Graham Allison: War with China?

Secretaries of Defense. He knows a lot about nuclear terrorism, about the North Korean challenge, about what's happening with the Trump administration and the Russians. So we covered a wide range of issues, and I think people who are interested in foreign policy are going to really like this conversation. I'm excited to hear it, and I think that it

comes at a very important time. He sounds like a real smarty pants by the way, Brian, but I'm really excited to hear him his take on the President's recent trip abroad, on some of the things that Uncle Merkel has been saying, as you mentioned, what's going on with Russia, and kind of going deeper into why this should spark outrage if in fact the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians, and of course and a very tense situation in North Korea with them launching that missile that landed in the

Sea of Japan. I mean, there's so much going on internationally, and I welcome somebody smart to give me a deeper understanding and better perspective of all the things that are going on. Well, needless to say, I could completely geek out with Graham Allison about all those topics and a lot more. So take a listen. Dr Graham Allison, my former professor at the Kennedy School. Thank you so much

for doing the show. Thanks for having me. Well. I read this new book with great interest and fascination because it really steps back from the day to day and asked a really big question, which is are the United States and China inevitably heading to war? And and what

is what is the answer to that question? Well, that's I think the sixty four dollars or sixty four trillion dollars questions, and I think the answer is yes and no. And in case it seems to profits oial, I think that's not a very satisfying answer, not very satisfying, but it's true. So in this case, I believe business as usual will likely produce history as usual, and in that case, that would be a war between China and the US that would be catastrophic for both. That's the yes and

no is that UH. As the saying goes, only those who fail to study history are condemned to repeat it. And there are enough ingredients in the relationship to UH imagine that far sighted states craft, both in Washington and Paging, could find a way to live together to mutual benefit.

And speaking of learning from the past, you studied in this book, UH sixteen occasions in which, over the past five years, a rising power threatened to displace an existing superpower, and you found that in twelve of those cases the result was war. For those cases the two parties avoided war. What were the distinctions between them? Well, great question. So in the twelve cases, UH, normally they succumb to the normal pressures and normal misunderstandings and normal mistakes of a

rising power and a ruling power. So a rising power, thanks, I'm bigger, I'm stronger, my interests deserved more weight than they got when I was smaller and weaker. I deserve more, say more. Sway, So when an upstart threatens to an incumbent, you get a rising power syndrome and a ruling person. The ruling power looks and says, wait a minute. The way things were were great. They were the only circumstances which you got a chance to grow up. You should

be grateful, you should even help support them. And your actions now seemed there were to be threatening. So that dynamic is the something you see in the cases of failure. And I would say the dramatic case of that, and most relevant for us today, is the circumstances that got us to World War One. That's on the one hand. On the other hand, as you say, what about the cases in which wear was averted and a very interesting case, the US rose to rival and then ultimately overtake Britain

at the beginning of the twentieth century. Britain found a way to adapt and adjust that was so nuanced and subtle that they kept what was vital for Britain on the one hand, but they accommodated the US and other areas and so smoothly that Americans came to understand our

interest is largely aligned with Britain. So then when World War One came, the US was Britain's lifeline both with supplies and with money while the war was going on, until when the US entered World War One, we naturally entered is Britain's a lie And then between the wars, the U S British relationship thicken, and then when World War Two came, the US was again the essential ally for Britain. So that was a great case of life adaptation.

When you think about the case you just described of the US and Britain, Britain was, in a sense managing its own decline. It was deteriorating as the great empire of the world as the US was coming up. And I'd imagine a lot of Americans would reject that comparison and would be made very uncomfortable by it. And so when you think about those two things, on the one hand, war with China more likely than not. On the other hand, a lot of Americans, not feeling comfortable with managing peacefully

are declined visa via the Chinese. Are Are we just headed sort of inexorably towards a big conflict? Are well? I think thucydities would say, there's an unstoppable rising China on a collision course with an immovable ruling America, that would be business as usual and history as usual. But if we look at the cases of success, I mean a more positive example that maybe is more appealing as we think about it, and no cases exactly like the other. But in the case of the Cold War, the US

faced a surging Soviet Union. When John Kennedy became President of the US in nineteen sixty one, he believed, and conventional wisdom believed the Soviet Union was going to overtake the US as the dominant economy by the end of the seventies. Again, history people can't even believe that today,

