Trump, Putin, and the End of American Power — with Dr. Fiona Hill

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27:48So I'll put forward a thesis and you respond to it. There's just enough support from the EU and the U.S. to ensure that Ukraine or decrease the likelihood that Ukraine collapses. Russia's paying a huge cost they're comfortable paying a huge cost they have a lot on the line it feels as if if Russia were to collapse or have a you know just a very obvious defeat that there's a decent chance that Putin might find a window it just feels like it all adds up to the following Dr. Hill that we've got more war for the foreseeable future thoughts? Yeah look I think that's sadly the best assessment you know barring some major changes if we look back at other similar wars of attrition or the meat grinders there was always you know something either external that happened some external shock or in the case of one of the protagonists an internal shock if you look back to world war one of course it was the the german monarchy that collapsed the german state the first german state in the second it was the defeat of Germany in the battlefield after being pulled out over extended lines for too long and you know basically not fighting on their home turf and of course Russia is not fighting on its home turf either even if it tends to present it as being home turf and the sense that Ukraine is historically part of Russia as Putin's always telling us.

29:16The other case as well as of some change in the international system. Now, if we look back a few months ago, when Trump came into power, Putin thought that was great, because Trump was going to shift the whole thing. In fact, we were all worried about that as well, that Trump was going to shift the whole course of the conflict in Putin's favor. And frankly, he has in many respects. But now, you know, there's a shift again. So I think absent some major change, some major shock to the system, either externally or internally, we're going to go on with this for some time. But there could be, of course, a recalculation inside of Russia if all the kind of difficulties mount.

29:55If you're getting fewer people willing to sacrifice themselves on the front, if there's a shock to the economy, for example, that constrains Putin's abilities to keep moving forward. I mean, He can't see much sign of that just yet. But over the next year or so, it may also be that if he does get enough grip of the battlefield, which clearly is what we're looking at right now, that he's trying to take over the whole of the Donbass region, that he might be prepared to settle in some temporary fashion for the lines, frozen as they are. He's always hinting that there might be some deal to be made over Zaporizhia and Kherson, which are these two other provinces in the south of Ukraine, that Russia partially controls.

30:37is laid claim to and annex them as well, at least in terms of a de facto sense of declaring them part of Russia. But Ukraine is still in control of large portions of Zaporizhia and Kherson. And Putin may then actually say, OK, I'm willing now to stop the fighting. And then he might just try to use political and economic pressure on Ukraine instead to find other means of moving forward. But I don't think it's really shaken in any way his ultimate objectives, which is to get as much of Ukraine and as much control over Ukraine as he possibly can. But I think he can make a lot of mischief politically in Ukraine as well, in large part because neither Putin nor Trump are particularly big fans of Volodymyr Zelensky.

31:24And the US itself has also been talking about the need for Ukraine to have a new leader and certainly have another election if we get to the point of a ceasefire and peace negotiation. So there's all kinds of other ways in which, absent the increase or the persistence of the conflict on the front lines of the battlefield, that Putin can try to get a grip on everything. And he can continue to keep pressing lots of buttons inside of European politics and the US as well. I mean, you've seen all kinds of things that the Russians have done lately to try to whip up, you know, sentiment and acrimony and, you know, basically division within the United States and Europe.

32:03You're a former U.S. National Security Council official. And just as an observer, between, and I use this word loosely, the summit in Alaska, where I felt we were just embarrassed. In between Donald Trump, I would argue, thrusting now what is going to be the largest consumer economy in the world, India, into Russia's hands. I thought the most chilling photo of 2025 was the picture of Modi, Xi, and Putin. It strikes me that what we have done has done nothing but embolden and build the confidence of Putin. Your thoughts? Yeah, I think that's exactly the point, which is why we need to do something different.

