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Saudi-led peace talks on Ukraine
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here. A Quick Take to kick off your week hot summer week.
And the Saudis are saying that they are going to host a broad peace conference on Ukraine this weekend. Lots to unpack here. First of all, the Ukrainians are going. It looks like the Americans are sending Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor. He's been back and forth to the kingdom a fair bit of late. And the Ukrainians are saying that these talks will be on the basis of the ten-point peace plan that they rolled out last year. Nothing particularly earth-shattering about that plan. Not a surprise they'd be okay with it. It is the Russians returning all the land.It is war reparations being paid by Russia. It is war crimes being fully investigated, prosecuted. None of which is acceptable to the Kremlin. But if the Saudis are hosting it, the Ukrainians are part of it, and everyone is invited - the Chinese, the Indians, the Brazilians, the Europeans, but not the Russians. And what we seem to see is that the Russians haven't had communications directly with the Saudis on this, and instead you have the Kremlin spokesperson saying they're studying it. You know, they're of course, they want to be constructive. That's the official position. So we're going to see where this is going. It's pretty interesting.
I mean, on the first point, the United States is consistent with its public policy that there are no Ukraine negotiations without the Ukrainians in the lead, can't talk about any of this unless it is the Ukrainian plan.So that's basically the starting point for the weekend. Hard to imagine that that is all that is said coming out of the talks. In other words, very interesting to see, if not that the Ukrainians should be expected to negotiate against themselves, but rather in the context of their present counter-offensive. Do they say anything about Crimea and the fact that that can be staged, even though they're never going to say, “No, it's just your territory, Russia, you can take it.”Might there be willingness to say that the reparations that need to be paid can be paid by anybody doesn't have to come from Russia. So if the Europeans are providing the aid to reconstruct Ukraine, as long as the aid comes, I mean, I can see things that can come out of this weekend that would be constructive and that could be multilateral with full Ukrainian engagement. That in no way makes it feel that the Ukrainians are giving up the store or look weak or under massive international pressure. So that's the first important point here.
The second is that the Saudis, of course, have had a fantastic year, maybe the best trajectory in terms of governance on the international stage of any of the G-20, which is kind of shocking if you think about, you know, where they've been over the last few years. Massive popularity for Mohammed bin Salman among every young person, say, under 40 in the kingdom, most of the world happily engaging the Gulf Cooperation Council, much more consolidated with the Saudis than it had been over the past years. Yes, there have been some tensions with the UAE, but nothing like what we've seen with Qatar recently. I mean, Al Saud reaching out to Syria and getting them reengage the peace plan. China facilitated it with the Iranians and Saudi Arabia, strong relations between the Saudis and Netanyahu, maybe joining the Abraham Accords by the end of this year. And now the Saudis taking the lead on the most substantive to date, it looks like, high-level Ukrainian talks. So that's also worth watching.
But I think the biggest point here is that the West has had a big problem outside of NATO with the Global South because so far, the policy has basically been support the war to allow the Ukrainians to defend themselves, to get their territory back, but not having much credible to say on what eventual peace talks would look like. And if you're in the Global South, you know, you want to know who's trying to end this war, because this war is not in our interests and we know it, we of course, we believe in Ukrainian territorial integrity, but we'd really like to see food and fertilizer just like get back to the global marketplace and stop having, you know, all of this on our shoulders. And we have no interest in sanctions against Russia. Well, we're trying to do business with these people, as we always have. So the fact that we would now have the ability for the West working with at least some of the Global South in talking about negotiation puts a lot more pressure on Russia and improves the diplomatic position of NATO as a whole. And the timing is kind of critical here because, yes, the counteroffensive is now truly engaged in earnest probably for the next month or two.
But, you know, you want to be in a position to start negotiations when the West is strong and consolidated and when Ukraine is fully aligned with it, at least publicly. And that's probably going to be less true in, say, six-month time as the US political cycle plays out and there's more internal fighting over how much economic and humanitarian support Ukraine is going to get as the Europeans start seeing more opposition as that occurs. Right now it's mostly Hungary that can get railroaded by the other European Union states, but soon it may well end up being Czechia. I could see Italy potentially in that basket, you know, Slovakia, other countries, because the fiscal constraints are going to grow. And if the Americans aren't providing as much economic support, it's going to be harder for some of the Europeans, too. So you definitely want a position where you're talking about what negotiations could look like and either get the Russians involved, or isolate the Russians. But either way, a better position to be in, then you're only talking about war, and the war is getting less support even among your own population. So in that regard, what the Saudis are doing here seems very smart to me. I'm not at all surprised the Americans and Ukrainians are fully engaged. They've clearly been coordinating with them closely over the past weeks. And we will watch this weekend very carefully to see where it goes.
