The Axis of Chaos, with Matt Pottinger | GoodFellows

You are about to embark upon thegreat crusade toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty lovingpeople everywhere march with you. I have full confidence in your courage,devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We will accept nothingless than full victory. Good luck, and let us all beseechthe blessing of Almighty God. upon this great and noble undertaking. It's Wednesday, May 29th, 2024.

And welcome back to Goodfellows,a Hoover Institution broadcast examining social, economic,political, and geopolitical concerns. I'm Bill Whalen. I'm a Hoover Distinguished Policy Fellow. I'll be your moderator today. Joined by our full complement ofGoodfellows, the historian, Niall Ferguson, the economist, John Cochrane,Former Presidential National Security Advisor, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster. They all are HooverInstitution Senior Fellows.

And joining us today, returningto Goodfellows is Matt Pottinger. Matt is a Hoover Institution, visitDistinguished visiting fellow and a former senior staffer at the WhiteHouse's National Security Council, where he survives somehow underthe brutal yoke of one H.R. McMaster prior to his White House service. Mr. Pottinger is a reporter basedin China working for Reuters in the Wall Street Journal. He also fought in Iraqand Afghanistan as a U.

S. Marine during three combatdeployments between 2007 and 2010. Matt Pottinger joins us to discuss aHoover Institution press book he's edited on the topic of China and deterrence. It's titled The Boiling Moat,Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan. Its release date is July 1st, butyou can pre order it now at Hoover. org. Matt, welcome back to Goodfellas. Bill, thanks for having me.

It's great to see you all. So I got to ask you, Matt, the McMasterbook is coming out on the white house here, and I got to ask you, are yougoing to do the Washington thing and get it and go to the back and look for yourname and see what he said about you? I lived it. I don't even have todo the Washington read. I, I was there. but I'm really looking forwardto his book coming out. H.R., did you go easy on him?.

Oh, hey, Matt, I'll tell you, Mattdeserves credit and I give him credit for affecting the most significant,being the driving force behind the most significant shift in U. S. foreign policy sincethe end of the Cold War. And that's, The shift from, cooperationand engagement with the Chinese Communist Party to, to competition and, and, there'snobody better than Matt to write about, how to deter a war from occurring over,over Taiwan and Matt, the, congratulations on the Boiling Moat, tremendousbook, at exactly the right time.

Matt, let's talk about deterrence. I'm an old man who grew up inCold War One, not Cold War Two, as Niall Ferguson has coined it. So I'm used to talk aboutnuclear triads and four deployed troops in Germany and Korea. but this is a different Cold War. China is both a military and an economicpresence, unlike the Soviet Union. And whereas the Soviet Union was breathingdown the neck of Western Europe, you have China breathing down the neck of Taiwan.

So what is different when we talkabout deterrence at Cold War Two? I think what's more important arethe similarities because of course, they're very important differences,between Cold War one and two. There are important differencesbetween the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. But if you look at the similarities,you start to, appreciate the kind of strategy that we need to employin order to win Cold War II and to prevent it from becoming World War III. Niall's talked a lot and for avery long time about the fact.

That we're in Cold War II. He's absolutely right about that. Henry Kissinger, as you've often noted,Niall, a few years ago said, I fear that we're in the foothills of Cold War. Two, I actually think we're now movingjust over the really over the past year in particular into the foothills of agreat power war that Beijing and its axis of chaos is leading us into becausethey're pushing against an open door. They're finding that we are unwillingas democracies to effectively deter or credibly deter, and so they'rejust pushing forward and forward and.

They're finding mush instead of steel. They're and until they find steel, they'renot going to withdraw and I fear that we're moving into a much more dangerousscenario Why do I say the last year? it is was really about a year ago. It was in march of 2023 That xijinping made this very important visit. It was really a watershed visit tothe kremlin this is really at the one year anniversary more or lessof the full blown invasion by putin of ukraine and xi jinping at thispoint says You know, doubles down on their, their no limits pact.

Xi Jinping says, you and I are theones driving the changes that are occurring in the world, the changesthat only occur once in a century. And now we know that Chinese materialsupport for the war in Europe skyrocketed beginning in that month. CSIS did a, did an important studyof this a couple of months ago. The think tank in Washington, D. C., but also Tony Blinken essentiallyin effect admitted that this is what took place when he visited, just a fewweeks ago, Beijing to say China is now overwhelmingly the number one supporterof the war in Beijing has materially.

