Iran, China, Canada? A Defense of Trump’s Grand Strategy

21:36So, I mean, I think it remains to be seen, but I wouldn't regard it as a stalemate. I don't think that's a fair assessment. Okay.

21:43Ross Douthat:I'm going to quote Fareed Zakaria wrote a column for the Washington Post where he said that the Iran war has been good for China because it is, quote, accelerated three of China's long-held goals, a Middle East less dependent on America, a world more dependent on critical Chinese technology, and a reputation for Beijing as a serious and steady world power. that doesn't seem unfair to me does it seem unfair to you i actually think it's not true okay good i saw that i'm once more a fan of zikari's but i it's very kind of conventional wisdomy um why is why is it why is that conventional wisdom so on the first one remind me of the first one well the first one is uh he says a middle east less yeah dependent on america which i i presume by that he means a middle east where a lot of countries think that you know the u.s is just It's not going to be sort of permanently.

22:39Well, I mean, it depends on how you're measuring it. But I would say the United States, I mean, obviously, a lot of the countries in the region are very worried about Iran, needless to say. And there's tremendous relations. The president just had a great meeting with the prime minister of Iraq. We've had a breakthrough in Syria. Obviously, very good relations with President Erdogan. Strong partnerships with, you know, UAE, Bahrain, you know, Saudi, et cetera. So, I mean, there's countries are playing different angles. One thing that I think is missed there is China does not come away from the situation looking glowingly.

23:13And, you know, nobody's more, you know, kind of exposed to Middle East oil over the long period of time than, you know, China and other countries like that. At the same time, I would say the U.S. oil and gas industry is doing phenomenally well, right? Obviously, there's structural issues where the flow of oil and gas out of the strait remains important. That's one of the reasons why we're working to open it up. but I think that's another factor where, you know, if you look at the growth of the American economy, energy production, et cetera, there's good news and the relative performances of the American and Chinese economy.

23:51So I actually think, look, you know, I don't think we beat up on China or anything like that verbally, but I wouldn't trade our position at all. I think our position looks really good.

24:02Ross Douthat:But so you just mentioned the Strait of Hormuz, whether or not you want to be in America's position at the macro level. The case for not wanting to be in America's position in its relationship to the Middle East right now is that we are currently trying and failing to permanently reopen the Strait of Hormuz. And absent a strategy to do that, it seems like Iran, a second tier power, not a great power rival, not the kind of power that you have built, you know your arguments around our need to contain is you know pretty effectively holding us off right i wouldn't say it's failing i mean first of all we're in the situation right no it's not it's not over yeah right and also i think it's showing the danger of iran that it is willing to do this and the united states and the president are taking action obviously in our benefit but also for the benefit of others who could contribute more in this kind of situation including diplomatically by putting pressure on iran i don't think it's a sustainable situation i mean this gets out of the the remit of the Pentagon, but I don't think it's a sustainable situation for Iran to essentially be holding hostage and violating, you know, the most, this is not expansive international law.

25:13Ross Douthat:It's, it's clearly, it's clearly not a sustainable situation in some, in some sense, but who gets to, who gets to decide how it actually resolves itself seems to be a big deal for generally how much trust people have in America's war making capacity, our power projection capacity. Like if this ends with a deal that is worse for the U.S. than whatever was sketched out in the MOU, then doesn't it seem like countries around the world look at that and say, well, the U.S. is in a pretty, it's a pretty weak position. I mean, I don't accept the premise. I mean, I think we're like, we are in it, right?

25:52And people have to give time to something when you're dealing with, you know, a regime a government that has you know been fanatically opposed the united states and its ally israel the gulf states for almost 50 years now uh people have to give some some uh time for this strategy to work out and part of that is this is military force which we're applying effectively part of as the diplomatic international pressure the economic pressure on iran the restoration of sanctions etc um and also you know as you say but what but what tips i mean we've been we've been

26:22Ross Douthat:bombing Iran. We've been imposing sanctions on Iran. And yes, I agree. It's been, you know, however long it's been, four or five months. Who knows what it will look like in a year. But also who knows what the global economy will look like in a year, right? What is the potential inflection point where Iran says, okay, the Trump administration has found a way to impose enough pain that we will make a better deal? I mean, obviously they're testing the limits, right? And the president is responding with very serious military force, but not only force, the restoration of sanctions, you know, the ability to interdict Iranian shipping.

26:58A lot of these things.

