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All right, let's do it around the world foreign policy. Buck brief here with our friend Bridge Colby. He's a former Pentagon official. He's got an awesome book on foreign policy, Strategy of Denial. Check it out. Bridge. Great to have you back on the program. Let's start with this for a second, because you know, we're speaking at a time when the world is still reeling from the terrorist attack in Israel by Hamas. Iran's fingerprints are all over this.
We know that what does Iran think it can achieve with the actions that it engages in. Is it just ideologically driven sadism and hatred or is there a long game here that they think they're playing by supporting these militant groups that is in some way achievable as a nation state.
Well, great to be back with you, Buck, Always a pleasure to be with you, and even on this really difficult day or time. Look, I think there is plenty of rage in ideology in the Islamic Republic of the regime there, but I also think they appear to be pursuing a strategy, and I think that's my sense of the Israeli assessment as well. It's based on you know, the exploitation of terrorism and human suffering and so forth.
But it is it is a strategy.
I mean, I don't know exactly what they're going I mean, it's too clear that Iran benefits from this to say that they've had no role. Obviously they've been heavily complicit in arming Hamas and Hesbala and so forth, but they also benefit from interrupting the Israeli normalization with the Saudis and others in the region and the quiet that I mean.
I was in Israel in June, and you know, there was a sense that things were pretty much probably more secure in Israel than they ever been, that the kind of West Bank and Gaza were under control. And I think what I assume Mas is trying to do, and backed by Iran, is to reintroduce fear and uncertainty and
anxiety into an Israeli life. Obviously, they're taking hostages and they're trying to probably establish more control over the Arab population in both Gaza where they have been ascended, but also in the West Bank and use that to just over time erode life in the Jewish state and ultimately try to you know, I think their ultimate goal is, as they say, to recapture that territory.
Do you think that they just view this as an incremental approach to the eventual eradication of Israel? I mean, that really is their strategic goal. That's not just bluster and chest stumping from a bunch of psychopaths.
I mean, I think they say it consistently.
And you know, the people who were prepared to conduct acts of terrorism liners in the nineteen seventies, but were more secular or maybe had more incremental objectives even then they might have been more aggressive or ambitious.
I think those people seem to have been pushed aside.
And Hamas and Hezbola were the radical groups and the Islamic revolutionaries in Iran, and you don't look, I mean, obviously these analogies are always kind of limited, but how long did the crusaders stay, or how long did very in the British stay? You know, you look how long colonial anti colonial rebellions that they're probably modeling themselves.
Not to suggest that as rules in any way a colonial state.
But but I think that's probably the model they have. And you know that, as Hochi Minh said, you know, we have time and you can kill ten of ours for everyone.
We kill a view, but in the long run will outlast you.
Yeah, I mean, I know they take this this very long view at the expense of the present. That's a common theme in a lot of Middle Eastern states and unfortunately that you know, the some you know, some amazing future will come about if they're willing to engage in heinous acts today and justify a lot of tyranny, repression and things that generally you would want to avoid. But I'm just wondering at this stage, if is it possible for Israel to allow a thing called Hamas to continue to exist.
Well, I think they've said I think Prime Minister Natanielle who did say that they are going to destroy him Hammad. I mean, I think that that makes a ton of sense.
And I mean I.
Totally support Israel's uh, you know, basis and desire to retaliate and restore that to terrence. There's also an element, of course of justice, but from a strategic point of view, they have to be able to say that if you do these I mean barbarica acts, some of which in some sense are unprecedent sense the Holocaust.
I mean, really horrible.
Stuff that there will be punishment way out of proportion to you know, the benefits for the attacking actor. The problem, of course is what does it mean to destroy Hamas?
And I assume the Israelis are wrestling with that, so I think they'll probably need to come up with a definition of that that is, you know, significant enough that it means something, but also attainable at a reasonable cost, because you know, I'm I think they're mobilizing three hundred thousand israelis huge impact on the Israeli economy, on Israeli society. It is a free society, it's you know, it has democratic politics, of course, much to its credit.
So I think that's going to be a big part of the challenge.
And unfortunately, this is I assume part of what Hamas and presumably Iran and Hesbel and the background are trying to exploit.
