School of War - Ep 113: Rebeccah Heinrichs on Today’s Crisis of American Deterrence

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

Rebeccah Heinrichs, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and the director of its Keystone Defense Initiative, joins the show to talk about the state of U.S. deterrence of Russia, Iran, and China—and what Washington could be doing better. ▪️  Times      •      01:42 Introduction      •      02:18 Conventional and strategic deterrence     •      04:06 A failure of strategic deterrence     •      09:38 Integrated deterrence      •      13:33 Putin is committed to the bit       •      15:36 If Russia wins, what’s it to the US?      •      19:16 Options if Russia uses nuclear weapons     •      24:06 The pendulum keeps swinging       •      28:20 Washington’s confusion regarding Iran and Israel     •      31:56 Red Sea adrift     •      36:00 China and the rest     •      40:01 Pacific flashpoints    Follow along  on Instagram Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack

We are now two years on from Russia's invasion or re-invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022. The war there continues. And there's another war, a conventional ground war in the Middle East, specifically in Gaza, and a range of Iranian proxy activities that amount to a low-grade regional war, one consequence of which is much diminished freedom of navigation in one of the world's vital commercial arteries, the Red Sea. When we look to the Pacific, there is as yet no hot war with China, but things there are hardly quiet. What is going on here?

Why has American deterrence faltered in two out of three critical Eurasian regions? And what are its prospects in the Pacific? Let's get into it. It is a prescription for war, this Iraqi invasion of Hawaii. December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamous. The bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a state of. We continue to face a grave situation in Iran. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields, and in the streets.

We shall never surrender. For maps, videos, and images, follow us on Instagram, and also feel free to follow me on Twitter at Aaron B. McLean. Hi, I'm Aaron McLean. Thanks so much for joining School of War. I'm delighted to be joined today by Rebecca Heinrichs. She's a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and director of its Keystone Defense Initiative. She serves as a commissioner on the bipartisan strategic posture commission, also on the U.S. Strategic Command Advisory Group, and the National Independent Panel on Military Service and Readiness. Rebecca, thank you so much for joining the show.

I'm glad to be here. Thanks for inviting me. So our theme today is American deterrence and problems with American deterrence. You have written and spoken about these problems. And we are going to do a kind of survey of Eurasian hotspots. We'll talk about Europe and specifically Ukraine. We'll talk about the Middle East and specifically Iranian and Iranian proxy aggression in places like Gaza and the Red Sea.

But before we get to all of that, what is deterrence? Help us with some definitions here. What is this thing that everyone seems to think is important? Sure. It's a really important question because people use the term differently. And then there's variations and, you know, qualifiers of deterrence. And so I think sometimes people are talking past each other. So when I explain it to people, I say, so there's small D deterrence, which is just you're the United,

and I'll do it from a U.S. perspective. The U.S. is seeking to convince our adversary to not take an action that would harm the United States. And we do that by convincing the adversary that the consequences would be greater than anything he hopes to gain by taking that aggressive action. And I say small Deterrence, because I kind of set that aside and describe that differently than strategic deterrence, which is everything I just said, but we're talking about massive attack and nuclear weapons. And the reason I separate those two is because I do think it's important to recognize that the United States failed to deter Russia from invading Ukraine, and yet strategic deterrence is still holding. Russia has not crossed the nuclear threshold and it has not, you know,

invaded a NATO country, which would trigger Article 5. So that's how I would kind of separate those two, small deterrence and then strategic deterrence. That's really interesting. I mean, of course, there's complexities here, you know, if Russia were to nuke the United States, right? If Russia were to to nuke New York or something and deterrence were to fail in that way, obviously we would anticipate some kind of very significant, even massive retaliation on the Russian homeland. But Of course, there's other and more likely iterations, like, for example, Russian use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine itself. Would you consider that to be a failure of strategic deterrence? Help us understand how that fits into the scheme.

