Podcast: The Biggest Global Security Threats

TRANSCRIPT: The Biggest Global Security Threats

Ian Bremmer:

Hello from Munich, Germany, and welcome to a special edition of the GZERO World Podcast, where you'll find extended versions of the interviews from my show on public television.

Ian Bremmer:

I'm Ian Bremmer, and this week I've got something a bit different for you. I'm sharing a few of the best conversations I had at the 56th annual Munich Security Conference, where 35 heads of state were among the more than 500 political leaders in attendance to discuss the most pressing concerns about our collective security.

Ian Bremmer:

I kicked off by getting the big picture take from Anne-Marie Slaughter. She's CEO of New America. And Anne-Marie explained what the Munich Security Conference is all about.

Announcer:

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Anne-Marie Slaughter:

The Munich Security Conference is a very special event in the world of foreign policy. It's a place where you can find a younger think tank person sitting down with a minister of foreign affairs or asking her first question to a president or a head of state. We need those kinds of places in a very fractured G-Zero world.

Ian Bremmer:

A dominating topic this year, the outbreak of coronavirus and the first confirmed death outside Asia. It was the subject of several of our conversations. Up first, former Secretary of State John Kerry.

Ian Bremmer:

France has reported the first death of a coronavirus case. Should Europeans be concerned?

John Kerry:

Well, I think everybody in the world needs to be concerned because it clearly carries extraordinary risks unless there is a very major effort to contain it and to deal with it, which obviously was most critical in the very beginning, and now it's moved to enough places that I think there are serious concerns. I'm hearing that from various health professionals. I don't yet know that anybody is clear about exactly how to quantify that.

Ian Bremmer:

I then met up with a senior advisor to the Chinese government to discuss the latest on coronavirus.

Ian Bremmer:

I'm here with Professor Henry Wang, who is founder and president of the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing, also a senior advisor to the Chinese government. Great to be with you here.

Henry Wang:

Thank you, Ian. Yes.

Ian Bremmer:

What do you think the international reaction in general, both American and global, to the coronavirus has been? I mean, there has been some criticism with the initial shutdown of some of the flights, direct flights to China. Obviously the information has been, in some cases, spotty.

Henry Wang:

Yeah, yeah. I think it's an understandable process. Since the beginning, a lot of people worry, a lot of people don't know what's the cause of it and how quickly it is spread. But now it seems that I think it's fairly under control. It's in China, except the epicenter of Wuhan, that the rest of the countries declined, the new cases, and also the cured cases is increasing now. There's almost 7,000 cases being cured. And also the death rate is also not high as SARS, I mean it's only 2% probably, according to the WHO. So I think it probably is a very informative process going on as people know more about it, as people are more aware of it, and also know how to protect that. I think things should be gradually under control.

Henry Wang:

But also this kind of thing is very strange, that normally goes with the weather, you know what I mean? Like SARS, it also started in November, December, and then by the next year in the springtime when the weather gets hot, it's also a situation [that] gets better. So I think there's things can be done.

Ian Bremmer:

So one of the most disturbing pieces of the news around expansion of coronavirus has been some of these first responders. I mean, of course we know that the doctor that originally blew the whistle on the coronavirus and was reprimanded for it, ended up dying from it. But now some 1500 early responders have themselves caught coronavirus in part because they haven't been as well taken care of as they needed to.

Ian Bremmer:

How's the Chinese government going to respond to this? Clearly it's a problem.

Henry Wang:

Yeah, I think there's some reasons that probably cause that. First, when the virus broke out, people have lack of knowledge, even medical staff. So there's quite a bit of interaction there, and that probably got some people infected. Second is that the protective equipment is not enough. Like the masks, the clothes, those are not in good supply. China was on spring... China's during a holiday. There was no supply, and then there was a lack of those kinds of protective equipment. That caused some of that. But I think now as China goes back to work, and then international support comes in, we have a lot of countries donating medical equipment and all those things. That's really helped. So I think these numbers should come down.

Ian Bremmer:

Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, broke down the economic impacts of the spread of the coronavirus.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, one major concern that's kind of all around this conference right now is coronavirus. And I'm wondering, I know it's still early days, I mean, I wish that weren't the case, but how do you see the effects on the global economy so far?