32:49If you're in a hole and you keep on digging, we're just going to end up right at the bottom of where you've laid out here. And Modi was doing his own signaling very clearly. This was at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting that happened to be in China ahead of President Xi presiding over a huge military parade in Beijing to mark the end of World War II in Asia. and essentially, you know, to kind of pretend that it was China and the Soviet Union and Russia that brought an end to that war, when we actually know, of course, that the United States played a major role in ending World War II in Asia as well, but was, you know, very pointedly excluded.

33:31And Modi was basically capitalizing on that ability to signal back to the United States that he didn't take kindly to these imposition of tariffs. And, you know, that gets back to what said about Trump not wanting to do anything directly to counter Russia, but wanting to do things indirectly. And he saw India as a weak link and thought he had a lot of leverage over India because of India's desires to have access to the massive U.S. markets. I said U.K. there by a slip of the tongue, but actually that leads to really my next point that I want to make is that India and other countries do have vested interests in other places, not just in the United States.

34:06It's, of course, true that the United States is the world's biggest consumer market in the sense of the market that everybody wants to gain access to. And, I mean, China, of course, is right there, too. But, you know, traditionally, people have wanted to get into the U.S. market to push forward in innovation. And, you know, they see this as a kind of a testing ground, you know, for their own prosperity. There's so many reasons to be in the United States. But those reasons also hold for Europe. China, India, Japan, South Korea, you know, Russia less so now because of everything that's been happening, have vested interests in the success of Europe.

34:40As one of my colleagues here at Brookings is writing a book about the future of the world economy, and is basically pointing out that China cannot pick up the slack. If the United States takes itself off the scene, China is not going to keep the whole world economy going. But, you know, Europe is obviously a significant place for investment, as well as a significant source of foreign direct investment itself. India has these strong, historic, difficult ties, obviously, with the United Kingdom. But there's a great deal of interest in Europe's success. So this is an opportunity again for Europe to actually do something differently there and to engage with India, Japan, South Korea, many other countries, and also China, to basically say, look, if this is the direction of travel here, you know, we need to do something different.

35:29But you, in the case of China and other countries, are supporting Russia in a war that is ruining the future prospects for Europe. And if you want to be part of our success as well, including on all of the different things that would go for India rather than China, that we're doing in the military industrial space, then you need to do something about bringing that war to an end and stop messing about in it. Because, you know, we're not just a playground here in between the United States and all of you. I mean, that might be difficult, but, you know, it's one other thing where I see that there could be a way of putting this in a different direction.

36:10But, you know, when we constantly see things as a competition between the US on the one side and, you know, everybody else on the other, we then often fail to see where there are other opportunities. I had read that Ukraine had damaged 17 percent of Russia's oil infrastructure, and obviously that has different interpretations by what is meant by infrastructure. Isn't that potentially the key or the solution here, that if the Americans and the Europeans were to get serious and give the Ukrainians what they need to take that number from 17 to 18 to 19, just a slow march towards debilitating or kind of defenestrating the oil infrastructure, at which point the economy does collapse.

36:55I mean, this is, I think it's 50 % of their GDP is related to fossil fuels. And I realize you're geopolitics, but you also, it's impossible to do what you do without being cognizant of military strategy. Isn't that arguably the key here? Well, look, the key certainly is reducing all of the revenue to the Russian state. And as you've pointed out, oil and gas is pretty critical there in terms of its exports and also the revenues directly to state coffers. There's already been a reduction in the amount of gas that Russia is selling to Europe. But oil remains the key because, in fact, oil is the biggest source of revenues over gas for the Russian state directly.

37:42And oil basically reaches the market from Russia in various different means either directly. And look, there were still pipelines for oil. When the pipeline that was blown up in the Nord Stream pipeline, that was for gas. Russian oil pipelines, including the famous pipeline Druzhba Friendship, still go from Russia directly into Eastern Europe, into East Germany, for example, and into Hungary and other places. And we've heard the Hungarians say they have no desire whatsoever to stop buying Russian oil and gas if they can have it as well. But we're also getting countries like India, that's why Trump basically imposed those tariffs on India, because it's recognising that there are many different ways in which Russian oil meets the market.

