Memorial Day, Election Day, and a Birthday

Welcome to Shield of the Republic. A podcast sponsored by the Bulwark and the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia and dedicated to the proposition articulated by Walter Littman during World War two, that a strong and balanced foreign policy is the Shield

of our Democratic Republic. I’m Eric Edelman Counsel at the Center for Strategic and budgetary assessments, Bulwark contributor and a nonresident fellow at the Miller Center, and I’m joined again on this memorial day by my colleague Elliott Cohen, the Robert e Ozgood professor of Strategy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the Arleigh Burke Chair of Strategy at the center for security and international studies. Elliott welcome on this rainy Memorial Day, and it’s going to camp casting a bit of a damp Paul over the parade later today.

Yeah, well thank you. Speaking of parades and the holidays, I thought we might begin by reflecting a little bit on Memorial Day. You know, it is it’s the day that commemorates our war dead. It Unfortunately, for a while, it seemed to be morphing into the holiday that celebrates the beginning of summer and so it’s barbecues. And if they’re parades, well parades tend to be joyous affairs.

I think in recent years, you’ve seen more people going out to cemeteries and decorating graves with flags and so on, and I do think it’s appropriate to just pause and reflect. And I’d like to offer two thoughts One is if people haven’t had the opportunity, they really should try to visit some of the war cemeteries in the United States. And, of course, Arlington’s cemetery is overwhelming. I think, four hundred thousand graves. But say, if you go to something like the cemetery at Anteton, which is actually still, I believe, operational.

It has it’s mainly obviously the graves of Union soldiers. It’s a very, very moving place or the various places throughout Europe, one in particular that I would mention is Chateau Terri, which is actually the largest war cemetery, in Europe, fourteen thousand graves, and it’s all from world war one. And you know, we we think because of the movies and so on. A lot about World War II, but something like 100000 Americans lost their lives in the first World War. And all of these grave sites which are taken care of by the American Battlefield’s Ron DeSantis commission are just they’re just beautiful and haunting.

And the last thing I’ll say is, you know, if you obviously most people can’t do that for one reason or another in a memorial day, but I know in my family we’ve begun to commemorate Memorial Day by just reading one of the many very powerful war poems out there, and I’ll just mention a stanza from It’s actually a British author, Lawrence Binyon, who wrote this during the first World War, and it’s always used I think by friends of ours in Britain and Australia and other commonwealth countries on armistice day usually, but really at any appropriate ceremony, it’s called for the fallen by Lawrence Binyon and the stanza goes like this, they shall grow not old as we that are left grow old, age shall not weary them nor the ears contemm. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.

Yeah. I mean, I love the idea of Antetim. I mean, we live in the Delaware, Maryland, Virginia area where there are a number of important civil war battlefields and and cemeteries, and of course Memorial Day began if I if my memory serves correctly in the late eighteen sixties to remember the fallen during our most bloody war, the one where we lost the most casualties of any, which was the civil war. I I know as well I I would be remiss if I didn’t mention our colleague at the bulwark Will Saletan, who’s written a a remarkable piece. It was posted a few days ago, I know I’ve asked that it be circulated to all all of my colleagues on the defense policy board, and I’ve sent it around to a lot of colleagues in the in the Department of Defense, which it’s a very moving tribute to some of the folks that he lost while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And so important to remember those who fallen in our most recent wars as well as the ones further back in memory.

Yeah, and I Let me just wrap this up. I think it’s it’s like when you go to a house of mourning and you’re not quite sure what to say. And I think in situations like that, you know, you first, you can use the words of others, like the essay you just mentioned or more poetry by poets like Alan Seeker and others, but it’s also just about showing up and I think showing up in those cemeteries, which really are hallowed ground, it’s the right thing to do, and it’s it’s it’s a statement. Well, Eric, let’s talk a bit about politics. Once again, it’s just you and me.

There was a momentous, I think it’s fair to say, election in Turkey, and of course you were our ambassador to Turkey. You’ve continued to follow Turkish politics closely. I think it’s fair to say you’re not the greatest friend of Tai Bernogan, he seems to have won. In an election that I suppose, one can characterized as clean, although that has to be qualified in a number of ways which you might wish to do. By a relatively narrow margin, as my precious like about fifty two percent of the vote.

So could you just first reflect a bit on the election and what it means? And then I maybe I thought we could dive a little bit deeper into Not just the future of Turkey, but the future, perhaps, some of these other middle powers that are out there. So let her rip.

