The NPR Politics Podcast - US Pulls Allies Closer As Its Drone Downed In Brush With Russia

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

The U.S. and the United Kingdom will provide nuclear-powered submarine technology to Australia as part of a defense deal between the two nations. And, a U.S. drone crashed near the Black Sea after an encounter with Russian jets. This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, White House correspondent Scott Detrow, and national security correspondent Greg Myre.The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. It is edited by Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Research and fact-checking by Devin Speak.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Giveaway: npr.org/politicsplusgiveaway Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Robert from Bemidji, Minnesota. Currently, I'm sitting on frozen Lake Bemidji doing a bit of ice fishing. This podcast was recorded at 11.32 a.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, March 15th, the Ides of March. Things may have changed by the time you hear it. Okay, here's the show. I've never been ice fishing. I always wanted to. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Scott Detrow. I also cover the White House.

And we are joined on today's show by NPR's national security correspondent, Greg Myrie. Hey there, Greg. Hi, Asma. So President Biden is on the road this week. He was in California finalizing a deal to provide the United Kingdom and Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. It's all part of a defense deal known as AUKUS. And Scott, you have been traveling with Biden. So let's start with this deal. I mean, what should we know about it? Yeah, we're in Las Vegas now. I think this is the fourth or fifth

time I've done the NPR Politics podcast from Las Vegas. Last time was when you and I were here right before the world shut down. Oh my gosh, strange times. It's been an interesting trip. The big part of it was, like you said, on Monday, Biden appeared with Rishi Sunak, the British Prime Minister, and Anthony Albanese, the Australian Prime Minister. They all met at the big naval base in San Diego, and they were there to put the final touches and lay out the specifics on a military agreement that is going to last decades and decades and decades. They're setting firm commitments to do things 20 and 30 years down the road. And the short story is the U.S. and the U.K. are sharing nuclear submarine technology with Australia and over the years providing Australia with nuclear propelled subs. Important caveat, we're not talking about nuclear missiles. We

are talking about nuclear power, powering the subs. And that's important because it allows subs to stay underwater a lot longer and be sneakier. And if you're a sub, you want to be sneaky. So the subtext of this, presumably, is that this is happening because of the broader geopolitical context, the United States' relationship with China. And Greg, I want to ask you about this because it seems like every time you join us on this podcast, the relationship between the United States and China has escalated a bit. Yeah, I don't know if you're suggesting cause and effect or conspiracy or just one of life's little coincidences. Okay. Yeah, let's go with that. But to your question, Asma, we need to look at the big picture in the long term a little bit. When Joe Biden was vice president a decade ago, the Obama administration started talking about the need for the U.S. to pivot to Asia.

The recognition of the large and growing role Asia is playing in the 21st century. But U.S. efforts to adapt economically, diplomatically, militarily have really come in fits and starts. But in the past two years, President Biden has taken some really important steps. In addition to this AUKUS submarine deal, we're hearing more about another grouping, the Quad, which brings together the U.S., Australia, Japan, and India. And now it's a diplomatic alliance, not a military one. And just recently, the U.S. announced a deal with the Philippines for the U.S. military to have more access to bases in the Philippines, quite close to China.

So these U.S. and British subs won't be arriving in Australia until the 2030s or even the 2040s, but it is one key component of this larger U.S. effort to work with partners to have a strong security presence in the Asia and Pacific to counter China. And Asma, when Biden talks about this, he talks about all of these agreements, and there are many, and this has been a central goal for him to build out more and more alliances and focus them on China. One other thing that's worth mentioning is he's got NATO to start saying that China is something that NATO is thinking about as well as it makes big picture decisions. But it is always saying stuff like this is all about, you know, ensuring

stability, ensuring peace in the world. Terms that, you know, you hear that and you think, who could disagree with that? But over the last couple of months, especially, and this has been a longer term trend, you have heard more and more response from China having a very different view and viewing this as an aggressive threat. Xi Jinping, who just formally began a non-precedent third term as China's president, spoke pretty bluntly recently saying that he sees all of these actions as encirclement by the United States. And that's not a term you want to hear. I asked President Biden about this. I asked Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor, about this on Monday. And they both seem pretty confident that they don't think that AUKUS