Yeah, I would. I would. So I think that the United States still has a vital interest in maintaining the nuclear peace worldwide. So the United States, of course, was the only and last country to use a nuclear weapon in war to end a war, World War II, and we have not seen a nuclear weapon employed since then, and that is to all of our great benefit. I know that our European allies are often pretty uncomfortable even talking about the subject of nuclear assurance and deterrence sort of in a public setting, but one of the things I encourage them is to think about this where, you know, Russia has a, has the largest arsenal of nuclear

weapons, and they have, I don't even like to call them tactical nuclear weapons because I do believe that any nuclear weapon would have a strategic effect. But they do have very small yield nuclear weapons they could use on the battlefield. And any nuclear weapon used in Europe would have catastrophic consequences, because how do you respond to that? So if you want to respond to that, and I would argue that we should respond. The United States should lead a response to that. But then you're getting back and forth with the nuclear power,

which nobody wants to do that. And so, so, you know, the United States has a strong interest in making sure that the nuclear piece is held and that nuclear weapons use essentially like do not become what chemical weapons are today, which is that very, very bad, banned. Nobody should do it. Nobody should use them. And yet we see Assad dropping, you know, barrel bombs, chemical weapons on his people on its, you know, serious people. I guess they're not his. And, and, you know, the Russians occasionally using a banned agent that would be. banned by the chemical weapons ban. So we want to make sure that that is not, that has not become the case with nuclear weapons. Okay. So I want to circle back to this in a few minutes because I want to go a little deeper on how you think about potential responses to the Russian use of low yield weapons in Ukraine because that's, I think obviously something that should be high up on the agenda of everyone thinking about those issues. But before we get there, we are just about two years on, nearly to the day, two years and what, two weeks or so, of the Russian invasion or probably

more accurately re-invasion of Ukraine, because, of course, it already seized Ukrainian territory going as far back as 2014. Make the case, I mean, I could make a sort of devil's advocate case that this has nothing to do with American deterrence. Ukraine is not a member of NATO, it's not an ally in a formal sense, et cetera, et cetera. Make the case that Putin's invasion in February 22 is a failure of American deterrence. Well, first of all, the United States did try to convince Putin not to do it. So we had we had Biden officials who they've tried to rewrite history since the invasion. But but in the beginning before the invasion, we saw regular Biden officials threatening massive economic response if Russia were to invade. Remember, we had the depends on the nature of the, if it's a minor incursion or not and kind of hinting that the United States would have some kind of response. but mostly it was it was in terms of economic response responses. And then the other thing the administration did, which was very interesting, was it really

shared what it saw Russia doing. So this was part of its plan to get allies to get on the same page to know that Russia was amassing 300,000 or whatever it was troops on Ukraine's border and trying to convince the Russians that we were, we all saw what they were doing, I guess, and to sort of shame them into not not doing it. So I would just say just sort of, I as a matter of fact, we certainly tried to convince the Russians not to do it. Your question is interesting because it gets back to the United States is the one that has to determine what the stakes are in Ukraine. And the stakes, based on what we perceive them to be, should be what drives our threats and what we're willing to do in defense of what we perceive

as our interests to convince our adversary not to do the thing that we don't want them to do. And that's where I think clearly we failed. The United States, failed in doing that because Russia launched this full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. And I would argue that, you know, there is, that the bolt out of the blue nuclear attack fear that we often had during the Cold War is not really what the biggest threat is. It's a significant conventional, so non-nuclear invasion of a key interest for the United States that escalates and gets us close to the nuclear precipice, exactly what Russia has done in Ukraine. So we have a...

very strong interest in preventing the Russians from even going down this path. And clearly, the administration failed to do it. And it's interesting is, if you remember during the House Armed Services Committee hearing, Mike Gallagher, of course from Wisconsin, was asking a Biden official if integrated deterrence worked because she was making the case that they used integrated deterrence to try to convince Russia not to invade Ukraine. And she said it did. She said it worked because they used it, you know. And Mike Gallagher said, but they invaded. So, you know, the test of whether or not deterrence worked or not is the outcome.

And we have this. I like to take the position that true integrated deterrence has never been tried. You know, we can't really know. We can't really know. Well, actually, can you say more because Gallagher has been on the show and we have, we have trashed integrated deterrence together. What does the Biden administration think is integrated deterrence? What is our Pentagon believe in right now?

So I think the idea is actually the former vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, former Stratcom commander John Heighton, is actually really good at explaining that integrated deterrence should be really just deterrence. It's just that integrated deterrence is now giving it a good college try of deterring our adversaries without hard power. I mean, that's what it has what I've been sort of concluded here is that it's the State Department trying. It's the Treasury Department sort of half. half trying and it's using sort of public shame. So it's this quote unquote whole of government approach to deterrence. But no kidding, you know, authoritarian countries especially are most convinced by the threat of hard power. And so if that's not your backbone of your deterrence plan, it's nothing. You're not going to have successful deterrence. So that that general observation kind of probably leads us to the specific answer to my next question, which is, okay, it failed in Ukraine. American deterrence failed in Ukraine. Why? Why? weren't the Russians deterred? I mean, we're still a pretty big deal for all of our problems with