Yeah. I think it is fair to say that I’m not in president Erdogan’s good graces. Actually, It is not just that I’ve kept up a steady drum breed of criticism of the Erdogan regime and its policies since leaving government, but also when the WikiLeaks documents came out. The largest trove of course was from Baghdad, where private first class Chelsea Manning was situated, but the second largest trove came from Ankara because we were next door and we copied bagged out on everything, and so because the ambassador’s name goes on the bottom of every cable that comes out of the embassy, a lot of the telegrams that came out including those speculating on reports we had from Turkish sources of Erdogan and the Erdogan’s family’s corruption, which has now become a major issue in Turkey. All of that came out, which led Erdogan to threatened to sue me in courts, either in Turkey or elsewhere, for defaming him.

And and since I take that very seriously since he has sent God knows how many journalists to jail for defaming him, I I, unfortunately, have had to postpone you know, taking a blue cruise in Turkey with my wife indefinitely. So the election you know, I put my money where my mouth was, I, you know, I think wrote in the dispatch on Saturday morning that I anticipated Erdogan would win. And he won by about what I expected, about fifty two percent. He’s never really done better than that in an election. Because Turkey’s a deeply, deeply divided society.

And what I think the election tells you is that he has for all my distaste for him personally, he is an extremely effective politician, and in particular, he’s an extremely effective voice for a large proportion, a bear majority, I would say of Turks who feel that they have been in the past looked down on by the Istanbul Mona Charen government and business elites in Turkey. It’s you know, if you look at where the vote came from, it you know, his overwhelmingly came from the anatolian heartland, the Turkish equivalent of flyover country, and he is you know, a a tremendous tribune of sort of this lamo nationalist populism. I mean, he’s managed to fuse both political islamism, with nationalism, with Turkish nationalism, and put a populist kind of glaze on it. So, you know, like other politicians, we know he Jonathan Last conveying against globalist elites, but it’s striking that because Turkey is so deeply divided, he has to rely essentially on a base mobile Asian strategy. He has not been able to expand his reach beyond that fifty two percent, fifty one, fifty two percent.

He’s never been higher than that, either in parliamentary or presidential elections.

So let me ask you a question. At first, that’s that’s very, very useful overview. So first question is, in what sense was this a clean election, and in what sense was it not a clean election? And then the second kind of, I think, even more consequential question is, you know, to what extent is really Turkey en route to becoming authoritarian state that will find it very difficult to come back to some sort of liberal democrat or Democratic norms, I should say, once he passes from the scene because he is after all mortal.

A lot of Turks are very worried about that question Elliott today and are trying to parse it out themselves. On the question of the, you know, health of the Turkish electoral process, I haven’t seen actually the report from the election monitors, the the OSCE and Parliamentary Assembly at the Council of Europe had a delegation that monitored the first round of elections and came out with a report. And although there were some irregularities in that first round and some in this round as well, you know, some places where election monitors were be were tossed out of election you know, polling places and some ballot boxes that seem to have been you know corrupted by pre filled in ballots and things like that. Nobody, it’s certainly not the opposition, not the monitors, believes that it was on a scale that changed the result. And that’s in keeping with a long tradition of, you know, essentially, relatively free Turkish elections stretching back to nineteen fifty when you had the first contested two party election in Turkey.

But where whether it was fair or not is a wholly different subject, and there the monitors two weeks ago pointed out that what has continued to be the case the the media environment is thoroughly tilted in Erdogan’s favor. One of the state run broadcasters you know, gave him in the run up to the election thirty two hours of coverage, and Killec de Raulu, his opponent had like thirty two minutes which to give you a, you know, sense of the magnitude of of this. In the in the last day or two before the runoff text messages from the opposition parties were blocked so they couldn’t get, you know, text messages out to voters So, you know, the the the there’s no it was no real fairness here. It’s you know, Erdogan has arrayed more and more power in his hands as time has gone on. And he’s been in power since for twenty years.

And so he he’s now been in power you know, you know, several years longer than Autoturk. He’s the longest ruling leader in modern modern Turkish history. And because he has arrayed more and more power, it’s become a very personalized regime. And so nothing really of consequence can be decided without his say so, and as to whether Turkey can return to kind of more normal Democratic processes. So Turkey’s always been what Dean Atches and called it imperfect democracy.

There’s always been, you know, sort of influence from the top during elections and not just under Erdogan. So never as it been as thorough as it has been under Erdogan. But, you know, he and his victory speech said, you know, I will be with you the Turkish voters, we will be together until I’m in the grave. Now, technically, this should be his last term in office but that doesn’t sound like he’s planning on going, you know, away anytime soon and leaving office. In in five years.

