Are America’s Allies Finally Learning to Deal With Trump? A Conversation With Philip H. Gordon and Mara Karlin

19:09Philip H. Gordon:Yes, at a minimum, I think if you're sitting in Asia right now, you are feeling confused. At a maximum, you've internalized that. as much as various folks in the Trump administration say, no, really, you know, China is our priority pacing with China. Those are at best words. There is no evidence that that's a leadership level commitment based on the examples you all just showed. So what does this look like going forward? I think actually there is a parallel here to Europe insofar as the question of our time is going to be who leads on which issues and with whom? And so I think across Asia, they've got to ask themselves that question, obviously vis-a-vis China.

19:50Philip H. Gordon:And some of that will involve getting together some sort of mini laterals. And you could imagine like maritime security mini laterals, for example, right? Freedom of navigation mini laterals. You could imagine that scaling all the way to what you were just highlighting, which is, can you get some sort of extended deterrence commitment from someone else? or do you actually need to get some sort of nuclear capability yourself? Which does presume then that we're going to have a really dangerous moment in time between when a decision like that is made and when those capabilities would actually come online.

20:25Mara Karlin:You said an extended deterrence commitment from someone else. Who would that be if not the United States?

20:30Philip H. Gordon:It's really hard to imagine. So I'm stretching here, obviously, with this, but you would look to other nuclear powers. I mean, like in Europe, probably. I think they'll be too stretched. but we have had this kind of Europe flirtation with the Indo-Pacific in recent years. Again, I think this is a bridge way too far, but if we fast forward to a world where it is incredibly clear that the U.S. is in no way playing a guarantor role, if the Europeans do really feel so animated by a concern about China, to what extent do they even start some sort of low-level working group to begin to talk about these issues?

21:07Mara Karlin:That's a fascinating possibility. I want to raise an argument that I think you would hear from supporters of the administration. Wes Mitchell, who was Assistant Secretary of State in Europe, a job that Phil held previously. Wes was in the first Trump administration, but Phil was not. argued that, you know, if we look forward 10 years, what we will see is this period when the kind of tough talk from the Trump administration will induce allies to invest in their own defense in ways that, you know, years of polite pleas to use Secretary Hegg's words did not get them to. And we will get that defense spending up to levels where it should be.

21:48Mara Karlin:And you'll have a subsequent president who will kind of get back to some of the more traditional approaches and ultimately will emerge with both stronger alliances or alliances as strong as they were and with more capable allies. Is that implausible to you? You're both shaking your heads as if it is. So I'm curious how you respond to those arguments. Phil, you want to start?

22:11Philip H. Gordon:Yeah, I think it's implausible. I think it's just sort of wishful thinking and it overlooks or underplays the importance of trust in an alliance. Now, I recognize that one reason Europeans are spending more on defense now is because of the Trump administration's policies and pressure. Not even pressure in terms of a tongue lashing, because that doesn't work, as we know from the past, because other administrations have tried that. But because of the reality that they know they can't count on Trump. It's not only Trump. Europeans started spending more first after the Russians invaded and took Crimea.

22:47Philip H. Gordon:And then they started spending a lot more after Russia's full invasion of Ukraine in 2022. If you look at the charts of European spending, they're much more correlated and they started really going up after 2022 for reasons of the threat that was during the Biden administration. But it's also true that concerns about the American guarantee have led them to spend even more, and especially the German commitment of this year. So that's real. And one impact of the Trump administration policies is to get Europeans to spend even more. But that's only one part of the picture. But more importantly, it's only one part of the ledger.

23:24Philip H. Gordon:If the European spending goes hand in hand with an inability to count on the United States, whether it's just troop withdrawals, or more importantly, an inability to count on the president of the United States to uphold Article 5, the deterrence is weakened. Europeans could spend X times as much on defense. But without the United States as part of the picture, they're less secure. Russia is less deterred. And that's what this is all about. So I think you can't have it both ways. If the price of getting Europeans to spend more, we can talk about Asians too, is a collapse in deterrence and an end of the meaning of Article 5, you have not made anybody more secure and you've made war more likely.

24:05Philip H. Gordon:And the idea that like they'll forgive us. And, you know, this is just a phase of like, take your medicine and it will all come out better in the end. I think that underestimates the degree to which we're really losing the legacy of 80 years of commitment to European security. And look, it's frustrating. It would have been really nice if 15 years ago, when the U.S. was using talking point after talking point, begging European allies to spend more on defense if they had done that. But instead, we have Putin to thank, as Phil highlights. I would note, you know, deterrence is capability plus will.

24:40Philip H. Gordon:And I think the contrary view you're highlighting, Dan, is all about capability. And it really doesn't get at that will piece. I would also note that this mutual dependence that we've had on one another has delivered for the United States in a whole bunch of ephemeral ways. But let me give you a really tangible one, which is U.S. defense industry, right? And so the negative repercussion of encouraging the Europeans to really strengthen their own defense industry, which I think is the right move, is going to involve them buying a whole lot less from us, fewer American jobs, less money in the U.S.

25:17Philip H. Gordon:economy.

25:19Mara Karlin:You both noted that in the past, you've spent probably more hours than you care to count trying to press these allies, both in Europe and Asia, to spend more on defense. What fell short in those arguments? Or what do you think accounts for the shortcomings of those past efforts?