That's it for me. And I'll talk to you all real soon.
Trudeau and Biden line up … to take on China
In a speech last week in New York, PM Justin Trudeau took a shot at China while talking up Canada’s lithium production.
“The lithium produced in Canada is going to be more expensive because we don’t use slave labor because we put forward environmental responsibility as something we actually expect to be abided by because we count on working … in partnership with indigenous peoples, paying fair living wages, expecting security and safety standards.”
Trudeau was trying to frame a policy choice for Americans: buy virtuous, ethical Canadian lithium or unethical, Chinese lithium. This message, which Trudeau and Deputy PM & Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland keep delivering, is in line with President Joe Biden’s priority of friend-shoring, or trading with reliable partners – not China.
The day before, at a speech in Washington, DC, Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, pointed to the new Canada-U.S. energy transformation task force, which was created with the aim of “ensuring clean-energy supply and creating middle-class jobs on both sides of the border.”
Sullivan, a China hawk, is pushing for a new “Washington consensus” that will see Canada and other friendly countries adopt trade patterns that will “de-risk” the China relationship so that America and its allies can have “resilient, effective supply chains.”
Canadian politicians — who are fearful that Biden’s huge Inflation Reduction Act will push companies south in search of lucrative subsidies — want to be in the big US industrial tent, which means closer ties to Uncle Sam and greater distance from Xi Jinping.
Trudeau family tradition
For decades, Canada had a different approach to China. Trudeau’s father, Pierre, first visited China in 1949 and established diplomatic relations with China in 1970, two years before Richard Nixon’s ping-pong diplomacy. For Canadian foreign policy mandarins in the decades that followed, the country’s links to China were a reminder that Canada could go its own way.
Justin Trudeau, therefore, was following not just a Canadian pattern but a family tradition when he sought closer ties to China as prime minister. Before he was elected, he had to apologize after confessing to admiring “China’s basic dictatorship.”
Chinese hostage diplomacy seems to have finally forced Canada to reassess its relationship, but even after that, it was slower than its allies to respond to the snarling “wolf warriors” of Beijing. Canada was the last of the Five Eyes to ban Huawei from its cell networks, was slower than the US to ban TikTok from federal government phones, and has yet to decide if it will bring in a foreign agent registry or take other steps to counter Chinese interference in Canadian politics.
Back in formation
Canadian officials were guilty of “wishful thinking,” says Wesley Wark, a senior fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation in Ottawa. “Over the years, our eyes have been opened to the reality of China's new position in the world, its aggressive ambitions, its conduct as an international power. And slowly but surely, Canada has responded to that primarily … by trying to stay in formation with its Five Eyes partners.”
It has not moved quickly enough for its critics at home.
On Monday, when Trudeau was back in chilly Ottawa, he was greeted by a Globe and Mail story revealing that his government did nothing after it was warned that the Chinese intended to go after Conservative MP Michael Chong’s relatives in China. The government eventually confirmed the facts but has not yet explained why it didn’t alert Chong to the threat or expel the diplomat who made it.
Leaks from the secret world
Trudeau’s government has struggled for months with similar damaging leaks from Canada’s intelligence agencies, which shows that some in the secret world agree with Conservative complaints about the passivity of the Trudeau government in the face of provocations from Beijing. Trudeau has signaled that Canada is taking a new tone, but he doesn’t seem to be backing his words with action at home.
There may be a reason for Trudeau’s caution, says Anna Ashton, China director at Eurasia Group. In 2018, when Canada detained Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou in response to an American extradition request, the Chinese didn’t respond by detaining Americans but by locking up two Canadians — Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — for almost three years.
“When it comes to Chinese retaliatory efforts, Canada's more vulnerable than the United States,” she says.