defense spending. The American military still is far from a joke. We have this massive strategic arsenal. Our economy is central. Being cut out of the American economy is a pretty big deal. So we're sitting there making threats. What do we do wrong? And why did we fit? Well, because we didn't really threaten with our military. We threatened economically. And if you recall, right before Putin made the decision to invade, he met with Xi Jinping in this. of, you know, infamous meeting. And I wasn't there, but I can deduce from the from the chain of events after that. We do know that or have a good idea that she, you know, gave a significant commitments to Russia that he would absorb some of the potential fallout for this, economically,

publicly, diplomatically, in all of the ways that were really the way that we were threatening Russia. So if these are the threats and then Russia could actually gain from China what we what it would lose from us, it was worth it. So you know, Americans have this tendency and to to really think that this is what would make sense for us, the mere imaging problem. We would be deterred by this. And so surely Putin will be deterred by this. But it just, he wasn't. He had this other plan with Xi Jinping. And he was perfectly willing to take on the cost. reputationally with the free world by budding up with Xi Jinping and sort of solidifying this axis of authoritarian countries all bent on undermining the U.S.

Yeah. I remember talking at the time to a senior Senate staffer. He will probably be able to identify by the substance of this anecdote. But sort of January, February 22 time frame, he and I were talking about why it is that the Biden administration kept casting around for reasons that Russia would want to do this. It seemed from things that the administration was saying privately and publicly, that they were really struggling to understand what Russia's objectives could be. I mean, when Russia clearly needed economic renewal, it needed to quote unquote build back better, which when Biden administration official actually said amazingly in the press, you know, why would they want to do this? What could they possibly hope to get out of this?

And our mutual friend said, you know, I really think they just don't understand that they want to get Ukraine out of this. It's as simple as that. They just want Ukraine. Putin just wants Ukraine. And there's something about you talk about, be curious if you could say more about mirror imaging because I'm inclined to think it's an enormous problem in our conduct of foreign affairs right now. Something about our foreign policymaking elite simply struggled with that simple notion that this old-fashioned goal of neo-imperialist territorial acquisition was somehow a real thing. Yeah. So I'm sure your listeners all watched the Tucker Carlson interview of Vladimir Putin.

I actually did. I watched most of it. And I actually thought it was remarkably helpful for the points that you just made. I mean, Putin, and Tucker frankly, seemed surprised. He actually, for a guy who claims to sort of be in the know and everybody else is foolish and stupid, he seemed to have fallen hard

for this mere imaging kind of just as hard as anybody else's, because when he asked Putin, he was trying to get Putin to basically say, you know, it was NATO enlargement that and Russia was threatened and anybody would have invaded if they're being threatened. And so isn't that why you invaded Ukraine? And Putin just started his answer back from the 9th century. I mean, he just sort of started. And then, and Tucker tried to interrupt him. And it's almost like he was like, oh, wow, he's kind of committed to the

bit. Well, it turns out he's not a bit. You know, it's that he's, he really, no kidding, sees himself as Peter the Great. And he despise. the United States. I mean, there is a visceral, emotional, he despises Americans and the West and open democratic societies. And we're used to kind of hearing that, that reasoning when it comes to sort of Islamist radicals where sort of that kind of makes more sense to us. And it's like, wait, this guy over here too, like Russia, why can't Russia just, you know, every administration tries Russia reset in some form. And then we're always surprised that Russia doesn't want reset. Russia wants the former Russian Empire and and we're in the way. So yeah, I think that I think that he that Putin really does

see himself as obligated to to take these ethnic Russian peoples back and parts of these sovereign nations back that he believed are rightfully Russia's. Can I ask you a Tucker Carlson style sort of first order question or first principle question? Why do we care? Why do we care? Again, I mean, Ukraine is not a NATO ally, a Russian empire. may be objectionable, but there's lots of objectionable things in the world. You know, what's it to us so long as our direct interests are not harmed? So I would say that they are being, so because we are the big ultimate prize, so the dismantling of NATO, which if you just strip all the euphemisms, that's the U.S. It's the U.S.'s ability to influence trade, commerce, diplomatic norms. I mean,

