Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - Paradox in US response to Russia? with Thomas Friedman of The New York Times

Episode Date: April 1, 2022

Regardless of how or when the Russia-Ukraine war ends, is it possible to see the very early signs of a new geopolitical order taking shape? There are certainly some surprises, especially as it relates to Germany’s response to the crisis and – more broadly – the unity of Europe, and the overall scale of the economic response. Are there other new trends or global power centers we should be keeping an eye on? It’s a question we will be asking a number of our guests going forward. This week we sit down with Thomas Friedman, the Pulitzer Prize winning foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times, and a bestselling author of many books, including “From Beirut to Jerusalem”, “The World is Flat”, and “Thank You For Being Late”. One piece to flag, on our exchange about what seems to me to be a schizophrenic approach to energy policy in the midst of Russia’s war, we highly recommend an editorial from The Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-bidens-u-s-oil-embargo-russia-energy-natural-gas-vladimir-putin-ukraine-11646780609

When Greens are ready to shut down nuclear clean power in Germany, that provides a significant amount of electricity and heating for Germany, that's the equivalent of jumping off the top of a 100-story building and think you're flying for 99 floors. And then the absence of a clear, clean alternative becomes really important. Regardless of how or when the Russia-Ukraine war ends, is it possible to see the very early signs of a new geopolitical order taking shape right now? There are certainly some surprises, especially as it relates to Germany's response to the crisis and the overall scale of the economic response. Are there other new trends

or global power centers we should be keeping an eye on? It's a question I'll be asking a number of our guests going forward. This week, I sat down with Thomas Friedman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times. Tom's also a best-selling author of many books, beginning with From Beirut to Jerusalem, The World is Flat, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thank You for Being Late, just to name a few. I first got to know Tom back in 2003 and 2004 in Iraq when he was traveling to Baghdad and in the broader region for the Times. We've stayed in touch over the years. We disagree on many things, namely some of his prescriptions for dealing with climate, and yet I've also shared much of his enthusiasm for other developments in the world, namely the Abraham Accords and massive changes occurring right before our eyes in Israeli-Arab relations. Of course, all the promise of the warming of relations in the Middle East must be balanced with the grim news of new terror attacks this week in

Israel. We don't discuss the new wave of violence in Israel in this episode, but we are monitoring events closely, and I'm sure we'll be getting into it in the next couple weeks. Tom and I sat down for a conversation before the Nexus Israel Summit, which is a conference organized by the American Friends of Hebrew University. Today's episode is taken from that discussion. We cover a lot of territory in a short period of time. Here's Thomas Friedman. This is Call Me Back. It's great to be back with Nexus and Hebrew, an alumnus of Hebrew University myself. I studied in the one-year international program, so I always enjoy participating in these

events. And Hebrew is a big part of our Startup Nation story that Saul Singer and I wrote about a little over a decade ago and continues to flourish in the Startup Nation ecosystem. So it's a doubly pleasure to be here. And I'm looking forward to this conversation with my old friend, Tom Friedman. We want to cover a lot of territory. We don't have a lot of time, so I'm going to jump into it and Tom I want to start with just a level set because the news the headlines are flying on Russia and Ukraine you have written extensively about where you think the Russia Ukraine crisis is going just to start us off where do you think we are right now and what do you think things will look like in the next few weeks?

Well, Dan, thanks. It's great to be with you and be part of this program for Hebrew University, such a great institution. Where are we? You know, basically, I think where we're at is that Putin has failed at his plan A. His plan A was built, I believe, on the assumption of a rapid overrunning of Ukraine, getting to Kiev, installing a leader, and having Ukraine fall into his lap and return to the heart of Mother Russia at a very low cost and before the world could really react much. That plan failed. So he moved to plan B. And I fear that plan B for Putin is to obviously take as much of a bite of the eastern Ukraine and the south to connect Crimea to mother Russia by land route, and also to gain leverage to sustain that over time by creating as many refugees as he possibly can into NATO and EU countries. He's already up to 4 million.

