The Munk Debates Podcast - Big Israel / Big Iran – Progressivism

Episode Date: September 15, 2023

Friday Focus provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. The following is a sample of the Munk Debates’ weekly current affairs podcast, Friday Focus. On this edition of the Friday Focus podcast, Janice and Rudyard spend the first half of the show talking about two concepts that have emerged that help explain some of the West’s aspirations and fears about the Ukraine War. Some analysts are now arguing that an end game to the war requires turning Ukraine into a “big” Israel similarly protected by American security guarantees. Others worry that, in response, Russia is turning into a “big” Iran which will operate permanently outside Western institutions and norms and actively thwart the West and its agenda. The remainder of the program focuses on the Trudeau government’s plunging poll numbers and what this says about the state and future of progressive politics as a group of prominent progressive leaders gather in Montreal. To access full-length editions of the Friday Focus podcast consider becoming a donor to the Munk Debates for as little as $25 annually, or $.50 per episode. Canadian donors receive a charitable tax receipt. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The following is a complimentary excerpt of this week's edition of the Friday Focus podcast by The Monk Debates. To access full-length editions of each and every episode, along with all kinds of great additional benefits and perks, become a donor to the Monk debates. You can do that for as little as $25 a year, and you'll receive each and every year 50 Friday Focus episodes at full length. It's all available right now on our website. in just a few simple clicks. Triple W. The Monk Debates.com. Look for the Friday Focus option in our navigation bar, the top right of the website.

Make your donation, and we will send you each and every Friday a link to listen to the full-length edition of this program. Thanks in advance for your generous contribution. Hello, Monk members. Rudyard Griffiths here, the executive director of the Monk Debates. Welcome to this, the regular Friday Focus podcast. We're going to unpack some of the big. issues and ideas in the news this week, hopefully leave you with some new analysis and

insights. I'm joined each and every Friday for this program by Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs, internationally renowned scholar and author. And Janice, I got to start with the big news the week. Blue Jay fans booing the team in the Skydome. Were you there? What's going on to your precious Jays? Janice, this is bad.

This has been the most devastating week. In recent memory, there is rage, rage, because not only, just imagine this, we lose all four, all four games, but we lost them by 10 to zero. I mean, this is a humiliating, crushing, embarrassing, soul-destroying defeat, and all people are talking about is revenge now. Who gets fired first for this? That's all we're talking about. Here, here.

Anyway, I had to mention that. But look, in all seriousness, busy week, and I want to start with these images right out of a Bond film of evil, you know, maybe genius, maybe dot, with his nuclear weapons, getting on an armored train in remotest North Korea and going north into Russia to meet with another nuclear-armed authoritarian leader to cook up who knows what at a space launch site as they met and exchanged rifles.

I believe Kim Jong-un gave Vladimir Putin a beautifully made-hand-graved North. North Korean rifle. Is this the new big geopolitical bromance, Janice, that we should be focusing on? You know, just to take off my analyst hat for one minute, those visuals are just so good. You know, no Hollywood producer could do better than Stoneface Vladimir Putin embracing Kim Jong-ung and the rifle and I think the terrain has gold-plated or gold fittings inside it. I mean, this just cries out for a movie. You know, I was in Ottawa yesterday, and that's all people could talk about.

This seemed, for many people, to summarize everything that's wrong in the world. this bromance between these two evil figures. The dark forces are now coming out and we can all see them. How serious is this? It's quite interesting really because both Koreas are in the same game here. I think it's important to remember South Korea has been shipping hundreds of thousands of artillery shells to the United States. Now, why are they doing it that way?

because they can then say they are not supplying military equipment to Ukraine. Now, what happens to those shells when they get to the United States? We don't know. Well, I can tell you they've got the same deal cooking. That meaning when they've taken place, military. And it's really, it's this consuming use of ammunition in trench warfare, which we haven't seen registered for 100 years, and nobody's manufacturing can keep up,

that, you know, in North Korea is going to ship. There won't be more than one train going across this border. Really interesting question is, what does he get in return? And this is a problem for Putin because there are official sanctions on North Korea. And he's walking a fine line here. He's got enough going on. He's being careful not to visibly break those sanctions, but it will be food, it will for sure food aid, which is a huge issue for them.