38:26It's not just the shadow fleet bringing Russian oil, but it's also other countries buying and refining the Russian oil and creating refined product. And that's another area that we really do have to tackle. And look, European countries like France and many others continue to buy Russian oil one way or another. I mean, you can't put some kind of little stamp on the hydrocarbon molecules. But we can see exactly how integrated Russian oil still is into global markets. But of course, that's going to have knock-on effects. It's a time when we are worried about the long-term economic health of the UK, European countries, Germany, and also the United States.

39:09Now, it's easy enough for the United States to say some of these things as well, because the United States remains a major producer of oil and gas. but some of the other actions would have to require the Saudis being on board you know the whole OPEC countries to agree to all of this as well so you'd have to engage in some complex diplomacy and it's not particularly clear to me right now so it gets back to some of the problems that we keep identifying here that the major countries that are oil purchasers you know want to engage in those kinds of negotiations and discussions although if the United States wants to do that directly with Saudi Arabia or other major oil producers or the consortiums to try to keep oil prices down while they put the squeeze on Russia.

39:53And the Russians see this coming. And of course, they're heavily involved in their own Middle East diplomacy and dealing with the Emirates and the Saudis themselves.

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43:03We're back with more from Dr. Fiona Hill. So speaking of diplomacy, Churchill said that the only thing worse than fighting with your allies is fighting without them. It feels as if in one fell swoop or just in five or six months, I think of it just as a soccer mom in Madison, Wisconsin, could likely swing the election. you know, the swing voter, right? The small number of people that matter somewhere that can tip things have disproportionate power. It struck me that the new swing votes globally are the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and India. Big economies, militaries sort of straddling the fence. They purposely position themselves as the swing votes.

43:54And just strategically, you really want to be nice to the swing voters. And it strikes me that in short order, we have taken India, who as an academic, I just am so upset that we have trashed this amazing connective tissue we've had between, I know, you run a university, I believe you're the chancellor, is that correct? That's right, I've done a university in the UK, yeah. I mean, it's just impossible to go through any world-class university and not find just incredibly talented people from India. And we had this great connective tissue with India, English speakers, more PhDs than anywhere else in the world, a democracy.

44:38And then the kingdom, we've had military bases, really strong relationships. And it seems as if we have purposefully thrust India into Russia's arms and somewhat alienated or put a chill on relationships with the kingdom. I just can't imagine, just to be blunt, I just can't imagine anything more stupid geopolitically to alienate the forces that have a disproportionate amount of power because of their economic strength, where they sit regionally, and the fact that they were, quite frankly, kind of up for grabs, if you will. And I don't mean to put words in your mouth. So, So your thoughts on that, on those statements?

45:22Well, look, I think that's exactly the right way to be framing all of this, because we're in a period of incredible flux. The international system has collapsed. Let's just admit it, even though we've got the UN General Assembly still going on, and there are a lot of countries out there that actually do see some value still in the UN system as a way of being able to mediate, modulate, and actually agree on some collective things. The United States has basically declared the system that it built itself dead and is just basically like everybody else jostling for power and the kind of free-for-all that has replaced it.

45:57And in that instance, as you're pointing out here, if the United States is just one of many countries, the more you alienate, the more difficult you make things for yourself. and those swing countries, you've absolutely accurately point out to India and Saudi Arabia being pretty key there. And I would say all the Gulf states, the Emirates, collectively pretty important. You've also got Brazil, which President Trump has taken to task for basically prosecuting former President Bolsonaro, who was a personal supporter of Trump's, for basically staging a coup in Brazil. He's alienated the Brazilians pretty effectively there too.

46:37He has a large power in the Western Hemisphere and the Brazilians are not very happy at all by the state of affairs and they have international clout too. South Africa, another major player regionally and Trump has absolutely ruined that relationship as well for a whole variety of different reasons. And we could go on like this with basically treating everybody with a very heavy hand and forgetting that One of the biggest reasons for US success was soft power. And soft power manifested itself in many different ways, but also in diplomacy and in the extension of humanitarian aid, which has all been abruptly ended to countries around the world.

