Angry Planet - Donald Trump Wants to Divide Up the World With His ‘Friends’

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comGreat power competition has gotten old for President Donald Trump—never one for a fair fight. He’s looking for a little great power collusion instead, dividing the world with his best buds, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. This kind of thing isn’t new, though, Stacie Goddard, a professor at Wellesley, tells us, in fact it’s the 1800s on repeat. Well, look how that turned out… World War I, anybody?BTW, check out her terrific article on this in Foreign Affairs magazine.Welcome to the Concert of EuropeThe post-Napoleon partyA taxonomy of aspirational GermansRetvrnStrong men, weak worldGovernment by MafiaWhat becomes of the “middle powers”?The era of aging dictatorsThe long breakdownEmpire without ickinessTurns out might does, in fact, make rightThe Rise and Fall of Great-Power CompetitionThe Concert of EuropeSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. Hey there, Angry Planet listeners, Matthew here with a message before we begin. Did you know that Angry Planet is almost entirely listener supported? It's true. You can go to Angry PlanetPod.com and sign up and get early access to all of the mainline episodes

and their commercial free. And you get bonus episodes. There's a great episode about Fallout, the TV show, with Noah Caldwell Jervais, that's up there. We've also got a new one out this week. And you also get access to the Angry Planet Discord for signing up. So go to Angry Planetpod.com, $9 a month, and it really helps us out. All right, on with the show. Welcome to another conversation about conflict on a very angry planet.

I am Jason Field. And I'm Matthew Galt. joining us today actually is we are really happy to have her her name is stacey goddard she's a professor of political science and at wellesley college she wrote a terrific piece in foreign affairs um can you just start off uh stacey but just sort of introduce yourself a little bit and maybe just take us a little bit through what the article's all about sure um and and first all jason matt thank you so much for having So I am a professor of political science at Wellesley College. I teach international relations with a focus on international relations theory and international security. So the theory, the guns, the bombs, that type of stuff, with a fair amount of focus, too, on international history, which kind of goes into the article. So for the last several years, I've been working on questions of great power competition and international order, which has been sadly extremely relevant over the last. the last decade as great power competition kind of came to grip a U.S. foreign policy. And I think that

was the case, you know, the first Trump administration and the second Biden administration. And coming into this Trump administration, I noticed something. And I was also lucky that the editor of foreign affairs had been a little bit of this as well, that as much as great power competition had been the centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy, suddenly it seems like, Trump was doing something very different. He's been reaching out, as we all know, to Vladimir Putin. While he's been pretty punitive economically towards Xi Jinping and China, he also keeps making statements about wanting to come to a deal or, you know,

I'm on the phone with him right now. Everything's great. And in other words, this looks a lot less like power competition and a lot more like great power collusion. So what the article attempts to do is talk about that. and also bring in an historical analogy. I know you guys like historical analogies, by the way, listening to your work. And this one is a little different.

It kind of takes us back to the concert of Europe in the 19th century to talk about how great powers have colluded in the past, what that means for international relations and why that might be good or not so good in the present day. So that's the bit of synopsis there. That's great. But I'm going to bet that the concert of Europe is back far enough in the educations of most of our listeners that it may not immediately come to mind what it was all about.

So I don't know why not. So if we can ask you to just delve in even a little bit deeper, tell us what that was all about, and we can figure out how the analogy works. Yeah, I'm happy to do that, although I do have to start by saying I'm always just a little bit startled that I get to talk about the concert of Europe. and people are somehow interested in this and think it's relevant. But I'll do my best to convince you of all these things. So the construct of Europe is basically set up by European powers at the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

So we're talking about a series of conferences and treaties that are set up 1814, 1815. So free Waterloo, but really kind of as the Napoleonic Wars are winding down. The Napoleonic Wars had been concerned. devastating to Europe. We can date them back actually before Napoleon to the French Revolution. And it really engulfed Europe from about 1793 until this early part, yeah, until 18, 15, 18, 16. So you can imagine war actually gripping a kind of about long period of time. So I guess it's not surprisingly surprising that European powers kind of said, can we avoid doing that again?

that was just a bit destructive. And they, furthermore, really saw still forces in play, particularly nationalism that could upset the continent again. So the leaders, it started out primarily of the United Kingdom, so Britain, Austria, and Russia. And eventually they actually bring France into the school, end up establishing a series of treaties that form the basis of their cooperation. And the kind of baseline of this is they decide that any time there's a crisis over territory, the possibility of expansion, they're going to make a commitment to get together to attempt to resolve that crisis in the interests of Europe, right?

