School of War - Ep 251: John Lee on Ukraine, Peace, and What China Wants

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

John Lee, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute,  joins the show to discuss the Trump administration’s efforts to bring the war in Ukraine to an end, and what it all means facing China in the Pacific. ▪️ Times 01:56 Strategic Implications of the War 03:24 The 28-Point Peace Plan 09:49 Challenges of Negotiating Peace 15:19 The Russia-China Connection 19:48 Nuclear Deterrence and Arms Control 29:30 Linking Ukraine and Taiwan 35:18 Ukraine War as a Chinese Proxy Conflict Follow along on Instagram, X @schoolofwarpod, and YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast Find more content on our School of War Substack

Hi, everybody. It's an understatement to say that there's a lot going on just at the moment if war, not to mention peace and diplomacy, are your particular interests. Today on School of War, we are going to take a look at the ongoing effort to bring about peace in the Russia-Ukraine war. And as always, we're going to try to step back from events, work to understand what the strategic objectives of the major players are and what the headlines really mean. In particular, what the connection is between what's going on in Ukraine right now and events. in Asia. Let's get into it. It is for safety for war. It will walk the invasion of the way. We'll sign of the date which will live. The experience of Vietnam is to end in a state. Hi, I'm Aaron McLean. Thanks for joining the situation of war. I'm

delighted to welcome to the show today, John Lee. He's a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. He teaches at the University of Sydney from 2016 to 2018. He was senior national security advisor to then Australian foreign minister, Julie Bishop. John, thank you so much for joining the show. Really great to be here. Thanks for having me, Eric. There's a lot going on right now. Your principal focus is Asia, Asia Pacific Affairs, Australia, U.S. relations, China, etc. However, it would be remiss of us to not spend some time. Indeed, I think we'll probably spend most of the episode focused on recent events regarding the war in Ukraine. And I think our task is to step back a bit and in sober, non-hysterical fashion, because a lot of the commentary and all of this in recent days

it seemed to me to be a little hysterical. Try to help listeners understand what's going on, both in terms of what we know, but I think more importantly, what content. context to see things in and how to understand that the deeper strategic purpose that the various parties have in pursuing this or that goal. And I think we'll see as we talk, and John, I'm curious if you agree with this, that actually it's hard to draw a line between what's going on in the negotiations with Ukraine, Russia, the Europeans, et cetera, and events in Asia. Do you think that's fair as a premise on which to proceed? It's fair for two reasons. The first reason is that

we're watching very closely how the United States negotiates with a hostile power, if you want to call Russia that. And the second reason is we're very interested in what kind of peace what kind of peace we end up with in Ukraine. Because our worst nightmare these days is an emboldened Russia and emboldened China. And if we do have a piece that leads to an emboldened and unrestrained Russia that speaks, that points to a very bad direction

from the Indo-Pacific. The Russia-China angle, it wasn't something that we thought about in my region until the last five years, but we're starting to take that seriously, and that is our nightmare scenario and emboldened China and Russia. So what's happening in Ukraine now, we used to sort of think that's a faraway place, but no longer. So let's go back in time then, John, all the way to last week, when we got this leak of the 28-point plan that apparently U.S. Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll delivered to the Ukrainians and which formed the basis of discussions about how to achieve peace between Ukraine and Russia.

There's all kinds of controversy about this document, about its origins. We can get into that, and if you'll forgive the phrase, into the criminalology as regards to the American side about what this document means and where actually it came from. But I thought I would start by asking you, of these 28 points, what struck you as particularly worthy of note or as particularly consequential? We moved on. I mean, we're sitting here, we're recording this, I should say, about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, East Coast, U.S. East Coast time on Monday, the November the 24th, it does seem as though these points were indeed a basis, and now whatever is being discussed between the various sides has evolved significantly.

