2018 12 04 Geopolitics Matter 6/6 George Friedman

and now to close her event please welcome to the stage the founder and chairman of geopolitical futures dr. George Friedman I can't think of the more dangerous or thankless tasks than to be the American called to explain America to the Europeans the only thing worse is to be a European call to explain Europe to the Americans this is because we are profoundly different the United States is not a European country its political system doesn't work like a European system this perception of the world is not European its perception of itself is not European it looks like a European country in many respects and me we have a president but he's not that important Congress is much more important and the judge in Hawaii can shut down his entire program but more important the government isn't that important the United States was founded on the distinction between the public and the private and the public was held in suspect the idea of the United States was at government was dangerous and therefore we should make a government that was so incompetent so incapable of making decisions that it would leave everybody alone an example is we have now become the largest oil producer in the world we will shortly become one of the largest exporters no policy by the government no planning by the government no conception of the government was involved in that it happened it happened because two guys in Midland Texas invented a way to increase production and the city of Houston the true capital of oil in the United States just as San Jose is a true capital of tech in the United States Minneapolis is the true capital of food in the United States so I say to my European friends who spend their time in Washington with think tanks and go into congressional hearings it's time to visit America because Washington is as unlike America and as much like Europe as you can get but in the end the decisions that create American policy are not made in Washington they're delivered to Washington by congressmen and congressmen don't care very much about think tanks or policy papers or the State Department's or anything they care about being reelected so I live in Texas in Hays County and I can promise you that my congressman spends more time worrying about what I think know what NATO thinks this is important the structure of power in the United States it's frequently misunderstood in Europe you see Trump he is not a prime minister he is merely a president he faces two Parliament's how divided and a judiciary system that can shut him down there is a vast difference therefore between what he says which really crazy stuff I enjoy it tremendously I mean well how can I where else in the world can I wake up in the morning on Sunday and see psychotic episodes in the newspaper wonderful do not confuse that without the relentless realistic ruthless American foreign policy and what I'm here to speak to is not that Donald Trump is weird yeah credit what I'm trying to we'll want to talk to you about today is the cotton judi of American foreign policy the way in which the United States actually looks at the world and where NATO and Europe fit into this it has to be remembered that for the United States World War two was not about the Atlantic alone it was a pacific war and the stakes in both wars are the same command of the seas for the United States in the 1930s we speak of isolationism only from Europe America was deeply involved in China deeply involved in Indonesia the Philippines facing off with the Japanese it chose not to get involved in Europe on the assumption of the European balance of power would maintain itself this was a miscalculation no one thought the French would collapse in six weeks but it was not a stupid miscalculation the United States has never been never been isolationist from its founding which was created by its alliance with France through its old history the United States has been deeply involved with the global system but not all of it at the same time and shifting depending on circumstances during the Cold War we were both at Atlantic in the Pacific power were fighting in Vietnam we were fighting in Korea we were deployed in Europe we were stretched to our limits after the Cold War the world reshaped itself and so did our foreign policy which is by definition flexible so do not expect the United States to be in 2018 what it was in 1968 to York it was a different time and a different place to give you a sense of the fundamental difference between us the United States is a global power Europe is a regional power and in fact when I say Europe I don't even know who I'm talking about for surely Portugal's foreign policy and the interests of Hungary are not the same so when we look at Europe we have no idea we keep speaking about our relationship to Europe but in fact as I'll try to say is we don't have equal relationship with all countries of Europe we have different relationships with different countries because we don't have a institutional structure that will allow us to have well you have no foreign five you know EU does not have well it sort of has but not really and that's the way we look at it it doesn't really have a foreign policy sort of maybe right now we are involved in dealing with Korea a situation would developed under the Clinton administration and which is currently being followed and precisely the same way avoid direct combat try to induce or pressure North Korea to limit its nuclear program but not really eliminated but be prepared to go to war if that is the only option and therefore and wom we have standing by a substantial amount of our strategic bomber bomber force perhaps to strike in China we have a issue that is was in place as the Bush administration that China does not practice free trade it doesn't have tariffs but it has any number of mechanisms to block American goods