25:36Philip H. Gordon:I think it's everything we were talking about before of how hard it is. You know, they have domestic politics. They have social needs. They kind of didn't believe us because, you know, we kept saying, if you don't spend more, you know, we'll pull out and go back to the Mansfield Amendment and pressure from defense secretary after defense secretary. But we were always there because they knew it was in our interest to be there. and there was also a degree of you know especially post-cold war we now live in a world of integration and globalization it was just hard especially for europeans i mean going all the way back to bob kagan's mars and venus thing to get their heads around the need to do defense many americans you know kept being involved in wars and conflict and deterrence but europeans kind of reached the conclusion you know war was for previous generations and they're good now and that's why I put such an emphasis on Russia's invasion, first of Crimea, but even more, Ukraine was like, wait, this is real.

26:31Philip H. Gordon:Aggression is not necessarily a thing of the past. There's a major land war in Europe because Russia just up and decided it wanted to take territory. And by the way, and I think this is overlooked, it's not just the ground invasion of Ukraine. Russia has been sponsoring assassination plots and cyber attacks and pipeline attacks. And drones have entered NATO territory, this whole hybrid warfare thing. And, you know, Europeans are starting to realize and, you know, packages on airplanes that are designed to blow up that this is like, we wish that, you know, war was a thing of the past. We've entered a new world.

27:05Philip H. Gordon:We can just focus on integration and globalization, but we can't. So that's why I think, you know, they were so reluctant because it's hard and it's costly and they believe the U.S. were there. I mean, one of the ironies of this whole experience with Trump. I think it was Secretary Gates in 09, if I'm not mistaken, but around that era when he was defense secretary, specifically said, if you guys don't spend more, you're going to end up with an American administration that just walks away. And again, they didn't want to believe that. History said they were right not to believe it because somehow we always were there.

27:37Philip H. Gordon:And now they have just that, which is why I'm a little bit more hopeful going forward. Even if we should get a new US administration that comes back, I don't think they'll necessarily drop the ball because they know they're one election away from this being a reality. I think where this really comes to a head in a spectacular fashion is this Middle East war that we've been watching over these last few months, because the American way of war, the ability to find, fix, and finish just about any target anywhere in the world is very much predicated on allies and partners who give you access, basing, and overflight.

28:11Philip H. Gordon:And we've started to see some real sportiness, particularly vis-a-vis our European allies in terms of allowing that, or at least publicly allowing that. So this may be another piece of kind of what it looks like for the shift to come to reality and the potential real price, frankly, that it'll cost the U.S. in its ability to do its business as usual.

28:36Mara Karlin:We'll return to our conversation with Phil Gordon and Mara Carlin after a short break.

28:48Mara Karlin:What if you could explore places in the news like a reporter does? I'm Nicholas Wood, a former journalist with the New York Times and BBC. And 16 years ago, I created the travel company Political Tours. Our small groups are led by top correspondents around the world. In the next few months, we're off to Mexico, followed by South Africa, Japan and the French presidential elections. Come and join us. Go to politicaltours.com. That's politicaltours.com.

29:42Philip H. Gordon:24th to 27th. To learn more, visit independenthq.com. This July, save$10 on an all-access subscription to Foreign Affairs. Get exclusive access to thought-provoking analysis by the world's leading policymakers, scholars, and thinkers. Join the global conversation on the issues that matter most. Visit foreignaffairs.com slash July to subscribe. That's foreignaffairs.com slash J-U-L-Y.

30:16Mara Karlin:Phil Mara referred to one previously unthinkable development that people are now starting to think about, and that's the development of nuclear capabilities in Asia and South Korea and Japan. Another previously unthinkable thing that I think has become front of mind, you referred to earlier, and that's the real dissolution of NATO. What do you think might get us there? If you project forward a couple of years and NATO truly has come apart, what does that path look like?

30:40Philip H. Gordon:Well, I mean, first of all, we're already all too far down the road towards that path because NATO... So on one hand, NATO is an integrated military structure and a treaty that has certain requirements and a set of institutions, the North Atlantic Council and so on. That's really important. But arguably even more important, NATO is a commitment that the President of the United States will use force to defend European countries if they're attacked, which is what leads to deterrence, which prevents war in Europe. the first set of things is still intact the north atlantic council meets the treaty hasn't been abandoned there's an integrated military structure there are armed forces but the second has been really damaged because you have a u.s president who instead of making clear that our commitment to european security is ironclad has said you know have you read article five it depends uh if they don't spend enough then isn't necessarily valid and i would encourage putin to do whatever the wants if allies aren't spending enough.

31:39Philip H. Gordon:And by the way, I'm going to start withdrawing troops from Europe. And I'll particularly do it to punish allies for things that piss me off, like Germany not helping us open the Strait of Hormuz. And so using it for retribution. And then you had this little thing with Poland recently where it went in the other direction. They announced that they're going to withdraw forces from Poland, which is also a bad signal given what's going on in Eastern Europe right now. But then because Poland elected a president that is Trump's pathetic, they go back. So just treating NATO as a reward or punishment system, threatening to leave it because Europeans wouldn't bail Trump out of a war that he started without consulting them, that just undermines the notion that Europeans can count on it.