is going to raise tensions even more. You know, Biden said that he's going to talk to Xi soon. He wouldn't tell us when. And Sullivan said, look, this is not something we're springing out of nowhere. This is this is something that we first announced the big picture goals of, you know, a year and a half ago. He said that the U.S. has made a point to talk to China and explain what they're trying to do here. But, you know, the next day, the Chinese government released a statement saying in as many words, they do feel threatened by this. Scott, you know, it's noteworthy what you're saying here about so much of Biden's foreign policy, so much of his, I would say, economic policy, right, is being focused around a response to China. Greg, I know you've been

working a lot and looking into how this all relates, you know, from a more defense military angle. I mean, how has China been responding? What are you hearing? Right. Well, as Scott noted, you could sort of sum up the Chinese response as not happy. And China's saying this will contribute to an arms race in the region and just make it even more tense and more dangerous. Now, we should note, as China is saying that, it has been undertaking one of the largest military buildups in history. A big part of that is devoted to creating the world's largest navy designed to make China the leading power in the Pacific in the 21st century.

So China sees this as a direct challenge to that plan. And we should also know why submarines and nuclear-powered submarines are seen as so important. Quite simply, they are hard to counter. Nuclear subs can stay below the surface for very long periods. They're very quiet. They're hard to detect and pose a very serious threat. So even though we're talking about a relatively small number of subs here, Australia may eventually get five or so from the U.S. and a few more from Britain. This could force China to

rethink its own security strategy. And I think Taiwan hovers around all of this. And we've talked about it before. We've talked about Xi Jinping's clear long-term ambitions of bringing Taiwan fully back into the Chinese fold. We've talked about, even though the U.S. is sometimes a little ambiguous the way it talks about it, the U.S.'s goals of standing with Taiwan. And I think any sort of military conflict that could happen about Taiwan would be primarily a naval conflict. And that's why all of these buildups and announcements and military coalitions are important. All right, let's take a quick break. And when we get back, we'll talk about a different foreign policy challenge, the situation in Russia and Ukraine.

Mardi Gras, but make it Republican politics. That's kind of what the Conservative Political Action Conference is like, according to Don Gagne, our veteran political correspondent. You never forget your first seat back. And I remember wandering around the halls thinking, you know, you're not at the White House anymore. We take you behind the scenes of CPAC in our recent bonus episode for NPR Politics Podcast Plus listeners. If that's you, thank you for your support. If it's not, it could be. You can sign up and support NPR in the process at plus.npr.org.

And we're back. And Greg, I want to begin our conversation here with this incident that occurred yesterday over the Black Sea. The U.S. government is saying that Russian jets collided with a U.S. drone, causing it to come down. And the Russians dispute that they are, in fact, to blame for this whole situation. But nonetheless, a U.S. drone is down. Can you tell us what actually took place? Right. Well, we still have these conflicting versions. So we just still have not sorted that out entirely. But according to the Pentagon, this drone was doing routine surveillance over the international waters in the Black Sea off the coast of Ukraine.

And the Russian jets initially flew by very close in front of this much slower moving American drone. The Russians did that several times. The Pentagon says they dumped fuel on the drone. And after about 30 minutes or so of these harassing actions, one of the Russian jets actually clipped the propeller of the drone. And after about 30 minutes or so of these harassing actions, one of the Russian jets actually clipped the propeller of the drone. The U.S. said it could no longer control it, and then it brought it down in the Black Sea. And as you noted, the Russian version is quite different. They said they picked up this drone on radar. They scrambled some jets. They say the drone was flying with its transponder off, which

made it difficult, if not impossible, to identify. And then the Russians claimed the drone on its own made a sharp move and hit the water. The Russians say they made no contact with the drone, didn't fire any weapons at it. That's where we are in terms of the two competing versions. You know, I want to ask you a quick follow up here, because my understanding is I was reading in on this incident and seeing the reports that the Biden administration, the White House was describing about what happened. Is that this is, you know, not uncommon for Russian aircraft to perhaps intercept American aircraft, particularly in this region. But it is extremely rare, I believe rather unprecedented right in recent decades, for an aircraft to be downed by the Russians. And I'm curious what you make of this possibly escalating into a bigger conflict.

