Sorry I'm late.
I had to stop by the Wax Museum again and give the finger to FDR.
We know Al-Qaeda, Zawahiri, is supporting the opposition in Syria.
Are we supporting Al-Qaeda in Syria?
It's a proud day for America.
And by God, we've kicked Vietnam Syndrome once and for all.
Thank you very, very much.
I say it, I say it again, you've been had.
You've been took.
You've been hoodwinked.
These witnesses are trying to simply deny things that just about everybody else accepts as fact.
He came, he saw, he died.
We ain't killing they army, but we killing them.
We be on CNN like Say Our Name been saying, saying three times.
The meeting of the largest armies in the history of the world.
Then there's going to be an invasion.
All right, you guys, introducing Andrew Bacevich.
He is the author of the new book, Age of Illusions, which is coming out sometime soon.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing, Andrew?
Glad to be with you.
When's the book coming out?
January.
In January, great.
And of course, author of The New American Militarism and the Limits of Power.
And the highly recommended by me constantly, America's War for the Greater Middle East, which really is the history of everything since Jimmy Carter ruined everything up until now.
And it's just great.
And everyone should read it.
And you've got some really big news for us.
Tell me about the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
Well, it's a new think tank.
It's not officially opened.
That won't happen probably until September.
But it's unofficially open for business in the sense that those of us who are affiliated with the Institute are now writing things and claiming, pointing out that affiliation.
And there's been a certain amount of talk in the press about its creation.
Now, we all know that Washington is filled with think tanks.
And most of them, not all, but most of them in one way or another, when it comes to foreign policy are part of the blob.
They pretty much support the status quo.
The Quincy Institute is going to be different.
Point number one, I think, it is trans-partisan or non-partisan.
We're not of the left.
We're not of the right.
We welcome people from the left and from the right who share our views.
Number two, the essence of those views really is less war, more effectively working for peace and stability.
We believe that the forever wars that are really the hallmark of U.S. policy since the end of the Cold War are misguided, costing us a lot, accomplishing little.
And we believe that in the age of Trump, the time is ripe to bring people around to an appreciation that there needs to be a fundamental change in U.S. policy.
In other words, the challenge is not, let's go back to doing things that Hillary Clinton would have done had she become president, but let's do things that are substantially different and will help us move toward a more peaceful world and one that does not involve the United States in perpetual war.
Well, that's all great.
And you know, I'm a huge fan of you.
And I don't know if you know, but I'm very much a huge fan and friend of Trita Parsi as well, formerly of the National Iranian American Council, which he founded.
Trita is one of the movers and shakers in this enterprise.
A woman by the name of Suzanne DiMaggio, who has been involved in these sort of track two negotiations, trying to work on tough problems, North Korea being an example, Iran being an example.
A young historian by the name of Stephen Wertheim, who is brilliant.
An Americanist specializing in American diplomatic history.
Eli Clifton, who is a journalist by trade and is part of our team.
And we love Eli around here, too.
So we are, you know, we are, we're still getting our feet on the ground.
We've had considerable success in fundraising.
And to emphasize, it's funding that comes from both the left and the right.
You know, from Soros, from Koch.
And we are optimistic.
I would sort of frame the optimism in this way.
We don't think that we're going to, you know, change everything in Washington, change the thinking in the establishment in the next six months.
But I think because the conditions are promising, if we can make a sustained effort over a period of years, I think we can bring about real change in the way that the establishment thinks about foreign policy.
So you like supporting anti-war radio hosts.
That makes sense.
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Go to scotthorton.org slash donate.
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Quite a few members now and lots of fun in there every day.
So check out all about that at scotthorton.org slash donate.
And thanks.
All right.
Now, so, well, you brought up Charles Koch and George Soros there.
So let's talk about that a bit.
I know a bit about each, I guess.
The Kochs are generally anti-interventionist in the Middle East, I think for sure.
But I think both of these guys and the institutions that they back have been really involved in a lot of soft power stuff.
Soros even more than Koch, but the Kochs too with the Students for Liberty in Eastern Europe and all of this stuff.
