School of War - The Democratic Party’s Worldview, with Jake Sullivan

Episode Date: May 26, 2026

Jake Sullivan, former U.S. national security adviser under President Joe Biden, Kissinger professor of the practice of statecraft and world order at the Harvard Kennedy School, and co-host of The Long Game podcast, joins School of War to discuss geopolitics through the lens of today’s Democratic Party. Where do Democrats stand on China, Israel, Iran, and the war in Ukraine? 02:29 - China summit recap 04:03 - President Trump’s goals in China 05:44 - Taiwan threat level 08:50 - Democratic Party position on China 14:16 - Avoiding war with China 16:39 - Nature of competition with China 18:39 - Role of AI in power struggle 23:44 - Critique of Trump’s Iran policy 27:17 - Democratic Party position on Iran 32:30 - Iran’s nuclear program 35:25 - Democratic Party position on Israel 45:15 - Russia-Ukraine conflict 51:12 - Democratic Party restraint policies 52:56 - Weapon systems assistance for Ukraine  Follow along on Instagram, X @schoolofwarpod, and YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast Find more at The Free Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At a moment when much of the internet rewards outrage and performance, we wanted to build a place for actual conversation. The Free Press Forum is a member-only community for paid subscribers to debate ideas, ask questions, share recommendations, and connect with other thoughtful people from all walks of life. Maybe you want to dig deeper into the latest story. Maybe you're looking for a great book recommendation, planning a trip, navigating a parenting challenge, or simply hoping to meet people who approach the world with curiously.

and good faith. If you're a paid subscriber, join us in the forum. If you're not, become one today at www. vfp.com slash forum. Jake Sullivan served as President Joe Biden's National Security Advisor through the tumultuous events of that term, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 10-7, and its subsequent wars in the Middle East and persistent tensions with China, not least over Taiwan, to name just a few. Today he joins School of War to talk about the U.S.-China relationship to reflect on some of the major incidents of the Biden term, and also to discuss the future of the foreign policy debate on the American left. It was a really interesting conversation. Let's get into it. It is for a war just to lock the invasion of away.

December 7, 1941, a date which will live in him. A bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a state. We continue to face a great situation in Iran. We'll fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing ground. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets, which will never surrender. Hi, I'm Aaron McLean. Thanks for joining School of War. I am delighted to welcome to the show today, Jake Sullivan.

Jake Sullivan was obviously the National Security Advisor to President Biden during the last administration. Today he is the Kissinger Professor of the Practice of Stakecraft and World Order. at the Harvard Kennedy School, a senior fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. Most importantly,

Jake, you are the co-host of the long game podcast. Obviously, the podcasts in our lives are the center of everything. Thank you so much for coming on School of War. Thanks.

I'm proud to consider myself among the ranks of your fellow podcasters at this point. It's the pinnacle of professional achievement. So when we were originally discussing

doing this episode, the idea was you were going to come on and talk the China Summit, We're recording here not long after it concluded, just a week after it concluded, Friday, May the 22nd. Also important, I say that day, Jake, because, of course, we could be back to bombing Iran any minute. So that could happen between when we record and when this air. So just so listeners know, we haven't yet.

So we're not going to talk about it because it hasn't happened yet. Bombing or a deal for that matter, right? That's right. It could go in a number of different directions here over the next hours and days. There's never a dull moment. The president just said he's not attending his. son's wedding this weekend, which obviously has a kind of threatening quality to it. But we'll, we can get into all of that. I did, I feel like let's let's start with China, though, as we had

originally planned to. You were obviously heavily involved in the Biden administration's diplomacy with China. There was a major summit between President Biden and President Xi right at the end of the Biden administration in 2024. What's your take on what just happened between Trump and Xi? And we'll just start there. Yeah, so the biggest thing that stood out to me from this summit is that China really achieved what it set out to achieve. You know, taking a step back, China and Xi Jinping believe that the East is rising and the West is declining.

And specifically, that the United States of America, is in secular decline. And China is on the path to surpassing the United States as the world's leading economic, technological, military, and diplomatic power. So with that, as their basic foundational premise, their main interest is trying to keep things calm while they surpass us. And so what they wanted out of this summit was to project an air of calm and stability. And that's basically what they got. They got a new name for the U.S. relationship that they forward. It's called the constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability. And, you know, the kind of implicit message of it is, hey, we're going to keep things chill and let nature take

its course until we become number one. So that for me was really what China set out to achieve. I think what's a little less certain is what exactly President Trump set out to achieve. He went in, you know, looking to do deals. There weren't that many deals coming out of it. I think on that so far, The score is a bit of a disappointment. But he also went in, for his part, wanting a stable and calm relationship, and he achieved that. And then I guess, Aaron, the other big thing that I just want to flag coming out of the summit is that President Trump is clearly putting Taiwan on the table as a bargaining chip. In his post-summit comments, he talked about holding back on arms to Taiwan. He said that our 1982 assurance to Taiwan that we wouldn't discuss arm sales with Beijing

