Stephen Kotkin on Lost in Translation: World Order & Word Order | HISPBC Ch.1

I was given the coveted position, to follow the Secretary of State on the same issue, everyone wanted that position, but I got that position, so it is truly a privilege and I will be forever grateful for that. Do we have time for questions? Yes, exactly, yes, do you have a good session so far pretty good this Hoover institution after waiting 33 years in Princeton I finally got here yes, no joke, okay, let's see what we're going to talk to you about today. Actually, I'll try five points. We'll make four points because I tend not to be as brief as necessary.

One will be the terms in which we debate the terms of the debate. The second will be about reality and not about illusions. I know it's hard to get to reality. more than wishful thinking, but we will do our best, the third will be about choosing your story wisely and the fourth will be called, don't become like them, okay, so let's start with the first one, the terms of the debate, whether to accept the terms of the debate that is imposed on you it is difficult to win those debates one of the most important things in any analytical exercise is to try to define the terms of the debate yourself not to accept what is imposed on you let's take a couple of terms that are very widespread and see what kind of garbage are Global South Global South is a ubiquitous term how many people live geographically in the global South forward, forward how many people live geographically in the global South that is correct 8 50 million people 12% of the

world

's population lives south of the equator.

The 12%. 88% live north of the equator. Global salt is a fiction. One of the most important countries in the global South. That's how it is. Australia, yes, South Africa, most of Brazil, Indonesia, but the

world

. The South is not in the global South, that would seem to be a big problem and then you say, "Okay, no problem, it's not really a geographical term." Okay, why are you using a geographic term if it's not a geographic term? It's really about solidarity in the world. non-aligned movement I say, okay, I'm fine with that, I know my history, what kind of solidarity does Iran have, for example, with, oh, let's say, Australia, you're not very right, so where is the issue of solidarity ?

Solidarity is also a fiction. Remember the Bondon conference in 1955 I know some of you were young and were not there well the Bondon conference in 1955 the great inaugural conference of the so-called non-aligned movement failed there was no non-aligned movement because they had conflicts State interests were not in accordance with the solidarity of the global South. I call something that doesn't exist the global South and I assign myself the right to speak on its behalf and then it's 4 billion or 6 billion or whatever, yes, China in the north, yes, India is in the north, That's very inconvenient, right?

Do you think African countries want South Africa to represent them? Ask them. They do not wish to allow South Africa to represent them in global forums. That is your solidarity with the Global South. Be careful with accepting terms that are invented for political purposes and then people appoint themselves spokespersons for those terms, as if now everyone in the mandate thought the same and I could speak for them, we could be there all day, it could ruin our program leadership going through each category we use let's take another multipolar world H that is so fabulous who could be against the multipolar world right no country should be in charge it should be a multipolar world right no Isn't it better?

What do the Chinese and Russians mean when they say a multimolar world? Do they mean that everyone can choose and that it is a free and open non-hierarchical sphere of influence where you can be sovereign or do they mean that? Small countries have no sovereignty, especially if they are in their neighborhood and their elections are going to be controlled by them and are going to be coercive, so when we talk about a multipolar world, they have a different understanding of what a poll is. It's because of what we do, when we say multipolar polar world in a positive sense and align ourselves with that category, we are doing the bidding of Russian and Chinese propaganda, without realizing it, we could leave, like I said, we could move on, this is just my first point.

Asian values, you know, one of the Asian values ​​is another. Beauty, oh, you know, Westerners try to impose themselves on us. We have our own values. Asian values ​​and get used to it. The West is no longer dominant. I say it's fine. Asian values ​​I'm fine with. Asian values ​​you mean Japan because I align very well with the values ​​and institutions of Japan you mean South Korea you mean Taiwan no that's not what they mean by Asian values ​​what they mean by Asian values ​​is once plus something invented that is not shared throughout Asia, okay, you understand well, we do not make garbage categories, we reject those terms of debate for us, we are going to redefine the terms, they will be empirical and they will align with reality and we will be able to win the debate as a result of that you never tell a person when they say something to you I don't agree I have my own opinion H you know you stand by your opinion I stand by my opinion right this is not the English Department okay what you say is which Is the evidence for that, what is the evidence for that, you don't like what I'm saying, what is the evidence for that, that's your question, the more you can talk about the evidence, the more you can talk about evidence-based analysis. , the stronger they will be as analysts, okay, so the terms of the debate and getting to the evidence we will not make the Asian century, although you already know what the Asian century is, it is real, that is the one that is real, but the Asian century It's happening in the United States, that's right, that's where the Asian century is happening because most of the immigrants now are from South and East Asia and they are in our universities, they run our laboratories, they open established companies where they provide services. government and it's amazing how the Asian century is working, but it's working here because we have a free and open society, okay, let's let go of point number one, let's move on to point number two, about reality overcoming illusions, stay with me, it's good. the world