Perils of a tougher line
Ashton is worried that both Canada and the United States are courting trouble if they push too hard to decouple their economies from China in response to pressure from the opposition. China is already using exit bans and raiding foreign companies’ Chinese offices.
“Everybody's attacking Biden no matter what he does from the right. Basically, he's in a situation where he can't be tough enough, but if he's too tough, it could prevent him from developing the diplomatic ties needed to prevent an actual emergency.”
Trudeau is lining up with Biden in taking a tougher tone with Xi, but he doesn’t look comfortable doing so. Given the downside risks of confrontation, Trudeau’s unease makes sense, although it’s likely unwise to show weakness when dealing with the hard men in Beijing.
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GZERO North is a weekly newsletter that gives you an insider’s guide to the very latest political, economic, and cultural news shaping US-Canadian relations. Subscribe today.
Iran v. the Islamic Republic: Fighting Iran’s gender apartheid regime
Woman, life, freedom. Those three words have filled the streets of Iran since the ongoing women-led protests against the regime, the biggest since 2009, began last September.
How did Iranian women get here? How has the theocracy responded so far? And what might come next?
On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer speaks to Iranian journalist and activist Masih Alinejad, a sworn enemy of the Supreme Leader; it's widely believed that Iranian spies have tried to kidnap and assassinate her here in New York.
From Alinejad's perspective, the regime is afraid like never before because the protests have achieved unity among Iranians for the first time. And many even cheered the national soccer team's elimination at the World Cup because some players were seen as puppets of the regime.
Her message to the West: If you want to help, don't go back to the 2015 nuclear deal and let Iranians bring about regime change on their own.
- Iran nuclear deal is dead ›
- Great Satan on the pitch, big troubles at home — Iran's World Cup dilemma ›
- What We're Watching: Iran protests spread, Putin mobilizes, NY sues Trumps, China faces slow growth ›
- Why Iran’s protests are different this time ›
- Podcast: After Mahsa Amini: Iran’s fight for freedom, with Masih Alinejad ›
The biggest threats to US national security, foreign and domestic
Less than a month ago, the Biden administration finally dropped its long-anticipated National Security Strategy. The No. 1 external enemy is not Russia but rather China. It also emphasizes the homegrown threat of Americans willing to engage in political violence if their candidate loses at the ballot box.
On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer speaks to New York Times national security correspondent David Sanger about the key national security threats facing the United States right now.
Sanger believes the biggest threat to America's national security right now is an "insider threat" to the stability of the election system coming from Americans willing to engage in political violence. Taiwan's status as a semiconductor superpower may be staving off a Chinese invasion.
On Russia, Sanger believes that Ukraine and the world face the paradox that the better Ukraine gets at resisting Russia, the more likely Putin might launch a tactical nuke. And if he does, he might just get away with it.
This interview was featured in a GZERO World episode: US threat levels from foreign and domestic enemies
Podcast: After Mahsa Amini: Iran’s fight for freedom, with Masih Alinejad
Listen: Iran is being rocked by its most significant protests since the Green Movement of 2009. Since September, hundreds of thousands of young and mostly female demonstrators have filled the streets of nearly every major city from Tehran to Tabriz, many discarding their headscarves at great personal risk to protest draconian societal rules and restrictions. The backlash from security forces has been brutal, though (except in the Kurdish region) the government has yet to send in the Revolutionary Guard.
Iranian-American journalist and activist Masih Alinejad joins Ian Bremmer on the GZERO World podcast to discuss. Where will these protests lead, and what are the geopolitical implications for the region, and for the West? Alinejad shares her views on the unprecedented unity among the Iranian protesters, her personal experience being targeted by the Iranian government even after moving to the United States, and why the Iranian men's World Cup team does not deserve sympathy.
What threatens the USA?
Less than a month ago, the Biden administration finally dropped its long-anticipated National Security Strategy. And it had a few surprises.
Think Russia is the biggest US security threat, given its invasion of Ukraine? Think again, Ian Bremmer tells GZERO World.
The White House sees China as America’s most formidable, long-term threat.
Why? Because it has not only the intent but also the ability to fundamentally alter the world order to one where democracy is no longer the dominant form of government.
And what needs to happen for the US to project strength abroad? For democracy to remain strong at home.
