The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - Jimmy Carter's Consequential 4 Years || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

I typically avoid the analysis of late U.S. presidents, but Jimmy Carter is a special case.Join the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/PeterZeihanFull Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/jimmy-carters-consequential-4-years

Everybody, Peter Zion here coming to with a quick video. As you've seen in the news, Jimmy Carter has just passed. And while as a rule when a major politician passed or pricing leaves us, I kind of leave it to the pundits and historians to kind of take their crack at what it means rather than me since I usually deal with the future. But Jimmy Carter was unique and arguably the most consequential American president, at least in terms of global affairs that we have had since World War II. Now, for those of you who consider you yourself students of history, and you think back to Clinton and Reagan and Eisenhower, you're like, what is he talking about? Just bear with me. So he was only there for four years. But in his four years, we had a number of turning points that didn't just happen. They were made to have it. So let's just go down the line here. Number one, when the Afghan war began as the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, it was Jimmy Carter who started the politics. to build an Arab and an Islamic resistance, mobilizing radical Islamist fundamentalists, and establishing weapons systems for them so they could go in for what we now know as the Mujahjadine and fight the Soviets. I mean, we all remember Rocky 3, right? Was Rocky 3? I think so. Anyway, that was basically a Carter program that then Reagan expanded. Similarly, Carter came in in the aftermath of Vietnam and adapted a number of technology. or put in place policies that would adapt a number of technologies in the information space

to marry them to warfare. We now call that group of technologies collectively smart weapons or the revolution in military affairs. That's everything from the B-2 bomber, started under Carter, to modern-day cruise missile, smart weapons, J-DAM's satellite technologies. All of these were began because Carter felt personally betrayed by the Soviets. and that started us down that path. Number three, we think of the 1960s and 1970s as a period when we're spending all kinds of money, and we were, and the budget was wildly out of whack. It was Carter who put in place the tax policy that ultimately led to the 1990s boom.

And yes, yes, yes, just like with defense spending, it was Reagan, who gets most of the credit for that, and deservedly so since he was the president for English of the ramp up. But the pivot and the change in the ideological, the prince to the budget, that was undeniably Carter. And then finally, Pakistan. When we think of Pakistan, we usually think of it in the form of its interaction with us during the Afghan war and how they're not a very reliable ally. But during the Cold War, especially in 1970s, we were dealing with a nuclear India who was becoming, I think the best word to use is persniquity. and the Soviets were trying to get the Indians to stand up to the Americans more directly in any number of fields. As a way to belong to that possibility, the Carter administration both encouraged the Pakistanis to be more direct and more militarized

and turned a blind eye when they developed a nuclear weapons program. You'll notice of all of these things, these are all double-edged swords. So, for example, consider the defense buildup. This is allowed the United States to fight at a range, at all. Al-N's length, but it also meant that we kind of did away with the military culture that would be required for the army to be involved in seeing an army of occupation, and we suffered through that during the war on terror. Also with the war and terror, by encouraging the Mujahideen and the Pakistanis to be more militant and more religious, we indirectly created the environment that

allowed political Islam to in many ways sweep parts of the Middle East over the last 20 years and led to the creation of al-Qaeda itself. It's not that these were part of Carter's plans, but they're not part of Reagan's plans either. And that's kind of my point here, is that Carter made decisions or failed to make decisions in his single term that we have been dealing with the after effects good and bad in every president since. A lot of the Carter approach to the budget, a lot of the Carter approach to entitlements, and a lot of the Carter approach to the military has created this environment where the United States is hyper-militarized, is not a even a little bit budget shy about its military and created the hyperglobalization world that we've all

come to live in and maybe regret a little bit. But at the same time, without that, we wouldn't have had things like the Sino-Soviet split. Remember that Carter was the guy who ushered communist China into the Security Council and exchanged ambassadors with the Chinese, red China, in order to drive that wedge between the Soviets and the Chinese and ultimately hastened the end of the Cold War. Reagan could not have done what he did with the defense budget. Reagan could not what he had done what he did with Afghanistan and the Soviets if Carter hadn't laid the groundwork. But if you're going to give him credit, you also have to give him some of the blame because we know how all of those policies rolled out of the next 10, 20, 30 years. All in all, that makes Carter

the most consequential president we have had in at least the last seven decades. And we are only now to grow beyond his legacy. So whether you consider yourself a fan of Carter or Thugel, someone on the left or someone on the right, the decisions that our leaders are making right now under Trump and Biden are going to shape the strategic and the economic environment for the remainder of this century. And I'd like to see everyone think about that a little bit more.