Something is changing in our country, and most
people feel it before they can explain it. Today's
guest is Phillips O 'Brien. He's one of the sharpest
contemporary writers on war, strategy, and political
power. He's a professor of strategic studies
at the University of St. Andrews and the author
of several major books, including How the War
Was Won, The Strategists, and The Second Most
Powerful Man in the World. He also writes regularly
for The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, and has his
own excellent sub -stack, Phillips Newsletter.
His most recent book, War and Power, Who Wins
Wars and Why, argues that battles rarely determine
outcomes. Instead, they reveal the underlying
strengths and weaknesses of the states fighting
them. That framework should help put in perspective
our discussion today on the U .S. strikes on
Iran, Ukraine's deep strikes into Russia, and
Europe's growing responsibility for Ukraine's
survival. Weaknesses in American strategy and
the way authoritarian leaders try to sell battlefield
failure as political strength. So welcome. Good
to have you. John, it's delightful to be here.
Yeah, we're also good friends and have a regular
signal channel with a number of other people
where we complain about the day's events. And
occasionally we have a beer together in Scotland.
Yeah, it's a little hot here, so I'd like to
be in Scotland right now. I got my fleece on.
So, you know, everyone else has a heat wave.
Scotland is like, oh, it's a little, little bit
cool today. All right, well, let's go. And since
you're a historian, some of these things that
are happening today, we'll try to figure out,
you know, what might be the bigger impact politically
and historically on these things. So your most
recent book argues that battles don't decide
wars, but they do reveal the character of the
states fighting them. What did the Iran war reveal
about the United States? Oh, Jesus, nothing good.
No, no, really. I mean, it's really, I mean,
you know, as an American, as you can tell from
my accent, this is all deeply depressing to me
to see what's happened. It revealed a number
of things. One, that the government's strategically
incoherent. It had no idea why it went to war,
what it wanted to achieve. and how it expected
to use military force to achieve national goals.
None of that was there. It just seemed to be
they went to war because Trump thought he could
go to war and have a victory. So it showed a
profound strategic incoherence on top of the
US government. But that in some ways, it was
not a surprise because that's the way Trump is.
There is a strategic incoherence to him. So it
simply revealed a very problematic thing about
him. The more depressing thing to me is how it
revealed that I would say that the U .S. military
is showing signs of degradation already. And
this is something I think we have to face. The
phrase is the fish rots from the head down. You
probably heard that phrase, John. Well, the head's
rotting. And that is, I think, translating down
to the military. My guess is it's a combination
of. That weaker officers getting promoted, people
cutting corners, not receiving direction, that
people with good ideas and open minds are not
able to advance in their career. And we saw a
military that wasn't prepared. It didn't have
certain technologies available to it, cheap technologies
to defend itself against drones, which seemed
to have trouble executing a lot of its missions.
and didn't perform in the way that we would expect
the U .S. military to perform. I think that would
be the way I would describe it. I'm reading the
Haberman and Swan book now, Regime Change. And
I'm just at the point where they're talking about
the original strikes on the nuclear program,
but, you know, before the larger war. Last June.
Yes. And it's amazing to read, like, essentially.
Trump thought he was still involved in negotiations,
claimed he didn't want to be part of the Israeli
attack. And just continued watching until like
literally one day he saw that Israel was having
success and said, oh, we need to be part of it.
We need to claim that we were behind this. And
then just essentially went to the Pentagon and
said, start striking now. And they had to respond.
And as you know, you know, as a historian of
the military. The military is all about planning
and preparing and putting together options. If
you tell someone to attack a country and expect
them to do it 15 minutes later, you can't really
expect great success in the sense that tactically
it worked out OK is almost a surprise given the
leadership problems. Yeah, and I agree about
last June. These strikes, they built up for months.
That's the thing. The ones in February, they
didn't happen overnight. They had been building
up to these for a while. And still, I would argue
they they suffered from significant logistical
problems in the way they put it together. And
they blew through stockpiles. And there are certain
ways that it just didn't seem to be well planned
when given time. And my guess is that speaking
your mind in the Pentagon and being critical
is now not to be accepted. People can't say we've
got a problem here or that the head doesn't know
what it's doing because the head will lash out
at. out at you if you do that. But I don't see
how we get out of it for the next few years.
My worry is it gets worse. Well, politics can
operate in the unreal, but military and intelligence
and diplomats have to operate in the real world.
