Transcript: The future of war: James Stavridis on China, Russia, and the biggest security threats to the US
Ian Bremmer:
Hello and welcome to the GZERO World Podcast. This is where you can find extended versions of my interviews on public television. I'm Ian Bremmer, and on the pod today we are looking at some of the biggest national security threats facing the United States just as we head into a pretty contentious presidential election. Joining me, retired four-star U.S. admiral and former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, Jim Stavridis. As you might expect, Jim doesn't sugarcoat things, and he believes some of the biggest threats to U.S. national security are coming from inside the House. Meanwhile, outside of the United States, there's plenty to keep the next commander-in-chief up at night, from a grinding war in Ukraine to a bloody conflict in Gaza, and then there's China. One of the biggest unknowns in geopolitics today, what will Xi Jinping do about Taiwan? We will dive into all that and more, so let's get to it. Admiral Jim Stavridis, good to have you back on the show.
Jim Stavridis:
Great to be back with you.
Ian Bremmer:
There's so much to talk about.
Jim Stavridis:
Do you think?
Ian Bremmer:
Yeah. I mean, usually, you and I go around the world. But I feel given what's been happening in the United States, maybe we should start here at home. Threat environment in the U.S. I mean, I remember hearing from the head of National Intelligence, from the head of the CIA, the biggest threats to the United States right now are here. What does that mean to you?
Jim Stavridis:
Three things. One, domestic terrorism. We just recently had an assassination attempt on the former President of the United States. I think we're going to find that's an act of domestic terrorism, meaning it's some combination of unhinged political demonstration, young killer kind of thing. So internal domestic terror acts. Number two, threat actors. Clearly, we've seen Christopher Wray, the head of the FBI, back in July talking about all systems blinking red. He's talking about, for example, a very porous southern border with indications that mal-actors are moving people across from-
Ian Bremmer:
From all over the world.
Jim Stavridis:
All over the world. From the Middle East, from Latin America-
Ian Bremmer:
From China.
Jim Stavridis:
And certainly, from China, certainly from the stands. There's a physical external component. Thirdly, you and I have talked quite a bit over the years cyber and cyber activity. I think that's distinct from the first two because it's not as attributable. Here, in particular, I'd be watching China and Russia, great powers who have real capabilities. So Ian, I think those are the three threat vectors we got to mindful of. Oh, by the way, you may not know this. There's an election in the United States this year.
Ian Bremmer:
I was going to ask you.
Jim Stavridis:
That's going to amp up the tendency of bad actors to do things because they know the spotlight is here.
Ian Bremmer:
What have you seen in this election cycle? I mean, everyone is, of course, more unhinged this time around. But what have you seen specifically in the run-up to this election that gives you pause compared to previous U.S. elections?
Jim Stavridis:
Well, first, it's the, I think, very dramatic fork in the road on certain international issues. I think the most obvious is climate. So, you've had a Trump administration that pulls out of the Paris Climate Accord and deregulates significantly. Then we have now had four years of a Biden administration doing the opposite. I think, Ian, we're going to see very dramatic fork in the road between a Trump presidency and a Harris presidency in climate. I think, secondly, you're going to see pretty dramatic differences in how the two sides approach China. I think a Harris administration will be mindful of the challenges of China but look more for opportunities to cooperate where we can, confront where we must. With a Trump administration, I think we're in for a pretty rough ride with China. As I watch foreign policy hour wheelhouse, I worry about that bifurcation of U.S. foreign policy. It makes us appear erratic, unwieldy, whichever side you favor, coming into power.
Ian Bremmer:
I mean, clearly, the backdrop, geopolitically, to a challenging domestic U.S. threat environment is much more volatile and uncertain than anytime that I've been watching politics.
Jim Stavridis:
Yeah, I agree.
Ian Bremmer:
Maybe start with China and actually start with some good news. On the South China Sea, which I know you and I watch very carefully, it appears that the Chinese recently have reached out to the Philippines to say, "We want to lower the temperature." Do you put any stock in that?