informal and otherwise for a very long time we have been able to get the Chinese to adjust it's not in their interest to adjust they didn't expect us to do it and we finally did what the Obama administration threatened it's important because people dismiss all this off Trump having a heart attack forgetting that Obama was trying to head this off and failed and this has had huge consequences on China and relatively little consequence in the United States Germany exports 50% of its GDP China - and the numbers from China or will all over the place but 25 to 30 percent we exports 16 percent of our GDP about half of that to Canada and Mexico - our free trade North American partners we are not vulnerable to trade horse you can't hit our economy that hard we can hit theirs and we've chosen to do that and that is an obsession now the Chinese want to gain control of the South China Sea why if you look at the string of islands around the South China Sea the United States could easily blockade that and the Chinese are afraid that we would and who knows we might on the other hand we cannot let the Chinese take those islands because then they can move into the western Pacific and we bled for the western Pacific world war two in the defeat of the Japanese Navy Guadalcanal and all of these battles are burned into our soul they're not burnt into yourself your Jima is not something that endless films are made of but it's ours and so the I option of allowing the Chinese to enter the Western Pacific is not there we are trying to build an alliance quad 4 which would include Japan Australia the United States and India the Indians practice they don't want to join that dancing around we know that this is the alliance structure we care about because that alliance structure would bring four navies to bear along with the Vietnamese Navy against the Chinese so if you asked me where are the Americans obsessed as they were in World the Cold War is the Pacific what we spent our blood for and we were not about to give up we can't invade China that's out of the question won't and the Chinese can't take us on at sea so we're in a stalemate with an economic war going on in Afghanistan we were negotiating an exit with the Taliban where the United States leaves Afghanistan we lost that work we have to leave in the Middle East the Iranians have expanded to dominate Iraq dominate Lebanon have a significant role in Syria and be operating in Yemen the United States has helped engineer an alliance between Israel and Saudi Arabia the United Arab Emirates no.1 that's a pretty extraordinary Alliance can it hold together well gosh oh geez killing didn't help at all but somebody hit exactly where they had to hit to take that Alliance apart but we are maintaining it now these are the things that the Americans wake up to every day when I do my work I look at China I look at Korea I look at what's going on in Southeast Asia what's happened in the Middle East and then I get to Poland in Romania because I care about Poland Romania because we have troops in Poland an air force base being built in Transylvania I know you'd like it back but that's your problem and then we'll have a pro take it back and we'll have an airbase in hungry it's fine so debate the basic point that I'm making here that's important one is we devote attention to NATO to the degree required which is not very much the European speak about their security interests what's security interests who's about to attack you what security interests do you have in mind would you have security interests are any of your countries coming to the South China Sea or any planning to join the quad alliance are you deploying special forces in Saudi Arabia no NATO is structured to protect Europe we understand that but the United States has interests far beyond Europe to which NATO is inherently irrelevant so there's an asymmetry in the relationship that we have and the asymmetry really goes to the fact that NATO is designed to defend Europe the only threat to Europe is Russia and that's a questionable threat and the place you have to defend them from is Poland Hungary and Romania when we make this case the Germans have said to us well we don't have to build a military we get foreign aid they've actually said that to have a military alliance you must have a military if you have no military there is no military alliance and NATO is a military alliance the United States and Britain have the overwhelming military capability Germany has virtually none and I understand that Germany does not see itself as in danger militarily it does not see any purpose in diverting resources to building a military force but somewhere in the back of a mind that assumes the United States will come under any circumstances should something happen well perhaps you will perhaps he won't but in what sense does NATO exist the American view is that the Europeans have betrayed NATO I know the Europeans think that the Americans have but the American view is during the Cold War where I served the shape Technical Center where we sat there in the Dutch view what they were going to do with the Danish cue what they were going to do the Germans knew what they were going to do we were a team today I cannot even predict that the Germans will permit American forces to pass through its space on the way to Poland in the event of war probably they will but an alliance in which the best you can say is probably is is not sort of guaranteed thing we had when Trump said NATO is obsolete this is what he meant he meant first that it was built to resist the Soviet Union and that level of effort is no longer called for and obsolete in that each nation is not capable of fielding a military I'm not here talking about the 2% number that's a number that politicians and diplomats come up with I mean divisions brigades aircraft I don't know if you need 2% 3% 1% I don't care how many