It's some more sophisticated technology, missiles and missile defenses. And some of the darkest of the darkest whispers were saying, well, there's got to be some help to with failed space launches and any problems he's having on the nuclear side. So that would cement the relationship. One, it's really interesting out of the desperation of the big powers. Before that, if you look back ever since 1950, 70 years of North Korea and South Korea needing help from the big powers. Well, the big powers now need help from two countries that never disarmed.

That's, I think, what's so interesting about it. They never disarmed. They were in a state of Cold War that could bust out. at any moment, they kept their arms manufacturing industry going. So they have a machinery to manufacture, which no major industrial power has now. Both of them. Yeah, you wonder about what the exchange is and the extent to which, you know, this is in a sense knowledge that the North Koreans are looking for from the Russians,

ballistic missile knowledge technology. You worry a bit that transferring that kind of stuff is a little less obvious, can be a little more covert. It can involve simply the exchange of scientists, for instance. Oh, you know, a lovely trip to Pongyang by some Russian, you know, scientists from their air and space administration to share, you know, insights and collaborate together on, I don't know, some ridiculous thing that will come up with. So, you know, it's knowledge transfer. I think you're right, Janice, and then artillery shells going the other way. The other way. My question to you is North Korea has been such a problem for policymakers because we've known and we haven't been able to stop. They're increasingly

aggressive nuclear research weapons research program multiple tests now sophisticated increasingly intercontinental ballistic missiles that they are developing they're they're facing you know sanctions from one end of the world to the other and it doesn't seem to make a difference and now they have this opening to russia they have a relationship of sorts with China? I don't know. I don't know what to do, but I wonder if it's time to rethink our policy with regard to North Korea and whether our relentless isolation of this regime really makes sense now strategically. Do we need to just grit our teeth and somehow understand that we're not putting the genie back in the bottle of it again. North Korea is a nuclear power,

now into the future, we need some kind of relationship with them because we don't want them falling into this kind of doctor no orbit of Vladimir Putin. What you just said, Roger, is what is quietly whispered in Washington and in other places there is a recognition. North Korea is a nuclear power. Right. It's not, that's not going to be undone. So the strategy, and here's the bigger question, the strategy of so isolating countries that you drive them to the brink of desperation.

And this is, to be serious, this is an alliance of the desperate for different reasons, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong, because Putin really needs the infusion of manufactured munitions to keep. the war going at the level that he needs, and he can't get it anywhere else. So he's going to make deals now that Xi Jinping will not make with North Korea. You know, China's been careful. It doesn't want to see North Korea collapse, but it has been very careful not to make these kinds of deals and reinforce the regime. I think that strategy has run its course. I agree with you.

you know, we had a period. And let's, let's, you know, give Donald Trump just an ounce of credit here. Where in the most ham-handed and typical Donald Trump, there's a kernel of a good idea there, but the execution of it is so flawed, it gets completely messed up. But the idea was, in fact, a diplomatic engagement, Bill Clinton had that idea before him. It's been tried three or four times, but we're in a different stage now. You know, here's a number I saw this week, Regan, which tells where we are at. And it's the war in Ukraine.

It's the game changer here. Russia a year ago, sanctioned heavily, sanctioned really heavily. And the United States went after the networks that are supplying Russia yesterday. and unveiled 100% 150 more companies. But a year ago, Russia's manufactured ammunition and shells way down, which is what you want, if you want this warning. Where are they today? They are manufacturing.

I was just, this is an unbelievable story. They are manufacturing more ammunition than the United States, more shelves, even without North Korea supplying, than all of Europe and the United States combined. Now, what does that tell you about the effectiveness of the sanctions? How is this stuff getting through, right? So we, how is it happening? Because sanctions are not that difficult to invade.

You use third parties. You take labels off packages. You relabel them. Stuff comes in from Kyrgyzstan or Belarus, which are not sanctioned the same way. That's why underneath all of this, and I agree with you, there has to be a diplomatic engagement because the likelihood that these countries will crumble into the dust and the problem will go away is very low. And it's a dangerous strategy as well. The final thing I want to discuss with you on this segment is a concept that I'm hearing more and more that has helped me maybe understand where we're at in this conflict and how maybe we should think in broader terms about, especially about Russia.