So to try to avoid warfare and to settle at the eastly. So, I mean, just was there a document or anything that, you know, that was signed that really created this? and, you know, they said concert of Europe, like up on the wall or, you know, anything that made it really official? Yes. So there are a number of treaties that actually end the Napoleonic War, right? So it's a series of treaties that are established at the Congress of Vienna, so kind of held at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. And my understanding of this, that the kind of initial congresses themselves are almost like a party in Vienna, right? All of these, you know, leaders come in. to be able to kind of establish this world order. So that part of it is very much a formal affair. There are also pulling that a number of formal congresses to kind of set out the contours of Europe, right?

So there are lots of outstanding questions, not just what is that way is going to happen to France, and who is going to lead France after this, you know, they end up restoring the monarchy, for example. But also where are there going to be particular territorial boundaries? So there's a, for example, by the time it gets to 1830s, there's a whole conflagration over Belgium independence and who's actually going to have influence over here. So it starts out actually very formal, but there's also kind of an

informal series of negotiations of diplomacy that go on, that end up kind of attempting to mitigate these conflicts. And the one more thing I kind of want to note, because this becomes, I think, important even to the present day, is there are also sub-treaties embedded within the Congress treaties, right? So, for example, there's a treaty that's a treaty that's sets up what's known as the Holy Alliance between Russia, Austria, and Russia. And these are the more ideological conservative of the parties. There's a reason it's a holy alliance kind of embedded in this conservative Christian dynasty commitment. Was the Holy Roman Emperor still around at that point?

Or was he already gone? So the Holy Roman Empire, which of course, we all know is not our whole. Roman or an empire. It's gone. This is basically what succeeds it is the German Confederation. Okay. So the Holy Roman Empire

is what this is kind of, there are a couple of different branches. This is getting so in the weeds. We like weeds. We like weeds. Okay, we'll stay in the weeds. I just like aspirational Germans.

Yeah. Oh, yes. And these are some aspirational Germans. Well, remember, the Germans are re-arming. So we, so the Holy Roman Empire is basically what we now understand today to be that the kind of German and Austria and the time has now been configuring to the German Confederation, which is a series of like princely states, roughly with Austria and the countries of Austria and Prussia, kind of as their own little regional hegemon's

there. But the Holy Roman Empire is gone. left away. Well, I know where we are in the weeds, but one thing I just want to ask, so this is in some ways pre-nationalism in some parts, or at least the success of nationalism, right? Europe is divided up in still into some form of empires, right? So, I mean, Austria still owns big chunks of Italy. Just to make the, because I want to make sure people understand just how complex that it was in order to create this concert and how everybody would have to, you know, the things people would have to agree to. I mean, the borders weren't as well defined, right?

I mean, as they are now. And people were, you know, the different countries were actually already in competition for the Balkans and various other parts of Europe, right? You're describing this actually really well. If I did think, if I wanted people to get a picture in their heads, right? So that's kind of moved to the continent of Europe, right? You have a Russian empire, right? So I think you're right. Don't think of it just as a cohesive state,

right? That has a lot of claims through, you know, what today, you know, is present gay, Poland, down into the Balkans. You have an Austria and then what becomes the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, which also has claims, reaching down to the Balkans. You're absolutely right,

reaching down to what we understand out to the Italy. We don't have Italian unification. that's later in the 1960th century. We have the Ottoman Empire, which is ultimately not considered part of Europe, but also having influence in the Balkans, right? And then this German Confederation, which is not technically an empire,

but we have these dueling kind of claims between Prussia and Austria. So as you said, to almost think about a series of empire or maybe even a series of orders, right, with all of these states kind of making claims to spheres of influence, right? And then you have Britain

or relatively far more liberal off the continent, but interested in the most part in keeping some sort of peace mostly so it can go off. It's beginning its own imperial expansion around the globe. How do we return to that

from where we are now? And why? So this is part of what I discuss in this piece, which is that the ideas that underlie this make a few different assumptions. And the first of which is that we can have these type of carefully delineated orders, right, that you could imagine there be some sort of United States-led order in one region,

one type of Russian-led order, one type of Chinese-led order. And to be clear, the boundaries weren't particularly well-fixed or defined in Europe in the 19th century and they certainly aren't now. The thing is that these powers at the time recognized themselves as the great powers. They believed that they had the right

to kind of order their worlds to reconfigure boundaries in the way that they self-fit. To your point, there are nationalist movements but that they're not particularly strong at the time. They're just kind of, you know, various pockets of insurgency, there aren't these kind of very

well-defined political communities that believe they have sovereign crimes. So that's your point. How you do this now in a world that the boundaries are not fixed, that there are so many more interactions, and I don't see a lot of smaller power saying that this is a deal they want to take.