32:30Philip H. Gordon:And NATO is also in the eye of the beholder. It matters less whether Europeans think they can count on it, but whether Russians think Europeans can count on it. And after, let's just say the past 18 months, forget before that, you'd have to say that Putin is less deterred than he would have been then. And if US starts to withdraw more troops from Europe and say that Article 5 depends on whether allies spend enough, then you have allowed him to think he could use force in Europe. It's a good piece, I think, in the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago about the potential for use of force in the Baltic states.

33:07Philip H. Gordon:In your question, Dan, you used the word unthinkable. Stuff that, even in our recent past, kind of felt unthinkable, like he's all too thinkable, especially when only a few years ago, So Russia just decided to encircle Ukraine with armed forces and decide to gobble it up. So perhaps actually we've added another argument as to why it is so hard inside Europe to accept this, which is really the trilemma, the sort of the security trilemma they're now forced in, which is how do you think about a U.S. that may be a threat? How do you think about Russia as a threat? And then based on how you deal with those, how do you actually conjure up an internal security architecture that everyone feels comfortable with, because obviously history has shown a bunch of cases there where it didn't work out terribly well.

33:56Philip H. Gordon:And, you know, the steps taken along each of these XEs is actually going to, I think, get us to whatever the new vision of European security is.

34:06Mara Karlin:You could add to that the economic threat from China that is very front of mind for Europeans as well. Europeans, in arguing that they have stepped up in ways that we may not appreciate, will point to Ukraine and everything they have done to fill in for the almost complete collapse in American support for Ukraine. And Mara, as you look at the situation on the battlefield there, to what extent has that European support really made up for the changes in American policy over the last 18 months or so? And how do you assess the state of the battlefield right now?

34:40Philip H. Gordon:So yes, the program in which the Europeans buy U.S. material and then give it to Ukraine has been useful in terms of making sure Ukraine is getting a lot of the stuff that it needs. It appears from reporting that the U.S. has maintained its intelligence support to Ukraine, which is of a singular nature.

35:01Mara Karlin:Meaning that the Europeans still cannot replace that intelligence support. That's one thing that really only the U.S. could do.

35:07Philip H. Gordon:Yeah, no, that's exactly what it appears to be. And so that has, both of those have been helpful to Ukraine. You know, the interesting piece that the Europeans, I think, haven't really been able to replace, though, is the U.S. as the convener. The U.S., you know, when Phil was talking about kind of the formal and informal ways of thinking about NATO, like the U.S. is the Greece at NATO. In the talks about what happens with Ukraine, it's the U.S. that is going to be the one fundamentally that is pulling folks together for better or worse to try to think through issues like war termination. And that's just not happening and not going to happen, I think, in a meaningful way across the European landscape.

35:48Philip H. Gordon:When we look at the state of the battlefield, I mean, on one level, it's extraordinary. We're four years into this thing and Ukraine still exists as a largely sovereign country that can control the overwhelming majority of its territory. We also see that there have been massive losses on both sides. Russia has gained quite limited territory, particularly recently, where it's not been able to do so at all and has actually just taken greater hits. You know, it can keep on going this way. One probably has to assume, though, that there'll be some sort of shock to the conflict sooner rather than later on either side, whether it's the fact that Ukraine is hitting deep into Russian territory more and more lately, or if the Russians decide, like you might have seen with the missile that they used, I think two Saturdays or so ago, decide they need to try to change things up.

36:45Philip H. Gordon:But if we continue with this like long grinding path, minimal progress will be made by Russia. That's a good thing. And massive losses are going to keep happening on each side. And that's a pretty bad thing.

36:58Mara Karlin:So can you see any path to some kind of ceasefire or meaningful end of the war in the coming years?

37:05Philip H. Gordon:By adding years, I thought you were going to say months. And then I was going to say that would be a tough call because the basic stalemate that honestly we've seen for more than two years on the battlefield with no one really making progress is not really changing. And unfortunately, the bottom line analysis that Putin thinks he can wait us out isn't changing either. So that's why like months, I would have said, no, when you turn it into years, I do think the important thing is, you know, Ukraine, with our help, increasingly less the United States, increasingly more Europe, as you alluded to, has made Russia fail in its strategic objectives.

37:43Philip H. Gordon:And that's really important, including for the world order questions that we've been talking about. Because, and Mara alluded to this, Russia taking huge losses and paying a big price. those of us who have supported Ukraine in the four plus years since the invasion, that includes during the Biden administration, did so not only because we thought the Ukrainian people should be defended against this horrific attack, but because of the principle that we don't want to live in a world where countries can just decide they want to take territory. And I think that's really relevant for everything else we've been talking about here, Taiwan, South Korea, other allies, the rest of the European allies.

38:23Ukraine is turning the tide very slowly.

38:27Philip H. Gordon:You know, so many people thought they would fall in two or three weeks. Not only did they stop that, you know, they've taken back a significant amount of territory from what Russia initially took, I think more than 50%. I've described the last couple of years as a stalemate. And now Ukraine, with Europe's support, regrettably more than ours, is really pushing back. And so even if they don't, you know, ultimately take all of their territory back, If they do force Putin into abandoning his aims to subjugate the entire country, that will be a great victory, not just for Ukraine, but for all of the principles that we're trying to uphold here.