It's a huge amount, half of those in Poland alone. And hoping that if you can create enough refugees in these European countries, that they will eventually force Zelensky to settle on terms that would be very accommodating to Russia. And if plan B doesn't work, I believe plan C would be to consider attacking Poland on the border where the arms are coming in and provoking a crisis in NATO over Article 5. Because everyone's ready to send money and arms, but how many Americans are ready to fight a war for ukraine uh according to article 5 of the of the nato charter a country that most americans couldn't find on a map with 10 tries so um that's how i kind of see putin's uh decision tree and i think as i say we're our plan a is now up against his plan b let me just just say one other thing, Dan. There's a huge asymmetry in how

this story is reported. It's not deliberate. It grows out of the nature of the story. We see vivid video every single day, terrible video from TikTok to network news of the terrible destruction of material and the killing and wounding of people and the creating of refugees that's going on on the ground in Ukraine. But there is another story here. The other story is that the United States and its Western allies did something that's never been done before. They dropped the equivalent of an economic nuclear bomb on a country. That's what we dropped on Russia. And the bomb was then amplified by what I call super empowered people, companies, individuals just acting on their own as well. And the blast radius of this bomb keeps expanding, but it's all happening inside Russia. So we can't see when Ivan Ivanovich goes to his ATM machine, neither can't get money out or the money gets out, only buys him half of

what it bought two months ago. We don't see that. We don't see when Ivan Ivanovich goes to his factory job and the manager tells him it's closed because they can't get any microchips. Or when he goes to his oil company that he works for and discovers that all the software came from Western providers and it's not available anymore. And so there is a huge bomb going off inside Russia, an economic bomb that is creating enormous pressure on Putin. But we we can't see it. And and there's sort of a question here. You know, who's going to say uncle first? You know, who's going to really be squeezed first? Will it be Zelensky by the pressure of

refugees and European countries that just get tired of this and that we've seen that pattern over and over? Or will it be Putin from the incredible pressure from inside his economy? That's I take your point that the equivalent of an economic nuclear bomb has been dropped on Russia. And yet there's been the human catastrophe as you've as you've outlined is is horrific and the question is could have been avoidable had putin believed he would face the kind of wrath he has faced before he launched the troops into ukraine and you know we had mike gallagher on our my podcast a few weeks ago congressman mike gallagher and he said look what the world has done what europe look, what the world has done, what Europe has done, what the U.S. has done is extraordinary. And the unity and the

and the sacrifices the world is making, especially Europe, are extraordinary. But let's not forget deterrence failed. We failed to deter Putin. And and we we said we indicated we would we would unleash some version of an economic nuclear bomb. But we also took the use of force off the table. It was never a credible threat. I'm not suggesting it should. We should be using force for all the reasons you're saying. And I don't think there's an American appetite for it. But did we have to go bend over backwards to say the threat of force was not there, was not credible. So one could argue deterrence just didn't have, just it failed. Well, I think that would be an unfair criticism because there was an interaction between the threat of force

and the ability to assemble an economic nuclear bomb. You would not have had the allies. The alliance would have broken over that threat of force. It was precisely because we took that off the table that we actually were able to build this wall-to-wall coalition. And in fairness to the Biden people, they sat down with Putin directly themselves. They did it through our allies, Chancellor Schulz in Germany and Macron in France. They laid it out to him that these sanctions are the equivalent of a bet the business proposition for you. If you intervene and attack Ukraine and invade Ukraine, you will be betting the farm.

Do you understand that? will be betting the farm. Do you understand that? And Putin bet the farm. And I think one reason he bet the farm, I'm just speculating here, is that I don't think he fully understood how integrated his country is with the global economy. I'll give you two examples. I mean, none of it made sense. I mean, Putin had about roughly 500 plus billion dollars built up in foreign reserves because he was getting ready for something like this. And he was going to be sure that he wasn't going to be squeezed by sanctions. But nobody told him that 400 billion of it was in G7 banks. And it was immediately frozen. And by the way, this is going to become a huge story very shortly, because Ukraine is going to demand reparations.

