The Dispatch Podcast - Paging Dr. Strangelove

Episode Date: February 25, 2023

The world's abuzz with nuclear war rhetoric as Vladmir Putin rips up a treaty limiting arms control. David Drucker speaks with Peter Rough, an expert on foreign policy from the Hudson Institute, to talk about the spector of a potential world war, the state of our defense capabilities, and why defending Ukraine might be the best way to stave off Russia from attacking the U.S. Show Notes: -Peter Rough, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute -Turn up the heat on Putin — and show him he can’t defeat Ukraine -U.S. four-star general warns of war with China in 2025 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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that leaves plenty of room for autumn adventures. And see for yourself how Volvo's legendary safety brings peace of mind to every crisp morning commute. This September, lease a 2026 XE90 plug-in hybrid from $599 biweekly at 3.99% during the Volvo Fall Experience event. Condition supply, visit your local Volvo retailer or go to explorevolvo.com. I'm David Drucker, a senior writer with the dispatch, and welcome to the dispatch podcast.

Our guest this week, Peter Rao, he's a senior fellow and director, Center on Europe and Eurasia at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington. This week, we decided to have Peter on so we could have a discussion about nuclear weapons and the threat they pose in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and escalating competition between the United States and China. and all things related to nuclear weapons. Peter Rout, thanks so much for joining us here at the dispatch. Thanks for having me. It's an honor to be with you. We wanted to have you on to discuss the prospects of nuclear war. And I don't mean to be flipping about it, but it's just not something I think a lot of Americans have talked about in the past 20 to 30 years.

I'm a child of the Cold War. I can remember when this was a constant topic of discussion, would the United States and the Soviet Union end up in a nuclear conflagration because diplomacy failed because one thing led to another? And there were lots of concerns about it. The U.S. obviously wins the Cold War, the Soviet Union disintegrates, and not until recently with Russia's invasion of Ukraine has this become a topic of regular discussion. Once again, there are concerns on the right and the left in the United States that the more the United States does to help the Ukrainians resist Russia's invasion, the more we lead a global coalition to help Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy, resist Vladimir Putin's invasion, the likelier it is or the more possible it is that we end up in a nuclear war or nuclear confrontation of some sort. How realistic is this today based on conditions on the ground in Europe? Well, one shouldn't take it lightly, and I think it's correct for policymakers to, I don't want to say hand-ring or worry, but to think through the implications

of our strategy in Ukraine for nuclear escalation. Nuclear weapons really are the top end of military strategy, of deterrence, of international relations. And so it is a deadly serious topic. But I think the analytical mistake that we've made over the past year of the war is to link progress on the ground to the potential for nuclear escalation. I think the Kremlin's calculations are actually different. Instead of breakthroughs by the Ukrainians triggering a nuclear escalation. I think really the saber rattling from Putin and his inner circle have been connected to perceptions of American weakness or lack of resolve. Because in the end, the Kremlin believes that if they threaten enough, the West can be pushed off of its political objectives. And so

the saber rattling, the tough talk, we saw it again with the speech that President Putin just delivered, where he announced the suspension of the New START arms control agreement, is an attempt to influence the West and to force us, in effect, to self-deter ourselves. Maybe the nuclear component that I worry about the most, it's less that the Russians in sort of a suicidal act bringing NATO or the United States into the conflict and really bringing Western power to bear, which would be a problem for the Russians. After all, they're barely able to make progress in the Donbass against the Ukrainians, let alone against NATO. But what I really worry about is that the implications of American and Western self-deterrence for nuclear proliferation.