brigades can be deployed in the Poland if the Russians attack so from the American point of view NATO is a trap it's a trap because if we go through the NATO process we can be blocked by 14 different committees and so a much of what we do in Romania and Poland may be through NATO somehow but really is a bilateral relationship the idea that the United States has abandoned Europe is untrue we are deeply committed to Poland and Romania and they to us in each other this is what is left of NATO the rest our dinners with fine wines it is not something that we want to get involved in we are sending our forces to the point I want to make and I always make in the United States today they're about 25 million Americans who served in the Armed Forces veterans in my own family I have two children who've served down the block more the US military is a very personal thing it is not what it's become in Europe and we are very very picky about our lives on a personal level those of us who were in the Cold War and stood in front of the Fulda gap remember our lies when they really were allies and it really was an alliance we don't know where they are anymore let's back off the question of NATO for a moment and understand that the United States follows a strategy global strategy that has been in place for a hundred years with absolute rigor it has two elements first North America is an island and the United States must control the waters leading to those islands at least second the United States cannot tolerate any one power Germany Russia Montenegro whoever from controlling both the European Peninsula and the Russian mainland why it was the combination of technology and natural resources could build fleets that threaten our interests the United States intervenes whenever it appears that that is about to happen in the first world war three weeks after the Tsar fell and this German started moving its forces west the United States declared war and seven months sented million men to France to stabilize the front in the battle in to the United States intervene in Europe in large mass in 1944 to prevent the Germans from surviving or the Russians from seizing everything in the Cold War we remained here standing on the line for 40 years you know because you say Americans are how should I put it you know they have no patience well for 40 years we stood on the line not just here but in Turkey Iran throughout the periphery this policy remains in place in the United States today in 2014 when the Ukranian events happened Obama deployed American forces to Poland and Romania and that deployment is not only continuing it is intensifying so when you look at American policy and you say it's all over yes we've had many strange events the British had the Boer War the Germans seized specific islands you know we all do strange things off the map but there is a consistent and specific thing now expanded to China we control the waters leading to the United States and will under no circumstances Bend for that and we will prevent hegemony in Eurasia okay I began by talking about Donald Trump and how strange a man he is and I'm trying to make the point it doesn't matter we're not a European country the strategy of naval presence is built into a DNA a response to any power threatening Europe is built in their DNA we will have an ideology you know avoiding communism avoiding fascism whatever but the truth of the matter is we have a consistent ruthless and fully understandable foreign policy now with this foreign policy at the moment the American position is our primary threats are in Asia but can easily be managed the other view is that Russia can be managed Russia is a declining power it is a third world power that lives on the export of natural resources it does not control the price of those natural resources so that I looked a few minutes ago oil West Texas Intermediate was 53 dollars a barrel the Russians need at least 70 or 80 to balance their budget this is a country in trouble we are all in trouble that's theirs Russia also has a borderland that it must have like the United States it has imperatives it needs above all else strategic death in the West the strategic depth was provided by the Baltic States in Belarus and Ukraine the second entry point is the Caucasus there it used to be Azerbaijan Armenia and Georgia now it is Dagestan Chechnya or Sasha but so long as they hold the high caucuses there okay over the past years the Baltics have been included in NATO and st. Petersburg is now a hundred miles from NATO where previously it was a thousand they did not like this it didn't bother me they didn't like it but they didn't like it then the Ukrainian events key became from the Russian point of view the Ukrainian event was an American coup d'etat thinking these terms Judith I'm not a pro-western pro-russian government was replaced by pro-western government and the Russians said their United States had no reason to do this in Ukraine if it did not intend to threaten the viability of the Russian Federation because it was a flat rush to Moscow it came close store Russia said we can't live with this line with you here and the American said and we can't live with you on the Carpathians we can't if you press the Carpathians and you're pressing the north we don't have the forces we don't want to have the forces to balance you and a deal was made never published never signed we accepted that Ukraine was a frozen war American forces did not move out of Romania we did not let the Romanians go to Moldova we did not let the poles go to live of and no you guys can go to Carpathians we don't want that because that will force the Russians to act the Russians understood they could not go into Ukraine and so we had a buffer now all buffers built this way are inherently unstable they're unstable because they depend on the power inside the buffer to remain stable and coherent and