27:00Ross Douthat:Do you think they just have cumulative weight? Because it just seems like the Iranians, their view seems to be, or at least the people making decisions seems to be, we can bear the pain longer than the Trump administration. That's their bet right now. Well, I think that's the bet of at least some of them inside of the government. But I think obviously they are going to be feeling a tremendous amount of pain and they are their future economic prospects and not just in some sense of like the people in the street, but for the preservation of the government itself are going to start to tell. So time will tell.

27:30But I also think my sense is that obviously there's the application of military force, there's the sanctions and so forth. There's a lot of other options that can expand that leverage. We have seen that, you know, for instance, the blockade was very effective against the Iranians. And so there's a lot of escalation that the president still has that he can exploit across military and non-military tools. And then I think there's the international pressure because honestly, and I think people can see that this is not the United States that was seeking to resume conflict in the strait. This is Iran precipitating this conflict and saying they are the ones, you know, I've seen international leaders complain about the economic consequences.

28:05Well, you know, A, you can help us out or B, take it up with Tehran. They're the ones who are causing this. The other thing, let me address something else that I think is in there. One of the things that you said makes a sort of a broader point, which is, you know, I think you said that countries will start to judge that the United States is incapable of X, Y, Z and will start to tilt away. And I think that's one thing that's really important at a structural level that this administration is doing differently in a perhaps tough way sometimes, but also in a rational and common sense way, which is to price accurately the partnership and relationship with the United States, both in terms of access, things like AI or energy, but also in terms of leverage, you know, things like burden sharing issues or tariffs, etc.

28:45I think if I were going to put it in a kind of common sense one-liner, it's people can no longer take the United States for granted. And I think there was an element during the era of the international rules-based order when people did take the United States for granted. And the president is a masterful negotiator, comes from New York. Somebody said very memorably to me, the president insists that we mark things to market. And I think it's a kind of an idle claim to say that countries are going to go elsewhere. Where are they going to go? Iran can't compete with the United States. Iran is trying to use leverage over one particular thing.

29:14Iran doesn't have them. No, it's a pretty big thing, though. Right. No longer has the military power projection capability to even pretend to threaten those things. So we see the governments of the region actually, if anything, probably growing closer to the United States. Not to say they're going to agree with us on every particular thing, but there isn't really an alternative to dealing with the United States. Iran is not. I mean, A, they don't want to. And B, Iran is not strong enough to be able to pretend to that that kind of thing. So what we're talking about is their ability to molest international shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and trying to leverage that.

29:48Ross Douthat:Do you think that the conflict with Iran would have gone differently in five or 10 years with a set of Middle Eastern allies that were better armed and better equipped? Well, I think that's where we want to get. I mean, already we've seen actions from a variety of our Middle Eastern partners that was not the case in previous conflicts. So I think that's already been there's been progress. And a lot of that's the president goes back to the first term. Yeah. Yeah. Last one, last on Iran. You know, you've talked about things people might say to you based on your writing in the past. I think the obvious thing that someone would say to you about the Iran war is this is a conflict that has totally vindicated Elbridge Colby thought from several years ago, where you were the guy who was, you know, wanted to pivot to Asia.

30:34Ross Douthat:You were warning that we didn't have unlimited military resources. The American military, while without peer, is not infinite in its application and resources. Potential opponents have been building their strength and capabilities, and it is not fair just... During your confirmation hearings, the fact that you had not been a big Iran hawk was a big point of contention. And someone would say, look, yeah, you've been vindicated by the policies of your own administration that have revealed all the weaknesses that you yourself spoke about. How would you respond to that? Well, I definitely would not put it that way in any respect, Ross.

31:07A couple of things. First and foremost, in my confirmation hearing in the confirmation process, I pledged to support the president's policy to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and to provide in my capacity as the undersecretary for policy, military options, credible and rational military options to the secretary and whoever else is relevant in that context to back up that policy. And I have absolutely done that. And I have been proud to support the administration. I think we've contributed to and the president, we've contributed to degrading Iran's military capability and set back Iran's nuclear ambitions substantially.

31:45The other thing I would say, kind of stepping back a little bit, is my observation, you know, watching kind of people from, you know, who we might, you know, look at on Twitter and the commentary. I think people need to put stuff into perspective. I, you know, 58 ,000 Americans killed in Vietnam, over 100 ,000 ground troops on the ground in Iraq following Operation Iraqi Freedom. um you know obviously every american service member's loss is is a tragedy and i and i have the utmost respect and and take that with the utmost gravity um i think it's important to keep in perspective what's what's it what's at issue here we're not you know this when people say oh the president has rejected the nation building we're not doing nation building this is not an endless war right i mean as the secretary has said there there it's not all right wait it's But I also think but I think this is important because people want a black pill to use the kids terminology on something where I think the broader perspective is actually really encouraging.