If you're a third country, not Russia, not Ukraine or the United States, but a third country outside of this conflict region, and you look at events, you say to yourself, the Ukrainians who had nuclear weapons stationed on their territory gave those up in the Budapest memorandum of 1994 for some loose guarantees of being part of a free and open and sovereign Europe. The Russians who have nuclear weapons, are able to threaten the West and get the Americans off of their lines. The West clearly has been hesitant to supply long-range precision strikes, even battle tanks until recently on account of Putin's saber rattling. And on top of that, one country that is hurtling toward the nuclear threshold and is on the cusp of enriching to 90 percent. So weapons-grade

uranium, the Iranians outside of the region face few, if any, costs for doing so. The lesson might be, I too need nuclear weapons in this new era. So American presidents really dating back to Kennedy have worried about a nuclear cascade, and perhaps that's a perennial worry of the United States and we overdo it. But I worry about a nuclear proliferation unleashed not by America pushing to aggressively for the Ukrainians, but in fact being self-determined by the Russians. It seems like what you're saying is that the more prominent American politicians in particular, Obviously, there's a global component here. But looking at this domestically, just to try and narrow the scope for a second, the more

prominent American politicians and political leaders worry openly, loudly about the concern that too much aid to Ukraine could push Russia into using nuclear weapons, you're saying that they have it backwards. But the best way to answer Russia's saber rattling, the best way to ensure that Russia doesn't crosses some unthinkable line is to make clear that while we may not put troops on the ground in Ukraine, we will continue to do everything we can with money and material to help Ukraine resist the invasion and expel the Russians and maintain their territory. integrity. Right. I mean, Putin has inverted the logic of nuclear weapons. Traditionally, aside from the example of the North Koreans, they're thought of as a defensive deterrent.

In case of attack onto your sovereign territory, they would be a last resort. That's generally, I think, the public perception and how statesmen have thought about nuclear weapons. But Putin here is using them offensively to threaten the West and to push the U.S. off of our lines. I think statements of resolve, a willingness to support Ukraine is just the way to show to Putin. There is no way out of this. You cannot threaten nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons use and get us to alter our strategic direction. And by the way, I would just add, if you speak to Western intelligence officials and the Ukrainians themselves, and it happened to be there late last year in November and December, the use of nuclear weapons would obviously be

an event of enormous significance. It would be the first use since the Americans is the only country to use them to date, dropped two bombs on Japan at the end of World War II. It would not change the battlefield dynamic in Ukraine. The Ukrainians would continue to fight. They would still resist. It's unclear that the Russians would know how to actually fight in a contaminated environment, that they would be able to use a nuclear weapon or chemical or biological weapons to break through. And so all it would do, from the point of view, I think, of the Kremlin is probably push non-aligned, neutral, or allied countries into a forced condemnation of Russia. And there, of course, we get to the vast reservoir of power that I think the Russians are hoping

to entice, if not already relying on in China and to a certain extent, also India. So, you know, for Putin, I don't think, I don't think, as I said, he's suicidal. I think he has to date observe the logic of nuclear deterrence. And if, as the old Lennon is saying goes, the adage is true, if you have a bayonet push so long as you experience mush and once you hit steel, withdraw, I think the Russians just need to feel American steel. And then we will be able to, I think, build a more stable dynamic over the nuclear weapons front.

Peter, I think this is fascinating and so interesting to, you know, explain because today some of the loudest voices of concern, you know, I think in an earlier conversation with you, I would use the term peacnicks, which is sort of a throwback to the cold days of the Cold War, when people that were on the left were often criticized by those on the right as aiding and abetting a tyrants by saying the United States should butt out. And every time the tyrants would threaten, of course, they'd say, oh, we're goading them on, we're instigating them, we're going to cause an unnecessary. war. A lot of those voices right now are actually coming from the right, both from some

potential presidential candidates, or at least one of them, and also from Republicans on Capitol Hill who question whether or not we should continue to fund Ukraine's war effort for fear of pushing the Russians too far. Some even blame the invasion on U.S. support for NATO and NATO's expansion. Somehow the Russians felt cornered. I think one of the questions that needs to be answered that is a part of that is can we still assume or can we still say based on what we know that this is a line Putin rationally would not cross. A lot of people from all of persuasions, political persuasions, were saying that Putin was only saber-rattling when he threatened to invade Ukraine writ large because he knew that it would be a bad idea. He didn't

actually intend to hurt the Russian economy, make the Russians a pariah around the world. And therefore, he was just trying to extract concessions from the West. And though and behold, one year later, it's a full-scale invasion that's been going on for this long. So what's the best way to understand Putin? Well, if I knew what was going on in Vladimir Putin's mind, we'd be having this conversation in the Oval Office. so it's a little bit difficult to predict exactly how he calculates and trades off his decision-making. But I think my broader message is that we should not allow the specter or threat of Putin's nuclear weapons use to push us off of our own strategy because the negative externalities are even worse in that instance.