47:19So yes, absolutely. If you look to the future, to a system that is already taking on more of regional structures, the United States is the one that's pushing itself into isolation because you've ruptured the relationships with Europe. There's a new report come out from the European Council on Foreign Relations seeing that the United States is doing more to export culture wars to Europe right now and interfering in European domestic politics than it is to being a defender of the traditional fundamental bases of European democracies and also of their economies, let alone what we've all just talked about, the United States moving away from being engaged in collective defence in Europe.

48:02So in that regard, I mean, the future looks pretty grim from a US perspective. I think people are going to slowly realise over time that they've done an awful lot to undermine the bases of the United States power at large globally. And the United States may well be heading towards being a middle power of its own devising. Because Russia has already declined in a major way in terms of its power from the superpower status of the Soviet Union. Russia's never really replaced that. And we've talked about all the problems that Russia's facing. I would say that this war in Ukraine is going to be, even if it's a victory for Russia, a very fyric victory, you know, very similar to what happened to the United Kingdom, Great Britain after World War I and World War II, supposedly the pinnacle of achievement and actually the death knell, not just for the British Empire, but for, you know, Britain is a really robust policy and economy.

48:58And I think that's where the United States is heading itself. It really struck me what you just said, that America's biggest export or major export has become culture wars. It's just, that's such an interesting way to summarize that, okay, we should be selling Nvidia GPU hopper chips and Escalades. And to a certain extent, I think of my industry as being a tremendous export. You know, we get foreigners to come over and spend half a million dollars at 90 points of margin such that they can hang out in Soho at NYU or at Stanford. and then now all we're doing is exporting kind of havoc and chaos and making making things harder for the leaders it feels as if one of the frustrations of being a progressive here in the united states is i feel like there's this enormous vacuum and opportunity in white space for leadership and a lot of democrats are really frustrated that no one appears to be stepping into the void i'm sure you're cognizant of it you know governor newsom got a lot of credit for sort of hitting back, even if sort of a funny mocking way.

50:05But there doesn't appear to be a lot of leadership pushing back on quote unquote Trump. Do you see anyone stepping into the void in Europe to show the kind of leadership they need to push back on Putin? I have trouble identifying. It just strikes me as an enormous opportunity for somebody to step up and be seen as the leader of Europe right now, at least from a rhetorical standpoint, pushing back on Putin? Yeah, look, I think it's the same problem in both places. I do think that leadership can come from unexpected quarters in the United States as well, more from the periphery than it's necessarily going to come from the center.

50:48And that doesn't mean California and the governors, for example. It can be, Spencer Cox just recently has been, I think, modeling great leadership in the wake of a massive national tragedy and upheaval in the United States. And we've seen other kind of moral leaders coming forward, governors of states that people don't mostly think about, Utah's part of that as well. You're seeing more people in the United States wanting to run as independent for office and coming from unexpected quarters as well. And I think that's, when you look at Europe, is maybe where we're headed as well. It's going to be the leaders of countries that we've thought of as more peripheral than, you know, the big three of the United Kingdom, Germany and France.

51:34Although you've got a new president in Germany, Friedrich Metz, who's, you know, trying to find his position, he's not really being seen right now as a kind of a major force in Germany in the way that maybe Chancellor Merkel was before, although her reputation and legacy have become somewhat tarnished as well as people have looked back. or in the way previous German leaders really tended to dominate. And in the UK as well, of course, Prime Minister Starmer is under all kinds of political difficulties and still trying to find his feet a year on. And President Macron, you know, his snap election didn't really help.