Watch the GZERO World episode: US threat levels from foreign and domestic enemies
- Top US national security threat: the myth of the stolen election ›
- US threat levels from foreign and domestic enemies ›
- Podcast: America at risk: assessing Russia, China, and domestic ... ›
- US national security depends on domestic progress - GZERO Media ›
- The biggest threats to US national security, foreign and domestic - GZERO Media ›
US threat levels from foreign and domestic enemies
The Biden administration finally released its long-anticipated National Security Strategy, basically America's biggest threats — foreign and domestic.
The No. 1 external enemy is not Russia but rather China. It also emphasizes the homegrown threat of Americans willing to engage in political violence if their candidate loses at the ballot box.
On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer speaks to David Sanger, who knows a thing or two about national security because it's his beat at the New York Times.
His take on China? Taiwan's status as a semiconductor superpower may be staving off a Chinese invasion.
On Russia, Sanger discusses how Kyiv and the world face the paradox that the better Ukraine gets at resisting Russia, the more likely it is that Vladimir Putin will consider launching a tactical nuke. “If the Russians use a tactical nuclear weapon in a conventional war and essentially get away with … then all of a sudden, the taboo about using nuclear weapons in a conventional conflict is gone,” he says.
Meanwhile, America should not lose sight of the "insider threat" to its democracy, particularly with midterms just days away.
Podcast: America at risk: assessing Russia, China, and domestic threats
Listen: From Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to China’s vision for a new global order, there’s plenty keeping President Joe Biden’s national security officials up at night. On the GZERO World podcast, Ian Bremmer and New York Times national security correspondent David Sanger break down the top foreign and domestic threats outlined in the Biden administration's recently released National Security Strategy document.
According to the report, the No. 1 external danger is not Russia but rather China. Sanger explains why he believes Taiwan's status as a semiconductor superpower may be staving off a Chinese invasion. As for the Russia-Ukraine war, Sanger talks about the "Ukraine paradox" - the better Ukraine gets at resisting Russia, the more likely Vladimir Putin might launch a tactical nuke (and, Sanger notes, he might just get away with it.)
But the biggest threat to America's national security could well be at home —an “insider threat" to the stability of the election system coming from Americans willing to engage in political violence.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.TRANSCRIPT: America at risk: assessing Russia, China, and domestic threats
David Sanger:
Our greatest national security threat right now is really an insider threat and it's backed up by a new acceptance that if you don't like the outcome of an election, violence is then in some way warranted.
Ian Bremmer:
Hello and welcome to the GZERO World Podcast. This is where you'll find extended versions of my interviews on public television. I'm Ian Bremmer, and in this episode we're taking a deep dive into the key national security threats facing the United States. It was in mid-October that the Biden administration released its long awaited national security strategy, a 45 page document that evaluates a wide range of threats and challenges, both foreign and domestic. To break those threats down for you and to talk about what we may be missing, I'm joined by New York Times National Security correspondent David Sanger. Let's get to it.
Announcer:
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Ian Bremmer:
David Sanger, welcome to GZERO World.
David Sanger:
Thanks so much, Ian. Great to be back with you.
Ian Bremmer:
So I want to start a pretty big picture. A mutual friend of ours, former Defense Secretary Ash Carter, just passed away a week ago, and I've been thinking about his quote a lot. I think it was exactly, I always tell people the day when nuclear weapons are in the newspaper, we are in real trouble. Well, I think it's pretty safe to say that nuclear weapons are in the newspapers right now, given all of the saber-rattling we've seen from the Kremlin and particularly from President Putin, how much are you worried about nuclear war right now?
David Sanger:
Well, in first a moment about our friend Ash. I had lunch with him on the Monday that he passed away, and we were up at Harvard and he was full of life and humor and wonderful questions. We were with a number of Harvard faculty and a member of the Biden administration who was up visiting in Cambridge. And we talked about this a little bit. We talked about it in two contexts, one, Putin's threats, and second, China's buildup. And to think about this right, I think you have to separate out two or three different issues.
The first is that at the beginning of the war in Ukraine, I think the fear of use of a nuclear weapon was pretty low, I would say well under 1%. Because at the time we thought that the Ukrainians would not be much of a match for the Russian military. We've now discovered we had that completely wrong and that the Ukrainians were quite a match. And at this point, Putin really only has the choice of using some of his extraordinary weapons if he is going to try to fulfill a larger victory, if you could call that a victory.
