00:02:55.720Look, I would argue President Trump deserves credit for spurring the Europeans to do what they ought to have done years before.
00:03:03.220They ought to be putting forward a larger share of the effort for what's a common defense.
00:03:10.000Just as an aside, I would say much more important to me than whether the Europeans spend 3% or 2.5% or 4.5% is how they spend it.
00:03:17.960And I'd actually say something you'd probably agree with in public policy. How you spend money is almost always more important than how much you spend. And the problem with European defense is not just that they spend too little, but each country pretty much determines how it spends its defense euros.
00:03:34.280So the whole ends up being less than the sum of its parts. So I would be pushing, if I were advising the president, I'd say, yeah, push them to do more. But secondly, also push them, in a sense, to become more European, rather than country by country by country, which is the way they often go about it.
00:03:52.980But I think that part is good. The less good is I think he's introduced some doubts into the reliability of the United States and what you might call the automatic quality of Article V, America's willingness to go to bat for Europe.
00:04:08.060And obviously, there's also some fairly significant differences about how to handle the most immediate threat, which is Russia and the war in Ukraine.
00:04:17.660So I think it's I think it's a mixed bag. But yes, it's good to see the Europeans essentially getting pushed to do more.
00:04:24.440And it's interesting just as you unpack and I appreciate that how you spend and where you spend.
00:04:29.380It was interesting just looking at some of the details that that their direct spend in support of Ukraine would be considered as part of that contribution as it relates to that breakdown of five percent.
00:04:40.460And it was also, though, interesting to see the breakdown within the countries.
00:04:44.460Obviously, Germany looking to move quicker by 2029 with close to 70 percent increase in their domestic defense spending.
00:04:53.160And then Spain, who was called out by the president today, looking not necessarily to to reach that new America.
00:05:01.140Is that does that mean much to you or is that just that's just noise?
00:05:06.360The most interesting part of that is Germany.
00:05:09.500Less what Germany is prepared to do in defense, though doing more is welcome.
00:05:14.000But Germany has changed its laws and essentially now is able to raise serious debt, which was something that modern Germany had an allergy to because of the whole Weimar experience.
00:05:25.440And the fact that Germany now can really go into the markets and raise debt gives them far more capacity to potentially grow their economies as well as to contribute to national security.
00:05:37.740And I'd even go so far as to say the most interesting figure in Europe right now is the new chancellor of Germany.
00:05:43.400And even though he had a rough start and getting confirmed and so forth by his parliament,
00:05:47.960I actually think that Chancellor Mertz is in a position to, in some ways, have Germany stake out the leadership position in Europe,
00:05:57.200something that historically, since World War II, Germany's been reticent to do.
00:06:00.860So I would watch that space, particularly since the French, the British and others are so gridlocked domestically.
00:06:07.980I think Germany now occupies the critical position.
00:06:11.460When you referenced the Article 5, sort of, you know, I think the president, when he was flying over, there was some ambiguity, once again, sort of creating some doubt and anxiety.
00:06:21.300He seemed to shift tone a little bit when he landed.
00:06:24.980But is that it's just that on again, off again relationship to the Article five?
00:06:29.400Is that what you're referring to is sort of a lack of of certainty and confidence in the president?
00:06:34.240Yeah, for those who haven't read the NATO treaty recently, Article five is the core of the agreement.
00:06:40.240We're essentially an attack on one is considered to be an attack on all.
00:06:44.300Curiously, it's only been invoked once in NATO's entire history.
00:06:47.800And that was on behalf of the United States after 9-11.
00:06:51.800it. But alliances depend upon predictability and reliability and dependability. And I would argue
00:06:59.600that President Trump has introduced a significant degree of uncertainty into that, which I think
00:07:04.780is counterproductive. He would argue perhaps it was necessary to get the Europeans to do more.
00:07:10.120I would have said, well, probably there's better ways to do that. But that's where we are. And to
00:07:15.320the extent Russia senses there's uncertainty there, Putin, who, as we've seen in Ukraine,
00:07:20.740can be risk prone, it might be more likely to take risks. So I always believe that the best way to
00:07:26.100deter is through certainty. So your friends know you'll be there for them. And just as important,
00:07:31.460your enemies know you'll be there for your friends. So I would like for President Trump,
00:07:36.320as the days and weeks and months unfold, to look for opportunities to make clear that whatever our
00:07:41.800differences are with Europe over their level of defense effort, we see it as in our interest to
00:07:47.300be there with them. In terms of the actual bombing itself, and I think by most objective
00:07:54.660standards, it was a success, whether or not these sites were, quote unquote, obliterated.