And I wonder, you know, George Soros with his participation in at least some, if not all of the color coded revolutions against Russia's friends in the George W. Bush years and stuff like that.
And so I wonder just how much less war we're really talking about.
I mean, we ought to all be opposed to war with Iran.
Let me interrupt.
We did not choose to call our organization the Koch-Soros Institute.
We do not exist to do the bidding of these two individuals and their institutes and foundations.
We solicited their support and they've extended it generously on the basis of our agenda and our principles.
And that's what we're going to act upon.
So we called it the Quincy Institute.
Our namesake is John Quincy Adams, perhaps the greatest American Secretary of State.
And the theme, in a sense, the reason we want to highlight John Quincy Adams is because of his famous speech that he gave on July 4th, 1821, when he warned against the potential danger of America going abroad in search of monsters to destroy.
And emphasized that the best way to preserve our liberty and in fact the best way to contribute to a more peaceful world is to avoid needless armed interventions.
And I should hasten to add, because some people will say, aha, the Quincy Institute must be basically a front for isolationism.
And that is not the case.
We certainly advocate engagement with others around the world.
The United States needs to be engaged with others, but it needs to be engaged with others in a way that produces outcomes that serve our interests and may also serve the interests of peace.
From our perspective, U.S. policy, especially since the end of the Cold War, has not done those things.
When you think about all the actions that we've been involved in, some military, some not necessarily military.
Let's say the expansion of NATO.
We think about all the policy initiatives undertaken since the end of the Cold War, and you sort of try to add them all up and make an assessment of how they've been working, and I think the answer has to be they have not worked.
So there needs to be a radical course change, and in order to have a radical course change, we need to first have a different way of thinking about our role in the world to prevail in Washington, in the policy world.
And so our job, as we see it, is to try to promote that new way of thinking.
It's not to do the bidding of either Charles Koch or George Soros.
Cool.
Well, I'm happy to hear you say that, and that's obviously where I was going with that question, and I trust you.
The way I was going to phrase it was, to what degree to these guys, are there any strings, any suggestions, have they asked of you at all other than just to do what it is you want?
In fact, I'm familiar, I've never had any association with any Koch institutions or Koch-backed institutions, but I know a lot of libertarians, and from what I understand, he's always very hands-off in the things that he supports, so I would expect that.
Well, I mean, let's be honest here.
I mean, I don't know either of these guys, right?
I mean, personally, I've never met Mr. Koch or Mr. Soros, but let's be honest.
So they're making an investment, their organizations, their institutes, are making an investment in the Quincy Institute.
And we have graciously, you know, enthusiastically accepted their support, and now we are going forward in pursuit of our agenda, consistent with our principles.
And let's see if we are given the free hand that we expect to be able to enjoy, or let's see if there's interference that would be counterproductive.
But there's been no interference yet.
It's certainly our hope, and maybe even our expectation, that there will not be.
But what will shape the actions of the Quincy Institute will be Quincy Institute principles.
Well, great.
I mean, as I already said, three-fifths of you guys are good friends of this show and highly trusted by me in your perspectives and your journalism and all your great work over, you know, decade and a half or two that I've been knowing you guys and talking with you.
So, you know, I'm looking, I'm like you, very optimistic about this.
I think it's absolutely great.
And, you know, what I say, if I can interrupt again, I'm sorry.
I think we should be modestly optimistic in the sense that the notions that shape U.S. policy, have shaped U.S. policy over the past couple of decades, you know, the hubris, the belief in American military omnipotence, I think those notions continue to be deeply embedded in most of the foreign policy establishment.
I think there's a remarkable absence of even any recognition of the dubious assumptions that have informed U.S. policy over the past couple of decades.
In other words, I don't think people from these organizations get up in the morning and say, I'm a militarist.
But they do get up in the morning.
They may not think it, but they work on the assumption that the United States is the dominant military power in the world.
And they assume that that military power, if properly put to work, can yield positive outcomes.
The record says otherwise.
The record says that the misuse of American military power over the past couple of decades has cost us dearly and basically produced a bunch of catastrophes.
So we have our work cut out for us.
