GLOBSEC 2014 CityTalk: A Global Outlook For The Next Decade

is the founder and CEO of strap for rather than try to tell you what strap for is I thought I'd asked George to tell us what Stratfor is well in 1996 when we found a strat for I was watching what I thought was the collapse of journalism and by that I mean the deep non-ideological non opinionated analysis of the world and you know there were all sorts of things in 1996 in that period that were being celebrated as phenomenal the world would never see war again and stuff like that and the New York Times and the rest were leading it and I thought it was time that many of the things that were in the world of intelligence be bought into the public the Internet and a bunch of other things made information cheap easy to obtain analysis was crucial in impartial non-ideological to these done possible objective analysis of what is going on in the world and so we started Stratfor and it was intended to be an intelligence organization using intelligence methods now let me draw a distinction between intelligence and espionage which is well known and at CIA between the Directorate of intelligence which does analysis and Director of Operations which does the things that you would expect it to do intelligence does not mean in espionage it means looking at the world in a certain way collecting information efficiently it is about analysis and that's what we did we wanted to in an age when information about the world was becoming less and less understandable create a platform that we could use intelligence to serve the public and as I'd like to say it was what we called alerted public that we were appealing to which is the term no longer used widely but it meant it wasn't for Washington for foreign policy people who made their livings at foreign policy it was for people who were citizens and cared about such things and that's what Stratfor is and then of course here the author of a number of books the most famous one is probably the next hundred years which is actually a history of the 21st century of a kind which is all the more remarkable for the 21st century not having yet unfolded but at the same time it is also a book that in its earliest predictions which is to say the ones that in which you discussed what might be happening by say the year 2014 it's a book whose predictions have been vindicated and so why don't you tell us a little bit about your method in that book what what were you trying to do and how well there's a belief particularly the business community that anything is not quantitative can't be predicted you can predict you know many things you can sit in a room and watch a man and woman together and say they will fall in love there are all sorts of non quantitative things that you can do and this was an attempt to show how we predict such things the way we predicted is in a very unsentimental way the first thing to get rid of his hopes and dreams and the second thing is to believe that the human condition doesn't change all that fast that what happened in the past may well happen in the future not the same way but the same principles are at stake and it began with a look at the post-cold war world which had three pillars the United States European Union and China and we looked at the United States I looked at the United States I say we cuz my wife really wrote it I just she doesn't put her name on her her reasons we looked at the future of the United States and it was clear to us that the United States is going to withdraw without victory from the Islamic wars in Iraq Afghanistan and some other lesser things we looked at the European Union I looked at European Union and it was unsustainable at the center of the European Union was Germany deriving 40% equivalent of his GDP from exports using a free trade zone to overwhelm economies like Slovakia and others with goods that it could efficiently produce creating a monetary system that made it almost impossible for smaller countries like Greece to get out of the way and creating regulations in Brussels that made it very difficult to be entrepreneurial very difficult to take risks with tax structures that really didn't reward risk-taking and we looked at that and said well this is going to end badly you cannot have if the United States exported 40% of its goods could they be a NAFTA that couldn't happen when Germany arose the united states allowed germany to protect its markets from american goods but allowed german goods to enter american markets so it had an unbalanced trade Germany of course had a very different system and so we saw that that was going to end up in quite a mess and then we looked at China and we saw everybody announcing that China would shortly pass the United States just as Japan had passed the United States in 1991 and we saw that there were structural reasons that couldn't happen so we saw the end of the post Cold War cut we also thought that in the weakness of Europe Russia would re-emerge that Russia was reconstructing itself anyway and given the weakness of Europe and the low risk the Russians would reimburse and we published the book and in at first I had there will be a Russian invasion of Georgia and before publication I had to put in the past tense because the Russians that are reasserted themselves so the method that we used was to simply take a look at the obvious we have a rule of Stratfor that says be stupid and by being stupid do not begin but understanding you know the most esoteric publications available in the world by being stupidly mean look at the obvious look at the fact that China has over a billion people who are deeply impoverished look at the fact that Greece and Germany cannot exist under the same monetary regime that's an impossibility and to look at the fact the United States is not going to win to win the war in Iraq in any conceivable way and if you begin by being stupid those things become obvious and from that we started to weave the story of the 21st century and also the author of a more recent book called the next 10 years which is harder the next 10 or the next hundred well if you have the next hundred under