39:03Philip H. Gordon:And it's important to underscore the other side of that coin too. The failure to do so would really be devastating to the world order. And that, again, is a difference going back to the original piece we wrote at the end of last year with the Trump administration, which just didn't seem to see it that way. you know, Vice President Vance said he doesn't really care what happens in Ukraine one way or another. And it's also a shame, but I'll just end on this note. It's unfortunate. The U.S. argument for cutting off Ukraine and essentially pressing it to give in to Russia was that it had no hope on the battlefield.

39:39Philip H. Gordon:Like there's no way it could stand up to Russia. And we were going to like accelerate that by cutting off military support to get Zelensky to give in. But even without that U.S. military support, thanks in large part to the Europeans and obviously the heroism of the Ukrainians, they've done just that. So the U.S. analysis was wrong, as well as the strategic decision not to back Ukraine.

40:01Mara Karlin:I want to make sure we spend some time on the other major war of this spring, which is the war in Iran, which is not exactly over. It's a little hard to tell exactly where things stand as we're having this conversation. So we will try to step back a little bit. Mar, I want to start with you to talk a bit about what you've seen as you've watched the war itself. You wrote a piece a few years ago in Foreign Affairs called The Return of Total War. And I thought back to the line in that piece. You wrote, when war changes, the new shape it takes almost always comes as a surprise. As you've watched the U.S.

40:35Mara Karlin:and Israeli attacks on Iran and the Iranian response, both against the U.S. and Israeli and also against Gulf partners, What has surprised you? Do you see any kind of glimmers of a new way of war here, or does this all look familiar to you?

40:48Philip H. Gordon:So some of what we see in this war echoes to previous ones. For example, the desire for a short and sharp war has absolutely not delivered, and it's clear that both the U.S. and Israel thought that that might come to fruition. I think an argument I made in that piece has also further warmed through, which is, I argued there was the collapse of the continuum of conflict. And what's kind of spectacular about this war is we've seen just a real diversity of capabilities being relevant. You know, so much attention has obviously, and I think validly, been paid to the impact of drones, you know, hitting soft targets in the Gulf, for example.

41:37Philip H. Gordon:That's been really meaningful. while you've also had F-35s, you know, precision guided munitions as well. Carrier strike groups, which some folks have said, hey, they're not going to be relevant in a certain type of war. They actually are. It actually demonstrates that future wars will very much go across all different types of warfare, low end, conventional, potentially nuclear, right? I mean, we've obviously seen that this piece as it relates both to Iran and to Israel. And so we need to make sure that we build militaries and that we conceptualize deterrents to operate alongside all of those different aspects.

42:19Mara Karlin:Phil, I'm curious, what surprised you as you've watched the course of this war over the last couple of months?

42:24Philip H. Gordon:Honestly, it surprised me that we were surprised at the way it played out or that the administration or Trump, whatever you want to say, were surprised at the way it played out. I think people who follow Iran would have said for years or decades that seeking to change the regime with military force would lead it to feel it's backwards to the wall and it would pull out all the stops. I think the administration and those who supported it made the mistake of believing that because Iran didn't do those things, close the strait and attack neighboring infrastructure after the exchanges in 24 and 25 in April and October, and then the strike on the nuclear facilities, oh, well, then Iran would never do that.

43:04Philip H. Gordon:We could just press the issue a bit further. But those were fundamentally different. There was a lot of concern about those as there should have been. And Iran fired hundreds of ballistic missiles at Israel. But the fact that we kind of got through it pretty well without too much damage and Iran's air defenses were weakened and it didn't escalate led the president to think that he could quote unquote finish the job and be the hero who finally got rid of this terrible regime. but he shouldn't have been surprised that one the regime didn't collapse and crumble and two that it resorted to whatever it needed to do which included striking its neighbors and closing the strait which is something that was eminently predictable so that's what's surprising and that's what has led to this terrible situation we're now i don't need to go on about all of the you know costs and strategic consequences of this war but also the inability to get out of it and we're just stuck.

43:58Philip H. Gordon:And the president, he's torn between a deal that he would be criticized for because it doesn't come close to everything he said he could achieve and be criticized for being worse than Obama's deal that he pulled out of. But he also knows that escalating only imposes even more costs on the US economy and the world and our strategic situation and depletes our arsenals and diverts forces from Asia. And so he just taught in the middle of those. And that's why, I said that Ukraine hasn't changed in two years. This used to be when you did a podcast in Iran, you worried that by the time you finished the hour, 10 things had changed.

44:33Philip H. Gordon:Now it's almost the opposite. You could probably hold this for three weeks because we're just stuck in this holding pattern. We can't do a deal, but we're afraid to escalate. And then every day we're on the verge of a deal, but we never get it over the finish line. You know, there are a couple of elements that are kind of interesting along these lines, because I think you can assume that both inside Tehran and inside Washington, there is a desire for this to wrap up sooner rather than later. So there's that overlap. What's also interesting, if you go to another kind of battle space in this conflict, which is what's been happening with Hezbollah and Israel, you have a situation in which the Lebanese government, the Israeli government, the Syrian government all actually want the same thing and yet still can't make it happen.