And these countries, ask the Iranians about this, will be facing all kinds of lawsuits and applications from Ukrainians to take those Russian reserves that Putin stocked away and use them for the rebuilding of Ukraine. You can't say he understood this and did that because that would be crazy stupid. Did Putin understand that 75 percent of his commercial airlines, both airflot and domestic airlines, were owned by Irish leasing companies. He didn't own them. And the first thing that happened when the sanctions happened is they were repossessed. Did he understand that Boeing and Airbus supplied all the parts for those planes and they wouldn't

resupply them? So either he was just incredibly reckless or he was ignorant of the degree to which he was integrated in the global economy. And there's always been an interaction between our ability to hold this alliance together and our willingness to use force here. You would have lost half of you would have lost nine tenths of Europe had we been threatening the use of force. So staying on the theme of the economic nuclear bomb, the Biden administration's strategy on isolating Putin and his ability to export energy is a big part of that story. The Biden administration has finally announced in recent weeks that it will effectively replace Europe as the main supplier. I'm sorry, replace Russia as Europe's main supplier of natural gas. But that presents an internal tension

that between two positions that the Biden administration holds. And and I know these are issues that are close to your heart. And it's a big theme of this conference and specifically our discussion. So I want to quote President Biden. So President Biden said, and I'm quoting here from about two weeks ago, we're going to have to make sure the families in Europe can get through this winter and the next. In this statement, he announced a deal to provide 15 billion cubic meters of gas this year to Europe. And then he says, at the same time, this crisis also presents an opportunity that will drive the investments needed to double down on our clean energy goals and accelerate progress toward our net zero emissions, net zero emissions future. Which is obviously that that agenda was was articulated before the Russia Ukraine crisis. Do you think you can reconcile? Do you think the U.S. policy can reconcile those two positions?

Look, this is a really complicated question, Dan, and I have criticism of both the green movement, of which I consider myself a proud member, and of the fossil fuel industry. Let's start with the green movement. I don't know this from experience, but I am told that if you jump off the top of a 100-story building for 99 floors, you can think you're flying.

It's the sudden stop at the end that tells you you're not. So when Greens are ready to shut down nuclear clean power in Germany that provides a significant amount of electricity and heating for Germany, that's the equivalent of jumping off the top of a 100-story building and think you're flying for 99 floors. And then the absence of a clear, clean alternative becomes really important. And so that's just reckless behavior that produces a heat or eat choice for people in Europe. That's just stupid, in my view, just flat out stupid. And at the same time, if you look at the oil and gas industry in America today, the fact that we're not drilling opening wells for the oil and gas industry so much to make up for

this loss of liquefied natural gas that will be needed to help the Europeans, it's not because Biden won't let them drill in Yellowstone National Park. It's because this industry got badly hurt during the last 10 years of boom and bust cycles, so much so that their executives and more importantly, their shareholders have said, wait, wait, wait, let's not go crazy on drilling. We did that and it really didn't work out badly. So they are also, you know, twice, you know, they are now really burned and holding back as well. So let us remember just two years ago, President Trump was begging Russia and Saudi Arabia to cut their oil production because there was such a glut of gas going into the pandemic that people basically were paying you to take their gas. Two years later, we are begging Saudi Arabia, directly Iran and Venezuela, to increase their production. The common denominator between both

of those presidents is that we're always begging. We're always begging because we are not price setters. We will not be price setters. We are always price takers. We don't have enough spare, flexible, cheap capacity like Russia and Saudi Arabia have. And the only ray out of that is a long-term plan based on reducing our need for fossil fuels and replacing it with clean energy and energy efficiency. So in the short run, first of all, there's going to have to be a transition.