00:08:00.320That's a separate conversation. Is that your assessment that this was a success,
00:08:05.660that in the spirit of what you just said around some certainty that the president wasn't bluffing
00:08:11.760in terms of wanting to get diplomatic deal done, they appeared not to want to move in that
00:08:16.760direction. So then he asserted himself militarily. I think it was the right thing to do. For years,
00:08:23.100we've been playing this game with the Iranians where they were enriching uranium far, far,
00:08:27.540far beyond levels anybody would need to generate electricity. So we all knew what this was about,
00:08:32.620to put into place the prerequisites for a nuclear weapons program. I also understood
00:08:39.740we couldn't allow Iran to get on the threshold, much less have nuclear weapons. We made that
00:08:45.020mistake, I would argue, with North Korea. We don't want to have it now in this part of the world,
00:08:49.840because if Iran ever got nuclear weapons, not only would they act more aggressively and pose
00:08:53.600potentially an existential threat to Israel, but you know and I know the Saudis, the Egyptians,
00:08:59.140the Turks, and others would follow suit. And the only thing worse than the Middle East we've known
00:09:03.640is the Middle East I've just described. So I think what Israel and then the United States did
00:09:08.860was warranted. We'll see what the results are. Whatever happened, the Iranian program was not
00:09:15.780obliterated. Elements of their program, I expect, will have survived the attacks on the three sites.
00:09:21.880More important, I don't know, you don't know, probably the president doesn't know,
00:09:26.360what amount of uranium or number of centrifuges and so forth are under some roof of some warehouse
00:09:32.880and some other part of Iran. I actually think going forward, Gavin, we have got to assume
00:09:39.220just the opposite, that the Iranian program was not obliterated. But elements of that program
00:09:43.980exist. And what's worrisome to me, I'll be honest with you, I would think that a lot of Iranian
00:09:48.760leaders have said, hey, this never would have happened had we had nuclear weapons. We could
00:09:54.160have deterred the Israelis and the Americans. So I worry that going forward, I think their
00:09:59.160determination to develop nuclear weapons might, if anything, be even greater.
00:10:04.040Well, you know, I want to just pick up on that point because that's an interesting observation
00:10:07.520and an important one. And we'll get to North Korea as well in a second, because your reference
00:10:12.580goes back to the opportunity the United States had under the Clinton administration to take out
00:10:17.480their program before it proliferated. But I want to talk a little bit about the non-proliferation
00:10:22.480treaty. People have brought that up since the 1970s. I think 200 countries were signatories
00:10:28.940to that, including Iran. There were a number of countries that have developed nuclear programs
00:10:34.940that were not original signers to that. Obviously, Korea and Israel, to the extent they have a
00:10:42.200nuclear program, quote unquote, but certainly India and Pakistan. But those countries, as a
00:10:48.300consequence, would make the claim you just made that they've had that deterrent. Now, Iran assumed
00:10:55.240that they would not be bombed, I presume, under the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
00:11:01.140Does that put at risk the entire notion of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, what's just occurred?
00:11:06.840So let me give you a slightly convoluted answer. The Non-Proliferation Treaty
00:11:11.200is only a small piece of the effort against non-proliferation. I don't think it's a wildly
00:11:17.400successful piece in many ways because it really is a gentleman's agreement. We declare what
00:11:22.580facilities we're doing certain types of research or engineering in, and then the inspectors come
00:11:27.720look at them. Inspectors can't look at places that are not known. So the entire treaty in that sense
00:11:33.940is based upon a degree of faith that I tend not to have. North Korea withdrew from the treaty and
00:11:39.860there was no particular penalty or anything for them having done so. Turns out the most important
00:11:46.460non-proliferation tool out there is not the treaty. It's called America's Alliances. By giving
00:11:51.620countries the confidence that we are there for them, they then don't need to become self-sufficient.
00:11:56.900And the biggest way to accelerate proliferation will be, for example, if the South Koreans or
00:12:01.060others come to have doubts about their relationships with us. So don't get me wrong. I'm not saying
00:12:06.440the non-proliferation treaty doesn't have some utility. And I think in particular, the inspection
00:12:11.060provisions can be useful, but we shouldn't exaggerate its impact. And Iran, I would think,
00:12:18.660is going to do and is going to do what it wants, regardless of its obligations under this treaty.
00:12:25.660So back to what you were saying. I mean, so just let's speculate what happens going forward.
00:12:31.880Obviously, this notion of regime change, people sort of pulled back a little bit, or at least
00:12:36.180it appears the president's pulled back. I don't know if Bibi is pulled back on the notion of
00:12:41.340regime change. But what won't change is their pursuit, presumably, of a nuclear weapon.