Jim Stavridis:
I kind of do. And I think it's the tactical versus the strategic. President Xi, above all, wants to get his economy moving. And he knows that a real confrontation, particularly at the Philippines, is going to be an impediment to doing that, both in a transactional way in the other nations of the South China Sea, Vietnam right across the South China Sea is watching this very closely. So there's a tactical transactional piece. And secondly, Xi is very aware, very much aware that the Philippines are treaty allies of the United States.
Ian Bremmer:
Something bad happens, the Americans are obliged to defend.
Jim Stavridis:
Exactly. I think a lot of Americans think of the obligations we have to our NATO partners. And most Americans can tell you that we have a mutual defense treaty with Japan or Australia. I think very few Americans-
Ian Bremmer:
South Korea.
Jim Stavridis:
Also, South Korea. Also, however, Thailand and the Philippines. Not a lot of Americans are aware, those are rock solid mutual defense treaties. We may not know it here in the populace of the United States, but I assure you that Chinese are well aware of it. They know what that kind of confrontation could lead to. Xi wants to get his economy moving. He's not looking for a big confrontation. So yes, I do put stock in what's happening.
Ian Bremmer:
So in other words, there's the Scarborough Shoal, which has this ship that is falling apart, which the Philippines are trying to shore up as it were. And there's been actual fighting between the Chinese and Philippine soldiers. I think one soldier lost his thumb, right?
Jim Stavridis:
Yeah.
Ian Bremmer:
I mean, it's piracy kind of stuff, right?
Jim Stavridis:
Yeah.
Ian Bremmer:
You're saying the Chinese are actively trying, and we should take them at their word for the time being-
Jim Stavridis:
Correct.
Ian Bremmer:
They’re trying to reduce the temperature.
Jim Stavridis:
100%, and that's the tactical action that's happening. Strategically, however, China is not going to back away from their preposterous claims of territoriality all around this vast body of water. Most Americans don't realize how big the South China Sea is. It's half the size of the United States. China claims almost all of it, the so-called-
Ian Bremmer:
Nine-dash line.
Jim Stavridis:
Nine or 10-dash line. Within that, China is playing a very long game.
Ian Bremmer:
It goes from the Chinese coast right down to the territory of the Philippines and Indonesia. It's extraordinary what they claim.
Jim Stavridis:
Oh, it's huge. Two points to be made. One is what guards the northern entrance to the South China Sea? Oh, it's this island called Taiwan. So it ups the stakes. We think correctly about Taiwan and its criticality and the world of microchips and it's vibrant democracy. It's also, geographically, the door into the South China Sea. And the second point to be made about China's claims, they have been through the international courts and thoroughly, thoroughly rejected. The reason is China bases all their claims on the voyages of a Chinese Admiral Zheng He 400 years ago, but they never claimed the territory. They never built outposts. They did nothing to establish real sovereignty. So their claims were rejected, and I think that they don't have a good case.
Ian Bremmer:
Now, Jim, on this point, the United States rejects all sorts of decisions from the International Court of Justice all the time when they don't like them, and the U.S. is not a signatory. So I wonder, when you sit here and talk to me about the fact that farcical Chinese claims are getting rejected, do we have an ability as Americans to credibly talk about that sort of thing?
Jim Stavridis:
I think we do in a countervailing way. What China is doing, Ian, is effectively saying... It would be as though the United States said, "We own the Gulf of Mexico. We own everything around it. We own that entire body of water, and we own it because American warships have passed through it over the years." It's a preposterous claim. We don't do that. We do walk the walk of the international system. Our territorial seas, as you well know, our 12 miles. There's another 12 miles of contiguous zone, and then there's a 200-mile exclusive economic zone. We follow those precepts, so I'm pretty confident in our moral authority in pointing this out.
Ian Bremmer:
You sound like you know a little something about the law of the seas.
Jim Stavridis:
I was the dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and of course, I wrote my PhD on the Law of the Sea, which I know you know.
