Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to the show, contributing writer at The Atlantic and senior fellow at Brookings. His most recent book is Rebellion, How Anti-Liberalism is Tearing America Apart Again. It is Bob Kagan. How are you doing, Bob? I'm great, Tim. How are you? I'm doing well.
It sounds like Bob missed my live stream last night on YouTube where I bimbo-fied myself. And so if you guys also missed that, it might be something to take a look at. I thought I looked pretty good. I understand where Brian's coming from now, what the appeal is. And so we'll just kind of leave that there. I want to start with a little behind the scenes.
I don't think this should embarrass you because it's kind of glazing you. But last June, when we engaged in the 12-day war, we started bombing the Iranian nuclear facilities. You know, some of my neocon muscles were flaring a little bit on the podcast, and I was going, okay. You know, I don't really trust Trump. I don't like Trump, but...
That's just a little, you know, just a little kind of mind sweep over the nuclear facilities in Iran. Don't hate that. And, you know, I was kind of vacillating back and forth on it. And some others in our circle were even more supportive of it than that. We'll just leave it there. And Bob calls me. I'm standing right outside there on my back porch. And he's like, don't let these old neocons...
trick you into thinking this is a good idea. OK, this is a this is a disaster. We can't predict how bad it is. You can't trust Trump. And I don't know, in that 12 days, I'm not sure you are quite vindicated. Ten months later, you're looking quite prescient on your view of wanting to oppose Trump and his adventurism in the Middle East at all costs.
So why don't you just give us a little bit on what what your instinct was on this?
Setting aside my concern, which is not really worth setting aside, about the domestic consequences of Trump being at war, which I think we have still yet to fully discover.
If we're going to be at war for several months, the opportunities for declaring national security issues on one thing or another, arresting protesters because they're domestic terrorists, et cetera, we haven't fully gone down this road. But more from a strategic point of view, I did not believe that bombing alone was going to solve our problem with Iran. And this is we somehow forgot.
You know, we learned this lesson in the 1990s. There was this great idea, especially after the decimation of the of the Iraqi army in Kuwait in the you know, in the first Gulf War. where our missiles, our airplanes, just completely decimated their force, really. And then it was just a matter of mopping up at the end.
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Chapter 2: How does the U.S. military strategy affect global alliances?
And so, you know, I don't know what outcome anybody ever expected him to accomplish in this situation.
I'm sorry, I don't think that's right, Bob. I have to challenge you because Rich Lowry at the National Review said that he's just a sincere and passionate Iran hawk. And that's what we've learned. So I'm not sure. I think that maybe you're just not seeing Trump's sincerity and passion when it comes to liberating Iran.
I'm certainly seeing passion. He seems to be very passionate about killing as many people as he can possibly kill, blowing things up. He loves to watch pictures of blowing things up. Maybe that makes him very passionate.
He does like to watch pictures. OK, I want to run through some news items and get to your Atlantic article that talks more about the geopolitical implications of all this, as you mentioned. Iranian media was reporting overnight, but now we have confirmation in American media that an F-15 was downed over Iran. There's a search and rescue operation underway as we speak for the crew.
The Iranian media, I couldn't tell if this was a cheeky statement. troll of Trump or just how they actually talk. But, you know, was saying to the Iranians, if you're in the region, you capture this person, you'll get a prize. You'll get a nice prize or reward, which is a very Trumpian kind of thing. I should mention just while we're doing news updates, just a little correction.
The other day I was talking about how Trump was talking about how there were missiles going at our ship. And I suggested that it was referencing the Gerald Ford, but that clip was taken out of context. And he was talking about a Venezuela ship. And so I do think the other news item this morning is that the Gerald Ford is going through repairs.
That's the big ship might be going back into the region. The other news item is since since we talked yesterday is, you know, we are now kind of beginning that process. Going back to the Stone Age-style bombing campaign, the first attack on a major civilian infrastructure target intentionally was yesterday, which was an attack on the B1 bridge near Tehran.
And that, I think, is signaling a widening of the U.S. military targets and a first step towards attacks on energy, water, and transportation infrastructure. Trump posted a picture of the downed bridge in Tehran.
bragged about it like which are civilian targets yeah so anyway on the f-15 and and now the kind of missing airmen and and the bridge and any thoughts on either of those items you know when you carry out a military operation you're you're going to have bad events take place i mean the the general ford had to go back because there was a fire in the laundry which military people who
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of Trump's approach to Iran?