32:51Ross Douthat:So I I completely agree that the Iran war does not resemble the Iraq war or the Vietnam war in any. I mean, you've described and that and that is a big deal. At the same time, as we were just going back and forth about, the Iran war is still ongoing. Right. It is, whether or not it's stalemated, it has not come to a victorious conclusion for the U.S. When people look at our current situation and say the administration seems a bit trapped, part of what they're seeing is that they're very aware that the president doesn't want to escalate in those ways, that the president doesn't want to send in ground troops and so on.

33:29Ross Douthat:Well, the president is escalating. But if the president doesn't want to do those things, then it's unclear to go back to the earlier point. I know, but you're going back into this. So one thing, I'm not taking the president's decision. We're circling around. I'm sorry. Well, no, no, but the president is countering very strongly and is prepared to escalate. He's made that clear and he's followed it up. So I don't want to suggest that the president isn't prepared to escalate. He's also prepared to deal if they come in the right spirit, as Secretary Rubio said. But the point I'm making, Ross, which I think you conceded, is people need to look at this with the correct perspective.

34:01And I think that has been lost.

34:03Ross Douthat:All I'm saying is that the dilemma is connected to the fact that for good reason, we don't want this to turn into another Iraq or Vietnam. So then the question is, OK, if those options are off the table, as maybe they should be, how do you get out? No, no. But and again, I mean, there are escalation options that don't involve doing Vietnam and Iraq. And that's what's another part that's different is that you end up large numbers of troops in the case of Vietnam, the draft or something, you know, almost like it in Iraq, you know, where you're pacifying, you're driving down the street, making sure people are going to school or whatever.

34:38That's not the job of the American military. There could be some very substantial escalation options, obviously military, but also non-military that would have a major impact on on on Iran that are in the presence, you know, inventory if he chooses to if he thinks that's the right call and will support him if he does. So I don't think it's not that he's like trapped. He has options. But my main point here is just to keep this this entire operation in perspective.

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36:53Ross Douthat:Visit betterhelp.com slash New York Times to get started. Okay. Russia and Ukraine. We're doing just small, small subjects. You mentioned earlier that you think that in many ways the administration's overall approach to that conflict has been vindicated by the fact that European allies are doing more for Ukraine. We are still supporting the Ukrainian effort, but we are doing so more indirectly, weapon sales and so on. And Ukraine has been able to continue fighting, even regain ground and so on. A different argument is that the administration came in to the second term, convinced that, as was said repeatedly, Ukraine didn't have enough cards to play.

37:39Ross Douthat:And it was really important to push the Ukrainians to be willing to make a deal with Vladimir Putin and with Russia. That seemed to be a big part of the administration's approach in at least the first six months, right? And that part has, one, there hasn't been a peace deal. Two, Ukraine has found many more cards to play and has continued surviving. So I'm curious what you think about the value of that initial push on the Zelensky government to try and make a deal. Was it useful? Did it go anywhere? Well, let me try to, I mean, so I think the structural argument that I was referring to, which I think you captured well, is that Europe could and would take primary responsibility for its own conventional defense, which has happened.

38:27They have made the commitment and now they're spending to follow it up. Two years ago, that would have had people's heads falling off. So now we've actually gone a long way towards, obviously, there've been direct negotiations between the United States and Russia and obviously very close contact with Ukraine, but also a lot of the groundwork on things like coalition of willing and what a peace arrangement might look like or a ceasefire or whatever it is. So I think I actually think we're well positioned. But, you know, from the perspective of the Department of War, this is really about having the Europeans step up to take the responsibility for something that they can do, you know, much more substantially on their own.

39:00Ross Douthat:I guess I'm just asking, have you been surprised by the resilience of Ukrainian resistance in the absence of an armistice? i wouldn't say i've been surprised but i mean i think the ukrainians have conducted a very stout and admirable self-defense for four years i mean they've right lost a tremendous amount of people i think they've been very uh effective at adapting their obviously technology like drones but also their military operations they also are trying to deny or defend right the russians are the ones who are trying to to take land so that puts them in a harder point you know i will say right now, I think the Ukrainians in some ways have improved.