There's this idea slightly tongue-in-cheek, but again, I think there's some insight here that the United States wants to turn Ukraine into a big Israel. Right. You can explain what that is. I will. And the rest of the world, including some American analysts, are worrying that Russia could be turning into a big Iran. So what does that mean? What are these analogies, kind of, what picture are they painting for us? Let's talk about each.

What does it mean that Ukraine becomes a big Israel? The big part is just because it is four times the size of Israel. But the relationship between the United States and Israel, ever since the mid-19th, 16s, there's no formal defense treaty between those two countries. Israel is not a member of NATO, but the United States has given repeatedly security guarantees to Israel that under very specific circumstances, if it's attacked the United States, and, you know, all the usual diplomatic hedgy language, which will consider what the appropriate response should be. And there's two sources of the story.

What Washington is looking for here, how can we give Ukraine security guarantees that are credible enough in two places, in Moscow and in Kiev, so that we fundamentally never admit Ukraine to NATO. That's really what this is about. Now, the underside of the story is really interesting because there have been fierce debates in Israel

over 20 or 30 years, which we don't hear about. Do we want a formal security guarantee from the United States? Do we want a defense treaty that goes through Congress and would not be subject to the vagaries of who is president?

And ultimately, among the strategic community and the military in Israel, not the people in the street, but the answer was no. And why was it? No, and that's what's so interesting about it, because it would constrain us. It would remove our freedom to decide what we do when we identify a threat that we think is serious. United States may not think it's serious, but we think it's serious.

And if we have a formal security treaty with Washington, they're going to put up that red light. And we're going to have to listen, and we don't want to find ourselves. in that spot. So they've never asked for it. They've never gotten it. It's these kinds of presidential statements and letters. It's never gone through Congress. That's what the United States is looking at now for Ukraine. Will that be enough for Vladimir Zelensky? I don't know. I doubt it, frankly. Will that be enough to deter Moscow from trying this again? I think what will stop Moscow from trying it again in the next 10 years is how badly is gone and the huge cost, much more so than anything the United States will do.

But that's what the big Israel concept means. On the other side, Russia becoming Iran. So here's another version of the story you were not just talked about. Iran's been sanctioned for years. If you look at the Iranian economy, inflation, you know, of 100%, the bottom dropping out of the currency food prices, it is truly, you know, a shattered economy in many ways. And it's a great economy. It operates under the surface because the sanctions have been so terrible. It hasn't brought the Iranians to the table, just like it

hasn't brought the North Koreans to the table. Like it's not bringing Vladimir Putin to the table, right? And in fact, Iran has gone around them. It has forged alliances with others in the region. In many ways, it's, you know, it's patched up its relationship with Saudi Arabia. It is the most powerful country in Iraq after 20 years of American investment. So Iran is a big regional player in the Middle East, just invited to join the bricks. which is a kind of measure of status along with Saudi Arabia. That's a vision of Russia in the future.

Isolated from the West cut off forever. There's no way back from these sanctions. Okay. There's the rest of the world out there. There is the rest, right? Russia engages with the bricks. It is still a member of the bricks. It engages with many countries in Asia.

it becomes a very powerful regional player when it recovers from this because this war will someday end and Russia will always be with us it becomes a very powerful regional player and for the foreseeable future like Iran turns this back on the west and like Iran potentially becomes

a habitually bad actor who is you know roiling and foiling Western policy in all its various forms. So you end up with the headache that Iran is times 10. That's right. Because Russia, you know, Iran is a threshold nuclear power, and that's by decision.

It's right on the verge. It can do it any time it wants, but it doesn't want, doesn't need to for now. But Russia's the world's largest, largest nuclear power. That's a very different order of magnetic mutine. country to turn its back finally on the West and say, okay, we're hanging out. We know where our friends are. That's the region we're going to hang out in.

And it's over for us with you. I mean, that's the decision Iran ate, frankly. Yeah. So anyway, listeners, think about that. Big Israel, big Iran. They're helpful, I think, concepts to figure out what is happening and where things might go next. Right after this break, we're going to dig in.

into Prime Minister Trudeau's slumping poll numbers. We're going to try to take this conversation a bit broader, a bit bigger. Is something happening to progressive movements around the West that has caught up to Canada? Is this part of what is to explain the seeming tectonic shifts in Canadian's political preferences? We're going to dig into that for you right after this break. Thanks for listening to this excerpt of the Friday full. podcast to get full-length editions of each and every episode of this program. Simply go to our website, www.com.

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