 Welcome back to war economy and state. This is the Mises Institute's foreign policy and international relations podcast And I am here today joined by my co-host Zachary Yoast And this is where we talk about issues that a little beyond the usual economic topics and domestic policy and Look at what is the United States doing out in the world in relation to other states? And also just discussed some strategic issues and basically how the US regime is getting most of that all wrong and the latest evidence of that is What was recently released from the White House, which was their national security strategy here for the new fiscal year and It's awful Looking at it. This is about I don't know what 50 pages of Going on and on about global warming about covid about democracy versus autocracy Lots of topics covered here and basically the impression you're left with is that the united states should use its foreign policy To be involved in basically Everything and not just the strategic issues related to maintaining defense at all but really In terms of dealing with covid dealing with environmental policy ensuring human rights are respected worldwide and all of those issues So Zach and I are just kind of going to go through and pick out some of the more alarming Or terrible parts of this and we'll put a link to it in the in the description And just basically get a sense of where foreign policy Is going or at least where the White House would like to take it now This is a lot like when the White House puts a budget out in the sense of This is what we would like to see or this report is essentially a press release about what our political priorities are And actually this reads very much like a press release a very long press release And I can imagine like some really Uh What I don't know a very ideological a very ambitious 28 year old writing this for the administration and Thinking boy, we're going to conquer evil here in the next 10 years if we can carry out this report Uh, but really this report's gonna gonna be read in congress and then Congress especially the house now that's controlled by republicans We'll pull the parts out out of it that serve the republicans interests And so obviously we can't read this as any sort of like something that's about to be enacted over the next Year or five years or 10 years Um, but I think it does illustrate what this administration thinks is important and also I think perhaps illustrates What just the general foreign policy consensus is In the beltway As well So let's just kind of uh, let's just start out with uh, looking at Some of the basics of here and I and I would say my main takeaway Was that there is no portion of the world that is not considered to be Uh a target for the united states in terms of policy in terms of meddling in terms of uh, what they call You know building bridges It's uh, it's just it's just an announcement of Every region in the world is of interest to this regime And we will not butt out anywhere in the whole world Uh, of course the problem of that is that what it means when every part of the world is a priority Then no part of the world is a priority So reading this you can't even guess about which part of the world is most important right now Except maybe for the stuff about how china is the most important A strategic challenge, but part of dealing with china involves Apparently being active everywhere the middle east, africa Indo-pacific europe And of course latin america as well. So you name it. So it uh Get ready the entire globe is uh, is a place where the united states needs to be Needs to be spending money needs to be maybe even starting wars if necessary And uh, I think uh, a sane person should probably find that to be a little bit alarming. Yeah, it uh such a core Aspect of this document as well as just us foreign policy in general is the idea of the global order and it's just Foreign policy wonks need to read more hayek. I suppose because for them this order is purely constructed it's a constructivist rationalist constructivist entity as hayek would put it and Without u.s. involvement everywhere everything would just collapse. It's sort of a very What's the uh, what's the word? uh a very codependent Relationship the u.s. Everyone needs the u.s. And the u.s. Needs everyone needing us to So all the bureaucrats and think tank, uh, you know, uh nerds can feel that their life has some overriding important purpose Is the so cynical, uh, you know armchair psychologist view of of why everywhere is important all the time It needs us to do something. Well, and the intro makes that clear right is that uh, that 360 degree strategy, uh, is is one phrase that Is under joe biden signature in the introduction Yeah, and that that paragraph has my favorite line. Um, he says i'm more confident than ever that the united states is everything we need To win the competition for the 21st century We emerge stronger from every crisis and then the golden line There is nothing beyond our capacity. We can do this for our future and for the world And it's like nothing is beyond our capacity Uh, do we live in a post scarcity world? I mean, you know by like, uh Just one of the core aspects of human existence says misis tells us is you know scarcity and the infinite, uh Wants that will be unfulfilled. I