39:39The situation is still, you know, largely attritional. And there's, you know, mutual, you know, firing at cities, which is obviously a tragic loss of civilian life, etc. You know, I think if I were in the Kremlin, I would counsel saying, this is a good time to, you know, end this conflict. And, you know, you have a man who's genuinely interested in peace in President Trump, and let's be rational, and let's make a deal. I think that would be the wise. Why do you think that hasn't happened yet?

40:10Ross Douthat:What do you what do you think? I mean, getting inside the heads of our, you know, other, you know, heads of state is always a fraught endeavor. I think, you know, if you look at what President Putin has said publicly, he's very committed to this objective. His interview with Tucker Carlson, for instance, he's got a deep historical sense about it. So I think 500 years of history. I mean, I think this is reference. Yeah. But I think this is part of the again, this is not like a pro Putin administration or something. It's saying if you're going to make peace with with a great power, you have to kind of grapple with, you know, the way they think and the reality that they do have a lot of power and go at it with that kind of mindset.

40:49when we negotiated with the communists in Vietnam or Korea, with China. That was the mindset that we were dealing with. So I think that's not something...

40:59Ross Douthat:But you haven't gotten there, which suggests that there is a... I mean, it's not ultimately we can't snap our fingers and make it so, but it's a noble endeavor. And I think we're structurally setting up the conditions to make that plausible and viable. And then, of course, the Ukrainians deserve a lot of credit, obviously, for being able to erode the Russians' ability to advance. On the, again, on the stories about Elbridge Colby Front, one of the recurring stories in the press in this administration is that the Department of Defense slash war, meaning Secretary Hegseth, but in the stories often meaning you, has wanted to go further in limiting support for Ukraine, limiting weapons flow to Ukraine, and then it gets reversed.

41:46Ross Douthat:So last summer, you were personally blamed for holding up a shipment of weapons to Ukraine because U.S. stopped. That was a false story. Okay, so tell me what happened in a case like that. There was a memorandum that was signed out by the Secretary. First of all, it's very important. I am not in the chain of command, so I cannot order anybody. I don't have the power. It would be absurd if I did. I'd probably get thanks. There's the door. What we were doing at that time was trying to put, I think, what has been a hallmark of this administration, which is trying to be intentional. I mean, the Biden administration, I think a lot of stuff was just like going out the door without knowing what was happening.

42:20I think in this administration, we're saying, hey, we need to have an understanding. You know, we have global requirements and we have a strategy following up. We're going to improve our situation where necessary. We've got very strong inventories, but we're going to be more intentional about it. And actually, there was a task to some military organizations to actually set up a new way of facilitating transfers to Ukraine. And there was some kind of and I don't exactly know what happened, but there was some kind of mix up on on that side of the house. And it was eventually rectified. But I think that more broadly, the proof is in the pudding.

42:50We have been I myself have participated in the Ukraine defense contact group and made the exact points that I'm saying to you now. I myself have signed off in terms of supporting multiple transfers of munitions to Ukraine. I think what we were trying to really do and reframe was, you know, exactly what I've been saying, which is we need to think about this in a common sense way. America first. Obviously, you know, we want to have the ability to support Ukraine, but we also need to know we're doing. And we want most importantly, we want to transfer the responsibilities the president said to those who have the biggest stake and who are most invested in it.

43:25I mean, that's a key point of I think the administration's approach, this flexible realist approach. It's like the Europeans are constantly talking about how important this is. And, you know, in a lot of ways we agree, but they can do a lot more. And in fact, they're doing it. That is what we want. We want a Europe and a Ukrainian defense industrial base that's more self-sustaining, right?

43:44Ross Douthat:How do U.S. troops fit into this picture? Because another story, this is more recent in the press, was that the Pentagon had plans for troop reductions in Eastern Europe. Oh, we're talking about in Europe. Yes, in Europe. And that, again, the story was that, you know, people in the Pentagon were pushing for deeper reductions and then it went up to the president and it got it got slapped down or something. Right. Like this is a recurring narrative. I mean, I think the president has been very clear, Secretary Higgs has been very clear for many years that the relationship with NATO is unbalanced and that we need to rectify that.

44:19I mean, we have an amazing secretary general right now and Mark Ruta. I mean, he gets a lot of flack, but he's really doing what people need, which is to see the situation as it is and to try to work with us in this period of transition to NATO 3.0. Right. That's what we need.