might not actually still be operative because, as he put it, 1982 is a long time ago. He mused about whether it made sense for us actually to go fight a war nearly 10,000 miles away. And I think China's going to hear all of that and take some comfort from it. But more importantly, I think they're going to try to use it in their messaging to Taipei to say, hey, look, you can't count on the Americans. you ultimately are going to just have to give in to us. So those are the main things that I saw coming out of the summit. And now we'll just see how things play because this is the first of a number of meetings

that I expect we're going to see between President Trump and President Xi over the course of this year, including a return visit, state visit by President Xi to the United States to visit President Trump later this year. But also the G20 will be in the U.S. APEC will be in China. And so there could be up to four summit level meetings just in 2026 alone. So when you say the Chinese goal was to project stability or calm or something like that, how do you assess then the level of threat over Taiwan? You know, much of Washington, Democrat and Republican for the last decade or so has been increasingly preoccupied

with very dramatic, dangerous scenarios that could transpire in the straight, everything from, the full-scale invasion scenario down to, I mean, in some ways, more concerning because harder to deal with scenarios involving quarantine and sort of clever forms of blockade to impose sovereignty. When you say China had a goal of projecting stability and calm, what does that suggest about your, what's your temperature, Jake Sullivan, on the threat level over Taiwan? Well, it's interesting, Aaron, because I would connect my two observations, the observation about China's main strategical in the summit and my observation about Taiwan, because I think in the end, they're linked. So basically what Xi Jinping was saying to Donald Trump

in the public comments at the start of their meeting was, we can have a nice calm, stable relationship, but the one thing that could really upset it is if you cross me on Taiwan. And he was quite direct in that warning. And honestly, President Trump seemed to hear that and react to it, not by really pushing back, but rather by actually offering a series of what could be seen as concessions on Taiwan, at least floating them publicly on the back end of the summit. So I think what China is trying to do is have this relative position of stability in the U.S. China relationship, warn the United States not to get too assertive when it comes to Taiwan. And then, again, let nature take its course from its perspective.

Because here, what China really believes is that its strategy towards Taiwan is working. And that is not a strategy that right now it believes will require a D-Day-style invasion. They think that this persistent, relentless pressure campaign, propaganda, cyber, economic coercion, military activity in the air and waters around Taiwan, that this is eventually going to work. where Taiwan down and that political currents on the island are running in China's direction. This is how they see it. And so they don't have to set out for an invasion in 2027. And so right now my temperature on an outright invasion in the near term is reasonably low, absent some dramatic intervening event.

My temperature on what China is trying to achieve through this relentless pressure campaign is higher because they are ultimately trying to bring Taiwan to heal and they're hoping that they will have an American president who kind of aids in that effort by reducing the overall level of support for Taiwan and showing further to the people of Taiwan that they're not going to have the full backing of the United States. So I think that's basically how things are playing on that file right now. So in terms of the road ahead, and I'm going to ask a different version of this question several times on different issues. I'm really. interested in learning from you what the alternative sort of Democratic Party approach to some of

these issues would be. Not that that is a monolithic thing. There's obviously a robust debate on the left across a range of issues just like there is on the right. But, you know, just to let me, let me try to step back and summarize the Trump position on China, that this recent more conciliatory approach from the president, you know, you have to see it in the context of last year. And indeed, the last year the first term, but especially last year, which was an approach driven by real hawkishness on trade, real brinksmanship on trade because of China's leverage on rarers. It doesn't seem like all of that brinksmanship is quite worked out. And so there's a bit of a softening on the brinksmanship, but nevertheless, all this is occurring in the context of a president who has consistently

wanted to reset the trade relationship with China and thinks that the trade relationship has been fundamentally unbalanced over the course of, you know, a generation. or longer. And that's his principal concern. Obviously, as you just laid out, wherever Taiwan rests in his scheme of things, he talks about trade more. He does seem to prioritize trade more. What would be the difference between, and feel free, obviously, to amend any of that if you disagree, but what would be the difference between that approach? And, you know, the Democrats could very well do well these midterms. A Democrat could win in 2028. What are the sort of major options coming from the other side of the aisle in terms of a broad conception of China policy.

Basically, I think there will be a debate between two schools of thought on China over the course of the next couple of years within the Democratic Party. One school of thought will be that the Biden approach of managed competition was the right approach, fundamentally competitive, but with that competition managed in a way to avoid conflict and open areas of cooperation where it's in our mutual interest. So cooperation on things like reducing fentanyl. flows to the United States, which we achieved at the end of the Biden administration. So there's going to be that school of thought, return essentially to that strategy and that style,

which, by the way, was an heir to Trump 1.0, where he took a significantly more competitive approach, in my view, at a broad strategic level to China than he's taking in Trump 2.0. The alternative is, I would say, a return to something closer to the previous engagement era that really emphasizes cooperation, working together with China on a range of multilateral and transnational issues, and that de-emphasizes the competitive elements. And those voices are certainly present in the Democratic Party. And that debate will be, I think, very much a part of the conversation in the presidential primary next year. It's really interesting. Could I ask sort of a nerdy, philosophical question that that inspires me, which is the two groups that are

pushing the managed competition view that you were, you know, an architect of under the Biden administration, which, by the way, I totally agree, more continuities between Trump won and Biden on China than I think are widely appreciated. And the return to more, you can call it what you like, engagement, accommodation, et cetera. The two groups who favor the two options, how does China fit into a broader conception of world order for those two groups? Like, what is the big picture strategic goal for the United States that those two groups are trying to achieve of which China is a part? So I would say in the managed competition frame, and I am an unabashed proponent of that. In fact, I was a practitioner of it for four years. We started from two basic premises. First premise was that