Now how exactly he will manage that, whether he will try and pass the baton to his son-in-law, the younger Albirach who is the entrepreneur behind the BIrock T. D. Two drone that’s become so ubiquitous and in Ukraine and now elsewhere it’s been used in Libya and in in the caucuses whether he will end up being the successor whether Erdogan will try and stay on and past, you know, amend the constitution. You can certainly try and do that. But I think a lot of Turks believe that this was their last best chance to stop him from essentially becoming a president for life and we’ll have to see whether, you know, as time goes on, he’s able to, you know, maintain his position.

He is going to be facing a major major economic a crisis in the days ahead, and that that will be a real test. Right?

Well, you know, I was gonna say that one of the things that’s so striking about this is that you have an economy that’s in terrible shape because of his policies. I mean, it’s not an accident. And then you had that massive earthquake, the response to which they they botched. And still, he didn’t he didn’t pay the penalty. Now now to step back a bit, I I mean, one thought that occurs to me is, if you look at Erdogan, you look at Victor Orban, I think there are other figures in the world.

I mean, Israel is a democracy, but there’s a little bit of this of this in b b two. These populist leaders who’ve been around for a long time who invoke religion, who don’t know overtly take down Democratic institutions, but subvert them and corrupt them who are personally very corrupt. You know, where there’s a lot of money that’s sluicing into, you know, industry and so on. You know, you could say that Putin was is the furthest example of this, you know, because there’s, again, the same thing. There’s criminality.

There’s the forms of democracy. There’s deep corruption there’s the use of religion and of a kind of a state religion. I think as we step back, we have to think about it. And and let’s face it. There echoes of that even in the United States.

I mean, I think David French, who I actually would be very good to get on, you know, is written eloquently about Christian nationalism, which he doesn’t view as particularly Christian. I’m not a Christian, so I’m not in a position to judge, but it seems to me that he’s right. So why do we think this is all happening now, and what do we think the trajectory of that is? Because it seems to me it’s it’s one of the larger unstated issues of our time. And of course, I I’ll just say a little bit beyond that and say, I think one of our faults as a country looking at the world as we tend to compartmentalize, say, okay, we got a hungry problem in, you know, getting the swedes in.

We have a turkey problem also getting the suites in, but sort of other things we don’t like. But we don’t put it all together. And here, this does feel to me like some sort of common development, and I particularly felt that when you, you know, you referred to Anatalia’s flyover country,

So political scientists refer to these kinds of regimes as competitive authoritarian regimes or electoral authoritarian, you know, regimes that they and I suppose you know, it’s a a tribute to the notion that our friend Frank Fukuyama articulated a while back when and we discussed with him on the show, you know, there was this moment of triumph of democracy at the end of the Cold War, and it’s interesting that these regimes all seem to feel that they’ve got to at least pay kind of ritual obeisance to the forms of democracy if not democracy itself, and you end up with not rule of law, but because of the corruption and everything else that you were discussing, you get rule by law with, you know, opponents being jailed and, you know, etcetera. And there are you’re right. There echoes here. While you were traveling, we had Paul Miller on, talking about his book about the Rise of Christian Jonathan Last and very worrisome and Paul comes at it like David French, as an evangelical Christian himself who who is troubled by, you know, what he sees going on in in the name of of religion here in politics, you know, in the United States.

Look, I’m not sure I have a great answer, you know, for why this is happening. It is a global phenomenon. I do think it is is happening globally. I think it’s in part a reflection of a a variety of trends that we see as a result of of globalization at the, you know, sort of tail end of in the post cold war era at the end of nineties, the lowering of trade barriers and other barriers. So a lot of this is caused by migration.

And the cultural backlash that migration has stimulated. You certainly see that in in Victor Orban’s Hungary, it was a fact I

see it in Turkey.

Big factor in Turkey, I mean, because of the Syrian refugee population. I mean, the irony of that, of course, is the policy and Syria that Erdogan followed was very personally associated with him, not a very popular policy, but he is responsible ultimately for some of what’s happened in Syria and now, you know, is talking about expelling the nearly four million you know, refugees on Turkish territory. I think it’s also, you know, the unequal distribution of gains from globalization. You know, there are you know, this is where populism comes in. You know, there’s no question that globally, elites in various countries have been the major beneficiaries of the run up of incomes as a result of of globalization, not everybody’s been a part of it.