52:09He's just going through prime ministers in the same way that the UK went through prime ministers, you know, in the previous conservative government. And it's really, I think, going to be up to a constellation of leaders from some of the countries like Norway, Sweden, Finland, for example. It was very interesting when you looked at who came to see Trump in the Oval Office immediately after Alaska. I think you've got a kind of a sense there that you might have a Europe by a kind of a leadership committee. I mean, yes, Mertz and Macron and Starmer were there, but you also had Ursula von der Leyen from the European Commission.

52:48You had Mark Rutter from Norway, from NATO, a former president of, prime minister rather of the Netherlands, but now in his NATO secretary general. And previously you'd had the Norwegian secretary general for NATO who was in the Norwegian government. But you also had Alexander Stubb from Finland. And, you know, there's an interesting choice as a new member of NATO. But Alexander Stubb is extraordinarily competent. Again, all kinds of previous positions in the Finnish government before becoming president. But he actually is deeply steeped in the United States. He studied in South Carolina. He's an amazing golf player.

53:26And he's managed to make a connection with Trump. You also had Giorgia Meloni from Italy, who has been an unexpected success story in her ability to manage the relationship with Trump and has been surprisingly, given her background, outspoken and supportive of doing more for Ukraine. So if you start to kind of look at this, I think you can see that there could be a constellation, a group of European leaders who could work together. But it's not going to be the big three making those decisions. It's not going to be like, you know, when Kiss and Juice asked a question, who do you call in Europe?

54:01Or people used to think, well, you'd call Chancellor Merkel. Or you might have called, you know, way back in the Cold War, you'd probably have called Margaret Thatcher. It's not going to be like that, you know, anymore. I think it's going to be groupings of European leaders really working together. And they clearly coordinated and worked together, you know, very carefully before, you know, they went out to the Oval Office. So I think you're going to see more of a kind of a tag team development in Europe, but they're really going to have to take it up a notch. And frankly, if we go back to the United States, that might be the kind of thing you see here, groupings of governors.

54:31You know, you're already seeing on vaccine mandates, for example, I live in Maryland. I work in Washington, D.C. And I've, you know, just paid attention to the whole of the sort of the northeast of the United States has got together to, you know, present alternatives for vaccine mandates. Same is happening out in California in the West Coast. And you start on those kinds of issues that obviously have a great deal of importance for public health, and you move on from there. We may see this taking root on all kinds of other issues. Just as I said, there might be more of these coalitions in Europe starting to do the same thing outside of the military arena, but also in diplomacy.

55:06see. It's encouraging that you believe there's greater coordination across the EU because from an outsider standpoint, I just see it as sclerotic and everyone has veto power, but no one actually has the power to get anything done. It's just a lot. It feels like, and it's encouraging for you to say, no, they're more, I'm misreading that. Once you break out of the confines of the European Union itself and of NATO, where, you know, again, also the US has a major veto over things, you start to see countries using other arrangements it's kind of creative right because you've got all these agreements i mentioned before between countries in ukraine but you've also got agreements among themselves the uk and germany and germany and france and the uk and france have all had major bilateral agreements recently that go beyond uh just military affairs the uk and norway have as well those two countries are totally entwined together 70 of uk gas comes from just Norway.

56:00And a lot of the wind power generation in the UK comes from Norway as well. You know, it's sort of these ironies of history. You know, you think about the Viking invasions, and now the Norwegians bring wind and gas to the United Kingdom. But it means that they actually have to look out for each other, and their critical national infrastructure is one and the same. So that's encouraging, and I think that, you know, the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts, but I can't think of a conflict like this where there weren't central figures who demonstrated just outstanding leadership. And right now I would argue the most, I don't know, consequential leaders.

56:40Well, I mean, you always have to list the U.S. president, but I would argue right now that's not the kind of leadership that's going to help us right now. I would argue that Putin, Zelensky, and Xi are the most respected and feared leaders and also the most consistent. I guess what I'm asking for from you is someone who straddles between a deep understanding of European politics and U.S. politics and who's observed leaders. Do you see anybody up and coming either across Europe or in the U.S.? where you think if someone had to, if someone told me that in five or 10 years, there was someone had emerged as a dramatic leader, either as it relates to the war in Ukraine or running for president the next time, do any, like, who are you most impressed by?