China is in fact trying to surpass the United States as the world's leading power, and that we are in a decisive period to determine whether, in fact, that is going to happen or whether the United States will sustain its leadership position. And the second is that no matter what happens in the competition, neither one of our two countries is going anywhere, and we are going to have to learn to live alongside one another's major powers. So from those two premises you get, we've got to compete assertively on technology, on economic policy, on military deterrence, and in diplomatic domains in terms of building out our alliances and partnerships to be able to deal with a set of challenges that China poses. But at the same time, and this is where the managed part of managed competition

comes in, we have to manage that competition carefully so that we don't have a race to the bottom, so that we don't have a spiral, that competition doesn't tip over into conflict, and that there's still space for us to work together on key issues. So that's kind of the fundamental frame for the managed competition type. Now, that's just, from what a Matt Pottinger or Mike Gallagher would say, which is that the fundamental object of U.S. policy towards China should not be just manage the competition and learn to live alongside China, but rather to ultimately see a China that moves beyond the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party, that we need to win decisively a la the Cold War. And so there is a difference of view

between the managed competition approach and voices out to the right of it. And then for the engagement frame, as I would call it, or the throwback to engagement frame, I would say their main two premises are one, you know, China's not, the threat and challenge from China has been overstated, it's been inflated, China doesn't actually represent a massive threat to the United States. Two, China has a lot to offer on major issues like the climate change and decarbonization agenda, like cooperation on public health and development. And critically, the overriding priority is to avoid great power war, and therefore we need to deemphasize the competitive elements to reduce the risk that we could end up in war.

And so it is much more about working together with China, finding ways for us to have a kind of positive, cooperative, constructive relationship. I don't want to make a cartoon out of that position. Certainly advocates of that approach would also say the United States needs to take steps to invest in sources of its own strength at home as the managed competition frame would too. And that, you know, it will be fairly robust on trade policy and economic policy issues. But by and large, from a strategic perspective, the critique of the Biden administration from the left is frankly that we were too hawkish. I do not agree with that critique, obviously,

but that, you know, there needs to be an injection of a greater degree of kind of calm and reassurance and care to manage the relationship, lest it descend into some form of conflict. Yeah, that's really interesting. So the three schools then are the Gallagher-Pottinger School, which they've been on the show together, by the way, to make this case.

So anyone interested in hearing that made at length, they should check that out from, I think, last year, if not the year before. But we'll call that Cold War II or Cold War II with Reagan characteristics. Right. And managed competition, which could be a Cold War debatable. It's sort of de taunt to put my own label on it, but wary. In fact, Matt Pottinger has called it deiton. I wouldn't use that phrase because I think there are unique kind of tones associated with that for the U.S. Soviet period. but I understand.

What are the differences? Well, I think one of the big differences is that the fundamental nature of the competition with China is so different. You know, if you think about what it represents in terms of an economic and technological counterpart versus the Soviet Union, it just means that the level of intensity in the competition in these other dimensions is really significant. whereas the d'aunt kind of construct and the d'aunt period was really very security heavy. It was effectively about managing the security relationship between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. So I think trying to borrow that phrase too fully to what is a pretty jostling relationship in the economic and technology domain, where the United States has got to be very activist. activists and investments in the sources of our own strength at home,

activist in trying to align allies and partners, something President Trump has really kind of walked away from, activists in terms of trying to sustain and protect our innovation edge through things like semiconductor export controls. When you look at the shape of that policy, it just, to me, looks and feels like a category difference from the Daytona policy that was pursued by the U.S. in the 70s. Got it.

So again, just in terms of underlying attitudes here, so if the underlying attitude of Cold War II is fundamentally a kind of optimism that, you know, it's actually the reverse of how you characterize the Chinese position that in the long run, the Chinese Communist Party just has serious problems. We should probably encourage those problems as a matter of policy and ultimately surpass them. Your position, I won't put words in your mouth, you've just described it. And then the, um, uh, I'll put words in your mouth. You've just described it. And then the, um, uh, uh, I'll, I'll label it, not your word, but my word, the more accommodationist position, which seems like a fundamentally pessimistic position about the future of American power relative to China. I am curious what your view on the actual long run balance of power is. We've talked in the past about AI and the role of AI and the relationship between the U.S. and China. Obviously, you saw the CEO of Nvidia there in Beijing with the president at the summit, which was an interesting twist. and Nvidia obviously supplying a lot of the important chips for AI development. Like where are you, Jake, in terms of the next two, five, ten years, 20 years in terms of relative power, considering the United States right now, to me at least, seems to have the upper hand on AI development anthropic. Apparently, no one's, no one's yet walked me through its capabilities, but apparently this mythos thing is for real. So I'm hearing. if I were Beijing, by the way, that would make me kind of nervous.