And yet, you kind of outline that this is maybe the closest analog for the world as Trump envisions it. Maybe, like, I don't believe, not to say that he's reading books about the concert of Europe and saying, like, I want to do that. It's more that he's kind of bumbling his way into that, right?

Yeah. Yeah, I didn't want to make, as I wrote this, I didn't want to make a mountain to a master strategist or, you know, some sort of having this type of command of mystery. And I think a lot of it, the way I would describe it, is an impulse, an instinct or an impulse, which is to say, I think that this, and this type of stuff has been written before, that he's transactional, but I think more than that,

he sees himself as this strong businessman, and I think he sees people like, gee, like Putin, he said as much, right? These are strong men who love their country. So I think this kind of vision of the world where the terms are set by a series of strong men, and I'm using my gendered language, by the way, very consciously. You know, it's, yeah, I think it holds.

fair. It fits, right? You know, that's how he sees the world. So the idea is whether or not you call somebody up to give them a friendly deal or you bully him a bit into the bargaining table, right? These are the people you deal with. This is how the world should be arranged. And that's it.

There are certain people who get the seat at the table. And his ego puts him right at the table. I mean, he couldn't be anywhere else, right? Oh, absolutely. way. He's completely at the head of the table in his, in his mind. So what I think I've been really wondering is if that's what he's trying to achieve, and I mean, or that's what he thinks is going to, well, I don't know how to put it because I, I agree with you so completely that there's no real plan here.

I mean, it's not a plan. Anyway, not a strategy. Not a strategy. It's just a thing. But to me, what's been. the most shocking out of all this is like he thinks he can accomplish this by making America weaker again in all ways.

I mean, and just surrendering and showing our bellies. But I think it's important that he doesn't think in his conception, he's not making us weaker. Like, I think that that will be the lived experience of a lot of Americans, but

he doesn't respect lived experiences other than his own. And I also think, too, he's not, how I put this? So let's kind of start with, you know, just the idea of power political competition or great power competition, right? I think you've got to, you think, you know,

if you approach this as a strategist, right, then your question is, okay, how do I, how do I mobilize power in this day and age, right? How do I mobilize economic power? What kind of leaders do I have domestically? What kind of, you know, leaders do I have internationally, right? So, for example, you might sit there and say something like, oh, the United States actually gets a lot of power because it sits upon atop the plumbing of the global financial system, right? There are a lot of positive externalities that come for that, you know.

And I think that he has, as we know, I'm not saying anything surprising here, like a very outdated view of where power comes from. And it's the power of an industrial base, right, that he believes can. be rebuilt. You know, my own belief is even if you can rebuilt it, is that something, is that a game worth the candle, right? In other words, what kind of power does that actually give you? But he's willing to

adopt the strategy, I call them a Hulk smash when it comes to the international financial and trade form, right? He's willing to give that up for this image he has of what power is. So I think it's even more than what he... I mean, yes, I think he's enriching himself as well, to be clear, but I think it just

have this incredibly myopic view of what power is. You know, it's industry, it's cars, it's real estate. And it's missing like, no, we're here. And now you messed it up. And it's not allies either, though. That's one thing that really astonishes, has astonished me so far. I mean, how he seems to, I don't know if it's the freeloading thing you loves to talk about or the fact that you have to actually consult with other people if you're going to have a NATO.

but I mean, I'm still enough of an imperialist or a hawk to believe that NATO was a good thing and actually made us stronger. You know, am I a crazy person? I don't think you're a crazy person at all. I mean, look, I think that there was always space to think about post-European defense industry, right? But by the way, actually, I want to make this clear. I think that you can think that without saying, you know, somehow, and European countries have been free learners. The United States, since the Clinton administration,

has done everything it came to disrupt an indigenous European defense industry. Right. So that, that, that, so it's, it's kind of, you can say, look, you know, we can shift some of the burden. We can have European countries play a moral rule, but still, again, keep that infrastructure there. that infrastructure itself is so valuable, right? And that was, for many of us, obvious, you know,

even before Russia was a threat. Actually, speaking, this is on topic, but that a little bit. I was just reading, this is kind of the strange schizophrenia of this administration, which on the one hand is basically backing away from allies and backing away from NATO. But it's also, this was in Reuters, just a couple days ago, was sending signals to Europe, but we still want you to buy our stuff. You need to buy our equipment. What do you mean you're going to start investing in the war in the Eurofighter?