your belt the next ten kind of become logical you may be wrong but you can now bracket it somehow say and it was in in that book that I really started speaking extensively about two things in Anton's between the United States and Iran which i think is currently under way and also a ukrainian crisis because it was clear that Russia was would re-emerge and Ukraine was going to be the battleground that was over time all right well why don't we cut to the chase in that sense and tell us now how we should be thinking about what's happening in Ukraine now well we should first have to remember that nothing really enormous has happened I know we're responding to it but what happened here was what you know kovitch was removed one Sunday I believe Constitution was amended and he left everything else stayed the same in Kiev the Russians responded by invading Crimea now the Russians by treaty had enormous number of forces there so invading Crimea essentially consisted of leaving the base and going across the street and now they didn't invade it so when you look at it Russia had suffered a massive defeat they had if not a pro-russian Ukraine at least one that wasn't hostile now their guy was gone a government of sorts had been created in Kiev that clearly was entangled with the Germans the Americans and so on they now had the Crimea which they always had in other words they had nothing and they started skirmishing in places like Kharkov in the East that had always been under their influence from that point of view if you understand it the Russians had taken an enormous beating Ukraine was fundamental to its national interest for Russia to have survived the polian to have survived Kies of elohim to have survived hitler they needed depth they needed buffer states and a buffer states they had on and off with the Baltics the Belarus and above all Ukraine Ukraine was also critical to them in terms of grain must of their military equipment is manufactured in Ukraine a point missed by many people they needed Ukraine if Ukraine was not in their hand if Ukraine for example join NATO two things would happen Belarus could not remain independent and if that happened then Smolensk which had been the center of Russia was now a border town a fairly stunning idea second they were less than a hundred miles away from Volgograd Stalingrad so one way to put it as the Russians do NATO would have come as far as Hitler did okay if you are a Russian leader this is not acceptable anymore than having Texas joined the Warsaw Pact would have been acceptable these are fundamental things I can't allowed now the fact is the Drescher's suffered a massive defeat in Ukraine and they're trying to recoup ah the United States and the Europeans helped them greatly by making such a fuss over a non-event the invasion of Ukraine that Putin's poles soared as if he had been a great military hero they made what were really minor events in the very eastern most part of Ukraine appear to be you know some significant military operation when as far as we could tell there was a few hundred drunks at any given time opening fire and effectively well these are the openings this is the beginning of a struggle Russia cannot abandon Ukraine and it would be very nice to say well we'll let you have it it's so important to you but the problem is that intentions change and having consolidated Belarus which they out control and Ukraine what next the Baltics perhaps but certainly countries like Poland Slovakia hungry all of whom remember what it meant to be occupied by the Soviets had to now do what in this region is essential the worst case of area scenario no one who has lived in this region and I was born in Hungary has any right to ever be hopeful one must be prepared for the worst and the reaction in this region has been I think appropriate what comes next beyond this region and the rest of Europe the United States is a great deal of rhetoric there's a great deal of meaningless threats of bringing sanctions on a foreign minister as if he cares so we have these sanctions which are primarily designed to appear to be action but actually not do anything and so we have to now understand we are we are two months into the post-cold war world we're two months into a period of time when the relationship between the United States and Europe and the Russians has changed fundamentally but we're only two months in this will go on for a while and certainly will get more dangerous than it is now but we have had the opening move and you can tell that history has taken place not because anything has happened but the manner in which everybody suddenly redefined their view of the world this was the important thing as we look ahead from where we are now what do you see as the contours of this contest what's coming the battle is really the Battle of Kiev and by that I mean the Battle of the Kiev Parliament the Russians are not going to invade Ukraine for two reasons one they can't if you've ever tried to get ten people to go to picnic with you and get there at the same time you know the difficulty of logistics moving 50,000 troops hundreds of miles is the extraordinary complex thing and the Russians are not particularly good at it which is why they won't do that the second thing is they think they have the advantage first the Parliament in Kiev will be reelected but they expect it to be incapable of governing second they are able to increase the price of natural gas as they wish third Ukraine needs financial assistance the IMF loans given by the West West to Ukraine are primarily were there to repay Western institutions that held Ukrainian bonds they helped ing and Templeton fund and people like that they didn't really help the Ukrainians the Russians were prepared to give grants and loans and things like that the Ukrainians needed the Europeans can't because how can you give money to the Ukrainians and then squeeze the Cypriots the Greeks the Spaniards and everyone else they have an entire region that and the United States certainly won't well that discussion and so where this plays out as a political battle you remember in the Cold War there were Wars but