Affected the outcome of the war. Tony Blinken said that the Russia wouldnot have been able to sustain the war the way that it has without chinese support inparticular So and it was really I think in march of last year that this became a fullblown proxy war By china a chinese proxy war against the west, and now they'rerepeating that playbook in the middle east hosting terrorist organizationslike hamas Being they're the number one material supporter of iran The number onepropaganda and diplomatic supporter for them And now they're looking for the nextcrisis that they're either going to fan the flames of or light And that could besouth china sea where things are heating.

Up It could be taiwan, which is the bigone that is the subject of my new book or it could be venezuela and guyana. It could be the new fronts thatopen up in europe So, deterrence is, really more the same bill, Iwould say, than it is different. It means that we've got to show thatwe have hard power, above all, that could effectively win in a fight. And our leaders have to stopsaying what they would never do. This is like the, cardinalsin of leadership. You don't say what you would never do.

It's like giving a greenlight, to your adversaries, to aggressors to start aggressing. And that's what, we'refeeling the heat of. Right now, I'm waiting for President Bidento learn the lesson of the mistakes of his failed deterrence in, Afghanistan,in, in Europe, in the Middle East. but no signs yet that, he's there. This is all music to my ears. and you know that I agreewith all you've said. The question is what can be done, inthe relatively short timeframe that I.

Think we're talking about, to deter. China and its allies. if Bill Burns is right that XiJinping is preparing for war in 2027, that is very, soon. And I worry that we don't have time,in fact, to create credible deterrence, especially with respect to Taiwan. So give us a sense of whatremedies you recommend in the book. Yeah, I would add one that I didn'teven put into the book first, which is that I think we need to bringback something like the draft.

I think that we need to have amandatory service that includes mandatory military service. I think that we really need tobe in declaring something like a state of emergency when it comesto our defense industrial base. Our military budget is shrinking,as you well know, Niall. and, this is incomprehensible. We are, really repeating, the mistakesthat, we should have learned because the, these lessons were written in blood. In world war ii, but we're repeating themistakes of the 1930s Kidding ourselves.

That are you know, the pacific and theatlantic ocean will keep us safe And and we're letting our military atrophyour military is we have fewer active duty personnel today than we've had atany point since the eve of world war ii three years of shrinking real Terms,inflation adjusted military budgets. these are things that wouldn't evenrequire an emergency to reverse. but I think it's going to take one, just to start rattling. our society, our leaders and our alliesto confront this challenge so that we can deter it and not, invite a whole seriesof new wars that are that will involve.

The United States directly, I'm afraid I have sort of two doubts. I want to raise with you. One is, The will question, the Bidendoctrine seems to be if you have nuclear weapons, you're untouchable,you can take off what you want. We're now fighting to lose slowlyrather than fighting to win in Ukraine. we know we wouldn't do a no fly zone. We won't let the Ukrainiansshoot missiles into Russia. From which they're shooting missiles.

We won't, we won't even, the hootiescan fire weapons will intercept them, but we won't go after the launchers. with that in mind, what is the chancethat if China blockades Taiwan or runs a coup, you've seen this beautiful,they have this training ground where they're the presidential palacesalready for training that the U. S. would go in and start a shootingwar with a nuclear powered country. the will, to call that bluffseems completely missing. The other question I have for you isyou mentioned some of the economic end,.

And this is where I'm really Frustrated,by, our, effort to do to fight the Chinese by being like the Chineseto have industrial policy subsidies. our answer to China is 2trillion of electric vehicle subsidies and, and huge tariffs. We have a huge ability to throwour economy into the toilet. Mandatory service, I'lldisagree with you on. We have a labor shortage. The last thing we need is Americanslearning how to sweep around military bases and how to wastetime in a, in a Vietnam era army.

And, that's, let us not do to thechips what the Jones Act did to the merchant marine and the, and it's wehave to be the free market economy that that, leverages our strength, notthe Cold War managed Soviet economy. So that, those are two big, directionswe seem to be going that really worry me. The lack of will, the doctrine thatyou, can't even touch a nuclear power. There's no way we're going to starta, a shoot and war with China. We respond. I don't know how you defend Weknow that sanctions don't work. And then our current effort to turnnational security, economic competition.

Into one crony capitalist nightmare. look, with respect to a Biden doctrine,I don't know what it is to be honest, because on the one hand, Biden said,we're not going to fight Russia. That would be World War III. But at the same time, he hasnow said four times on the record that he would commit U. S. forces to defend Taiwan, not to starta war there, but if China attacked. so either that's a bluff, and,or, actually the Biden doctrine.