44:32Ross Douthat:you would expect the goal of the administration whatever is happening over six months here or six months there is for the u.s ultimately to have fewer troops in well i think look a couple things i mean to me it's more of a positive goal that i laid out in my speech at nato 3.0 well you can tell me tell you can tell me about nato 3.0 but first just specifically well the goal is troop level troop levels yeah but troop levels are downstream of the overall right okay nato 3.0 What is NATO 3.0? You've referenced it. We talked about in February and has since been embraced by the alliance and its leadership and so forth, European leaders, is basically a concept where Europe takes primary responsibility for its own conventional defense.

45:15What we were trying to do with this NATO 3.0 thing is there had long been this idea that President Trump and his administration were abandoning the post-war order. And that's just wrong. What really— Post-World War II. What President Trump and the administration are really doing, and certainly as we see it, is moving on from the post-Cold War order, the order, the world of the end of history, of the liberal international order delusion, of unchecked free trade that can't be balanced and that leads to deindustrialization of America. Actually, in a lot of ways, and this was the point of the speech, a key theme, we're going back to the Cold War idea.

45:49In the Cold War, at the end of the Cold War in 1988, West Germany had 12 active divisions. That was a country that's two-thirds the size of the current Germany. which basically had nothing until now they're doing great since in the last year or so. So this is going back to the basics of building military readiness. The other thing is you mentioned Russia. Let's look at the challenge that NATO faces. And we don't have to get into all the political, what is Vladimir Putin actually thinking? You can see Russia's military capability. It is building up its military, you know, and the European allies feel threatened.

46:21okay let's have you focus instead of getting into you know theological debates about you know this this or that nato summit declaration focus on building the military capability in the same way that i think the administration the president doing very successfully in asia strong and clear but quiet and you now have the germans building up you have you know the fins are very strong the poles are fantastic model ally there even the swede the swedes the norwegians we're hoping the british pick up the slack under the new government unfortunately thus far it's not been sufficient The French have a strong ready military.

46:53They need to spend more. It's a difficult budgetary situation, but everybody's got challenges.

46:58Ross Douthat:There's a few difficult budgetary situations in Europe. Indeed, but get in line, right? I mean, Americans make sacrifices. So one thing that you hear in the context of these buildups, right? And these buildups are happening. You're absolutely right. A number of U.S. allies are spending more on defense. The long-term economic prospects of Europe are a more open question. But they're often being framed as not so much as NATO 3.0 and a recalibrated partnership with the United States as a hedge against the U.S. becoming much more of a rogue superpower. You hear this a lot, the idea basically that U.S.

47:39Ross Douthat:allies looking at the Trump administration's behavior, looking at its demands, looking at, you know, threats over tariffs and so on are saying, yeah, we need to be stronger militarily and we need to be stronger economically because we may need to conduct foreign policy independent of the U.S. And this brings me to your recent memorandum slash tweet storm about what gets called. I don't think it was a storm. It was like a few guys. That's what they call it. It's a term of art. A tweet storm. It's just a series of tweets. It's a technical term. Okay. Sorry. From my profession. Your profession has technical terms, too.

48:14Ross Douthat:So in this thread of tweets, you talked about what you saw as the delusion of middle powers conducting some kind of truly independent foreign policy. Just tell me what you were saying. Sure. Can I answer the first question? Yeah. So so you're framing, I would regard as tendentious. Well, I'm it doesn't have to be my framing. It is it is framing. But many people, many people are saying, but let me let me. OK, so let me object to the frame. Yep. However, if we look at the structure, what you're telling me is the administration's policy is leading our allies to spend more on their own defense and take more responsibility and and lessen the burden on Americans.

48:55That sounds good to me. I mean, to me, it's like I think that basically you had a situation in which allies and partners were taking the United States for granted. You know, that doesn't mean going completely the other direction and pulling out, but it means countries now, whether it's on tariffs or whether it's on defense issues, they have to calculate they actually have to do more. I mean, my feeling about allies is that you want to reassure allies enough so that they don't kind of fall apart or in some circumstances defect to the other side. But you want to keep them sufficiently on their toes so that they do their part.

49:27Right. I mean, that's just human behavior. I mean, so this critique, I really don't get because also when you peel back the onion, it's not like Germany's building up its military to sail to southeastern Africa and reestablish a colonial empire. Germany is building up its military to take more responsibility for NATO 3.0, which means that we are in a better position. Obviously, you know, I imagine without presuming any decisions that we will remain, you know, tied to NATO. So the fact that we have very capable states taking more of the weight is all good. So I would say President Trump and the approach that we're taking now is the savior of NATO, because this is the way that NATO was going to last because it was going to become more more more durable.