And so there’s an economic populist dimension to this as well. And then there’s another dimension, which I don’t think people talk about enough. Which is a kind of global reaction around the world to the increasing number of women entering the workforce. And I think that in many different cultures in a lot of different ways has given rise to a backlash among among males who feel threatened by having you know, a woman to whom they might have to be, you know, answerable now in the in the workplace. And perhaps a spouse who’s not at home all the time taking care of their all their needs because they’re in the workplace too.

So I think all of these factors I think contribute have contributed to this phenomenon, but you’re quite right. It’s it’s a global phenomenon and a troubling one.

Yeah. I think, you know, it seems to be it has what makes it so difficult is it has multiple roots, and you can tell me if I’m if it’s inappropriate for me to apply these to Turkey as well. But one is, you know, in the United States, we sometimes talk about the great sword. Where, you know, people live with people who are kind of like them. And I was very struck when you look at that electoral map that you mentioned at the beginning, The Erdogan vote is, as you say, in this kind of the semi rural heartland.

I mean, there are cities there too, La Konya. But you know, the more westernized elites in this temple, just, you know, that’s not It’s it’s a different place. So that’s one thing. I I do wonder if there are two other things at work though too. One is and and this is a fault of day leaves, which you and I belong to, everywhere, not having fully understood the imperative of not just tolerating, but in a certain measure supporting and even celebrating some traditional virtues and values, whether it’s patriotism or, you know, traditional forms of religious belief and observance.

And I think particularly in the United States, I I have to say I do interpret a lot of some, I should say, some of the Trump movement to a kind of backlash against, you know, bicostal elite views, which are really just alien to people. I think the other thing is the transformation of the nature of work. And one part of it is, as you say, the entrance of women into the workforce, but I think there’s just also been a change, you know, when my grandparents came, and I dare say, same is true for yours. When they came to this country, you know, with a strong back and a willing heart, you could forge a life for yourself and actually a pretty good life, and your kids could get ahead, and they could have a better life than you could, and you could because of public education, stuff like that. You could get them educated, and, you know, they they would have a chance.

And I think that’s just not the case. And there’s nothing to be at one level, there’s not a whole lot you can do about that. I mean, the nature of modern manufacturing has turned into something like modern agriculture. More productive than ever. It just you don’t need as many human nearly as many human beings.

You can do it all with with machines or almost all with machines. But it does present a social set of challenges. And I have to say, The worst part of this is, I don’t think there are any politicians out there who really particularly wrestle with this, you know, in a serious way. I’d like to ask just one more Turkey though question before we move on to some other things. So, you know, I think I have heard you say that Turkey is an ally in name only, which is a pretty harsh statement.

I think in general, the expectation seems to be that in return for a bunch of f sixteen’s, they’ll let the Swedes into NATO. Is that really the case so that Turkey is now a an ally in name only and if that’s the case, how should we think about that? What are the larger implications?

Before I answer that, let me just say your earlier comments are absolutely right about a big sort and how it affects Turkey. When I was ambassador, you know, I I never got up to Istanbul as much as people in the business and media community who were, you know, basically up in Istanbul, not in the, you know, capital of the country. I would go up there though when people would say, what what’s happening in Turkey, mister ambassador, because I was like, you know, it’s it’s very striking. You go across the, you know, the bridges over the Bosphorus and it, you know, it says, you know, Asia on one side and it’s Europe on the other. And I think that you know, it’s a telling indicator of the kind of thing you’re you’re talking about.

So I think that’s very accurate. Look, when I say that Turkey is a ally in name only, you know, they are obviously, you know, a signatory to the NATO treaty, but NATO is an alliance of nations, but it’s also very explicitly an alliance of values. Now it hasn’t always lived up to that. Portugal and Greece were, you know, military dictatorships. Or fascist dictatorship in the case of Portugal for, you know, periods of time, you know, at the outset of the alliance But, you know, particularly since the end of the Cold War, it’s been very much an alliance of values.

And as new members have come in, it’s it’s been all about about values. It’s one of the reasons why Hungary is such a problem and an outlier now as it espouses illiberal you know, values quite explicitly. And Erdogan, I think, because it’s a very personalized regime, as I said, is inclined, I I believe, to define the national interest as what’s in his personal political interest. I mean, there’s no Turkish interest being served by the blockade of Finland, which now been lifted, or blockading Sweden from entering NATO. I mean, certainly there have been an effort to work out issues they could have, you know, been worked out before.

You know, look, Erdogan told the Fins and Swedes before they applied that he had no objection. Then suddenly after they applied suddenly, he had an objection. So what I think that means is Turkey’s very important country. It will remain an important country because of its location. You know, it’s a Bulwark sea nation.