Is not as you described. And, I, hope that's the case because,Beijing, does not want to get into a nuclear war with the United States. It doesn't even reallywant to get into a war. Is whether it can just take what it wants,without having to fight a war because it doesn't believe that we've got the guts. Yeah. Like, Putin took what he wanted. Exactly.

That's right. So, I, read president Biden's fourstatements on the record as an effort, a belated effort to tryto course correct from the, the, Valentine invitation he sent Putinto go right on into, to, Ukraine. but only he knows whether that's really, where his heart isor whether he's bluffing. I tend to think that, havingbeen in proximity to a U. S. President and having read a lotof history, presidents often don't.

Know how they're going to reactin a serious crisis until they see The full horizon come into view. And I actually think the UnitedStates will fight, in the event that China begins, a conflict in Taiwan. Because the alternative, is, theSuez moment that Niall and others have described so, so well and, chillingly. Look, I'm generally withyou on industrial policy. I don't think that our, our CHIPS Act,even though I actually, came out in favor of that, I don't think that's what'sgoing to be the most important step here.

It is more to do with underminingthe sources of China's aggression and the sources of its aggression are itseconomic might and its confidence that it can apply its economic, technologicaland military might without it. Without, receiving very muchpushback from the free world. but I disagree with you, John,on this idea about, bringing back mandatory service, if you'll knowthe statistics better than I do. When we talk about, low unemployment. It doesn't include a lot of peoplewho've stopped looking for work for more than six months You've gotan enormous number of young people.

Who aren't even looking for work. They're on their sofas in their mom'shouses you know on social media. They're not doing anything. I mean And to the extent that they'redoing, much at all On social media, some of it is rather divisive or, playinginto some of these, these, really grim ideologies that, are sowing self doubtand sowing disunity in our system. I think we would benefit from having a lotof people, frankly, sweeping, halls and taking over a lot of the work, hard work. In the military that currently isdone expensively by contractors.

I wouldn't mind seeing conscripts doingthat work It would be a lot cheaper. it would build that sense of of thenational purpose and unity and give people a shot at actually working for a change We'll fight on another day. they can't pass the physical. They can't pass the drug test. They don't have a high school diploma. The army is not set up tobe a social service agency. The army is set up to be an army.

H.R., I'll do it. Hey, I, agree that there should be somekind of form of national service, maybe as an incentive rather than a mandate. I, think about the the norway system forexample where it's a it's dishonorable if you don't get selected for their draft,and it's a discriminator But I don't know if there could be something like that,but we certainly need a call to service. We certainly need And end to, thissort of promotion of whether, the curriculum of self loathing thatteaches our young people that our country is not worth defending.

I think that's Matt, part ofwhat you're getting to as well. and, I think we have to stoptrying to politicize the military. the military is not woke. The military is not extremist, damn it. And both, both political extremes haveto leave the military alone and get it back focused on what the military is for. And there's been, I think a greatsense of confusion about that. Among senior people in the bidenadministration, so anyway, I could go on about that matt But hey,maybe what we could talk about.

Matt is some of the concreterecommendations in the book, right? Because there's a hell of alot you can agree on right? there's the backlogged weapon salesto taiwan for example Particular weapons that could be, effective. You mentioned, hard powerin the defense budget. hey, we're Americans, damn it. We can spend 4 percent of GDP ondefense if we wanted to, and do that. Another great deal of economic tradeoff and it's, of course, it's a hell of a lot cheaper to prevent a war thannot to fight one, So, Matt, could you.

Go over some of the, in the back of the book? And by the way, I like your ideaof incentives rather than mandates is one possible way forward. It may also be that you, for combatarms, it is still an all volunteer force. That's very different fromthe Vietnam model, John. but, look. the book is called The Boiling Moatbecause even though China is very close to Taiwan, geography can be China's, orrather Taiwan's friend in this situation.

What would Ukraine have givento have a hundred miles of ocean between it and, and Putin's Russia? So rather than thinking justabout this idea of a porcupine, something that would be hard toswallow, in the event that China. were able to land in Taiwan. The real framing that we lay outhere is that China should never be able to set foot on Taiwan. That moat could become a boiling moat, aTangchi, which is the Chinese Han dynasty phrase that we derive the title from.

It was a, diplomat who said, look,when you're dealing with these little city states on the borderlands thathave metal ramparts and boiling moats, it's better not to fightthem head on try to find another way to take that kind of territory. And, amphibious assaults arean extremely difficult form of warfare to pull off successfully. Blockades are not as easyas people assume either. And if, the advantage that we, and whenI say we, I'm, we're really talking about Japan, The United States, Taiwan, andAustralia as the primary actors, on the.