Joseph Stiglitz:

Well, so far, what one sees is that production in China is down, we don't know how quickly production will go back online. We know that we live in a very integrated global economy in which China is a critical part of the supply chain, and if China's down even for a few weeks, it has repercussions. And we've seen a few of those repercussions. But if this virus grows and China's production lines are down for much longer, it will have repercussions throughout the world for the global economy.

Ian Bremmer:

And the CEOs you're talking to here, how high is that prioritized on their sort of general raft of concerns?

Joseph Stiglitz:

Well, I think what it does is there's a lot of uncertainty caused by Trump's trade policy. A lot of discussion in the panel I was on on how Trump's trade wars have just elevated uncertainty and is the major contributor to the slowdown in the global economy. 2019 was not a good year, and what one sees is this is another level of uncertainty added to a whole host of uncertainty.

Ian Bremmer:

So before we go, let me at least ask you a little bit about your view of the US economy. And of course, one of the reasons Trump is doing comparatively well in the polls right now, in the context of the last three years, is a view that the US economy is pretty robust. How aligned are you with that?

Joseph Stiglitz:

Not very aligned. I don't think the US economy is really strong in a sustainable way. A lot of discussion about the low unemployment rate, if you look at the numbers, the pace of job creation is slower than it was during Obama's second-

Ian Bremmer:

A little bit, yeah.

Joseph Stiglitz:

The growth rate is remarkably slow, given that the level of stimulus from near zero interest rates and a $1 trillion deficit. We've never had a deficit of that magnitude in a period of close to full employment, non-recession, non-war. And the projections of where this is leading is deficits growing and the national debt as a percentage of GDP growing remarkably.

Joseph Stiglitz:

What is really striking is that a tax cut for the billionaires and for corporations with a tax increase for a majority of Americans was supposed to stimulate investment. Didn't do it.

Ian Bremmer:

That's what happened. Yeah.

Joseph Stiglitz:

Investment is down. Where the money went was massive share buybacks, again, almost a trillion dollars. So to me, when I see what has happened, it seems to me that given what we've done, we're putting the future in jeopardy for almost no benefit.

Ian Bremmer:

There were more traditional geopolitical conversations, too, about the relevance of NATO and curbing nuclear weapons production.

Ian Bremmer:

Ivo Daalder, president, Chicago Council of Global Affairs, here in Munich, as we see each other every year. Good to be with you, man.

Ivo Daalder:

Ah, it's great to be here. It's always fun. I call this the 'Academy Awards for policy wonks.'

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah, I know.

Ivo Daalder:

That's what it is.

Ian Bremmer:

And we could win a couple this year.

Ivo Daalder:

Yeah, exactly.

Ian Bremmer:

You never know. But NATO's not winning any this year.

Ivo Daalder:

No, NATO's not doing as well as it used to.

Ian Bremmer:

I know, because of one thing that Trump originally said, that it was obsolete, and then when he became president, he said, "Actually, I was mistaken. It's not obsolete."

Ian Bremmer:

It's not literally falling apart, and yet you feel like there's no mission. There's no 'there' there. How does NATO feel to you?

Ivo Daalder:

I think it's really playing out on two different levels. At one level, because of what the Russians did in Ukraine, there's more concern about a security situation that really didn't exist when I was there in '09 or '13, we weren't worried about security in Europe. Now people are worried about security in Europe, for good reason. And NATO has actually done a whole bunch of things. They put more forces in Eastern Europe, they put them in the Baltic States, they've increased their sea and air patrol in the Black Sea, the Baltic States-

Ian Bremmer:

So we objectively look more robust-

Ivo Daalder:

Objectively-

Ian Bremmer:

... in the region, vis-a-vis the Russians.

Ivo Daalder:

Vis-a-vis the Russians and vis-a-vis our allies, who actually take it more seriously. So that's one part.

Ivo Daalder:

The drama, which is the political part, and that is also important. It's not just how capable you are, but how credible you are. That drama has really changed NATO in a very fundamental way. And the President has are made clear that he looks at alliances purely in a transactional way, as what is in it for me? NATO isn't seen by him as contributing to safety, security, stability here in Europe, it's about money.