But I think it's valuable to linger on this document for a bit. Yeah. Yeah, well, first of all, I'd love to know who and how to document was leaked. That's another story. I registered a document when it came out, and I suppose the thing that struck me really 0.678, which deal with the size of Ukrainian forces would be limited. to a certain number, 600,000, I believe, that Ukraine would enshrined its constitution,

will not join NATO, and NATO won't station troops in Ukraine. The reason why those three things struck me, not just the substance or the content of it, but the style of it, because if you look through the whole document, it doesn't place a lot of hard, specific obligations on anyone, but those three points place some very specific obligations on the Ukrainian. So that struck me because my sort of observation about the war is that, yes, we do need to end it, but the problem that we have is really current and future Russian intent. And the document, the PIF plan, as it was, the 28 point, didn't really put a lot of very specific

restraints on current and future Russian intent. So that was my observation. Ukraine seemed to be the only country that was singled out that had to do very specific binding things according to the initial 28 coins. Yeah, and obviously I don't know who leaked it or what the various origins are. I mean, you see all kinds of speculation out there.

There's the crowd, the American Conservative, which, John, if you're not following them, this is sort of a non-interventionist publication here in the United States. paying attention to some of the folks who edit and write there. There's this narrative that this is a, you know, essentially J.D., Vice President J.D. Vance efforts to take control of at least this file, if not reassert himself more prominently in U.S. foreign policymaking in general. And that's why it's significant that Dan Driscoll, the Secretary of the Army, who is reportedly a close Vance friend, was the emissary that delivered this document.

and you can read that others in the administration were taken a bit by surprise by the document, et cetera. I have no idea if any of this is true. It sounds a little histrionic to me and a little perhaps designed to create division where maybe there's less than meets the eye. There's another sort of on its face plausible explanation for all of this, which is if you believe what's been reported in the press, that these 28 points emerge from discussion. between a Russian emissary, the head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Demetriev, and then Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner on the American side,

you can see the origins of this document having something to do with President Trump's pleasure at the way things have worked out in Gaza. Whitkoff and Kushner, obviously both playing central roles in that effort. So if they bring something that seems like it's something that's going to get the ball rolling, you know, why not, why not give it a try, which is a very Trumpy, you know, I, I don't know, not actually knowing any of the inside the black box information. The second explanation seems a little more plausible to me than the first, but I'm curious what you think.

Yeah, I mean, you know, in my part of the world, we'll be watching President Trump focus on the peacemaking element of presidential power. And that's a great thing. I mean, really, it's a very, it's a unique platform for the American president and for him to want to seek peace throughout the world is a good thing. It's also a good thing for Americans because I too don't like forever wars. The trouble I have with the transition from, you know, the peace plan in Gaza to trying to translate that into Ukraine. I mean, you've got a very different situation in a sense that by the time President Trump intervened both militarily in Iran but also diplomatically in Gaza. Hamas was basically, and in proxies of Iran was a weakened power, Hezbollah of the war was a weakened power, and Amos was basically a defeated entity.

So with a defeated entity, you can use enormous leverage. to impose terms, even they may not stick to it, but you can impose terms in a peace plan onto Hamas. The other difference is that Hamas is obviously not a legitimate governing entity. I mean, it seems that it's a terrorist entity, and that matters, because Hamas is limited in terms of the standing that it has in international politics. And the final related point is, if you compare Hamas to Putin's government, Hamas essentially relied on outside powers like Qatar and Egypt and others to keep it going.

Now for Putin, I mean, yes, he does rely a bit on China these days and other countries, but we're not in the same situation. President Trump could excise leverage on Qatar and Egypt and other Middle East and powers to support this peace plan and impose it on Hamas, he can't do any such thing on the Russians and on Putin. So what that means is that there needs to be more of a underlying bite to any kind of ceasefire or peace plan that you put to Putin. Beneath it all, it has to be some coercive element

to ensure that Putin keeps to his promises. So I think that's why I think the Gaza example, I can understand it or the analogy, but I just don't think the two situations are very alike. You know, a few other points that leaped off of that original 28-point plan, and we can move on from this in a minute. But it was, in some ways, a shocking document, and that's why I'm inclined to linger on it, because it had a number of elements that were really jarring.