If we're going to get members of that establishment to think differently, to question those assumptions about American primacy, about the omnipotence of the American military establishment, that's going to take a lot of hard work.
We're going to meet resistance.
We have already, Bill Kristol already weighed in with sort of a typically waspish response in which he implied that we're isolationists.
We're going to hear that, I'm sure, again and again.
We're going to have to demonstrate by the things we write, the analyses that we produce.
We have to show that, no, we're not isolationists, that there is another way to frame U.S. policy.
And we're going to try to persuade members of Congress, members of the media, that our thinking identifies that alternative path.
Well, and that's a fun one, too.
I mean, you couldn't ask for a better foil than Bill Kristol and a better hollow strawman argument than isolationists.
I mean, essentially, even Pat Buchanan isn't an isolationist.
Who in America really promotes autarky in any serious sense?
It's the 21st century, for crying out loud.
There are no isolationists, none.
I mean, A, I agree with you.
And B, it's actually been my argument that apart from perhaps a brief period of time in the late 1930s, specifically with regard to the challenges posed by Nazi Germany, we've never practiced isolationism.
I mean, for God's sakes, if back in 1783, I think that's when the peace treaty with England was signed, if back in 1783 the United States of America consisted of these 13 relatively small states huddled along the eastern seaboard of the Atlantic Ocean, then how the heck do you explain that by the end of the 19th century we stretched from sea to shining sea?
How do you explain that by 1945 we are the preeminent power in all the world?
That's not isolationism.
Isolationism didn't make that happen.
Various forms of expansionism made that happen.
Some involved military power.
Some did not.
But the great overarching theme of our approach to statecraft is not isolation, it's expansionism.
And I think one of the challenges of the present moment is for us to recognize that that theme has now been played out.
That if we are concerned about the well-being of the American people, our safety and security, our prosperity, our democracy, if we're concerned about a planet that can sustain humankind, then the old assumptions informing American statecraft, the expansionist assumptions, they've become obsolete.
Maybe they worked back in 1846 when we wanted to grab California from Mexico.
But those assumptions do not work today.
Well, and it's because of all of the wars, as George W. Bush said, Governor Bush in the year 2000, if we act with a heavy hand like this, people will resent it and we'll just create enemies.
That's exactly right.
We have all across the planet Earth right now, we have right-wing reaction against the so-called neoliberalism of the Bush-Clinton consensus that's killed more than a million people.
I mean, what are they supposed to think?
It's fine?
Yep.
So, you know, I just wanted to mention real quick, since we're talking about the Kochs and all this, their best guy ever is Doug Bandow.
And he is just so great.
And he's traveled the whole world a hundred times and has been everywhere, including North Korea, and just knows everything about everything.
And he takes, just like you, this most serious, very wonky, but, you know, I mean, accessible, but very serious and well thought out positions, like it's time to go ahead and disband NATO and come home.
We don't, it doesn't, it doesn't have to be a hardcore ideological libertarian take like you'd get from me.
It's just that, well, geez, if Russia was really a threat, you'd think that Germany would bother raising an army, but apparently they're not too worried about it.
I think you're right.
And I mean, what you're saying, which is a little bit, what you're saying is pragmatism ought to shape our view of the world and our response to the world.
And to the extent that ideology shapes U.S. policy, the results are almost always counterproductive.
You just mentioned neoliberalism, you know, the crusading instinct of the neoconservatives who want to spread democracy around the world.
When ideology becomes the principal source of statecraft, the results are usually negative.
And I do believe that one of the things that the Quincy Institute will do will be to try to take the world as it is, see things as they are.
And that means you don't get yourself into an unnecessary dither about things like Russia.
Hang on just one second.
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Well, that makes sense.
They bring it right to your house.
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Won't cost you a thing.
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Again, that's right there in the margin at ScottHorton.org.
So let me bring up Stephen Walt which is essentially we should have stayed offshore this whole time.
And that should be our policy.
I think as he sums it up, he says we should still have a Navy and everything.
But our only real interest is making sure that no one power becomes dominant in Europe, the Middle East, or East Asia.