How do you even start to think about the balance of power between two countries in 26 in a world that has so many complicated ways of applying power? And where actually are you on U.S. China as the clock ticks forward? Well, let me start with the fact that China has structural challenges that are really significant. And those challenges include debt. they include demographics where, you know, that's a very well-documented story, but that demographic challenge is hitting them harder and faster than I think even a lot of people who have been ringing the bell on this issue for some time had anticipated. And with respect to being able to

deliver opportunity for young people who are increasingly pessimistic about their economic prospects in China. So it has real structural challenges. But the Chinese economy is kind of running on two levels. One level is fairly stagnant, the kind of larger real economy. The other level, the high-tech frontier industry economy is chugging along. And China has put an enormous amount of effort into attaining the commanding heights of frontier technologies, frontier industries, whether it's clean energy or it's biotechnology, or it's the electric tech stack, or its robotics. And it's done quite well in those areas. Now, in frontier AI, the U.S. sustains a real advantage. And I think that advantage can actually grow over the next couple of

years, particularly because of our growing gap in compute capacity, partly as a result of the semiconductor export control regime we put in place. But even as we lead at the frontier, China is making huge strides in terms of diffusing and adopting AI across all of these different frontier industries, actually putting it to use. So their models are a little behind, but their models are getting integrated and adapted into their economy in ways that go beyond what the U.S. has been able to accomplish so far. So when I add all that up, I think you could end up with a circumstance in which China's economy is slowing. its long-term growth and dynamism prospects are dimming a bit. And yet, it still has this enormous engine at scale in frontier industries, in frontier technologies. And that is not just a story of manufacturing.

It's a story of innovation. Because as they have gotten huge scale in areas like Cleave Energy, they have begun to learn by doing, and they are innovating beyond where the United States is and things like battery technology, storage, solar, wind, you name it. So from my perspective, I think the U.S. has the raw material to prevail in this technology competition with China. But to convert that raw material into actual results, we have to get busy doing the thing that we have a little bit lost the muscle memory of doing, and that is being able to build

at speed and scale across a range of these industries. And that's why I was a champion of industrial strategy in the Biden administration. It's why I think some of the things the Trump administration is doing in this space, I think, are quite good and why we should continue to make sure that we're making the public investments to crowd in the private investment to actually build here in the United States of America. Because if we lose the capacity to build, I fear that over time we're going to lose our innovation edge. If you read the headlines about Israel, you're only getting a tiny slice of a long, complicated story without depth, context, or sometimes even the basic facts. I'm Norm Wisman, the host of unpacking Israeli history, the podcast that dives into the fascinating and sometimes controversial events and figures that have shaped Israel's past and present each week on unpacking Israeli history. I explore the layers of Israeli history, debates around the Palestinian and Israeli conflict,

the cultural forces at play, drawing from a variety of sources and perspectives. So if you're looking for a nuance, thought-provoking, take on Israel, one that avoids the oversimplifications and political spin. I think you'll really appreciate the show. Find a packing is really history wherever you listen to your podcast or on YouTube. Well, let me reward that qualified praise of the Trump administration you just offered by moving us to a topic where I suspect there's not going to be a great deal of praise for you or from you. There's obvious continuities, even if also some differences between team Biden and team Trump on China. I don't think anyone would claim that when it comes to Middle Eastern policy or to Iran.

Maybe I'll start it. There's so much we can talk about here. And, you know, every hour seems to have new news as far as everything that's gone on with Iran since February the 28th. But let me ask a very big picture question of you, Jake, which is what does Donald Trump or what does team Trump maybe get wrong about Iran from your point of view? I think what they got wrong going into this war was three things. first that the regime could basically be ended with a little shove. Just give them a shove and it'll collapse. I think they got that wrong.

The second was that Iran was a paper tiger and would take a big hit lying down and wouldn't respond. And I think that was a lesson that they drew from the 12-day war last year. And it's why they were unprepared for the closure of the Straits of Pormuz, even though the intelligence community in the military had obviously scenario planned for that and war game that extensively. They just didn't really think Iran

would step up and fight back. They kind of thought all of the warnings about that from the, in their view, the appeasers had not borne out last year in the 12-day war and therefore they had a free hand to go at Iran hard this year and didn't have to worry too much about Iran's response.

And then the third thing is they basically thought Iran's stang power in the face of bombing and block was a lot less than Iran's staying power is. And when you take those three basic errors, analytical errors, you end up in the situation we're in. Iran's regime is still there. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. And Iran is not conceding in the face of, you know, first weeks of bombing and now weeks of blockading.

That's just the reality. And so when all is said and done, the only way forward is the thing that was available to the Trump administration before the state, all started, and that is a deal, a deal on the nuclear program and an agreement that gets the straight back open, albeit on terms that are probably going to, no matter what, be worse than the status quo empty. But that's basically where I think the Trump administration went to miss. And we could certainly see a deal here in the next few hours, just as we could see, as we were joking before, a return to military action. And I don't know, Jake, which I'm not sure how I would rate the odds of either. I think.

feel with every passing hour, I kind of hear a rumor or an indication that cuts in either direction. So we'll just have to see. In my habit of asking kind of nerdy philosophical questions, though, let me sort of ask the same question again, but maybe at a higher altitude, which is if I'll characterize the team Trump attitude towards Iran, which I think is fairly applied both in the first and second terms, even though obviously a lot more military action here in the second term. that Iran is fundamentally an enemy of American interests. And then we ought to construct a foreign policy in the Middle East that involves organizing amongst our friends to, you know, I'm not sure what the verb is I want here.