50:09Ross Douthat:Just for just for background, too, this is something that is an idea that's specifically associated now with the prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney, who delivered a big speech, basically saying a version of what I said to you, that Canada and other countries like it can't rely on the U.S. in the way that they once did. Argue the middle powers must act together because if we're not at the table, we're on the menu. So let me let me explain if I could. What I was specifically arguing against is this idea of middle powers. And really what I was saying, it was not as the kids call it so much about flex.

50:44Really what I was saying, because then the first in the first tweet, I made the point that the problem is that if countries that are situated like this do something that is counterproductive or wasteful, they will be probably in greater danger. So if you're a country like Poland or South Korea or something like that, and you face what you regard as a fairly serious threat, if you embark on like, let's take a middle powers defense industry initiative and it doesn't pan out or it results in something far inferior, you will pay the cost. the middle power strategy is based on it's based on i think as we said a faulty understanding of international relations which is that powers in a certain bracket will naturally have reason to align and work together in that context we actually are encouraging middle powers not only to work with us but also to work with each other so for instance i put on twitter meaning just just if i

51:35Ross Douthat:could clarify you would be in favor of middle powers working together if it means south korea australia and japan but but here's the thing with the focus on something concrete and specific and leveraging the united states and working with the united states rather and that we may not need to work together all the time there may be situations in which you don't buy for instance an american weapon system but the overall approach should be designed for the middle powers or smaller powers to take more responsibility with the goal of fielding combat capability so take it in the defense space the f-35 is the you know essentially the best fifth generation aircraft out there if you're say canada and you're you know they're going over a year on examining the f-35 versus the grippen the grippen is a swedish made aircraft the grippen is dramatically inferior to the f-35 canada has norad requirements north american air defense requirements americans will face greater danger if canada goes in the direction of an inferior aircraft also one that might not be able to communicate as effectively.

52:34So that's the whole point. It's not like middle power should just pliantly wait. We constantly, continually say we want partnerships, not dependencies. We want countries that are able to take more responsibility, but it should be with a practical objective designed to achieve the goal as quickly as possible. Because if we take the Europeans at face value and they are worried about something happening militarily in their continent, you can't be wasting time on an uncertain, untested collaboration with countries that may fall apart at the end or will produce inferior equipment. They're going to make sure they get the best stuff.

53:08So that's, I actually think our policy on this is very reasonable.

53:12Ross Douthat:But we know why Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, as it might say something in this regard, that the leaders of Poland would not, right? The President of the United States and people around him in this second term have made, let's say, jokes about the addition of Canada to the United States as the 51st state. They have made statements suggesting that the U.S. might be willing to use some kind of military force to take over Greenland for America's national security purposes, but from a NATO ally, right? There has been a set of public statements by this administration that has been perceived as threatening, predatory in a way that is distinct, I think, from just like demanding that Germany spend more on the military.

54:04Ross Douthat:Right. And that is what has yielded, at least in the case of Canada, this kind of rhetoric, surely. Right. Well, I mean, let me be clear. I mean, under President Trump, we are restoring the Monroe Doctrine, the Trump Corollary of the Monroe Doctrine. Obviously, there's, I think, a productive diplomatic track on the Greenland issue, but it's important that that be addressed to the president's satisfaction and to our satisfaction. I mean, he pointed out that, you know, this is something that America essentially is responsible for the security of Greenland. The United States is the only country capable of actually providing the security of Greenland.

54:39We're obviously working out a diplomatic track. So I think that that's very important that that lead to a productive outcome. And I think with Canada, the president's spoken about that ambassador greer and others from the department of war we're saying look our security is interlinked um and canada basically functionally demilitarized after probably the first trudeau government the trudeau the father and that has direct complication implications for the security of americans in a world that could be more dangerous so we're i mean what we're telling the canadians is all we're expecting you to do basically be like the germans of the polls gets you use your defense increase increased canadian defense dollars to buy real military capability that fills joint needs.

55:19Right. Because that, and that's not just a nice app, that affects Americans.

55:22Ross Douthat:This is good and I'm all for that. But you're doing that while the president is, you know, appearing on TV or in a video still or wherever else it is with a map showing, you know, US stars and stripes covering North America, right? Which is different. That's a different, that's a different policy ask from more defense. Well, I don't think it's a different, I mean, I don't think what we're doing is different than what he's doing. He's, he's. What is he doing? I wouldn't presume to characterize what the president is doing. Well, then how do you know it's not different from what you're doing? It's certainly not incompatible.

