https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWxnCT5_-Zk 'All Hell Will Break Loose': Jeffrey Sachs' Stunning Warning & Full Geopolitical Analysis Oct 15, 2026 #nuclearwar #geopolitics #uschina Is the world moving closer to a nuclear confrontation? In a wide-ranging geopolitical address, Jeffrey Sachs warns about growing tensions between the United States, Russia, China and other major powers, raising concerns over the risk of nuclear conflict. Transcript : Thank you so much for that very kind welcome and also for this wonderful 0:07 invitation and thanks to all of you for the chance to spend a couple of hours 0:13 together to talk about the world situation. Indeed, while the title is about Israel 0:19 and Iran and therefore the Middle East crisis, I'd like to be a little bit more 0:24 general than that and to talk about geopolitics more generally. uh 0:30 geopolitics the relations among especially the major powers the United 0:36 States, China, Russia, India, uh Europe 0:42 are at a very difficult and fraught time 0:48 and we're in a crisis that is very serious. It's a crisis because 0:55 we're living in uh the nuclear age. There are nine countries that we know of 1:02 that have nuclear weapons. Maybe some others also do, but nine that we know 1:07 of. Most of those nine are in conflict with at least one other country uh that 1:13 has nuclear weapons in geopolitical or diplomatic terms and in the case of the 1:20 United States and Russia in open conflict in Ukraine because that's 1:26 actually a war between the US and Russia and a very dangerous war. So my view is 1:33 that we need to uh 1:39 understand the global scene well so that we avoid 1:44 terrible terrible mishaps. And I often refer to the doomsday clock 1:53 of the bulletin of atomic scientists. This is a US publication that was 1:58 started in 1947 after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima 2:05 and Nagasaki. And it was started by the atomic scientists who had their journal. 2:11 And they wanted to tell the world this is very dangerous indeed. And the risks 2:18 of this new age of nuclear weapons is unprecedented because the power of 2:24 destruction is something unlike any time before. So they started this clock and 2:31 the clock puts the hands of the clock closer or farther from midnight. 2:38 And when the clock was started it was 7 minutes from midnight. And the message 2:43 to the world was we are close to destruction because of these new 2:49 weapons. And that was in 1947 when the US alone had the atomic bomb. But then 2:56 of course in 1949 that monopoly was broken by the Soviet 3:03 Union which developed its atomic bomb and then in the 1950s and 1960s by 3:10 Britain, France, China and then we know Israel sometime in the 1960s 3:18 uh though never announced exactly uh and then India, Pakistan, North Korea Korea 3:27 and the clock has gone back and forth depending on geopolitics. 3:33 It went away from midnight at the end of the Cold War in 1991. 3:42 The Soviet Union ended. It seemed that there was no more threat, no more cold 3:48 war. The US and China were on good relations. the Soviet Union under 3:54 Gorbachev and then Russia under President Yelson said, "We just want good relations. We want to rebuild. We 4:01 want decent relations." So the scientists put the hand of the doomsday clock 17 minutes from midnight. 4:11 Every US presidency since then has experienced the clock coming closer to 4:18 midnight. I don't think that's an accident. I think that is the mistake of 4:24 American foreign policy, which though the United States is the most secure 4:32 country in world history in being able to avoid 4:38 an invasion from outside because we're not afraid of Canada. were not afraid of
being invaded by Mexico, though there once was a war with Mexico in 1846, 4:52 but they lost. So, this is not a big threat. And we have two big oceans. 5:00 So, the US should be very calm and the only threat that the US faces to 5:08 its security at all is the possibility of a nuclear war. 5:14 which should not be hard to avoid. You just have to be cooperative with other 5:21 nuclear powers. But as I said, from 17 minutes to midnight, Bill Clinton came, 5:28 it moved closer. George W. Bush Jr. came, it moved closer to midnight. 5:35 Barack Obama moved closer to midnight. Trump won moved closer to midnight. Biden closer to midnight. Now it's 89 5:44 seconds to midnight. So less than 1 and a half minutes to midnight from 17 and 5:51 12 minutes. What is going on that every 5:56 administration is moving the hands closer to midnight? Of course, there are 6:02 many possible interpretations, but mine centers on the United States and centers 6:09 on the Western world more generally, by which I mean the US, the European Union, 6:15 Britain, Australia, New Zealand, if I could add those together because those are 6:21 offshoots of Britain as well. And in my view, what is going on is a serious 6:28 misunderstanding of global reality by the leadership of 6:34 my country that has persisted now for more than 30 years. You had a wonderful 6:42 debate uh professor Jang with with Francis Fukuyama 6:48 uh which I just had the chance to read from 14 years ago. And as you told me, 6:54 you're right. You won the debate. But the idea of Professor Fukyama 7:01 already back in uh n the early 1990s was 7:07 that the West had triumphed and it was the end of history. 7:12 And my basic understanding of the reality is something different. 