45:20Philip H. Gordon:And so those are some intriguing dynamics that happen to overlap in both of these and yet don't appear to be delivering different. I agree, Mara, that that is the like the macro picture has started to become clear. Iran and the US neither wants to escalate. Both have an interest in a deal. And that's why they're close to a deal. But the deal has so many moving parts. You have to like figure out how to open the strait for what degree of sanctions and economic relief and unfreezing assets. Also, which nuclear commitments and on what timetable to implement, and then the whole Lebanon thing. And you have to somehow sequence and choreograph all of those so that each side is actually prepared to make a deal at a time when Trump can't really do a deal because he's worried about his domestic criticism and the Iranians have trouble because goodness knows their decision-making is messed up.

46:09Philip H. Gordon:It's not even clear who's in charge or whether they could. And there's zero trust between the two sides. I agree the fundamental situation is that both sides want a deal and we could kind of picture out what it would be, but they're having so much trouble putting this together. The Trump administration is not known for meticulous planning and experts and comprehensive work on this. Iran is in disarray. And that's why we're stuck with everybody losing and suffering the consequences of this ongoing conflict, even though both sides have an interest in ending it.

46:40Mara Karlin:Phil, given that you were involved in at least some of the early stages of the Iran deal and the Obama administration, if you imagine that deal, leaving aside how these two sides actually get to it, what would be minimally necessary from a U.S. standpoint on both the nuclear front and the regional picture to make it a deal we should take?

47:00Philip H. Gordon:Well, look, on the nuclear front, there are different ways of going about the same objectives. The point of the JCPOA was to give us assurance that if Iran did try to break out and seek a nuclear weapon, we would know about it well in advance. Our breakout timeline was a year, which on one hand doesn't sound like a lot, but it's plenty of time. I mean, a year, you know, if you picture the CIA director going to the White House and say, we have evidence that they're going to move towards a bomb, the president of the year to deal with it, to use military force or mount a coalition or reveal it, whatever.

47:30Philip H. Gordon:And there are a lot of different ways of doing that by limiting their stockpiles, advanced centrifuges, amount of enrichment work, the plutonium route. JCPOA was one way of doing that. And there are others. so that's not you know beyond the wit of diplomats to figure out and the trump administration and iran have been discussing such things there are plenty of ways of doing that if you're willing to do it i think part of the problem with trump and those things were even on the table in in ways that would have stopped iran's realistic pathways to a bomb both before the strikes last summer and before february 28th that type of thing was on the table i think trump wanted to get more partly because he could show that it was different from, you know, he pulled out of the reason Iran had a stockpile of 60 % material is Trump pulled out of the deal that prohibited the accumulation of such material and use of Fordow and all the rest.

48:25Philip H. Gordon:So he wanted more. And this leads to the answer to your second question. He also wanted more in terms of ballistic missiles, regional and regime and protesters and all that. And in the Obama administration, we concluded we wanted all of those things too. And we weren't going to stop pushing on all of those fronts and countering Iran's bad behavior in the region, but we weren't going to subordinate a nuclear deal to get them. Trump decided he was, and he was going to have all of that. And that again, leads to the tragedy we're in because now we have neither. And however this comes out, I suspect it'll probably come out with a messy deal one way or another without details.

49:03Philip H. Gordon:It's not going to accomplish all of those things that Trump criticized the JCPOA for not accomplishment with clear restrictions on their ballistic missiles and drones and support for proxies and the behavior of the regime. And so a lot of different ways to do it. And unfortunately, the Trump administration passed on all of them. And actually, Phil, I think it's even worse than you highlighted, although what you said was pretty dark. And that's because the Strait of Hormuz is the center of gravity right now, which in no way is it in the U.S. interests, either vis-a-vis Iran or all of our allies and partners, for this to be the focus.

49:40Philip H. Gordon:Well, no, that's the crazy thing, is now we seem prepared to give our Iran major economic concessions, not to do all this great nuclear restrictions, but to open the strait, which was, of course, completely open before we started the bombing in February.

49:55Mara Karlin:My sense in hearing officials from various governments talk about the future of the straight is that we will end up with some kind of de facto, we won't call it tolling, but there'll be some kind of de facto tolling and that that will be a major change in terms of open seas. And I think that may be a kind of major historical turning point. I mean, Mara, I'd be curious if you have that fear and what that might look like.

50:18Philip H. Gordon:Yeah, I think it would be pretty bad. I think if the Trump administration were sitting in on this podcast, the argument they would make is that they don't really have a whole lot of faith in whomever is governing Iran for this moment anyway. And so you cut a deal for a period of time, recognizing that everything's going to be turned upside down sooner rather than later. Perhaps they have a vision of some sort of uprising that occurs. Gosh, you know, we don't have much evidence for that, but we'll see. Or something else. But I think I could imagine them accepting something that is very far from Pareto optimal, under the argument that this really is temporary because this regime is, you know, on its last legs.