None of this is going to happen overnight. Just to put a fine point on it, just to come back to something you said earlier, you think nuclear is part of that transition? Oh, I've always been for nuclear. I mean, it's just that you can't get to clean energy at scale in any near term scenario without nuclear. So there has to be a transition where we're going to use natural gas. We're going to use oil. We're going to use coal. And whether we do, China and India are going to do it. So but but but the idea always my idea is that we should get there fastest. The way to do it is by increasing energy, clean energy standards for every utility in America. 31 utilities in America now have clean energy standards, which require them to bring in more

and more clean, renewable energy every year. We need to double the pace of that, number one. And two, we need to do just what Australia did, make it crazy, stupid cheap to put solar panels on your house and provide your own distributed electricity. You do those two things and then tell Americans, by the way, for the good of for the freedom of Ukraine, how about if we just drive 60 miles an hour? The amount of oil we could save that would actually affect the price on the pump. If we just reduce the speed limit to 60 miles an hour and told everyone to stay home from work and not commute the way you've done during the pandemic, as many of you can, we'd have an immediate effect on the

oil price, gasoline price. So while I, like I said, you and I, you and I may disagree on the sort of the right. I'm not. We don't have enough time to, to, to adjudicate that, that, but let me just talk about, or ask you a little bit about an area that we do agree on, which is the role that innovation plays in this, in this story. And you wrote in your column, you use the pandemic as a case study. You wrote, we combine in dealing with the pandemic, you wrote, and I'm quoting here, "'We combined innovative biotech firms like Pfizer, Moderna, and some small startups with today's massive computing power and a giant market demand signal.'"

And what did we get? You write, "'In a little over a year after first being locked down by the virus, I, you, Tom, and so did I, had an effective mRNA vaccine against COVID-19 in my body, followed by a booster. This was an amazing feat of biotechnology and computerized logistics to develop and deliver vaccines. And I hope the scientists, employees, and shareholders of those vaccine innovators make boatloads of money because it will incentivize others to apply a similar

formula to stem climate change. And then you go on to say we need more Elon Musk's. Now, you say you're very active in the green movement. How do your compatriots in the green movement respond to that? Because that is a very free market oriented, you know, reward entrepreneurs with, as you said, boatloads of money to solve these problems. You have every I don't speak for the green movement, I just speak for myself, and you have every, you know, shade of color politically in that movement. You have people like John Doerr and Bill Gates investing massive amounts of money in innovation, including around fusion right now. And you have others who are,

basically wanna kill capitalism. I'm in the former group, that's all I can tell you. And you have also been a big champion of the Abraham Accords, and you've written extensively about it, about the sort of the incredible warming up of relations we've seen between the the Sunni Gulf and other Sunni countries in the Arab world and Israel. That was in full display actually this past weekend when

we saw leaders in the Negev from these Abraham Accord countries and the Israeli leadership in Shteyb al-Qa'ar, near Shteyb al-Qaboker, near David Ben-Gurion's home. It was just never in a million years. Honestly, you wrote from Beirut to Jerusalem three, four decades ago. You probably never in four decades ago imagined you would be seeing that image. So first of all, how do you feel the implementation of the Abraham Accords are going? How do you feel that's going? Are you still as enthusiastic? And then secondly, I want to ask you about the potential between Israel and the Abraham Accord countries on this particular issue, collaborating on innovation as it relates

to the future of clean tech and green tech. Yeah, I mean, I wrote at the time when the Abraham Accords were announced that they were an earthquake that would really change the region. I was extremely enthusiastic and I still am. I don't in any way want my money back. I think anything that makes the Middle East look more like the European Union and less like the Syrian civil war is a good thing. And the fact that we not only have the core countries, the original signatories of the Abraham Accords, but now you have Egypt and Jordan, in a sense, being stimulated to move from colder pieces to warmer pieces by regional competition. And because they see the success of this,

I think it's hugely important. I still believe that it should not be a substitute for an Israeli Palestinian settlement of whatever kind, a two-state solution or whatever the parties agree to. I think it's very important that we don't fall into that trap but um uh you know as a state interstate arrangement um I think it's a game changer the Saudis will eventually come in um I'm sure you know uh over time and I think just so I want to pause right there so you you you you believe that none of this would be happening without the Saudis blessing, which means this is like a lab for them and that they eventually want to see how the lab goes, but their inclination is to participate in the warming of relations. The king has a very much stronger emotional attachment to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian

conflict than his son and crown prince MBS. But I still believe that given Saudi Arabia's role in the Muslim world, the role of Jerusalem, et cetera, again, progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue will make it much easier and much earlier for the Saudis to jump in formally. Right now, I'd call them informal shadow members of the alliance already. It is an important make-weight against Iran, obviously. But we should have no illusions, Dan. I don't want to insult anybody. But, you know, none of these countries are powerful military forces that are in there now. Obviously, Egypt could be of a real significant standing army. Jordan has a significant small army. UAE is a has a has a small but but extremely effective armed force.

