The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Members-Only Pod: Episode 46

Episode Date: November 19, 2021

This is a sample of the Munk Members-Only Podcast. The program provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving 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. This week's Munk Members podcast catches up with Janice Stein at the Halifax Security Forum in Nova Scotia, Canada. As one of the West's premiere gatherings of security experts, senior military leaders and politicians responsible for defense and security, the Forum provides a unique entry point into the geopolitical preoccupations of our time. As a longstanding conference delegate Janice Stein takes co-host Rudyard Griffiths behind the scene to explore what Western democracies' security establishments really think about Putin, the threat of war over Taiwan, the rise of autonomous weapons and whether creating a so-called “league of democracies” is a plausible deterrent to a rising China or a catalyst for cold war and hot war conflicts in the 21st century. To access the full length episode consider becoming a Munk Member. Membership is free. Simply log on to www.munkdebates.com/membership to register. Under your membership profile page you will find a link to listen to the full length editions of Munk Members Podcast. If you like what the Munk Debates is all about consider becoming a Supporting Member. For as little as $9.99 monthly you receive unlimited access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, monthly newsletter, ticketing privileges at our live and online events and a charitable tax receipt (for Canadian residents). To explore you Munk Membership options visit www.munkdebates.com/membership. 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.

Hi, Monk podcast listeners. The following is a sample of the Monk members-only podcast. To access the full-length edition of this episode and all of our regular Monk members-only podcasts, go to our website, www.com, and register for membership. Membership is free, and it's available for you right now at www.munkdebates.com. Hope you enjoy the program. Hello, Monk members. Rudyard Griffiths here, your host and moderator. Welcome to this. Monk members-only podcast. This is our weekly program where we dig into the big issues and ideas and the news, hopefully to leave you with some insights and analysis that you can bring to bear on this incredible moment that we're all living through with so many different dimensions. We do this each and every week with Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs. She's an internationally renowned scholar and author, and she's been with us, Janice. We're coming up

almost on a year of shows. So we're going to have to think of some big anniversary special in January. I'm expecting a champagne celebration, Richard. I can arrange that. I want to start, Janice, with where you are today because I think this would be interesting for our Monk members. You are at the Halifax Security Forum. This is really, I think, Canada's most substantial and influential

defense and security form. It's been taking place every year for almost a decade now, bringing in U.S. senators, important people within the military of both the United States and our NATO allies in Europe. So you're there talking, interacting with an interesting kind of cross-section of decision makers who are having to grapple with this very, very, uncertain geopolitical environment that we've been discussing on the show, really this entire last 11 months. What is the mood like, Janice? Let's start there. How are these people feeling about this moment that we're in? What is the extent to which, let's say, insecurity might be a kind of hallmark of the types of conversations that you're having in the hallways at the Halifax security form? I think you put your finger right on it, Roger.

This isn't interesting gathering. I think for our listeners, let me set the contacts just a little bit and provide some color. This attracts the defense ministers, the chief of defense staff, you know, the Secretary of Defense from the United States comes. a huge delegation from the Senate of the United States. John McCain took this on and championed it. But the president of Croatia, the French defense minister, always a very strong delegation from Germany. Turkey always is well represented.

So what this really is, Roger, it is a forum of democracies who come together to talk about security. And we are just getting going now, but already you can sense the insecurity. People are shell-shocked by what COVID has done. Shell-shocked because their intelligence failed them. They were so unprepared. They were scrambling the whole time. And when you think about security in a big picture, that's your nightmare, that you're as surprised and inflexible and slow to respond.

And there is just almost a sense of embarrassment and chagrin in people's private conversations laced with, oh my goodness, this could have been so much worse, but what kind of shape will we be in as an alliance, as democracies, if we can't improve our game? There are other big topics are ones that you and I have been discussing all year, China and Taiwan, front and center here, largely because in another few weeks, this is the precursor to it, there will be a forum for democracies meeting in Washington. Virtually everybody will be at that meeting is here or represented here, and the allies are frankly struggling. to develop a common approach on China, as President Biden has asked. Not surprisingly, Richard, I'll look back at Afghanistan.