So I know at one point you wrote some detail
about the memorandum of understanding between
Iran and the United States. Walk us through that
a little bit. What do you think that tells us
about American power and what in our concessions?
Well, Trump got nothing. I mean, that's the whole
thing is you read the memorandum of understanding
and Iran is in a better shape at the end of that
than it was on February 27th, 2026, before the
bombing started, because it's got tacit things
that were never on the table before. Tacit acceptance
of Iran's control of the state. You know, the
agreement does not rule out Iran charging tolls.
It sort of almost accepts the fact that Iran
has this ability to charge tools. It does, however,
say the sanctions on Iran are going to end. It
does talk about a $300 billion rebuilding fund
for Iran. It talks about basically protecting
Hezbollah in Lebanon. is trying to say that there
are certain things that cannot happen. So Iran
comes out of this with significant strategic
goals being met. I do not know what the United
States gets that it didn't have on February 27th.
That's what I don't, what did they get out of
this? And no one's been able to give me an answer.
Well, and also it surprises me that right away,
the things that Iran asked for were involved
Lebanon. It wasn't even part of the war and we
gave into it. Like, so I don't understand that.
I mean, Israel has got to be just, crazed over
what the administration is doing without working
and consulting with Israel. Well, Netanyahu made
the deal with the devil and he failed to accept
the truth that Trump will never be loyal to anyone
but Vladimir Putin. And I think that's true from
what we can say, how these things work. The only
thing Trump is loyal to is Putin. He's not going
to be loyal to Israel. He's not going to be loyal
to any state. And he sold the Israelis out when
he thought it was the best time for him, as he
was always going to do. I mean, the funny thing
is that people still trust him. Though I wonder
now if anyone will trust him. I mean, I think
at this point, the United States is utterly untrustworthy.
Europeans now know that. States like Japan, South
Korea, Taiwan know that. So I think to the point,
everyone's going to be polite. No one's going
to trust the U .S. You said everyone sees that
and everybody knows that. And people are looking
at what happened with us in this war. And it's
got to impact places like China. So you wrote
a great piece in The Atlantic talking about a
hypothetical U .S.-China war. In fact, it's one
of the bleakest things you've published, amongst
other bleak things. But it suggests that the
U .S. is currently positioned to lose a war with
China. What is our weakest link? Industrial capacity?
Is it military planning, alliance structure,
political will? What's the thing that bugs you
the most? All those things. But let's start with
the fun. The basic thing is wars are not won
by the forces you have when they start. That's
the great problem with studying wars. Does everyone
think the wars will be won by the forces you
have when you start? That's why Russia is going
to conquer Ukraine in three days. Or the US was
going to win the war on terror in 2001 too. Wars
don't work like that. They go on longer than
you think. They show adaptation. They show evolution.
The problem the US has is it manufactures 10
% of what China does. If you're looking at the
raw manufacturing capacity of the two. the two
states. They're completely out of whack. US has
no shipbuilding industry to speak of now. It's
entirely gone. So even if the US wins the opening
battles, and I'm not sure now they would, but
maybe if it wins the opening engagements, it
doesn't matter because they can't make up anything
they lose. The United States is running out of
weapons fighting Iran. They're bleeding the Tomahawk
stockpiles. They're bleeding Patriot stockpiles.
fad stockpiles. All these vital armaments are
just being chewed up through fighting the Iranians
who cannot shoot back in most cases. You add
the weapons. How do they expect to fight the
Chinese? I mean, I think it's got to the point
actually that the United States wouldn't even
try to fight for Taiwan now. Then I can't see
what it would do. I mean, where are they going
to fight from? How are they going to do logistics
across the Pacific? It's gotten to the point
where the U .S. is almost out of the game, which,
by the way, Trump's probably not unhappy with
because he likes presidency a lot and he couldn't
care about that one. But I wouldn't want to see
that war for the U .S. Reading that book, it's
clear that he doesn't care about much of anything
except himself. He doesn't care about Taiwan,
but he is aware of the chip making capability
in Taiwan and how it would affect the economy.
Give me a bit of a... I don't know, a rant on
Hegseth. In his view, you know, it's about hand
-to -hand combat and toughness and lethality.
These are the keys to history and victory. As
a World War II historian who talks about how
wars are actually won, what is he getting wrong
here? Well, our great war leader couldn't even
stand. you know, let alone do a, do a pushup.