So the interests in play in Ukraine, to my mind, are enormous. the Chamber of Commerce recently released new data. I think 45 or 46 U.S. states export more to Europe than to China. The foreign direct investment flows between Europe and the United States run into the trillions of U.S. dollars. Peace and stability and certainly American prosperity is connected to a similar peace and stability on the European continent and to allow Putin to push through in Ukraine all the way up to the doorsteps of NATO, potentially emboldening him to go even further, I think would be not only problematic for those who, from the HalleCon days of George Bush's second inaugural, talk about democracy and freedom around the world, but also the Trumpists

who have America first in mind. American interests themselves would be badly damaged. As to your broader point about isolationism, this of course has a long tradition in American politics. I think it was dealt a really serious blow on December 7th, 1941 at Pearl Harbor and sort of lay dormant for decades, especially during the Cold War. But it's made a comeback in a way, in part because of our own failings in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. And so there's a certain war war weariness. Layered on top of that, I think, with the Republican right is the unique dynamic of Russia.

For four years under Donald Trump, there was talk about collusion between Trump and Russia. And in the end, it turned out to be more or less a nothing burger. And so now we're hearing the Russians are coming yet again. are coming this time. But I think some Republicans can be forgiven to having some skepticism when they hear the same voices who talked about Russian collusion, not talking about the Russians coming yet again. And, you know, Putin plays to this very cleverly. He snarls at his immediate neighbors, but then reaches a hand across to American and European conservatives and says, I'm a man of traditional values. His speech the other day was chock full of LGBTQ rights criticisms.

He very cleverly, in one sanctions move, designated Hunter Biden, Hillary Clinton, and I think maybe Tony Blinken for sanctions, as if they hold any assets in Russia. But the point, the signal being sent is, I'm with you against the decadent left and against the European Union. But of course, we should remember the biggest ally and partner we have in Ukraine are the polls who have a national conservative government at the top. And this is a fight for sovereignty of Ukraine's borders. It's a fight for American interests.

And the critique that I hear, you know, Joe Biden ignores the train wreck in Ohio or is insufficiently robust on our border. So why is he traveling to Kiev? I would just say, you know, for anybody listening to this, to take my own example, I'm both a father and a professional. And the two complement one another. You have to go to work to make money to support your family. And your family also gives you a reason to kind of do the jobs you do. and to be a professional. So in particular, for a superpower, you cannot just focus on one thing, but I think you have

to have a multifaceted view of your obligations, both to yourself and to the world, and they complement one another and make you stronger. So to the left, and there's a progressive caucus in the American Congress, and to the right, and there's some isolationist tendencies there, they both want to pull back from the world, perhaps for different reasons, but I think it would be really, really damaging to our own interest, to our own prosperity. And in the end, the Russians and the Chinese are coming. And I think it's important that we meet them and compete with them in these regions of the world and not just wait kind of on American shores for us to be basically in a very bad and negative

position to be able to take them on. How much does it matter that Vladimir Putin has suspended Russia's participation in the start? I think we now call it the new, although it's not so new anymore, the New START Treaty that's designed to keep the U.S. and Russia on an even keel in regard to their nuclear weapons programs. Well, to me, it marks the end of the Cold War, the really final blow, the funeral of the Cold War order, because it's a bilateral deal between Moscow and Washington. It was negotiated during the Obama administration and extended in the first week of the Biden administration. And it was criticized. especially by Republicans

because it is just that a bilateral agreement. But we're no longer in a bilateral world. We're really in particular in nuclear arms control and this is a deal that deals with strategic systems.