57:31You know what, it's often people who are right now outside of the elected leadership. You know, I'd mentioned that I'd actually been very deeply impressed by Governor Cox and the way that he handled, you know, recent events in Utah. But I mean, it's not usual for someone from Utah to rise to national prominence and could quite easily fizzle unless he gets kind of the backing of other governors and other elected officials who want to reach out across these parties and divides that are really pulling us down and down in a spiral at the moment. But I do see that there's all kinds of people now coming forward who want to run as independent candidates and kind of expressing their voices.

58:12You know, we may find that the elected, you know, leadership of both the Republican, what's left of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, we say what's left of that too, you know, start to kind of get challenged by people coming from the outside. You get, you know, look, there's an enormous influence from podcasts. You yourself have a very successful, influential podcast, but we look at all the millions of people who are listening to these and listening to people speak there and who might get ideas, you know, from themselves, hopefully good ones in terms of going out there and trying to do something more positive to help people of going out there and trying to make change in local communities out in regions and in states i was recently out in nebraska um for a family wedding and one person who's come to my attention who's running as an independent for a senate race out nebraska is um a guy called dan Osborne, who I'd come into contact with a few years ago when he was leading the union at Kellogg's, the cereal plant out in Nebraska in a strike.

59:15And he just had a lot of really sensible things to say. It's just like an ordinary guy from the shop floor, former veteran, served in the Navy, has come up with some just pretty sensible perspectives on things. And you see a whole host of people like this have decided, look, this system is not working for me, so maybe I'll just try, you know, to go out there. And even if I don't, you know, succeed in getting elected to public offices, trying this twice now, at least I might get a movement going of people who want to change things. And maybe we start by changing things in our local areas and our communities and in our regions at the kind of state level, you know, and that kind of over time starts to force a change at the centre.

59:55Look, the federal government's being dismantled. The states are pretty much on their own right now as well. And, you know, I think the sinking realisation is coming in for a lot of people, you know, that this isn't quite what they expected that they were voting for. They didn't think that all of the safety nets, the insurance policies were going to be removed. And it's the same in Europe. You know, Europeans absolutely made a huge fundamental error for decades, just relying on the United States and basically outsourcing their security. It was always a mistake. And now they've realised it and they're going to have to do something different.

1:00:27And they might not be able to do it at the centre with the institutions that they've got. They might have to do it by coming together in other formats and with unexpected groups of people. As I said, I think someone like Alexander Stubb in Finland has been quite the leader. His predecessor, Soloninista, was also renowned for his leadership. You have a whole host of other prime ministers and figures that come from the Nordic and the Baltic countries. Kaya Callas, for example, who's the high representative for foreign policy in the European Union as a former president of Estonia, who have great moral leadership.

1:01:10And I think that's where we're really going to see change come. The question is, can it come soon enough, quick enough, given the dire nature of the situation that we face right now? I'm not that confident. But I am somewhat optimistic that people are starting to rise the occasion, frankly, because they've got no choice, because we all go down together under these kinds of circumstances. So just in our remaining time here, you've been very generous with us. I want to switch tact a little bit or switch gears. Doctor, do you have children? I do. I have one daughter. So something we think a lot about here is the struggles of young men.

1:01:49and I did a, actually, Secretary of Homeland Security, Secretary Mayorkas, reached out to me and said, I want to have a discussion. And we spent the whole time talking about the security risks posed by young men who are searching deeply online and could potentially be weaponized or radicalized by bad actors. And he was very thoughtful about what does that mean for our ports, our infrastructure, our military. I'm curious in the context of foreign policy and military policy, have you given any thought to the plight, and this isn't something unique to the U.S., we see this across Europe, that young men for a variety of reasons, biological, economic, sociological, biological, are just not doing as well as they once were, and also relative to their female counterparts.