Right. So there's a real disconnect. Wow. You know, that's the best part of all these changes is that geniuses, pure geniuses are behind it all. And I feel really greatly reassured myself. Matthew, how reassured are you feeling? Oh, so deeply reassured. My anxiety isn't spiking daily.

All right. So Concert of Europe, great metaphor. The other one that I've been thinking about, and like one that mysterious and often absent producer Kevin Nodell keeps putting in my ear is that this also sounds like world government by mafia. Like it's dividing, like you're talking about strong men dividing up territories. and using their, you know, kind of these cults of personality that last until they crumble, it sounds a lot like criminal states, which, you know, is not unlike what kind of Putin has done in Russia since he's been in charge, right?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Oh, I have so many reactions to that. I mean, the first one is I'll start by simply saying, yes. And I think, and this is where I think things. get different from the concert in a big way, right? And I think that there, let me start by saying there's a whole in some ways hagiography about the concert. And I get it because obviously this comes at the end of decades of warfare and establishes that in decades of peace. At the same time,

the motivations for the concert are not all good, at least from our perspective today. They are oftentimes anti-liberal, anti-nationalist, right, and attempts to keep dynastic strong men in power, right? So there's that. And at the same time, here's one key difference, I think, is that the concert leaders believed that there was something called a long-term collective interest, right, that would require them to be able to set aside their own interests, right, to act out of the good of this European collective. Now, again, I'm not saying it was good for everyone. I'm not saying that we would agree that this is a good. I want to acknowledge, for example, but we're right on the cusp of massive European colonial expansion. So lots that is not good here. But that being said, I have a very,

very hard time seen in Trump or Putin, or she for that matter, an image that or something that screams, wow, whatever they do, they're certainly doing it for a collective good. I mean, they are some long-term thinkers who really see outside themselves. This is, I think, a lot more narcissistic, a lot more about self-enrichment, right? In other words, like, get the, get the world in order so we can go ahead and get what we want, not give the world what it needs. Well, you make me think then about the colonialism and the regionality, right, that not only do you control your country or empire, but you can expand your empire within certain areas, territories, right? You write specifically about Taiwan that maybe the new philosophy is, yeah, it's within your own area.

You know, let's not give that too much thought. That's fine. So can you, yeah, talk about that a little bit. I mean, I do think there's an undercurrent here of real spheres of influence thinking, right? Now, to be clear, I'm not saying that that is how it's going to play out. There are so many forces, even now in the United States government that see China as a threat and that have a serious commitment to Taiwan. But I think that if you think about what is the commitment to Taiwan, they aren't exactly things that fit well in Trump's vision of the world. Right? Is there going to be an interest in defending Taiwan because it is a democracy? Not really. Is there going to be an interest in defending Taiwan because we care deeply about territorial norms and not violating territory with aggression? I don't see that as well. Is there a sense that the United States should care about Taiwan, maybe. not for its own site, but regionally because the United States should be using its naval power to keep shipping lanes open for the global good. And again, I'm not sure this is something Trump

thinks deeply about. So I think that he looks at this is something that you could almost trust Xi to take care of, right? Why not portion things off in terms of regions? Right. And besides, as far as he's concerned, they all speak Chinese, whatever. Chinese is. He doesn't realize there are dialects, I'm guessing. It's next door. We can make chips here. It's fine. Well, that's the thing, too, is the other, precisely, right? The other reason Taiwan matters is, obviously it's command of the chip industry, which, what does Trump say about that? Taiwan stole it, right? Bring it back to the United States, right? So even there, there's almost an impetus to say, no, let's regionalize even that as well. So, of course, that means Ukraine.

is screwed. Oh, yeah. And I say, I do not mean to sound flipping on that, but no, there's not, for all the photos in the Sistine Chapel, they're taken in the Sistine Chapel, there's no sense that Zolensky and Ukraine have a seat at this table. And you can really see that in the discussion of the recognition of Crimea as part of, as part of Russia. Which is just a deep ignorance of, Ukrainian politics and its constitution, right? So, like, think for them to recognize Crimea as part of Russia, they would literally have to change their constitution. Yeah. Well, it would just undermine the entirety of the regime and government, right?

I mean, to actually have to accept that as of 2014, that this isn't an essential and indivisible part of Ukraine, that that that, that. that's just inconceivable. It's entirely illegitimate. And you lose out on some fantastic vacation spots. It's true. It's true. But, you know, that's probably, I'm thinking that's probably secondary on Zelonsky's mind. But, you know. Well, I mean, wasn't it one of Stalin's favorite places to get out of Moscow? You are correct, yes. You also talk in your article about middle powers, right? I mean, other people who are countries that, may have something to say about all of this. What do they have, what can they say, I guess,

would really be my question. So I think it's, it's beyond time. I think they should have been doing this for the last 10 years, but that I think middle powers start to think about what levers they have to pull with the United States in particular, also with China. So, A couple of points on this. I think that we will see the middle powers, who, to be clear, I think Trump doesn't see as having a say, trying to find sources of power to give them a say, right? We're already seeing this in Europe with the Rearm Act, right? where they're trying, they're going to make a go of building up their own defense industry.