You know, Franklin Roosevelt couldn't, couldn't
stand that without. Although it makes me feel
better because I watch his workout videos and
I'm a 65 year old man. I'm like, I can lift more
than that. I can, I wouldn't be that embarrassing
doing karaoke or whatever, but yeah. The thing
it's, it's actually Hex has whole military ID
ideology. I'll call it, if you can call an ideology,
but his whole military outlook's already been
shown to be wrong. He's talking about things
like the Russian. Or the North Korean military,
hyper macho militaries who do these ultra aggressive
charging maneuvers. And you know what? Those
soldiers die. If you're going to fight in the
present environment like that, you're going to
die. You're going to be killed by a drone. It's
not about hand -to -hand combat. The Russians
and the Ukrainians are not doing hand -to -hand
combat now. You can't live long enough. in most
cases, on the battlefield to even see the other
enemy up close. So he's talking about some sort
of weird 300 Leonidas and the Spartans view of
war that just doesn't go on. You need motivated
technological advanced soldiers who are actually
smart and willing to adapt to the technologies
at hand. who are going to win you the war. So
the Ukrainian soldiers who can fly drones are
the key ones right now, the drone pilots. When
I retired, I worked for a while as a consultant
with General McChrystal, and he would tell stories
about in Iraq, when they got most successful,
he obviously led the SEALs and Delta Force and
Special Forces, and they were going after terrorists.
And they brought a bunch of intelligence people
in from NSA and CIA and other places. And the
fighters that... at first were like, who are
these guys like fat people with like nose rings
and stuff? Like they have no place here. But
he said like within a week, they realized that
actually these are the people who are helping
them win. They were able to get in, get things
that they couldn't get before, turn it around
quickly, find new people, go after them. And
he realized that, you know, modern warfare is
about your brains more than it is about your
brawn. You need the ability, you need the really
good, like the Ukrainians are not infantry free
now. But what they've understood is mass infantry
is not how they fight. It's small numbers of
really motivated, trained soldiers who know what
they're doing. It's not. And by the way, are
smart more than anything else because they're
really valuable. You don't want your really good
infantry that have to fight in this terrible
battlefield to die because replacing them is
really hard. Replacing one of these people with
10. unmotivated conscripts, it's going to be
a disaster, or 10 Russian soldiers who aren't
trained. So you do need those soldiers, but you
need small numbers of really well -trained and
motivated ones, like the guys you were talking
with, who are backed up with all the right tech
and the people who understand things. And war's
going to go, as it has been for a while, wars
are going to go to the smarter side. That's the
side that wins wars. Well, you've also written
that Europe and Ukraine are starting to get their
act together. What does that mean in practical
terms? Is Europe finally becoming a strategic
actor or did they hang on to Trump for too long?
Well, they had to. Yeah, they definitely hung
on to Trump for too long. 2025 was a disaster.
Looking back, 2025, Europeans. really thought
they could win Trump. I mean, for me, it was
frustrating as an American living here. It was
really annoying because you'd see the, oh, you
know, we'd play golf with him. We'd slap him
on the back. We'd tell him what a wonderful man.
We just keep praising Trump. And at some point,
you know, he'll realize how much we love him
and how much better we are than Putin. And he'll
do the right thing. Now, Trump will never do
the right thing. He never does things to do the
right thing. But Europeans wasted most of 2025.
I mean, I really think it was going after this
false dream of Trump. Finally, however, he did
push them too far. Greenland was a great moment.
January 2026, Greenland really mattered because
the Europeans said, oh, my God, the Americans
might actually invade. They never thought it
was possible. But then they thought they might
invade and they might kill European troops. There's
Danish troops on Greenland. German, French were
there. And they said, what happens if that is?
the case that the United States invades. And
Trump didn't reassure them at that time. He made
it look like it was possible. And I think from
that point on, there's been a real change in
Europe, which was reinforced by the war against
Iran, because that war in February affected Europe
much more than the US economically, and Europeans
weren't involved. They weren't consulted. They
weren't they weren't in the room. Their needs
weren't taken into consideration. They were simply
told, deal with it. This is a U .S. decision
and we are the great power. And if that's what
you see from your quote unquote closest ally,
you realize it's not your closest ally anymore.