So in addition to the ones you already named, And the claim, the statement that NATO would no longer expand. Now, that's not to say I have any particular ambitions for NATO expansion anywhere in particular right now, but that would simply be surrendered. On behalf of NATO by this American team as sort of not exactly an afterthought, but almost an afterthought as part of the broader plan. Yeah, I mean, in a past, and I've been on record, but more in the sort of previous decades of being somewhat wary about NATO expanding Eastwoods,

not because of the Russian narrative that it's provoking Russia, but because NATO is a serious organisation. You know, if you want to add in members, you've got to make sure you're actually prepared to defend them. So I'm on record in having said that. But if you think about the Russia-Ukraine situation now, the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO is the ultimate deterrent. So if you take that away right from beginning

and you enshrine that in the Ukrainian constitution without any true guarantees with what the Russians world will not do, I think that's just a role of sequencing. So that sort of struck me. Right. And I feel like Secretary Heggseth got, Secretary of War Hegsaith got in trouble over this earlier in the year for sort of making preemptive concessions about NATO membership in Ukraine early in 2025 and having to kind of correct himself.

For similar reasons, it's actually not the substance of the question of whether or not new members should join NATO or whether or not particularly it's wise for Ukraine to join NATO, but rather just the question of leverage in negotiations. If you don't have to concede it, it's a very powerful thing to have in your pocket until everything is fully resolved. And this was another fun. sort of bit of kremlinology from the the curt mills american conservative crowd was that the driscoll being the um vance contact emissary for all this is a part of him circumventing his boss secretary

heggseth um uh and auditioning for the job of secretary of defense or secretary of war again i have no idea if that is true but that's what that crowd is is asserted on that crowd i'm not american so i'm not you know intimately familiar with with where they stand but just just a point about the isolationist elements to the American political crowd. I truly do understand it. You know, I understand it from a point of view of why hell should the Americans be involved and stuff around the world. The problem with this situation is, you know, this is not Gaza, this is not her mask.

This is a major military power, a permanent member of Security Council. And if you don't have a stable and lasting peace, the United States will find itself involved in something far greater and far uglier in the future. And history consistently shows that it's one thing to be isolationist at a tactical level, but when things happen around a world, American interests will be affected. So I don't dismiss the sentiments of the isolation as I understand it, but a bad piece here could lead to a far messy and bloodier situation for United States down the line. Well, it sounds like you disagree with then an idea that I frequently encounter in Washington these days,

which is that peace is necessary between Russia and Ukraine, essentially at almost any cost, so as to allow the United States to prepare for a potential conflict with China. What is your take on that position? Because it is not an uncommon one these days. If Putin's ambitions were limited to, you know, the 20% of Ukraine, that he roughly holds now, then maybe. Even though that's an unjust outcome, you might make that,

you might make that point or argument. But I think Putin has shown, in fact, he has said he's not, his intent is not just limited to this small rump of Ukraine. He wants to recapture a large part of the Soviet Empire. Obviously, you know, at the moment,

Russia's weakened, and that doesn't seem, feasible, but he hasn't given up on that intent. And unless we have signs that he has, it's a wise thing to believe someone when they say that's actually what they want. That's the first factor. The second factor is the Pacific and the European or the Ukraine connection that you're talking about.

And, you know, a lot of people, even in my own country, will dismiss the China, Russia, no limits partnership. It's not an alliance in a way that we understand alliances. But a growing number of people are starting to realize that while it may not be an alliance, both countries are helping each other prepare and in this situation fight wars. That comes pretty close to, you know, an alliance, or at least the strategic effects of this no-limits partnership is quite serious. So, look, I do understand that you cannot have a resentful and suppressed Russia forever, but neither can you have a Russia that has been rewarded for aggression that is allowed to recover

without changing any of its objectives. And as I mentioned, beginning of the conversation, for us now, we do think about the Russia factor because a Russia and China two-front offensive in their parts of the world would be a nightmare for United States and therefore for allies in Asia. Yeah, I mean, a couple other observations about those original 28 points that I think point that illustrate things that you're saying.