We'll come into a discussion of Ukraine here in a second. And there's actually some people that are already pointing out how some of the munition's shortages that we may need to help out with. How the Ukrainian situation exacerbates what we might need to do in the Middle East. We'll get into this in a second. Look. The My Pillow two point oh is amazing. The My Pillow one point zero built Mike Lindell's incredible company, It's a product that the whole thing was built around, but the two point
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ten dollars more. Enter promo code buck to get your My Pillow two point zero. Now. So Ukraine Russia bridge the so far, the analysis this year is a lot of fighting and basically no territorial movement, as in the whole breakthrough that we were told was going to happen was there was no breakthrough. It looks to be a straight up stalemate, and we're funding this as well as
providing a lot of munitions. What's your take on where the Ukraine situation is going and how it's affecting US foreign policy priorities in general right now?
Well, look, I think you're right. I mean I think it's an attritional conflict. I think the New York Times itself reported that very little territory has changed hands this year, and in fact, Russia has seized more territory than Ukraine. So, you know, the Ukrainian counter offensive there may still be stamina left in it, but I don't think it's going
to radically up end the war. I think what we're seeing as a war of attrition, and it's encouraging that we and the Europeans have made some moves to tate
our defense industrial base. But the thing to bear in mind is that's all relative buck And this is a really important point that a lot of the kind of more traditional, if you will, neo conservative voices in the Republican Party underestimate is that that's The Russians are also mobilizing for a long war, and the Wall Street Journal is reporting on Saturday that they're retooling their entire economy
for war economy. So you know, they're going to buy fewer Mercedes and sobs or whatever, and they're going to eat it. Frankly, they're going to their lives are not going to be as sort of luxurious as they might have been in places like Saint Petersburg in Moscow probably, but they're going to allocate more of their money and resources as a nation to the military, and we'll see how that nets out relatively. But I think, you know, a long war is a very difficult conflict for US.
I think this is unfortunately what the Kremlin is anticipating.
They're also getting help from the North Koreans.
People laugh about the North Koreans, but one thing they're good at is building missiles and rockets and artillery shells. They have like a million people working in artillery factories and ammunition factories. We can't even produce on hundred fifty five millimeters munitions at that. We are in producing more of it, but which the Israelis also need, but at the level, not the level of the Ukrainians actually want to be able to expend it at.
So this is the real problem.
What we should be doing is getting the Europeans to really step up, which they're particularly the Germans, are not doing. I think the fact that there's a war breaking out with our very close ally Israel, and I mean their actual sovereign territory is being is being invaded and so forth, this just shows us that we can't keep bluffing through.
I see a lot of the voices, you know of this sort of George W. Bush approach saying, hey, we got to be active everywhere, and they're completely sort of blithely ignoring the fact that we're not in a position
we should have been. We should have spent some of that COVID money that we blew on resuscitating our defense industrial base, on being able to bring good jobs back to the United States that could skilled welders fix submarines, build munitions, But we didn't do that, and we barely we have barely touched the problem in the last year. I mean, I've been calling for a national mobilization for the last year because we've been digging ourselves this hole.
But that's not where we are in the president I just saw him. He was talking, you know, in the White House, and he was very moralistic and on his high horse, and I.
Was like, what were you yelling at?
Man, Like, you're the one who could have said, let's actually get a defense industrial base that, by the way, would meet a lot of the kind of concerns that you know, those of us on the new Right want, which brings good industrial jobs back to this country.
But instead it's a.
Lot of the green stuff from the climate and all this kind of stuff, and they don't want to do more on the defense side. So I think we're in really bad shape. And I actually I wrote a piece the other day in The Spectator saying that we're in really bad shape. And I actually underestimated the situation because I didn't think about this possibility of Hamas and Israel, but the Chinese that the threat has not dissipated in the slightest.
It's probably intensifying kind of thing.
So where do you think all this goes? I mean, Bridge, I was on radio when Russia invaded Ukraine initially, and there was that moment when they were making that move toward Kiev, and then everyone was saying, oh, they've turned them around, and I just said, look, guys, this thing's not going to end anytime soon, and it's going to end up costing the US when all of a sudden done, We're gonna spend a trillion dollars on this war, which
sounded people were just like, come on, that's insane. And now I'm sort of well, it's like two hundred billion in counting right now. Where do you think it's going?
I mean, I think you're you're you're certainly more right than those who were dismissing it and hoping the war would just end quickly and decisively. I mean, I don't think Russia's going anywhere as a great power, and who you know, they care a lot about Ukraine. Unfortunately, their desire their life, Putin's lust to take over Ukraine or establish a dominant position is not just. But unfortunately it's enduring, just like North Korea's is via South Korea.
