Anne Applebaum

It's crazy because that's not how it works.

Russia isn't dominating Europe.

And actually, you know, there are other players in Asia too, China, Japan, but also South Korea.

There are many countries that don't want to become Chinese colonies.

And so it's a misunderstanding of how the world is going to work.

And it's also a recipe for war.

I mean, if the US sees itself as its primary goal is to extort resources from Latin America, then there will be struggle and conflict in Latin America as people object to it, as we just discussed.

If Russia decides that its job is to dominate Europe, then there will be a war in Europe.

If China wants to dominate Japan, there'll be a war with Japan.

So this way of seeing the world, that it's about big powers having dominance, is an absolute recipe for violence and warfare.

The whole point of the post-war world, of the UN Charter, of the myriad institutions that we're now dropping out of, was to have a different way of running the world.

Instead of big countries saying might makes right, give small countries agency, organize networks, organize alliances, even in areas like shipping law or airplane traffic.

have ways of discussing things between nations where everybody gets a say and we get some kind of solution that's good for everyone.

I mean, that was the basis of international politics for the last 70 years.

And they seem very convinced that they can just discard all of it and that it will somehow be good for the U.S.

I mean, U.S.

losing European markets, U.S.

being cut off from Japan, U.S.

isolated in the Western Hemisphere, U.S.

losing.