contain, oppose, defend our interests, diminish the interests of Iran, the principal adversary we have in the region, prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon. There's other things we could add to the list. But that's the fundamental conception. The Abraham Accords are probably the biggest structural element of that across the two Trump terms, as is the close relationship with Israel. Again, feel free to, you know, adjust any of that if you disagree. But where does the team Biden view of the Middle East and of Iran's role in the Middle East differ from that? Look, first, the Biden administration and the Obama administration both had the same degree of conviction that Iran could never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon and that Iran did pose a threat

to American interest to regional stability through a variety of different means, including through sponsorship of terrorism and through its support for these terrorist proxies that destabilize, regimes across the region. So no real gap there. I think the fundamental gap is on how you think about the relative balance of diplomacy and war fighting when it comes to dealing with the threat that Iran poses. And my view is that the Iran nuclear deal did put the Iranian nuclear program in a box, did deal with that, and that a range of other tools. could be brought to bear to deal with the threat that Iran posed across other dimensions, and that going to war, particularly a regime change war, in these circumstances, was not going to

advance America's national interest and could, in fact, at the end of the day, leave Iran with a stronger hand and an even harder line than was true before the war started. So I think this is not so much about a diagnosis of the challenge that Iran presents, but rather a question about prescription. And whether the right prescription was a patient strategy of pressure and alignment with partners in the region to deal with the threat Iran posed and direct diplomacy to produce a verifiable agreement to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, or whether the right prescription was what we've seen over the last two months. And I think events are bearing out that it's the end of all of this, the Trump administration is going to end up at the Obama-Biden prescription,

I would expect. I don't expect that they're going to end up deciding to follow the current course all the way down the path to kind of regime change, come hell or high water, whatever it takes. I think they're going to end up doing a deal. Whether that deal happens in the next day or the next month or takes longer, you can see already they've recognized the need to be involved in these intensive negotiations for this purpose. And the other thing I would say is we place the highest priority on the nuclear program. It said, we've got to deal with the missiles. We got to deal with the proxies. There's a range of ways we can get at those issues. But fundamentally, the nuclear program is where we have to put the most amount of American energy. And I think at the end of the

day the Trump administration is going to basically end up there too. If there is a deal, it is likely to deal with the nuclear program and do less with respect to some of the conventional and asymmetric capabilities. I want to push back just a little bit on the claim that it's not fundamentally a difference in diagnosis. And just let me, let me challenge that with what I think someone from the, you know, the Iran Hawk segment of Team Trump, because it's not universal. across Team Trump might say in response to that, that what you said, Jake, about the administration's mistake going into this most recent round of high-intensity conflict was their misanalysis of the durability of the regime. You can kill Chaminet, but this goes layers deep. It's a 47-year-old

revolutionary regime. There's schools. It replicates itself. This is not a, this is not a matter of a simple decapitation. You're going to have to cause a lot more pain. than politically we're probably comfortable causing to be in the neighborhood of the kind of collapse you're looking for, which those are my words, not yours, but if that's somewhere close to your critique of them, I feel like their critique of the Obama-Biden approach would run something like you are looking to engage

and approach solving problems through diplomatic means with a regime that fundamentally will pocket all of the time and resources, eventually they are able to acquire over the course of that engagement and at the end of the process be just as inveterately hostile as they were at the start of it, but wealthier and more powerful. So you can deal with the problem today. You can deal with the problem in 10 years, but you're not solving the problem through

engagement. What would be your response to that? Well, first, I had the nifty diagnosis prescription thing. I couldn't help it use, but I think it's fair to say we don't have exactly the same diagnosis, I guess the right way for me to say it would be the difference in diagnosis is probably not as significant as the difference in prescription, which is really quite profound. But directly to your point, what I would say is at the end of the day, it's not about what you kind of hope for in an ideal world. Would all of us like to see the complete and absolute surrender

of Iran's nuclear capabilities at every level, every last centrifuge, every last ounce of yellow cake, all of it just gone, sure. But the question is, is that a viable objective that can be achieved with the means available? Complete surrender. I think the answer to that question is no, which is why we did the Iran nuclear deal,

and we made compromises, but the one thing we didn't compromise was on the basic proposition that we will not allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon. And in the end, my submission to you is all of those critics who said that deal wasn't good enough, we need a better deal, et cetera, we need complete surrender, no enrichment ever for, you know, add infinitum into the far distant future for the reason you just said, which is they'll just use the time and pocket the time and, you know, get ready and get richer and get stronger. Well, what is the deal on the table right now that the Trump administration itself has put forward? it's time bound. And why?

Because the Trump administration is recognized that is not going to end up getting a deal that has Iran for swearing in perpetuity all aspects of its nuclear program. So, yeah, diplomacy is about doing deals that are imperfect and frankly then having to build on those deals with more deals as you go forward.