7:19 And that is that with the end of the Cold War, the world had triumphed in the 7:25 sense that we had the chance to escape from nuclear war and from confrontation 7:32 and we had the chance for rapid economic development in all parts of the world 7:39 which China led and China exemplified. So from the 40 years from 1980 to 2020, 7:48 China experienced the fastest economic development in world history for a large 7:55 country. And it showed what's possible in our world today because of technology, education, 8:02 infrastructure, how big an advance can be made. And I watched this, by the way, 8:08 with my own eyes personally because my first visit to China was 1981. 8:14 And so, China was not a rich country in 1981. Uh, China was very poor in 1981 8:22 because of the history of the previous 150 years. And over that 40-year period, 8:30 which is the period of my professional life, China experienced 8:35 this rapid development. And my view is that's what's possible in all parts of 8:41 the world. So, while I completely hail China's accomplishment and know that it 8:47 draws on deep roots of China's history and civilization, 8:53 I do believe it's something that all regions of the world can accomplish. Maybe not at the same speed, maybe not 9:01 with all the same success as China, but I do not write off any part of the 9:06 world, Africa or India or South Asia or 9:12 Central Asia or Latin America. This idea that we could all live in peace, in 9:20 mutual prosperity with rapid economic development in poor 9:25 countries, I think is the reality of our world in its potential, but obviously 9:33 not the reality of our world in its actuality. So we need to understand the world as it 9:42 could be and then aim to achieve that world. Unfortunately, this was not the 9:50 idea of the United States at the end of 1991 9:55 when Mr. Fukuyama, Professor Fukuyama declared the end of history. The idea 10:01 was that the Western world would lead the world from now onward and especially 10:07 the United States within the Western world would lead the world onward. 10:13 Whether other regions developed or not was of modest interest, but if they did
develop, they needed to develop under the wing of the United States. In other words, what was important at the end of 10:27 the Cold War was dominance, not cooperation or peace. And this is why I 10:35 think the world has remained and become more and more dangerous over 10:41 the last 35 years. So to my understanding we have a mindset problem 10:49 and the mindset problem is that the western world dominated the world 10:56 economy and world politics and finance for about 250 years roughly from 1750 11:05 to roughly the year 2000. And during that period, the ideology in 11:13 the western world explained that dominance as an inherent 11:20 rightful feature of the world. And it explained that dominance in a number of 11:26 different ways. Some very extreme, some 11:31 a little bit less extreme because there were theories of racial superiority. 11:37 There were theories of social superiority. There were theories of cultural 11:43 superiority. There were theories of religious superiority that this was a 11:48 Christian world after all. But whichever theory one subscribed to, there were 11:54 theories of genetic superiority, biological superiority. 11:59 Whichever view one took uh the idea was deeply embedded in the mores the stories 12:10 the beliefs the institutions and the politics of the western world and two 12:17 countries dominated most of all and most of the world's problems today can be 12:23 traced to them actually one was Britain and China had quite an interesting 12:29 experience with Britain starting from 1793 uh up through uh probably the end of 12:37 World War II and the other has been the United States which is a a successor uh 12:44 to Britain in both the western world and the Anglo-Saxon world. So the British 12:51 definitely had an arrogance of power. Uh and they used that arrogance of power in 12:58 China in India in Russia in every part of the world because the belief was that 13:05 Britain was the empire on which the sun never set. Uh this was the era of pox 13:11 Britannica although it wasn't so peaceful but it was the era of British 13:17 dominance and the 19th century was really defined by British dominance 13:22 internationally. Europe experienced two uh disastrous civil wars in the first 13:30 half of the 20th century which we call World War I and World War II. But in 13:35 Europe, they were really civil wars within European countries. And at the end, Britain was no longer able to 13:45 maintain a global empire. But the United States took over at that point. And the 13:50 US inherited the mindset and the institutions of British imperial rule. 13:58 The main geopolitical institution of British imperial rule was 14:05 to control regimes of different parts of the world. So Britain mastered what we 14:13 call regime change operations. If you don't like a government, replace it. 14:19 It's a different kind of foreign policy from diplomacy. In diplomacy, if you don't like a government, sit down and 14:25 negotiate. If you're British in the 19th century and you don't like a government, 14:32 threaten it, kill the person, the ruler, or overthrow it. Uh, and this was the 14:38 main mode of British uh, action. In the 14:44 second half of the 20th century, the United States took over that method of 14:50 operation. Indeed, the British taught it to the Americans, I would say. And in 1953, 14:56 we did a joint venture together, the British and the Americans,