but that was the fact. You can go back and look at the economics textbook of the time, the Samuelson Textbook in nineteen sixty four, it says by the end of the seventies, Soviet Union will overtake the US, which is why analysts should never make these predictions. Well, but we have to live in a world where uncertain as we are, we have to have expectations. So for sure, the Soviet Union was thought of and appeared to be

a existential threat to the US. Rather than having a war with the with the Soviet Union, people invented a whole new crazy idea. How about Cold War? So in my column this figures in the no war because war, and this is only a metaphor, Cold War was competition in every dimension by every means except bums and bullets killing thousands of each other. And we had some proxy wars, proxy wars, we had the covered killing of people, we had economic war, we had propaganda war, but we didn't

have bums and bullets killing each other. And so I'm about in this book, I mean by war, I mean thousands of people killing each other. That's that's what means war. And in the case of the Cold War, people invented a strategy that was highly imaginative, very adoptable, but which coped with the threat successfully. So I would say, if we were trying to think about the situation today, we don't want to manage to guous the client like Britain, and we don't want a Cold war just like the

Soviet unit. This is a whole new, different situation. But from each of these cases we can get some clues, uh, as well as from the mistakes that were made in the cases that led to war. The new strategy that would have to be created will be as strangely different if it's going to be successful from all of the conventional conversation today as the Cold War was from the conversations previously. And one of the most powerful passages in this book is when you describe just how big, how

powerful China is becoming. And one of the many reasons to read this book is just to wrap your mind around the scale of blockbuster growth that we're talking about. I mean, every two years, the increment of Chinese growth is greater than Indie as whole economy. China has already surpassed the US as an economic power, particularly in manufacturing and consumer goods. It's the largest automaker in the world, and it is only a matter of time. It's a

question of when, not if China becomes the dominant world superpower. Well, I think that the uh, your point is exactly right. So uh, unless once been watching China carefully, and maybe even if you have, it's hard to appreciate what's happened in a single generation. So in a single generation, a country that didn't appear in any of the International League tables has leaped to the top in every arena. Uh. We never, never in history has a country risking so far,

so fast, on so many different dimensions. In fact, in the chapter on the rise of China, I quote backliffe Hovels good line in which he says things have happened so fast we haven't yet had time to be astonished. So everywhere in every arena, one sees China in our face and three times the size of if the trend, if the trend should continue, Because do the math, there's four times as many Chinese as there are Americans. So if there are only one fourth as productive as Americans,

the two economies are equal, So they're not that. Sometimes they're only half as good as we are, half as productive, well, then there twice as big as we are. And for Americans, and especially red blooded Americans like me, even red neckt Americans. I'm from North Carolina, we know USA means number one. I can take off my shirt here and you'll find a tattoo you know that says USA means number one. Note that's a joke. But but but but if you took but if you took the skin off, you would

you would. Basically, Americans under believe, most Americans, people like me, believe that we have been number one all our that's the way the world is supposed to be, somewhere in the Bible, or in the Constitution or the laws of nature, it says, Usa. One of the points you make in the book is that you know, in large part this is due to the fact that we have the biggest economy, because then we can fund the biggest military, the biggest

intelligence apparatus, the biggest diplomatic apparatus, the biggest thing. Exactly, it's not that we're inherently better. And so if another country is three times the economy and there therefore three times the resources to do this stuff, are we going to be number one anymore? Probably not? Probably not. And I think in the in the book, I give you an abbreviated version of the chart I give to my students and of course at Harvard. So the top of

the chart says when could China become number one? And I give twenty six indicators. So biggest auto manufacturers, you say, but the biggest cell phone manufacturer, biggest smartphone user, biggest robot producer, biggest artificial intelligence, biggest economy. And students in the Harvard class say, oh, maybe forty for this one. We make a you know, pick a number for each

one of the twenty six indicators. Then I have chart two and chart to the top of which says already, so every one of these twenty six indicators, China has overtaken the US. But there's an asterisk attached to all of this, all these projections in the future, which is, if the present trends continue and a lot of people take a darker, dimmer review of Chinese authoritarianism, of their

governance model. Condi Rice just came out with a new book about democracy in which she notes that there are a hundred and eighty thousand protests a year in China. There's still no reliable rule of law. There's mass seizure of people's assets there they the Chinese government has to employ over a million people just to censor the internet. And so is this model of an open economy but a closed political system actually sustainable or is there going