mean, that's the very core of Acting man is unfulfilled wants. So it's just nothing is beyond our capacity just flies in the face of basic sound economic logic and just is sort of Mind boggling You know where that line would go really well would be like on one of those like 1930s so soviet union posters Where there's like a worker And he's looking off into the at the horizon or maybe at the sunrise and uh, he looks all healthy and and uh young and Efficient and then written right under it. Nothing is beyond our capacity. Yeah. Yeah, I must admit I do love a socialist realist arch Yeah, so it would look good. Yeah, it would I I don't know if it's being from pittsburgh industrial rustbound. It's just like oh, yeah I love that art style even though it's you know Propaganda can be uh, if you recognize its propaganda, you can appreciate it as an art form and it's of itself Well, of course, you know, I don't mind some good 16th century christian propaganda from florins, right? That's essentially what some of those statues are And uh, that's it's beautiful in many cases. So however If only if only this report had had some art or flair to it Yeah, it doesn't approach dantes inferno in terms of you know All my enemies are burning and how I've done with style, but yes It reads like a Stalinist five-year plan in some respects like I'm I'm looking at it and and it covers industrial policy and It has phrases like Markets alone cannot respond to the rapid pace of technological change global supply disruptions Uh, et cetera et cetera strategic public of in investment is the backbone of a strong industrial and innovation base in the 21st century global economy This is I what I thought of this when I saw this was a thing about how truman tried to nationalize the steel industry Back in the 50s and just how basically the economy is here to service a global international relations goals and And that the market isn't enough Therefore, right because the markets would just try to deliver to people what they need. So therefore Where the report goes from there, of course is we need subsidies. We need a plan. We need all sorts of central government meddling in order to make sure that the economy is delivering what we think it should deliver And it's it's just astounding that this is That this is an american document. I can only imagine something like this Being read in in in uh, 1881 Uh, I just imagine what grover cleveland would think of something like this. We're basically everything exists Uh for strategic purposes and it's just so anti liberal liberalism in the good sense That it's really quite remarkable Because so much of the article reads that way because not only There's no separation between domestic policy and foreign policy at all That it's really just all the same thing all the same goals are there from co vid to the environment to equity And and ensuring that that's all respected worldwide That it that it really would be appropriate To reflect this in some sort of socialist propaganda from 80 years ago regarding a public investment. It's just sort of Government funded research is generally just so inefficient and uh cost overruns and takes so long. I mean, um I mean you ellen musk is a you know a rent harvester But I mean look at how far he's gone with in regards to space flight and things like that compared to like nasa. I mean uh proposed budgets for you know various Launch systems and things are like oh this will take years and years and years and cost cajolians of dollars And I can't remember the exact specific thing But it might have been like a low orbital launch vehicle or whatever it was but it's like ellen musk did it in like Just you know in space x did it just a few years and for cajolians of dollars less. So it's sort of uh um Just so bizarre that I mean There's various reasons for this, but I mean like the united states like nuclear arsenal the icbm still run off of floppy disks and it's sort of you know This is the entity that will uh You know usher in innovation. I mean here just north of where I am in pittsburgh the government's um Retirement record repository is kept and an abandoned limestone mine Everything is on paper. I mean it's just this vast warehouse Where filled with file cabinets That is actually you know, they have those bureaucratic efficiency A measurement systems things are less efficient now than they were in the 70s in this system. That's still entirely on paper and it's just the idea that This is the entity that will you know Be at the forefront of leading innovation and research regarding defense or really anything else is just so laughable well, unfortunately a lot of conservatives fall for that right is because The one minute post about how the government can't do health care ride. They can't deliver the mail on time uh, but boy America's going to use smart bombs in the next war and not kill any civilians And they're going to install a new regime in country x With a minimal blowback or inefficiency and it's just astounding what they will ascribe to the abilities Of the regime so long as it's along the lines of what we want the regime to do But they're totally inefficient doing everything else. But of course experience has shown. Hey, let's look at iraq. Let's look at afghanistan Neither of those operations were