So many senior commanders have had their careers formed by Afghanistan, and they are looking at the outcome, and you get some finger-pointing already at President Biden. Well, he could have stayed. All he needed to do was keep 3,500 military on the ground. That's a tactical comment. I think there are going to be some eviscerating discussions about why this mission went so badly despite the investment. So help us, Janice, let's lift the curtain a bit further because this really is, you're not going to name names here.

I know you're far too discreet for that. But what I'm fascinated about just to pick up, let's start with Afghanistan, is to what extent has there been kind of some self-injury that that shambolic retreat from Kabul and from Afghanistan has inflicted on ourselves and our own confidence? You know, that's kind of what I'm getting from you here, from your sense of the people you're talking to. So I want to check in with you on that. And does that last and does it create to link forward to what you were talking about China, does it create some hesitancy in ourselves about the future and fate of our Taiwan and our potential confrontation with China on any number of fronts, diplomatic, military, economic?

Are we at a kind of, is there a crisis of confidence, I guess, brewing amongst the Western alliance? I think there is, Richard. And I think it's much deeper than the frankly disorganized and chaotic exit from Afghanistan. That exit could have been much better. There's no question about it. But it wouldn't have changed the big picture. This was not a sustainable operation. But was the execution of that one event, though?

I think that's my worries. The execution of the one event is the tip of the iceberg. It's symbolic of a larger set of problems around. competency and execution and capacity. I think that's exactly right. What this has done is shake confidence that Western allies working together can deploy to achieve an objective outside of Europe and North America. And it is a moment of truth for many of the people here because we have the chair of NATO's military committee from the Holland, who is an absolutely outstanding officer, but his role is to figure

out what is NATO over the next 10 years? What's its mandate? What's its mission? And looking at the demands that the Afghanistan mission made on allies, the disproportionate responsibility, frankly, you know, accorded to the United States, the kind of token that are sometimes grudging contributions made by other members. We're looking at a moment now in which is NATO's name right? Is it a North Atlantic treaty organization? But is that all it is? And you're going to extend that to Europe's eastern borders,

which is a big subject of conversation here. Lukashenko, Poland, Russia. in Ukraine, which we're going to talk about a little later. So that is clearly a preoccupation. But there's a sense, and I'm going to exaggerate this a little bit, frankly. No, no, please, yeah. And I don't know how many would put it this bluntly who are here. The West is contracting.

It no longer sees itself as the world's policemen capable of enforcing its writ everywhere, which is the 30 years that were coming off. That's why you're right. It is a crisis of confidence. Well, then let's jump to Taiwan because you said this is another big issue of debate at the forum. If there's a crisis of confidence here, if there's a sense of the exhaustion and the disproportionate burdens that were bared in Afghanistan, isn't Taiwan 10x? I mean, you're not dealing with the Taliban. You're dealing with the world's second largest economy, nuclear armed, with a vast, conventional army. So, you know, let's have some honest assessment here, Janice. What is the,

what's the underlying feeling of these military and security experts? You have some U.S. senators at the conference? I mean, I know there's the public necessity to constantly communicate that we are an ally of Taiwan, that we will, Taiwanese democracy and independence is essential to the international order. But at the end of the day, we're, we're. are we really at in terms of our commitment to this island nation? I think that's the biggest question that Western democracies face. Frankly, that, as we've said before, Roger, is where the rubber hits the road, where everything could go terribly wrong.

And there is quiet discussion that currently, frankly, the United States may be outgunned in the local theater. in the Straits of Taiwan, depending on how an incident escalated, the United States would not have forces in the theater quickly enough. And so what does that mean, first of all, how does the United States restructure its forces? Secondly, should it? And thirdly, what does it mean to all the Western allies, to the United Kingdom, to Canada, to France? There is no consensus here on that issue. And in some ways, the way the strategy toward China is the dividing line that is running through.

It's so interesting and important for Canada, frankly. If I can just elaborate for a minute here. Why is this so important for Canada? The United States is all in that democracies must come together in a fairly coordinated and tight strategy. to confront China on all the issues of value, even if there are consequences, bad consequences, for trade and investment. That's not where the Europeans are.