And what they've done is they have basically
decided Ukraine's victory or success. There's
not a consensus in Europe about what Ukraine's
victory should be like. Some want. A good deal
for Ukraine, somewhat or less, I would say, satisfactory
deal to get out of the war. But that actually
Ukraine's future is very important to them is
more widely understood. They really started,
they have replaced the United States as the big
benefactor of Ukraine. And also the thing we
have to always remember, the Ukrainians fought
back so effectively that the Europeans realized
that they had miscalculated. The Europeans in
2025, I don't want to say were of Trump's view
that Ukraine had no cards, but they were not
optimistic about Ukraine in a lot of European
capitals. They really thought Ukraine was going
to have to take a bad deal. But then they turn
around in 2026 and all of a sudden the Ukrainians
are doing some pretty impressive stuff. And the
Europeans realized, you know, this actually matters
to us. And this is a power that we need in Europe.
So the Ukrainians saved Europe in a way or certainly
gave it breathing space to make the mistakes
of 2025 that hopefully are now over in 2026.
What are they doing? Are they increasing capability?
Do they really have the ability to? to fight.
I mean, obviously part of the problem is a lot
of these places invested in the U .S. And so
when it came to building their own forces, they
were only putting pieces together that supplemented
what the U .S. was good at. Now they're going
to have to like build across the board so that
they have the same thing, you know, strike forces
and ability to move things. Tell us a little
bit about... Who gets it and what are they doing
and what are the capabilities right now or in
the near term? Such a great question. I mean,
there's so many issues going on here. In many
ways, no one fully gets it. But what they've
been able to do is parts of the different militaries.
The German, the French, the Scandinavian ones,
the British are cooperating with the Ukrainians
on things like drones, often because they don't
have a drone industry themselves. So they're
learning from the Ukrainians as well as bankrolling.
It's almost a symbiotic relationship now between
Europe and Ukraine when it comes to militarization.
But they did waste time. One thing they did throughout
2025, they didn't push ahead with their own anti
-air systems, but sort of were just trying to
scavenge patriots from around the world. And
this is the typical thing they did. Europe can
make its own anti -air systems. It needs to invest.
I mean, it has the technologies to build something
like a Patriot. They just sat on their ass and
didn't do it because they had access to the Patriots.
And they thought that would be the way forward
to get more of them. Now they're doing things
like thinking about European versions of anti
-air systems, more advanced ones. And that's
what they're going to do. But they've wasted
time on that. So, what they've also done, by
the way, is also provided cash to Ukraine, which
is really important because the Ukrainian war
industry in and of itself is now a vital asset.
Ukraine can make up to 7 million drones this
year. That's an amazing figure for a country
that didn't make a drone in 2021, from what we
can tell. They now have this capacity to manufacture
7 million. So, providing money to that is in
and of itself a huge part of European defense.
This is a quick aside. What's happened recently,
this sort of friction between Ukraine and Poland.
Tell us a little bit about what that's about.
Oh, crap. This is just one of the most horrible
stories. I mean, in some ways, yes, the Ukrainians
might have been politically more sensitive. The
Ukrainians have named a new military unit after
basically a Ukrainian nationalist military force
that appeared in the Second World War. And the
Poles believe committed atrocities against Polish
forces. And basically, the Russians will say
it was pro -Nazi and the Poles will say it was
anti -Pol. And the Ukrainians mind it was the
Ukrainian nationalist movement who had, by the
way, or history had been, you know, oppressed
from both sides by the Russians and the Poles.
So there's a lot of history here. And maybe the
Ukrainians should not have named the unit after
that. Right. That's that's a debatable thing.
But what I think the Polish president, and this
is also caught up within domestic Polish politics,
the Polish president is sort of a MAGA guy, a
MAGA Pole. And what he did is he turned around
and said, you can't name this unit. That's an
insult to Poland. So we're stripping Zelensky
of an award. So it's the Polish president actually
striking out at Ukraine. in a, in a, in a way,
in a dip, you know, in a real way, he's striking
out at Ukraine. And you got to think that is
stupid in my mind, whatever you think of the
Polish Ukrainian historical argument, and this
is not going to be settled here. Ukraine is fighting
for its life and it's defending Poland right
now. This is a good point. Yeah. Ukraine is defending
Poland that it stands between Russia and Poland.
That's it. All right. Is this mostly the president
in his party or is this a wider Polish anger
at Ukraine? Well, I think that there was some
Polish disquiet on all parties, but I can't believe
the Polish president's different than the government.
So Donald Tusk, the prime minister, is a different
party than the president. So the president is
more of a MAGA guy, the MAGA version of Poland.