efficient as well not to mention the what the six trillion dollars spent on them And then of course, there's the fact that the pentagon routinely is failing its audits and uh, is just has a couple trillion dollars missing And so that that that should all be remembered when you're reading the strategic report Is that this is going to be done primarily through the pentagon? Which has no idea how much money it even spends or where that goes and has lost Two wars in the last 20 years And you know, they like to blame the politicians for it But part of the the justification Of those wars that it would be one quickly and that it would be easily and it would be a cake walk and especially in the case of iraq And none of that turned out to be true. And so it turns out that you actually do need much more difficult problem-solving Abilities that apparently the pentagon lacks and and so there's just way too much enthusiasm about getting involved in every aspect of the Globe here right yeah regarding the pentagon audit I can't remember exactly what year but some law was passed that all of the parts of the government have to have routine audits And for like 20 years the pentagon did not do that They kept getting basically waivers because they're like we're not capable of actually Even doing the audit and then a few years ago. They're like, we're gonna do the audit and they failed every annual audit since then Yeah, it's just mind-boggling For yeah, it's just quite Depressing well the fact that right. We've got the audit the fed movement remarkable that there wasn't a Audit the pentagon movement alongside should been every bit as as popular Uh, I'm sure ron paul would have been fine without it the The pentagon I think it just sort of like I don't know super wonky accounting like Either will be headlines like oh the pentagon, you know a trillion dollars is you know missing or something And it's not like my understanding. It's not actually like a trillion dollars has just Disappeared it's just they due to their sloppy accounting. It's just all these accounting errors add up to a trillion dollars Or more now by this point but speaking of lost wars that The strategy does mention afghanistan and um Sort of the only positive thing I saw in the document was there were two mentions that um The the the u.s. Government doesn't want to pursue remaking other societies in america's interests. So when it's like biden trying to pass off afghanistan, which i'm glad we left though the way in which we left was such a disaster but The document says we ended america's longest war in afghanistan and with it an era of major military operations to remake other societies So I think you know, that's helpful signaling at least that uh, we don't want to pursue another afghanistan or iraq And I think part of that has to do with the re-emp the the new emphasis on china Is like we can't afford To be wasting the billions of dollars Trying to turn, you know afghanistan into you know america When we're dealing with china Which it identifies as basically the main geostrategic threat going forward Right, it does it that is the one indicator. I think that there's some actual priorities contained somewhere In this document and the it correctly notes, of course that Uh, it it does it as much as the the biden administration hates russia russia isn't At the level of a major potential global hegemon Of any kind Um, now i'm not even sure china's a global hegemon contender But it's certainly a regional one much more so than russia And has just much much greater capacity And even with it going into decline, right? We can look at these numbers on demographics and population and how it might be only half a billion people 30 years from now but uh, even then that's uh It's it's going to be a place that's uh that matters especially in east asia So and of course the u.s Wants to maintain its control of the first and second island chains there east of china And so that's just going to continue to be an issue even if china goes into relative decline, but other than that As you noted with the line of how nothing is beyond our capacity There's really nothing that is beyond the interest Of the regime and you can see that here when you just start reading part one of the report Talks about the us's enduring role So of course the united states cannot withdraw from the world in any way that would be horrible horrible isolationism because of course the way the The the myth goes is that every time Something bad happens in the world is because the us was too isolationist because the us was too uninvolved In the world and I remember that being a narrative after 9 11 Was that oh the the us had withdrawn from the world had barely was barely doing anything In the globe and was just looking inward Which of course was an absolute complete nonsense But that was the narrative and so okay, we have an enduring role next is Recasting the whole world in sort of a cold war like competition between democracies and autocracies and I'm sure anyone who's been reading foreign policy news has noticed that right is that's the line We're a democracy everybody else's autocracies. I'm pretty sure though that reading this I didn't see a single mention of Saudi Arabia Well, yeah, they sort of mention it It's so they they say, you know, oh, there's