When Empires Stop Building: The Iran War and the End of American Soft Power | Bruno Maçães

0:00Demetri Kofinas:What's up, everybody? My name is Demetri Kofinas, and you're listening to Hidden Forces, a podcast that inspires investors, entrepreneurs, and everyday citizens to challenge consensus narratives and learn how to think critically about the systems of power shaping our world. My guest in this episode of Hidden Forces is Bruno Maçães, a geopolitical strategist and the former Minister of European Affairs for Portugal, whose latest book titled World Builders explores the intersection of technology and geopolitics. This is a special abbreviated episode, one of several I'm publishing in quick succession to capture the views of different guests on the rapidly unfolding US and Israeli military campaign against Iran.

0:45Demetri Kofinas:In the conversation that follows, Bruno and I discuss the ongoing bombing campaign initiated by the United States and Israel against the Islamic Republic, following the breakdown of negotiations over the country's nuclear program, including a conversation about why it happened, Secretary of State Marco Rubio's comments about the role Israel played in precipitating America's involvement, and the degree to which Trump's own instincts and political calculus shaped the decision to assassinate the country's leader and initiate what may prove to be the most destructive American-led war the region has seen since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

1:21Demetri Kofinas:We also discuss what Washington and Tel Aviv's strategic visions may be for what comes after, the fractures within Trump's own political base, and how early battlefield developments are already complicating the administration's attempts to establish a coherent narrative. Lastly, we discuss where this conflict fits within Bruno's framework of world building and American decline, how the United States appears to be abandoning soft power in favor of unbridled military force, and how this plays out in capitals around the world, especially in Beijing. If you want access to the transcripts and intelligence reports for this and other episodes, which include summary sections with key takeaways, you can access those by subscribing to our super nerd tier at hiddenforces.io slash subscribe, where you can also join in on the conversation by becoming a member of the Hidden Forces Genius Community, which includes Q &A calls with guests, discounted access to their party research and analysis, and in-person events like our intimate dinners and weekend retreats.

2:22Demetri Kofinas:And if you still have questions, feel free to send an email to info at hiddenforces.io and I or someone from our team will get right back to you. And with that, please enjoy this extremely timely and important conversation with my guest, Bruno Massaes.

2:44Demetri Kofinas:Bruno Massage. Welcome to Hidden Forces. Great to be here. I'm brushing up on my Portuguese, Bruno, in case you haven't noticed. That's much better than last time. Good job. So you are my second guest. I decided that I was going to bring on a few previous guests and some new ones this week to explore what's going on in Iran in real time. And I already cautioned you that this is not my modus operandi. It's not where I feel comfortable. Where I feel comfortable is I pre-book, prepare, list out a bunch of questions. But just given how significant this moment feels, and it does feel significant, it feels different.

3:21Demetri Kofinas:I just finished recording an episode last week with Odd Arne Westad, who wrote a book called The Coming Storm, and he compares the present time to 1914. And of course, after the assassination of the Archduke, there's a famous anecdote of the Kaiser having been off on vacation somewhere and not being in too much of a rush to get back to Berlin because he assumed that this would be just yet another Balkan crisis like the previous ones. And this one, similarly, I think maybe people were hoping, thinking, praying when the bombing began that this would be just like the previous bombing campaigns against Iran, but it does not feel that way.

3:59Demetri Kofinas:It feels different. And I'm curious to get your perspective on what you think of what has been unfolding in the last few days. And I should mention we're recording this on Wednesday, March 4th. Yeah, it feels different. I've been arguing it was coming for a long time. If there are any of my clients that ask me about this listening, they will know. But obviously, some of my texts as well talked about that. I think it was inevitable in large measure because that's what Israel wanted. And I think Israel has the leverage to pull the United States into this. But I think Trump himself was attracted by the idea.

4:32So he was coming, it was more or less inevitable. It's different. It doesn't mean that now things have entirely spiraled out of control. I think Trump himself still has the ability to pull back if he so wishes, perhaps not for long, but he could do that this week, tomorrow, this weekend. I think that's still possible, but maybe he's not that interested.

4:52Demetri Kofinas:Do you think that if Netanyahu hadn't been lobbying for this, or if there weren't people who had donated money to Trump's campaign, like Marianne Adelson, who are enthusiastically pro-Israel, that Trump would not have embarked on this path? I'm not so focused on the question of the lobby. I think it's even simpler than that. I think it's politically impossible in the United States for the US to allow Israel to fight an existential war against Iran on its own. It's simply impossible. Well, this is exactly what Rubio said. I mean, he got a lot of criticism for the comments afterwards, and he tried to walk them back.