everything that Americans have benefited from in terms of being safe and prosperous since World War II. And then really, because Reagan's work and guiding us through the Cold War, that, you know, our largest economic, it's not, and economic, we sort of use shorthand, but to have strong economic ties with the Europeans, it's because we do have shared principles and values about what's fair, you know, trade based on reciprocity. You're not stealing from each other, et cetera. And these sort of all underpin the NATO alliance. It's not just a military alliance. It's a political military alliance. And so we benefit greatly from peace on the European continent, and it's the NATO alliance that secures that. So I really believe that, you know, our kids, prosperity and security

are directly related to the security and prosperity of Europe. And it's NATO that provides it. So how does Ukraine fit in? You know, Ukraine has been struggling to get out of the the shadow and the pull of the Russian Federation since the Cold War. And they're really still a very young democracy, a few decades. And they're not a member of NATO because they haven't qualified to be a member of NATO, but they desperately want to be part of the West. And they don't want to be part of the Russian authoritarian sphere. And so, you know, I believe in the Reagan principle that if you've got people who are sovereign

and want to fight, not be tyrannized, that you should generally just lend a hand. We don't have to directly be involved. and I think we should not be involved directly with the Russians right now. But Ukraine is clearly fighting our shared adversary, and it really does in a serious sense, practical sense, stand between Russia and NATO. And the last thing I'll just say about this, I mean, U.S. strategy has been to keep Americans safe,

we really do try to keep peace, even if there's a potential of things really getting out of hand abroad, we try to do what we can, to get us back to a state of peace at the lowest levels of violence possible so that we do not just keep escalating to the point where really, really bad things happen and the U.S. gets involved. And so I have concluded and assessed that it's incredibly worth it for the U.S. to try to help Ukraine succeed the best we can by providing them arms that Ukraine can get us back to a state of peace so that Russia doesn't keep going.

Because I do think, you know, if Russia is allowed to gobble up a significant part of territory, even if it can't fully subjugate and SACKeev, and subjugate Ukraine, that it will continue to go and continue to chip away at NATO. One last question on Ukraine, and then I want to start moving east, or I guess actually it's sort of a it's sort of a it's a U shape. We're going to kind of go south and east first. Is this back to this question of nuclear weapons. So I, you have stated, and I'm inclined to agree that, you know, direct American involvement

in Ukraine is not not in the American interest. But you suggested or implied earlier that if the Russians were to escalate and use nuclear weapons, perhaps smaller nuclear weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine, that America should, that you said lead the response to that. So let me, I mean, there's a couple different ways into this. One is how do we continue to successfully deter that? Because it's been deterred. So in the sense that it hasn't happened, it's been deterred so far. But should that fail? And I guess in others, what should we be threatening?

Like, what are the options we should be contemplating in the event that such a thing were to occur? So I think that we should, this is kind of one of those things where, so I think I kind of hold JFK's view on this too, which is in every really American president since, which is that a nuclear weapon anywhere is a direct violation of American interests because we are, I mean, the U.S. led order, when we really kind of boil it, boil it down, it is the U.S. extended part of it, which holds it up is the, is U.S. non-nuclear, as nuclear nonproliferation goals, making sure that bad countries don't get nukes. We don't even want. our allies who don't have nukes to get nukes, you know, we want to limit the number of countries who have them, and we want to make sure that we don't, that the countries are not using them in warfare, certainly not for their imperialist aims. And so it would be terrible in a violation of U.S. vital interest, I think if Russia were to use a nuclear weapon anywhere. So I actually think, and this is something that I don't, I actually am nowhere near having access this kind of information. But right when in the beginning of the war, when Russia was really nuclear saber-addling,

and the rhetoric was high and really provocative, Jake Sullivan then came out, and I don't want to mess up his quotes. I'm just going to just paraphrase him. He basically said, if Russia were to do that, the ramifications would be catastrophic. I think catastrophic was the word that he used. And I don't know what else was said. I would imagine there's other things that were said privately and other indications privately. But the rhetoric stopped pretty shortly there after that. And so it's really interesting. So I, you know, a couple of things I think which would be credible threats. Credible threats would be, you know, U.S. direct, getting directly involved in Ukraine conventionally, non-nuclear, but, you know, okay, we've been giving weapons to Ukraine. We said that we didn't want to get

involved. We don't want to get involved. You just used a nuclear weapon. The gloves are coming off. We're going to pummel you in Ukraine. And you're going to, you know, and you don't want that. it's going to, you know, it's not going to go well for Russia once that happens. So I think that's sort of on the lower end of responses of what would be appropriate. And Admiral Strab-Reedis kind of came out with a piece. And some folks, like, hinted that maybe he had some insight into the White House at the time and he laid out some potential things they would do. Turns out we've actually done all of those things.