to be some disruption over time? It's a great, great question, And I would say of a fundamental question about China as their government system, I say in the conclusion of the book, a fundamental question about the US is our governance system exactly? Things are just working fine. So basically, if you're trying to think of, you know, what would be a conceivable accommodation between the two parties for the time being. Let's imagine that there were adult supervision for

a second in international affairs. Of course, they're not. We we live in a hobsey in the world. There's nobody who's superior to. She's impaying and Trump. But let's just imagine hypothetically. I knew this in my class, that their work. Okay, So here's a Martian strategist who's an adult and she parachutes into Mary Lago for the summit between she and Trump, and she says, guys, I have a couple of things to point out to you. First, each of you have large,

probably insurmountable problems. At first. Secondly, the most important of these problems occur in early within your own border, not the problems you were talking about between the between the two a few So I have an idea for you. Why don't you take a little breather like Pericles did with the Sparta in the thirty year piece. The thirty year piece basically said, why don't we just each focus on our own problems for thirty years and then we'll

get back to trying to kill each other. And so it's interesting, you know, to think the unthinkable yet again before we move on to other topics, what does a war between the US and China? Look like? Is there a war between these two nuclear powers that's anything but unmanageable, catastrophic, millions and millions of people dying on both sides. Again,

great questions. So anybody who's looked at this carefully in the Defense department and the Chinese counterpart have done, can see that a full scale war between the US and China would be kin austrophic for both and nobody would win. Nobody what's war. Everybody understands a war would be catastrophic.

So if that was the case, how could a war happen? Well, war has happened if we look at the previous cases, not because somebody wanted war, but because some third party action or event becomes a match that makes a fire at the end of which people are somewhere where they don't want to be. So let's take in this case. So I'd say the most most likely path today the war between the US and China, and which large numbers of Chinese and Americans are killing each other goes just

like North Korea. So North Korea will in the months ahead either conduct I CBM tests that will give it the capability to strike Los Angeles with a nuclear weapon. That's on the one hand, or it will be interrupted that's on the other. So I've written about this as a Cuban missile crisis in slow motion. So just to back up, the scenario is North Korea has the capability or proves that they have the capability to strike Los Angeles with a nuclear tipped missile. Trump decides to strike

the North Koreans to prevent them reaching that final point. Yes, and North Korea responds by killing more than a million people soul South Korea, which they have the capability of doing today, And then the US and South Korea declare war on North Korea, and and where do the dominoes

fall after that? Okay, then it's then the game becomes thick because if we if if we attack North Korea in order to make sure it can't conduct another round of attack, including nuclear weapons against South Korea or against Japan, well possibly some of those weapons get fired in the process. So now you can even have nuclear weapons exploding in

South Korea or Japan. We're upon As Colin Powell once said to the North Korea counterparts, he said, the movement of nuclear weapon explodes on the soil of any ally of the U s, We're gonna turn the whole of North Korea into a charcoal biscuit. Uh So maybe when then we just simply say too much is too much? Uh toasts the whole place, that we can do that. Okay, that would be one possibility, and then we have to

see how does that play with the Chinese. The more likely possibility, I think is that will end up with a ground war in South Korea, in which the South Koreans and the Americans will otherwise capture North Korea and unify the country unless China enters the war. But we should remember what happened in the First Korean War. Again, Americans don't do much history here, but it's worth to remember. In nineteen fifty UH North Korea attack South Korea, almost

capture the whole country. US came to the rescue very last minute, pushed the North Koreans back up the peninsula. We're approaching the Chinese border, the border between North Korea

and UH and China. The Chinese then out of the Blue to the bedazzlement of MacArthur, attacked and pushed beat the Americans right back down the peninsula to the thirty parallel where the war ended, because China was determined that no American military ally was going to be on its border, even in nineteen when it was, you know, one the size of the U S. The US had a monopoly of nuclear weapons. US had just finished World War Two by dropping bombs on a Roshoma and Nagasaki, and that

