would be
1:27:01really stupid.
1:27:04I mean, do the Europeans have nuclear
1:27:07weapons? Yes, the French and the British
1:27:10certainly have them,
1:27:12but they don't have anything like the
1:27:15arsenal that the Russians do, and
1:27:18everybody knows it. So, it would be very
1:27:21strange to do that.
1:27:24What about the Russians? Well, Mr. Putin
1:27:28has two or three times now
1:27:32basically said not exactly in these
1:27:35words but pretty close that if the
1:27:39escalations continue that would be the
1:27:44last step
1:27:46leaving the impression that he would
1:27:49consider it's called tactical nuclear
1:27:53weapons because you're trying to contain
1:27:58the impact so it doesn't become you know
1:28:02the freeforall in which everybody's
1:28:04missiles are destroying everybody else
1:28:07but the capacity to control that is
1:28:10dubious to say the least
1:28:13um if you watch characters like Hanks
1:28:18then you you're talking about an out of
1:28:21control cowboy and I don't know you know
1:28:25I don't know how the army deals with
1:28:27people like him. I don't know how that
1:28:29works. I don't know at what point they
1:28:32say no and it and it's no. Uh but I know
1:28:36that that happens. We know that in
1:28:38retrospect.
1:28:40But is it a possibility? Yes. And you
1:28:44know that would be
1:28:48a first. I was born
1:28:51around the time that the United States
1:28:54dropped two atomic bombs in Japan
1:28:58on two civilian cities, Hiroshima and
1:29:03Nagasaki.
1:29:05And
1:29:07I've always felt that Americans are the
1:29:11last people on earth
1:29:15to ever talk about or think about
1:29:19dropping nuclear weapons on other people
1:29:22because we are the only people who ever
1:29:24did that.
1:29:26And a little bit of shame and a little
1:29:30bit of
1:29:34care
1:29:36is a is an obligatory
1:29:41accommodation to that historical fact.
1:29:45The Japanese have never forgotten it. We
1:29:48oughtn't to either.
1:29:54If you think that a nuclear war would
1:29:58inevitably lead to a world war, what do
1:30:02you think a world war
1:30:05in the 21st century, especially given
1:30:08today's geopolitical landscape would
1:30:10look like? So beyond I mean or even
1:30:14direct military conflict would there be
1:30:17proxy wars, sanctions, cyber attacks,
1:30:21energy warfare, or all all of the above
1:30:25things I haven't mentioned.
1:30:27>> All of those are possibilities. I I
1:30:30haven't done the work in my own head to
1:30:33try to puzzle through if it's even
1:30:35possible.
1:30:37uh an imaginary
1:30:40scenario of how that might work.
1:30:44My suspicion would be that once again
1:30:48it would be the Europeans
1:30:52who
1:30:55do that kind of craziness. And I mean
1:30:58not just the Europeans that are in
1:31:00Europe, but the Europeans that have
1:31:02settled in North America, Australia, New
1:31:06Zealand, South Africa, that all of that,
1:31:10the settler colonial uh outreaches of
1:31:13European culture and European politics.
1:31:18I can imagine a world war among them.
1:31:22But I can imagine an extraordinary
1:31:26effort of the Russians because of their
1:31:30history
1:31:32and the Chinese because of their
1:31:35different history
1:31:37doing everything they can
1:31:42to exclude themselves from this.
1:31:46Partly because they know the horror of
1:31:49these wars
1:31:51and partly because they would expect to
1:31:54pick up the pieces when the war is over.
1:32:00The decimation of Europe from a
1:32:03non-nuclear war from World Wars one and
1:32:07two was so total that in a way Europe
1:32:11has never recovered. It did recover it
1:32:15in the formal sense, but its position in
1:32:18the world lost forever. They're done.
1:32:23Their colonies are gone. Their role in
1:32:25the world is gone. Their economic,
1:32:28political, military in no way. Europeans
1:32:33are an afterthought.
1:32:35You know that they're not relevant
1:32:37anymore.