We've given Ukraine longer-range attack them, though not full-range attack them. So, you know, we have armed Ukraine better since then. But I do think U.S. nuclear response should be on the table. I definitely don't think that the United States should take it off the table to try to allay the concerns of the Russians. I think that the United States should have a credible response and should, and I'm not a target here, but should have targets picked out. So to convince the Russians that the United States do not do this, do not go down the path of using nuclear weapons because that will not go well for you. The United States will not permit nuclear weapons to become normalized. And the United States has the ability to respond to. If you do not out-resolve us in the category of nuclear weapons. And so we will defend NATO. We will defend Europe. And you can't do not go further.

So I actually, I think that the United States, rather than kind of stepping back and being intimidated by nuclear saber-addling, they should, you know, we should sort of step forward and say, do not. Do not escalate in this way because we have the means and the ability to, to respond. And I will just say, the last administration really tried to get more and better credible nuclear responses in the field, because we really don't have all that many, low-yield, regional capabilities. So that was one of the findings of the Nuclear Postered Commission, which is just that we're going to have to reassess and see if there are other things we need to bring to bear, bring to bear, not in terms of employing, but to have postured in a different way or in a more numerous way to get at that, at that filling out those lower rungs on the escalation ladders

so we can convince the Russians that they should not ever think seriously about using a nuclear weapon. I know I said that was my last question, Ukraine, but I actually have one more. Sorry, how does this all end? What do you think? You were sitting here in March of 2024 for a week or two there, largely downstream of the Biden administration's pessimism, everyone kind of thought that with the exception of a few people here in Washington, by the way, who turned out to be totally right and the Ukrainians themselves, everyone thought that Kee was going to fall. and it was going to be over pretty quickly. Then by the fall of 2022, there was a real surge of optimism. The Russians were on the run. Putin and miscalculated it actually was a quagmire. You know,

Putin better figure out how to hold his regime together because Russian state collapse was actually a pretty likely outcome. I feel like the pendulum was swung back and we are back in a period of pessimism. Where are you? And how do you think this all shakes out? So I do think that there was almost certainly an opportunity where the U.S. could have really surged weapons in and helped Ukraine kind of deal the final, you know, if not final blow, at least convince the Russians not to proceed. And that was during the, you know, the counteroffensive when there was great hopes for that. But the problem is this administration has been so fearful of escalation and fearful that if Ukraine succeeds too much, then Russia will escalate, which, of

course, you know, they act like this as like a new problem, like in the history of warfare. But the adversary always can escalate. That's not, that is not a new dynamic in 2023 and 2024. You know, but the, but if you are committed to one side winning, which the U.S. says we are, we're committed to Ukraine winning, you actually need to help them do that. And that means the side that wins is the side that escalates to win. And so, so I still think it's possible for Ukraine. I mean, obviously, very practically speaking, I mean, they're, they're rationing munitions right now. They're in a tight spot. Russia has a lot now. Russia also isn't using as many munitions as it was previously. So now they don't need to because Ukraine is rationing munitions. But Russia,

you know, Russia is looking for help from North Korea and from Iran. So, you know, they've got problems, too. But just to review, Ukraine has, you know, 30 percent, I think, of the Russian Black Sea fleet. they've taken out. You know, upward, I don't know which number is totally accurate. The Brits have a higher number, I think, than what we've said publicly, but, you know, more than 300,000 Russian casualties Ukraine has inflicted. Over a thousand main battle tanks and armored vehicles, thousands, a couple thousand of them. So Ukraine is able to do a lot of really good stuff. I think what needs to happen moving forward is we have to, the U.S. has to take an entirely different approach towards helping Ukraine, actually enable Ukraine to gain a better hand to end this war on terms favorable to Ukraine. Notice,