China attacked the US. So most people believe that China would not tolerate a unified Korea that was a military ally of the U. S. It seems like the rational way to prevent this and acknowledging we're not in a fully rational world here, at least in terms of the North Korea track, is to get the Chinese to prevent the North Koreans from going nuclear. That we would accept the status quo if North Korea weren't threatening our country or our allies with nuclear weapons. But the question is

can the Chinese do that and will the Chinese do that? Well, you're you're channeling Trump Chagan, and I think in a way that most Americans would so when most Americans hear of this. I mean I've I talked to, you know, people in the government as well as students or others. They say, I don't believe this, Okay, I a little impoverished. Pip squeak cannot have nuclear weapons. I mean, nobody would allow that. And I say, well they do. The American

intelligence community says they have an arsenal nuclear weapons. Now, I mean, it is unbelievable if you were just you know, not paying attention. But but it's a fact. But do the Chinese have the capacity or the will to influence the North Korean's not to proceed any further with their weapons program? Well, yes and no. So yes, okay, So

the Chinese control a lifeline for North Korea. If the Chinese were prepared to collapse the North Korean regime, they could do so because any five percent of the trade with North Korea goes to China and nine of the energy, so the oil that keeps Panyon's factories, uh, their military uh their heat in the winter, all of this comes from China. And if they were prepared to squeeze that lifeline, they could squeeze them. Now, what would didn't happen and

this is. I mean, I've sat down with Chinese and game this several times and they say, okay, so let's imagine the place collapses. Now we have a what chaos? A civil war? Are there South Koreans and you're gonna get involved in this situation? And I say, well, the South Koreans are not gonna let their cousins in North Korea start without trying to be helpful to them, and they're gonna have an interest in the matter, and so well,

maybe they'll get engage a little bit. And then well, if they do, won't they end up inheriting the of Korea? I would say that would be the normal thing. They're very successful country and wealthy. These guys are poor and miserable. You know, it'll take them a long time, like East Germanita get the country back together, but I think that's probably how it will come about. Well, then they say, so there's gonna be a U. S military, a lie on our border, and that's the reason why we went

to war with you earlier. And the scenario you're describing is that basically the North Koreans don't buy the idea that the Chinese would really squeeze them because They know that the Chinese don't want to have an American ally on their board, and therefore their leverage well impressive on paper,

is maybe, you know, not so much in reality. So when we come back with Graham Allison, we're going to talk about what if anything, the United States can do to prevent a war with China, and we're also going to talk about some other foreign policy issues. Uh, stay with us. Just a reminder next week, Brian and I will be talking with that during comedian Matt Walsh. You probably know him as Press Secretary Mike McClintock on HBO's

V one of my favorite shows. So what questions do you have about Matt's life career and how he really feels about Julia Louis Dreychus call us and leave a message at four four six three seven nine two two four four six three seven What can we do right now to get us off the path toward inevitable, horrible, destructive war with the Chinese. I say, this is not a problem to be fixed the way Washington likes to

fix a problem. The rise of a five thousand euro civilization with one point four billion people is not fixable. This is a chronic condition to be endured and managed for a generation. So that's the point. One point two in this case is specially diagnosis must proceed prescription. Just like if you went to the emergency room and the doctor said get on the guerney, I'm pulling you into the operating room and I'm gonna do surgery, you would say,

wait a minute, how about a diagnosis first? So diagnosis should proceed prescription. And this book is mainly about trying to help us with the diagnosis. Okay, if we were just adults trying to work out some of these problems or these workable or is it really this is hopeless? So I would say, well, now, wait a minute, what's on the asset side and what the liability on the asset side. First, we both have nuclear arsenals that produce mutual assured destruction, So if you decide to kill me,

you can, but only by committing suicide. So everybody knows that's a lousy idea, and as I say, everybody in the national security establishment both places gets that. Secondly, we have economic inner relationship here which is so thick that the war between the US and China, basically Walmart's would be empty, and Chinese factories would be producing goods for nobody, and the U S couldn't get loans to pay for

our deficit. So basically these are thickly interdependent. Now that economic interaction has allowed both of us to be wealthier than we would be otherwise, there's kind of economic mutual assured destruction as well as military. But yeah, absolutely. Then thirdly,

there's climate. Now that's not agreed to by everybody in the U. S. But but every every person UH with any scientific competence who's looked at this agrees that on the current trajectory, we may make an uninhabitable climate for our great great great grandchild or hundred years from now. So if if we succeeded in doing that, that's clearly contrary to the violent interests of the US. So is there any way the U S could solve this problem

without China? No, we're the two biggest greenhouse gusto manors. Together. We may not be able to solve it. We may not, but for sure, independently we can only fail. I wonder if we're going to look back from a strategic perspective as as the year that we the United States seated global leadership. If you look at our withdrawal from the Trans Pacific Partnership, which basically delegated the rules of the