So we have to stay engaged enough to counterbalance different guys enough.
Maybe Cusse versus Ayatollah Jr.next time or whatever it is.
But no more than that.
But I wonder if that to you is a realist take or you think that's still too much or where do you fall?
I'm not a political scientist so when I hear people like Steve Walt or John Mearsheimer talk about offshore balancing I'm never quite sure what the heck that means.
I mean the phrase.
It seems too theoretical to me.
I think what it means is you don't build bases all over Saudi and provoke Osama.
I would just say it that way.
Yeah, and you take turns backing Saddam and the Ayatollah back and forth.
Like Ronald Reagan, the wise statesman.
I don't think I'd buy that.
It seems to me that let's focus then for a second on the Persian Gulf where now this rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran, between Shia and Sunni Islam presents itself as a core issue.
I don't think the response is well let's back Saudi Arabia for a while and then we'll back Iran for a while.
I think the answer is for us to say in an immediate sense it ain't our fight.
In a broader sense the United States should support neither side while encouraging both sides to behave responsibly and to recognize that their interests are served by an avoidance of war.
It's a diplomatic task.
When we funnel billions of dollars of arms to one side as opposed to the other that seems to me that that moves us not closer to peace but closer to war.
So it's not support one side and then the other.
I think it is to take a balanced perspective, position between two adversaries who are involved in a fight where we ourselves don't have any significant stakes.
That doesn't mean sit back and let's just see what happens.
But it means try to engage the adversaries as honest brokers patiently and therefore try to bring them around to understand that their own interests are not recognized by continuing this competition.
So I have a worry here which is essentially that we're up against the neoconservatives and they are just they never quit and they are the worst hawks on everything Russia, China, Iran and probably Saudi too next week if they change sides again on that one.
And it seems like neocons on one side really require Ron Paul full non-interventionists on the other side to just as you mentioned primacy before but how about like a full renunciation of American hegemony on the planet.
The Cold War is over for you know 30 years now and let's be a normal country.
The Quincy Institute agrees that the Cold War is over that they're sort of thinking in Cold War terms is no longer productive.
I don't I doubt if I don't I don't mean speak for my colleagues or for the for the Institute itself.
I doubt if we will end up with a Ron Paul kind of perspective again to emphasize we're not isolationists.
Well of course he's not either.
We need to engage the world.
I mean Ron is not isolationist either.
He just doesn't want the government to engage with the world.
He just wants.
I think that the government has to engage with the world.
I mean I'm I'm in the camp and you may not be.
I'm in the camp that says we have allowed the State Department to be eviscerated over the past I don't know quarter of a century and that there is a need to reform the State Department so that American diplomacy can become more effective.
That takes a certain amount of money.
It takes a certain amount of effort.
But I think that that that ought to be a priority.
Diplomacy is an important element of statecraft and we we know we've come to the position where we think statecraft is all about aircraft carriers and precision guided missions and we have therefore starved the State Department and that that's a big mistake that needs to be changed.
Well except that you know diplomacy can mean a lot of different things, right?
Like I think Ron Paul if he was the president would be happy to host a peace conference between India and Pakistan to try to resolve Kashmir however we possibly could.
Something like that.
But he would also I know he would be the first to say that diplomacy currently just means bribery we do what we say and we'll pay you defy us and we'll bomb you that's the other part you're saying we need to quit with the bombs part but it seems like just what kind of diplomacy are we really talking about because we're the ones causing all the problems We're talking about diplomacy that's relevant to the problem at hand I mean it is not either bribe you or bomb you I mean it diplomacy is a matter of searching for mutually reasonable solutions to difficult problems and I don't want I don't want to somehow say and all we need is you know six more foreign service officers and they'll go out and and fix things I don't mean that for a second when I'm talking about diplomacy it implies patience persistence creativity and it's going to take a while to get things done but it seems to me if the alternative is the neoconservative preference for invading countries and dropping bombs then I'm all for diplomacy as an alternative Sure I guess you know just you know we'll take for example North Korea like we can have a lot of diplomacy to work through and try to get them to give up all of their nukes and do all these things or we what Ron would do would be just say I got full recognition I'm lifting all sanctions I just want to be friends everything is fine come to D.C.