the democracies versus autocracies, but in the first paragraph they say It includes our democratic allies in europe and the indo-pacific as well as key Democratic partners around the world that share much of our vision for regional and international order Even if they don't agree with us blah blah blah and countries that do not embrace democratic institutions But nevertheless depend upon and support a rules-based international system So it's like that's the exception for Saudi Arabia. And I don't know the philippines Egypt also. Yeah, yeah, Egypt should give like four billion dollars to every year. Yeah, right The and where we actively ensure that our preferred dictator is in place Even yeah, and they do say, you know, they do frame it this sort of cold war Autocracies versus democracies and then in the final paragraph they say we don't want a new cold war But it's just like Okay. Yeah, I mean they've split the world into two pieces What do they think the outcome is going to be of that? And uh, it's uh, and it's remarkable, right? How they then go on to mention Iran later Which is significant. Well, I certainly would prefer to not live in either Iran or Saudi Arabia I would prefer to live in Iran if my only two choices were Iran and Saudi Arabia There are at least some government institutions outside the reach of the of a tiny elite at the top Which is not really the case in Saudi Arabia. There are actual There is guaranteed representation in parliament for Jews and Christians to some extent whereas those things are basically illegal in Saudi Arabia and There's just no religious freedom whatsoever Under the Saudi the blood-soaked Saudi regime But that's that's part of the rules based international order. Whereas the Iranians are uh, our enemies of that and it's just so It's it it's disappointing. I don't know that's the word It's uh, it's repugnant. It's despicable. Yeah, I mean the the Saudi war in Yemen, which has been going on forever Right and and I mean it's just come out and admit you've just you like the Saudi So that means you have to hate the Iranians because the Saudis and the Iranians hate each other They've but they're they're in a long long game trying to exert influence over the Persian Gulf region their enemies the u.s Therefore wants Iran obliterated It's it's just such typical. Hey the I I hate the enemy of my friend and but they never ever mentioned that and you would think that There was no sort of history between the Saudis in Iran at all. There's a very annoying line I don't I can't find it right off the top of my head but that basically And this is how all everything is always framed including with russia and china in this document, but in regards to iran It's always Framed as if like the iranian people are just completely They're just americans Waiting to be free And that they there no one supports the government I mean, this is not true in in any three places. I mean the governments do enjoy plenty of support and just it's a sort of uh I mean there are dissenters. I mean I ran. I mean there's been all kinds of protests that have been brutally suppressed So there are people who don't like the government But there's plenty of people who love the government and are you know fans of you know mowing down protesters So it's sort of It just creates this false idea that you know the u.s. Just puts a little It's part of this the plan is you know, we're going to support the people to you know Institute a new government in line with you know Our conception of the global order Yeah, it's just uh, that's a fresh because it's so factually incorrect like beyond what you hope for it's just Not true and that was what donald rumsfeld promised in iraq And that's what we were told in venezuela is that nobody supported the regime and it's still there And appears to have a significant amount of support. So I I guess that's just the standard strategy is Convince americans of that right and I forget I think it's exxon mobile. I can't recall what giant oil company just got like a permit to begin like exporting venezuelan crude We didn't end up with a quote-unquote humanitarian invasion Uh in venezuela, but it seemed like they were pushing for that for for a period But I didn't see really there wasn't much mention of that except in the section on Latin america Right. Yeah, it it's sort of like a funny. Um, I don't know time capsule So I don't know it was like 10 years ago the first avatar movie came out And uh one of the mercenaries is like, oh, yeah, I fought in venezuela Uh And so it's just you know back people did think that back, you know, 10 years ago or whatever that that could be a realistic place for a us soldier to be fighting And that I do The the document says that the western hemisphere is the most important Part of the globe for the united states something like 1.8 trillion dollars in trade and yada yada and um I mean I agree with that and it's like if zach was king or something and was uh In charge of instituting a foreign policy Our foreign policy would be much more, you know neom and row doctrine focused. We would be very engaged with western hemisphere But uh going back to the intro line of nothing's beyond our capacity. Obviously it is I mean we can't Do everything at once and to my mind the western hemisphere is