road in Asia to the Chinese. If you look at our withdrawal from climate leadership as we pulled out of the Paris Deal, you look at the the anger and the resentment that we're triggering with the travel ban and sort of increasing isolationism, picking an alliance with Russian effect over an alliance with NATO by not reaffirming our commitment to all for one and one for all, and and

being consumed by political infighting here at home. Is this kind of a pivot point that you know, we need to focus on and and reverse or America is going to go off in a very bad direction. I don't I don't like the implication of the question, but I can't resistant. I mean, I think that's the logic of

the situation. And I've been trying to look at the cases that I've seen previously, but with a rising and ruling power, and which basically the ruling power we tweeted from the field of leadership in areas of its strength, and I haven't been able to find one. But I'm

hoping maybe you know, breaking new ground here. We may be breaking new ground, but I'm hoping maybe that somebody else will, you know, we'll find some analog because generally what happens the ruling power tries to strengthen its relationships with other powerful entities that allow it to help shape the environment for the rising power, so that it has to adapt, as opposed to allowing it to lead in in writing new rules which clearly will be disadvantageous for us.

And in in fact, you can argue that that's what the Obama administration was trying to do with both the Paris Deal on climate change, with the Trans Pacific Partnership on trade to some extent, with the Iran Deal on nuclear weapons. Absolutely at all in all three cases, and I think in all three cases recognizing that our power is not unlimited, uh, that we have to find compromises,

but that we would do the best we can. So the Iran deal is not what you would want, but is an amazing deal in terms of what would be feasible because for a decade, here's rand uh, you know, postponing any nuclear advance. That's pretty fantastic compared to the alternative, which would have been basically either Iran would be a nuclear weapons state or we would be at war with Iran.

So in the climate arena, while I was not a huge fan of Pair US in terms of its accomplishments in actually resolving the climate challenge, which is way, way, way more severe. You know, with the Nicaraguans, you you weren't signed on to Paris because you didn't think it went far enough. No I I I signed on, but with with the notion that we shouldn't delude ourselves. This is what this did is say we all recognize the problem, We recognize the magnitude of the problem, We recognize that

we have to cope with this together. We recognize that the big greenhouse cimeters have to carry most of the burden. And we're making a big step. I mean not a big step, a small step, but a real step in the right direction. And I thought the most interesting part for me in the Paris record was the agreement both by private venture capitalists like Bill Gates and the governments to invest heavily in new technologies that may transform the problem.

Because I don't think we're gonna stop the problem with the current parameters that we have technically. I think unless there's a technological breakthrough that makes it possible for people to have electricity and light bulbs and air conditioning. Uh, and not ruined the climate. We will get screwed, so I and I said, I'm an optimist. I think I think we will get there, but I think we part of the way we get there is as Paris did, to say, okay, here we have some bench marks that

we're reaching towards. Plus then lots of people in lots of different countries. So this wasn't just the U. S and China. This was the Europeans, very importantly the Europeans and if you're but but also the big little guys coming along for whatever reason, big guys. Germany was playing absolutely equescial role in this. And as Mrs Merkel said, I mean for her the climate thing, she feels it as existential a threat is she fails the threat of what we would call terrorism or what you know, Russia

or others. So she thinks, well, wait a minute, and if for a hundred years I've left an environment that Germans can't live in, I can't give an account of my chancellorship. No, that's just makes sense. And yet in an act of intentional or unintentional misunderstanding. The Trump administration is saying, oh, well, the Paris Accord imposes all these regulations on the United States that will kill our economy, when the fact is the standards in the deal are voluntary.

Each country sets its own plan and its own carbon limitations itself. If Trump really felt like what Obama agreed to in terms of carbon reduction was too tough, he could have weakened those standards without leaving the agreement. So this was really a political statement more than a substantive one. If I were gonna write it up in on this I'm not because I'm focused on the Ginus stubs you right now, but I would call it the Napoleon's Great line,

because this is worse than a crime, This is a blunder. Yeah. So you're a very famous defense strategist, and it really struck me when uh General McMaster and Gary Cohne, the president's top economic and national security advisors, wrote a peace in the Wall Street Journal in which they basically said, um, the world is not a global community but an arena where nations, NGOs, and businesses engage and compete for advantage. We bring to this forum unmatched military, political, economic, cultural,