But it really is Israel that is the backbone militarily of this alliance. That's the first attraction. The second attraction is obviously the success of the startup nation, that people want to partner with it. And the influence it has is that, you know, there's some, there's probably a guy living in the Shiite southern suburbs of Beirut who just spent this morning trying to barter eggs for chicken, you know, because of the collapse of the Lebanese economy. He looks up and he sees the most successful Arab state, the UAE, partnering with the most successful non-Arab state

in the region. And he says, well, I kind of would like to be part of that, you know. So I don't think we see the radiation of this. And I also think just very quickly, there's a very important dimension here. I've always believed in the grand sweep of history, the antipathy between Muslims and Jews that were a byproduct of as second-class citizens, but nevertheless producing a vibrant culture, a literature, and an enormous Judaica during those years of living in Muslim lands, as compared to the tragedy of Europe. And I believe that the Abraham Accords are the beginning of reversing that hundred-year antipathy that has grown out of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I think that conflict has to be resolved for this to finish. But I think it pushes us down the road in very important ways. Okay. And then my second question.

So one Saudi leader, who I will mention by name, who I spoke to several years ago, said that he believes Israel is the future and that Saudi Arabia wants to bet on the future in the Middle East. And he was talking about innovation. To your point, it was partly about Iran and countering Iran and strategic intelligence sharing and all that's associated with that. But there was also an innovation story and co-innovation story. And they didn't want to have to fly to the Bay Area, the 15, 18 hour flight to San Francisco in order to innovate. They had a Silicon Valley in their backyard and they wanted't want to have to fly to the Bay Area, the 15, 18 hour flight to San Francisco in order to innovate. They had a Silicon Valley in their backyard and they wanted in on it.

And then he would talk about water tech and he would talk about food security and he would talk about cybersecurity and he'd talk about digital health. But there was also this potential, I think on the clean tech and green tech front for the Gulf States, which are awash in capital, and Israel, which is awash in entrepreneurs. Is there real potential in this space to produce more Elon

Musks out of this relationship, a byproduct of this relationship? Yes, I believe that we're seeing a new divide among this generation of Arab leaders. And I call it the divide between the resilience leaders and the resistance leaders. You have a new generation, people like MBZ and the UAE, who are actually building their legitimacy by how much resilience they can produce for their society. Environmental resilience, innovation resilience, education resilience. Judge me on have I made this a more resilient country from climate to environment to education. The old school is represented by Iran. That's resistance leadership.

I'm going to build my legitimacy on how much I resist the Yehudis. I believe the future is going to be with the resilience leaders. And the more the Abraham Accords can reward and show that as a success, the more we'll drive that. But I think the Abraham Accords were essential in creating now this much sharper divide between resistance leaders and resilience leaders. Tom, I see Avner on my screen, which means I think we're getting the hook. So always good to be with you. Thanks for taking the time. Thanks, Avner. That's our show for today. Lots to unpack here from this conversation, and we'll try to do that in the course of conversations in future episodes with other guests. I also hope to get Tom back. One of the many topics we did not hit was his golden arches theory of geopolitics from his

book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree. I've been skeptical of that theory long before this latest war between Russia and Ukraine, but I'm curious if Tom has revised his thinking in light of recent events. So Tom, call me back. And also one piece I wanted to flag for our listeners. Tom and I had an exchange about what seems to me, at least, to be the Biden administration's schizophrenic approach to energy policy in the midst of Russia's war. I highly recommend an editorial from the Wall Street Journal called Biden's U.S. Oil Embargo. His assault on domestic energy works against his ban on Russian imports. And we'll put a link to that piece in the show notes. Call Me Back is

produced by Ilan Benatar. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.