most of the battles were political battles in third world countries tried to control the regime with each side bribing and manipulating conniving and all the things you'd want so the first stage that will become you know the step if the Ukrainians can create a stable government that's impervious to outside manipulation then it won't happen if they could do that they wouldn't have been in the situation they were before and again being stupid I don't know why what was before will go way doubt well just to back up for a minute if there had been a politician in Ukraine of exceptional brilliance capability how would that politician have played the Ukraine situation well firstly I don't think you would have allowed a democracy to exist the problem is that Ukraine is a highly fragmented country fragmented socially fragmented along religious grounds fragmented in many ways in a democracy what that means is coalition building where the different fragments come together and build coalitions these fragments don't easily form coalition's and so although I'm totally committed to the constitutional democracy and I would not like to live in any one that wasn't I do understand how to cater ships of urge they don't necessarily merge by psychotic people you know wanting things they emerge because they have a foreign threat they cannot build a stable government at home they either continue it and have that foreign threat overwhelm it or they impose something Lukashenko maintains a degree of independence in Belarus he's not a nice man he may not even be a sane man but he maintains that he gives away what he has to he keeps what he can I'm not sure it's worth it but that's what he does so if a brilliant politician would have done what the most difficult thing of all imposed into my dictatorship and convinced everybody it's a democracy and that's hard and Ukraine doesn't have anyone to pull that off but there must be a powerful government in Kiev there isn't a powerful government in Kiev and therefore it will be a battle around now if care is the battleground who are the contenders well I mean the obvious first contenders are those who are pro-russian those who are pro-western I thought by the way you would appreciate a stupid question the time this so we but we can't be going did the best way to do it yeah second there has to be an understanding that there are multiple religions and secondly there are class differences oligarchs and oligarchs who are opposed to each other and find it very difficult to work together form alliances break them and so on so I mean these these are the factions and even more and then they're the personalities who have ambitions and use the system to come it in I mean you can look at half the countries in the world and recognize this this is not a uniquely Kiev Ian or Ukrainian disease but the problem is that they have the Russians on the one side and some fragmented entity called Europe on the other side and they have to make their living and their some who long to be part of Europe and some who detest the idea of being part of Europe in that way and so this is a country that is on the edge which is what the name Ukraine means that's the internal conflict looking at it from the strategic point of view who are the contenders for Russia Ukraine is absolutely essential to its national security I've ready describe to you what it would mean but consider this between Ukraine there's a flat ground between Ukraine and Moscow you have a flat ground about 400 miles now I want to stop here for a second and in this towns I know that the European Union announced that all wars are archaic but they're not and if you are a Russian leader and you remember the Second World War you remember the Cold War you understand two things how quickly intentions change and how quickly capabilities change in 1932 Nazi Germany was a militarily socially politically economically it had no intention of invading anybody and hope to be able to pay the electric bill the next day six years later a total of six years later Germany was the dominant political military power on the continent threatening everyone around it and having Russia and its sights what the Russians have learned which is I think a fundamental truth that people who live in prosperous countries like to forget is how dangerous the world is how quickly it changes and how you can't be confident what's going on and so a man like Putin and Russia could only be ruled I think by man like Putin looks at Ukraine and says if the West does not intend to do me harm why are they so intent on bringing Ukraine into the West and the West will answer because we have dreams of making this a constitutional democracy and to which the Russians answer that is the least plausible of all explanations so they look at the efforts the West makes they look at the US Secretary Under Secretary of State for Europe Nuland Nuland coming to Kiev and handing out cookies of French and German and foreign ministers and the Russians say this is very important to you you've got a lot of people here and so why is it important to you know this is the beginning of the conflict I think it's true subjectively that the West had no particularly bad intentions to the Russians in might hard as it is relieved I think the Russians having been thoroughly surprised by what happened in Kiev really did have any strategic you know bad intentions but when the Russians looked at the West they assumed the worst and when the West looked at Russia assuming the worst they assumed the worst and such other way conflicts begin and in this conflict now the Russians are terrified about the reversal in Ukraine our working to reverse that and now the countries on the border of Ukraine are terrified of what will happen if the Russians do reverse that and so at our meeting today there was a great deal of talk about my polish military policy would be or Slovakian military policy or Hungarian and that was the first time in a very long time that I heard Europeans talking about this and that represented a real change and I think that's significant because the strategic question is this if the Russians