You have to ask what exactly it's for now, given the new strategy of the United States, because we've basically ended the alliance with our NATO allies and therefore we will not be engaged, I presume, in the defense of Europe anymore. We are going to hand over the Persian Gulf to a consortium of powers, including China and Iran and others.
And we will be exiting, apparently, after we finish blowing the place up. Our Asian allies are now basically deciding that they also have to go it alone. The relationship between with South Korea is a total disaster. And I don't think we're far away from them basically sort of saying they're going to go nuclear and be on their own.
So at the end of the day, we are going to be, as a result of this, a very, very lonely country without allies. So that doesn't seem to me to be a great triumph.
I mean, part of that spending is rebuilding, you know, a lot of stuff that has been lost in this war that doesn't really have a clear strategic objective. Let's now go deeper on the global implications of this. I think this is a lot of what you were talking about, your latest Atlantic piece, which is titled America is Now a Rogue Superpower.
Subhead to that was Trump's conduct in the Iran war is accelerating global chaos and deepening America's dangerous isolation. I want to go at a deeper level through all of those regions and countries that you just went through. But I'm just curious what you think the top level implication is of our new status.
Well, we're at the beginning of a period in which things that we used to get basically for free, in the sense that we didn't have to fight for it, like... open access to the oceans around the world, basing in many, many, many, many countries around the world. The countries allow us to use their territory for bases, not only to protect them, but to project power in various different ways.
Our substantial control of the international financial system is going to be severely undermined. And we've given Putin the greatest prize that he could possibly have, which is the destruction of NATO. That is what he's been seeking for 20 years. The Chinese are... improving their position globally at our expense.
They want us out of the Western Pacific and East Asia, and we are heading in that direction. But I think I really do want to focus a little on the Gulf itself, because at the end of the day, there's going to be some basic objective reality that is going to be inescapable. And that is that the United States, at the end of this conflict,
unless some kind of extraordinary event happens and Iran just collapses and becomes a friendly country within the next three weeks, where we're going to be left is we will have been substantially pushed out of the Middle East and Persian Gulf. That is the net consequence of this. Because if when we quit, as Trump claims, leaving the Strait of Hormuz closed,
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Chapter 4: How has Trump's foreign policy impacted NATO?
And particularly, and I'm not in an abstract sense, but in a really concrete sense, that the allies we were defending in Europe and in Asia depended on access to that energy resource. The region was also strategically important. It was a constant sort of crossroads of great empires, etc. So... But it was secondary to our interests.
And no one in the region, including Iraq in 2003 or Iran today, ever posed a direct threat to the security of the American homeland. And of course, in Trump's national security strategy, which was released, I don't know, it must have been all of like four months ago, they deliberately downgraded
As was logical given their focus on hemispheric dominance and homeland security, they deliberately downgraded the Middle East as a region of American concern. They just said it wasn't that important to us anymore. And Donald Trump has spent the entire war saying it's not our oil, we don't need the oil, et cetera, et cetera. So what are we... So what are we doing it for?
Now, a lot of it is about defense of Israel. There's no question that Iran posed a direct existential threat to Israel, not to us. And we have committed to defending Israel. But again, not because it's in our national security interest to do so, as I point out in the essay and as everybody knows.
Most of the leading American officials at the time thought it was not in our interest to support the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. George Marshall, no less a figure. Dean Hatterson thought it was a bad idea because it was going to make enemies of an entire Arab world. Have what basically 25 countries mad at us in order to make one country happy, etc. But we did it.
For moral reasons. And it was part of our America accepting sort of a global responsibility to sort of protect liberalism and the rights of human beings, God forbid. So that is why we were there. And now if we're not interested in Europe and here's Trump. literally pulling us out of NATO. And if we're not interested in our Asian allies, what are we doing it for?
And it turns out we're not interested in the Iranian people either. Is this just for Israel's protection? Was this entire war for Israel's protection? Is this a crusade? You know, you've got Pete Tegseff, you know, saying, God, give us the power to smite our enemy, which is this like a Christian fight against Muslims? You know, I'd love to know, really.