1:02:40And I always like to add, we should celebrate and do nothing around the progress of our young women. But this is a real big issue, I think, in the U.S. Anyways, I'm going to stop there. Have you given any thought? Yeah, look, I think it's an issue globally, and I have thought about it a lot. You know, one of my colleagues here at Brookings is Richard Reeves, you know, who's set up the whole institute now for boys and men. My Yoda and role models. Yeah, exactly. And he's extremely good. I've spent a lot of time talking to him. Of course, my husband is a man. So there's also that we talk, we spend a lot of time talking about this, you know, we also, you know, worry that, you know, my daughter, you know, is 18, just gone out of college, just didn't have the same, you know, set of male friends that I did.

1:03:22I mean, many of my best friends growing up were men, I'm still on list serves with them all. And, you know, that I, you know, we talk about this all of the time. And, you know, wonder, you know, where is this going to go in the future? And in the course of the Strategic Defence Review for the UK, we We looked at recruitment for the military. We worried about all of these issues. And we worried a lot about, you know, the educational opportunities for young men as well as young women. And how, you know, if we look back over the course of time, those opportunities have shrunk. The biggest divide, and I think you and I discussed this the last time, in our societies is on education.

1:04:01Between the 60 % of people who haven't had access to a two or four year college or even, you know, vocational training. and the 40 % that have. And of course, all of this is changing very rapidly as we get into a world where AI is going to substitute for people, including young men in many of those jobs that people have been diverted to in the past. And I think we have to really start thinking about this across the board as how the whole of society tackles it. It's not going to be just one easy fix. It's not just going to be through the educational system. That is certainly for sure. But it's going to be having to be, although the K-12 system does need to be changed and adapted to the needs of young men as I think Richard and Reeves and many others have pointed out I have another colleague Rebecca Winthrop here at Brookings who's just done a fabulous new book on you know the disengaged teen looking at how we really fail kids in middle school you know where they all check out and that's often when young men get into the you know very problems that you're talking about in middle school where they go off into video games and off onto the internet because they're just not engaged at all in school and she and others have you know really been featuring different ways in which you engage people you've got to have more efforts out in society for more community engagement you know that that's what the tragedy of what's happening now in the united states is we're cutting back on all of these federal programs like americorps volunteering all kinds of other arenas where we were really trying to help mentor young men.

1:05:34So look, this is, I think, absolutely one of the most serious issues that we need to tackle. And it does have massive security implications. I mean, look, a lot of the hacking and the cyber hacking that's been happening has been as much from teenage guys as it has been from adversaries like China, North Korea and Russia, though they've obviously been tapping into that dissatisfaction and grievance you know we see that in the acts of mass gun violence and it's not just in the United States but in other places where people have access to gun or stabbings or all kinds of violence you know in the UK on the football fields soccer stadiums you know for example so I think you're absolutely right in highlighting this and I think as societies we have to have more of a national conversation about what we can do But it doesn't mean that we cut away all of those resources.

1:06:29And again, I think that's where you get into the communities and the local governments. I'm actually just about to go tomorrow up to Portland, Maine, where there's an amazing set of community efforts to bring young people in, often featuring a special outreach to boys through sports. and one instance there's a great organization called portland community squash so the game of squash as opposed to the vegetable which can cause a bit of confusion it certainly did for me when i first heard about it i thought what this is about you know vegetable growing but anyway it's the game of squash and you can do this obviously tennis soccer football you know basketball you name it and they create a whole community center around this where they bring in the kids and their families and they start in middle school and they mentor them all the way through and the state of men provide some support for this the city of portland does and there's a lot of private donors and they're trying to take this as an idea across the country as a new version of the ymca which was of course the young men's christian association was also intended to get young men off the street into sports into more healthy and spiritually guided activities so look i think there are all kinds of examples out there but we've got to lean into it and not just you know take it for granted that someone's going to do with it.