Ian Bremmer:
I do know.
Jim Stavridis:
You're tweaking me.
Ian Bremmer:
I'm just giving you a hard time.
Jim Stavridis:
You're tweaking me, Dr. Bremmer.
Ian Bremmer:
Okay. Now, you tease Taiwan. We haven't hit it yet. Does your view that China's economy and its deep structural challenges means that they don't want any trouble with the South China Sea right now? We know that Taiwan is an existential issue for Xi Jinping. Does that also make him much more cautious in the way he is willing to escalate or a level of risk aversion around a new Taiwanese government that he really dislikes and mistrust?
Jim Stavridis:
He does. So I think this is a good example of where it's helpful to put yourselves in the shoes of the other actors. Let's put ourselves in Xi Jinping's shoes for a minute, because there's another word here. We talk about Taiwan. What else is Xi looking at? He's looking at Ukraine, and he's asking himself three things. On Ukraine, at the Olympics two and a half years ago, his best friend forever, Vladimir Putin, whispered in his ear, "You know, Xi, I'm going to take down that country. I'm going to sweep across it in five days. I'm going to grab that little knucklehead former comedian and throw him in prison for the rest of his life, or maybe I'll kill him." What happened? Well, they got stopped. So point one, President Xi is watching what happened in Ukraine and is asking himself, "I wonder if my generals are as bad as those Russian generals appear to be."
Putin's generals assured him they would conquer Ukraine. Of course, they have not. A lot of factors have gone into that, but that's uncertainty number one for Xi. His armed force, his Chinese military, hasn't been in combat in a serious way since the Korean War. He doesn't have a general whose heard a shot fired in anger. For better or for worse, the American military is highly blooded. That's uncertainty number one, and he's watching Ukraine. Uncertainty number two. Xi says to himself, "I wonder if those Taiwanese will fight like hell the way that the Ukrainians have." He don't know. He's never been to Taiwan. I've been to Taiwan a fair amount. I think they'll fight. I think they'll fight hard, and that island is a resistance fighter's dream. It's wooded, mountainous. The Taiwanese have been tunneling it for decades. I think they'll fight and fight.
Ian Bremmer:
It's also an island, so it's amphibious.
Jim Stavridis:
As I always say, there's a reason people built moats around castles in the Middle Ages. Taiwan is surrounded by the biggest, baddest moat on earth. It's 100 miles of really rough sea that I've sailed. So uncertainty number two is how hard will the resistance be? I think it'll be hard. He don't know, nobody knows. But number three, would he incur big sanctions the way that Russia has. I think President Xi probably wakes up in the morning, looks in the mirror on that subject, and says, "My economy, it's too big to sanction." Yeah, it is pretty big economy. But could we hurt it badly with precision-guided sanctions, secondary sanctions? Yeah, it would crack the global economy. Let's hope we don't get there. But again, where we started this conversation, Ian, what's Xi's prime directive right now? He has to get his economy going, attacking Taiwan don't get him-
Ian Bremmer:
All of this is making you think that near term at least, maybe near to medium term, the risks of confrontation with China are overstated.
Jim Stavridis:
Correct.
Ian Bremmer:
Yeah. I mean, that's important, because at the end of the day, I know you said that there's a difference as a fork in the road between a Harris presidency and Trump presidency, but I would argue that of all the places out there, China's the one that they've been most aligned on. It's the easiest one to get consensus and Congress on. Maybe we can dial down the temperature a little bit given the nature of the Chinese economy.
Jim Stavridis:
I will part company with you with one word, which is tariff. The Trump team, at least thus far, has talked consistently.
Ian Bremmer:
They talked big, yeah.
Jim Stavridis:
Massive tariff. The Harris team, which is still being shaped even as we run this election, is much more amenable to finding a better path. I think that's where the big difference is between them. I agree with you geopolitically. I think both sides, no one's looking for a war here.