1:32:39And terribly painful for them. no
1:32:42preparation of their people for this. No
1:32:46preparation now. It's mostly, as I said,
1:32:49denial that that they are committed to,
1:32:53prophetic as that is.
1:32:56And I think it's a warning shot if the
1:32:58next war does to the West, what the last
1:33:03two did to the European part of the
1:33:06West, and that's a good shot, a good
1:33:08bet. Well, it'll be the Chinese and the
1:33:11Russians and the Indians and the
1:33:13Brazilians who pick up the pieces and
1:33:16they know it. And I think they will keep
1:33:19out of the war knowing that they will
1:33:23inherit
1:33:24much as the United States inherited what
1:33:28was left of the empire, the economic
1:33:30core of it. The politics was gone. All
1:33:33of these countries became independent
1:33:36led by India. body, but all of them. The
1:33:39United States inherited only what was
1:33:42left, an economic dependence which has
1:33:46been undermined and eroded ever since,
1:33:50culminating now with oil in the Middle
1:33:53East and the country of Iran.
1:33:57I think this is a lesson to the rest of
1:33:59the world. Let the crazy Europeans blow
1:34:02themselves to smitherreens.
1:34:05We'll pick up the piece. We will inherit
1:34:08what they destroy. It'll be a shame.
1:34:12We'll have to rebuild it. But we can do
1:34:14that. And we will all we'll rebuild
1:34:17Europe so it becomes the wonderful look
1:34:21large parts of Europe already
1:34:24dependent on tourism.
1:34:26Now all of it will become depend. It'll
1:34:30be one big uh in France, one of the
1:34:33great areas is called the Valley of the
1:34:36Lir River. And the Valley of I don't
1:34:39know if you ever been there, but the
1:34:40Valley of the Lir River, it's about
1:34:432hour drive from Paris, south west of
1:34:47Paris. It's a beautiful river and it
1:34:51always was has a special kind of wine
1:34:55that he's grown there or valley wine
1:34:57very famous around the world. Uh
1:35:01and along the way are the chateau of the
1:35:04war and it's a major tourism uh area.
1:35:08You drive down from Paris and you visit
1:35:11these medieval castles which is what
1:35:14they are. one more spectacular than the
1:35:18other. It's a fantastic tourism, but
1:35:20that's all it is. Very little industry,
1:35:23very little anything. It's tourism. Lots
1:35:26of tourism, a beautiful place uh to be a
1:35:30tourist, etc., etc., etine
1:35:34and all the rest. And now you know more
1:35:36and more of France,
1:35:39it's already a country that depends on
1:35:41the wine and then the cuisine and the
1:35:44fashion and that goes with tourism and
1:35:47other people will produce what the
1:35:49French once did. Their their
1:35:51manufacturing areas are all atrophied.
1:35:55They're in the north around the city of
1:35:57Leil. They're in the middle around the
1:35:59city of Leon and they don't have all
1:36:01that much. It's the tourism and and
1:36:04that'll be what is Britain? Britain is a
1:36:07cold, wet island off the mainland of
1:36:09Europe. It it hasn't got much going for
1:36:12it. Uh and it'll be
1:36:15less and less and less. And I think the
1:36:18rest of the world sees this and says,
1:36:23"Isolate the Europeans." And by the way,
1:36:26I think Mr. Trump is the number one
1:36:30isolator
1:36:31in the world today and that history will
1:36:34record him as such.
1:36:37All the steps he's taking to isolate
1:36:41China or Russia or it all fails and it
1:36:46ends up isolating the United States.
1:36:49when he stood up at the beginning of his
1:36:52second presidency and announced he was
1:36:55hitting every country in the world with
1:36:57a tariff, he held up a a list of
1:37:00countries and rattled off how much he's
1:37:02going to hit this one with a tariff.
1:37:04Starting off with Canada and Mexico, our
1:37:08wild ally. What is he doing? He's a
1:37:10little mouse standing up shaking his
1:37:13fist at the whole rest of the world
1:37:16which together you little mouse is an
1:37:19elephant. This is dangerous what you are
1:37:21doing. You are isolating yourself and
1:37:25the numbers and statistics are already
1:37:27there. The big the one big industry that
1:37:31has really taken a tremendous hit in the
1:37:34United States is tourism.