I mean, I was struck.
The administration has been pointing out that we've given one hundred and fifty billion dollars to the Israelis or an AID over the last time of fifty fifty plus years. I mean, we've given almost as much to Ukraine and over in the last year, you know, kind of a year and a half.
So this is a huge amount of money. And that's and that's I don't think going anywhere. So I think we're in. I mean, where is this all going to go.
Look, we don't know what they're thinking in Tehran and Moscow. We can Beijing, we can glean, we can infer, but I think the most compelling way of looking at is to kind of fit the dots on the line. Putin didn't condemn the Hamas attack and the and the rhetoric out of Moscow is to say, well, this is the price you pay, this is how the you know, this
is where we're going to pull the Americans away. And of course the Iranians have been helping the Russians with the drones that have they been using on the front, So the Russians owe the Iranians, and meantime, the Iranian benefit from Hamas taking this action. That's let's apart the Sautas and the Israelis. And who benefits the most the Chinese, because it stretches the Americans out. And there are people who are acting as if we have no constraints, that
there is no scarcity, and that's just not serious. And I mean, the American people are already fed up with the forever wars and they've spent a lot of money, and unfortunately, I think we are going to need to have to spend more money on defense industrial base, not so we get into other wars, but so we can help our allies that like Israel, that want to be able to defend themselves, be able to do so. But that's not where we are right now, and so you know,
we're in really grim shape. I wish the President would have gotten on national television and say, look, people, this is the biggest problem.
This is an opportunity to regrow our industrial base. That's not what he did.
Interesting, you know, the notion of regrowing the industrial base, but also the revulsion that it seems certainly the Republican base. And I would assume a lot of Democrats have as well for the military industrial complex. Rhee On, you know, Boeing,
how do you how do you square that? Like, is there a way to sell revitalizing an industry, basically the munitions industries that we have real war fighting capability and also the ability to support our allies without sounding like being a show for Raytheon.
You know what I mean, I know exactly what you mean.
I'm an acutely sensitive to this, you know, partially just instrumentally being a defense guy. I always I think a lot of people, like they hear defense and foreign policy people talking about increasing the defense budget, they just tune it out. I mean, I was at a hell thing with a bunch of Republican congressman a few years ago, and they had a bunch of more the defense hawks came in and I overheard one of the other kind of normal Republican congressmens, Oh, the defense hawks are back,
you know, and they just they just discount it. So I'm sensitive that instrumentally, but also substantively. I think there's a reason, I mean, we spend almost a trillion dollars a year, and what do we have munition scarcity? I mean really, so obviously this system is broken. There's five defense primes. In the nineteen eighties we had thirty defense primes.
We had even more earlier. So to me, this is an opportunity for the kind of industrial policy, the new thinking that you get out of place like American Compass, American Affairs, et cetera. On the left, people like Rocana and Matt Stoler, that you could get a bipartisan coalition that says, look, we're going to re We understand this is going to take government invention. We're not just going to fill I mean Greg Hayes, the CEO of Raytheon,
was saying that they couldn't decouple from China. I mean, why would we stuff the pockets of people like that, who are you know, basically accountable to their shareholders and are not going to be thinking about what's necessarily in the country's best And I'm not saying he's a bad guy, but I'm saying, like, that's not And a lot of I think the traditional Republicans say oh, let's just double defense beending, and people are thinking themselves, yeah, really, like
that's not so. But I do think and I think it meets a number of different political objectives and interests. I mean, one of them is what I'm talking about, having more weapons A, so we're ready and so we have peace through strength.
To use the cliche, but it's kind of true. B. We can give weapons to countries like Israel, more to Ukraine, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, so they can fight the who are ready to fight. We can help them do that.
But at the same time, bring back good, hard paying job, good you know, hard working, good paying jobs back to this country. We don't like, we don't have enough welders for our submarine force. We're just gonna need to create them. And those are good jobs, and then they'll be white collar jobs and blue collar jobs and what have you. I think that's the way that we talk about it.
But it's very important. I think you're absolutely right, Buck, it's very important that this not be seen and not actually be just a gift to the established players who are just going to keep doing what they're doing.
Yes, because it certainly seems like the big defense contractors people have had their have had their feel of the run up and costs that incur all the time, and somehow the lack of sustained large scale war fighting capability that we have at the same time, right, like, yeah, you know, we're getting really fancy planes, but do we have enough artillery shells? I mean, these are important things to figure out.