But that's a reality that actually has been a divide between the critics of the Obama and Biden approach and those of us who, you know, did the work on the Iran nuclear deal. But at the end of the day, I think that divide is going to get closed one way or another at some point by the Trump administration actually accepting an outcome that looks in structure similar to the JCPOA. I'll certainly grant you, you know, since the president adopted zero enrichment

as his sort of enunciated goal for all this, which I can't remember. I think that may have been May of 2025 when he first used that language. Whitkoff came out and floated a deal that would involve some token level of enrichment. And then President Trump ended up basically walking away from that and saying no, zero, zero, zero. Yeah. So that was May of 20. So I guess about a year ago, almost exactly. for there to then be a deal with Iran

that permits enrichment in some fashion it's going to be difficult I will grant you it is going to be difficult to portray everything that is followed February 28th as a success if that's where we end up

and then there's the issue of the straight itself which we haven't really gotten into here on School of Orjic I've become monomaniacal on the straight of our moves I'm almost sick of it at this point but to me much of the issue

circles around that. Feel free to comment on that, but I would keep us in the Middle East and move us over to Israel. This strikes me as an area where on both the right and the left, frankly, there's more disagreement than there used to be.

Right now, President Trump, I mean, I think there's a case to be made that President Trump is on some level, the most pro-Israel president in American history. But, you know, not that long ago, I think it was fair to say that that would have been the, even if President Trump's probably gone further, I mean, certainly in terms of military cooperation and coordination, the most recent

operation has gone further than, I think, anything in American or Israeli history. But it used to be the consensus view amongst Republicans to be a few odd guys out, Senator Paul, others like that, that America should broadly speaking have a pro-Israel orientation and its policy. And that for a long time, with a lot of disagreements over the details and things like two-state solutions and things like that would have been the consensus view of the Democratic Party. It strikes me that that consensus is collapsing. And I want to get your thoughts on that and on the future of the Democratic Party in that relationship. Well, first, I think it's clear that the center of gravity with respect to the U.S. Israel relationship in the Democratic Party has shifted. You saw that in the vote on the

joint resolution of disapproval on arms transfers to Israel a couple of months ago, where you had most of the Democratic caucus in the Senate supporting that resolution. So there are differences for sure that will play out on the presidential campaign, the presidential primary campaign trail, on what exactly the nature of the security relationship should be with Israel going forward,

how we should relate to that country, and part of that will turn on what that country looks like a year from now. There's elections in Israel this year, and we'll see if there's a change in government or not, because I think Democrats in particular have very much focused on Prime Minister Netanyahu and his very far-right government

from their perspective, having taken Israel down a very problematic path in a number of dimensions. So that, I think, there will be a debate, but overall, there has been, I think, a broader attitude shift within the Democratic Party on this issue, not just among you know, particular constituencies, but fairly broad-based. So I don't want to suggest that there's no such thing as Israeli politics.

Obviously, they're fractious and dramatic and colorful. And should the era of Netanyahu transform into something else, there will be differences in Israeli policy. But I'm always struck, or I have been struck, I suppose, is more accurate, say, since 10-7, about, if not unanimous, unanimity exactly, then consensus. Consensus amongst Israelis on a bunch of security issues involving the severity of the threats posed, just to sum it up, posed by various elements of the broader Iranian axis, at least what was a very coherent axis a couple of years ago,

a little battered at this point after the last couple years of war. So to put this in a form of a question, I suppose, you know, how much of the collapse of consensus on Israel amongst Democrats would be resolved by the succession of someone else to Netanyahu. And how much will the Democratic Party have to come to terms with the fact that actually Israelis are going to probably take a pretty hard line on Hezbollah, on Hamas, et cetera, out of what they will see, you know, rightly in my view, as the nature of the sort of existential nature of the threats posed by those organizations, such that. that consensus in the Democratic Party might keep collapsing even without a Netanyahu around to

be the sort of focus of it. It definitely will not be resolved. And I don't want to suggest for a minute that the movement on attitudes in the Democratic Party on Israel is because of BB Netanyahu and not other things. There are larger Israeli policy issues related to Gaza, related to this war in Iran, which the United States is fighting alongside Israel right from the start and continues to fight alongside Israel and relating to other issues in the region as well. But I do think that there is one element that is important, which doesn't really go to the question of Iran and its proxies, it more goes to the character of Israel's democracy, the nature of Israel and the extent to which it is increasingly kind of hardcore ideological right-wing project or it is something more akin

to the Israel that many Democrats knew from decades past. So that's a little bit, you know, orthogonal to some of these immediate policy questions, but is really important to what the nature of this relationship is going to look like on a going forward basis. What does Israeli democracy look like, one, two, three, four, ten years from now? I love that expression, by the way. That's a good tagline for School of War. A little bit orthogonal to these immediate policy questions is what we what we do here um uh well then let me let me let me let me keep pushing there but zoom out which is to say so i hesitate to ask what the consensus you for the democratic party will be because maybe there just won't be one but maybe you're you that you're your team that

would be for managed competition to china the sort of uh obama biden um uh world within the party um what is the role of Israel in U.S. policy towards the Middle East just broadly. Is Israel still fundamentally closer to the United States and we keep our distance from Iran because for all of our disagreements, Israel is more of a friend and Iran is more of an adversary? Or do they kind of come on to a level with each other where we see our role as dealing with both of them as problematic powers neither of which we have a particular natural affinity for every country has strengths and weaknesses both countries have strengths and weaknesses we're the United States of America we are a superpower and we're going to deal with them sort of dispassionately there are probably other options as well

but those are two I think this is I think the question you just posed is going to be a source of real debate in the Democratic Party and there will be a strong views on multiple sides of that question or let's say a spectrum of views might be a better way to put it. And, you know, a lot will also depend on how Israel chooses to conduct itself, both in terms, as I mentioned, of its own democracy and in terms of its role in the region going forward. So I think this is, it's too soon to say to try to characterize this where this is going to end up, because I think this will be a major topic of conversation, not just in the presidential primary, but across the party for where exactly along that spectrum, the view of Democrats ends up landing.