Good, guy's side, the good fellow's side. what we need to do is look at howJapan, should stop, Pretending that they might be able to sit this oneout when I talk to japanese officials and former military officers and somecurrent military officers they say of course we're gonna have to fight. I mean it's going to become obviouswhat i'm what we urge in the book and i've got chapters submitted by grantnewsham a former marine colonel as well as yoji koda who is the formercommander of the japanese fleet admiral koda What they're talking about isbeing more, more open about what the.

Consequences would be now so that youderive, that, that, deterrent value, but also preparing Japanese society. Koda san, the admiral Koda makes clear. That japan is gonna have to makeavailable all of its civilian infrastructure hundreds, more than100 airstrips hospitals for the tens of thousands of casualtiesthat potentially, would come from a conflict and really to start buildingstitching together that sense of a, a civilian, set of obligations in wartime. Same thing with taiwan.

We've chapters about what taiwan needs todo things It shouldn't be doing equipment. It should be divesting of new equipment. It should be buying but more thananything Adopting something more like an israeli model for their reserve force Ibrought a bunch of israeli generals to taiwan last summer And a former israelinational security advisor the taiwanese were very interested they wanted to talkabout david sling and Iron dome and all this equipment And, what the Israeliswanted to talk to him about was how come your, reserve system so screwedup, what, why is it that you've got millions of reservists who never traininstead of a smaller set of reservists.

Who train obsessively and realistically. And so we, we have verygood exchanges about that. and, chapter four of the book goesinto some depth about, the new military culture Taiwan needs to adapt rapidly. on the U. S.Side. it's a recognition that we need tobe, building munitions much faster, moving away from this sort of cost. Plus old, model for building weapons andmunitions towards something that actually.

Leverages are innovative sector in theprivate sector to do things like what Elon Musk did when we moved away from acost plus NASA model and said, Hey, look, here's how much money we've got available. Can you build a better rocket faster? And he comes back and completelyrevolutionizes, the space industry. That's what we need to be doing, urgentlyin, the manufacture of munitions. So those are a few of therecommendations, that we lay out. Matt, we have just a coupleof minutes left here. Let me ask you this parting question.

I want the whole, panelto comment on this. we saw Chinese militaryexercises last week. Very, clever, sophisticated, graphicsof how they would, strangle Taiwan. we saw the inauguration ofa new Taiwanese president. and oh, by the way, we havean American election coming up here five months from now. So you look at these variousthings, Matt and gentlemen, what. Are you looking at what is the nextshoe to drop in the relationship between China and the U.

S.in this Cold War struggle? I'll say worst case scenario is that wehave a contested election in the United States because history, the old wag thedog shibboleth is actually not true. This idea that countries go to war inorder to distract their domestic politics. Population from somekind of domestic turmoil. There's not a lot of evidence in thatin the historical record There is a quite a bit of evidence of countriesgoing to war because their adversary or one of their adversaries is tiedup with domestic turmoil at home. So that's the worst case scenario Ithink that if we have a i'm praying.

For a a decisive election whicheverway it goes, so that we have continuity of government, above all Yeah, I'm just gonna our electionis very likely to be a complete, trying to find the polite word forchaos and the after the election and the tearing each other apart and whenonce one side is going to say whoever is elected is illegitimate as presidentand when that president has to take decisive authority to respond to aCuban Missile Crisis blockade of Taiwan. Good luck to us. Hey, I'd just like to highlight that Ithink that we're set up for cascading.

Crises And I think when we tend to lookat each of these questions really matt certainly doesn't do this in the boilingmoat But I think that you know there is a direct connection between what the courseof the war in ukraine and what the hell happens at the south china sea or vis avis taiwan and I think china is certain to be emboldened if it's there's a perceptionthat our will is waning in terms of support for ukraine You and of course,you know as matt has mentioned, china is all in and sustaining putin's war makingmachine and has turned this into kind of a proxy war for china against the westand of course you have the connections with the with iran as well and the crisisacross the middle east So I think we're.

In for a really dangerous year a coupleof years here and and a contested election could make it even more dangerous. I worry a lot that in Xi Jinping'smind there is a question and the question is When is the rightmoment to catch the united states? in a weakened state before it hasbegun to address the questions that Matt Pottinger has asked. And it's going to look very temptingif we have a close election and a period of turmoil after ithas happened four years ago. I worry that they look at the war gamesthat we look at and write about and.