One about broader Russian ambitions, one of the, to me, most unacceptable portions of the document, which opened with Ukrainian sovereignty will be protected. a number of subsequent points that were absolutely daggers aimed at the heart of Ukrainian sovereignty, one of which was the demand that the Ukrainians have elections within 100 days of the deal being secured, which, of course, is obviously in service of broader Russian goals. If they're going to agree to pause militarily, though, of course, the rest of the document involves some pretty significant, militarily significant territorial concessions to them in the eastern part of Ukraine in Dhenzsk,

if they're going to agree to pause, then they're going to sort of reserve the right, as it were, to continue political warfare to destabilize the Ukrainians. Even just the discussion that we're having, the events of the last week, do a great deal to destabilize and upset U.S. Ukraine relations, U.S. NATO relations, relations amongst the Europeans. I mean, this is all extremely turbulent, all of which is good for Russia. All of all, the very discussion that we have had as a consequence of this document basically serves to advance. what I take to be the twin Russian goals here, one, Ukraine, just making progress towards ultimately control over Ukraine one way or the other. And two, the destabilization of the block opposed to Russia and the West, which most simply put, that's NATO.

The other thing, just to draw the connection to the Pacific, I detect in those original 28 points a provision that goes right to the heart of U.S.-China competition. To me, it's one of the most, least remarked upon aspects of the document, but at the same time the most shocking, where I think it was the 17th point that efforts will be undertaken to extend and preserve non-proliferation arms control agreements, including, I actually think it was, quote-unquote, including Start One, which was a fun error on the part of whoever the drafters, where Start One, of course, is an arms control treaty that existed between the United States and Russia

that expired in 2009, if memory serves, and then was succeeded by a treaty called Newstart, which is a major subject of discussion day. Presumably, that's what the authors of the document meant, even if they made that mistake, and then that mistake was actually delivered to the Ukrainians a bit awkwardly. But Newstart, you know, this is an ongoing debate here in Washington about what to do about bilateral arms control with Russia. the Biden administration extended new start at the start of the Biden administration. There had been a fair amount of debate about what the future of U.S. Russian arms control looked like in the first Trump term on the very reasonable grounds that what does it mean

to have a bilateral arms control agreement with the Russians, when we can see with our very eyes the Chinese proceeding towards nuclear expansion at breakneck pace. I don't have the recent numbers in front of me, but they're up to something like, what is it, 300 warheads on pace to 1,000 by the end of the decade. It's something like that. And if we're going to extend new start, that locks us into limitations that are designed to create a nuclear balance of power with the Russians. Well, America now potentially is in a position because of this Russia-Chinese partnership

to actually have to deter not one but two nuclear powers. That matters a lot to us because, you know, There's clearly a big nuclear missile gap between the Americans and the Chinese in the Northeacian theater and in East Asia. And a lot of people say, well, why does that matter? America has strategic mutes. The problem is that the Chinese are building, as you say, not just a rapidly increasing nuclear arsenal, but they're developing and deploying a lot of tactical mutes. and on all three platforms,

airseed and land. So the ability of China to coerce using those tactical news is immense because there is no proportionate response the Americans can sort of offer. And what that means for us, a country like Australia or Japan, is that we are starting to question American extended nuclear deterrence. and when an ally starts questioning American extended nuclear deterrence, it potentially changes and affects their ability and their courage to implement military decisions, to develop certain capabilities,

to position certain assets, because there is now some fear that the missile and a nuclear gap is significant enough that we're not, we're sufficiently not assured anymore. So it's not just a wartime exchange situation to think about is that when this, if the United States does not succeed in closing that gap, you will get some allies who will begin to think, well, do we really want to be all in? In, for example, the, you know, preparing for the defense of Taiwan

as the United States flight us to be. So that's why we care about it. Yeah, and just to explain for listeners who may not follow these arms control or, you know, nuclear strategy questions closely. Because there's a way in which a reasonable person might be listening to us, John, and think, what the hell are these two crazy people talking about? I mean, we're talking about hundreds and hundreds of nuclear warheads that should be enough to basically kill us all, or certainly, you know, so destabilized human civilization that it's all but killing us all. So what are we even talking about here? It's a reasonable question. And the answer, of course, is that military targeting with these weapons doesn't actually work like that.