the British MI6, the spy agency, and the CIA to overthrow the government of Iran, 15:10 which brings us to our current situation. Iran had a functioning democratic government in 1953 15:19 led by Prime Minister Mosedc. He had a very radical idea. Mosedc's 15:27 idea in 1953 was that the oil that was under the ground actually belonged to 15:33 the Iranians where the British knew that it belonged to the British. 15:39 So when the Iranian prime minister democratically elected said this is our 15:44 oil, it's under our ground, the uh British government knew that it 15:49 had to overthrow him. And it connected with the US government and they made a 15:55 secret operation to overthrow Mosedc and to install the sha of Iran a palevi 16:02 dynasty and to make a police state under US control. 16:08 If you add up all such regime change operations by the United States between 16:15 1945 and 1989 at the end of the cold war, one 16:22 scholar Lindseay Oor in an excellent book in 2017 called Covert Regime Change 16:30 and she was a student of John Mirshimer at the time uh she counted 64 four 16:39 covert regime change operations by the United States, mostly CIA 16:45 and six overt regime change operations, meaning an open war to topple another 16:51 government. So 70 regime change operations. This is a very distinct kind 16:58 of state craft. It is the opposite of diplomacy. You don't have to deal with the other 17:05 side. you have to control it or overthrow it, kill it, assassinate the 17:11 leader, make a coup, uh fix an election, buy an election, create unrest to topple 17:20 a regime. And this happened 64 times 17:26 covertly. What does covert mean? Covert means that 17:32 the US denied its role even though it was obvious to the people there. So when 17:39 these events occur, they're not really covert in the sense of who did this. 17:45 Everyone says the United States did it, but the United States said we didn't 17:50 have anything to do with it. That wasn't us. That was a local unrest. 17:57 So I mention all of this because that kind of arrogant statecraft 18:04 which is imperial mentality was the US mentality 18:09 from 1945 to 19 91. It was justified to the American people 18:17 as necessary because of the war against global communism. So that was the 18:23 explanation that was given. and especially against the Soviet Union. And 18:30 the United States accused the Soviet Union of wanting to take over the world. 18:36 And it used that as an explanation to try to take over the world, every other 18:41 place. And very importantly and interestingly, the United States 18:47 rejected neutrality by any country and used the expression, 18:53 if you are not with us, you are against us. So the US also actively opposed 19:02 neutrality. This is also a very interesting peculiar 19:08 idea because many countries said we don't want to choose. We want to trade 19:13 with the Soviet Union. We want to trade with the United States. We don't have the big army. We don't don't attack us, 19:20 but we don't want bad relations with either side. And the US said, "No, 19:25 that's not good enough. You're either with us or you're against us." 19:31 And very interestingly for scholars here and this is a room of scholars if you 19:37 read the pelpeneisian war by Thusidities which has become famous again because of 19:44 Graham Allison's uh book in the dialogue called the Melian dialogue 19:52 which is a dialogue between Athens and the leaders of Melos a small island 20:00 The Melians said, "We want to be friends with Athens and we want to be friends
with Sparta." And the Athenians says, "No, you can't. You are with us against them." And the 20:14 Melians said, "No, no, but we want to be just neutral. Just be [clears throat] 20:19 leave us alone. We like you, but we don't want to be part of your empire. We don't want to be part of their empire." 20:27 And the Athenian says, "No, if you do that, you will weaken our power in our 20:35 realm. You will show to all of the allies of Athens that we're weak. So, 20:42 you must submit to us, otherwise we'll have to kill you." And actually in 20:49 history apparently in 416 BC the Melos said no we will be neutral 20:58 and the Athenians invaded and they killed all the Melian men. Actually 21:05 of course what the Pelpeneisian war really shows is that just 12 years later 21:12 Athens was defeated. So all that arrogance led to nothing but defeat. 21:20 It even shows something more. Sparta which won the war disappeared from 21:26 history also. So neither side won in the end. The war exhausted both sides and 21:34 Greece was invaded by Macedonia in the next century. So both sides lost from 21:40 this ongoing war. But the arrogance of Athens is the arrogance of the United 21:47 States. And by the way, Athens was a great democracy and it had a great arrogance and it made 21:56 a great selfd disaster by that arrogance. And by being a democracy, they elected a 22:03 lot of stupid people that were very demagogic and that told them, why don't 22:09 we invade Syracusea? why don't we continue the war and they had no sense 22:15 and they were defeated in the end. So I 22:20 began much of my uh work during this 22:26 period from 1989 onward. I was already uh working in Latin America. But then 22:32 came the end of the cold war. And just to say I was an adviser to President 22:38 Gorbachev, not personally but through his chief economist. And then I was personally an 22:45 adviser to President Yelen. And I was personally invi an adviser to the 22:50 president of Ukraine and to many of the other leaders. And I thought, well, this 22:56 is wonderful. The Cold