We might see this in places like Japan, Korea, Australia, as they begin to think about how much autonomy they need, right? So right now, for example, Australia quintessential middle power, lots of regional influence, is thinking about whether or not that ACA's deal where they got a certain amount of Virginia class nuclear summary. is worth it? Is it worth binding yourself to the United States like this? So I think that we're going to see a lot of reconsideration, again, of these binding strategies. How tightly? How much, how do you really want to take the F-35s? That means you're going to be dependent on the United States for maintenance and ammunition. Do you really want to take the nuclear submarines similarly? I think that Europe, as a combined market, has a lot of power here. And

remember that it, you know, kind of, maybe we should use the word Bolandotold for Europe under the Biden administration was willing to kind of reconfigure its relationships with China, its economic relationships around 5G, was willing to go along with the Infrastructure Act, Chips Act, all of this stuff, to bind itself to the United States. I don't see why Europe's not simply hedging, right, opening up its market more to China so it can kind of play both sides off against the other. So Australia, you know, kind of just a final point, you know, has, you know, its own strength in minerals.

You know, it's part of one of these, you know, critical supply line. So I think if I were right now a middle power, I'd be doing a serious audit if you didn't already know what your sources of influence are in power with each of these great powers. So you have something to threaten them with when they come at you. But some of these middle powers are already not on friendly terms with the United States anyway, right? I mean, would Iran count in this group? I mean, if they do, I mean, all they have to do is continue down the road. They've been edging forever and just go ahead and build a nuke. I mean, that's another way of getting a seat at the table, right?

I mean, traditionally, India, Pakistan, you know, Israel hasn't been blown. up. I still think that's got a lot to do with the fact that they have something like 60-something nukes. And by the way, can I, can I just say it's amazing? We're not watching Indian Pakistan right now? In sort of like detail? I was just thinking we should probably do an episode about that, as he was saying. Totally right. Because it looks like it's about to pop off, right? Oh, I was talking, so I'm teaching nuclear politics this term. I was talking to my students the other day, and I kind of made a comment on, do you know the United States has a lot of doesn't have an ambassador in India, and they just kind of silence, right? I mean, so that's, so yes, in other

words, there are, so we have India and Pakistan, right, which is on the verge of conflict. Iran is interesting, because Iran has been so weakened over the past couple of years, losing its connections with Hezbollah, the weakening of Hamas, the various kind of pushback with the Houthis. I kind of think that it's coming to the table because it doesn't have a lot of resources right now. And on top of that, Russia has obviously been so ensconced in Ukraine. It hasn't been the best partner to Iran. So, you know, I think in some ways I could imagine some decent collusion between the United States and Russia and China to put Iran kind of back into a box, so to speak, to contain it and not let it go down the nuclear path. Well, there's a reason that Iran itself has been talking a lot about a new deal, a new nuclear deal, right?

It hasn't fared well in the last few years. one thing that if we can switch tracks here just a little bit. One thing that strikes me about this, too, is that although it ended in World War I, the concert of Europe, as you said earlier, was pretty stable for a while. But now things feel very chaotic. And they're, I think Trump and G. and Putin all see the world as, as long as there's like one strong person in charge, it can stabilize things in charge of these spheres of influence.

Trump's almost 80. Xi and Putin are in their 70s. These people will die. And the stability they offer only lasts until the end of their life. And none of them seem to have plans for what comes. after them. Nobody has a dream of what happens next.

And that seems to be a real bad signal to me. Can you talk about, I'm curious about like, what were the kind of the dynastic lines during the concert of Europe? Like, how was it how many different people were in charge?

What were they, you know, how did that work? So you do have one, again, relatively liberal democracy in Britain, right? So consistent with today, similar types of turnover in prime ministers, you have a fair amount of stability in Austria, Prussia, and Russia, in terms of dynastic lines and secession, right? France is a bit more chaotic, especially after 1848 and, you know, could kind of get the rise of Napoleon the third. So dynastically, it's fairly stable, but I think, Matt, one thing that you're getting at is at one, there's a point at which it kind of comes down to individuals who are,

capable of managing the system, right? They understand the complexities. They're willing, again, to engage in sometimes in self-restraint and self-abundation in order to keep it going, right? So this gets a little bit into, you know, where is there a Bismarck? So for an Otto von Bismarck, right, who comes in into Prussia and realizes that, you know, there are both opportunities in the system, but ultimately it's also going to require a lot of constraint and self-restraint. And I want to be careful again, talk about hagiography, huge hagiography of Bismarck, that somehow he single, handily manages German unification all the while maintaining the peace in Europe.