5:27But the essence of the comments were that the administration knew that there was

5:31Demetri Kofinas:going to be an Israeli attack on Iran and that it would precipitate a retaliatory attack against American forces in the region. If we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, that we would suffer higher casualties. And so we had to get ahead of that by just attacking them ourselves, which doesn't really make a whole lot of sense on the face of it either. I don't think that's the best account of how this works, but it points in the right direction. But I don't think Iran would have attacked the US if he was a purely Israeli attack against Iran. They've communicated that clearly in the past, and they've done that in the past when it was only Israel a year ago, October.

6:09Now, what I think happens is that every president knows that after the first day, the US would necessarily have to join when the missiles started raining on Tel Aviv with the pressure from all kinds of places in Congress, from his own party, even from the Democrats and so on. So if you know you're going to be pulled in later under a lot of criticism, you might as well do it from the beginning. I think it's as simple as that. And so that helped make up Trump's mind. Now, if Israel was not interested in this, there was still a very old enmity with Iran. There was still the sense, which I think is attractive to Trump, as far as I can read him, that getting rid of these old sort of nemesis of the US, Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran, they've been talking about since I was born and being the president that finally was able to get rid of these threats.

6:59I don't think it's going to happen. But anyway, he might be tempted by that idea. But I also think he would be afraid of the consequences. He would be afraid of people in the Republican Party, in the MAGA movement that don't like this at all. He would be afraid because I think he's actually quite perceptive about how these things can quickly get out of control. And they might. Some of them already have. We'll talk about that. So I think without Israel, it would be sort of a toss up. I'm not sure how it would have gone. But Israel just made it clear that nothing else would be acceptable and that no American president could allow himself to do that.

7:34Not even Obama. No, it's simply not possible. It's impossible under current circumstances in the US for that to happen.

7:41Demetri Kofinas:Do you believe that there is some form of assurance that the Iranians could have possibly given the Trump administration during these latest negotiations over Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs that would have prevented this from happening? That would have not led the United States and Israel down this road? Yeah. Yeah. Theoretically, yes. It's the kind of assurances and concessions that no sovereign country would be able to do. But yes, if they would perhaps replace the leadership or commit to that, get rid of the ballistic missile program, allow the US to go in and check everything.

8:15But besides this being essentially a surrender and a surrender of sovereignty, it would also put it around in the position where they would be attacked in the future without having any defenses. They would become Syria where Israel can enter, bomb as it wishes, get out again, model on as the expression goes. So yes, theoretically, yes, but it was never anything that could be practically accepted, not just by a fanatical leadership, but I would say by any leadership of any country. I don't think the US ever made a genuine effort to put anything on the table that could be plausibly accepted.

8:51Demetri Kofinas:Is your view that this was driven largely or entirely by concerns over a nuclear breakout? No, I don't think so. I think from the point of view of Israel, Iran is a powerful country. The doctrine in Israel increasingly seems to be, or perhaps has been already for a long time, that you don't allow any power to be present in your region, that essentially you want a landscape where you can maneuver more or less freely without having any serious rival. And from the point of view of the US, I emphasize cultural, historical factors. The fact that Iran has affirmed itself as the preeminent adversary of the United States over decades after the Cold War, that's a choice they made.

9:36And maybe it was mistaken, and maybe it was imprudent. I'm even inclined to say that's the case. They could have pursued many of their goals without turning the US into this ideological enemy. And from the US, the same thing. As you know very well, for decades now, Islamic radicalism of different kinds, Sunni or Shia, has been presented as... I remember having discussions even in Silicon Valley that people really buy this idea that it's on the one hand, America's main enemy, ideological, political enemy. On the other hand, there was, I don't know if it still seemed this way, but there was the idea that it's like the last enemy before the end of history, that this is the last enemy the US has to get rid of.

10:13Things became now more complicated with China and so on, but it used to be aligned 20 years ago. So culturally, emotionally, ideologically, this is how things have been developing for decades.

10:26Demetri Kofinas:So what is the strategy here, do you think? Strategy, unfortunately, seems to be just a strategy of destruction. I think Israel would prefer, this is on the record by many current and former officials, think tankers in Israel that are divided, fragmented, weak Iran, potentially even a Iran that would follow the Syrian model of an ongoing civil war, of frozen conflict of some kind, a very weak Iran. From the point of view of the US, I don't think there's the same kind of conviction that this is the best scenario, although they might accept it in Washington, but certainly get rid of the regime, assassinate Khomeini, and be able to say that the regime has been defeated after 37 years.