War is over. We're all now in a market economy 23:03 worldwide. We can all share in prosperity. The poorer countries can grow faster and 23:11 close the income gap with the richer countries and the richer countries should help the poorer countries to 23:17 catch up and then we'll have a safe, prosperous world. And I also believed 23:24 and believe today as an economist there's enough to go around because 23:29 another theory of economics the Malthusian theory is there's not enough 23:34 for everybody. So the fighting is inevitable. There will always be those 23:40 who lose in the end because there's not enough for everybody in the world. We 23:45 could discuss that but I reject that on economic grounds. In other words, not 23:52 out of moral theory, but out of practical theory, we could have 23:58 everybody living in good life as long as they're using solar power, not if 24:03 they're using fossil fuel. So, as long as we make the right technological choices, then there's enough to go 24:10 around in the world for everybody in the world. That's what I argued in the early 1990s. 24:18 The United States, however, maintained and even intensified 24:24 its imperial idea. Instead of viewing the end of the Cold 24:30 War as the opportunity for a new world order that was balanced, fair, peaceful, 24:37 the United States viewed the end of the Cold War as the opportunity for 24:43 hegemony. And that's very explicit. This became 24:48 the ideology of the so-called neoconservatives who dominated American politics from 24:56 1991 basically until today. And the neoconservative idea is the world can 25:03 only be safe if the US leads the world because the US is a power for good. And 25:10 so the US should set the rules. It should be the world policeman. It should determine what happens in each part of
the world and then things will be fine. This is a very arrogant position. Of 25:24 course, it's a very delusional idea. But it is really the idea that was espoused 25:33 by government after government starting in 1991. 25:39 And I witnessed it close up because my argument as an economist was that we 25:45 should help Russia to get back on its feet. We should help Africa to achieve 25:52 development. We should make sure that poverty is overcome everywhere. And none 25:59 of those ideas was accepted in the American political leadership. Even by 26:06 my own colleagues who were in positions of power temporarily, they viewed 26:14 such ideas as naive uh and as contrary to American 26:20 interests. America's interest is to be number one, not to be cooperative in an 26:28 open world in which there is shared prosperity. So the ideology was in my view uh made 26:38 even worse by the end of the cold war. It turned out, by the way, and it's 26:44 relevant for China also, during the Cold War, all of the US rhetoric was, "We 26:51 fight the Soviet Union because of world communism." That word, as you know, in the American 27:00 scene is viewed as something completely uh 27:05 shocking. when Russia became independent and 27:12 declared uh we are in a market economy 27:18 postcommunist this is a another age it made no difference to American politics 27:25 this is quite interesting in practice Russia was still an enemy even 27:31 afterwards because it wasn't really communism or ideology ology. It was 27:37 simply big powers. And in this, John Mirshimer is right 27:44 about the American mentality, which is that the United States sees 27:49 Russia as a threat, not because of any specific ideology, but because it is 27:55 big. And the United States sees China as a threat. not because of anything that 28:02 China does or is other than being big and successful. 28:08 And therefore, China's only offense is that it threatens American dominance. 28:17 And that I think is a succinct description of the viewpoint of the 28:23 American leadership. Now to come back to my view of economics, this is a terrible 28:29 mistake. Not only on a moral level, but on a practical level. The United States 28:36 has 4% of the world population, 335 million people. How could 4% of the 28:44 world dominate the world? It's not possible. except if all the rest of the 28:51 world were to remain poor, unsuccessful, backward, and so forth. But there's no 28:59 not only no moral reason for that, there's no practical reason why that should be the case. So I long believed 29:06 that poor countries can grow faster and catch up. And China, of course, is the 29:12 greatest success story in history of that. But China follows a basic pattern 29:18 that Japan followed previously, that uh Hong Kong, Singapore followed previously 29:26 because catching up is possible if the leadership is good, if the planning is good, if the strategy is good, there's 29:34 all this headroom for rapid economic growth possible. And China proved the 29:40 case once again at a scale unprecedented in history. So the US viewpoint about 29:48 dominance makes no sense. Not only not morally and not practically 29:54 in terms of security because the world's not safe if the US is rich and Russia is 30:00 unstable with nuclear weapons. Why does that make the US secure? That makes the US more dangerous. But it's also wrong 30:07 economically because Russia will catch up. China will catch up. Africa will catch up and the
6 comments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWxnCT5_-Zk
'All Hell Will Break Loose': Jeffrey Sachs' Stunning Warning & Full Geopolitical Analysis Oct 15, 2026 #nuclearwar #geopolitics #uschina
Is the world moving closer to a nuclear confrontation?