neglected because we're concerned about, you know Everything in africa to china to the arctic. I mean I do think we do have some relevant concerns in the arctic, but it's just uh globe spanning and naturally the western hemisphere is just neglected in my view Well, they could use actual diplomacy promote actual friendship with these countries Uh, it's it's astounding to me that there's not essentially free trade With on a much more widespread scale. Yeah, there's like some latin american free trade agreements and things like that But the but the trade integration is still very very lacking With latin america and these all that stuff you say about how oh, well, we need We can't have free trade with china because they could cut us off from our steel and everything There's immense amounts of resources available In latin america. None of these countries poses any sort of real Problem, so it seems like that's the sort of thing you should pursue is rock solid relations with all of these states But that doesn't seem to be a priority at all. I mean, especially mexico and brazil Um, I can't remember the exact place, but they're both in the top 20 largest economies And I mean venezuela has the largest oil reserves Or I guess estimated or proven or however they measure that oil reserves. They have a lot of oil. Yeah, and it's um uh, I can't remember if we've mentioned this before but The u.s. Has like a nato like treaty with like most Of the western hemisphere the rio treaty it actually predates the nato treaty And it similarly has an attack on one is an attack on all clause um And it's just sort of like most people don't even know that treaty exists and um It's just sort of like I much rather we focused on the rio treaty and the western hemisphere rather than All the obsession with nato, which again, I was very disappointed with that section Um, because it's just yes, we're continuing to invest in europe and you know shovel money and resources to ukraine and blah blah blah No mention of europe doing nothing Um, or well, I mean relative to us. I mean we're shouldering an immense amount of the burden No one other than poland is uh, you know Taking actual steps that one would take if you were worried about the russian threat. Um And uh, there was some recent talk about how nato recognizes china as as an important, um, you know issue going forward and It's the sort of this weird I mean back to the mindset of nothing's beyond our capacity nato, which you know can you know, aside from the u.s. Can do next to nothing Is going to you know deal with russia and help the us balance against china and asia and on that On that ground eric domes at kato had what I thought was a hilarious tweet. Um This think tank in the uk called russi. I forget what it stands for But it's this foreign policy think tank recently came out with this report on sort of what lessons can we learn from? other war in ukraine in terms of you know land warfare and I have not read the whole report but the economist sort of did a A summary of it and I'm you know, take it with a grain of salt because one of the co-authors is a ukrainian general so it's like Sort of impossible to trust anything Any ukrainian government official says because it's I mean I would be doing the same thing if I was a ukrainian, but it's gained towards helping ukraine But it points out that before the war started ukraine had more Artillery and multiple launch rocket systems than britain france italy spain and poland put together and eric domes Had this funny tweet stuff like this is why i'm very on board with the europeans getting their act together on balancing russia Before they try and ride to the rescue in east asia and recreate the battle of tushima and that's the naval battle where the russian Baltic fleet sailed all the way around the world to Relieve the siege of port arthur And as soon as it arrived the japanese Sank the entire thing like thousands of sailors were killed. It was just a complete disaster It's sort of that's how I imagine You know nato sending their like what help could they be balancing against china when they can't even you know Seriously balanced against russia in terms. They're just free riding on the u.s. So I mean, I thought that was a vivid picture of what to expect from their help and on that theater That that tweet that uh about uh, um about a hundred people found that really really funny They because they got the reference Yes But uh, yes, of course even even uh, I'm I know far less about East asia than about europe and latin america But but it's even reached me that that the russians Just were completely humiliated by the japanese in that war and uh, yeah a similar That image is quite grim if that does prove to be something that the europeans Would attempt to do which is just basically show up in east asia a place where they have really no well-established relations or a military Experience and that they're going to help the united states Expand its power there. I mean It's really is quite remarkable And if the u.s. Wanted to have any real priorities it would yeah, it would just completely get out of nato And forget about it and say hey europe you're rich. You're wealthy And there's 25 countries here or more that uh, that can get together, but that's not in this report at all As you