I don't think that's quite the case. But it is true that once Bismarck is kind of booted out of office, primarily by Kaiser Wilhelm I second, who succeeds his father, Germany goes a little bit haywire and stops. I don't know if you've heard of stories about what happens, but they're a little obscure. But yeah, Germany stops with the restraint, starts with the nationalism, starts with the colonial expansion. And you know the way the story unfolds in the 20th century, right? So to your point about succession, right, who comes?

comes after this, right? And I think that's particularly, at least the United States has, at the moment, a system of succession. Russia, China, and Xi has gathered so much power for himself. Putin has a few more, you know, powerful oligarchs around him. But again, there's no succession plan there. Yeah, but all those guys are going to have to fight to figure out who's next. afterwards. In both. In both places. You know, I don't know enough about either system to know whether that fight will be like internal political battles or if it'll rise to the level of violence. But doesn't seem great.

Yeah, I mean, China still at least, again, powers contracted and she, but has a party system. Russia is, again, what do the oligarchs do? How do they decide to grab power? I don't know. I don't know what that looks like. But even in China now, things are different. I mean, you know, the succession plan gets screwed up by she's just deciding that he gets to be president for life. I mean, it used to be right. The prime minister would move up to the presidency and the, or, you know, anyway, oh, no, that both would get replaced at the same time. I think that's right. Anyway, you know better than I do. But the whole point was that there was, there really was,

a succession plan. You as a top, you know, leader in China had a certain amount of time and then you would step back. Correct. Right. So, I mean, it sort of makes me wonder if there really is any sort of succession after Xi or if he centralized things so much that, you know, you'll end up with the same kind of fighting there that you would have in Russia. Yeah. But at least, so, and again, I mean, I don't want to be too optimistic about this. And I mean, and it's clear that she has consolidated power far more than anyone before him. There again, there's still a party that is supposed to have, has, still has a shared interest in attempting to keep some sort of stability, right? Because if you lose that, you lose the country.

Whereas that that type of cohesiveness doesn't exist among the Russian oligarchs, right? It's not like, I might be calling them the oligarchs, but it's not like, you know, there's a club or a party that they're the oligarchs, right? They've got so many. And their future doesn't hang together, is the way I put this, right? I love to live in an eternal now. It's so awesome. Just the best. How much can the world change in four years?

Oh, my gosh. Utterly? Is that okay? I mean, it's happening whether or not you think it's okay. I don't know if you ever listen to Dan Carlin, you know, his history podcast called Hardcore History. He did a fantastic series on World War I. And he actually, his first one about World War I was he just pointed out. that troops marched into the trenches in 1914 wearing colorful uniforms and looked very much like a 19th century army and came out wearing gray or black or not black but you know gray olive draught all that and looking exactly like soldiers would for the next century or very much like it so i mean it just that transition four years that's all i'm saying that was four years

Awesome. I mean, World War II brought air carriers. It brought nuclear weapons. It brought strategic bombing, right? I mean, it was the thing that in some ways made it clear that power projection, you know, that this has become obviously clear with imperialism, but power projection and wars among states that were so geographically and regionally isolated, that that was no there was no longer that barrier there.

So it can change, it can change a lot. Okay, but in both of those examples, yeah, the change is being hammered in by massive global conflict. Yeah. So absent that, how much can things change in four years? Or is massive change going to require global conflict? So this time I'll dive not into the historical weeds, but the theoretical weeds, right? Because there have been, there's a longstanding tradition in international relations theory called power transition theory.

And the whole premise of this was that these types of massive changes must happen through war, right? In other words, the kind of cycle was you have a great power, you know, or a couple great powers, but you did. And they would build the system, you know, rules and norms. So in this case, it would be the United States and the liberal world order and that eventually new powers would rise up, smash the system through warfare, start over. Right. And I think then the question becomes, let's leave aside the World War question for now. Let's try to have a happy day. But to what extent can these institutions and rules and norms be smashed?

entirely in the next four years through other means outside of warfare. Not only do I think they can, I think many of them already have been. So think about the fundamental institutions of the post-World War II era on, so Cold War into the post-Cold War. Where's the WTO? You know, the World Trade Organization is not functioning, right? the United Nations Security Council. I mean, it's completely, completely undercut.