I assume you're going to reject this analysis, but I have heard it said, Jake, that the second category or the second option I just outlined of relative strategic, the United States taking a similar strategic view of Israel or Iran or at least a view where they're sort of approaching each other in status. Some have argued that that that view is implicit in the logic of the Obama Biden policy itself and indeed in the very sort of structure in which the JCPOA fits. Do you do you reject that? Do you concede any of that at all? I would just say there's a lot of people in the Democratic Party who would definitely raise their eyebrows at that characterization of the Biden administration's approach to Israel. Fair enough. Fair enough. Let's move on to we've done Asia. We've done the Middle East. Let's finish in Europe and Russia. The Ukrainians seem to be doing relatively better on the battlefield than was the consensus few six months ago. It's not totally clear where things go from here. If I had to bet, I would bet on more war. just because it's not clear to me what gives at this point in any direction.

If the president, I was dubious that President Trump had the leverage to bring things to a close at the start of his term, as he said he was going to do, or I was skeptical of that. I think, if anything, American leverage has been reduced by the distancing of the Trump administration from being the principal supplier, funder, et cetera, of Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion. such that I think if we if we clapped our hands now and said stop, I'm not sure we would have the power to get the Ukrainians to stop, even if we tried. So I'm curious your thoughts on the road ahead. I'm also curious your retrospective thoughts. I mean, this war started in February of 22.

Here we are, four years plus on, this grueling war of attrition in Europe, you know, reflecting on how we got here. Are there things that the, Biden administration could have done better. I assume you think there are things the Trump administration could be doing better, but give us your holistic take on things. So first, it is extraordinary to watch the resilience, the creativity, the bravery of Ukraine, the Ukrainian people, Ukrainian forces on the front lines, what they've done with their drone program and their ability to stabilize that front line to

basically stop Russia from being able to continue to advance, to actually take some territory back, to be able to hold their risk targets steep in Russia with their own indigenous drone program. That all has been quite remarkable. And I do think it's putting increasing pressure on Putin on the question of where does this all go for him. And when you add to that the fact that Russia has mortgaged its long-term economic future, its long-term technological future to this war, and that even though there are elevated oil prices right now and what's happening with the Iran war has been a short-term boon to Putin in terms of his ability to get money

for his war machine. I think the pressure is rising on him internally as well. Still, you used the word monomaniacal before with respect to your take on the Strait of Hormuz is a podcast host. I'd say Vladimir Putin is

monomaniacal about Ukraine and he seems determined to just keep going. And so the Ukrainians, I think, will be able to hold and push back. Putin will want to keep going. And so I basically agree with you. I think the war is likely to continue for some time. And maybe it will reduce an intensity. Maybe, you know, some kind of temporary truce could be reached in some respect, but it is hard to see how this war actually gets resolved any time

in the near term future. You know, going back, I think one of the things I actually reflect on quite a bit is that we had incredible intelligence and got one very big call right, which was Russia was going to invade in roughly the way and on roughly the timetable that we anticipated and warned the world about. And we got one big thing not right, which is that our professionals assessment, the assessment of our military and intelligence community was that Russia would achieve a rapid military victory. And so what we were really planning for was trying to contend with that, push back up against that, undermine that. But fundamentally, the expectation was not that Ukraine would stop Russia cold outside of Kiev, would take back half the territory that Russia

ended up taking, and would be able to hold off the Russians in this kind of extraordinary way that it's been able to do. What if we had assumed actually Ukraine will be able to contend with the oncoming Russian forces? Would that have changed things in terms of the run-up to the war? That's a question for me. And then a second question for me is we did warn the Ukrainians, this was going to happen. They didn't really believe us. And as a result, they didn't really fully prepare at the outset. And so had they believed us, would that have changed things? And when you put those two together, would both Keeve and Washington have handled things a little bit differently at the outset if we had had a different expectation or a different assessment of the capability of the

Russian military and the relative capability of the Ukrainian military to resist the Russian military? So those are some of the things that I think bear a deeper example. And if, excuse me, deeper examination by all of us, among other things, obviously, that, you know, we'll get scoured by historians as this goes forward. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMDM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly,

19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-26. 600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGEM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. Yeah. You know, just to put my own cards on the table, you know, in addition to taking a

fundamentally pro-Israel view of the Middle East, you know, this podcast takes a fundamentally pro-Ukrainian view of affairs in Europe. And I've been critical and had plenty of guests on who have been critical of the Trump administration's, let's just say, complex approach to the issue over the course of the last year and a half. I've also, you know, we had discussions when President Biden was in office and when you were in office as his national security advisor about the level and pace of support for Ukraine and talking to folks who served on your team in that time to the extent that, you know, there was hesitated. Again, you'll, you will amend any of this that you actually

disagree with, but to the extent that there was hesitation to provide this or that weapon system or there was less aggressiveness, perhaps, than some who were supporting Ukraine on the outside would have preferred. It was a concern about the possibility of escalation. Just, I mean, to be blunt, the possibility on the horizon of a nuclear event with Russia, but escalation more broadly that was sort of slowing and creating caution in the support of Ukraine. I've heard that critique extended as well to the Middle Eastern context post 107. The critique would run something like one of the reasons why there's still a war. There's still a war multiple years after 107.