It's not just, at least in the American context, and though I've never reviewed the documents, I suspect, in the Russian and Chinese context as well. It's not about mass murder for mass murder's sake, but there is actually military intent behind the targeting. And, of course, the first things you're going to target are each other's nuclear systems. And so the ability to deter and maintain a balance, the numbers and the capabilities that you bring to the table really do matter in this projected exchange, this horrifying exchange that may in fact occur, which is why this question matters and why if you're starting to fall behind, why if credibly when push came to shove, you actually couldn't defeat the bad guy's capabilities or plausibly have a shot at defeating the bad guy's capabilities, you're you're in a position before the first shot is fired of extraordinary weakness, which then leads, I think, for allies to the consequences that you're describing, where allies start to lose faith that you're going to actually extend to the deterrence, that is the cornerstone of their own defensive concepts,

and of course puts you in a position of extraordinary weakness at home, where realistically you're going to have to get to a point where you're going to have to start accepting strategic terms that are dictated to you because you know that if this thing escalates, you're not credible. You're not going to be able to credibly answer the challenge. Let me sort of paint like even sort of Gerard, even in more concrete terms, hypothetical scenario.

And I emphasize this is hypothetical. This is not. This is my hypothetical I've just created. This is not something that's officially been discussed in any way. As we know, the Americans want to base a lot of assets in Darwin in Western Australia. We want to build a submarine base of capable of servicing nuclear-powered, powered submarines, and so on, these will be very significant assets. Now, you're really getting Chinese,

and here we're talking more Chinese academics and PLA researchers, but when they say these things, it's obviously sanctioned by the authorities. They're starting to talk about these sorts of future Australian-based assets being potential nuclear targets, right, with a tactical nuclear weapon. Now, whether that's true or not, it doesn't matter,

it's designed to create a psychological effect. So that conversation is starting to happen. Now, then you play it out. If the Chinese were to threaten or launch a tactical nuke against something on Australian territory, we know and the Americans know and the Chinese know that the Americans would not respond with a strategic nuke on a major Chinese city because that's just in the right way disproportionate. And the escalation would just be unacceptable and a danger to Americans. city is to be unacceptable.

So what can the Americans do? They don't really have a proportionate response. Right. So therein lies that coercive element. So what that means in today, but what that means for the current time is there's the beginnings of a conversation in Australia. Well, why should we develop these assets and put ourselves in such danger if we may not be covered by extended deterrence?

So that, and my speculation is this is actually. what the Chinese conversation and nuclear coercion is meant to achieve. It's meant to try to persuade us now to not do certain things that the United States would like us to do. So that's serious. Yeah, and this is why this inclusion of this rather breathtaking afterthought in the document strikes me as not accidental, that there was a Russian side of this thing that was thinking through all of the things that you and I are discussing right now.

and aware that if in a world where this actually came to pass, and it's looking less and less likely that that's going to be the case, that these 28 points are actually the basis of what's going to follow, the United States would be extraordinarily disadvantaged in the face of a combined Russian-Chinese axis going forward, that our allies would lose face in us, and we would find ourselves pretty quickly in a world that I don't think the president would like, not that the president is a sort of traditional GOP Hawk, far from it,

But he does seem to like leverage, and he does seem to like America being powerful and being central to conversations and being heated. And we would be moving rapidly towards a world where all of those things were less true, where America was less a less of active. Yeah, in Australia, it leaves a strategic community and I'll say Asian allies as well. We're quite comfortable with President Trump because he likes the idea of American primacy. Right. You know, he's not isolationist. We know that. he likes the idea of American primacy.

And, yes, it may be done sometimes in a very disruptive or unorthodox manner, but an America that wants American primacy is not a bad outcome in our strategic world. So, you know, when we see documents like this, we hope that they do not become the solid basis upon which, you know, major peace deals are concluded with country like Russia. Yeah. There was a period late last week, maybe into the weekend, where I was quite concerned that we were moving pretty quickly towards a very bad scenario where something like these 28 points were essentially going to be forced down the throat of the Ukrainians. And you had the president imposing this deadline on Thursday, which now seems to be a little bit more fluid. And you had reports that the Secretary of the Army was saying things to the Europeans along the lines of we're not negotiating the details here. That doesn't seem to be true. It seems like we're negotiating a lot of the major points right. now, if you believe the reporting coming out of Geneva. But essentially the American side was going to attempt to impose this on the Ukrainians and all other parties. And the most likely consequence of