Ivo Daalder:

Many of the Europeans are saying it isn't about money. It's about more, it's about safety and security, and can we really survive strategically without the United States? That debate is now happening.

Ian Bremmer:

And the safety and security that it's about, I mean, Ukraine wasn't about tanks coming across the border. It was information warfare. NATO's not really well-structured to handle that.

Ivo Daalder:

No, they're not really well-structured to deal with hybrid warfare. They're getting better. They're not really well-structured to deal with new threats, whether it's from terrorism or, frankly, from China. And the degree to which China is penetrating in Europe and deeply dividing Europeans among themselves. It's not really structured as an organization to deal with the challenges of the 21st century. It could, because one way in which you deal with those challenges is to have better partnerships and closer cooperation, but not just in the military field, which is what NATO still has done up to this point.

Ian Bremmer:

Ernie Moniz, who was secretary of energy under President Obama, laid out the nuclear risk situation today.

Ernie Moniz:

The nuclear risk situation today, I hate to say, is not good. Former Senator Nunn and I have written that the risk of a nuclear weapon being used somewhere today in the world is probably higher than any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Several things drive that. First you have the US/Russia situation, where the tensions are very high, and discussions have really broken down to a large extent, even worse than they were during the Cold War.

Ernie Moniz:

Today, one of the crucial decisions that must be taken in the nuclear non-proliferation world is the extension of the New START Treaty. The New START Treaty is very important in the sense that it both constrains the number of weapons and delivery systems of the United States and Russia, which together have over 90% of the world's weapons, but also, something less well known, has important verification measures where both countries can conduct inspections to make sure that we are both in fact, adhering to the treaty.

Ernie Moniz:

Now today we see the treaty will expire two weeks into the next presidential administration unless it is extended, which requires nothing more than the two presidents, Trump and Putin, to in fact initial or sign the agreement to extend.

Ian Bremmer:

Another theme taking center stage in Munich this year, cybersecurity and information warfare. Jared Cohen, who runs the innovation lab Jigsaw at Google, stopped by.

Jared Cohen:

I've been coming here for four years. And to me the key evolution and the key new thing about Munich this year is in the past you've had lots of conversations around cyber and technology issues and separate conversations around traditional geopolitical issues. This year at Munich feels like a watershed moment because for the first time it feels like the traditional geopolitical issues and the technology cyber issues are part of the same sessions. And to me that's very exciting. I view the world as hybrid. I think that there's one international system, has a physical front, has a cyber front, and so I'm excited to see great minds coming together, talking about both at the same time.

Jared Cohen:

So I think the biggest change in the 2020 election with regards to disinformation relative to what we saw in 2016. In 2016, we saw foreign actors building fake accounts across lots of different technological platforms and then populating them as if they were an authentic person.

Jared Cohen:

And the way they did this is, basically, it was a version of identity theft. And what's happened over time is the various companies have gotten much better at detecting this.

Jared Cohen:

What we've seen, and we actually found this from investigating a series of troll farms in the Philippines, is the new tactic in 2020 seems to be a lot of these foreign actors are now renting accounts.

Jared Cohen:

So through secondary and third-party actors who don't even necessarily... they are in it for the criminal enterprise, they're reaching out to people saying, "Hey, do you want to rent us your account for this particular kind of digital marketing thing? We'll pay you some number of dollars or whatever currency, and we'll borrow your account for some number of months."

Jared Cohen:

This is a new trend and it's something that we've only sort of come to see in the past several months, so we'll see how this plays out.

Ian Bremmer:

West-lessness was the theme, and with Pakistan's former Foreign Minister Hina Khar, we look to the East and rising tensions with India.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, there is a big fight with the Indians, of course, right now, without any question, a shift of Prime Minister Modi, less focus on economic reform, more on Hindu nationalism, obviously a big fight over Kashmir, as well as changes in citizenship law and the rest. How have the Pakistanis been responding to that? How dangerous do you actually think this relationship is and could become?