Well, that is certainly the risk here. And as you said, this does happen with some regularity. The U.S. is flying these reconnaissance missions over the Black Sea. You can go on social media, just go on Twitter and see open source material showing the flight patterns where these drones and other U.S. aircraft are just sort of looping ovals in the Black Sea constantly, presumably to pick up Russian military movements where the Russian forces are in southern Ukraine, perhaps to look at the shipping traffic for all the grain and other ships that are coming out of the Ukrainian port city of Odessa. This also happens over eastern Poland near Ukraine's western border. So the U.S. is doing this constantly, and they say occasionally the

Russians will intercept these flights. Now, is this going to escalate or is this a one-off? Well, already today we have U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin saying the U.S. is going to continue these flights. They were in international waters. The U.S. has every right to do this, and that certainly seems it's going to be the case. Would also stress that President Biden has said repeatedly he doesn't want a military confrontation with Russia. And it does look like he will try to sort this out diplomatically and not escalate. And we'll just have to see if this is a one-off or if the Russians will take additional provocative measures. Scott, I want to ask you about the broader

conflict in Ukraine and what it means here at home for domestic politics, in part because I'm sure many of to see broadly within some sectors of the American public. So what do you think is going on here? I mean, the U.S. has really propped up the Ukraine war effort with billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars given to Ukraine and helping, providing them ammunition, providing them equipment, providing them intelligence. We've talked about that before. I mean, we've talked before also about the growing isolationist drift in the Republican Party. Traditionally, if you look at the past 50 years or so, the Republican Party was the big, robust, aggressive actor on the world stage type party. There's been pros and cons to that. I think the Republican Party is- Yeah, I know. I mean, remembering intervention was the way of the day, right? Like 20 years ago,

Iraq, war of Afghanistan, yeah. Yeah, you're right. But I think the decades-long fallout of Iraq and also former President Donald Trump taking over the Republican Party really pushed much more of an isolationist streak in the party. And Ron DeSantis is, as of right now, the only Republican candidate approaching Trump's support in the polls among key donors, things like that. Though, of course, he's walking this middle ground right now of appearing in places like Iowa, but has not announced a run for president. Saying that he doesn't see it as a core interest, I think really underscored what direction the party is going.

Now, there are still some splits here in the Senate. Mitch McConnell and other key Republican senators have made it clear they are still committed to Ukraine. They still see this as a vital interest. Several of them, including, you know, DeSantis in budgets if Kevin McCarthy says, no, the U.S. is spending too much money and Republicans try to lower the upcoming aid packages. I mean, it is so noteworthy as to, you know, as we'll see in the next, I guess, year or two, who becomes the Republican Party standard bearer, who becomes the GOP nominee. And to your point, I find it so striking that the two men, you could say perhaps leading the pack, it seems at this point in time, both have adopted a more isolationist viewpoint as it relates to the Ukraine war. Other declared candidates like former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley have criticized this view. People like Liz Cheney, who may or may not run, we're not sure, have criticized this view. But those are people who have, you know,

maybe three or four or five percent of Republican voters' attention in these early polls. And the two men who have, you know, something like 70 plus percent combined are the ones saying, no, we want to take a radically different view of this. All right. That is a storyline I am sure we are going to continue to follow. But that is a wrap for today. Greg Myrie, it is always good to have you on the show. Thanks for joining us. My pleasure, Asma. I'm Asma Khalid.

I cover the White House. I'm Scott Detrow. I also cover the White House. And thank you all, as always, for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.