51:00Philip H. Gordon:Which, to be clear, I am not subscribing to that view. I'm merely articulating it. This also relates to our piece, which is about the U.S. upholding principles of world order. And one of them was freedom of navigation. And this would be, you know, such a departure from that where not only is the United States not upholding freedom of navigation, but doing things and then accepting an outcome that compromises it. That's just a terrible blow to what allies had expected of the United States for decades.

51:31Mara Karlin:I also want to connect this back to your piece in the first part of our conversation. It's been interesting to watch the dynamic with U.S. allies and partners in the Middle East around this war, both Israel as we fought the war with them, and then also the response of different Gulf partners. I'm interested in how you two see this affecting the future, both the U.S.-Israel relationship, but then also our dynamic with Gulf partners. Phil, let's start with you, Emma.

51:57Philip H. Gordon:So it affects both very significantly. I mean, starting with Israel, already that partnership was significantly strained, obviously, over Gaza. And you look at, you know, public opinion in the United States, American attitudes towards Israel are changing fundamentally, more in one party than another, more among Democrats than among Republicans. but there's also a MAGA base that is not happy with the war or Israel's role in it. And I think the Iran conflict only reinforced that. Again, Gaza was the main thing on top of domestic developments in Israel, extremist, extreme right ministers in the government, West Bank policies, settlement expansion.

52:33So there's a trend very much in place that's changing the US-Israel relationship.

52:39Philip H. Gordon:And Iran just pushes that further. Like it's now commonplace. I mean, I think you saw the votes recently in the Senate. You had 40 senators for one provision, 36 in another, for withholding arms to Israel. That is now a mainstream democratic view. And a year ago, it would have been wildly controversial. And we know that because on similar votes, there were many fewer supporters. And part of that was also about Iran, because there was a perception that this was done to defend Israeli security interests. And the administration itself sort of said, we did this because Israel was going to attack and we had to step in before Israel attacked Iran.

53:17Philip H. Gordon:So I think, as usual, wars usually, they don't necessarily create new situations, but they reinforce trends that are already underway. And there was a trend in strains in the US-Israel relationship that I think this will deeply reinforce. With the Gulf allies, it will, I think, raise questions about their, also going back to sort of what we wrote at the heart of the piece about allies and plan B, about their ability to count on the United States. Most of them strongly opposed this war because they had too much to lose. And they made it clear publicly that the irony is like 10 years ago, many of them might have pushed the United States to have a regime change policy in Iran, but they made their peace.

54:03Philip H. Gordon:And partly they made their peace, you know, the Trump administration, remember Saudi Arabia and UAE were attacked by Iran or proxies, the Saudi refinery at Upcake, the Emirati flag tankers in the Gulf. Trump didn't want to respond to that, didn't want to get bogged down in the Middle East and the Gulf countries for the most part.

54:20Mara Karlin:This is in 2019. 2018 and 19.

54:23Philip H. Gordon:Yeah, 2019 for the Upcake attack and Trump didn't respond and the Gulf allies just realized, you know, they had too much to lose in conflict with Iran and they're, you know, developing their economies and financial centers and data centers and attracting hundreds of billions of dollars in US investment. And a regime change war in Iran, especially a failed one, was not what they needed. And yet, Trump and Israel decided to do it anyway. It led to what they feared, which was Iranian attacks on infrastructure, which again, strikes at the heart of their business model of projecting stability, home for investment.

54:59Philip H. Gordon:Needless to say, this did not come out well and was not well managed from Washington. and they, you know, they, again, you can't underestimate they were attacked. The UAE was attacked over 3000 times by drones and ballistic missiles from Iran. Now, fortunately, they had a significant amount of air defenses, but they're going to need more. They're going to need to rely on themselves. So I'm not in any way saying that you'll see the Gulf partners break with Washington. You know, some are going out there and predicting they're going to ally with China. I think that the U S will remain their partner of choice, but it is a reminder to them of how vulnerable they are with Iran.

55:34Philip H. Gordon:I think you'll see them wanting to make their peace. They already had kind of decided to make their peace with Iran. And one conclusion that they're going to have to draw is they're going to have to be able to do that. I've been speaking broadly about the Gulf, and it's important to put a big asterisk on that. They're different countries with different views. And I think you're seeing quite a different reaction from the UAE post-conflict than from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and others. UAE seems even more determined to stick with this alliance with the United States and is understandably determined to punish Iran for having attacked the UAE.

56:11Philip H. Gordon:But broadly speaking, I think for all of them, they know they're going to have to double down on the ability to defend themselves. So I would agree with that point, that they'll have to double down on their ability to defend themselves. Their options are not great. So a couple of years ago, there was all of this worry about how certain Gulf countries were flirting with China and the potential of basing. And I think this war has actually helped put a lot of that to bed, at least for a period of time, given that China has played such an enabling role in what Iran has done. So, you know, I think if you were a Gulf country intrigued by working closely with China, you're much less interested in doing that.

56:51Philip H. Gordon:You know, another alternative is to try to find someone to give you an extended deterrence relationship, an extended deterrence commitment. Obviously, the Saudis and the Pakistanis have this now. So it'll be really interesting to see if there are any other countries that try to hug Pakistan or if Saudi can try to play some sort of role along those lines. You know, another piece that will, I think, will need to look at how it plays out is that we have seen some of the Gulf countries using force against Iran in this war. And so obviously the UAE and Saudi are the examples here, but their willingness to respond directly on Iranian territory makes you wonder the extent to which they felt like they needed to show it wasn't just them relying on the U.S.