55:53I mean, I think the president, as I understand it, is communicating that the United States needs to be secure and have our interests respected in the hemisphere.

56:02Ross Douthat:And he communicates it in that way. So you interpret the image of the stars and stripes flying up past Hudson Bay as just the Monroe Doctrine? Well, I think the stars and stripes should be flying high above anywhere. So it's great. We're proud of it. It's 250 years. Flying anywhere is a statement of sovereignty or just as a statement of awesomeness? Well, certainly awesomeness. But what do you mean you think the stars and stripes should be flying anywhere? Well, I just think we are... You don't think it's reasonable for a proud Canadian to look at that image and say, at the very least the U.S.

56:41Ross Douthat:is trying to vassalize us? Because that is, I mean, that's the reaction that I think you're getting, right? That's driving like Mark Carney's speech or something. There's a difference between asking the polls to spend more money on the military, which the polls seem happy to do, and acting like Canada is just an extension of the glorious United States. Well, I think the president has been saying when he's talked about it, he says that the Canadians have an insanely favorable trading arrangement and that they're, you know, really almost, you know, right on the American economy and that that needs to be recalibrated.

57:20Ross Douthat:And that's that's all you think he's saying. I know you don't presume to speak. I don't presume to speak for him. I think it speaks for itself. I think the way I think we absolutely and I'm proud. I mean, when he gave his remarks on Inauguration Day, he made clear that, you know, going back to the Monroe Doctrine, to Teddy Roosevelt, to a strong and assertive and unabashed declaration of American ascendancy, certainly in this hemisphere. Well, China is operating the Panama Canal, and we didn't give it to China. We gave it to Panama, and we're taking it back. And he's negotiating with everybody to reflect that.

58:00Okay. All right.

58:01Ross Douthat:Let me ask a last, somewhat long-winded question. So you keep describing yourself as a foreign policy realist. And as you said, this is a school of thought that emphasizes fundamental interests. Nations have fundamental interests that are more important than ideological commitments, flights of idealistic fancy, all these kinds of things. And I think one critique of realism is that it can underplay the role of, you could call it irrationality in world affairs, but you could also call it like a sense of sort of honor and, you know, woundedness and a desire for glory and a desire to assert yourself in ways that are themselves not necessarily perfectly rational always.

58:51Ross Douthat:Right. And so, like, when you talk, whether you're talking about Canada or NATO or the Middle East or anywhere else, you keep stressing basically that everybody are allies in all these different regions. They would be stupid to go anywhere else. They don't, you know, look to China. Why would you look to China? They're an authoritarian state that doesn't have a global military. Make a deal with Iran. Come on. The Iranians, you know, they're weak and they're a threat and they're run by fanatics. It's not in your interest, right, to do that. Like Canada needs to step up, right, for all these reasons.

59:27Ross Douthat:And I agree with you 100%. Like, I don't think - Can we stop there? We can stop there. No, we can't stop there because this is my interview. I agree with you 100%. I do not think that under current circumstances, it makes sense for our friends and allies to recalibrate their posture to try and balance between us and China or cut deals with Iran or anything like that. But I also think that countries do things that don't make sense all the time. And sometimes they do things that don't make sense as a response to a sense of bullying, insult, aggression, predatory behavior, all of these kinds of things.

1:00:08Ross Douthat:and that's that's where i see sort of your case for realism potentially breaking down that you could get in a war with china or you could be dealing with the middle east and the u.s could say to our allies it's totally in your interest to support us and mark carney could say well it might be in my interest but you know you kept talking about how we were going to annex canada so screw you no thanks for i mean i appreciate your agreement um yeah but the uh i mean look Look, realism, like anything, is not a total explanation of human behavior and far be it for me. I mean, that's that's why I use flexible.

1:00:42And it's not it's not our job here, unlike in the academy, is not to prove a theory, but rather to do things that are make sense for America. And I think and our allies, honestly, but I think realism is definitely the the major explainer, especially in kind of stressful or transitional situations. It's critical to see things in time. I mean, we talked about this in the China context. Right. I mean, I think things had certainly since the end of the Cold War had gone so far in one direction, become so detached that there need to be a fundamental recalibration. This is not, you know, there will be future presidents.