noticed. Yeah, I mean the you know, if macchiavellian zack was the king or something I mean we would cut a deal with russia Right away because russia is much more important if you want to balance against china not to comment on You know getting into the whole thing of what we should be doing about china exactly but Russia it's it's sort of like funny like i don't know like ten ish or I don't know eight ish years ago People were like there's this funny well to me sort of funny articles about how like the close relationship between russia and china which was just sort of budding at that time was like This is an aberration of nature. How is this happening because they're not natural Partners, but instead we're sort of corraling them into Being partners and it's just sort of this autocracy versus democracy thing. It's it's very Possible, I don't know if it's likely, but it's very possible that going forward the world will be separated into two sort of economic blocks that are You know distinct from each other Exactly because of the power that economics has and it's there's this very funny line Towards the beginning Page 10 of the report Complaining about autocratic governments. They leverage access to their markets In control of global digital infrastructure for coercive purposes And I mean when we talk about the global world order Really, it's the global american economic order because Because of you know the power of our banking system, you know, we can demand people You know leverage sanctions against iran or you know abandon swiss's secret bank accounts and change the way they you know Go about their internal economic affairs Because we have that power and we don't want them to have that power And I I mean I agree that it would be horrible to live in a world where china Had the power we have to do all these things, but it just sort of made me chuckle that it's like Oh darn autocracies Doing exactly the whole basis of our you know geopolitical Economic strategy. It was less than a year ago that we're all talking about removing anyone We don't like from the swift system the international bank trans communication system and What is that if not weaponizing the financial system? And that's the phrase the report keeps using over and over again is they're weaponizing energy. They're weaponizing technology But it's only other people that do that And that was something that really just stuck out about this document was just the sheer hypocrisy of it And that's why I say that it reads a lot like a press release I would have respected the administration and the people behind this report a lot more if they just would have come out and said We want america to be the most important most powerful country. And so here's all the here's all the ways we're going to Use our strategic power to ensure That's that's the way it works and americans will benefit from that now. I would disagree with that but I would at least respect the honesty And the straightforwardness of it and and other countries probably would as well Rather than just this patina of oh, we care about the environment. We care about equity. We care about freedom And it's uh, it's just so obvious nonsense the way that they phrase it all because it's it's like a laundry list of bad things Other regimes do whereas the u.s. Does exactly the same thing. There's a line in there about how Iran interferes in the elections of its neighbors Okay the Well, I guess they're just taking cues from the cia. I mean, it's just astounding that That they're pointing out these things that I guess you have to be incredibly naive To think that this is this is some sort of moral flaw that only foreigners have Back to the economy real quick one line. I was very Confused on and I mean it's not my field of expertise But on pitch 26 it says that russia's efforts to weaponize energy have backfired That's not my understanding of the situation at all. I mean earlier this year russia Recorded record profits from its oil exports. Um So I found that odd in the twitter feeds on that ride with just the foreign policy people I follow It seems debatable Right is that they're looking at what is the total volume of oil and gas coming out of russia versus the amount of money coming in and And russia must be hurting because they keep making with uh withdrawal Uh, or at least peace with ukraine. I don't think they've offered withdrawal at all But making peace with ukraine contingent on the end of sanctions So therefore the sanctions must be hurting them and all of that but I agree Clearly that's it has not The sanctions on oil and gas have by definitely not Driven a nail through the heart of russian industry because they've managed to find enough partners in india and china and africa Better still more than happy to deal with that not to mention turkey which is becoming much more of a Russian partner boy turkey is just brilliantly playing off nato against russia and vice versa In now they're talking about making turkey an oil a gas hub More pipelines going through there turkey is managing to turn this all into a way for them to basically invade kurdistan and so russia Russia has partners and by offering some cover to the turks turkeys getting more uppity Uh with nato and demanding more freedom there in exchange for not playing too