1:37:38The rest of the world isn't coming here.
1:37:40I'll give you another one from my own
1:37:42experience.
1:37:44Universities left and right are in deep
1:37:47trouble.
1:37:50The new school university here in New
1:37:52York City where I've been a visiting
1:37:53professor is effectively closing down.
1:37:57Where I used to teach in Western
1:37:59Massachusetts, it's called the five
1:38:01college area. One of those five colleges
1:38:03was a place called Hampshire College.
1:38:07This is its last
1:38:09summer. It is closing at the end of this
1:38:11year.
1:38:14Students are being told go elsewhere.
1:38:16Faculty are being told good luck in a
1:38:19career.
1:38:20And one of the reasons foreign students
1:38:23aren't coming here. It's not safe. If
1:38:26you're brown or black, ICE may pick you
1:38:29up and and put you on a deportation
1:38:32plane to eastern nowhere
1:38:35before you can find a way to get back if
1:38:39you can get a lawyer and get a hearing.
1:38:43Americans don't seem to like foreigners.
1:38:47The things they say, the things they do,
1:38:51incredible.
1:38:54So they don't come.
1:38:57We're becoming isolated.
1:39:01Every country and company in the world
1:39:03are saying don't do business in the
1:39:05United States. If you become reliant on
1:39:08the United States, they may hit you with
1:39:10a tariff. The president may decide they
1:39:13don't like you or the country you come
1:39:15from.
1:39:17We don't even let people visit the
1:39:19United States. Get a visitor's visa from
1:39:22many countries.
1:39:24We are isolating ourselves
1:39:28and we're getting closer and closer to
1:39:31the time when the rest of the world says
1:39:34good riddance.
1:39:37We don't need you for manufacturing. We
1:39:41got China
1:39:43for different skills and different
1:39:45cultures. We got Asia, Africa, and Latin
1:39:48America. What do we need the Europeans
1:39:52for? And the answer is not much.
1:39:57And what we got from them, we already
1:40:00have. What we need to get, we can get
1:40:04from them or do ourselves. We've been
1:40:07really good at it.
1:40:10The major producer of automobiles in the
1:40:13world once was the United States. Once
1:40:17was the United States and Europe. It
1:40:19isn't. Automobiles are now an
1:40:22international business. And the number
1:40:25one producer of automobiles is the
1:40:27People's Republic of China. Hello.
1:40:33The number one uh country in the world
1:40:37producing sources of energy other than
1:40:40fossil fuels that we need to get rid of
1:40:43for our physical health. Plus, we're
1:40:47running out of them. Well, who is the
1:40:49master of wind energy, solar energy?
1:40:54Uhhuh. The people of the Republic of
1:40:58China. I could go on. You don't want me
1:41:00to go on cuz you're going to get
1:41:02depressed and you've been dizzy, many of
1:41:04you denying what I just said and all the
1:41:08other examples I could trot out here in
1:41:11front of you.
1:41:13The West, desperate to hold on, is
1:41:17isolating itself because it doesn't
1:41:20understand
1:41:22what it is denying. If it did, it would
1:41:27sit down and try to work out a live and
1:41:30let live
1:41:33program for this world. Let me remind
1:41:36everyone of a little bit of history.
1:41:39World War I was so devastating,
1:41:44killed so many
1:41:47people
1:41:49in ways no one had foreseen
1:41:54that after it was over, all of the
1:41:57countries involved and many others
1:42:01decided to organize something that had
1:42:04never existed before. They called it the
1:42:07League of Nations.
1:42:11And for several years they all sent all
1:42:15the countries sent delegates. And the
1:42:17job of the League of Nations was very
1:42:20simple.
1:42:22Make sure we never do to ourselves
1:42:28what we just did.
1:42:31Never again
1:42:33might have been their slogan.