Ian Bremmer:
And again, it's not just Ukraine, of course, it turns out that Ukraine plus NATO support is very much a ma.
David Sanger:
That's right.
Ian Bremmer:
For the Russian military.
David Sanger:
Without the NATO support, I don't think the Ukrainians would've held on. With the NATO support, they're doing quite well. I don't think they've got the capacity to win right now, but I don't think the Russians do either in the current standoff, which creates, Ian, what in the Pentagon they call the Ukraine paradox. And the Ukraine paradox is that the more successful the Ukrainians are, the more likely it is that Putin will consider using cyber, chemical, biological, or nuclear. Now those are all very different and I don't think that chemical or biological is terribly useful in this conflict at all. And chemical doesn't spread out very far. He can do more damage with his conventional missiles. Biological is very hard to control, and he's right near the Russian border. Cyber he has used extensively in Ukraine-.
Ian Bremmer:
Against Ukraine.
David Sanger:
But has not used outside against the NATO forces. We haven't seen it in the banking system yet. We've seen the usual background level of Russian activity.
Ian Bremmer:
Now we've seen these airport hits across Europe that some have attributed to Russian sources over the last couple of months. You don't include that.
David Sanger:
Well, we've also seen here a fair bit of activity against the usual ransomware suspects, cities, school districts, so forth. Hard to tell how much of this is just the traditional criminal activity and how much of it is something related to the war. But I think it is fair to say that Putin has been pretty cautious not to go over the boundaries of Ukraine. He could have struck physically the incoming weapons flow from NATO out of Poland and Romania. He has not. He could have gone after Bank of America and Citigroup and others in retaliation for the devastating economic sanctions and export controls on Russia. He has not. And similarly in cyber, we have not seen a big uptick.
Now, one explanation for that could be that cyber attacks take a long time to make work. And solar winds the most successful and ingenious supply chain attack that the Russians ever did on the United States, which happened just at the end of the Trump administration, took 14 or 15 months to put together. So that takes us back to your question and to Ash's quote, which is when nuclear weapons are suddenly in the headlines, again, you have to be worried. And I do think we have to be worried because the people inside the US government who I speak to, while they still think the chances of use are remote, they think they are far greater than they were when the war began in late February.
Ian Bremmer:
The numbers that I hear are more like, they're horrifying numbers, they're more like 20% than they are like one which you mentioned before. Is that what you're hearing?
David Sanger:
I'm hearing in the 10% region, but I've also heard people with numbers higher than 20%. I'm not sure it's terribly useful to put percentages on this because it factors in two or three different things. First is how desperate Putin is. Second, what he thinks the price is that he would pay? But thirdly, what kind of nuclear event are we talking about? A week or two ago, you were hearing a lot about dirty bombs. Those are not nuclear weapons. Those are a stick of dynamite or essentially T&T wrapped in radiological waste. They could-
Ian Bremmer:
But we were hearing about that from the Kremlin, not from the White House, to be clear.
David Sanger:
That's right. We were hearing about the Kremlin saying that the Ukrainians were preparing a dirty bomb attack, and we heard the Ukrainians say that the Russians were building dirty bombs in the Zaporizhzhia nuclear complex. We have not heard any evidence in the US. That's not a nuclear weapon. What the Pentagon has been looking at, what the intelligence agencies have been looking at are the use of small tactical weapons, which could still do a huge amount of damage. Tactical weapons range from sub kiloton to much larger than what the US used at Hiroshima. Just to scale this conversation, the Hiroshima bomb was a 15 kiloton bomb. And the issue is if the Russians want to use one, would they use it first in a demonstration over the Black Sea? If they did that, Ian, it's hard for me to understand exactly how NATO or the United States or the Ukrainians would respond because there are nuclear tests that the North Koreans do. We don't respond to those in a similar way.
They could hit a Ukrainian base, a military target, they could hit a civilian location, they could use a small weapon, they could use a larger one. The larger they use, the bigger the chance that the radiation cloud flows back given the prevailing wins on Russia itself. So there are a lot of considerations, and I think the big debate inside the administration right now is do you respond militarily? Do you respond just with economic sanctions? Do you try to use this to separate Russia from China and India, everyone else who's buying their oil right now?