And it does seem to be he's the one who's driving
this. That other other like the Radek Stokorski
is the foreign secretary of Poland said, you
know, let's calm down. He tried to calm the dispute
between the two countries. But it's gotten to
the point the Ukrainians are now they don't they're
saying to the polls, OK, fine, we're going to
name our units after who we want. We are a people.
So it's the Ukrainians. I don't know if you saw
what Putin said yesterday, but it was no holds
barred. And Zelensky is also saying, you know,
we are going to name our units after each other.
I don't see how this helps anyone but Putin,
which it does. And I just don't see the argument
that Poland had to do it now with Ukraine fighting
for its life. And it gives the Russians something
to amplify. Yeah. I mean, I know I'm going to
get a lot of angry letters from polls for saying
that, but I just I can't see how this helps anyone
from Putin now. And I don't see how helping Putin
helps Poland. No, it makes sense. Well, let me
just quick go back. And you called Biden and
the Biden administration's Ukraine policy a catastrophic
failure. Yeah. What was the biggest mistake,
the biggest decision you think that caused the
most damage there? Well, I think the Biden administration's
view was that they thought they could manage
this, what I call a Goldilocks strategy. Not
too hot, not too cold. That they could somehow
manage the war. And that what they wanted were,
in some ways, impossible victory conditions.
They wanted Ukraine to survive. And that's in
their credit. Trump couldn't care less about
Ukraine. The Biden administration wanted Ukraine
to survive and to be an independent state. On
the other hand, they didn't want Russia to lose.
So they really didn't. They didn't want a catastrophic
Russian defeat. They didn't want Russian instability.
So they sort of tried to control the war so that
Ukraine wouldn't fail, but Russia wouldn't lose.
And therefore, they thought they could control
the war. Oh, we'll fight on the front lines.
We won't let Ukraine strike into Russia and that
we'll micromanage the war. And it ended up being
just. catastrophic failure because Ukraine, I
think, could have won the war in 2022 had it
been properly armed, but it wasn't. And what
happened is every weapon the Biden administration
first said Ukraine didn't need, boy, they needed.
They just got it later. Everything from Patriots
to F -16s to HIMARS, all these things that the
Biden administration first said, no, no, no,
Ukraine can't have, they don't really need. Yeah,
they needed them, but they got them too late.
And then Trump comes to office and just ends
all aid. So, I mean, that's the other tragedy.
The Biden administration is sort of getting it
by the end of 2024. I do think there is an evolution
in the Biden administration. But by the time
they get it, they leave office and then we go
to the pro -Putin administration. Yeah. I mean,
from my time in the government, too, I think
this is an American. problem is we're so large
and so powerful that we think we can choreograph
like the perfect outcome. It's like we don't
you know, if if if Putin falls, it could be a
strategic mess and terrible. So let's try to
like beat him, but make sure that he does like
and we did. We've done this with all kinds of
wars in Afghanistan. It's like, well, the Taliban,
they're in Pakistan. We don't want to mess with
Pakistan, but we do want to go to the top. Like
we play this game like it's like you're not just
trying to. do the main thing in front of your
face you're trying to to choreograph this large
you know thing that you actually can't control
like it's out of your control but you believe
it is in your control well let me and i hope
you could ask this i don't know if it's it's
asking you to ask some things you can't but you
know the russian analysis coming out of the ic
and from my real outsider perspective it seemed
it was very moscow -centric it was exactly based
on what you say you know, this idea that somehow
we need to work with Moscow, that Moscow, that
we really don't want Russian failure. And it's
almost in some ways sympathetic to the subject
it studies. Now, when you look back on the, you
know, the Russia analysis, is that unfair? Is
that? No, it's the old, you become what you study,
right? And I think it's a bigger problem on Russia
analysis, academic wise and intelligence analyst
wise, is a lot of the people who are sort of,
experts in this area came up through these university
courses that were taught by, you know, from the
white Russians came out and then the next people
came out. It was part of the larger Cold War
superpower study, Russia -centric. I think it's
going to be not until the next sort of generation
of academics and analysts who... also give these
other countries their due. And so I do think
that the analytic community was way too, you
know, I don't want to say pro -Russia, but Russia
-centric in the way it sees things. It's much
easier to deal with Russia and solve all your
problems. And it's interesting because I worked,
obviously, on the collector side, right, the
operator in the field side of things. And in
that case, we're much more sort of... Anti -Russia
or whatever the right term you want to do is.