They say to themselves, Maybe this isthe best moment because if, a stronger administration comes in and startsto rearm, if people actually, take Matt Pottinger's advice, maybe thewindow of opportunity starts to close. And so instead of being 2027, theoption becomes act in, in 2024, 2025. And although I don't like these1930s analogies because they're overused, it was very importantwhat Matt said earlier about. United States replaying British historyin the 1930s, hoping that it won't be necessary to rearm, then havingto rearm rather belatedly and finding itself in a position of much more severevulnerability than anybody thought.

So I worry a lot about this, and maybethe time frame is even shorter one than the one we began by discussing. Bill, if I could, mention one thing,which, is, I shared that all these worries, but I do want to make clearthat one of the, one of the things that comes through in this book, and I havejust a wonderful, it was blessed to have terrific coauthors in this, is thatwe're actually optimistic that this war can be deterred if we undertake whatwe think are actually quite reasonable, Not horrendously expensive, very muchworkable, sets of, of recommendations that we lay out in the book.

The aggressor has a disadvantagein terms of this, geography that China has to deal with. We can actually sink their Navy, whichwe believe is the center of gravity. and if, they don't have a Navy that'sable to make it across, things become a whole lot harder, for China, impossible, I would say. Can I close with a peaceoffering on the, service? How about this? In order to get federal funding,elite colleges have to admit veterans,.

And that will be a nice incentive togo take some time in the military. or how about prioritizing, applications,of those who have already earned a four year ROTC scholarship? Appreciate it. you give up, if somebody has led thesocial justice club in high school, apparently they get it, they getadmitted to our best universities. Yeah, because there is this cultural thingthat, the elite of America has no contact with people who've served in the military. I'll give you that one.

All right, gentlemen, the book's titleonce again is the boiling moat urgent steps to defend taiwan It's officiallyreleased on july 1st, but you can pre order it now by going to the hooverinstitution's website, which is hoover. org Matt come back again to goodfellas. Thanks for having me. All right, gentlemen our b blockWe're going to look at the year in review and for people scratchingtheir heads at home wondering What do you mean the year in review? Goodfellas operates like a university.

We start around Labor Day. We conclude around Memorial Day. So this is our year in review. What a year it's been. We started in early September. About a month after that,Hamas attacked Israel. The Russian Ukraine war slogged along. We saw the spectacle of universitypresidents testifying on Capitol Hill, which led to a ratheralarming unemployment rate among.

Ivy League university presidents. What else happened? Donald Trump and Joe Biden breeze of theirrespective primaries headed to a general election that nobody seems to want. Niall Ferguson, a kind of anuncertain future of Arsenal. H.R. McMaster, the PhiladelphiaPhillies, the best record in major league baseball, I might add. So a lot's happened inthe past nine months.

Question to the group,what has surprised you? Niall, you want to go first? I don't know if anything in the last12 months has truly surprised me, because I have been lamenting thestate of the universities for about 10 years, the only surprising thingwas that, so many people in the rest of the country haven't noticed. I've been warning about our failureto deter our adversaries, since 2021. And the failure to deter Iran,didn't come as a great surprise. I didn't think Arsenal would winthe Premier League, I knew Man City.

Would, and so that wasn't a surprise. I could use a surprise at this point. it's been, it's been a kind ofconfirmation of my somewhat pessimistic worldview the past 12 months. Anybody else surprised? What about you, John? And I forgot to add that peskylittle thing called inflation. actually my, my, in economicnews, my bigger news is my current, I'll, be hopeful.

The, I see the beginning of theimplosion of the, progressive left on several dimensions. So on economics. A small example, but I think one that'ssalient to everyone is falling apart of our electric vehicle business. Everyone was in for it about a yearago, and then it slowly discovered. Oh, these things don't savea drop worth of carbon. And now it even theadministration isn't claiming it. It's turned into industrialpolicy to build hummers.

In the United States, as opposed toactually saving, the 100 percent tariff on imported electric vehicles shows youthis is not about the climate anymore. The same, climate justice for Hamaskind of wraps up this, idea that, it's all one thing, Greta Thunberg wearingher keffiyeh on apparently we need an Islamic theocracy in the MiddleEast in order to save the climate. That kind of shows you theemptiness of the whole thing. And, people. are realizing, even the electionis now, mentioning, Hey, we don't want to shove that.