1:42:37In a few years time,
1:42:41Germany,
1:42:43Italy,
1:42:45Japan quit
1:42:48and geared up
1:42:50for what? You guessed it, another world
1:42:53war. Their effort
1:42:57to work out a plan to live together
1:43:00failed. They went to war again.
1:43:04And that war, the second one, was even
1:43:07more devastating than the first.
1:43:11So many of them fought. They learned
1:43:13their lesson. And after World War II,
1:43:17they organized another
1:43:20League of Nations, but they didn't want
1:43:22the bad luck of using the same name
1:43:25given what had happened. So they called
1:43:28it instead the United Nations.
1:43:32And because of the dominance of the
1:43:34United States, the only advanced
1:43:37industrial economy that had not blown
1:43:41itself to bits in World War II because
1:43:44the Atlantic and Pacific oceans kept us
1:43:48too far away. aviation hadn't and
1:43:52military hadn't developed so that the
1:43:55Japanese could get at us beyond Pearl
1:43:58Harbor or the Germans and Italians could
1:44:01get at us across the Atlantic. So we
1:44:05were the we were the ones that came
1:44:06through. So in our primary city, New
1:44:10York, the United Nations headquarters
1:44:13were built and where they stand
1:44:15literally a few blocks from where I'm
1:44:18sitting right now. United Nations
1:44:21headquarters.
1:44:23But over recent years, the United States
1:44:26has pulled away from the United Nations,
1:44:32refusing to pay its share of the costs,
1:44:38looking down on the United Nations,
1:44:41largely ignoring the United Nations.
1:44:46That's what Germany and Italy and Japan
1:44:49did after World War I. Not a good sign.
1:44:56Could we maybe whether we call it the
1:44:59United Nations, which is already there,
1:45:02or something else, couldn't we at least
1:45:07talk about
1:45:10working out an institutional arrangement
1:45:14so we debate these issues,
1:45:18argue,
1:45:20find
1:45:22compromises and peaceful full solutions.
1:45:28None of the long-term problems of any
1:45:32European country were solved by these
1:45:36horrible wars.
1:45:38The wars set them back. The wars drove
1:45:42millions of people out of those
1:45:44countries who never went back. Those
1:45:49countries have had to deal with the
1:45:51enormous
1:45:53short, medium, and long-term costs of
1:45:56these horrific wars. Really, more of
1:46:00them?
1:46:02That ought to be a conversation
1:46:05that we have.
1:46:07It isn't one we have, but it ought to
1:46:10be. It will be the conversation
1:46:13once the phase of denial that we are a
1:46:18declining empire sinks in and we stop
1:46:23denying it. We face it. It's the young
1:46:26generation that probably have to do it.
1:46:30The older ones are so deeply caught up
1:46:36in the nonsense of imperial
1:46:41dominance
1:46:42that they can't. They will take to their
1:46:45graves
1:46:47the pretense.
1:46:49If you want a wonderful metaphor,
1:46:53it's been going on the last few weeks or
1:46:56at least the last few days.
1:46:58It's Mr. Trump's official celebration
1:47:03of the 250th anniversary of the United
1:47:07States independence.
1:47:10by having what he thought was a
1:47:12quintessentially American institution,
1:47:16the state fair, you know, that many of
1:47:18our states have uh in the summer or more
1:47:22often in the autumn harvest time.
1:47:26It's a leftover of the time we were an
1:47:29agricultural country, which is itself a
1:47:33pecular
1:47:35kind of nostalgia. We haven't been an
1:47:39agricultural country for a century. This
1:47:42is quite a while. We are, in case you've
1:47:45missed it, an urban country. The
1:47:48overwhelming majority of our people live
1:47:51either in a city or in a suburb of a
1:47:54city and often in a suburb where they
1:47:57work in the city where their suburb is
1:48:00where they live.
1:48:02We are an urban culture.
1:48:04but not our president
1:48:07who by the way lives in New York and
1:48:09Miami which are two of our larger
1:48:11cities. But anyway, he wanted an rural
1:48:16so he had a state fair. It is very
1:48:18remarkable because since it is an
1:48:22exercise in nostalgia located in a city
1:48:26DC, nobody's attending it. It's
1:48:29completely it staggering [snorts]
1:48:32aerial photographs of empty. It it is so
1:48:39perfect.