Russia is skeptical. Russia is skeptical. Right.
Exactly. You know, you need Russia pushes forward
until you punch him in the nose. And we're of
the punch him in the nose theory. And we're in
the don't trust them because everything is part
of their warfare. Everything. Negotiation is
part of warfare. But our analytic community seems
to be, you know, that way. And I think hopefully
it'll change over time. Hopefully this war has
sort of taken the blinders off of a lot of these
people who. think that way, but we shall see.
It's all whether we can rebuild after this administration,
too. In some ways, do you have to clean house
completely now when this is over in three years'
time? It depends. Certainly in some places you
do. In the Justice Department you do. Maybe in
the FBI you do. I tend to think that intelligence
agencies are a little harder for outsiders to
figure out and deal with, but you've got two
and a half more years and you've got some crazy
people in there. So we'll see about that. So
let's move into politics a little bit here. I
don't want to keep you too long. But you said
you struggle to think of a midterm election as
consequential as this one in 2026, except maybe
1862. So why that comparison of all the ones
available? And tell us a little bit more about
why you think this is so important. Well, why
1862? For those who don't go into a lot of American
history, 1862 is the midterm in the Civil War.
That is a vital midterm election, because had
the Democrats won the 1862 midterm election,
you might have had a, quote unquote, treaty between
the North and the South that would have given
the South independence of some kind. That really,
it was vitally important that the Republicans
win the midterms of 1862 to support the policies
of Abraham Lincoln. So the country's future would
have been, I think, materially different had
the Democrats won the 1862 midterm elections,
and they didn't. So that's the only one I can
think of that compares to these kinds of this,
the midterm election we have now that my the
fundamental problem there's I mean, yes, Trump
is incoherent. Yes, Trump is a strategic moron.
He's a political genius, by the way. And I hate
to say that he is an absolute political savant,
but a strategic moron. The big problem is he's
corrupt as hell. This is the underlying. The
United States is now a corrupt government. And
I know people don't like to hear that. I hope
people run on corruption and incompetence because
those two things are the fundamental thing behind
all of the issues that we see or most of the
issues. But if you can't root that corruption
out soon, it's going to embed itself. And it's
already embedding itself now. It is my worry.
And if the Republicans win the 1860, sorry, 1862
election, if the Republicans win the 2026 midterms,
who knows what they'll do legally to keep power,
to basically protect corruption. I mean, that's
what Speaker Johnson said the other day. You
don't want to vote Democrat. They'll investigate
the Trumps. So they're actually protecting this.
As a clandestine collector overseas, the one
thing that... that allowed us to be as successful
as we were, to collect the secrets that we needed
to give our policymakers, you know, the ability
to make decent policy. They don't always do that,
but you want to give them the information, is
that the countries we often worked in were corrupt
and incompetent. And the people who worked there
realized that at some point they couldn't change
the system and they wanted to work with the United
States, who they saw as something. different,
trying to actually play a role in the world that
was generally positive, despite the mistakes
we make. If we are a country that is just another
corrupt, you know, grab as much as you can kind
of place, we're going to lose something that's
really special that allowed us to be as powerful
and rich as we are. We are that now. I mean,
right now we are a grab as much as you can government.
I can't see anyone who's not out there to grab
as much as they can. And Kristi Noem with that
plane. It's just grotesque what's going on. And
this is my worry. How do you get back from it?
And the only way you get back is end it as soon
as possible. Because once these systems go corrupt,
it becomes entrenched. And that's why soon. So
to put this in a bigger sort of pullback historical
thing, to put it in perspective, can you articulate
what... MAGA means to the U .S. place in the
world in the sense that what was the world order
that we had? How was it changing? What does it
matter? What are we losing? Because a lot of
Americans, they focus on the day -to -day and,
oh, I want my gas to be cheaper, whatever it
is. Those of us who worked for the government
saw this world order. We were sort of leaders
in the world order. as beneficial to us. Can
you explain what that was, why it was important,
and why people who might be listening should
realize that that's a terrible thing that we're
losing? Well, the one element of American power
that people underrated in the United States,
and I say this is real, they underrated the value
of allies. It was, we are the United States.