Ian Bremmer:
So I want to move a little bit. I do want to talk to you a bit about the Middle East in part because I see that there are a lot of inexpensive Houthi weapons that are being shot down, defended against, with much more expensive American equipment, UK equipment. I mean, to the extent that we keep trying to fight these asymmetrical wars, they're really, really not cost-effective. Yet, it seems that the Houthis are getting more and more capable of what they're able to do in the region. This ragtag group has been able to disrupt shipping traffic for months now. Okay so you as the admiral, talk to me about what we need to be doing that we aren't doing.
Jim Stavridis:
Yeah, I'll give you a five-step campaign plan. We're one step into it, and it's the one you described. It's defense. It is ensuring that we can knock down those missiles, that we can respond when a Houthi piracy operation gets underway. By the way, I spent four years fighting Somali pirates. Those were teenagers in flip-flops with rusty AK-47s. Maybe you've seen Captain Phillips. Okay, that's not the Houthis. The Houthis have been trained, equipped, organized by the Iranian, and particularly by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
Ian Bremmer:
The IRGC, yeah.
Jim Stavridis:
Google Houthi takedown of warship. You'll see a Navy SEAL-like operation, fully kitted out, high-tech communication, rope line down, incredibly, incredibly capable.
Ian Bremmer:
This is not Hamas with their GoPros, not at all.
Jim Stavridis:
Not at all, no. This is a very well-equipped force on the maritime side, so what should we do? Number one, we defend, we put in convoys, we do all the at-sea things. Number two, we haven't done this yet in a serious way. You go ashore. In that second phase, Ian, you go after the maritime capability. The boat repair facility, the ammunition dumps, the docking stations, the pier structure.
Ian Bremmer:
Those are missile responses, largely.
Jim Stavridis:
Correct.
Ian Bremmer:
It's been months, why haven't they done that?
Jim Stavridis:
I have no idea. I have no idea.
Ian Bremmer:
If you were in there, would you be strongly recommending that?
Jim Stavridis:
100%
Ian Bremmer:
Already.
Jim Stavridis:
Absolutely.
Ian Bremmer:
Months ago.
Jim Stavridis:
Months ago.
Ian Bremmer:
It's just incapability? What is it?
Jim Stavridis:
I think it is a desire on the part of the, at the time, the Biden administration to avoid a wider war. They are concerned that going after this proxy infrastructure will inexorably lead to a major conflict with Iran. I reject that. You can't be scared of your own shadow, and we can't seed 20% of the global shipping chains to the Houthis. So phase two, you go after the maritime targets.
Ian Bremmer:
You have three more phases though.
Jim Stavridis:
I do.
Ian Bremmer:
Okay, be quick.
Jim Stavridis:
Okay, I will. Third phase. You go after Houthi targets, but you don't confine it to the maritime. You go after their command and control, you go after their leadership. You go after their ground capability because they value that. They're still in a civil conflict, so you expand the strike zone. Step four, you sever the between Iran and the Houthis. They're largely maritime. You put, effectively, a blockade zone, and you could cut that off. In phase five, most controversially, if none of that works, phase five, you go after Iran. Here, I'm not saying jets whistling over Tehran, but you start going after Iranian warships that are operating, providing intelligence and support to the Houthis in the Red Sea. You go after Iranian maritime intelligence gathering platforms. That would be the-
Ian Bremmer:
You believe that a significant... I mean, this is what one could do, but I'm hearing that this is what you believe should be done.
Jim Stavridis:
Correct. Yes.
Ian Bremmer:
A significant military escalation by the United States in the region-
Jim Stavridis:
Yes, I recommend that, and I'll tell you-
Ian Bremmer:
Because deterrence is just not working.
Jim Stavridis:
Correct. I am all for working your way up the vertical ladder of escalation. I just think we've been stuck in phase one. And your point, we're shooting down $300 drones with million-dollar standard missiles. By the way, it's not just the merchant ships that are at risk. Sooner or later, one of those drones is going to hit a navy warship. We're going to have a USS Cole-like event, and then we're off to the races anyway. My view, let's work up that ladder of escalation, signaling the whole way, but we have to do it in a resolute fact.