1:48:41This exercise in denial of our urbanity
1:48:46in nostalgia instead of asking the hard
1:48:50questions
1:48:53in a celebration rural instead of urban.
1:48:58Well,
1:49:00there you have it. You have a country
1:49:03that is denying
1:49:06its own decline,
1:49:10helping
1:49:12itself to the idea that if they increase
1:49:16their military budget by over 65%
1:49:20in one year, and they already have the
1:49:23biggest military budget on Earth,
1:49:28that craziness passes for reasonable
1:49:32will be voted on probably by a majority
1:49:36of people sitting in the Congress.
1:49:39And you realize how far denial
1:49:44can go.
1:49:47How it's married to repression,
1:49:50which after a while is the only way
1:49:53denial can keep in power by repressing
1:49:56those who like that famous child
1:50:00noticing that the emperor was naked said
1:50:04something about his nakedness.
1:50:08said something about the nakedness being
1:50:11denied by all the people who pretended
1:50:15to be adults in the room.
1:50:19We're at that point, too. And it is long
1:50:23past urgent that we get through it and
1:50:27get beyond it and start talking and
1:50:30debating our real situation and what we
1:50:35can do to make it decent for ourselves
1:50:39and our children.
1:50:44As we near the end of our time for this
1:50:47conversation, I want to put uh a bow on
1:50:52our discussion of nuclear war. And you
1:50:56certainly haven't said that it's you
1:50:59think it's inevitable either in the
1:51:02Russian or Iranian sphere. But what I'm
1:51:05wondering is whether or not you think it
1:51:08is something that's it's just either
1:51:11going to happen or it's not and there's
1:51:14nothing we can really do about it or if
1:51:16you think that there are actually
1:51:19implementable plausibly implementable
1:51:23policies that somebody might enact that
1:51:26would prevent this.
1:51:29>> I don't think anything is inevitable. Uh
1:51:33um let me make that really clear. Even
1:51:36everything I've said to you about the
1:51:37decline of Europe, the decline of the
1:51:39United States,
1:51:42it's not inevitable. If you asked me,
1:51:46are there conceivable circumstances
1:51:49under which that could be postponed,
1:51:53delayed, even reversed?
1:51:55Yes, there are. There are. There
1:51:58probably always were for every empire.
1:52:02On the other hand,
1:52:06I'm as close to that as I can get, which
1:52:09is there'll always be a distance. I
1:52:12don't I can't predict the future. I
1:52:14don't think anyone else can. That's what
1:52:16the word future means. It's always
1:52:19uncertain. Uh but it is very far along.
1:52:23So, I'm very confident in predicting uh
1:52:26that the odds are it'll continue to
1:52:28decline. Is there something we can do
1:52:31about Absolutely. That's what I'm doing.
1:52:33What I think we can do about it. Asking
1:52:36these questions,
1:52:38making these arguments, asking for
1:52:41people to engage these arguments. Teach
1:52:44me if I've made a mistake. Add something
1:52:46if I've overlooked it. Uh I'm sure there
1:52:49are those things that I could see
1:52:51differently or give more weight to or
1:52:54whatever you want to call it. I'm
1:52:57pleading for that because I think we if
1:53:00we all get together, we will all
1:53:02understand
1:53:04that the nuclear option is the one we
1:53:06need to do everything possible to avoid
1:53:11since it is the worst possible end to
1:53:15our conversation
1:53:18and I believe in conversation. I believe
1:53:20in the power of human thought uh to come
1:53:23up with very good solutions. If we're
1:53:27figuring out how to store information
1:53:30forever, how to have a a search engine
1:53:33that can literally whiz in the matter of
1:53:36seconds through reams of literature and
1:53:39come up with a little story to tell
1:53:41about a topic, which we can now do with
1:53:44Google or chat GGP and so forth. uh then
1:53:49we can certainly solve these other
1:53:51problem.