that, to me, it seems, was that the Ukrainians were going to have to bulk, that there was just no way for Zelensky to accept this. He, I mean, he might be personally in danger if he accepted something like this set aside being politically in danger. And so they just weren't. And then the Trump administration would be in the extremely awkward position of having its bluff called, and maybe it wasn't a bluff, maybe the president really does cut the Ukrainians off, at which point you have a political situation for the administration, which I don't think they would have enjoyed it all, which is, you know, Americans don't, American voters don't respond to foreign policy questions in ideological terms. They're not sitting here thinking, oh, I am generally speaking for or against liberal international

order or something like that. That's just not how people think. thing. They care when it relates to the issues that they're dealing with at home, which is not often in foreign policy, which is why in general foreign policy is actually usually not a major factor in American politics. And they care about whether or not they feel safe. And it was hard for me to imagine a situation where Russian gains pick up speed in Ukraine, the Europeans are all divided amongst themselves. It's basically chaos in Europe with America as the cause of the chaos, at least, that was going to redound politically to the benefit of the Trump administration. That seemed like a pretty bad scenario to me. Now we seem to be, I'm saying this at 4.30 in the

afternoon on Monday, so this could all change in an hour. And that's one of the pleasures of observing this administration and trying to understand what's going on as things change quickly. But now it does seem like we are in this process where we are iterating on the terms. Apparently, we're down to 19 terms now, and it's not totally clear what they are. some of these more controversial elements that we were discussing seem to have been taken off into separate tracks. And we're probably going to end, my prediction, we'll see, who knows, it's probably bad, I shouldn't have used those words, but my prediction is we're going to end up with some document that's better, but because it's better than the Russians can't accept it. And we're going to kind of

be back to the square one. That seems the most likely way. Yeah, I get the sense we're going to end up in a better place, at least as a document. as you say, whether Russians accept it, who knows. But, you know, it has been, I do note, though, that, you know, to begin from a bad place that suits the Russians, you sort of wonder, you know, why we're beginning from that kind of position. You know, the owners has been put on Ukraine and probably advice from the Europeans to weed out, you know,

what they'll consider the unsound strategic parts of it. The fact that the onus is put on them to weed it out, you know, you sort of think, you know, why is negotiation beginning from that kind of basis? But look, you know, if we do end up in a better place in terms of a document, then, or in terms of a basis upon which to talk about a ceasefire, then, you know, good, I hope that happens. but Jonas has been put on parties to negotiate away the bad bits.

And that's all the rest. Meanwhile, out in the Pacific, the president and Chairman Xi had a phone call today. And apparently they discussed Ukraine. They also discussed Taiwan further evidence of our working thesis for this whole show that these issues are much more linked than meets the eye. Obviously, we don't know the details of what they discussed, but what's your reaction to that report? Yeah, obviously there's not a lot of details.

I think when that, look, it's not an unusual or unacceptable thing for Xi Jinping to want to have to talk to President Trump about these sorts of issues. My suspicions are always raised because, you know, China has had a lot of time and space to think quite strategically about what it wants from these things. So when Xi suddenly initiates a phone call, I think, well, she initiated it. When he initiates a phone call President Trump, I'm automatically suspicious just because he's had to time the space

to think about what he wants and needs as an outcome that best suits Beijing as opposed to anyone else. But, yes, I mean, we obviously don't know any further details. Well, there's a general warming in the sense that apparently the president has agreed to visit China. and it seems that we might be hosting Xi in return at some point soon, which just puts me in mind of the fact that the notion of the president as somehow a China hawk is really a bit of a misconception that's downstream of COVID, that the 2020 President Trump had very tense relations with the Chinese,

but actually pre-COVID President Trump was much more focused, as he is in the second term, with an economic deal that's favorable to the United States and a broader rapprochement, which is mightily complicated by the issue of Taiwan and the relations of other U.S. allies in the region with China, some of which are extremely tense right now, in particular, I would say in the last few weeks, I don't know if listeners have all been following it closely,

but the Japanese, where that is going from a simmer to something like a low boil at the moment. Yeah. Well, look, my impression of President Trump in terms of how we've used these things, watching all these from afar, is that he doesn't think about things in geopolitical or ideological terms.

So unlike a lot of American leaders, he doesn't think about ideological differences with China, you know, that they are, the Chinese Communist Party from authoritarian state, it's got ideological elements to it. He sees China pure and simply as a major material competitor. There's no particular animus towards China. It's just that China's a major competitor. So he's dealing with China as he would a major competitor, not as a geopolitical rival as such.