accept this position which is we didn't have it to sign treaty because then we would have to decide what to do with Crimea and we really don't care what happens to Crimea but we didn't want to say that so left there we would have to discuss the little green men in the east and frankly if you want to send a little green men into the east we can live with that we can't live main Russian force armoured divisions on the border to Romania but we can live with the rest the problem that we have now and this is symptomatic of both the NATO question and the American strategy question whether the Russians are trying to destabilize Ukraine or the Ukrainians are doing for themselves is a theoretical problem I can't solve but there is two major threats on the buffer zone and the biggest one is bellows look at a map Belarus has as its border city Smolensk to the west it opens a front in Poland Lukashenko has kept it steady but as I said in a conversation of the senior official any time I have to defend depend on the defense of my country on the life of one man in his sixties this is not the foundation of stability so now we have Ukraine which the Russians genuinely believe will destabilize which the Americans don't know how to restabilized nor do we understand what will happen if it destabilizes so the Russians are picking picking in the curse straits the Russians cannot forget the borderland we cannot return to the Cold War so the question is and this becomes a dangerous thing if either of these countries destabilize and we think the Russians are coming in do we go first if they think we're coming in do they come first this is the worst of all military Gamble's it's a non nuclear nuclear game and you must strike first no this is a serious matter for which the United States has committed our children very what do we set a medal and they are in Poland they're in Romania where it's snowing my sons in the Air Force and the Air Force is building bases all right we've made the commitment where are our allies what it's natives position on this what is Germany's position they wrote a very strong statement condemning the Russians no certainly the Russians were retreating in fear is their NATO what is its policy on the Eastern Front in the event of destabilization knowing that by the time it destabilizes is too late to do anything so this is the divergence of the United States and of NATO we've done something we didn't ask NATO's permission we have the permission of Poland we have the permission of Romania I would welcome to Pacific permission of Hungary one day and perhaps we'll get it each country plays its own game each country lives with the consequences of the game it plays for us the consequences the possibility of a conflict that we don't want but given my description of American strategy you know why you're in Poland and Romania we do not know what Germany's national strategy is we do not know what Italy's national strategy is we have no idea what the French are doing now we once did when NATO is the bulwark against the Soviet Union we knew what the national strategy at all size was now it is no longer clear who is with us who is not with us who is working with the Russians who is not working with the Russians we can all have a coherent policy we can all say look we need to reach out to the Russians to help stabilize them to them confidence but what we're doing is moving against each other Germany wants to give them confidence and we're flying very large aircraft in the Black Sea we have to get together and talk about it these are the conversations that NATO doesn't want to have because if they have it they have to have a resolution on the table and if they have a resolution on the table they have to say yes or no and the NATO position on anything is ambiguous so when we talk about very concrete military problems with NATO two things will happen first you Americans a Yank our Cowboys okay fair enough I like me God way the second is that you do not understand the complexity of this situation during the Cold War we understood the complexity and we had to simplify it by placing forces in a blocking position the situation is complex the situation is always complex you can use that complexity to paralyze yourself or you can say let me simplify this this is grenade launcher it goes 400 feet it's simple I don't mean to be light on war we have fought wars now for 1718 years and all of our children in my country have been somehow exposed what I am saying is that we need some clarity between us but we do not even have a common understanding of the threat we do not even understand what we are obligated to commit so at the same time that we would love to have some European help in the Pacific or in the Indian Ocean or in the Middle East but don't even expect it we would at least like the have some European help in Europe and even that is not forthcoming the point that I want to make is there two perceptions of NATO one is the American one is the European the European perception is that their NATO exists for European security they state this without telling us what the threat to European security is so we can't prepare for it and therefore they don't have to allocate forces to deal with it security has become a metaphysical concept it's a you need to read canto abdominus to any future metaphysic to understand what the Europeans mean vice security we don't understand it we do understand that we have a military and if anything happens we go the American view is that NATO has become a trap this is you will not find us in Washington and you will not find us in Boston you will find this outside of there in the residence in America and what you will find is a feeling that what NATO will do if you go through NATO is slow you down at the moment you cannot afford to be slowed down this is not because we are gunslingers we're looking for wars it is that if