I didn't say win, because I think win is going to be defined by Ukraine realistically. They're the ones are going to have to decide what that looks like and what they're willing to do. And the Russians are going to have to stop. But I think Ukraine needs to be set up to be a sovereign country that can defend itself. And a lot of people jump all the way to, it needs to become a member of NATO. But it doesn't, not right away. Ukraine can be armed like it's a member of NATO, though. They can have a modern air force. It can be armed with the team and have long-range attack arms and Haimars and all of these

things in order to, however, these lines end up in this war. And I do think Ukraine needs to regain significant amounts of territory from the Russians before we get to the end. But once it ends, Ukraine needs to be able to then hold the line and keep the Russians from doing this again. And then Ukraine can get back to the business of continuing to bring. progress and become a really great and strong member of the Democratic community. Okay, so let's continue around what an older generation of analysts might have called

the Eurasian Rimlands to the Middle East, where things are, well, they're just about as bad as they are in Ukraine. We have an awful war launched by Hamas in this murderous program on October the 7th. The Israelis are currently in Gaza, working towards a stated goal of destroying Hamas and then we have and that's that's but one manifestation I'm going to give a frame to this you obviously feel free to challenge it if you have a different frame but one manifestation of what is at basis Iranian imperialism Iranian neo imperialism that intersects with all kinds of other dynamics obviously Hamas though it is supported by Iran is not only supported by Iran it's not Shia it's not it's not you know it's not as comfortably in that access as for example a group like

Hezbollah in Lebanon. It has its own interests. Nevertheless, it remains a tool of Iranian policy. How have things gotten so bad, so quickly in the Middle East only, I believe it was days after Jake Sullivan keeps coming up in this recording, days after Jake Sullivan declared in the pages of foreign affairs that I will also mess up as quote, so I will just paraphrase, but this is a fair paraphrase. Things have never been as quiet.

Things haven't been as quiet for years as they are today in the Middle East. What went wrong, Rebecca? Oh, that was so painful. So the way I, you have to look at, whenever you look at sort of all of our adversaries, you kind of, how do I make sense of all these things? So you start with the big countries that have the most determination to hurt us

with the most ability to hurt us. And so it's obviously China and it's Russia. Both of those are chronic threats. China has the big economic ability to harm us in the military, et cetera, and then the two of our collaborating. But you also have the Iran regime. And for the longest time,

the Iran regime and kind of North Korea were thought of sort of category, you know, those were the rogues. But, but Iran has, has actually continued to advance its military significantly, but where it has found the most ability to really give us a hard time is through the funding, arming, training of proxies throughout the entire Middle East. And so, you know, the last administration, when it looked at the Middle East, it said there was basically two pillars that kind of came clear to me and their strategy. And the one was you've got to squeeze and contain Iran, maximum pressure, Brian Hook, the special envoy to Iran, you know, that was, you've got to dry up their resources because Iran is the biggest source of instability in the Middle

East. And then the other pillar is you go all in and defend Israel. We're not going to do this ambiguous, both sides staying with the Palestine, you know, Israel challenge. We're going to set that kind of aside. We're not going to try to untangle that before we get to these other problems. We're going all in with Israel and we're going to squeeze Iran. And then what that did was it bore fruit. And then you had the Abraham Accords. It allowed Gulf countries to kind of understand where the U.S. was and they could make some improvements towards Israel, even had the Saudis kind of moving in that direction. And then the U.S. collaborated with the Saudis and the Emirates to take out these, you know, to fight back on the Iranian proxies. But the Biden administration, in short, pulled out both

of those pillars. And so, you know, tried to get an Iran deal back and flooded the regime with cash, kind of, you know, really was kind of punching at Israel, metaphorically speaking, and diplomatically and created all these really went after the Saudis, which had been collaborating with the United States on anti-terrorism efforts. And so it wreaked havoc. It wreaked havoc. And then you have an emboldened Iran regime who does not fear consequences for fueling, these proxy attacks against U.S. forces and civilian commercial shipping in the Red Sea. It's remarkable. I don't think there's enough, you know, enough outrage over these Iran proxies shooting at American forces in the Middle East and in the complete weak response of the United

States. It's actually pretty shocking. Yeah, I'm inclined to agree with you, especially in that last point, the lack of general astonishment. I am astonished. So then I get astonished. that others are not astonished, that we seem to be sitting here in March of 2024, accepting that an Iranian proxy, which is to say Iran, is going to basically control traffic through the Suez Canal. And that's going to be the new normal, because I'm sorry for all of the comments to the contrary from the Biden administration. That's what's happening. That is what it's happening right now. And what do you think would be required? Let's say a bit more about what's actually happening in the Red Sea, give a little bit of background for people, and then give

us your thoughts on what would be required to fix that piece of the Iran policy puzzle. So, you know, you made a good point too about if you just, the administration might say, look, we are doing our stated goal, which is we are degrading Iranian proxies ability to strike at the United States. That's what they, or strike at U.S. forces or cargo shipping. That's what they say. So whenever the United States has had these retaliatory responses and we've hit some, you know, factories or whatever or some facilities that have weapons in them, you know, they say, look, we're degrading their ability. And that's our goal. And we're not even, they basically kind of thrown in a towel. They're not even trying to reestablish deterrence, which, by the way,