So submarine launch ballistic missiles of intercontinental ballistic missiles, bombers. In that domain of nuclear weapons, there are three powers in the world, China, Russia, and the United States. And it's hard for me to think that any American president in the future

is going to be able to get Senate ratification for a deal that doesn't include the Chinese. And to date, the Chinese have shown zero interest in arms control talks. Every few months, we open up the pages of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal with new reports about dramatic breakthroughs, both in numbers and in quality of Chinese nuclear weapons. And officials express shock and surprise at their tremendous advances. So this is no longer just a Russian-American world. In a way, it was one of the last forums or formats where the Russians could talk to the Americans at eye level. And so in that sense, the Russians somewhat liked it. But this is Putin trying to, again, coerce Biden administration

who liked this deal and wanted to keep it alive for at least the next three years. It was extended for five years in January of 2021. And I just hope the administration, who, some might cynically say, has been not entirely tough on the Russians because they still want Russian cooperation on other files like the Iran nuclear deal, Russia's a permanent member of the Security Council, on arms control. John Kerry would like climate change cooperation with the Russians. I just hope the Biden administration takes the suspension in stride and continues on. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps

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Also, I thought it was important to talk about the state of the American nuclear weapons program. There's been talk over the past several years that the program needs to be modernized, upgraded. Do we still have a program that's capable of deterrence and working if we decided we needed to use it? Because it's one of those things where, you know, people assume that these weapons were made. We have enough to blow the world up, you know, however many times over. That was always the cliche. But, you know, you can't just leave these things in a silo and let them rust. And obviously, countries like China, who are only recent nuclear powers, have more updated, just more current weapons.

So what is the state of our program? and is it still effective or does it need investment and an overhaul? Nuclear modernization, as it's called, is ongoing. But to connect this to your last question, the deal in Washington has always been that the Democrats who like arms control but don't necessarily want to invest in nuclear modernization will meet the Republicans halfway who like nuclear modernization but are skeptical of arms control. The reason Republicans have been skeptical of arms control, quite frankly, I share this

point is because arms control tends to be available to you when you least need it, but not available to you when you need it most. And by that, I mean, the U.S. could easily forge an arms control deal with, like, Canada or Great Britain or France, because these are liberal democratic partners who don't cheat, who allow for inspections, who will allow for regular negotiations. But those countries whom you need it with most, meaning our adversaries or outright enemies, the case of the Russians or the Chinese, are perennial cheaters. They're not trustworthy. The Iranians play this game all the time with the IAEA. This is the Viennese-based UN agency charged with carrying out inspection regimes. And so the deal has

been in Washington that the Republicans will agree to some arms control, but there has to be money for modernization. The New START agreement was passed after a negotiation between John Kyle, then the senator from Arizona, since retired, kind of an arms control expert, who said, fine, we'll pass new start, we'll ratify it in the Senate, but in return for that, we need monies. Since then, the Obama administration walked back some of that money a little bit, but it did flow, and we're now in the process of modernizing the nuclear triad, as it's called. My concern or worry, and this came up briefly during part of the Trump administration, is, as you put it, how reliable are systems that you don't test? And because we've refused

the test, an acknowledgement of the nuclear test ban treaty and the norm that's been established for testing. We've done all sorts of computer simulations and other high-tech solutions to assure ourselves that these weapons do work. But they've been sitting, as you put it, in a silo or on a submarine or on a bomber in the air, and we've trusted that they will work. And of course, them working and the certainty that that should signal is crucial to deterrence because otherwise you don't have much of a military deterrent. So every once in a while, there's a debate that pops up about testing. The Biden administration is not going to test for reasons that I just pointed out. And the modernization process is ongoing, but some skeptics would say it's

a bit too slow. All right, I'm going to try and tie two things together here that I think can go together. But you know, you can check my work. One of the things I've noticed is that in covering foreign policy and national security, every once in a while, an American official, a military official, a diplomatic official, will, to use the cliche, say the quiet part out loud. No, it doesn't mean that quiet part's necessarily true. But for instance, we, it was recently in the past several weeks, an American general, and I'm forgetting his name, predicted or worried openly that were likely to be in a war, a shooting war with China in the next three to five years, something like that. He was roundly rebuked. You know, there was, you know, it's not that he said,