57:35Philip H. Gordon:doing what it was doing. And so how does that maybe play out a little bit differently? So Gulf security going forward, I think is going to be actually a really interesting dynamic piece to look at. Mara referred to Saudi Arabia and UAE striking Iran itself. Of course, they did feel that they had to do some responding themselves, given that Iran was hitting their cities and airports and energy infrastructure. And they know they'll need the capacity to do that in the future. I emphasized that the United States under Trump seemed an unreliable partner, which would be fueling their self-reliance. But they also have to look ahead.

58:13Philip H. Gordon:We're talking about things that can happen, they can't be sure that a democratic president coming in will be as committed to Gulf security as previous ones were, especially if you get a groundswell of resentment over being dragged into Middle East wars or resentment of even the strategic partnership with Israel or resentment of the close relationship between Trump and some of the leadership in the region or a backlash against AI and some of the partnerships we've been doing. So, you know, we've been talking about, you know, unthinkable things or unprecedented things that will also just reinforce.

58:48Philip H. Gordon:They know they're vulnerable because Iran is seems to be, you know, it's going to continue to be a threatening, dangerous neighbor. And they just don't know the degree to which they can count on the United States, you know, with either party in power.

59:00Mara Karlin:Phil, in this world, do you expect the Saudi UAE rift to get worse or for them to patch it up given the kind of shared pressures they face?

59:10Philip H. Gordon:You know, long term, you bet on patch up because this region has many ups and downs and leaders change and, you know, they all have some common interests, but the short run doesn't look too great. They were very much aligned 10 years ago on a sort of anti-Islamist agenda that led them to be working together in Libya and Egypt and Yemen and vis-a-vis Iran. But that has strained over the years. And that post sort of anti-Islamist partnership, you know, on either side, both the leaders in UAE and Saudi Arabia felt the other wasn't living up to its end of the bargain. And whereas UAE went into Yemen, shoulder, shoulder with the Saudis, eventually they pulled out.

59:53Philip H. Gordon:And so Saudis, you know, stayed there fighting the Houthis on their own. And then more recently, the tipping point was when at least the Saudis believed the UAE aligned themselves with separatists in Yemen fighting directly against the Saudis in a kinetic way, which they felt as a sort of betrayal. They have very big differences in Sudan, where previously they were along the same side, but the UAE is perceived by the Saudis as supporting the rapid support forces, what they perceive to be a rebel group where Saudi Arabia is aligned with the government, the Sudanese armed forces, and the Emirates perceive them as Islamists in aligned with some of their neighbors.

1:00:32Philip H. Gordon:UAE is working with Israel and recognizing Somaliland. Saudi's on the other side of that. Saudi Arabia's trying to develop its own economy and attracting business there, including using visa and other levers to woo business from Dubai to Saudi Arabia. So all of these things going on has sort of fractured that close alignment that they had. And it's playing out much more openly than it has for many years. And of course, the region goes beyond these internecine battles. I feel like the UAE-Saudi rift really occupied a lot of our minds before this war kicked off. But during this war, for example, something like half the attacks on Saudi territory have come from Iraq.

1:01:13Philip H. Gordon:And so I think the fragmented security that's happening around the Gulf is actually just so much more complicated than it will have been status quo ante.

1:01:22Mara Karlin:That's from Shia militias in Iraq, not the Iraqi government, I assume.

1:01:26Philip H. Gordon:Indeed.

1:01:27Mara Karlin:Well, I want to close by asking each of you to reflect on other pieces you've written, not together, that seem particularly interesting in this context. Mara, you wrote a piece in 2019 with Tammy Wittes called America's Middle East Purgatory about the difficulty of success of American administrations to reduce commitment, reduce presence in the region, and kind of laying out a framework for how to do so. We've now had two subsequent administrations that have both professed to want to invest less and spend less and devote less attention to the Middle East. Both of them have failed. You were in one of them in the Biden administration.

1:02:05Mara Karlin:As you reflected on the six years or seven years of continued failure since you wrote that piece, what have you learned about what is so difficult about, in fact, reducing that commitment? And if you were, you know, back in government and administration in a few years, what would it take to really make that move in the way that you suggested that piece?

1:02:27Philip H. Gordon:Look, I don't think the Trump administration is suffering from being in Middle East purgatory, like Tammy Wittes and I discussed, because I think that they're all in on this region. I think it is clearly a priority for them. And the last few months have demonstrated that. And the events last summer have as well. And you see this with the partnerships across the Gulf, etc. In the Biden administration, before the Hamas attacks on October 7th, we had made some progress in recalibrating our posture in the Middle East. And that was important. And it was really, really difficult to do because there's a genuine tension.

1:03:07Philip H. Gordon:Whenever you start with something and you make any downward shift to it, it is going to be interpreted in different ways. And I think there were real debates over how to convey to the region that its security still matters, which I believe it did and it does and it will continue to do so. But how you manifest that importance can very much differ. It doesn't have to be manifested by two carrier strike groups sitting there. And for example, in the second half of 2021 and 2022, we had none, which was actually really important for regaining the readiness of those capabilities. But to make this actually work, you have to have a whole of government approach so that both inside the U.S.