00:12:46.780As you note, we don't know that the program was, quote unquote, obliterated, even if the
00:13:07.900It might not be their immediate priority, which I think is to shore up the regime.
00:13:11.080But at some point, I do think reconstituting a program will become a priority, which means, by the way, the day may come where Israel, the United States needs to once again use military force if we discover some activity going on and the Iranians won't voluntarily give it up.
00:13:29.020You know, it's not normal that problems get solved. When I was the head of the Council on Foreign Relations, I used to discourage the fellows from using the word solve or solution, because that's just the way history works. So I don't believe whatever it is we accomplished the other day, and however much we accomplished, it didn't solve the problem. It may have reduced it, it may have set back the Iranian program, but that'll pop up again.
00:13:54.480It's, by the way, you mentioned regime change.
00:13:56.580It's one of the reasons that people, I think, are attracted to the idea.
00:14:00.560If you can't solve the Iranian problem through military force or through diplomacy, then people say, what's left?
00:14:09.160And I think that's why there's so much interest in regime change.
00:14:12.000The problem is it's easier to talk about it than bring it about.
00:14:15.420I don't see the prerequisites in place for it.
00:14:18.700And in any case, you can't base your policy on it.
00:14:22.140People don't like it when I say this, but it's a wish more than a strategy. If it were to happen, I think it brings problems but obvious benefits with it. But we just can't count on it. And no president can give the order to say, Secretary of Defense or State and say, get me regime change in Iran. They wouldn't have then the tools to necessarily carry it out.
00:14:45.400When it comes to just issues of trust and, you know, I think one of the questions that I get and I ask myself all the time, I feel like for most of my adult life, I've been hearing Bibi Netanyahu say they're just months away, a year away from having weapons grade nuclear weapons.
00:15:03.940And, you know, at a certain point, you just stopped believing it. But your assessment, you know, your own objective assessment this time did appear to be different, that they were getting closer and actually appeared to be within a matter of months in a position where potentially we had a weapons-grade weapon coming out of Iran. Is that accurate?
00:15:26.080pretty much uh like this was a gathering threat it wasn't an imminent threat it was a gathering
00:15:31.400threat and the question is how close now we know they had done most of the enrichment work they
00:15:36.540need to do to get it uranium enriched plus or minus 60 that's not just 60 of the effort that's
00:15:43.040actually close to the 90 of the effort for reasons of physics that i couldn't explain because i don't
00:15:48.400understand them well enough but uh i think i'm right there what you don't know is why how close
00:15:54.820they were on some of the other things, the actual fabrication of explosive devices, the bomb and so
00:15:59.480forth. And there, there was the Israelis believe, and the economists published some very interesting
00:16:03.960stuff about it, that they had made some breakthroughs, they'd had some secret programs
00:16:09.320and so forth. And I think we have to be tolerant, just like after 9-11, we were less willing to run
00:16:17.900certain risks, say about what Iraq could do. And this is not a justification for the Iraq war,
00:16:23.420I was against it, but just, I understand some of the thinking. I think Israel, after October 7th,
00:16:30.600had less tolerance of running certain risks in their case. So I just think the combination of
00:16:35.300a change mentality in Israel, the evisceration of groups like Hezbollah, which couldn't really
00:16:41.960attack Israel anymore, and this new intelligence, which suggested however far along the Iranians
00:16:48.140forth, they were farther along. And I think for all those reasons, the Israelis decided to act,
00:16:54.660and we came in behind. Does this keep Bibi in power for another extended period of time?
00:17:00.640Well, he's got roughly, what, 16, 17 months to run before he has to, I think the elections are
00:17:05.000scheduled for October of next year. It certainly helps. I mean, Israel, as you know, is deeply
00:17:09.980divided about issues on democracy, Gaza, what have you, whether the religious can be drafted
00:17:16.640and so forth. They are not divided on Iran. Left and right, hawk and dove. There aren't a lot of
00:17:23.280doves in Israel when it comes to Iran. So it clearly helps, Bibi. It changes the conversation
00:17:29.220a little bit. It brings Israel together. It's seen as an accomplishment. And he has. He has
00:17:33.560changed in many ways Israel's strategic reality, given the change in Syria, Hezbollah, the weakening
00:17:41.800of Hamas, whatever you think, however critical people watching this might be of what Israel's
00:17:46.680done and how it's done it in Gaza. The reality is that Bibi Netanyahu in the last, what,
00:17:52.00018 months has dramatically reduced the external threat to Israel.
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