Ian Bremmer:
So what I am hearing both from you as well as from the policy leaders, is that nuclear war, which has been for most of my life, unthinkable, is now something that policy leaders are actively thinking about?
David Sanger:
That's right. In the 60s, Herman Kahn, who was one of the first great nuclear theoretical types, wrote a book-
Ian Bremmer:
Was his book on thermonuclear war? Was that the name of the book?
David Sanger:
I think he wrote a book called Thinking About the Unthinkable, and we're suddenly thinking the unthinkable again. And part of the risk here is, and this has always been the risk about tactical nuclear weapons, unlike the big strategic weapons that could fly intercontinentally and which are under control of treaties, in this case, the New START Treaty between the US and Russia, the tactical weapons of which the Russians have about 2000 have no restrictions. We don't know very much about them. We don't inspect them. We don't know whether they are small, medium or large. We don't really know their effects. And the chances that we would see them being prepared are only 50/50. We might hear the chatter of military operations getting ready to move them, but it's not clear at all that we would actually see them being moved. So the warning would be pretty low.
Ian Bremmer:
The difference, as I see it, the principle difference between what we seem to be moving towards today and the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 is that after the Cuban Missile Crisis, when both sides recognized the level of danger and decided to step away from the precipice, is that you were able to achieve the status quo anti relatively quickly. In other words, the impact on the Americans and the Soviets going forward was very similar to what they had before, where this time around, it's almost inconceivable to imagine that you could create something stable given the realities of the war that the West and Russia are presently in, given the corner that President Putin has managed to dig himself into with facilitated very much, of course, by NATO.
David Sanger:
I think that's right, Ian. First of all, it is worth thinking about the Cuban Missile Crisis because it was the closest that the world came during the Cold War to a massive calamity that would've killed millions if not hundreds of millions of people. But the dynamics of it, as you rightly point out, were completely different. In the Cuban Missile Crisis, mutually assured destruction, MAD, did apply. If we went up the escalation ladder, we knew that if New York was struck, they'd lose Moscow. They knew it too. And that was a constraining factor. Here, we don't quite have that. Ukraine is not a NATO member. An attack on Ukraine would not necessarily result in a response, and probably not a nuclear response. In fact, the debate I'm hearing in the administration is, do you do a conventional military response or not? The argument against it is that it would quickly escalate or could quickly escalate into a nuclear confrontation.
And, of course, one of the things you've heard from President Biden is that among his strategic objectives here are a strong independent democratic Ukraine and no confrontation directly between the United States and Russia, and certainly no World War III. So the dynamic here is different, and I think the instability that you refer to comes from the fear that if the Russians use a tactical nuclear weapon in a conventional war and essentially get away with it, in other words that they pay a price but not too big a price, then all of a sudden the taboo about using nuclear weapons in a conventional conflict is gone. We have not seen nuclear weapons used in anger since the United States dropped weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. And if that goes away and suddenly smaller nuclear weapons become a weapon of choice in a conventional conflict, we're in a whole different world.
Ian Bremmer:
One thing that I've heard some of the Washington policy types discussing as well is that Putin's perspective is not that just you break a taboo using a nuclear weapon, but also that when the Americans used nuclear weapons, it was to end the war definitively because of the escalatory ladder. And that Putin may well be thinking about his nuclear weapons in a similar way that the West is happy to provide enormous amounts of support to Ukraine because the Russians have been reluctant to truly use their source of power. And this time around might very well be different. Again, very hard to get into the head space of someone that we presently consider to be a war criminal, but given the stakes at play, I'm intrigued in asking you your view there.
David Sanger:
So as you say, understanding what it is that Putin is thinking at any given moment requires far greater insight than I have, and I think that most Americans have because the one great mystery is what's his turning point, his breaking point? But here's what we do know. We do know that at the beginning of the war, the United States was very hesitant to send certain kinds of weapons for fear that they would cross a red line for the Russians. You didn't see the HIMARS precision artillery sent at the beginning of the war. And in fact, I don't think Putin, I'm sorry, I don't believe that President Biden would've done that for fear of the reaction that Putin would have.