They're just not there. They are not there. And the Germans in particular are not there. So you look at us, we live next door to the United States. It's not an easy sell to Canadians, generally speaking, that we should pay a stiffer economic price than our European allies and take a harder stance against China than our European allies just because the United States is asking us to. That's part of the legacy

of Afghanistan as well. I can say honestly there is division within our own government. There's division within our military. We are at early stages of discussion. You know, there is an occupational hazard with military officers. And it's dangerous. And the occupational hazard is, give me the mission, and I will figure out how to do it. And mission-driven organizations suffer from mission creep. That's frankly what went wrong in Afghanistan. So part of what will go on over these next two days, not in the plenary sessions, but

is you put it exactly in the corridors. Very quiet, but more prudent conversation about where all this is going. Now, we have at the forum, Cindy McCain, John McCain's widow. Yeah, an influential figure in the anti-Trump movement in the Republican Party. On her own. And by the way, appointed as an ambassador by President Biden. She's the new ambassador to the Food and Agricultural Organization. So she will be extraordinarily discreet in what she says.

But let's look at what she does because she has the deciding voice in choosing the winner of the John McCain Prize, which the forum gives. Right, remind us of this, yeah. Which the forum gives every year to recognize two things. John McCain's extraordinary personal courage and leadership that he demonstrated, beginning in those six terrible years

as a prisoner of war. war and then in the Senate, but also his integrity. And she, when you talk to her, those are defining values for her. Who'd she pick? Well, last year, she picked the president of Taiwan. What does that tell you as a signal? And this year, and it hasn't been announced yet, so maybe I am breaking confidence. No, no, no.

probably am here. It will be announced tomorrow the Afghan Women's Network. Oh, okay. Great. So what does Cindy really saying to everybody? You honor your allies. You respect those who stand alone. You respect their courage. That is a significant chunk. That reflects a significant chunk of the people who are in the room. And certainly, I think the American delegation, which is large, two plain loads of American senators and congresspeople come to this form. It's probably the biggest representation of American legislators that we have in this country for an event.

There's a bipartisan consensus there that if there was a challenge to Taiwan, we need collectively to stand and face it together. That's where they are. But, Janice, just to play that through, what would the purpose of that be? I mean, look, I get it's about the 20s people and their democracy. Yes, that's important. But let's be honest. These conflicts are more than just, you know, the cause.

They're about the effect. So it's interesting because what I'm hearing from you is that it seems like amongst the Americans, there's a consensus that we have to confront Taiwan over Taiwan. This is a red line. Yes. Once it's tripped, we have to act. There is no option. Whereas if you look at just to pick up on some news this week, you know, the Chinese announced, to the surprise and disappointment of many, that they are now engaged in a major investment in their strategic nuclear force.

So these are large intercontinental ICBMs. They're also world pioneers shocking the U.S. military on their new hypersonic intercontinental. missiles, which really evade any kind of system that could shoot them down or deflect them, the Chinese in a sense saying, you know, we are not going to be bullied or pressured by U.S. military might into making compromises that we don't want to compromise with. So if that's the direction China's going in, and maybe the way. the Europeans are somewhere in the middle. Is there a way to look at this and maybe push back against the Americans and say,

look, this isn't about red lines. This is insane. We do not need to go, you know, into a deep Cold War or a hot war in the 21st century in a hugely globally interconnected economy. Let's shoot for detente. Let's just let's go back to actually what kind of work during the Cold War, which is a recognition of parity, you know. You have your strategic nuclear force.

we have ours. You have your geographic interest. Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong. We have ours, Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico. And leave it at that. Can we do that, Jan? Well, it's very interesting because as you know, there was a very, very long video conversation between Shishiping and Joe Biden this week. Because they have not been able to see each other because Xi Jinping has not lost. left China since the pandemic began. And the conversation was very interesting because fundamentally here's what Biden, the president, who's distinct from the legislatures and the senior military said, we must find a way to collaborate together on the big challenges, climate and pandemics,

and we must be careful to avoid any kind of accidental escalation, which could push the two of us to the brink of war. So he, who has always been very careful, not in favor of military, of mission creep, very, very careful. He's well aware of the risks here. Here's the nightmare, Roger. China mounts and all decides now is the moment. It's going to move now. China mounts some kind of military offensive against Taiwan.