It's a small issue, but I think, one whereyou see the change, change in attitude. I'm, a little shocked. The law fair is the, clown show goingon in New York, right now, I, think is, turning our legal system into. The third world countries as far as how wefight our elections is, I think, shocking. And I think Americans aregoing to get tired of that. But certainly that pursued itself tothe extent of being just ridiculous to being comedy, I think, is telling. And of course, as Niall pointed out,in the fall, a lot of people found.

Out that decolonization and indigenousrights means let's kill all the Jews. figuring out what has gone on,college, we knew, but the rest of the world has found out about it. And, I think, so this, is amoment of, kind of collapse. Of a whole bunch of ideas onthe left, perhaps the beginning. It's going to be hard fought,but, that, that's surprising. and, I, I see hope in that collapse. We'll see how it goes, but those arethree, little news stories that all kind of call us together, for me.

I was just surprised by, the lack ofsupport, in, recent weeks for, Israel. And of course, everybody wantsIsrael to do more to reduce harm to innocent civilians, in, Gaza. But this idea that we withholdcertain weapons that are critical to Israel's defense and then,to, advise Israel or to, to. To urge israel not to conduct an operationin rafah to complete the defeat of hamas. how can they not do a do anoffensive operation of rafah? I think what you saw with theserecent civilian casualties is there's.

No such thing as a precision raidinto a dense urban area that's controlled by a terrorist organizationAnd if you do a major offensive operation, heck, it's a heck of alot safer for the innocent civilians. And of course, it's quite necessary. And we still have eight Americans,held hostage there among the, we hope, the 120 or so who remain alive. But we keep finding more and more deadhostages and hearing more and more stories about how they were tortured and killed. So I, just, I was surprised tothe degree that we have been weak.

In our support of israel in whatis a necessary mission to complete the destruction of a terroristorganization That is determined to destroy israel and kill all the jews. So I think That's been mygreatest disappointment. I could add energy policy to that totie in with what john said You know how self defeating we've been I meandeclaring a moratorium On permitting for lng export facilities reallywhen this is a tremendous opportunity for us to drive the price down tobridge away from coal For example and actually reduce carbon emissions tohurt some of our adversaries who use.

That energy at for coercive purposes. the self defeating nature of,the, administration's energy policy is just astounding to me. Let me add H.R. and telling Ukrainenot to, bomb Russian, oil stuff. Cause we don't want theprice of gas to go up. and then supplicating to the Iraniansand the Venezuelans, and then. And then they just saw the bigdeal that gutter just made with with china as a result for lgsit's just nonsensical nonsense So to the year in review i'd like to add apreview and that is that the uk is having.

An election on july the fourth We're nothaving our next goodfellas until mid july. So this will have transpired by thenext time we get together Niall I want to turn to you on this i'm, first ofall curious to how many times you plan to vote in 2024 given your citizenshipstatus, but Is this a good thing or not? Did sunak onto the right idea hereand for every american who is tired? I'm tired of a presidentialelection that goes on. Do the Brits have it right? It's better to do somethinglike this in six weeks. there is something attractive about avery short election campaign of the sort.

That there is going to be, as opposedto the permanent election campaign that characterizes American politics. You asked me if anything hadsurprised me in the last 12 months, and of course that did surprise me. I was actually sitting in Downing Street,just hours before the announcement. And I, at that point, couldn'treally see why on earth Rishi Sunak would want to go early whenhe could have waited until after. the U.S. election.

He could have waited until, November. but looking more closely, I can see whyhe decided to go for it, because a new party, Reform Party, which is the kindof not Brexitee enough, we want to be more Brexitee party, had started to makereal inroads into the conservative, vote. And I think he was fearing thatReform might gather momentum and, inflict an even larger defeat. on the Conservatives. It's almost certain that they will lose. The question is really by what margin?.

Is Labour going to win a landslide, or isit just going to win a modest majority? At the moment, the polling points towardsa landslide comparable with Tony Blair's in 1997, but I think Rishi Sunak realizedthat there would be, there could be an even worse result if he waited any longer. but yeah, it's quite nice to thinkthat it'll all be over in July the 4th, or The 9th of July, the 4th. The agony of the Americanpresidential election will drag on. All the way until November. I.

Disagree with that. I like long American elections. Because if you look at it, weactually find out a lot about the candidates along the way. if American elections, were sixweeks, then it would just be on whatever, spin they had to start with. you watch these long primaries, there's,a trial where you learn something. The UK seems to be goingin the opposite direction. I think there's a tension oftwo things in all elections.