revealed classified information as far as we know, but he gave an opinion that was very provocative because he's not just some, you know, pundit like me, but, but American, senior American military figure. I bring that up to ask you these two questions. One, over the past couple of decades, we haven't talked much about the prospect for nuclear war the way we did in the middle of the Cold War and in my memory, particularly the 70s and the 80s. But I'm wondering how much of a concern, some form of a nuclear conflict or use of nuclear weapons is discussed in government circles quietly, how much of a concern. there is, not just make sure everything works right and let's not take chances, but have there

been quiet concerns about the prospects for the use of nuclear weapons? And which gets me around to my second, my related question, we talk a lot about Vladimir Putin and Russia, but increasingly we look at our major competitor and major adversary as China. And China is still a growing power, not a receding power. How much do American government officials worry about the use of nuclear weapons and how much might they worry or should we be worried about a conflict with China where nuclear weapons were used? Well, you referenced General Minnehan from Mobility Command, who told his troops be ready to fight by 2025, which is just around the corner.

On the other hand, we had Admiral Davidson just a few years ago in front of Congress pinpoint the year 2027. Eli Ratner, the Assistant Secretary of Defense, talked about pushing out the Taiwan contingency as far as possible past this decade. And then Colin Kahl, the Undersecretary Defense for Policy, had a very sanguine assessment for defense news just, I think, a week or two ago where he spoke about basically the Chinese being deterred, and we don't have to worry about a Chinese move on Taiwan. I say all of that just to drive home the point that there seems to be no real consensus in U.S. government about the prospects or likelihood of the Chinese moving on Taiwan.

But on nuclear weapons, I worry, much like on Russia policy, there isn't the same intellectual infrastructure scaffolding in place in the United States as there are on some other issues. I'm 40 years old and all of my classmates from graduate school wanted to study Arabic and learn about insurgencies and really shaped by Iraq and Afghanistan study the Middle East. But when you now go to these panels around town or talk to people who specialize in Russia affairs, there's really almost like a donut rule, right? There's a lot of young, new analysts who sue the importance of Europe and Russia. Then there's not a lot of mid-level and mid-career expertise. And then there's some, there I say, almost dinosaurs from

the Cold War who have aged a bit, might not even be professionally active anymore, but in the 60s and 70s wrote extensively about Russia. And so catching up on expertise there, I think, is really important. And the same really applies to nuclear weapons. In the 90s in the 2000s, even the 2010s, nuclear weapons were considered perhaps even a thing of the past. You'll remember the rush to Global Zero. This is a campaign. President Obama announced, I believe, in a major speech in Prague, where he wanted to eliminate nuclear weapons from the world.

That, in retrospect, seems like a extremely polyanish and almost fanciful desire and hope quaint in a way, a time that really is far in the past. and receding and receding quickly. And so we have to build up the expertise, I think, also, again, on nuclear deterrence, on nuclear systems, on nuclear weapons, and their entire careers to be made there if one hasn't. In the government, I think probably mirrors some of the public debate. Of course, we have a Pentagon and a military and their analysts and actors there, including

in our intelligence community, that probably have a bit more robust understanding than some of our public debate, but I worry, you know, it's not all that different than what you see in think tanks and in kind of the public intellectual community and the commentary community. So, yeah, this is an urgent area. It's, as we said at the outset, the most important of all areas, because a nuclear escalation leading to cataclysm means potential global holocaust, which can be no one's interest. And so I think it's important that we relearn the lessons of the founder of Hudson Institute, Herman Kahn, who wrote about limited nuclear war and its implications. Thomas

Schelling, who, of course, is the father of deterrence and some of these theories and go down that path. And perhaps it's also a reminder of the importance of not just an offense-oriented nuclear regime where we talk about holding each other hostage and being able to, through second strike, destroy another country should it attack us with nuclear weapons, but also defensive systems like missile defense. Reagan was famously mocked for Star Wars. Now we know that it drove up Soviet spending, potentially leading or at least contributing to Soviet bankruptcy. George W. Bush tried to resurrect a missile defense system in the early 2000s and pulled out of the anti-ballistic missile defense treaty

in 2001, 2002. And I think we should probably be attempting to build systems that can at least deter against regional actors like the Iranians and the North Koreans. And finally, I wanted to kind of touch on those rogue nations. Nations, we look at the great powers or the rising powers and we worry about conflict with them for good reason. How concern should Americans be that we're dealing with countries like Iran and North Korea that may have different incentive structures than we do?