nice with russia So it's really quite remarkable And in spite of all the big talk in this report It doesn't seem like the u.s is actually managing that part of the world very well At least according to the the standards of this report. Yeah, there was one line about we want to continue to you know Make sure turkey is integrated to the west and it's like How in what ways, you know, and I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I still don't think that turkey has um At least at the time we're recording this. I don't think turkey has Proved uh finland and sweden joining nato. Um, they said they would but I don't think they've actually done that yet Um officially so well and apparently turkey joining the eu is so much off the table that they haven't even put that back up there As something they would want in return. I guess for approving Finland. Oh, right. Yeah, remember that I don't I don't know if you're I was it 20 years ago. Yeah, it was more like 15 years ago. Just lots of talk about Turkey wanting to be in the eu and of course system bulls a european country is what they said and so on But the europeans just did not show much interest and I think I think that's still a noise Uh, the turks and it's probably actually part of their thinking on all this Yeah, there's they're in the purgatory that ukraine just entered Regarding europe European union membership. I mean they've been there Since the mid 2000s. I think um, and I think that the the direction erdogan's going That uh, eu membership could be a detriment in the way that uh, the eu bureaucracy tries to punish Hungary and poland etc etc for them doing their own thing And turkey's really going off and doing its own thing these days. So I think, uh Yeah, unless it thought that it could influence things and it's The bureaucracy in its favor. I suppose right. It's hard to imagine, um turkey getting uh, getting approval from brussels on a lot of their election moves and I mean, yeah, when when's the next attempted coup in turkey and what would that what sort of sanction would that get from brussels? Yeah, that's probably an important consideration. Maybe they've just decided that yeah That wouldn't be worth the trouble after they see the way hungary and poland get treated Um, so maybe that's that's just dead. So how do you integrate turkey into the west then? So yeah, yet another thing suggesting the report with like no Just just an expression of this is another thing that We're going to meddle in but really no outline of how anything would actually be uh, accomplished And when you start to then just look at I guess it's part three of this report then where it then just looks at the regional strategies Oh part four our strategy by region Where yep, that's where they just go through every single region. It's Indo-Pacific Deep in our alliance with europe foster democracy and prosperity in the western hemisphere And support de-escalation and integration in the middle east. I mean it's just oh And then at the end build 21st century u.s africa partnerships. That's uh, that's that's quite quite remarkable And then protect sea air and space so space also is uh, that's where we'll send up their space force guardians to To ensure there and then I guess maybe build a new arctic ocean fleet It's just How much money is this going to cost? Clearly more and there's there's no end in sight, of course to Pentagon spending right is that you had trump in and Trump at least didn't show much interest in starting new wars, but boy did pentagon spending escalate Under trump and I guess maybe I would prefer that just on the book spending Increases for the pentagon as opposed to a bunch of ad hoc war spending endlessly pumped out for Whatever new foreign policy disaster is taking place that sort of Would be akin to I what happened during the reagan years right as there was no new big wars Reagan showed little interest in in uh, any uh, any long term foreign meddling But but spending just went through the roof in terms of defense spending that yeah, that's That's there's an upside to that right even though there's an amazing amount of spending I would have preferred the the level of International meddling under Reagan then we got under clinton or obama or bush and So that's that's one thing that could happen, but that's of course not not what they want here whereas we're gonna we're gonna have a A very battle ready pentagon and well funded pentagon But but we don't have any plans to invade into new parts of the world But this is basically signaling that if any part of the world gets out of line that That uh, we're gonna be coming riding in On our on our drones on our fifth generation fighters, which We've spent trillions of dollars on and may or may not work. I don't know And just uh, it's clear right with all the the talk about modernization and technology and so on that Spending is just a huge component of this with additional threats to start new wars were necessary So yeah, you're right the line about our nothing's beyond our capacity is clearly Supports the overall Spirit of the document, which is that No corner of the globe shall be free from American intervention. Yeah, and it also I mean there's also Aside from the ideological sort of international Liberal hegemony There's also just the nitty