Throw the bums out. Whoever happens to be in office hasshown themselves to be incompetent, so we'll go with the other ones. Versus the world, around theworld, there is a shift rightward. Of course, the mainstream media callsit evil populism, fascism, or whatever, but we might call it common sense. Europe is, waking up to some of its,energy, industrial, and military policies and shifting towards common sense. Javier Millet is here at Hoover today, sothere's, that movement in Latin America.

UK seems to be in the temporarythroes of throw the bums out, although Labour is calling themselves much morecentrist, at least before the election. I'm also curious to what extent Sunakhad to do this because the Tories would have dumped him if he, kept going. it's hard to spot global election cycles. Remember, you've got a kind oflabor government in Australia. it's only, a cycle ago that theU S, voted in the Democrats. So I'm, skeptical that there isa great tide in global democracy. That's all going one way.

I think the, threat, from within existed. But I, it's hard for me to believe thatthere really was the conviction to have another conservative prime minister. we're now on five,since the last election. And I think a sixth would have reachedthe point of complete absurdity. but, I take your point, John, that a lotof scrutiny, can be done during America's. endless election cycles. The problem is that I don't reallyneed a whole lot more information on Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

I already have too much. In fact, I already had too much four yearsago when we had the exact same question. I'm at a loss to know what youfound out in the last three and a half years that you didn't knowalready about these two elderly. elderly candidates. And the problem about thepermanent election cycle in the U. S. is that in politics, you devote such alarge amount of time to fundraising for campaigning, that it's not clear that youhave any time for the nation's business.

And let's face it, the nation has avery serious business to attend to, not least the massive fiscal problemthat you, John, have written about. and if they're all out therefundraising to campaign endlessly, it's not the you can see why ourpublic finances never get, sorted. It's the long primaries thatactually, where, you actually do find out about people. And with that, we're going toturn to the lightning round. Three questions for you today, gentlemen. The first comes from Scotty in Canada,who writes, and I quote, this show.

Has helped open my eyes to someof the problems in universities. I still hope to be an assistantprofessor at a North American business school after I finish my PhD. Do you have any advice for current PhDstudents slash assistant professors so that we do not perpetuate thecurrent problems in universities as we advance in our academic careers? Thank you. Hey, I couldn't say focuson the mission, right? Your mission is to educate.

And I think about my best professorshave always been those who I couldn't really tell where they were leadingour particular issues because we read a broad range of perspectives and. and discuss them in an open manner. hey, I just think if you focus on themission of education, which maybe some of our universities are rediscovering, maybeeven Harvard is, it seems like, Niall, I think that's the best advice I could give you. And my advice to any, young PhD,and I've been asked this question.

Many times recently, is diversify. Because you can't, rely on the careerpaths of the past to be open to you. and I think that can take manyforms, but I'm struck by how many, historians these days, are making aliving from writing books and doing podcasts, educating a wider public,rather than from teaching classes. my advice to our listeners is diversify. The tenure track path may not be beopen to you, certainly, if the, the current hiring patterns are to continue. John?.

Especially business schoolswhere I used to teach. My advice is take yourselfand your work seriously. There's a lot of careerism, a lot of,write a paper to impress the referees, as opposed to write something thatyou really think is true and valuable. It might be valuable to acareer other than academia. It's going to be hard though. the, careerism has expanded and youwill be faced with a moral dilemma where the job you want requiresyou to fill out a DEI statement. And it is still true that in manyuniversities, that, your, knowledge.

And pledge of allegiance to DEI isgoing to count a lot for getting a job. it's a tough business. Take yourself seriously, takeyour work seriously and consider the other options as Niall says. Our second question comes from Tim inHong Kong, who writes, Having recently moved to Hong Kong, I get the sensethat I missed something truly special. Has Hong Kong lost? Did China quote unquote win? What does the fate ofHong Kong mean for Taiwan?.

When was the last time the internationalman of history was in Hong Kong? I was in Hong Kong justa couple of months ago. yeah, China won. That's clear. And the possibilities for democracy,the things that motivated the students that I used to teach whenI, was a visiting professor there. Gone. the CCP calls the shots now. The striking thing though is that I thinkthe Hong Kong business community has come.

To realize that it's going to just haveto, live with this new regime and much the way that they lived with their Britishcolonial rulers in previous generations. So Hong Kong economically doesn't seem tobe quite as depressed as I had expected. they're no longer going tobe replaced by Shanghai. Because the CCP needs an offshore marketwhere it can interact with the world. And that's what Hong Kong is going to be. So I think the CCP won, but the spiritof Hong Kong, which is always be trading. That lives on. H.R.?.