Obviously, you know, organizations like who we're seeing NATO on the brink, right? It just feels like all of these things are, have been fragile for a while and could very well be gone in the next four years. So that's, that's a lot of change. So actually, that leads me to a question about how stable was this before Trump won, do you think? I mean, Biden, unless there had been successive terms, you know, of not even necessarily Democrats, but people who weren't autocrats, you know, if they had continued on from 2021 through forever, I can imagine things being repaired from the first Trump term. But when Trump stepped in, were things ready to be broken? Was the NATO alliance already fragile? Was the trade system already, you know, I mean, in a bad place?

You know, because sometimes it takes fertile ground for someone like Trump to take root. Yeah. So on the one hand, Biden clearly invested a lot more in NATO, especially. with the war in Ukraine. He invested a lot in attempting to kind of rebuild, re-center alliances in the Asia Pacific or Indo-Pacific using the lingo. But all that being said, these kind of fundamental regimes were already, already in decay, right? So, you know, the WTO is faltering even before Trump comes in. The first time. You know, it's, it's, you know, various negotiations had been collapsing throughout the Obama administration and the Doha, what terms of the Doha realm of negotiation. And during the

Trump administration, he basically grounds it to the halt. It's by deciding not to appoint the, the, the personnel to the appellate court that needed to be appointed, which basically means The appeals court didn't function, which then meant that even if the WTO basically adjudicated a claim, all a country had to do that that found like that found itself on the losing end was appeal and nothing would happen, right? Biden didn't fix this, right? Nothing was done there. The nuclear, think about like the decay and the nuclear regime, right? The nuclear nonproliferation treaty, like the review conferences have also been faltering. we're on the verge of losing the last of the start agreements, the new start agreement between the United States and Russia will expire next year. This is fertile ground, like that this was rapidly in decay. And whether or not that was because of a decline of U.S. power or actions of China and Russia,

it was already on the brink. So smashing it is, I don't want to say it's easy, but it was there. If I could say one thing, though, that I don't think was in decay, and was really useful to the United States in power politics. And I alluded to this earlier was financial system, right? The United States still sat on top of that. The dollar was still the reserve currency, right? The United States could still do so much in terms of like financing itself through

treasuries. And now when you mentioned treasuries, you know, bonds, and T bills, which are really short-term also. So, I mean, we constantly, constantly, constantly churn through money that we don't have. And it has to, and these treasury bills have to, and bonds short-term, whatever, have to be bought. They have to be bought by somebody, right? And if they're not, that's actually where our money comes from. Maybe everybody knows this and they think about it all the time.

But I don't know that they do. That's actually where U.S. money comes. from, right? So I think this is so important. And I want to say something a bit self-deprecated. I mentioned at the beginning that I do international relations theory and focus on international security. But what I really do is power politics. And at some point around 2008, I had this horrible realization that I really had to learn a lot about the international political economy. Because, you know, as much as I want to tell you, it's all in the aircraft carriers, it's all in the nuclear weapons.

I mean, that's important, right? But so much of what the United States does in power politics has to do with its position in the financial system. And to your point, okay, this is kind of the way, when we think about traditionally, oh, you're going to mobilize your economy, right? So you can invest in the instruments of power politics, military, diplomatic, whatever. We oftentimes think about that as like, oh, you, you know, raise taxes. It's what we did during the Cold War. We don't raise taxes anymore. That makes us all very sad.

So instead of doing that, we decided to mobilize and pay for power politics through debt. And, you know, you can say that that in some ways takes the burden off the American public for plain power politics, right? But if you can't actually finance it that way, and the only reason the United States has been able to do it is because it is at the center, right? Because it has always been a safe haven for capital. In 2008, money flowed towards the United States. It was the strangest thing, right? Here's all this instability and still all this investment comes back, right? So losing that is without any sort of plan in place for a security. significant domestic remobilization, you know, the types of things that, higher education, you know, various other forms of training,

investment in research and development, right? Those things that we, nobody seems to want to do. Like, you can't have it both ways. Right. You got to invest domestically or you're going to be borrowing if you want to kind of be powerful in this world. And it was even better than that because our rivals were often the ones who were lending us the money.

Oh, yes. Right? I mean, China was actually voting with its dollars against China. China and Japan are the largest investors in U.S. treasuries, right? So we have obviously, Japan is a close ally, or at least it has been. But no, China, this was always, you know, when I would talk about, great power politics again with my students. I kind of get them thinking about, this is what we mean when we're talking about this deep interdependence, right?