and moral strength. Rather than deny this elemental nature of international affairs, we embrace it. And so, what do you think are the consequences of this sort of hobbsy in way of looking at the world. Well, Uh, I'm a big fan of hr McMaster. I know him for a long long time, and I'm grateful that he's serving in this job. I know Gary Cohen a little bit, not not much. Do you think General McMaster really believes what he wrote? I do? I do? I do? I think

that he believes what he thinks. And so there's a there's a schizophrenia in this a little bit. So on the one hand, UH, we talk about a global community and the international rule based order and uh uh the subordination of sovereignty UH and globalization UH, and there's a lot of rhetoric around that. On the other hand, uh, does the US ever asked permission when we want to go uh couple Saddam Hussein or Kaddafi or conduct their strikes on UH terrorists in some other country or drop

into Pakistan and kill Osama bin lad Well. And we rely on our friends and allies, not just because often what we're doing is in their interests, but because there are friends and allies and we've helped them over the years, and they've helped us, and it's a it's a mutually beneficial relationship and not necessar serially a purely transactional one.

Well that's a different point. But yes, i've been I agree with that, and I know we have to go in a few minutes, but I would be remiss if I didn't ask you a couple of questions that Katie wanted me to bring to your attention. The first is, there's been a lot of talk about President Trump rolling back the rap pro Schman or normalization of relations with Cuba that President Obama really started. You're obviously one of, if not the greatest expert on the Cuban missile crisis.

What do you think would happen if we were to go back to status quo anti You know what the world looked like before President Obama started um changing our relationship with Cuba like and I think this reflects some political impulses rather than strategic compulses, and I think it would be a mistake. I think that if you look at it, uh, the only communists and communists like countries that have survived, have the ones that have been able to isolate themselves from the world. So North Korea is

kind of the poster child. Cuba has been as well every other country that became engaged in the world where information comes into them and trade comes to them, and otherwise what happens cockamami systems get overthrown by their own regimes. Look and see what happens. So rarely in policy world do you get a kind of almost scientific experiment or what You've got a lot of countries, either you isolate them or you engage them. In the in case of

the engagement. Basically, freedom and market economies overwhelmed the regimes that they have In a few cases, they isolate themselves and they sustained it. So I would say we've been way better off undermining Cuba by the policies that are going forward. And I whether at this stage if Trump would roll it back. I haven't looked at the details

enough to judge. And lastly, the hope of the foreign policey establishment in many ways has been the presence of all these generals in the Trump administration, Maddis and McMaster and Kelly. But the other side of that is as people say, if you're a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Do you worry about too much of a sort of militarization of American foreign policy in this administration? So in a word, yes, So I would say, on

the one hand and the other. On the one hand, there's no question whatever than an hr McMaster and Maddis and Kelly, we have outstanding Americans and great and wise military leaders. I be happy to give my wallet to any one of them and trust them that they would do well and wisely. On the other hand, it's not for nothing that the Constitution and the tradition from George

Washington on has been civilian leadership of the military. Because if you're a military man and your whole career is about operating instruments of violence to achieve national objectives, and especially if you're part of the greatest military machine the world has ever seen, with a set of hammers that can nail anything that looks like a nail, you're inclined

to look for a hammer and for an ail. And I think if I watch what's happening both in Afghanistan and in Iwaq, and also to some extent in Syria and a little bit in Yemen. You see now a first order push for military instruments over other instruments, and in particular sense, President Trump basically uh in this budget reflects I respect for more hammers in a slicing back

of the other instruments. Now, to his credit, Maddess has said, you know, if you don't have a very active state department, including reducing its capabilities by reducing its budget, then you're gonna need to buy for me more bumps than bullets, because I can't go bomb anybody you want me to bomb, and I can go shoot anybody you want me to shoot, but that's not going to be the end of the story, and that's not the better way to deal with the bobom. Do you think we're going to be in a Rock

and Afghanistan for the foreseeable future. I'm afraid yes, and I think neither of them will turn out well. Well on that happy note, Professor Graham Allison, thanks so much for talking with us today. Thank you for having me joined the conversation special thanks this week to Ryan Connor for recording this conversation off site in l A. Thanks also, as always to our producer Gianna Palmer, and to our

sound engineer Jared O'Connell. Alison Bresnik does social media for us, and we thank her of course, thanks to Emily Beanoff her part in producing this show, and Nora Richie for additional editorialists stints, Mark Phillips, thank you so much for our theme music. Katie Currik and I are the executive producers of this podcast, and please remember you all can leave us a voicemail at nine two to four four six three seven, and don't forget to call him with

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