We are the great power, and our weak European
cheese -eating surrender monkeys, and our pacifist
Japanese, and it's us. We are the power. And
what they didn't understand is that American
power was amplified by having all of Europe as
its ally, by having Japan as its ally, South
Korea as its ally. The United States wasn't just
the United States. It was in charge of more than
half of the world's economy through its allies.
That's why it was this great global power. And
if the United States now has no ally, that's
what MAGA is saying. I mean, if you read things
like the National Defense Strategy. or whatever
that document was last November, they're basically
saying we really have, we are Western hemisphere
focused and we're not global, we're our allies.
Western Europe was indeed presented as a problem,
that Europeans were a problem to the United States.
And the United States is going to wake up in
a few years time and realize they have lost their
alliances entirely by choice. That's the perplexing
thing. The United States chose under no pressure,
to give up an alliance system that made it strong.
And it doesn't feel it now because people just
care about the price of gas in their cars. But
what they don't realize is the stability we had
in the world, and the world was actually remarkably
stable for 90, 80 years, was because of the U
.S. alliance system. And without that, the world's
going to be a far more unstable place, and the
United States chose to end it. That's what Maga
did. Aye, this is not good. But let's talk a
little bit back to Ukraine. Are we watching a
true revolution in warfare, given with the drones
and the way they're fighting there? Or is this
simply the latest version of an old pattern where,
you know, you find new ways to do something,
the tank comes along and then you have to create
something, the airplane and vice versa and back
and forth? What are we seeing right now? What
are we witnessing? We are witnessing something
really important, and that is the swing away
from the unfortunate thing that made the U .S.
very powerful for a long time, the highly advanced,
exquisite piece of military equipment. The F
-35, really the aircraft carrier, the small number
of hyper -advanced military machines that only
one power could make, or a small number of powers
could make, which were the core. Now what we
see in Ukraine is the exquisite has a real problem.
And by the way, we're seeing that in the Gulf
too. The exquisite, if it can be matched by massive
cheap systems, loses a lot of its value. So in
Ukraine, what we're seeing is that something
like the expensive battle tank, what's the point
of it? when it costs tens of millions of dollars,
when you can have drones that cost two or three
hundred dollars represent a threat to it. And
so the real change is the growth of cheap mass
systems that are going to represent a threat
that the large, exquisite, expensive systems
are struggling with hugely. And that's not just
the Russians, that's also the USA. Does that
mean something for large, powerful countries?
Does it make us less powerful, less ability to
do things on the world stage? Like I've seen,
you know, if we look back, we've essentially
lost most of the wars we've done recently in
the sense strategically we were trying to do
something and we didn't get what we wanted to
do. Is this ability of big powers to sort of
get their way militarily at some point going
to be? I mean, the Russians are not getting their
way in Ukraine and the United States did not
get its way in Iran. The best Chinese choice
actually for a while, and Chinese foreign policy
used to be disastrous, is not to do that much,
not to sit back and let the Americans make the
mistakes. I think what we're learning is, which
we should have learned before, the limitations
of military power. My real worry is that this
Pentagon, led by the Secretary of Defense and
this president, cannot be the ones to modernize
the U .S. military and adjust to this world.
They are simply not capable of doing it. And
if they get an extra $500 billion, which is what
they're asking for, it's just going to make things
worse because it's going to be money thrown at
morons. And that's my worry. That's fair. Do
you think the Chinese are getting the memo here?
Do you think they're sort of saying to themselves,
listen, this notion that big powers can use their
military to get their way doesn't seem to be
working for anyone. Or are they convinced that
Taiwan's so important, they're so powerful that
they'll be able to do it when the time comes?
I don't know. I mean, in some sense, we can't
lie. The Chinese military is probably making
a lot of stupid decisions, too. And Xi is purging
the Chinese military right and left. The one,
I think, worrying sign, and this is worrying,
is the Chinese seem less focused on the idea
of an invasion of Taiwan, which I think would
be a catastrophe for them if they tried to D
-Day Taiwan. That's a really hard thing to do.
And they're moving more towards a blockade distance
strategy, which is a real problem for Taiwan
and a real problem for the USA. So if that's
true, and that's what we're seeing from some
Chinese moves, that they're going to that kind
of strategy, that is a sign that they're learning
and adjusting to this world. Worryingly so, I
would say, or a bit more than the United States
that went into Iran and tried to fight the last
war. Yes. All right. Well, just a couple more
questions before I let you go, because you have
bigger things to do. authoritarian systems often
survive these kind of defeats by renaming them
victories. This is what Putin has done. The Soviet
Union did it. Saddam did it. Putin does it. Trump
seems to be doing that now. What's the downside?