1:53:53I look upon our technical expertise as a
1:53:56little bit deeply misplaced. I like the
1:53:59old joke, you know, you've solved the
1:54:02the problem of some arcane disease that
1:54:06is serious but affects 11 people but we
1:54:08can't deal with the common cold. You
1:54:10know, I would rather have our scientists
1:54:13work on the common cold. I would rather
1:54:16use
1:54:17the social index. So I would like to see
1:54:20us working our brains on the problems
1:54:24you and I have been discussing right now
1:54:26these last two hours. Let's go to work
1:54:28on that. Let's have a real think tank
1:54:32where people with really different
1:54:35perspectives
1:54:36get together to work on a problem and
1:54:39present what they've got to another
1:54:41think tank that has a whole another way
1:54:43of doing it and let's see what comes out
1:54:46of that.
1:54:48Instead, what we have is we have,
1:54:52you know, we have a capitalist version
1:54:55of all of this. the think tanks are
1:54:58captured by this or that moneyed group
1:55:00and they do what they are told by the
1:55:02money group to do. I mean it's pathetic.
1:55:06It it it folds the solution back into a
1:55:10subordination to the problem. That's not
1:55:12what we want. What we want is can we do
1:55:16it? Could we do it? I think so. Hawaii I
1:55:19think so. I think the impulse of this
1:55:22League of Nations was the right one. I
1:55:25think the United Nations was a good bit
1:55:27better and a good bit stronger and
1:55:30lasted a good bit longer. We have to
1:55:33build on that and we have to be serious
1:55:36and we have to include the people we
1:55:39disagree with. Nobody's outside the
1:55:42pale. No more. And for Americans, it
1:55:45will have to be learning the lesson. You
1:55:48can disagree with people who see the
1:55:51world differently from you. You can't
1:55:54demonize them. You don't have to allow
1:55:58yourself to be demonized either. But the
1:56:01demonization is dangerous because it is
1:56:06childish.
1:56:08When a toddler has a little truck taken
1:56:11away from them and runs towards a little
1:56:14boy or girl who took the truck, meaning
1:56:17to smash them in the head with another
1:56:19truck, an adult intervenes and tries to
1:56:23explain to the child. You're entitled to
1:56:26feel bad about the loss of your truck.
1:56:29You're entitled to demand it back.
1:56:32You're entitled to sit down with that
1:56:34other little kid and work that out.
1:56:36You're not entitled to hit them over the
1:56:39head. They are a person like you. What
1:56:44would it feel like if they hit you? Oh,
1:56:47I know this is for children,
1:56:50but adults are the result of children.
1:56:54And many of them never grow up
1:56:58calling your enemy every bad name you
1:57:01can think of. Worse than Hitler. Another
1:57:04Stalin. Stop it. It reflects badly on
1:57:09you
1:57:11and you ought to do it. It's a dangerous
1:57:14step in a dangerous direction. I think
1:57:17all kinds
1:57:19of creative solutions could be found if
1:57:23we did not get in our own way.
1:57:29And
1:57:30the pessimist in me though thinks sure I
1:57:34I can conceive of creative solutions
1:57:37that could avert possible catastrophes
1:57:41but the fact of the matter is that the
1:57:44people who are in control of our future
1:57:48the Putins, the Trumps, the Netanyahus
1:57:52of the world, I feel like they're not
1:57:56listening to these conversations. ations
1:57:58that are being had.
1:58:01>> Okay, then the solution is to either
1:58:04make them listen or get rid of them
1:58:08and eventually people do it. You know, I
1:58:11know it it's
1:58:16it's a slow process. I I probably I
1:58:19don't remember but I probably have
1:58:21reminded you of a of a famous politician
1:58:26whom I admire for many things. But this
1:58:29politician
1:58:32was berated by his colleagues
1:58:37who said to him, "My god, it's taking a
1:58:39long time. The people are not acting. We
1:58:43have these terrible leaders like like
1:58:45you just said. They were pessimists like
1:58:47you.
1:58:50It takes so long for the people to
1:58:52realize.
1:58:54And he looked at them and he said, "You
1:58:55know, you're right.