11:10I think that's the purpose. Nothing else presented to the American electorate a spectacular victory of some kind, but there's absolutely this time around, as opposed to 2003 and the Iraq war, there's no plan, there's no vision, there's not even any desire for what Iran should become after the regime.

11:28Demetri Kofinas:So when Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, if I remember correctly, a majority, it was a small majority, but a majority of the American people at that time supported the war. Of course, they supported it because of a false construct that the media was complicit in creating. And then eventually over time, the war became unpopular. In this case, it seems, I don't have poll numbers here, but it just seems to me that a minority of Trump's base, forget the broader electorate, but a minority of Trump's base seems to support this war. And he was already heading into it with fractures within his own base caused by the Jeffrey Epstein story, which also it's worth asking, do you think that has any role to play here?

12:16I personally don't.

12:17Demetri Kofinas:Okay. So to me, there are a few red flags here to throw out. And one of them is that unlike Bush, who again, for whom and all previous presidents, Lyndon Johnson, any president from a democratic country who goes to war, has to consider that he or she has a small window in which to show progress and articulate a clear theory of victory that seems achievable and that will eventually result in a resolution of the conflict so that people can go about their daily lives before losing political support. In this case, it doesn't seem that the president had political support to begin with, and he's heading into midterm elections.

12:54Demetri Kofinas:And so I don't quite understand how exactly he's going to be able to get to the high ground that he needs to get to in order to credibly signal to the Iranians that he has the latitude to maneuver domestically. So how big of a deal are the domestic political dynamics in this country for being able to sustain any kind of viable war effort, do you think? You know, I see this as a symptom of deep decline in American political culture, institutions, structures, the American regime as a whole. So that is reflected in the way the leadership decides things without knowledge, without reflection, without planning, and so on, and extremely emotional, without any appeal to principles, ideas.

13:42But I think it's also reflected in the electorate and the public that also is not particularly structured, also doesn't quite know what he wants, also is not particularly informed. I'm going to insist on these points a lot in our conversation, I'm afraid, because I think it's actually the most important thing here. And so I say, you know, the Trump administration don't know what they're doing, but I'm afraid the electorate also doesn't quite know what is happening, doesn't quite know what he wants, is very vulnerable to all kinds of propaganda, social media emotion, television emotion, and narrative, and so on.

14:16So I don't think it will be clear that we have a kind of disordered administration and confused administration that will be subject to scrutiny by the electorate. I think it's worse than that. We have a confused administration that is not going to be subject to scrutiny because the electorate is also confused. And what comes out of this, I'm not sure. The electoral is particularly vulnerable. Things seem to be going well. An assassination of an old enemy, that looks fantastic. So I think for a moment, people might even inside the party and the MAGA movement be quite happy. Now, if things start to go wrong, it could be different, but the process is not going to be structured.

14:54It's not going to be irrational. Inflation is going to be important. The debts of American servicemen is going to be important. A few other things will be important. We were already talking a lot about potential significant setbacks on the battlefield. There's a lot of fog of war. But for example, today there seems to be kind of confirmation that a really expensive and sophisticated radar system was destroyed by Iran worth more than a billion dollars. We saw a consulate to Dubai yesterday on fire. That's the second thing that I think is important about in this narrative of decline, because I interpret what is happening in terms of a process of decline, of American decline.

15:35And first, we see that in the way the war is conducted. But even on the battlefield, it might turn into that. It might turn into a surprise how America is, in fact, more vulnerable than we thought after the extraordinary successes of the last three decades, in fact. Because even Iraq was not, and even Afghanistan were not a defeat of this kind, right? They were a political defeat, but they were not exactly a military defeat in the sense that doubts were created about how advanced American military technology is. That was not the case in Afghanistan. It's a different kind of problem. But now if you see that US doesn't have the ability to stop some of these Iranian attacks because Iran maybe had access to sophisticated equipment, that could have come from elsewhere.

16:21It's another thing for us to discuss. So I think that will also significantly affect American public opinion if you start to see these things. Now, I'm afraid, and you'll know better than I do, I'm afraid that some of these things, the transparency that would be necessary is also not there. American media is not what it used to be 20 years ago. So I'm not sure how much access the American public is going to have to what is really happening. Today, Peter Wegzek said that if journalists reporting certain facts are trying to make the president look bad.

16:53Demetri Kofinas:He also recently made some comments about raining death and destruction all day on Iran, something to that effect. Part of the problem also, it's worth just repeating it always and forever for people to hear it over and over again, which is that the modern information environment is so chaotic. And there are so many different windows that we all have open from which we get information. It's less verifiable. We haven't even tried to verify it ourselves. I just see fragments in my head as I'm careening into this interview. So I actually have a few questions that tie into your previous book, God Mode.