In a wide-ranging geopolitical address, Jeffrey Sachs warns about growing tensions between the United States, Russia, China and other major powers, raising concerns over the risk of nuclear conflict. Transcript : Thank you so much for that very kind welcome and also for this wonderful
0:07
invitation and thanks to all of you for the chance to spend a couple of hours
0:13
together to talk about the world situation. Indeed, while the title is about Israel
0:19
and Iran and therefore the Middle East crisis, I'd like to be a little bit more
0:24
general than that and to talk about geopolitics more generally. uh
0:30
geopolitics the relations among especially the major powers the United
0:36
States, China, Russia, India, uh Europe
0:42
are at a very difficult and fraught time
0:48
and we're in a crisis that is very serious. It's a crisis because
0:55
we're living in uh the nuclear age. There are nine countries that we know of
1:02
that have nuclear weapons. Maybe some others also do, but nine that we know
1:07
of. Most of those nine are in conflict with at least one other country uh that
1:13
has nuclear weapons in geopolitical or diplomatic terms and in the case of the
1:20
United States and Russia in open conflict in Ukraine because that's
1:26
actually a war between the US and Russia and a very dangerous war. So my view is
1:33
that we need to uh
1:39
understand the global scene well so that we avoid
1:44
terrible terrible mishaps. And I often refer to the doomsday clock
1:53
of the bulletin of atomic scientists. This is a US publication that was
1:58
started in 1947 after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima
2:05
and Nagasaki. And it was started by the atomic scientists who had their journal.
2:11
And they wanted to tell the world this is very dangerous indeed. And the risks
2:18
of this new age of nuclear weapons is unprecedented because the power of
2:24
destruction is something unlike any time before. So they started this clock and
2:31
the clock puts the hands of the clock closer or farther from midnight.
2:38
And when the clock was started it was 7 minutes from midnight. And the message
2:43
to the world was we are close to destruction because of these new
2:49
weapons. And that was in 1947 when the US alone had the atomic bomb. But then
2:56
of course in 1949 that monopoly was broken by the Soviet
3:03
Union which developed its atomic bomb and then in the 1950s and 1960s by
3:10
Britain, France, China and then we know Israel sometime in the 1960s
3:18
uh though never announced exactly uh and then India, Pakistan, North Korea Korea
3:27
and the clock has gone back and forth depending on geopolitics.
3:33
It went away from midnight at the end of the Cold War in 1991.
3:42
The Soviet Union ended. It seemed that there was no more threat, no more cold
3:48
war. The US and China were on good relations. the Soviet Union under
3:54
Gorbachev and then Russia under President Yelson said, "We just want good relations. We want to rebuild. We
4:01
want decent relations." So the scientists put the hand of the doomsday clock 17 minutes from midnight.
4:11
Every US presidency since then has experienced the clock coming closer to
4:18
midnight. I don't think that's an accident. I think that is the mistake of
4:24
American foreign policy, which though the United States is the most secure
4:32
country in world history in being able to avoid
4:38
an invasion from outside because we're not afraid of Canada. were not afraid of
being invaded by Mexico, though there once was a war with Mexico in 1846,
4:52
but they lost. So, this is not a big threat. And we have two big oceans.
5:00
So, the US should be very calm and the only threat that the US faces to
5:08
its security at all is the possibility of a nuclear war.
5:14
which should not be hard to avoid. You just have to be cooperative with other
5:21
nuclear powers. But as I said, from 17 minutes to midnight, Bill Clinton came,
5:28
it moved closer. George W. Bush Jr. came, it moved closer to midnight.
5:35
Barack Obama moved closer to midnight. Trump won moved closer to midnight. Biden closer to midnight. Now it's 89
5:44
seconds to midnight. So less than 1 and a half minutes to midnight from 17 and
5:51
12 minutes. What is going on that every
5:56
administration is moving the hands closer to midnight? Of course, there are
6:02
many possible interpretations, but mine centers on the United States and centers
6:09
on the Western world more generally, by which I mean the US, the European Union,
6:15
Britain, Australia, New Zealand, if I could add those together because those are
6:21
offshoots of Britain as well. And in my view, what is going on is a serious
6:28
misunderstanding of global reality by the leadership of
6:34
my country that has persisted now for more than 30 years. You had a wonderful
6:42
debate uh professor Jang with with Francis Fukuyama
6:48
uh which I just had the chance to read from 14 years ago. And as you told me,
6:54
you're right. You won the debate. But the idea of Professor Fukyama
7:01
already back in uh n the early 1990s was
7:07
that the West had triumphed and it was the end of history.