It’s an eastern Mediterranean nation. It sits right cheek by jowl with other countries who have had major fines of gas in the undersea, in the eastern med. So it Turkey’s gonna remain very important. The United States, I believe, is gonna have to play a long game in the hope as you say that, you know, the actuarial table will come to our assistance at some point. And Erdogan will leave the scene.

It’s not a hundred percent clear to me that anybody else would be as talented as he has been, in exploiting the forces that you and I have been discussing. And I think what we have to do is unfortunately, adopt a very transactional approach to, you know, Erdogan, because everything’s gonna have to be you want this, what am I gonna get for us doing it? You want f sixteens? I mean, I I think he’s gonna want a meeting with Biden, to, you know, be able to show the Turkish population that he’s a, you know, world leader who gets to meet with Biden. Biden clearly has a big distaste for Erdogan doesn’t wanna meet with him.

He’s gonna probably have to suck it up and do it at Villnius at the summit. But I think the answer ought to be, yeah, you know, once you’ve lifted your blockade on Sweden, then we can talk about a bilateral. They want, you know, they’re gonna want some progress on f sixteens. I think that makes sense in because I mean, we kicked them out of the F thirty five program because they bought the S four hundred Russian air defense missile, but I would much prefer Turkey to be flying fourth generation US fighters, fighters rather than buying Chinese or Russian fighters. Which will be the alternative if we don’t provide them.

So I, you know, we’re not giving them something that will compromise our qualitative military advantages because of the f thirty five’s unique characteristics. So I think f sixteen’s make make sense although it’s tasteful to have to do these kinds of transactional things with countries that are nominally allies.

Yeah. You know, I think you and I have talked a bit about the need for what I’m going to refer to as the higher transactionalism in American foreign policy. Let let me actually segue this discussion a little bit if it’s okay with you. So Henry Kissinger is turning a hundred years old.

He has turned a hundred years old.

He has turned a hundred years old. You and I have read actually, read his academic works, a world restored, Bismarked the White Revolutionary, which is actually a really interesting essay. A number of fascinating essays, these are from the fifties and sixties on American foreign policy, which really deserve a lot of attention, is a truly extraordinary memoir White House years, which I think is just You can’t be absolutely sure of the veracity of every single last word, but it is a but that’s you never can in any memoir. But it’s a it’s a magnificent magnificent, fascinating memoir. And on top of that, you and I both know him moderately well.

We’ve worked with him in defense policy board and other settings. And I think it’s fair to say we both have cordial to warm relationship with him. Now the thing, maybe to get the ball rolling, I mean, there do seem to be two different, very different ways which kissinger gets treated, either as this extraordinary sage, you know, kind of delivered pronouncements from a foreign policy, Mount Olympus, or as a war criminal, you know, duplicitous conniving, underhanded, you pick your adjective. And I think both of us would reject both of those views since we don’t always agree with him. But I think we have a have a do have a high regard for my maybe to get them all rolling on this.

I’ll say that one of the things I think people miss about Kissinger is well, two things maybe that they miss about. One is a deep seated patriotism. The kind of patriotism that Only a refugee immigrant has, and which is a really critical part of his persona. That I think gets gets underplayed. And the the second thing is his sensitivity.

Personal sensitivity. And that, you know, I’m I’m not dishing on any conversations I’ve had with him, but if you go look at White House years, there’s a very poignant description of a meeting with a bunch of his fellow professors at Harvard. I think this is during the Cambodia bombing. And you know, some of these have been the guys who got us into Vietnam for crying out loud. And they he describes a meeting in which there are just a lot of kind of caustic remarks, lack of And it’s it’s clear that this left him deeply wounded.

And it shaped his decision not to return to Harvard, which he could’ve.

And to give his papers to Yale.

And to give his papers to Yale, indeed. Which is about as big an insult to Harvard as you can imagine. And and the thing that struck me as having talked to him about the academic world. I mean, you know, he’s occasionally made a few wry comments about my staying in it, It’s clear that that episode It’s not that it wrangles. It left scars, and those scars are not fully healed even today.

Yeah. God. It’s such a complicated topic, and I have such complicated feelings. But first, Henry has been nothing but gracious and

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Yes. — extremely nice to me personally. And I agree with you. I mean, I I don’t know that I’ve ever met anybody all. I’ve met a number of people in Washington who can are concerned about their reputation.