here's another vocab word. What we're really trying to do in the Red Sea, what we should be trying to do in the Red Sea now is compelance. We want to compelance. We want to compel. the proxies to stop. And when I say compel the proxies, we really mean the Iran regime. We want to compel them to stop and then reestablish deterrence. I mean, that's what we're trying to do, or that's what we should be trying to do. But it's essentially not because the administration, once again, is so fearful of this e-word of escalation. And so it, rather than trying to convince Iran not to stop, which you'd be doing much different, you'd be doing things much differently. If you were trying to convince Iran to stop, you would be doing massive responses.

Every single hoot-y terrorist or otherwise, you know, terrorists backed by Iran that shot at U.S. forces or cargo shipping should immediately be dead. And that's something that retired general Jack Keene continues to say. This idea that they can't be deterred, it's like, okay, well, they're terrorists. But a lot of these guys want to live. They're not sort of, you know, if they think that they can just shoot at U.S. forces and cargo shipping and live and then just kind of reset up and then do it again, of course you're not going to reestablish deterrence.

So each shooter should, that'd be should be the end of the shooter. And we're not doing that. I mean, we're getting shot at. I forget the ratio at this point. I used to keep track. But for every, you know, whatever, 20 attacks, the U.S. might respond. And it needs to be the shooter dies when the shooter shoots at us. But then the other thing is you do have to have a massive overnight,

un-predicted, non-telegraphed military response to take out the IRGC training facilities. And we have not done that. And in fact, when we have retaliated, the Biden administration has telegraphed through media leaks where those attacks are going to take place and when. And so we've actually had very minimal casualties of Houthis and Iran terrorists and IRGC trainers, even though we've used a lot of firepower. We've essentially expended it on a lot of empty buildings where they've removed weapons. We are going to finish our discussion in the Pacific.

Many will say, many will argue, to include there's a strain of this in the Biden administration, and then there's obviously a strain of this on the right, that America actually ought to be very cautious in its support for places like Ukraine in Israel, because we have a major war coming, very possibly, and we ought to be defoted to deterring it and, if necessary, winning it in the Pacific against the People's Republic of China, likely but not necessarily. necessarily over Taiwan. There are other potential flashpoints. I mean, Taiwan is not a treaty ally. The situation is obviously much more complicated, but the Philippines is, for example,

Japan is and both have pretty serious territorial disputes with China right now. Because that problem is so serious, and on some level, this is incontrovertible, I mean, the size of the Chinese economy, the abilities of the PLA, etc. do, in fact dwarf the capacity of the Iranians or even the Russians. We basically shouldn't do any of the things that you're recommending, Rebecca, in Iran or in you with regard to Iran or with regard to Russia because we need to be keeping our powder dry. Let's start with that. Let's let's start with how you assess prioritization of the China threat compared to these other, you know, crises, fires. I mean, fires are just burning all around the rim of Eurasia. How do we think about prioritizing? So I, you know, I think those

who try to overly compartmentalize the threats regionally are missing some key dynamics that are happening between and among those authoritarian countries. So I do believe that China has the greatest capacity and has a strong desire to supplant the U.S. in the U.S.-led order. So liberals talk about it, they talk about it. The rules-based order, you know, like we're all sort of equally living under these rules enforced by some imaginary, just compact or whatever, the U.N. I mean, I prefer to just say clearly what I mean by that. It's the world in which the United States was the preeminent economic power and military power. And we enforced precepts like free and open trade and in waters, international waters, et cetera.

So, and then we all benefit from a world in which the United States is the power that's the strongest and then the most influential based on principles that that we hold and think are better for human security and flourishing. So Chinese disagree. And so they are trying to push the United States, obviously, out of the out of the, out of the end of Pacific region. But but that's not it. I mean, they want us to plant the U.S. And so that's why they're backing. That's why the Chinese government has been really specifically. Xi Jinping has such a close relationship with Vladimir Putin because he supports Russia's designs on breaking up NATO because, you know, China will then get into Europe too.