the Russian situation deteriorates which I hope it doesn't which I don't think it will but who knows we will not have time for discussions NATO used to have a single integrated strategic plan which told us all the contingencies if this happens that the Russians move into Norway if the Russians move into Norway and Turkey is every single there are people who spend their entire lives with these plans and came out very crazy because they had to imagine every contingency what if the Hungarians decide to break with the Russians and attack on their own that was really a plan I said these guys were crazy but that's what they were supposed to do there is no plan there is no coherent plan there's no call here an understanding of what the danger is there is no alliance except for the meetings with the United States be prepared to have an alliance absolutely European GDP is the same as American GDP there is no reason why the European military should not be as large and capable as the American none accepted the Europeans I want to spend the money got that I understand but then we cannot permit ourselves to be trapped into commitments that we cannot succeed in our own and have no allies we've learned what it's like to have such commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan these are bad ideas so from our point of view it is Europe's move to tell us now when Trump said NATO is obsolete and Merkel said we are on our own that we have no hope she thought she was insulting the Americans we were happy you're on your own go there is the idea now the European military we wholeheartedly endorse this does nobody doesn't want it the United States who will command it what language will you use what you know what is the strategy and how long will it be before you replace American forces in Poland and Romania so we can go home this is a wonderful idea now you know that could happen I know it's not going to happen I know that your Prime Minister said it should happen he's right but it won't because who's going to put themselves under the command of a German what army is gonna put themselves with I've gotta be crazy to put yourself at the command the French I mean how are you going to do this an alliance structure works because your troops are all under your command but you have obligations and commitments and this is the fundamental question it is not a European illusion of an army it is each country that chooses to be part of the security zone benefiting from the security and paying for it not in money but in the children in different their commitment to the military this is what was this is not I'm not inventing something new this was what it was so the thing that I would ask as an American is I understand that we Americans are very unsophisticated and we don't understand the true complexities of the world because I've been to Europe and they've told me many times but somehow we managed and in this particular case your Eastern Front is being held by a coalition of Romania Poland and the United States and this is NATO today this is NATO because this is European security these are the countries that are committed to it and these are the countries taking the risks so I'm sorry this sounds like a political speech but why not it is not because I oppose a relationship with Europe I would love to have a relationship with Europe I would love to know what relationship the Europeans want I think I know it is one in which they spend no money and we come and help okay we're not going to do that we will defend what we have to defend remember why I said we have to defend the border American strategy calls for that and we're there and we can set the level of threat there's no problem I mean but if things fall apart we're going to be flying a lot of troops here very fast we know how to do that so I would urge the Hungarian government to consider if all hell breaks loose we're gonna have to chat very fast it's going to be a quick phone call okay thank you very much [Applause] thank you very much dr. Friedman ladies and gentlemen that concludes our conference I would like to once again thank our partners of thinker of speakers for their insights our partners the Kannada native tongue and the Danube Institute our sponsor the NATO public diplomacy division as well as all of you for being here today I think you're in for your questions and for your engagement with speakers we look forward to seeing you at future events as well and thank you once again [Applause] you

Channel: Danube Institute

Views: 154,166

Rating: 4.6296296 out of 5

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Id: tJmrODCZmmw

Length: 41min 9sec (2469 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 23 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/GreatSunBro]

This video is an important reminder that Europe does not exist as a coherent political and military entity. On paper Europe may be bigger in population and economy than Russia, but that does not translate automatically into soldiers and armies.

Unless Western Europeans are willing to fight, bleed, die and spend for Eastern Europeans, and vice versa, there can be no EU army.

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[u/ShamTheater]

George Friedman talking about the changing relationship between Europe and the US. The U.S. security interest in Europe is to prevent a German-Russian axis from ever forming. The US strategy is to guarantee the sovereignty of Romania and Poland to use them as buffer states between East and West. NATO has effectively become these three countries because they are the ones that have skin in the game.

[u/i_already_forgot]

I understand his first 5 minutes is meant to assauge his audience that there is absolutely nothing wrong with America, but his examples do the exact opposite. A "psychotic" (quote from the video) should not be the president, no matter how weak he is.