It's China is money, money. The United States is buying. China's goods, right? You don't, upsetting that relationship is a bit suicidal to both sides. Neat. Oh, it's fun. Can I ask a domestic political?

question. I'll do my best. These are the moments I'm always like, I'm an IR person, but go on. Well, it's related to power. So I think you'll, a common critique I hear of American Democrats is that they are allergic to power and allergic to power politics. Do you think that's accurate? Hmm. No, but. I think that there is. is a certain liberal strain in the Democratic Party, and not just by the way at home, but abroad as well, that put a lot of faith in the idea that institutions and laws can operate without power, right? And I think whether or not you see that in today in terms of, you know, look, I too sit at home and say, go courts. But I would also like to think a little bit about how one redistributes power and rethinking's about getting the type of balance of power back into the United States. I didn't want to reference the founders. I'll do it that the founders envisioned, right? It was never supposed to simply be about the laws. It was supposed to be a balance of power system domestically, right? Whether or not those string branches or federal versus state, it's all supposed to be about this acknowledgement of power, not just law. And likewise, I think that liberals were a little idealistic and more than a little idealistic in the 1990s with the United States is a hedge bond, but were benign. So, we're,

So we're going to build all these institutions and we'll legalize, deeply legalized trade and nuclear proliferation and territorial conflict and that will do it. And oh, crap, Russia. So I think that, you know, there does need to be a bit more of a grasp of what it means to mobilize and use power strategically in order to back those institutions and make sure they run. It seems to me that some of us want the fruits of empire and empire without ickiness. We would like to be separated from the negative consequences of what wielding power means. And I do think that is part of what has gotten us where we are now. because power does belong to a certain extent to the people who sees it and are willing to wield it. And Trump is certainly willing to do both of those things.

So as evidence of what a fun person I am to hang out with, one of the things I do in spare time is sometimes go back to the international relations realists of the 1940s. and this include people. But big shout out to Hans Morgenthau and Reinhold Niebuhr. If you don't mind me advertising them on the podcast, they're dead. It's fine. But they were really, one of the reasons, but I like this idea about the avoiding the ickiness, right? Because some of the things that they wrote about are the importance of understanding what it wields, what it means to wield power, even with the best of intentions. right, to understand that the best of intentions will not save you, to understand that hypocrisy is not a bug, but it's a feature of acting as a powerful political community among other powerful political communities.

There are going to be moments where there's going to be a conflict between your interest in others, right? And that's not to say, to be clear, that one thing I love about them is where they end up, or at least, where they try it end up is not a picture of international relations that is nasty, brutish, and short, right, where life is this kind of cessable of competition. It's, it's to try to imagine how in that world do you still behave in ways where you manage to, if not avoid conflict, because conflict is going to be part of it, to manage it so it doesn't escalate to all hell, right? to kind of temper liberal impulses, like to say, like, well, you know, maybe if China's doing this, it's because they're seeking to expand their influence. That's kind of a normal thing. Again, it doesn't mean you let them run roughshod, right? But it means that you don't necessarily turn them into the devil either. Right. So I think that there's got to be a guidepost for us in, dare I say this maybe post liberal space that allows us to act. And this is not to say post-democratic or post-democratic or post-democracy. post, I'm not necessarily liberal, yeah, speaking of posts.

Liberal and the big L. Liberal with the big L, right? A post, we're just going to kind of embrace and say, the laws will save us, whether at home or abroad, and say, how do we do the power thing? But can we try to do the power thing ethically? Can we try to do it in, again, the realist would have called it with some prudence and humility? But, yeah, I don't know what that looks like, but hey, you know, the summer's coming.

I've got some time to read. It's going to be a long, hot summer with increasing food prices, with increasing everything prices. All right, that's the perfect note on which to go out. That's how we'd like to end the show. It's true. Yeah, it's true. Thank you, Matthew Galt for bringing us. to the body. I love a downending. What can I say? All right. Well, so all that

remains is to thank Stacey Goddard and to mention again her article in Foreign Affairs, which is really, really worth the read. And that's called the Rise and Fall of Great Power Competition. It doesn't actually say emphasis on the fall, but maybe it should.

Probably should. Thank you so much for having me. That's all for this week, Angry Planet listeners. As always, Angry Planet is me, Matthew Galt, Jason Fields, and Kevin O'Dell, who's created by myself and Jason Fields. If you like the show, please go to Angry Planetpod.com and sign up, get commercial-free versions of the mainline episodes, and bonus episodes.

We've got a new one up right now about the kind of the Pentagon's brain trust and why we might be losing it, and what the consequences of losing it might be. We will be back again soon with another conversation about conflict on an angry planet. Stay safe until then.