Now, both Hawks and Deltz probably aren't happy with that. But I think that seems to me that's where your president is. Could you say a word on the Japan situation and how that looks from where you're sitting down in Australia and how you think that's likely to play out and maybe give listeners a little bit of background as to what's going on there because we haven't discussed it on the show yet? Well, the Japanese Prime Minister basically said what everyone knows to set the one says it. First of all, the Japan angle is if there is a Taiwan contingency, it is an existential threat to Japan or at least a core strategic threat to Japan because if Thailand would afford

Japan becomes far more vulnerable to Chinese encirclement and other forms of intimidation coercion. From the Australian side, I mean, Australia is obviously further away, but if you game out any sort of prolonged Taiwan contingency, it's pretty obvious Australia is going to be involved. I mean, we're talking about, you know, shared submarine bases, shared munitions basis. Australia is very openly talked about in the United States as offering the US strategic debt for the Taiwan contingency. So obviously the Australian involvement and contribution be very different to the Japanese one, but it's not something anyone knows.

Now, the comments by the Japanese problem is politically inconvenient for the Australian government right now because the Australian government is going through what it calls a stabilisation phase of China, which, my summary is it's essentially about trying to avoid talking or raising points of difference with the Chinese. So Taiwan is obviously the most sensitive issue for the Chinese. If an external party, like Japanese Prime Minister, raises Australia's role in Taiwan contingency, that's not something that the Chinese really want to want out an open domain. And so that does present a diplomatic problem for the Australian government.

Yeah, and I did see, just before we started recording, I saw, in apologies, if this is, if I'm asking you to respond to this in real time, because I'm, because I am. But I saw reports that the Japanese were going to strengthen military assets on some of the Ryoku Islands that are Japanese territories closest to Taiwan in response to these rising tensions. Do you have any, any thought on that issue? Well, the Japanese more so than any other American Allied Asia are starting to game out what both the conflict looks like, but more importantly, what needs be done to deter China on the ground. You know, we all talk about deterrence now of China as the highest strategic priority in our region. but it's really the Japanese who are the ones that are seriously sitting down going through, okay, what might a conflict look like? What would the Chinese do?

What would we do? And therefore, what must we do now to convince the Chinese that their plans be complicated or defeated? So I am very happy right now that where the Japanese are, because if you want to deter, you've got to think about wars and how you fight them and how you win. The Japanese are doing that, I think, more so and probably any other American ally in Asia. Yeah, and I was struck by how the resolve of our allies and the sense that they're all in this together and the Pacific has evolved over the years. I was in Tokyo and I guess it was probably 2016 where I encountered, I'll just say I encountered a senior Australian official

and was in conversation with this person. And, you know, the Japanese on this trip were relentlessly on message about the threat from China. There was a lot of tension over the Sankakus. The more things changed, the more they stay the same. But there was a lot of tension that year. And we were sort of being relentlessly lobbied by our Japanese interlocutors that this is a problem. This is going from bad to worse. And we need to take it seriously.

And in this meeting with this senior Australian official, I asked this person, you know, what their take was on all of this. And their response, in some, was, sounds like a big problem for Japan. That is to say, the Australian interest was not particularly involved in any of this. Well, that was 2016. Obviously, the tenor in 2025. Maybe the pendulum swung back a bit, as you just pointed out, where everything that's going on right now is a bit inconvenient. But there has, that's happening in the, it seems to be, against a background of broader coalescence around the China threat. Yeah. I think how it's evolved. And, you know, I speak from first had experience because I entered the government in 2016.

And I would say, quite frankly, that when I entered the Australian government, I was quite shocked at where our policies were. Our policies were essentially to make ourselves as small a target as possible and keep up troubles. And there is a logic and rationality to that, but there's also a cost to that, right? So that was the main thing that I wanted to get across when I was in government. So very quickly, the evolution has gone from making ourselves a small target as possible to, all right, we will now, it's now about managing the American expectations, right? So it's now about sort of being a good ally, but not being good ally in a sense that we necessarily want to join a fight, but being a good ally in a sense that we will necessarily want to join a fight, but being a good ally in a sense that we will do bits and pieces to help the Americans enable. the Americans to maintain deterrence and stability and so on, to one step further, we now become

a very active and essential component to the American-led deterrent architecture and the system. Formerly, that's where we're at now. I would say the current government diplomatically has stepped away from that in the sense that they want to avoid any kind of, they do not want to focus on issues that would enrage or anger Beijing. but their policies haven't actually changed. I mean, our role now is still to be an essential component of the American new turret system. So in a way, I'm not overly critical of our current government.