There's a war in Lebanon. There's a war in Gaza. There's a regional war with Iran itself is in part because in general, in general, Biden, at a lot of terms, was very concerned with preventing escalation. preventing escalation, you know, if there's a conflict in Gaza, let's not have that conflict expand to Lebanon. If there's a conflict in Gaza and Lebanon, let's not have that expand regionally to include Iran. In Ukraine, let's make very, very much sure that we are keeping this thing containing Ukraine. And the critique would conclude with something like our adversaries know that that's

what we're trying to avoid and that's leverage for them. What's your response, Jake? Well, I'd start by saying that I will fully cop to wanting to restrain escalation when it came to direct conflict between the United States and Israel and Iran, because we anticipated precisely the kinds of massive problems that have befallen us, strategic, economic, and otherwise, because we went down that road. So I think a little more due attention to restraint when it comes to direct military action in a regime change war in Iran would have actually served this administration pretty well. So that's on that front. With respect to Ukraine, I would start by saying that we have to have a common baseline here.

And for me, the scope and pace of American military and intelligence assistance to Ukraine from the first day of the war, in fact, even in advance of the war, but especially from the first day of that war, the building of this massive logistical infrastructure to flow a huge amount of weapons to expend. every dollar that the Congress allocated to us in capability to the Ukrainians, and to pair that with this intense and deep intelligence partnership that had the effect of supporting Ukrainians in killing and wounding hundreds of thousands of Russians on the battlefield. And doing all of that without the war expanding and without a single American ending up having to lose their life in that conflict. I think that at a big picture level is a pretty strong story for American statecraft. Now, there is this question of certain weapons systems, and I think there are three in particular the people have focused on. One is F-16s. And here, President Biden made the

decision to authorize F-16s three years ago. They don't really use F-16s. They don't really use F-16s. here three years later. Why? Because part of the reason that he was reluctant to do it in the first place wasn't escalation. It's we wanted to spend our money on things that they could actually use and incorporate, not a new fighter platform that they were unlikely to actually integrate into their war fighting and haven't over three years. The second was Abrams tanks, which the military told President Biden, don't do it. They should be getting these tanks from Europe because they're more familiar with that style of tank than the Abrams tank. And the Abrams tank is not well-situated. for this particular conflict. We ended up giving them Abrams tanks only because it unlocked

German tanks, and they never really wanted any more of them once we did. And so that leaves A. The issue with A. Tacombs that I don't think is fully understood to people is, first, we didn't have that many of them. And we had to weigh the effect of a relatively limited number of A. Tacombs against escalation risk, it would have been easier to make that calculus if we had an unlimited supply of ATACOMS than what you're willing to buy in terms of escalation risk is just different.

But with a smaller number, it is in fact a more complex. We also were able in not providing ATACMs for a certain period of time to escalate in a lot of other ways because Moscow was kind of singularly focused on this one weapon system.

So we could provide unbelievable amounts of capability and intelligence to do incalculable damage to the Russians in other ways. And then finally, we did start providing ATACMs, and we did authorize their use cross-border as well by the end. And I would say the ATACOMs were effective in hitting Russian positions, forcing them to move back command posts and the like. but I think it's hard to argue that they had a material position, a material impact on the territorial lines, that they moved territory. They weren't a silver bullet. And I think when people look at the history of this, they will see that other assistance ended up mattering a lot more, including the work the Biden administration did to help get Ukraine's drone program off the ground with significant amounts of funding in the early period, including the cluster munitions that helped, Ukraine hold the line and including other forms of assistance that we provided over the course of our time there. So in the end, if I were in Ukraine, I would say the United States should give more, should give, you know, as much as they possibly can, should do as much as they possible can. Of course, I would say that.

And I understand their frustration. And of course, I wish we could have done more than we did. but I also believe that the United States did an enormous amount much more than I think almost anyone would have predicted in January of 2024 before this thing kicked off. And I think it's important not to lose sight of that even as we look at some of these individual weapon systems and kind of consider their relative impact

and how they played into the conflict as it unfolded. Jake Sullivan, the 28th assistant to the, the president for national security affairs, career, impressive career in government before that, including Director of the Policy Planning staff at the State Department. Among your many affiliations today, I'll just repeat, co-host of the Long Game podcast. You've been very generous with your time.

I appreciate that. I appreciate your candor. Thank you so much for coming on School of War. Thanks for having me. Are you one of those media strategy people clicking through slides, scrolling spreadsheets? Yes? Good.

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