7:12
And my basic understanding of the reality is something different.
7:19
And that is that with the end of the Cold War, the world had triumphed in the
7:25
sense that we had the chance to escape from nuclear war and from confrontation
7:32
and we had the chance for rapid economic development in all parts of the world
7:39
which China led and China exemplified. So from the 40 years from 1980 to 2020,
7:48
China experienced the fastest economic development in world history for a large
7:55
country. And it showed what's possible in our world today because of technology, education,
8:02
infrastructure, how big an advance can be made. And I watched this, by the way,
8:08
with my own eyes personally because my first visit to China was 1981.
8:14
And so, China was not a rich country in 1981. Uh, China was very poor in 1981
8:22
because of the history of the previous 150 years. And over that 40-year period,
8:30
which is the period of my professional life, China experienced
8:35
this rapid development. And my view is that's what's possible in all parts of
8:41
the world. So, while I completely hail China's accomplishment and know that it
8:47
draws on deep roots of China's history and civilization,
8:53
I do believe it's something that all regions of the world can accomplish. Maybe not at the same speed, maybe not
9:01
with all the same success as China, but I do not write off any part of the
9:06
world, Africa or India or South Asia or
9:12
Central Asia or Latin America. This idea that we could all live in peace, in
9:20
mutual prosperity with rapid economic development in poor
9:25
countries, I think is the reality of our world in its potential, but obviously
9:33
not the reality of our world in its actuality. So we need to understand the world as it
9:42
could be and then aim to achieve that world. Unfortunately, this was not the
9:50
idea of the United States at the end of 1991
9:55
when Mr. Fukuyama, Professor Fukuyama declared the end of history. The idea
10:01
was that the Western world would lead the world from now onward and especially
10:07
the United States within the Western world would lead the world onward.
10:13
Whether other regions developed or not was of modest interest, but if they did
develop, they needed to develop under the wing of the United States. In other words, what was important at the end of
10:27
the Cold War was dominance, not cooperation or peace. And this is why I
10:35
think the world has remained and become more and more dangerous over
10:41
the last 35 years. So to my understanding we have a mindset problem
10:49
and the mindset problem is that the western world dominated the world
10:56
economy and world politics and finance for about 250 years roughly from 1750
11:05
to roughly the year 2000. And during that period, the ideology in
11:13
the western world explained that dominance as an inherent
11:20
rightful feature of the world. And it explained that dominance in a number of
11:26
different ways. Some very extreme, some
11:31
a little bit less extreme because there were theories of racial superiority.
11:37
There were theories of social superiority. There were theories of cultural
11:43
superiority. There were theories of religious superiority that this was a
11:48
Christian world after all. But whichever theory one subscribed to, there were
11:54
theories of genetic superiority, biological superiority.
11:59
Whichever view one took uh the idea was deeply embedded in the mores the stories
12:10
the beliefs the institutions and the politics of the western world and two
12:17
countries dominated most of all and most of the world's problems today can be
12:23
traced to them actually one was Britain and China had quite an interesting
12:29
experience with Britain starting from 1793 uh up through uh probably the end of
12:37
World War II and the other has been the United States which is a a successor uh
12:44
to Britain in both the western world and the Anglo-Saxon world. So the British
12:51
definitely had an arrogance of power. Uh and they used that arrogance of power in
12:58
China in India in Russia in every part of the world because the belief was that
13:05
Britain was the empire on which the sun never set. Uh this was the era of pox
13:11
Britannica although it wasn't so peaceful but it was the era of British
13:17
dominance and the 19th century was really defined by British dominance
13:22
internationally. Europe experienced two uh disastrous civil wars in the first
13:30
half of the 20th century which we call World War I and World War II. But in
13:35
Europe, they were really civil wars within European countries. And at the end, Britain was no longer able to
13:45
maintain a global empire. But the United States took over at that point. And the
13:50
US inherited the mindset and the institutions of British imperial rule.
13:58
The main geopolitical institution of British imperial rule was
14:05
to control regimes of different parts of the world. So Britain mastered what we
14:13
call regime change operations. If you don't like a government, replace it.