1:07:45Dr. Fiona Hill is a senior fellow at Brookings, chancellor of Durham University, and a former U.S. National Security Council official specializing in Russian and European affairs. Fiona is also the bestselling author of There Is Nothing For You Here, Finding Opportunity in the 21st Century, and a leading expert on geopolitics. Dr. Hill, I loved when you said that podcasts were beginning to punch above their weight class and have more of an influence. And I think the reason we're able to do that is we bring out outstanding, thoughtful, fearless guests, and you're one of them. This is your second time on the show.

1:08:17Your first one was one of the most downloaded shows we have ever registered in 400 shows. So your work is resonating, and we very much appreciate your time. Oh, thanks so much, Scott. It's really great to be with you. Thanks so much.

1:08:58Algebra of happiness, being extremely online, we think of being extremely online as a diagnosis for some young man who is playing video games and online 16 hours a day and then harms himself, harms someone else, or is radicalized, or just spends all of his time online doing unproductive things and just has a terrible view of the world. And there's no doubt there's a correlation between feeling bad about the world and how much time you spend on social media, which, see above it, said at the top of the show, has created a rage machine that is the most profitable machine in history. but ask yourself if you are extremely online after the assassination of charlie kirk i just went down a rabbit hole online spending a ton of time on social media and reading stuff commenting on stuff producing content and last weekend literally i noticed i was spending no time with my family or my dogs which are very you know huge sources of mental well-being for me I'm getting more cynical, more depressed, more angry and disconnecting from the real world.

1:10:04And here's the thing. The real world, generally speaking, off your screen is sloppy, difficult, challenging, and very rewarding in a way that no online environment, platform, algorithm can replace. And when I go extremely online and spend too much time online, I find I get very cynical, very angry and quite frankly start just, my mental health takes a hit. And it happens slowly and you don't even recognize it. And the algorithms will recognize where you are politically or what you feel strongly about. It'll pick up on that. And as a means of keeping you glued to your screen, start reinforcing those beliefs by making the other side look like evil, monstrous people and getting you more and more cemented in your own beliefs and raging such that you believe that it's the enemy within, that it's your neighbor that's the problem, that it's the other political party that's your problem.

1:10:57And in fact, and I'm not suggesting, I don't mean to diminish the problems the U.S. is facing right now, but we look away from what are bigger problems. Do you have a good relationship with your partner? Do your kids feel like you're present? Are you taking care of your health? Do you have a good relationship with your parents? Are you making friends? I mean, that's the shit that's really important. The thing that ultimately drives the happiness or the lack thereof in your life is your relationships. And being online a lot, I have found, creates a certain division or sequesters me from the most important things in my life and the things that keep me sane.

1:11:37And that is relationships and getting outside and getting in the sunlight and exercising. So yeah, maybe you don't have to be radicalized. You don't have to be playing video games 16 hours a day. But as Darth Vader said, search your feelings. You know this to be true. Are you spending too much time online? And is it getting in the way? Have you decided that the problems ailing us are so severe? And have you been kind of fooled by the algorithms into believing that these problems and your views on these problems should diminish the amount of time and effort you put into offline, your relationships, exercise, being outdoors.

1:12:21Or simply put, maybe you haven't been radicalized, but maybe it's lowercase radicalized and you just need to stop it and do what Governor Cox suggested, and that is get outside and touch grass. This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez. Our assistant producer is Laura Janair. Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the PropG pod from PropG Media.

1:12:53Support for this show comes from Nike. What was your biggest win? Was it in front of a sold-out stadium? Or the first time you beat your teammate in practice? Nike knows winning isn't always done in front of cheering crowds. Sometimes winning happens in your driveway, on a quiet street at the end of your longest run, or on the blacktop of a pickup game. Nike is here for all of the wins, big or small. They provide the gear, you bring the mindset. Visit nike.com for more information. And be sure to follow Nike on Instagram, TikTok, and other social platforms for more great basketball moments.

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