I'll take you out to dinner and just forget we just don't want problems we refuse to fight you let's get along kill them with kindness so there's you know sort of diplomacy there but it actually negates the need for diplomacy it just says hey let's just trade let's just cooperate in every way we can Well I think you and I sort of see the world in somewhat different terms Yeah Well I'm using the I'm trying to radicalize you a little bit You're going to get your wish I think if Trump entertains Kim in Washington and the dinner will be at the White House and perhaps that will make everything hunky-dory I think I would see the North Korean problem in a broader context certainly South Korea has very important interests at stake here we need to take those interests into account not because in particular South Koreans are nice people but because their stakeholders here they have their own power their own interests People's Republic of China is certainly a relevant player here we have to take into account their interests which certainly in a Sino-American context those interests go well beyond Korea itself but Korea is part of a larger package of issues that we need to sort out with China so I think that there are complexities that need to be taken into account and it's not just a matter of inviting somebody for dinner and say now we're friends and so we don't have to worry about anything it could be that we're going to end up with a North Korea that will retain nuclear weapons that's not necessarily a catastrophe frankly it appears that the Trump administration is creeping up on that conclusion there are other countries that are worrisome that have nuclear weapons I would cite Pakistan as a country that in my mind is far more dangerous than North Korea and they've had nuclear weapons for what 15 years now 20 years I don't remember the date so you know I just think that serious creative sustained intelligent diplomacy can over time help to find solutions to some of these exceedingly difficult problems and I think they are exceedingly different I think you're describing them as if they were simple you know you and I disagree on that I guess I'm just looking at it from the point of view of how many of these you know so-called problems or some of them really are problems I guess are because of the United States in the first place right so if we had a perfectly good deal with North Korea and then John Bolton then George W.
Bush essentially forced them out of the NPT and into nuclear weapons then I just don't want to hear any American policymaker cry about how they have nukes and we have to figure out a perfectly good deal and then you voted Republican in 2000 and those are the breaks and so in other words the problem of North Korean nukes I just don't see how we can fairly frame it that way in other words I don't want to just make it like a cartoon like it's so easy to solve but it just seems like all we can do here is just encourage the North and the South to get along get our troops and if the North Koreans have to raise a big enough army to defend themselves from the North then that's their thing but we could totally disengage from there when really if our only problem our only real excuse at this point is the nukes that are America's fault in the first place then what's the point you know why not just drop all the sanctions I think you're vastly oversimplifying something that needs to be considered in a larger context I mean the Korea problem is part of a larger problem the larger problem is the maintaining the stability of East Asia at a time when the rise of China to the status of great power almost inevitably has a destabilizing impact we don't want great instability to occur there and there is the possibility of if the United States screws up as we do with some regularity of a arms race that would involve China and Japan and South Korea and God knows who else with a greater possibility of another big war happening in another part of the world another big war would not be in our interest so we want to try to prevent that war sure although wouldn't you just bet all things being equal that America is in the middle of making matters worse and could only make matters pretty darn stupid is it not possible for us to behave with greater wisdom I guess the presumption of the Quincy Institute is that yes that is possible it is possible to not be stupid but not being stupid requires you to have a different set of principles than the ones that whether explicit or not have tended to shape the world since the end of the Cold War the key principle has been the operative principle even if it's not sort of articulated this way is we have military power and therefore you need to do what we say that has been a source of enormous folly so what the Quincy Institute wants to do is to give us a different set of ideas so again it's a question you can be smart you can be stupid we have tended to be stupid we think we should try to get us to be smart so do you see for example an ability for the U.S. to negotiate and it will not be easily done but that is the sort of thing we should be focusing the country should be focusing our attention on in other words again tough problem going to take a long time a lot of patience contrast that with the people who said well it's not going to be easy so again we've tended to look for easy solutions based on bogus assumptions about our military effectiveness I'm simply suggesting that maybe it's time to try a different approach and I don't claim that the result will be that the result will be that the result will be that the result will be that the result will be that the result will be that the result will be
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