1:58:57For decades, he said, it feels like
1:59:00nothing happens
1:59:02and then in a few weeks decades happen."
1:59:08That's the answer. It takes a very long
1:59:10time and then suddenly
1:59:15although the minute you look at it it
1:59:16isn't so sudden but it seems suddenly
1:59:21everything goes very fast.
1:59:24A year ago now July uh last day of of uh
1:59:31what is it today the first day of July.
1:59:33So, a year ago, July 1st, 2025,
1:59:38if you had said to me, "The mayors of
1:59:41New York are one disaster after
1:59:46another," I would have nodded. I
1:59:49couldn't have disagree with you. I've
1:59:51lived in New York now for 25 years, and
1:59:56I've been a New Yorker in my heart
1:59:59longer than that. And it's been one
2:00:03disastrous mayor after another, even one
2:00:06that I liked and helped defazio.
2:00:12Uh anyway,
2:00:14and if you had said to me, oh, these
2:00:17awful mayors, I would have said yes. And
2:00:20are the people going to rise up and get
2:00:22rid of them? I said, well, it don't look
2:00:24like it.
2:00:26And between July 1 and November,
2:00:30an army of young people, it's mostly who
2:00:33it was, went to work across the city
2:00:38and overturned
2:00:41the history of New York City. It elected
2:00:44a Muslim socialist to be the mayor of
2:00:47New York. A 35 or 36 year old man
2:00:53uh whose father is a famous world
2:00:58Marxist scholar
2:01:00whose work I have used teaching as well
2:01:03as developing myself who's a professor
2:01:05at Columbia University as I talk. His
2:01:09son runs for office as a practicing
2:01:13Muslim socialist. New York has a bigger
2:01:16Jewish community than most other
2:01:19American cities. All all other
2:01:21Americans. The Jews voted for him, too.
2:01:24Everybody vote. You know why? What?
2:01:27Every I I talked to my neighbors here.
2:01:29We all voted for him. Everybody voted.
2:01:31Why? Because everybody says the same
2:01:34thing. The Republicans and the Dem
2:01:37Democrats are intolerable.
2:01:41They they're empty suits. They are
2:01:44people who say whatever the wind
2:01:45requires them to say until they get into
2:01:48office, whereupon they literally forget
2:01:51anything they may have said before.
2:01:54When we can't stand it. We can't stand
2:01:57waiting again. Just like
2:02:00those subordinates said to that famous
2:02:02politician
2:02:04and what what Ozoran Mandani is the
2:02:07guy's name and what he said to them is
2:02:10the same thing that famous politician
2:02:12said. He said, "Let's get ourselves
2:02:15together and let's go to the people and
2:02:18let's say you've been waiting long
2:02:19enough. We know you're pissed.
2:02:23You have every right to have better
2:02:25leadership." Amit, give me a chance.
2:02:29They did. And we just had an election.
2:02:32Three more like him we elected,
2:02:35including a Jewish man who endorsed him
2:02:39for mayor, dropped out of the race for
2:02:42mayor to endorse him, and now ran for an
2:02:45office and won and beat an old
2:02:48conventional Democrat the way Mandani
2:02:51did. I think that gives me hope that
2:02:56there will be movements and I expect
2:02:59them everywhere including
2:03:02Russia and China to give you different
2:03:05leaders than the ones you have
2:03:10that look it's true that leaders can do
2:03:13what they have done in the past. It is
2:03:16also true that people can throw those
2:03:19leaders out as they have done in the
2:03:21past.
2:03:26>> Well, Rick, I will keep this short and
2:03:30sweet. That's an optimistic note on
2:03:32which to end.
2:03:33>> Okay.
2:03:33>> And thank you as always.
2:03:36>> My pleasure. And my conversations with
2:03:38you are are giving me things to think
2:03:41about more as well. So I appreciate them
2:03:43all also as opportunities for my
2:03:46thinking to develop.
2:03:49[music]
2:03:55>> [music]

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of Richard Wolff: China, Russia, Iran, and World War III by Robinson Erhardt, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 14,907 words across 2,394 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

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