14:19
It's a different kind of foreign policy from diplomacy. In diplomacy, if you don't like a government, sit down and
14:25
negotiate. If you're British in the 19th century and you don't like a government,
14:32
threaten it, kill the person, the ruler, or overthrow it. Uh, and this was the
14:38
main mode of British uh, action. In the
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second half of the 20th century, the United States took over that method of
14:50
operation. Indeed, the British taught it to the Americans, I would say. And in 1953,
14:56
we did a joint venture together, the British and the Americans,
the British MI6, the spy agency, and the CIA to overthrow the government of Iran,
15:10
which brings us to our current situation. Iran had a functioning democratic government in 1953
15:19
led by Prime Minister Mosedc. He had a very radical idea. Mosedc's
15:27
idea in 1953 was that the oil that was under the ground actually belonged to
15:33
the Iranians where the British knew that it belonged to the British.
15:39
So when the Iranian prime minister democratically elected said this is our
15:44
oil, it's under our ground, the uh British government knew that it
15:49
had to overthrow him. And it connected with the US government and they made a
15:55
secret operation to overthrow Mosedc and to install the sha of Iran a palevi
16:02
dynasty and to make a police state under US control.
16:08
If you add up all such regime change operations by the United States between
16:15
1945 and 1989 at the end of the cold war, one
16:22
scholar Lindseay Oor in an excellent book in 2017 called Covert Regime Change
16:30
and she was a student of John Mirshimer at the time uh she counted 64 four
16:39
covert regime change operations by the United States, mostly CIA
16:45
and six overt regime change operations, meaning an open war to topple another
16:51
government. So 70 regime change operations. This is a very distinct kind
16:58
of state craft. It is the opposite of diplomacy. You don't have to deal with the other
17:05
side. you have to control it or overthrow it, kill it, assassinate the
17:11
leader, make a coup, uh fix an election, buy an election, create unrest to topple
17:20
a regime. And this happened 64 times
17:26
covertly. What does covert mean? Covert means that
17:32
the US denied its role even though it was obvious to the people there. So when
17:39
these events occur, they're not really covert in the sense of who did this.
17:45
Everyone says the United States did it, but the United States said we didn't
17:50
have anything to do with it. That wasn't us. That was a local unrest.
17:57
So I mention all of this because that kind of arrogant statecraft
18:04
which is imperial mentality was the US mentality
18:09
from 1945 to 19 91. It was justified to the American people
18:17
as necessary because of the war against global communism. So that was the
18:23
explanation that was given. and especially against the Soviet Union. And
18:30
the United States accused the Soviet Union of wanting to take over the world.
18:36
And it used that as an explanation to try to take over the world, every other
18:41
place. And very importantly and interestingly, the United States
18:47
rejected neutrality by any country and used the expression,
18:53
if you are not with us, you are against us. So the US also actively opposed
19:02
neutrality. This is also a very interesting peculiar
19:08
idea because many countries said we don't want to choose. We want to trade
19:13
with the Soviet Union. We want to trade with the United States. We don't have the big army. We don't don't attack us,
19:20
but we don't want bad relations with either side. And the US said, "No,
19:25
that's not good enough. You're either with us or you're against us."
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And very interestingly for scholars here and this is a room of scholars if you
19:37
read the pelpeneisian war by Thusidities which has become famous again because of
19:44
Graham Allison's uh book in the dialogue called the Melian dialogue
19:52
which is a dialogue between Athens and the leaders of Melos a small island
20:00
The Melians said, "We want to be friends with Athens and we want to be friends
with Sparta." And the Athenians says, "No, you can't. You are with us against them." And the
20:14
Melians said, "No, no, but we want to be just neutral. Just be [clears throat]
20:19
leave us alone. We like you, but we don't want to be part of your empire. We don't want to be part of their empire."
20:27
And the Athenian says, "No, if you do that, you will weaken our power in our
20:35
realm. You will show to all of the allies of Athens that we're weak. So,
20:42
you must submit to us, otherwise we'll have to kill you." And actually in
20:49
history apparently in 416 BC the Melos said no we will be neutral
20:58
and the Athenians invaded and they killed all the Melian men. Actually
21:05
of course what the Pelpeneisian war really shows is that just 12 years later
21:12
Athens was defeated. So all that arrogance led to nothing but defeat.