Over time what we've seen is a gradual escalation by NATO and by the United States as they have discovered that they can send greater precision weapons without getting a big reaction out of the Russians. And the question is, where is that new red line? Where's the breakpoint where Putin will say, this goes too far, I'm going to stop this flow of weapons by detonating a nuclear weapon, either a demonstration shot or a shot against Ukrainian military? And that's the big guessing game right now, and that is basically that nuclear paradox I referred to.
Ian Bremmer:
Well, let's hope we don't find out, David, but let me, I want to move on because you talk about global security issues and there are many of them. The other big one driving a lot of concerns both of mine, of yours and the headlines, of course, China. And I'm not going to ask you directly a Taiwan question, I want to ask you a semiconductor question because over the last few weeks we've seen the United States changing the status quo of the relationship in a pretty significant way, through comprehensive and strategic export controls that are meant to contain China's ability to develop a core component of its advanced technology. How surprised were you, are you that the Americans are engaging in that policy and what are the implications for the security balance between two countries?
David Sanger:
So I was not surprised that they did it, I was actually surprised it's taken the United States so long to do this. One of the curious features of the competition with China has been that while the Chinese have made huge advances in many different arenas, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, the biosciences and so forth, one area where they have been continually frustrated has been the ability to make the smallest diameter chips, the kinds that we get from Taiwan semiconductor and we'll get back to that, and the Chinese get from Taiwan semiconductor as well. We're talking about chips that have dimensions that are narrower than seven nanometers, and that has been a barrier that the Chinese have not been able to break. To get to those dimensions we are highly dependent on some semiconductor equipment that is made by a company that's in the Netherlands. And when you go into a big chip manufacturing company, you frequently see these hundred million dollar machines sitting right in the middle of a clean room.
And it's those machines that the US is going out of its way to make sure that the Chinese cannot get access to. And that's going to be a big task because there are older versions of them. They are out to steal the technology, to replicate the technology, to develop the technology themselves. The US effort right now is fingers in the dike. In other words, it is an effort to try to make sure that the Chinese have years more delay, but sooner or later, China is going to figure this out. And the question is along the way, do we make them convinced that the US is so out to contain Chinese technological power, that they begin to make moves in other areas including military arenas? And that's critically related to Taiwan because right now, in my view, Ian, the greatest defense we have against Taiwan being invaded is the existence of Taiwan semiconductor. China cannot afford to see it destroyed.
Ian Bremmer:
But that also raises a question of American vulnerability. If TSMC is not just critical to Chinese semiconductors, but also American semiconductors, not like the US is making these things at home, how do the Americans relate to the fact that one of its most important national security assets happens to be sitting 100 miles away from mainland China?
David Sanger:
If there was ever a reason for a commission on American vulnerabilities, one of the first things I would put on their agenda, Ian, would be a study of how we allow the manufacturing of key semiconductors, not the commodity semiconductors that go into your car or your microwave or whatever, but the real leading edge semiconductors, which the US invented, dominated the technology and then came to the conclusion in the era of globalization that the supply chain around the world was reliable enough that it didn't make any difference where we manufactured them. And this was a feature of the past two decades. The Europeans did it with oil and gas being dependent on the Russians. We did it in the semiconductor arena where we were dependent on Taiwan, but many other places. And the vulnerability of Taiwan was never really considered to be a high-end concern until the past few years. And that's remarkable to me.
Ian Bremmer:
I want to tease this point out more explicitly because there's been so much criticism in the United States of the proactive decisions of people like German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, that they were going to allow core aspects of their national security to be reliant, energy infrastructure reliant on Russia. And the United States essentially, in ways that are probably much more important ultimately to US national security, because at least gas and oil, you can buy those commodities anywhere. These semiconductors you can only buy in Taiwan. Who was asleep at the switch in the United States that allowed that kind of vulnerability in a territory that is frankly, completely contested between the Americans and the Chinese going forward?
David Sanger:
Well, who was asleep at the switch? The semiconductor industry in and of itself, a series of governments in the US that knew this was an important technology, but basically just allowed the capitalist flow of supply chain to work its own way. And so if you're looking for political leaders to blame for this, I'd start with George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Biden has actually paid attention to the alarm. Others raised it as an issue, but when you think back to say the Trump administration, they're worried about China installing 5G communications in the US and NATO nations, a perfectly legitimate concern, but didn't really do very much in the semiconductor area. They recognized it. They talked about it. They didn't do much.