I’m not sure I’ve met anybody quite as concerned about it as he is. And you’re right. There I think there are these sort of dueling kind of images of Henry, and some people who have worked for him who you know, recently have come out, you know, excoriating him which seems to me to be very bad form as, you know, as he you know, is essentially beginning to fade away. I have a lot more sympathy than I once did for the difficulties he faced trying to extricate the United States from Vietnam. And I I think I agree with you that I find the, you know, the criticisms of people like McGeorge Bundy, the late McGeorge Bundy and others who got us into Vietnam, you know, and then turned on on Henry to be somewhat disreputable.

On the other hand, he had the misfortune of serving, you know, one of the most paranoid presidents we’ve had, I would have said most malicious, but he’s now been surpassed, not captured.

He he lost that contest a while back.

But look, I think it must have been really hard to, you know, work inside the the Nixon White House, which suffered from all sorts of, dysfunctions having to do with Nixon’s personality.

And and the people around him too, you know, I think you know, it’s White House is never just the president. And, you know, the the the characters that he brought in were themselves difficult. Some of them duplicitous scheming, backstabbing. Yeah. And Kissinger was thrown into the mix of it, and and I also just to reinforce your point, as you think about the difficulty of extricating ourselves from that war, And, you know, people now view him as talking about a decent interval as sort of cynical.

Well, actually, there was something to it. I mean, he was concerned about America’s reputation, he understood reputations part of the currency of power. They’re dealing with a horrific domestic circumstances. But nothing like what, say, our boss, George, w Bush faced during the Iraq War

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Yeah. Because of a draft, much higher casualties. So I I’m with you. I by the way, also just, you know, truth in advertising, I should also say he’s he has also been nothing but gracious to me as well to include blurring my books. So I’m I’m grateful to him for that.

Yeah. I mean, I do think, you know, there are lots of things about which one can be, you know, critical about the Nixon policies. I mean, I I am actually a huge admirer of Secret Podcast of defense Melvin Lair, the late Melvin Lair. Yeah. Who I think was both one of the greatest secretaries of defense that we’ve had, but also in every way a match for Henry, which I think Henry, where he joining us today would agree agree with.

He set he says as much in his memoirs. Yeah. And the You know, every time he thought he had closed the door, Laird came back in through another one.

And and Laird was bound and determined to get the United States out of Vietnam. And press pressing constantly to move forward with the Americanization of the war and or I’m sorry, the vietnamization of the war and to pull the, you know, the de Americanization of the war, which was, I think, ultimately correct judgment on on his part One can, you know, criticize Henry and Nixon for some of the duplicity of the negotiations they were involved in. Although, You know, it’s really hard to to be too critical given what we now know about the North Vietnamese, which is that they had no interest in negotiating. At all, zero. And that’s been revealed from the north you know, North Venice’s records and the excellent work that a number of historians have done on that, I do think he and Nixon gave away too much to Mao and Joe and Lai in nineteen seventy two, and I do think some of our problems with Taiwan today are a result of, you know, not quite as much attention to detail in the Shanghai final communicate from that summit as there should have been.

In my humble estimation. I mean, I rely heavily for that judgment on Margaret McMillan’s excellent book on Nixon Mao Summit. But overall, I agree with you. I think Henry was motivated mostly by you know, a desire to preserve America’s reputation and, you know, to get us out of a terrible war that was tearing the country apart. I think he also, by the way, I I would be critical, and we talked about about this a little bit in terms of Daytona with the Russians, which I think he grossly oversold.

To the American public, which then created all sorts of of problems later because you know, the strategy that he and Nixon had of entangling Russia at Soviet Union in a web of interlocking, trade, and other agreements really did nothing to constrain Soviet behavior around the world. In fact, it convinced the Soviets. I think that they were in the mid to late seventies kind of playing a winning a winning hand. But again, you know, these are you know, these are details, as Henry would say.

Yeah. I I well, I think there’s a larger issue which really goes to the heart of his conception of foreign policy. And and I think in a certain way, I haven’t actually quite said it to him this bluntly, but I think I would say is you know, where I I think we’re one of the ways where I would part company with him is he’s actually not enough of a realist. I mean, he’s there is a somewhat romantic idea of great power politics as, you know, deals that are done by eminent statesmen at the top. And and although there’s a lot of attention to sort of the the deep historical currents underneath, which, you know, I think he’s absolutely right to focus on and which he can sometimes characterize just brilliantly.