Fixed ships, like basic things. And and so it's like we're spending people say, oh, we're not spending enough on defense. We'll like spilling and spending a trillion dollars.
Shouldn't we get a better output?
You would think? So, I want to talk China with you in a second here, But first up, some people in the know are speculating on a coming change to our currency system. According to one of them, a former Wall Street insider and digital currency expert, our federal government could soon announce this change. In this scenario, our paper currency could be replaced with something much more trackable, a
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this one more time. Dollar recall dot Com paid for by Palm Beach Research Group. All right, Bridge, So China's watching all this stuff going on, Russia, Ukraine War, Israel Hamas war. How are they sitting on the sidelines and positioning themselves and benefiting and strategizing.
Well again, I mean, I don't know what's going through Xijinping's head, but I'm looking at them and I'm saying they're doing pretty much everything consistent with actually preparing for war with the United States. They're training their conventional forces, they're building them up. They're building them up in a way that assumes they've solved the Taiwan problem. They're building up their nuclear forces. They're sanctioned trying to sanction proof
their economy. They're conditional conditioning the Chinese people for suffering. I mean, Chijin Ping is saying, get used to it. There's going to be rocky waters. Okay, that's happening. Okay, if you're China, then if you think about it kind of inferentially or deductively, you say, what would be the best situation. If you're going to attack Taiwan, if you're going to take on the Americans, that's like a cosmic roll of the dice.
And what's the lesson of Putin?
Putin has given a masterclass on what not to do if you're an aggressor. You know, don't attack in twenty fourteen and then wait eight years. Don't assume the other guy's going to fall apart. Don't take for granted that the Western Allies are going to be disunity, unified, et cetera. Okay, if you're cheated in opinion, you take that, I mean, it's pretty common sensical, then you basically, I think you
benefit from trying to stretch the Americans as much as possible. So, actually, from China's point of view, I think the current situation in Europe is actually optimal. Like they don't even necessarily want a total Russian victory because now they Russia is totally dependent on them and it's tying down the Americans and by the way, the Europeans as well.
Oh, and then there's a major war that breaks out in the Middle East.
And the United States might get involved in that, and its attention is directed towards that well, you stretch the Americans, you stretch, You stretch to stretch, and that gives you a you the best opening possible. I'm not saying they're going to do it tomorrow, but I am saying I think there's a very very real risk in the coming years. And China's behavior suggests a country that's you know, oh, and then they're not going to pay any cost they
don't have to. They're saying, oh, we'd like to help both parties in Europe and also in the Middle East. So everybody's kind of trying to curry favor with the Chinese, so they're not going to us up if a war does happen in the Pacific.
What is the relationship like right now with China and Russia specifically.
I mean, I think it's the closest has been since the nineteen fifties in some ways, perhaps even closer at the leader level.
I mean, they have deep, deep engagement.
I mean, the Russians are clearly the junior partner, but I don't think they certainly Putin thinks he has an alternative.
And so what are the Chinese doing.
They're basically they are getting you know, secure natural resources, energy supplies, possibly food and other things from Russia. And by the way, the Russian military industry could potentially help them out. And what are they doing in return, Well, they're not providing weapons, but Russia's good at producing weapons and can get.
It from Iran and North Korea.
They're propping up the Russian economy by you know, basically with money, which is by far the most important thing. So they don't tick off the Europeans and the Americans enough to cross their threshold, but they achieve the goal anyway, So I think it's a And then I think to myself, Okay, if we think back to that stretching the United States problem, well, China's really bailed Russia out. I mean Russia needs. If China weren't around, Russia would be up a creek, probably
without a paddle. If you're in that situation, you're in a long war with the West, and there's no way there's going to be a there's not unlikely to be a deal, and that Putin's going.
To cut a deal.
And by the way, I don't think the Chinese would necessarily agree to back him in making a deal. Well, then you know, maybe you get payback. I think there's a very real possibility that the Chinese decide to go. If I were Chijinping, what would I do? I would say, Hey, Putin, I really bailed out. Now it's your turn to help me out.
I want you to do X y Z.
Doesn't mean they're gonna invade Germany or something, although anything's possible, but it's it does mean, hey, I'm going to make things even worse in Europe to distract and tie down the Americans.