On the Israel question, JBL asked about this when we were on the post-Trump speech live stream. I'm interested in your thoughts on this, which is... Even through the Israel prism, it's a little bit confusing because Trump is so transactional. We know what he's getting out of UAE and Qatar and Saudi. His family is getting enriched by those countries. It's not quite as clear that that's happening.
I'm sure that Jared is doing some deals, but it's not quite as clear or at least direct when it comes to Israel. And you mentioned in your piece that there have been certain times where Israel has been focused on their own interest over ours, which is their right, right?
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Chapter 5: What are the consequences of U.S. withdrawal from global leadership?
I'm going to get the credit. This is a classic Trump story. Like other people are going to do the work. I'm going to get the credit.
Exactly. Exactly. And despite his reputation for playing five dimensional chess, I don't think plays one dimensional checkers. He didn't really go through the what the possible downsides of this action where he thought he saw an easy operation. You know, this whole grand strategy. What is Trump doing? Trump's doing what he always did. He saw a shiny object and he thought he could grab it.
And so he grabbed it. And he does love blowing stuff up. So he got another chance to blow stuff up.
It was an interesting point you mentioned about the air defenses, about how this plays to Asia. And this kind of takes us back to that question about the Yuan and whether China is being strengthened by this action right now. And you're making the case, yes.
You write this, as for China, combined Israeli and American forces have demonstrated impressive capabilities, but their success is not necessarily replicable in the Pacific. Taking out an adversary's sophisticated air defenses is a dangerous operation, as you said, one that Israel shouldered in Iran, the U.S.,
had the capacity to take that first step, but would not likely have assumed the risk in the event of a Chinese aggression against Taiwan. Will the Israelis take out Chinese air defense systems for the United States, too? It's a rhetorical question. I think we know the answer to that.
But talk about just that and how China is looking at our actions right now in Iran, both in that specific instance, but also broadly.
Yeah, well, I mean, in the early days of the war, and I mean, even today, there's been a lot of sort of like crowing about how our impressive military feat is now going to strike terror into Beijing and Moscow because they watched us blow all this stuff up. And I'm actually quite astonished at how many people are like, Israel's our real ally. They're our invaluable ally.
They're the ones we can really count on. Look how we're fighting together here, et cetera, et cetera. So I just sort of thought... What the Chinese saw was that the Israelis took all the risks. The Americans took no risks. I mean, not no risks, but took very few risks. So did we take out the air defenses? No.
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Chapter 6: How are U.S. allies reacting to current military actions?
I think the bitterness between them is too great. And I don't think Japan wants to be part of the Chinese sphere of influence. So Japan will also undoubtedly at some point go nuclear and independent. And that raises all kinds of questions about what direction Japan may go in. And we can get into that at another day.
They have bombed us once before.
Yeah. But, you know, we've had some experience with all of this historically. And, you know, by the way, that is the biggest picture of all, which is it's not just that we are losing all of our alliances around the world. And let me just say, we are really losing them because now it is becoming popular in other countries to attack the United States.
For good reason. And imagine waking up in South Korea and just being like a middle class person South Korean, going about your day, and now you have to ration gas. And you're like, why? Because the insane American president invaded Iran for no clear reason that I can understand, and now my life is worse? Like, of course that would be a successful political tool to talk about how we're terrible.
And after... We broke a trade agreement with them. We had a U.S.-North Korea trade agreement, which Trump broke. South Korea. I'm pretty sure. They did love letters of South Korea, but I don't think we did a trade agreement. Just the love letters. Thank you. Just keeping that clear. Thank you very much, Tim.
But we had a Korean-American trade agreement, which Trump violated to slap the tariffs on Korea. So now they are suffering under 25% tariffs. And... A factory, which was basically a South Korean, I think it was a Hyundai factory in Georgia, was raided by ICE, and hundreds of South Korean employees were shackled and sent back. The Korean people were horrified by this.
They could not believe that the United States would do this to them. They'd been such a good ally. As you just said, there's going to be money to be made in all these countries running against the United States, which is going to turn everybody against us. You know, in the back in the day, we used to make fun of China, who's they have a certain like two or three allies around the world.
And it was kind of like a Star Wars bar. You know, they had North Korea, they have Pakistan and maybe some other like little countries, Iran. You know, those were their allies. A couple of African countries. And we were like, well, we have 54 partners and allies around the world. Well, now we're going to be the ones where, let's see, our allies are the Darcy government in Venezuela.