And already has. It's got, it's in some significant European ports, for instance. But so, so I would just say that you kind of have to look at the dynamics sort of across, across the globe. And you do have to prioritize your agenda. So I would agree with people who say, listen, Rebecca, you want to do all these things you have to prioritize. I would say, yes, we should stop making the climate agenda, the number one agenda item when we deal with these problems, because that is preventing and foreclosing the United States from doing. necessary things like taking a much tougher approach towards the Chinese. If you're sending Janet Yellen and John Kerry over to the Chinese because you have climate and trade priorities,

you know, and you're really not having Secretary Austin taking a leading role towards dealing with China, you can see how this administration, I believe, is backwards in its prioritization. But the prioritization should not be over, you know, do we handle this chronic and acute threat of Russia getting ready to just slice up, you know, Ukraine and Europe? especially when the U.S. isn't even the one fighting. We're supporting an ally in the hopes that, you know, in the effort to actually get this conflict back to peace so that it doesn't escalate. So I think that there are things that we can do now to prevent, to get in the head of the Chinese to actually bolster the credibility of deterrence without abandoning these other regions.

So if it was true that our support, you know, sending munitions to Ukraine is the thing that's preventing us from taking on China, I would say, okay, maybe, but it's not. It's just objectively not the thing. I mean, there's plenty of weapons that the United States could be working on, investing in, deploying, collaborating with the Japanese, the South Koreans, the Aussies, to get things deployed quickly that, I mean, foreign military sales to Taiwan, that we could be doing now when collaborating with our allies to deter China or convince the Chinese that it's not going to be worth it to them to try to take Taiwan. So, Rebecca, what most worries you, amongst the various flashpoints right now between whether it's the United States directly

or in more cases, American what we'll call Taiwan partner. I'm not sure you tell me the word to use there. And then treaty allies like Philippines and Japan, we've got, you know, Scarborough-Schull, we've got Taiwan itself, we've got Kinmen Island right off the coast of China but belongs to the Taiwanese. You know, there's all these different flashpoints where it's like possible to to imagine a scenario in so many cases in the Western Pacific where war could start, you know, today, essentially. What most keeps you up at night? I think that the concern about taking Taiwan is the big one, because I think what it would entail. So a couple of things. I mean, if the Chinese were to succeed in dominating democratic sovereign Taiwan, which is what I think

it is and what it is, realistically, the Taiwan people do not want to be dominated by the CCP. they want to be self-determining. If they were to do that, and the United States tried. Let's say the United States tried to intervene early. We immediately have American forces and Americans at great risk in Guam. U.S. homeland, Guam, obviously U.S. territory, not a state. But the United States views, we technically view it. If you attack Guam, you're attacking the United States homeland.

And that's how we view that piece of territory. And I think, and we need, and it's necessary for American forward projection in the region. And so I'm very, very concerned that there would be a Chinese attack against Americans in Guam that would cause an American president to essentially say, this isn't worth it and back down. And I think that would be a catastrophe. And I think that it would, I think that that would be really the end of the U.S. led order if the Chinese were able to successfully push the United States out of the region, if they, swallowed Taiwan. I think you immediately have other kind of, you know, cornerstones of the U.S. blood order like nonproliferation. I mean, the Japanese wouldn't be able to, you know, count on the United States as extended deterrent if we're not even going to go and be able to push the Chinese out and prevent them from taking Taiwan. So you're going to have almost certainly nuclear proliferation. And then the Chinese have control over trade and really the happenings of that region. And then it gives them enormous power and leverage over the United States. And so,

me that's a huge concern. But this ties back to your last question then, which is what I, you know, I agree with those who say that there's such a high stakes involved in, in this region. And I agree. It's just that so many calculations are happening in various capitals on how the United States is acting in other regions because these adversaries are connected and our allies are connected. I mean, and you're seeing this axis of authoritarian countries come into clearer focus over time. and then you see this coalition of democratic societies. I mean, the fact that you have Japan supports Ukraine and the South Koreans support Ukraine.

And Taiwan has lent it's at least support to the... Lithuania has huge ties and lots of love with the Taiwanese, for instance. And so you can see these two sides really coming into clear focus. And so, you know, I just simply disagree with those who say that the only way to convince China not to invade is by hard power. The hard power piece has to happen, but there's also other things in human beings that make up how they consider whether or not, whether or not something is in their interest. And so they're trying, they're taking stock of U.S. will and our political results. And so that's why I think these other regions are also

greatly important for understanding how China might be considering a move against Taiwan. Rebecca Heinrichs of the Hudson Institute. I think we'll leave it there. Thank you so much for your time this morning. I really appreciate you joining the show. Thanks, Aaron. Happy to do it. This is a nebulous media production. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.