Here's the challenge right now, you can buy yourself some time by trying to prevent the Chinese from buying these high-end manufacturing machines and the lithography all around it. But that only works if you then turn around and build enough capacity back in the United States. And that's why you've seen the president show up in Poughkeepsie, New York, the other day he was at a Micron Technology facility in upstate New York. You've seen him in Silicon Valley promoting all of this. But the fact of the matter is that while Taiwan semiconductor is building in the southwest and Samsung is building in the southwest, when those facilities are open, it will address under 5% of the problem.
Ian Bremmer:
So TSMC is a private sector company with shareholders and their own priorities and preferences. They are utterly critical to the Americans. They are utterly critical to the Chinese, mainland China. David, what do you think what are they going to do forward? How did they manage their equities in this environment, in your view?
David Sanger:
Well, I think the smart thing for them to do is to diversify off of Taiwan. You just don't want to have that many of your assets in one place any more than you would put that big a part of your portfolio in one stock or one region of the world, you'd want to be diversified. The difficulty is that they don't necessarily have the talent around the world to be able to keep being able to do what they do so well on the island in Taiwan. And that's going to take a long time to build up. It took a long time to create this problem, Ian, it's going to take a long time to solve this problem. And the difficulty is we don't have a long time on this. The timeframe that China has declared about, which at the moment at which they might be ready to take over in Taiwan or at least attempt to, is more like 2027. There's no way in the next five years we're going to diversify that much.
Ian Bremmer:
But when you say diversify, I want to get from TSMC's perspective. Are you talking about they need to diversify from their perspective, they need to diversify so they have major production facilities in the United States and in China in addition to other places, or you're not suggesting that?
David Sanger:
Well, they need them in the United States. They probably need them in Europe, which is where these ASML devices as they're called, these high-end manufacturing devices are produced. They may well want to have some capacity in China, but their concern about that is that China would use the moment to steal the technology. Frequently when companies go into China, the price for getting in is sharing the technology. So it's going to be a very tricky set of moves for Taiwan semiconductor and for the Taiwan government. They may well conclude that if they're doing a porcupine strategy keeping China at bay, that the biggest part of the porcupine is actually Taiwan semiconductor, that China cannot afford to bomb that building, but China also can't afford to do something that would make the talent that's inside that facility flee in the United States or elsewhere.
Ian Bremmer:
So before we close, let me turn back to the United States. You and I were talking before the shoot on the documentary that you've recently done, about domestic US national security challenges too. And I'm wondering, as we look forward to the midterm elections, as we see the violence, the attempted assassination of Nancy Pelosi that led to the hospitalization of her husband, Paul. So many things that feel unprecedented inside the United States. Talk about just for a couple of moments where you see the great vulnerabilities in domestic violence and instability in the context of US national security?
David Sanger:
So it's a fascinating question because our greatest national security threat right now is really an insider threat to a great degree. It's remarkable, Ian, if you and I were sitting around in late 2016 as we began to understand the scope of the Russian interference in the 2016 election, and we said, where do we think this will be in six years? I think what we would've said is greater Russian interference, more Chinese interference, and we are seeing China try to figure out a little bit about our election system and disinformation, maybe more from Iran or North Korea. But I don't think, Ian, that we would have thought that the number one threat to the stability of our election system was going to be Americans who were trying to put in place the vote counters so that they could assure a victory for their favorite candidate or attempt to assure that.
And that really is the number one problem. And it's backed up by a new acceptance that if you don't like the outcome of an election, violence is then in some way warranted. We haven't seen that in this country in a 125, 150 years except for at sporadic moments. And that's the big concern that comes out of the polling numbers that show that there's still a substantial minority of Americans who believe that Joe Biden was not legitimately elected president. And that's pretty remarkable. You would've thought that over time that would've dissipated, and instead it's held quite steady.
Ian Bremmer:
So pro analysis, my friend, David Sanger, really appreciate you joining today.
David Sanger:
Thank you, Ian. Great to be with you.
Ian Bremmer:
That's it for today's edition of the GZERO World Podcast. Like what you've heard? Come check us out at GZEROmedia.com and sign up for our newsletter, Signal.
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