Let's talk about the Chinese economy here and just second it first up. You know you can see if you're watching this, then you should because you should be subscribed to our YouTube channel, YouTube dot com slash bucks ax. And I've kind of let it go here with a beard, and I'm not bearded these days, but I just have been lazy for a few days. But you know what I'm going to do. Use my one blade razor. The one blade shave, my friends, gives you a clean, comfortable shave,
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twenty percent off your first order. Bridge is a very clean He's always been a very clean I've never seen Bridge with.
A b I had a beard for one year.
Oh okay, I mean I've known Bridge like I met Bridge with the first twenty years ago and and I've never seen him with a beer before. So I got to send him a one blade. But before we before we let you go, you see this stuff about about what is it evergrand and China, and you know the economy there is there a chance. There are some folks out there, including one or two we're friends of mine, who are always like, the Chinese economy is about to implode,
and it doesn't really happen, but it could. What do you see going on with China economically, because that's obviously going.
To play a big role in all of this, well from a strategic point of view, from a national interest point of view, I think we have to bet on the you know, we have to bet.
We can't. We can't bet on winning the lottery.
So maybe it'll fall apart, but it seems pretty unlikely, and I think we need to prepare for the downside risks.
So to me, that kind of settles it and more and more to the point, I think, you know, the.
Best analysis I'm seeing is that the Chinese are running into structural headwinds that day back for decades. You know, Shijinping's own economic moves may be slowing the economy as well, but I mean, like we see with the Huawei phone and things going on, unfortunately, I think they are continuing
to you know, grow and make significant progress. I think, you know, the best assessment, you know, is that there is probably going to be a significant slowdown in the Chinese economy with from like say the seven percent world but probably in the realm of like two to three percent real growth.
Two three percent growth, it's a lot lower than it used to be, pretty high by OECD standards.
I mean, the German economy is going to contract this year, our economy unclear, Other economies like the British economy, I believe, had trough times.
So two to three percent, it's all relative.
And you know the other thing I say, there's a huge number of people in China, especially including people who have not yet reached like high levels of economic development. There's still large levels of catch up growth available to China. So I think the prudent assessment is that they're going to continue to grow, even if at a slower rate.
Now I was, I mean, I was going to end with that, but actually I want to ask you something just out of my own curiosity. You know, your assessment of this. You talked about China, how it might be preparing for war with the US, and you see some of those some of those movements and some of that underway. At its core is the Chinese regime. The Chinese Communist
Party of today was Shijinping as its dictator. Effectively, is it just an oppositional regime to the liberal world order or is it a hostile and existential threat regime to the world order? You know what I mean?
Yeah?
So look, I mean I think part of what makes this situation so dangerous is that is that I don't think China is totally irrational for thinking about going to war. In fact, in some ways it is quite rational. And a lot of this has to do ultimately, what this is about is economics and growth and commerce and prosperity
and so forth. And I think what China appears to want is what I think of as like a secure, large economic sphere where they have a lot of scale and they could orient the world's economy, particularly Asian economy, around them, and then use that leverage to command the world economy. Why would they want to do that? Because it's awesome because you can you get to live better, because you get to boss everybody else around.
And that's not I don't think they're like, I don't you.
Know, chese in opinion, he's not not a great human being, I don't think, to say the least, but he's not Mauzadoon.
He's not Paul Pott.
I actually think if we were facing a non communist Chinese regime or government, we might face very similar problems. And that's what this sort of like the tragedy of great power politics is. The problem is if China achieves that goal and they appear to believe that we are trying to strangle them with our economic sanctions, that's part of the problem, a little bit like what happened with Japan.
In nineteen forty one.
They were the bad guys, but we kind of put them in a corner with our oil and sanctions in nineteen forty one, but without the military strength to deter them. I think if China succeeds in that respect, because people rightly are saying, well, you know, Taiwan doesn't appear to care a lot about its defense, why should we care.
It's have a world away. The problem is Asia is the world's the center of the world economy, and if China dominates that, we're all going to be working for them basically, and that means in their system, we're going to be working basically for Shijinping. And that's why Taiwan and the first island chain are so important, and unfortunately that's all kind of theoretical. But then I look at the data points that we see and they're consistent with what I'm saying.
That's what really scares me.
Bridge Colby everybody, A Strategy of Denial is his book. You should pick it up and uh Bridge, always insightful and appreciate your expertise. My friend. Good to see you.
Thanks, Bob, good to see you too.