So far, El Salvador. Victor Orban, but he may lose the election. So then Hungary will be gone. So I don't know who else is left after. Well, we're in business with UAE and so far right now. For the moment. But let me tell you something. The UAE has good relations with China. This is – now I'm back to serious, OK? Going back to the Gulf states and Israel, they have other options in the region.
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Chapter 7: What are the potential outcomes of the conflict in Iran?
We won't have stopped Iran from ability to fight. So we are willing to do certain things to try to have our way, but not really to take any great risk to have our way in the region. And that's how we wind up where we are right now.
So back to Europe. So we have the Hungary elections coming up soon. So that could be a rare silver lining of our discussion today. I'd like your thoughts on that. And just in general about NATO. Well, let's just do Hungary first, then we'll talk about NATO.
I guess the polls show that the opponent Magyar has a double digit lead in the polls.
But, you know, the Trump administration... J.D. Vance is going to save the day for Orbán.
Well, that's what I'm saying. The Trump administration is manfully trying to turn around that election and sending Marco Rubio to make sure that the dictator of Hungary remains in power. So J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio are now actively lobbying. By the way, this is the America First group that says we shouldn't be
pursuing ideological crusades around the world and we shouldn't be meddling in the affairs of other governments. Remember all that stuff? We shouldn't be promoting democracy. That's terrible. Promoting dictatorship, on the other hand, that apparently we can engage in that. We can do that. Okay. The NATO discussion, I think, is really important.
And I think it's particularly important at this moment because now I am seeing that, you know, what we might have called the Reagan wing of the Republican foreign policy establishment has pretty much gone away because I would say that a core principle of
of Reagan foreign policy, both before and after the Cold War, was that the European and Asian alliances are at the core of American grand strategy. And now, because of this war, even people who were part of what I would have thought of as the Reagan wing of the party are now coming out against NATO.
The degree to which Republican foreign policy types are coming out against NATO now is pretty extraordinary. And it couldn't be more absurd. I don't know what you wanted to get into, so maybe I should let you ask a question. No, just no, Riff. You know... when they say, why aren't they helping us open the Strait?
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Chapter 8: How does this episode reflect on the future of U.S. foreign policy?
It's shocking to watch people that I've known for decades on foreign policy, and I really felt like I knew what their core beliefs were, just abandoning them in a heartbeat just to keep on the right side of Donald Trump.
Yeah, you saw this. We talked about this a little bit with Susan yesterday. So there's so many examples with this. I kind of hate to pick on Peter Meyer, who is the former. Well, actually, I don't. I like to pick on him, a former congressman from Michigan. But who's in this wing, you know, right, of more traditional foreign policy.
But he was just posting this week, it would behoove our NATO allies to appreciate that this sentiment is very widely shared, including among former boosters of the Transatlantic Alliance, the sentiment being that People are like, these guys are motherfuckers for not participating with us.
It is insane to me that anybody could look at the situation and look at the position that Trump has put our European allies in, not to mention given what he did in Greenland, and be like, you know who I'm mad at? I'm mad at Macron for not going along with this. Like, it's crazy. Trump is putting them in an impossible position.
And he's fucking them, by the way, with their own citizens, with their own electorate, with the energy crisis. And he hasn't given one whit about them. And he's been threatening to pull out of the alliance for years now. And, like, they're supposed to go along with this cockamamie war that has no point? It's insane. Yeah.
And by the way, it's not as if they're sitting around playing Parcheesi. They are engaged right now in trying to prevent the conquest of a European country, a free and independent European country, Ukraine, by a Russian aggressor. who clearly has ambitions beyond Ukraine and includes the Baltic states.
So when a foreign policy intellectual says, let's pull out of NATO because they're not helping us in the Gulf, they're saying, let's let Putin invade Estonia and it's not our problem. And I'm just like, these are people who regarded the Russian threat to Europe as a central issue.
You know, Mike Johnson, you remember Mike Johnson back in 2024 saying Putin's got objectives, he's not going to stop in Ukraine. This wasn't like some, you know, weird liberal internationalist problem. This was something that used to be a core concern of Republicans. And now overnight, they're willing to just sell all that down the river again, just to sort of
So that they're hanging in with Donald Trump. I mean, we've we've talked a lot of people. You've talked a lot of people about the failure of our elites in this whole crisis of Donald Trump. This is a perfect example of it.
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