We can look at a competition with Russia and China and we can see all of the ways in which it doesn't have to happen because there are spheres of power that they may not want to jeopardize. I look at some of these rogue nations that don't really have spheres of power and simply look at the world differently than we do than the West does and wonder sometimes if we don't worry enough about the threats they pose, yet maybe they just enjoy the saber rattling. Lane, how do you look at that?

Well, it may be time for us to consider retiring the word rogue because it suggests that it's an actor outside of the accepted international system behaving against accepted rules. But in truth, I think we're moving towards a world in which there is an American-Aled alliance system in the Asia Pacific. They're big allies like the Japanese, the Australians, the Koreans. And in Europe, of course, anchored through NATO, big American allies. who work with us and support us like first and foremost, the British.

But there's another world forming. There's an axis, I think, building between Moscow, Iran, Tehran, and Beijing. North Korea might be an appendage of that as well. The North Koreans are delivering ammunition to the Russians. There's some evidence that they're rebuilding some of the infrastructure that reconnects North Korea to Russia. We know that the Chinese are buying discounted Russian energy to help the Russian economy stay afloat. Tony Blinken warned at the Munich Security Conference just recently that the Chinese may be

considering actually supplying weapons to the Russians. And the Iranian-Russian pipeline for weapon systems is rather dramatic. Everyone focuses on the drones that the Iranians are sending to the Russians, which the Russians are using to attack basically the eastern flank of NATO in Ukraine. But think about what the Iranians might get in return. fighter jets, perhaps an ICBM, an intercontinental ballistic missile capability, so you can marry their nuclear program with a delivery vehicle that threatens the continental United States. This could mean a major upgrade of Iran and Iran's military capability. And my colleagues,

Mike Duran and John Casapulo here at Hudson, have recently penned a great article I'd encourage everyone to look at called Overmatch, which talks about the new weapon systems that the Iranians have in particular drones, which can overwhelm defensives in the region. Or if they don't overwhelm them, it creates a political economy mismatch because a drone that costs tens of thousands of dollars, you or I, David, could afford to buy a few of these is relatively cheap, whereas the missile defense systems that are fielded, like Patriot batteries, are enormously expensive. And so swarming drones, we saw this at first, I think got a Baghdad hangar, where

Iranian drones or Iranian proxy drones when at U.S. installations, but since also through Houthi rebels in Yemen, who are using Iranian systems to go after a G20 economy in Saudi Arabia, weapons landing near the Riyadh airport, and the Emirates, a small country in the Gulf, which is a very important financial center and energy center. There are drones, you know, swarming around the Burskhalifa and these skyscrapers. So some of these countries that traditionally we've taken for granted as part of the American order, they may begin to hedge, seeing that there are now two worlds. There's a bipolar order in a way or a multipolar order, led, of course, principally by China,

which has the economic heft and power to actually make a play for an alternative system. Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, was in Riyadh, announcing a new special relationship with the Saudis. President Biden has basically stuffed Muhammad bin Salman in a locker for the past year. Couldn't even shake his hand on a visit. So the Saudis say, all right, well, we have alternatives now. The Iranians just recently went to Beijing to meet with the Chinese. And so all around the globe, while the U.S. and our European allies give up on Russian hydrocarbons and try to go to solar, by the way, the supply chains of which are controlled by the Chinese,

the Iranians are, or the Chinese, excuse me, without any natural resources of their own are forging new relationships with Saudi Arabia and Iran, energy-rich countries. So New World is forming. I wish they were just rogues, which we could isolate and say they're almost dead-enders, as Rumsfeld famously put it in the days of the Iraq insurgency. But in fact, I think they're part of a real challenging system that's taking on the U.S. And they're going to be tough decades ahead. Peter Rowe is a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute. Peter, thanks so much for dropping by the dispatch.

Thanks for having me. You know,