Ian Bremmer:
Let me clarify one thing. I mean, you've talked about the convoys that need to protect ships. Again, there's already a lot of that happening. But you are not at any of these stages talking about the requirement of American boots on the ground fighting in the region.
Jim Stavridis:
Nope, nope. Nothing I just said should imply that. And I think that is a pretty good place to draw a line for the United States. That we can do everything we've just talked about from the sea, from the air, cyber, special forces, operating from the sea, going after Houthi maritime. At this stage, I don't think we need to put American troops on the ground. And by the way, if we need some troops on the ground, talk to the IDF.
Ian Bremmer:
The Israeli Defense Forces.
Jim Stavridis:
Yes.
Ian Bremmer:
Yeah. I want to now pivot. You've written a lot recently, including a very fun, speculative novel, “2054,” about where technology is going and how that changes national security for the United States. Most of this book, set in the United States. This one, as opposed to the last one in Asia, which is a lot of fun. Of course, nukes were popping off in the last one, Jim, so I was worried about that.
Jim Stavridis:
This is a much more benign book.
Ian Bremmer:
It is more benign, though it's a little dystopian in terms of a lot of things you see on the ground in the United States. We're not going to go there. I want to talk though about how technology is changing fighting in the United States. Because on the one hand, I see a lot of traditional military, industrial, complex companies that have been around for a very long time. They put together very expensive state-of-the-art bomber systems, jet fighter systems, submarine systems. Then I see new companies like Palantir, and Anduril, and others that are saying we are the state of the art for the future. Of course, I also see AI and both the Chinese and non-state actors that are moving faster than an eye blink changing the nature of war fighting. Talk to me a little bit about not 2054, but the next, let's say, administration. The next four years, how is war fighting going to change? How is America's national security posture and vulnerability's going to change?
Jim Stavridis:
Let's start with Ukraine. We're watching warfare shape-shift in front of our eyes. On the one hand, you have World War I. You have-
Ian Bremmer:
Trenches.
Jim Stavridis:
Trenches, blood, guts, hand to hand fighting, waves of troops massacred. Static, everything. It's World War I. What's the coin of the realm? Artillery shells, thousands of them. That's the World War I piece. But on that same battlefield, as we know, is artificial intelligence, unmanned systems. The Russian Black Sea fleet started with 60 ships, of which almost half are sunk or badly damaged.
Ian Bremmer:
Which is crazy because Ukraine doesn't have a Navy.
Jim Stavridis:
You stole my punch line.
Ian Bremmer:
Oh, was that your line?
Jim Stavridis:
Yeah, sure. Ukraine doesn't even have a Navy. They did it all with unmanned vehicles, exquisite intelligence. What was the first ship they sank? The flagship.
Ian Bremmer:
The biggest one, the Moskva.
Jim Stavridis:
Moskva. Took it down with 400 sailors, a remarkable feat of arms. So you've got these competing visions in front of you. How do we think about it? Here in the United States-
Ian Bremmer:
What's the chance that Putin thought he was going to lose the Black Sea fleet when he started the war?
Jim Stavridis:
Zero.
Ian Bremmer:
Zero, right?
Jim Stavridis:
Thought that was one of his ace cards that he would use to strangle the Ukrainian economy. Guess what? It hasn't happened. The Black Sea fleet is now cowering in the Eastern Black Sea. They're scared to get anywhere near Ukraine, and the Ukrainian economy is flowing just fine, all of its exports. So what should we do about it? How do we think about it? Here's our problem, so often in geopolitics and life, we want to think of everything as an on and off switch. Everything's black and white. It's very simple.
One could say, "Oh, yeah. The U.S. Military needs to absolutely do unmanned, and special forces, and cyber, and get rid of all those expensive platforms." That's not the right image. It's not an on-and-off switch. It's a rheostat. You dial it in. Over the next four years, I think quite significantly, using the lessons of Ukraine, you're going to see the dial of that rheostat move, less spending on those big conventional platforms, more spending. The good news is a lot of it's less expensive on cyber, on unmanned, on space, on lightweight maritime systems, on the U.S. Marine Corps. That's American-
Ian Bremmer:
Well, that's good news for U.S. Defense spending. That's not good news globally.