What's the long -term damage that this causes
when you try to control history and the narrative
and propaganda? The one positive thing is he
hasn't seemed to be able to do that for most
American people. I mean, he has his base, and
they will believe anything he says. And he said,
I've beaten Iran, I've humiliated Iran, I've
crushed Iran, and 30 % of America will absolutely
say, yes, you have, and we love you, and that's
entirely right. However, more Americans don't
seem to be persuaded of this argument. In the
polls, we see most Americans believe the war
had no point, the war was a waste. that the war
achieved little. So I think Trump is struggling
to do that nationally, whereas he's done it with
his base because they'll believe anything he
says. If we see more and more American people
accepting the idea that they did well in this
war, that's a worry. That means Trump is winning
the narrative fight. And by the way, that's the
only fight that matters to him now. He couldn't
care less about Iran. He just wants out. He just
wants out. So all he's all he's doing now is
trying to win the debate within the USA. So far,
he's not winning that debate. And that's positive.
If he does, it's really worrying. But the real
pain of what we did in Iran was felt outside
of the United States. I mean, we have such a
large energy industry. You know, yes, gas went
up some. Yes, there's some inflation. But there's
countries where literally they had to go from
five day work weeks to three day work weeks that
couldn't do start growing season. They caused
real pain and suffering that didn't happen here
in the United States. And so, you know, I worry,
like you talked about earlier, that the rest
of the world were in the past when the U .S.
made blunder, strategic blunders and mistakes.
People said, hey, you know, it's better to have
America leading than not leading, even if we're
upset about what they're doing. Now we're causing
the world such pain and we look to be such a
corrupt country that we're not going to get our
way like we did in the past, even when people
were frustrated with us. No, I mean, U .S. friends
around the world. I mean, let's look at the Europeans
basically now think the U .S. started a war that
harmed Europe and didn't care about Europe. So
that's the way it's seen here. But the more even
were the Gulf states who fought side by side
with the U .S. in this war no longer believe
in the United States. A lot of those Gulf states.
South Asia, Philippines, Vietnam, all these places
are suffering because of it. I didn't have time
to get there, John. It's so many countries. Basically,
if you look at the arc of American friends and
allies, no one is convinced of the U .S. being
reliable and a partner on whom they should base
their future security. The Gulf states are now
reaching out to Iran. So what we have done. is
we have basically improved Iran's position because
the United States seems so poor at running this
war. Any hope, any optimism here? Well, I mean,
the midterm elections, we'll see whether the
American people really want to change. The other
signs of optimism is that Europe and places like
Japan are waking up. And if the United States
ever regains its senses. then actually there
will be better partners for the United States
and more powerful partners who are willing to
look after themselves. That means the United
States will be able to automatically lead like
it did in the past, but actually it could have
stronger partners going forward than it had before.
All right, well, that seems to make sense. Maybe
this is one of these big turning points in history
that... Maybe Trump got us there in the wrong
way. It didn't have to be quite this dramatic.
That's exactly right. Well, you've been really
generous with your time. Thank you for talking
to us. I'd love to, but anytime. Perspective
here. And I would suggest that people follow
Phillips. He's got a sub stack that is fantastic
to read. And when you see his moniker on The
Atlantic or you hear him on NPR or any of these
other places, you should pay attention. And what
is your next book you're working on? Well, I
mean, I assume you're working on a new book.
Yeah, I am working on a new one, but it's not
entirely signed and sealed. What I will say I'm
most interested in is the history of military
logistics, going back to the classical period,
all the way to Russia, Ukraine, and even China,
US -Taiwan war. So it's basically a study of
historical military logistics. What do you think
you'll find? What's the thesis here? Well, everyone
says amateur tactics. I'm sorry. Amateurs discuss
tactics and experts discuss logistics. If that's
true, what's interesting is there are hardly
any experts in the historical profession because
nobody writes about logistics and everybody writes
about tactics. So it's a way to say, actually,
this is how logistics work and this is why they
matter. Well, outstanding. Well, when that comes
out, I will read it, certainly, and I hope other
people do as well. So, Bill O 'Brien, thank you
so much for your time and really appreciate it.
For people, this has been the Steady State Sentinel.
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And thank you to you, Phillips. Take care, Don.
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