I'm critical in terms of the way they are conducting a national conversation. You're trying to play down anything to do with China. And the problem with doing that is that if you do that, you don't acquire a social license to spend more on defense and do the things that you need to do. and so it's actually made it difficult for itself to do actually what it actually wants to do which is been more in defense and host key American assets and so on. But, you know, we're not, we're not a bad place.

Like, we're in a better place when we were 10 years ago. Just to bring us back to Ukraine as we closed, I'm going to pose a theory to you, and I want to get your reaction to it. There's a way in which you could argue, and this overstates the case, but not by as much as some may think, that the war Russia is waging in Ukraine is a Chinese proxy war against the West. Again, somewhat overstated,

but my evidence for it would be if Xi Jinping decided today that we're done. We're done. This has gone too far. Russia, you need to settle. He could bring that to pass. If China cut off the broad-based support, it provides Russia across a variety of categories

it would be extraordinarily difficult, essentially impossible, I think, for Russia to continue its effort in Ukraine. But he doesn't. And the war continues. And it seems to me that the reason for that is not that Xi Jinping has an interest in endless war or ongoing instability as such in Ukraine, but rather in a good outcome in Ukraine, the right outcome in Ukraine. and the right outcome in Ukraine is something like a Russian victory,

whether that's a victory outright where Russia just controls Ukraine and NATO is splintered, or something that meaningfully approaches those two goals, as I actually think just the straightforward implementation of these 28 points would meaningfully approach those two goals. And so what you really care about is deterring China in the Pacific, you should care about preventing a good outcome for Russia in Ukraine. None of us want to see this war continue. The situation tactically, operationally, I just had Mick Ryan on the show a couple weeks ago going through all this.

It's not all roses and puppy dog cuddles on the battlefield in Ukraine right now. It's not a catastrophe either. It's not a disaster, but it's not amazing. It would be good to find a resolution to this conflict for all involved, just not a resolution that's a Russian victory. Well, I don't think it's theory. I think it's reality because you can find a lot of facts to back that up. Look, I think the Chinese plan A was for a Russian victory over Ukraine, a decisive victory. I mean, you remember the announcement very publicly to No-Livens Partnership.

That was about six weeks before Russia invaded. I find it very hard to believe that Xi Jinping would have had no idea that Russia was about to invade. I mean, its troops already amassed. And remember the overwhelming intelligence at the time, which Russia and Chinese would have known and shared, was that Ukraine fall within a week. So plan A was Russia invades, Ukraine, takes Ukraine, China and Russia are now in a dominant and coercive position to go further in people with sharing the interests. Now, obviously, that hasn't happened, right?

There was a stalemate and, or at least a prolonged. war that's still going on now. So I think the Chinese plan B is similar to what you say, which is for the West United States and Europe to remain focused on a simmering conflict in Ukraine. They may not be, we may not be committing troops. We certainly committing resources and our strategic attention. And what China gets out of that is one obviously a distraction. United States and extracted the West. But the second thing it gets out of it is Russia grows ever more reliable on the Chinese.

I mean, so certainly that China does not want Russia to lose, right? Because if Russia loses, he's sort of cowed, become strategically less relevant or strategically less of a problem for the West, then attention will be focused on China. At least that's how the Chinese would think about it. I think they're in plan B at the moment, which is, you know, let's keep everyone focused on Ukraine, has absolved the attention, the resource of the West on Ukraine, while we, China, do what we do to shape and prepare for what we want to do about our part of the world.

John Lee, you're a really smart guy. People should follow your commentary on a range of issues, in particular about what the heck we're all going to do about China. And I'm grateful to you. Thank you for coming on School of War. No, it's been a lot of fun. Really, thanks for having me.