And again, I really would refer people to the the White House years, because I just think it’s a it’s like a treatise and statesmanship. But still, it’s a somewhat romantic notion. So, you know, he’s, you don’t have a sense, he’s actually looking there to really do the Russians in or do the Chinese in or just say, yeah, there are gang cutthroats and murderers. They’ll come back at us once they’ve taken advantage of whatever it is we have to give them. And I think you know, that helps account for you know, his continued engagement with let’s face it with Putin and his whole series of Chinese leaders you know, not out of corrupt motives, I don’t think.

I but I think because he he thinks that, you know, ultimately, this is about, you know, serious people, a a favorite phrase of his, having serious discussions, coming to understandings, moving along, and I think that’s, unfortunately, for the world we live in, that may not be hard edged enough.

So a couple of a couple of thoughts on on that, Elliot. One is, I think we tend to forget how young Henry was when he became National security advisor. He was nineteen he was forty five in nineteen sixty eight, and he came to it without any previous job in government. Now he had been a consultant to the to the NSA to Bundy in the Kennedy administration for a number of years, and, of course, he was very close to Nelson Rockefeller and and was involved in the number of commissions for the, you know, public good that Rockefeller had sponsored in the late nineteen fifties as part of his I mean, I part of it was partly do good orism, but partly also anticipating a potential, you know, Rockfeller presidency at some point in the future, which in the late nineteen fifty seemed very plausible. And so, I mean, I think it’s it’s actually, you know, his his achievements, you know, are in some sense truly remarkable given the lack of experience that he had when he came in at forty five and all the other other factors that we have discussed.

There’s several remarkable aspects of it. One is if you read the memo that he wrote to Nixon, on the organization of the NSC staff. I remember when I first read it, and I think actually I first read it carefully after I’d been in government. I since myself, how did somebody who’d never actually served in government and had a sense of, you know, what things are like. How did he come up with this this brilliant piece of writing?

The other thing which I give him enormous credit for He had a great eye for talent. And he brought in people who would disagree with him. Now he he wasn’t easy to work for, apparently. I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t there.

I’ve heard that I’m good authority from many people who did work for him.

But, you know, he had people who did not share his views Some of whom broke with him very dramatically, some quite bitterly

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Right.

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including Daniel Elsburg, I believe. And Morton Halper and

Tony Lake,

Tony Lake. But but still, you know, there’s something impressive about that, you know. It’s the old saying goes, you know, first rate are are old mentor, Albert, and you say first rate people hire first rate people, second rate people, higher third rate people.

Right. No. There’s no no question about that although I think he had seen a lot of the in terms of the memo about organization of the National Security process under president Nixon. He had seen, I think, a lot of negative example under the Kennedy administration of lack of process. Right?

Because the Kennedy brothers basically undid the staff process that Eisenhower had created and they weren’t alone. A lot of critics were saying it was, you know, too too reactive, too stodgy, you know, etcetera. But I I guess my biggest problem with Henry’s kind of realism is You know, I think it takes its root in his, you know, very brilliant study of the Congress of Vienna in, you know, eighteen fourteen fifty. And the world is no longer made up of multinational, you know, empires with Mona Charen, who were related to, you know, one another in many ways and spoke a, you know, a common language because everybody spoke French, you know, I I mean, it’s a brilliant book and I think, you know, people have said that they think Meternick is the hero. When I read that book, I think Castle Ray

is Yeah.

Where he is. Is really the hero.

By the way, it was his dissertation PhD dissertation.

I know. I know.

Which is usually dis I mean

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Yeah.

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I really don’t want people reading my PHD dissertation.

Mine is mine is is now used as a booster seat for my grandchild. So So I — Oh. — so I I, you know, I heartily concur. But, you know, the world I mean, I think there’s a real underestimation of two things, ideology, and how it affects perceptions of national interest, and also the nature of regimes. Right?

So if, you know, Putin is not an ordinary statesman. Just as, you know, when AJ Taylor said Hitler was just an ordinary German statesman, he was making a huge category error. Yeah. Because Hitler was not an ordinary German statesman. He was motivated by an ideology.

And in Putin’s case, there’s both an ideological and a criminal enterprise element of this. I mean, Russia’s run like a criminal enterprise. Right. And I don’t think you can negotiate internationally with those kinds of regimes in the same way that Castleray Madernich you know, Alexander, czar Alexander and Tali Ront negotiated you know, about the future of Europe because they were just not the same common conceptions of legitimacy and of how territorial disputes could be resolved through the principle of compensation, you know, which doesn’t really apply anymore, you know, to what we’re dealing with in the twenty first century.

So I I’ll maybe to to wrap things up a bit. I I do wanna mention two of his qualities, which I think you know, whether one agrees or disagrees. And I think I hope it’s evident from this conversation that you and I do have a great deal of respect for him. And a certain degree of affection as well, I suppose. But one is you have to be impressed by his endless curiosity.