21:20
It even shows something more. Sparta which won the war disappeared from
21:26
history also. So neither side won in the end. The war exhausted both sides and
21:34
Greece was invaded by Macedonia in the next century. So both sides lost from
21:40
this ongoing war. But the arrogance of Athens is the arrogance of the United
21:47
States. And by the way, Athens was a great democracy and it had a great arrogance and it made
21:56
a great selfd disaster by that arrogance. And by being a democracy, they elected a
22:03
lot of stupid people that were very demagogic and that told them, why don't
22:09
we invade Syracusea? why don't we continue the war and they had no sense
22:15
and they were defeated in the end. So I
22:20
began much of my uh work during this
22:26
period from 1989 onward. I was already uh working in Latin America. But then
22:32
came the end of the cold war. And just to say I was an adviser to President
22:38
Gorbachev, not personally but through his chief economist. And then I was personally an
22:45
adviser to President Yelen. And I was personally invi an adviser to the
22:50
president of Ukraine and to many of the other leaders. And I thought, well, this
22:56
is wonderful. The Cold War is over. We're all now in a market economy
23:03
worldwide. We can all share in prosperity. The poorer countries can grow faster and
23:11
close the income gap with the richer countries and the richer countries should help the poorer countries to
23:17
catch up and then we'll have a safe, prosperous world. And I also believed
23:24
and believe today as an economist there's enough to go around because
23:29
another theory of economics the Malthusian theory is there's not enough
23:34
for everybody. So the fighting is inevitable. There will always be those
23:40
who lose in the end because there's not enough for everybody in the world. We
23:45
could discuss that but I reject that on economic grounds. In other words, not
23:52
out of moral theory, but out of practical theory, we could have
23:58
everybody living in good life as long as they're using solar power, not if
24:03
they're using fossil fuel. So, as long as we make the right technological choices, then there's enough to go
24:10
around in the world for everybody in the world. That's what I argued in the early 1990s.
24:18
The United States, however, maintained and even intensified
24:24
its imperial idea. Instead of viewing the end of the Cold
24:30
War as the opportunity for a new world order that was balanced, fair, peaceful,
24:37
the United States viewed the end of the Cold War as the opportunity for
24:43
hegemony. And that's very explicit. This became
24:48
the ideology of the so-called neoconservatives who dominated American politics from
24:56
1991 basically until today. And the neoconservative idea is the world can
25:03
only be safe if the US leads the world because the US is a power for good. And
25:10
so the US should set the rules. It should be the world policeman. It should determine what happens in each part of
the world and then things will be fine. This is a very arrogant position. Of
25:24
course, it's a very delusional idea. But it is really the idea that was espoused
25:33
by government after government starting in 1991.
25:39
And I witnessed it close up because my argument as an economist was that we
25:45
should help Russia to get back on its feet. We should help Africa to achieve
25:52
development. We should make sure that poverty is overcome everywhere. And none
25:59
of those ideas was accepted in the American political leadership. Even by
26:06
my own colleagues who were in positions of power temporarily, they viewed
26:14
such ideas as naive uh and as contrary to American
26:20
interests. America's interest is to be number one, not to be cooperative in an
26:28
open world in which there is shared prosperity. So the ideology was in my view uh made
26:38
even worse by the end of the cold war. It turned out, by the way, and it's
26:44
relevant for China also, during the Cold War, all of the US rhetoric was, "We
26:51
fight the Soviet Union because of world communism." That word, as you know, in the American
27:00
scene is viewed as something completely uh
27:05
shocking. when Russia became independent and
27:12
declared uh we are in a market economy
27:18
postcommunist this is a another age it made no difference to American politics
27:25
this is quite interesting in practice Russia was still an enemy even
27:31
afterwards because it wasn't really communism or ideology ology. It was
27:37
simply big powers. And in this, John Mirshimer is right
27:44
about the American mentality, which is that the United States sees
27:49
Russia as a threat, not because of any specific ideology, but because it is
27:55
big. And the United States sees China as a threat. not because of anything that
28:02
China does or is other than being big and successful.
28:08
And therefore, China's only offense is that it threatens American dominance.
28:17
And that I think is a succinct description of the viewpoint of the
28:23
American leadership. Now to come back to my view of economics, this is a terrible
28:29
mistake. Not only on a moral level, but on a practical level. The United States
28:36
has 4% of the world population, 335 million people. How could 4% of the
28:44
world dominate the world? It's not possible. except if all the rest of the
28:51
world were to remain poor, unsuccessful, backward, and so forth. But there's no
28:59
not only no moral reason for that, there's no practical reason why that should be the case. So I long believed
29:06
that poor countries can grow faster and catch up. And China, of course, is the
29:12
greatest success story in history of that. But China follows a basic pattern
29:18
that Japan followed previously, that uh Hong Kong, Singapore followed previously
29:26
because catching up is possible if the leadership is good, if the planning is good, if the strategy is good, there's
29:34
all this headroom for rapid economic growth possible. And China proved the
29:40
case once again at a scale unprecedented in history. So the US viewpoint about
29:48
dominance makes no sense. Not only not morally and not practically
29:54
in terms of security because the world's not safe if the US is rich and Russia is
30:00
unstable with nuclear weapons. Why does that make the US secure? That makes the US more dangerous. But it's also wrong
30:07
economically because Russia will catch up. China will catch up. Africa will catch up and the
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