1:01:16There will be, you know, presidents of different parties, et cetera, et cetera. There's going to be various.

1:01:21Ross Douthat:Can I hold you to that one? Well, there's going to be like adaptation over time. Yeah. And people are going to, you know, are going to adapt and so forth. And I think that President Trump, in addition to having the right policy in general, was a really necessary corrective and adaptation that I think is actually much better to happen now in a period when things were getting very bad, particularly under the last administration, I think, very dangerous. But it's not like we have to, you know, it's not like this is this is the way things are going to be in perpetuity. In 10 years, Germany will be really strong military, hopefully, and its economy will be more rational.

1:01:57Hopefully, Canada will be in a situation where it can actually meet its NORAD commitments. right and people will have more to say they'll say instead they'll say back to us hey i am doing my part so i i'm not so worried about that maybe because i am a pretty thoroughgoing realist and i think if you look historically countries do tend to go where their interests are especially when you're thinking about survival or fundamental prosperity and that's the language that we communicate also in nato 3.0 it's saying we're not saying that you need to do everything we say all the time we're saying you need to build up you need to help us out on things like Operation Epic Fury when it's something that's in your interest and you say ostensibly you're supposed to also care about the Iranian nuclear threat.

1:02:32Hey, but if you know what, if you have a military that's more developed to deal with a NATO scenario, you'll also be able to deal better with operations in the Middle East. So I think it all kind of goes together. So that to me, I'm not too worried about.

1:02:47Ross Douthat:But just on the role of emotion and affection, maybe, maybe less emotion than affection. I was in London recently, and there's no lower form of punditry than quoting your Uber driver, but I'm going to do it anyway, because I had an Uber driver who learned I was American, and he got this, how could he tell when my Cockney accent was so flawless? And he got this kind of amused, but also slightly hysterical edge in his voice, and we went back and forth and back and forth about about president trump and everything else and he kept ending each like sort of run of half joking commentary by saying but we're still friends right we're still friends and friendship right affection these are these are power these are powerful forces in foreign policy too right so are aren't aren't they i have a i have an analogy for this okay which i use with europeans because they this fits for them so it's like they i think they want friendship yeah but the alliance was like a think about it as like a private business like let's say we had an accounting firm together and we're like cousins right but then over time one one of the members united states uh did kept doing phenomenally well or did did phenomenally well And suddenly, but their shares are more or less the same.

1:04:15And the other partners are kind of like, hey, remember that time that we went skiing together? Remember the good old days? And it's like, okay. But like eventually in these kinds of partnerships, people have to renegotiate. This gets to the mark to market thing. And I don't think this is a banal example. Actually, it seems to resonate with a lot of Europeans. um you know it's a friendship i guess but ultimately we're talking we're talking about putting americans lives at risk we're talking about lots of americans being killed and a ton of american money and us you and me and everybody here and everybody watching in america paying substantially more for defense i that's got to be something more fundamental than friendship if you go back to the friendship between winston churchill and franklin roosevelt franklin Roosevelt drove a hard Martin Dwight Eisenhower was the one who did the Suez in 1956 right yeah so it wasn't like oh you get to do whatever you want and like your people and the Brits are obviously been a lot better than most but I think that's I don't I don't buy I mean the sort of mystic chords of memory thing are important but I was I was gonna go to the mystic chords of memory next and I gave the remarks at the I had the honor to represent us at the international ceremony uh at D-Day and I turned that argument around on and it was it it was it was the location was between sword and juno and i said you know there's a belgium defense attache started moralizing about america and isolationism and you know and i said you know my remarks were like we want the britain and the canada that fought for four years in world war one and six years in world war two and then we were the ones the johnny come lately's you know so they will be in a much better place to moralize about us if they spend as much as we do and if they're willing to build military capability and if they have economies that grow so they can be taken seriously, that getting back to that kind of how it all is reinforcing, I think there's a kind of entitlement, like a sense that, oh, of course we'll be able to.

1:06:04No. And it's incumbent upon them. And I think that's a favor because the world is, I mean, if you think we're tough, look at some of the alternatives. So I think it's the, it's actually the, it's actually the sort of salutary toughness of a friend.

1:06:18Ross Douthat:All right. Elbridge Colby, thank you for joining me. Thank you very much, Ross. Pleasure to be with you.

1:07:17Ross Douthat:isn't coming, it's here. And your business needs to be too. If your revenues are seven figures or more, try NetSuite Next free at netsuite.ai slash NYT.