The only thing I think that'snot been suppressed is the Rugby Sevens Championship is stilla big part of it in Hong Kong. I just missed it. I was there the night it ended,very annoyingly, so I missed New Zealand's, predictable victory. John, they had to dragRugby into it, didn't they? We're in the show again. Go ahead.

Thoughts on Hong Kong, John? yeah, I think, I'm less informed thanthe other guys, but yeah, apparently you can still do business there. China wants, interestingly,to still be a big exporter. that may be in troubleif they start a war. but if you can buckle down, ignorethe politics and want to do business, apparently it's still going tobe a, as Niall said, the, China's attempt to have an offshore thing. you're placing your bets with China.

Okay, our final question comesfrom Rich in the UK who writes, It's the 80th anniversary of D Day. I'm taking my 12 year oldson to see where his great grandfather landed at Sword Beach. What do the Goodfellows think? Is D Day now just a historical event, orare there lessons we can still learn and apply to today's geopolitical events,thanks to the greatest generation in the Allied invasion of 1944? H.R.?.

Yeah, there's certainly lessons. Lessons associated with leadershipand courage and risk taking. and, and, the, and obviously the,the most, I think a prescient thing or important thing aboutwars that wars is not the. The best way of settlingdifferences, as G. K. Chesterton has asserted, was the only wayto ensure they're not settled for you. and, we, I think we ought to beeternally grateful for the sacrifices of those who fought, to liberate thecontinent from, from, Nazi, occupation.

And domination in 1944 to 1945. John? Oh, that's a great note. I, I visited, the D Day beaches when Iwas 12, and boy, oh boy, that, still stuck with me, exactly seeing the physical placeand thinking about, what happened there. And, of course, we visited thecemetery as well, which is awfully big. Sorry, what, geopolitical lessons. I remember that Eisenhowerhad two notes in his pocket. One of what to say if it went welland wanted to want to say if it went.

Badly, where he can say the dog ate myhomework and greed and shrinkflation. He said, this was ourfault and we'll try again. And there was no, here's what we won't do. Our soldiers are only goingto be in there for six weeks. We were opening negotiations. No, We're here to win. that's a geopolitical lesson that,I think should be remembered. Niall, final words. This is what you should do as a fatherif you have a 12 year old son or.

Daughter, I have a 12 year old son,and it's the perfect age to start communicating history by going to places. That's a very magical time. I just took, my 12 year old Thomas, not tothe D Day beaches, but to my native city of Glasgow, where we did some history. Further back in time, going backto the, the origins of the great sectarian conflicts that characterizeGlaswegian and Northern Irish life. So yeah, if you have a 12 yearold or know somebody who is a 12 year old, get them off the screensand out to the battlefields.

It's a fantastically fulfilling thing and,yeah, I think you, you never forget that. I remember going to D Daybeaches with my father. I'll never, ever forget that experience. And you can do the same with theFirst World War battlefields too, and the Civil War battlefields. Let's end on an American, note, I'llalways remember, my first visit to Civil War battlefields, and one ofmy favorite recollections is, going, with the great Charles Murray. To, to visit one of the battlefields, verynear where he lives in, Maryland and Tsum,.

And I learned a huge amount on that trip. So even if you're not 12, but, Iguess I must have been 52 back then. It's well worth going on a trip like that. Hey, just a quick recommendation for,our viewer to read Ambrose's D-Day, or. Just read the first chapter of RickAtkinson's The Guns That Last Light. Fantastic, lead in to, the, campaignacross, Europe, beginning of 44. or Tom Hank's wonderful movie. Oh yeah, absolutely. Spielberg did a.

Fantastic job with that. Although the open sequence isharrowing for a 12 year old, I would, say, wait a little on that. Yeah, maybe the 1962 movie, TheLongest Day, which was just shot on location and has very good detailsif you can get past John Blake. All right, gentlemen,let's leave it there. Great conversation. we'll reconvene, later this summer. So we'll see you soon.

Thanks for watching, everybody. If you have questions for theGoodfellows, don't forget to send them in. You go to hoover. org forward slash askgoodfellows andwe will probably do a lightning or do a mailbag show later this, year. on behalf of my colleagues,Niall Ferguson, H. R. McMaster, John Cochrane, all of us hereat the Hoover Institution, thanks for watching and we will see you soon.

Take care. If you enjoyed this show andare interested in watching more content featuring H. R. McMaster, watch Battlegrounds,also available at hoover. org.

Sharing is caring!