control the Ukraine and they control Belarus they can project force against all these countries if they wish and in the past it did wish and if the West controls Ukraine they can project force against Moscow if they wish and while we know we don't wish they're not so sure and that's the strategic foundation let's break down the West a little bit because I don't think this conflict looks the same and I didn't happen to know that you don't think this conflict looks the same from Warsaw as it does from Berlin or Paris who are the key deciders no policy decisions are going to be made about how to respond to this in this war the key decide is going to be the Warsaw Bratislava hungry book cursed in other words if these countries do not make a decision to build an alliance structure that can allow them to resist to some extent the no other power certain that the United States interrupts later because aren't these countries members of NATO yes NATO is a very very nice place to have parties cocktails meetings like this it is no longer in military alliance military alliance has two things the first thing is the military second the mission the problem of NATO is that the Spaniards are not going to go to war or deploy forces in the Baltics any one country can prevent military action unless they're attacked and but nobody's going to build up their forces the Europeans have drawn down their forces to the point that they can no longer project meaningful power the French still have some the British still have some the British don't play with the Europeans they play with the Americans and the French play only with themselves the real mystery here is what Germany's position is this is the most important question of Europe this is the most important question in the context of the European Union what will Germany's policy be to the devastating depression that has gripped the Mediterranean part of Europe what will it do it is the wealthiest power it has disproportionate control over the institutions of Europe what will it do now we have the second question the Russian question is now opened again it was closed now it's open what will the Germans do because they are the potentially most powerful forces but what do the Germans want they want everybody to go away and leave them alone German national strategy is to ignore the crisis of southern Europe and certainly not get deeply involved in a military adventure to the east therefore since the western part of the European Peninsula is not going to become engaged and the Germans who are dependent on the Russian gasps shown no inclination to get engaged the only one who can get engaged is the United States and the United States you know we haven't had a war in two years it's feeling a little frisky here guys this is the United States you're dealing with but the United States always comes into a war late and heavy as I put it in World War one you first had the Tsar deposed the Russian troops were eventually moving to the Western Front and it looked like the anglo-french should lose the United States intervened three weeks later and not declared war and sent a million men it turned the tide defeated Germans the Americans about help in World War two the United States really didn't do anything until the Soviets wore down the Vermont and their first really major action was at Normandy at the North German plane and they invaded Germany through that route in the Cold War it was the Germans that had the massive military force blocking the Russians the Americans were a backup force including nuclear weapons necessary and the answer is the United States will get involved under two circumstances first there is an existing viable alliance blocking the Russians who may need additional support but who carry the primary burden and it must be no other choice but that the Americans come in they will come in at those circumstances therefore the real question here we talk about the DZ Gerard countries and we talked about a visa kirat bhattal group that for years has been discussed but nobody really meant it they weren't really going to build a battle group now what happens to the Visigoth group what happens to the line Poland Slovakia Hungary Romania Bulgaria maybe Turkey Azerbaijan but certainly this line these are political decisions that now have to be made in these societies by you you were promised prosperity and peace by the European Union though the prosperity is a little shaky and now the question of peace is on the table so now this is a question that confronts every liberal democracy how will you defend yourselves will you do that do you have the will and from my point of view I'm not sure but I think so but this is the struggle we're going on I mean people are acting like we're deep into some conflicts we're not there yet this has been 2 months nothing is really happened but now the psychological question Poland I think is prepared to make major commitments I think Romania is prepared to make major commitments are you prepared to make major commitments are you frightened enough by the Russians to do this or do you think the Russians have no real intent or are you prepared to make your peace with the Russians these are decisions that you have to make and I will be very interested in watching you make them and be thank God that I move to the United States so I don't have to I'd like to open this up if there are questions from the audience yes we have microphone if you'll wait for the microphone that way everyone will be able to hear and I think we're also I'm having trouble understanding I'm sorry well I mean part of that question is depends on your assertion the Russians have done a substantial amount since the 1990s to reconstruct the military force but they still suffer for the fundamental problem that Russia always suffers militarily it takes about a gallon of gas to move a tank one mile that's not exactly right and they have always had huge problems in Armour

Channel: GLOBSEC

Views: 16,207

Rating: 4.6666665 out of 5

Keywords: Politics (TV Genre)

Id: ftwU1EFHWvU

Length: 34min 11sec (2051 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 05 2014