17:32Demetri Kofinas:Actually, your book's not called God Mode, but as we established, it should have been called God Mode. And that's what I was going to ask you. But since you brought up the US, I'm just curious, What is the mood in Europe right now? You're based out of Portugal, so Europe is not a monolith. But to the extent that you've been exposed to broader sources of news across the continent based on what you're reading, et cetera, what is the view there? It is kind of a monolith, actually, with the possible exception of Spain. I mean, it's just a sense of enormous dependency on the US. I even compare it, maybe exaggerating a little bit, to what might have been the political situation in India in the 18th century, as the East India Company started to arrive and the Brits started to arrive.

18:11There were still independent political states in India, but they were starting to fall under British power. And many times it started as military power. And often, if you read that history, it's the Brits that offered protection to some of these princely states in India. And then obviously, if you're being protected by someone else, who are also dependent. Now, some people have a kind of false consciousness and they try to pretend to themselves that this is not happening or that it's a good thing. Others are starting to get angry. Others feel a bit humiliated. But I would say, and this may be surprising to some of your audience, I'd say this is really what is happening in Europe.

18:49It's nothing else. Our relation with the US is now becoming very contested. Very contested. It was never contested. then no longer feels like a partnership. Now it feels like a relation of dependence or subservience. We are starting to be a lot more like Latin America than Europe of the last 70 years. And that might create a lot of anti-Americanism down the road, as it did in Latin America. But for the time being, people are trying to negotiate that. They're trying to think about it. They're trying to perhaps weather the storm, thinking that we can go back to the previous model after Trump. Some people believe that.

19:27Others are trying to appeal to Trump, to convince them that we're friends and partners still. This is what is happening in Europe right now, more important than whatever else is happening. And others want to develop a truly autonomous, independent, genuinely independent Europe. That's more what I'm interested in, but I don't... There's some voices in Europe that agree with me. We talk a lot, but not many, not many. I would say among sort of intellectuals a handful for the time being, but could grow. We have a WhatsApp group and so on to discuss some of these things, but we're not the majority by any means.

20:03Demetri Kofinas:So your previous book, the one that you published most recently is titled World Builders. It doesn't feel like we're building much these days. Now I want to concede that I've been exposed to some very compelling arguments by people that are much smarter than I am. And I buy into much of the arguments that they propose, which essentially fall along the lines that Trump is trying to reset America's relations to the rest of the world, and is doing that in many cases, and I think doing it successfully in certain instances. So I don't want to suggest that it's our job to build this world or to build it in the way that we did when we were unipolar power.

20:45Demetri Kofinas:I think we should very much be operating with an understanding of our constraints and our limitations. And I will also acknowledge that in previous instances, I have worried that we've embarked on a path towards disaster, bitten off more than we can chew. And Trump has proven me wrong in every instance. So I say this to communicate my humility and openness to a variety of interpretations here. Having said that, it seems that this is different because of the sheer scale of the challenge. We're talking about a country of 90 plus million people who we seek apparently to bomb into compliance and convince the more moderate elements of their leadership or what remains of their leadership to strike a deal with us on better terms than what we were to get before we bomb the shit out of their country to channel George Carlin.

21:39Demetri Kofinas:So I'm curious, where does this conflict or strategy fit within your world building framework and within the construct of imperial decline and US China competition that you've written and spoken about so profusely? Right. Like every author, I'd say it fits very well. World building is difficult. It's what the US did after World War II. Now, the question I think you're asking is, is it happening again? Because in my book, world building is happening all the time, building and rebuilding. The construction is permanent and it may be coming from different places. Now, is the US sort of rebuilding an American world or is the US, in fact, forgetting about world building?

22:21Because to be a world builder, you have to operate on a higher level, building culture, building institutions, building frameworks, building worldwide technologies, and so on. It's not just about acting freely. It seems to me that the US now is sort of enjoying its own power that came from its efforts in the past, but it's no longer building an American world. Now, I think you're right to say that we should keep an open mind and some of these things might work or not. That's what I spend most of my time thinking about and analyzing. I don't see much success, to be honest. I see the success that happens in the very short term, but world building is in the medium long term.

22:58Even something like Venezuela, what exactly is the success? It's episodic. You kidnap a guy. If the US was able, for example, to really use Venezuela as natural resources, and perhaps this could be an advantage you would have over China. But there's two problems with this. First, I don't think that's going to happen because I no longer believe that the US has the organizational capacity to do something like that. It doesn't have the organizational capacity to do much simpler things like build high-speed railway in California. So I don't think it has the capacity to bring the Venezuela and energy industry back to life.