Jim Stavridis:
Correct.
Ian Bremmer:
Not at all.
Jim Stavridis:
No, not at all. What you need to think about in this context is a new triad that's emerging. We think of triad as this strategic triad-
Ian Bremmer:
The nuclear.
Jim Stavridis:
The nuclear. This is the new “triad” of warfare. It's unmanned systems. People think, "Oh, drones." No, it's much bigger than that. It's unmanned. That's satellites, that's long-dwell surveillance. It's Reaper, Predator attack drones.
Ian Bremmer:
Submarines.
Jim Stavridis:
All the way to the bottom of the ocean. That tranche of unmanned is one leg of this new triad. The next leg is cyber and artificial intelligence. We can dive in deeper on that. And the third leg of the triad are Special Forces. I want to make a point. Special Forces, we tend to think of as Rambo and Navy SEALs putting red dots on people's foreheads. That's part of it. But Special Forces, to me, are elite, exquisitely trained humans doing very difficult one-off tasks. So that can be a SEAL. It can be a Marine Raider. It can also be a cyber expert. It can be a drone pilot. It can be an artificial intelligence engineer. Those kind of Special Forces. We are going to need less of these huge-standing armies, which are incredibly expensive. By far, the most expensive thing in the U.S. Armed forces are personnel.
Ian Bremmer:
That being the case, how long before the Ukraine war or another war like it would no longer have a World War I component, would no longer have trench warfare front lines and thousands and thousands of soldiers fed into this relentless meat grinder?
Jim Stavridis:
I think the chances of Ukraine II kind of battle are relatively low because of what's happening in Ukraine. Because the world is observing it and watching that shape-shifting. Secondly, because the obvious potential conflict, which I write about in “2034,” the novel-
Ian Bremmer:
Yeah, the previous book. Yeah.
Jim Stavridis:
... is U.S. And China. We are not going to need a million-person army to contend with China, but we are going to need that new triad of warfare.
Ian Bremmer:
In the next five years, is it more or less likely that the United States, as a comparative power projection to other adversaries in the world, does it get comparatively stronger or weaker, and why?
Jim Stavridis:
I think we will continue to be the preeminent nation at projecting power. And the reason is because we've invested in it enormously, even if you look at China, which would be the other nation that is consciously developing the ability to do that.
Ian Bremmer:
Including major nuclear capabilities, yeah.
Jim Stavridis:
Nuclear capability, satellite systems, building bases. China today has, you probably know this, one base. It's in Djibouti.
Ian Bremmer:
Djibouti.
Jim Stavridis:
There are hundreds of U.S. bases all around the world. Those bases go back to Alfred Thayer Mahan over 100 years ago. The forwards coaling stations of Mahan are these bases today. So I think the U.S. will continue to be preeminent. China will make a play to do it. Russia, the lights are going to go out. I think because of Putin's folly in Ukraine. And I don't see another contending power. I don't see the Iranians, the North Koreans, the Venezuelans, the Cubans, the usual list of mal-actors.
Ian Bremmer:
But asymmetrical warfare from randos is going way up.
Jim Stavridis:
Correct. That's what you need to worry about, back where we started this conversation. In particular, it's small group acts of terrorism. It's the ability to use weapons of mass disruption, as well of weapons of mass destruction. And here, cyber continues to be very dangerous.
Ian Bremmer:
Admiral Jim Stavridis, thanks again for joining the show.
Jim Stavridis:
What a pleasure, Ian.
Ian Bremmer:
That's it for today's edition of the GZERO World Podcast. Do you like what you heard? Of course you do. Why not make it official? Why don't you rate and review GZERO World five stars? Only five stars, otherwise don't do it, on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. Tell your friends.