Hina Khar:

Okay. I think the shift in India is irretrievably dangerous. What it means is that it's not short-term dangerous, medium-term dangerous. It is going to create a whole dynamic which we will not be able to reverse. You may know that Pakistan, together with India and all of South Asia, happens to be one of the least integrated areas in all of the world. The African Union does better than SAARC, which is the South Asian Regional Cooperation-

Ian Bremmer:

In terms of international trade in the region, for example.

Hina Khar:

Yes, in terms of the regional integration, trade within the region, et cetera, et cetera. Now, when you take that forward, India is now becoming the bully for the entire region and is actually going against every international commitment, and frankly speaking, regional commitments and bilateral commitments it made to Pakistan by what it did in Kashmir.

Hina Khar:

Now, when you do all of that, what do you become? You become a rogue state. Now, how difficult it is for a country like Pakistan, which is already-

Ian Bremmer:

So the former Pakistani foreign minister is saying that the Indians presently are a rogue state under Modi.

Hina Khar:

Absolutely saying that they're a rogue state, not only internationally or regionally, but even to their own people. Because a state is known by its commitments to its own people and to the world and to the region. If a state renegades on all the commitments it makes, then it becomes a rogue state. There are currently some, more than five or I cannot... many, many security council resolutions which exist on how India and Pakistan are going to act in trying to resolve the Kashmir issue.

Hina Khar:

Now, if one country decides to throw all of that in the dustbin, including the bilateral commitments that it had with Pakistan, which is in the form of similar agreement, and the commitments it had to what it calls its own citizens, to throw it all in the dustbin and decide to act because no one can come and-

Ian Bremmer:

And do anything about it.

Hina Khar:

... and do anything about it. That's a-

Ian Bremmer:

And it's an enormously popular policy-

Hina Khar:

Absolutely.

Ian Bremmer:

... both domestically and among Indians abroad.

Hina Khar:

Exactly, and that's the dangerous part, Ian, because all over the world, we are seeing this in the US, we are seeing in the UK, we are seeing it in Austria perhaps, also, but certainly in India, that leaders whose populism is based on doing what is not right for the country are getting voted in. As they get voted in, on the basis of that popular vote, which is not perhaps good for the country, they still take their country in directions which are not good for it.

Hina Khar:

Now, what is happening in India-

Ian Bremmer:

It's based on tribalism, effectively-

Hina Khar:

Absolutely. Based on division, based on fear. You know the quote of Franklin Roosevelt, that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, right? Currently, fear is being sold very well by all of these extremist type of populist leaders all over the world, India being no exception.

Ian Bremmer:

And do you think that that's going to lead to similar political developments in Pakistan?

Hina Khar:

Well, I think in Pakistan also, I'm not very fond of how the prime minister has been very divisive. I think by and large, there has been a lot of political maturity that has been shown by the opposition parties, and those are things that we have learned over the decades, and we hope that this political majority that is shown by the opposition parties will have an impact on the government and perhaps we'll be able to meander through these very difficult times. Globally, I think there are difficult times. Regionally, difficult times, even for Pakistan, economically, within the region. It's not a happy place to be in right now.

Ian Bremmer:

So what was my takeaway from this year's Munich Security Conference? Frankly, the fact that the alliance is in disarray.

Ian Bremmer:

The Americans here, both the Trump administration and the Democrats, Nancy Pelosi, the house speaker for example, were all focused on the threat of China, the biggest threat to the United States and globally, particularly around Huawei, 5G, and technology. And they are telling the Europeans, "You better get on board, or we're going to have a problem with you."

Ian Bremmer:

The Europeans completely don't agree. They don't focus nearly on China as primarily a national security threat, rather as an economic and technological opportunity, and they want a hedge between the US and China. In the history of the Munich Security Conference and the NATO alliance, we've never seen this kind of fundamental divide between the Americans and the Europeans about what to do, and what they consider a threat on security. It makes you feel like the future of the Alliance is up for grabs.

Ian Bremmer:

That's it for the podcast this week. We'll be back in your feed next week. Check out full episodes of GZERO World on public television, or at gzeromedia.com.

Announcer:

The GZERO World podcast is brought to you by our founding sponsor. First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company, places clients' needs first, by providing responsive, relevant, and customized solutions. Visit firstrepublic.com to learn more.