and then Biden, and you can just see the headlines, can't you? Biden agonizes about whether he comes to the defense of Taiwan. Now, in an unguarded moment, in an interview, which happens a lot with Biden, stuff slips out with Biden. That's always been an issue. He said to one of, I think to a CNN reporter, the United States will defend Taiwan if it's attacked. And that's where you get into trouble because for China. Yeah, he says that, he says that now. But, you know, when the Dow's lost a third of its value in a week because of a Chinese attack on Taiwan and Tim Cook of Apple calls up his K Street lobbyists and says, hey guys, you know, we kind of need Foxconn to make our Apple iPhone.

I don't know what they're up to now, 12 or 14. We can't have a war with China because you look at inflationary. pressures now because of the supply crunch? Imagine the supply crunch and the inflationary epidemic. Forget COVID. The inflationary epidemic that would sweep over the Western world as China and its manufacturing capacity, which is our manufacturing capacity, is isolated for some indefinite period of time while the United States and China slug it out conventionally over Taiwan. with the risk of a nuclear conflagration in the background, I just don't think it's ever going to happen.

I think Taiwan is gone. It's just a question of when the Chinese choose to exercise the option. And what we need to do, Janice, is move to detente. We need to go back to one of the great lessons of the Cold War with the Soviets, which was just acknowledge the parody. Get over your great power, superpower, hangups. The world has changed. Please don't drag us into some fantasy revengeist theory of, you know, America's back.

And we're going to beat the Chinese on Taiwan and reestablish our supremacy in the 21st century. I just don't buy it. I don't want it. You're right that you don't want it. I don't think anybody who's sane wants it. The cost of this would be absolutely, as you put it, almost incalculable. But you talk, frankly, and we are talking frankly on this podcast, you talk to the Conservative Party of Canada. They don't agree with you, Richard.

They consider, no, they do not. They thump their chests. All these conservatives thumped their chest. It's part of their posturing. It's posturing, Janice. No, I, well, partly it is because they are not in government right now and do not have the actual responsibility to make the decision. But I actually think it's much more. It goes very deep with the current leader.

It goes very deep with his foreign affairs critic, who is an enormously intelligent person, Michael Chong, but it believes that if we do not passionately believes, and O'Toole believes it even more strongly, that if we allow Taiwan to become Hong Kong, we stood by and watched Hong Kong, reabsorbed into the Chinese orbit and lose its freedoms and lose its democracy. If we allow that, what I hear back is we're bankrupt.

The Western world is bankrupt. So whether we want it or not is not going to be determining here, as you know, what is going to drive this ultimately is partisan political pressures in the United States and in other countries. And here's where the relationship between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping is absolutely critical. If they have a relationship where they can communicate and they can talk about the dangers of this, and they can each say to the other, pull back, we're going to pull back, we're not going to challenge you. And the United States is not going to challenge China over Taiwan.

On this one issue, we're each going to pull back. There's a chance. but that depends on their personal relationship. That's why that meeting on Monday night, a three-hour meeting, which went much longer than it was scheduled, really matters. And you made one other great point, which is so important, we cannot humiliate the Chinese. The Chinese are a great power with a great tradition.

They are different from the West. They have different values. But part of what we all learn as adults, we talk about diversity and inclusion in our own country, part of what we learn as adults is you live with those who see the world differently than you do. That, I think, is the kill we all have to climb with China. We did it with Russia. We did. We did.

And I think it's worth remembering that for the Chinese, Taiwan was taken from that. by imperial powers, the United States, Britain, who, you know, through Japan, through the opium wars and, you know, brutal trade and other, you know, economic colonialism that was foisted on the Chinese people with no respect for their culture, traditions, diversity. And it all began when we sold opium into the Chinese people. market. Let's just remember that history, right? Well, they're selling us fentanyl now. So they're kind of getting back. What comes around goes around? You've been listening to a sample of the Monk Members Only podcast.

To access the rest of the episode, consider becoming a member. Membership is free and available at www.w monkdebates.com. Once you've joined as a member, go to your membership profile to access the rest of this episode and all of our Monk Members podcast. Thanks for listening.