1:03:54Philip H. Gordon:government and with our regional partners, there's an understanding that there's so much more to the relationship than if X number of troops and Y capabilities are sitting in the region or can surge into the region. And I think you need to have meaningful, convincing ways of articulating what's deterring and what's not deterring. And frankly, otherwise, it is just so easy to continue the status quo out of genuine and valid concerns and sort of trepidation of what comes next in this region.

1:04:29Mara Karlin:Phil, I want to get you to talk about a forthcoming piece that will be out in Foreign Affairs soon that in some ways makes a case that is a bit in tension, I think, with the plan B argument and that you're arguing for future U.S. administrations to do what they can to recommit to the order, to recommit to the alliance system and rebuild it for a new time. Give that case from an American perspective and talk about the way that fits with what you see as the moves that allies should be making that in some ways cut against them.

1:05:00Philip H. Gordon:Yeah, I do have a forthcoming piece I'll be eager to get reactions to. And you say it could seem in tension with the plan B argument, but it's actually not. It's kind of the bookend to it. What I say in the new piece, which Mara and I didn't disagree with then, is that it doesn't have to be that way. Allies would be crazy to assume it'll all be fine and the Trump thing will pass and someone else will come back and the US will hold up. There's too much evidence to the contrary. And I certainly can't guarantee that that America will be back, which is why we said you allies really need a plan B. But I argue in the new piece that we don't have to be resigned to that future just because the current government is pursuing that path and a lot of Americans are frustrated with the world role.

1:05:45Philip H. Gordon:And I try to remind people in that piece, as I said earlier in this discussion, that world order served us pretty well. I mean, of course, it had his flaws and as Prime Minister Carney said, there were hypocrisies. But it also deterred war and led to the longest period of no great power war and peace and stability for forever. If you look at this 80-year period, it contained nuclear proliferation. It fostered the greatest period of prosperity the world has ever known. And I'm just a little bit worried that Americans are throwing out the baby with the bathwater and basically somehow come to this view, partly, you know, because Trump keeps telling him that, that we got nothing out of this deal and it weakened us.

1:06:28Philip H. Gordon:And a better way to run the world is not to care about norms or institutions or world order or the global commons or allies, but to just get what you want. And I try to argue that that did not serve countries well in the past, including the United States, that we're actually still powerful enough to play a global role. Of course, we have our troubles, but the US is still by far the most important world power, GDP, size of the economy, technology companies, energy, independence. We still have a bigger share of global GDP as we did at the end of the Reagan administration. So I think there's way too much of that.

1:07:07Philip H. Gordon:We're weak now. We can't do this anymore. And so I think that as we look towards the next election and the role the US wants to play in the world, it would just be wrong to throw in the towel and say, let's just try our luck with the world without principled, strong American leadership. I think there is space for much more optimistic, assertive American leadership of a rules-based order that would benefit Americans.

1:07:34Mara Karlin:One of the fascinating dynamics of the next several years is, at least could be, what happens if you do have an American administration that is pushing that kind of vision combined with allies that have taken on some of the advice that you two offer. So we will pick that up in the future, perhaps.

1:07:49Philip H. Gordon:And that's why I think, Dan, that this is not just the right thing. It's actually possible. I mean, it's always fine to write what the world should be like. But I think one of the ironic or unintended consequences of the Trump administration is to remind Americans of the importance of world order and international norms and alliances. I mean, I think support for alliances is now higher than it's been for decades because Trump has showed us the cost of alienating them. Even for free trade, Trump's tariffs by imposing costs on the American people in a non-progressive way and leading to inflation has reminded Americans there are benefits of trade too.

1:08:27Philip H. Gordon:Now we've got to get it right this time. And we have to understand that it also creates inequalities and Chinese overcapacity is a problem. But again, on the baby bathwater thing, the lesson I think Americans have learned from Trump is clearly not to just throw in a bunch of tariffs and think like we did in the 1930s that that's going to lead to more prosperity for Americans. So that's why I'm hopeful. Again, I take nothing back from the warning with Mara six months ago that no one can count on this. I can't promise that it's the case, but I think it's possible. And I certainly think it's in the American interest.

1:09:02Mara Karlin:Well, thanks so much to you both for doing this today. Thanks for the great Plan B piece from several months ago and for the other work that we have coming in foreign affairs from both of you in the coming months.

1:09:13Philip H. Gordon:Thanks for having us.

1:09:14Mara Karlin:Thanks, Dan.

1:09:32Mara Karlin:and Connish Thoreau. Our audio engineer is Christopher Cook. Original music is by Robin Hilton. Special thanks as well to Irina Hogan. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you like what you heard, please take a minute to rate and review it. We release a new show every Thursday. Thanks again for tuning in.

1:10:10Philip H. Gordon:We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Foreign Affairs Interview. Don't forget to visit foreignaffairs.com slash spotlight to sign up for Dan Kurtz-Valen's free weekly newsletter featuring more of the clear-headed analysis that you enjoy here on the podcast. Sign up today at foreignaffairs.com slash spotlight. Thank you.