And, you know, he’s continuing to write books, you know, at a well beyond the age where I I intend to be putting pen to paper. And look at this latest fascination with the implications of AI. No. I I’ll confess I haven’t read the book that he wrote with Eric Schmidt. I don’t know whether it’s any good.

I don’t know how to think about AI. Maybe we can get somebody on the show who could tell me how to think about AI. But but you have to admire somebody who in his late nineties pledges in like that. The other thing is, I will confess I am charmed by his sense of humor. And it’s a now, so I I know it’s used somewhat self consciously, I think particularly self deprecating humor, it usually is.

Prominent people when they, you know, they it’s a way of disarming people. But it’s genuine. It’s always been there. And At the end of the day, somebody who has that sort of sense of humor, it whatever the size of their ego, whatever you agree or disagree with, it does indicate some sort of sense of proportion about how one views oneself. And, you know, I give him a lot of credit for that because let’s face it.

You and I both know plenty of humorless people in Washington.

Yes. And with egos that require service with much fewer accomplishments under their belt to justify it. I agree with that. I mean, I do think it’s interesting that he seems to have revised some of his views about Putin and about the conflict in Ukraine, and I think that’s to his credit.

Yeah. I think more than he has about China.

Yeah. And I I think You know, therein lies, I think, a problem. You made the comment that you think his views on Putin and and China are not for corrupt motives, and I don’t necessarily disagree with that. But on the other hand, He because he, you know, has gotten very wealthy as a result of his work at kissinger Associates, I think it it has made it harder to disentangle that part of, you know, his views on these subjects And, you know, I think, ultimately, that is, you know, a question historians, I suppose, Neil Ferguson, who is, you know, working on the kind of authorized biography and is published when volume Will Saletan to wrestle with you know, as they, you know, complete the story of his incredibly long and, you know, fascinating life.

Yeah. Realists, of course, in theory, should think of states somewhat detached from individual personalities. I think once you’ve been in those positions though, there is an undeniable rush about being invited as he used to be on an annual basis to fly to Moscow in private jet to have just have dinner with Vladimir Putin or to, you know, whenever you wanna visit China, you can be sure that you’re gonna meet with people at the abs absolute top. I think that’s you wouldn’t be human if that didn’t go to your head somewhat. But I, you know, I take that point.

Well, he’s endlessly fascinating, complicated human beings. You

know, I will there there is a danger in that kind of privileged communication with foreigners.

Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

And, you know, I I one example, you know, I I got a call from from Henry when I was under secretary of defense to report on his meeting with president Putin about a month or so after secretary Gates and I had gone over there at president Bush’s direction to talk to Putin about the decision president Bush made to put a missile defense system into eastern Europe with a mid course radar in the Czech Republic and interceptors in Poland, which was intended to deal with the looming and ongoing threat of Iranian ballistic missiles. And in it, in the conversation I had, Henry kind of recounted Putin being very angry and agitated at the meeting in which he accused secretary Gates of being rude and brusque and you know, having DistIM, and it was a hundred eighty degrees, you know, out from the actual meeting. In which Gates had been, you know, incredibly emollient to Putin. In fact, Putin had had to call a meeting short because Yelton had passed. And He, you know, we — the meeting was cut short by forty four minutes.

If there was anybody who was brusque or Kurt in that meeting, it was it was Putin. And and Gates had actually gone to the trouble of getting the the memos we were working on with how we could cooperate with the Russians on missile defense against a common threat from Iran translated into Russian so that, you know, Putin would have it right in Russian rather than a English, non paper in front of it. Maybe it was but but this is the kind of thing that Putin and others are able to do because they know Henry will have influence and a hearing and all all all that. So it’s it’s there’s a lot of danger, I think, in in those kinds of privileged channels of communications.

Yeah. I agree. But still, we wish him a belated and happy birthday. Yep. And, you know, at this point, I get well, there’s an old Yiddish expression, Bismundet Svantzik, you know, may you live to a hundred and twenty years, then maybe a little bit of a challenge, but getting to one hundred is a pretty good deal.

Yeah, I, you know, I hope I can emulate him. Well, I think that wraps it up for this episode of Shilda Republic, Elliott. Thank you for for joining. We’ll look forward to having you report in from not Europe, but but Vermont in our next occasion. And if you enjoyed this episode of Shield of Republic, please drop us a line at shieldedrepublic at gmail dot com or leave a review for us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts from.