gritty like public choice element. So this is a huge jobs program that employs I mean, I don't know how many tens of thousands of people, you know, uh concerned about I don't know malaria nets in somewhere we've never heard of or something and it's not that Maybe we should be sending malaria nets, but it's like why is the government have to be doing that etc It just employs tons of, you know, Georgetown graduates who, you know Want a comfy job pushing paper around? I mean, it's just I mean, there's also that aspect of it as well Yeah, it uh, just This is just a laundry list of what the administration plans to do And if you can just phrase it in terms of national defense, you're more likely to get friends Supporting it and it's not mentioned here, but that's just such a failsafe strategy I'm starting to see articles now saying that the united states needs to adopt central bank digital currencies in order to compete with china And so there's nothing that's safe from the national security demands it line And basically we want to abolish financial freedom or the chinese win and I guess that's the new line instead of Back 20 years ago. You had to do whatever the government said or quote the terrorists win Now it's do what we say or the chinese win and that's I guess that's where we're headed So we should expect I suppose the next iteration of this report to include even more about china and how the us needs to be Even more involved there unless there's some sort of reversal toward better relations With the chinese and I don't I don't know if that's on the horizon I mean at the same time it's it's awful in that some western regimes are are saying that china is a model In terms of digital currencies in terms of zero covid In terms of just some of china's absolute worst policies But at the same time We can't let china have any strategic power. So it's It uh, I suppose just you're getting the worst of both worlds in both of those cases Yeah, it was quite The hypocrisy was just amusing really at this point in a dark way. I suppose It criticizing other places I mean, obviously there's a world of difference between, you know, free speech in the us and In china or russia and places like that But it just sort of was Everyone was sort of laughing slash angry at Canadian prime minister trudeau Like praising the chinese covid protesters After, you know, what happened in Canada and I mean just the us I mean, we keep finding out more and more since elan muskbaugh twitter about how Which the government was involved in basically trying to censor information and obviously There's it's it's not on the same level, but it is just like The hypocrisy is amusing It just when the government when the us government is involved in Censoring information we don't like on important news platforms That's all good. But when china does it That's that's so different and it uh, I also laughed there was a line about how democracy in america is under attack from within I found that a little concerning actually just sort of People we don't like when democracy under attack and it just sort of Shows just uh, just the Ridiculousness that underlies This way of looking at the world. Yeah, they even managed to fit in the whole donald trump is a threat to democracy line Right, although they of course didn't mention him Specifically, but yeah democracy in danger in america, which somehow fits under foreign policy And yeah, so just just part of this whole, uh, press release national security strategy an outline of How biden can plans to bludgeon his political enemies using the The whip of foreign policy quite remarkable So check it out if you want, uh, I suppose to read some black comedy and if you want to know just about What the foreign policy elites would prefer to have In terms of foreign policy But hopefully there'll just be enough gridlock in washington over the next two years that this won't happen But in terms of the longer scale I think this will just continue to be the overall goal until the us starts to find itself in real serious financial straits Uh, because as long as it just seems that you can print up another trillion dollars and Uh, you I'm I'm sure they're confident they can get interest rates back down to a nice low level So that uh, that doesn't interfere with more military spending in terms of debt service That everything will just continue as normal So there's a big assumption that the status quo will continue and if it does then I I don't think foreign policy will change Only when people have to start choosing between foreign policy spending and domestic spending, but How soon will that happen is unclear and that will require like serious pressure on washington at least to change that So this is this is a nice summary of where we are. It'll be interesting to see what if anything changes in 2024 Even with with the republicans or if it's just going to be they're going to change some references to domestic policy There'll be fewer references to global warming and the threat to democracy and all that but that everything else would be basically the same Well, that's gonna have to be it for this episode of war economy and state. Thank you for listening We'll be back next time with a new episode with me and my co-host zack and thank you for listening. We'll see you next time