order

is quite simple it has two approaches one approach is a globalism we are all in this together we are all part of one world and we have the really important institution of the United Nations which comes from the vision of President Roosevelt and his administration of how it should be organized the post-war

order

they cheated a little they evaded you would call it evasive I would call it cheating they use the UN Security Council to have permanent members with the right to veto so we are all in this together we are all sovereign, we are all part of the UN , but five of us are more equal than the others, okay, and one of them is China because Roosevelt, the genius who promoted China to the ranks of veto powers in 1945, started the tradition of America deciding. that I wasn't going to understand China but that I was going to promote it to a global role so that it could do whatever it wanted, okay now at that time it was Taiwan, but then we arranged that we did it well so that the UN was the only globalist that We are all in this together with the small fence of the Security Council, that is one version of organizing the world, the other version emerged from the same period, the same Administration, the same people and it is called the West, what is the West?, the West it's not. a geographical term here we go they are using a geographical term when it is not geographically correct they are deceiving us again the West is an institutional understanding and values ​​so for example Russia is European but not Western its institutions are not Western Japan is not European but it is Western, It has Western-style institutions and Western-style values, so the West is a club, an open club that others can join, which is not geographical, but we use the term West, which is very confusing to people, we need a term best, our best.

The terms were things like the Free World, the first world. I'm fine with those terms. I'm fine with whatever terms we want because it's reality that interests me and that's why I have this fabulous thing. I have North America. I have Europe. and I have the first island chain in East Asia which would include Japan, South Korea, Taiwan all the way to Australia, that's my West, so those are the two organizing principles of the world, the club based on certain types of institutions and the We. Re All in This Together, the one worldism, the Western thing was really powerful because having friends who are rich, smart and open like you have very similar political, economic and social systems, having friends like that is a good thing, you have some good friends. look for more good friends and this system allows you to get more good friends not everyone is a beneficiary some people are the recipients the system is not always fair but the system is open, flexible and based on shared values ​​and institutions and is extremely powerful and targeted by a country that is powerful across the board, but that country can't impose its will on its friends, it has to negotiate with them, okay, so you have globalism and the West and then 1991 happens, oh I forgot about OPEC . thanks for reminding me OPEC OPEC is the non-aligned movement that really works.

OPEC is Mother Nature that 300 million years ago layered certain geological facts on Earth that we know are oil and OPEC forms a cartel that exercises power in a world where they are not part of the West nor are they aligned in the sense Bond, but they flex their muscles because of the power of oil, now it's OPEC and also because it includes Russia, the Soviet Union was its own energy system, as you know, okay, thank you. for the OPEC thing, then OPEC is not very important, interesting, uh, another piece of the two approaches to the world order, one is the United Nations and the other the West, so after 1991 we decided in the United States that we are going to make the United States. version of the United Nations and abandon the Western version, we are going to see Anthony Lake giving a speech.

Do you remember Anthony Lake? He was Bill Clinton's National Security Advisor. Do you remember Bill Clinton? He was a careless guy from Arkansas who ate pizza late at night in the White House and did other things you don't remember that maybe you're too young again the blessings of Youth, right, sadly we remember, okay, here We are, it's 1993 and Tony Lake, who is the National Security Advisor, one of you will be one day I'm sure Tony Lake The National Security Advisor will give a speech at John's Hopkins in DC call from containment to expansion is a speech of 15 pages everyone in this room who aspires to understand the international order the global system wants to be Secretary of State You should read that speech many times, it is easily available.

I read it again this morning. What did he say? From enlargement, from containment to enlargement, the entire world was going to expand in the sense that the United States was going to extend its system to everything other than I simply opted for the West, but everyone was going to be part of a world system. unique, but a single world system based on Western values ​​was a great big idea and is the organizing principle of our political establishment throughout Republican and Democratic administrations, just as containment was. during the Cold War enlargement is sometimes known as compromise that is what you have been experiencing that is why we are in the situation we are in today did you receive the speech from the extension from containment to enlargement who wrote the speech Tony Blinken wrote the speech Tony Blinkin who gave a national security speech in this room not long ago you missed Tony Blinkin, the speechwriter is now Secretary of State, proving once again that anything is possible, right, I would never have believed it, but whatever it is, America, America, the crazy American Indian.

Philip Roth, the crazy Native American, not only did we go crazy recently, it's us, it's just that we have social media now, okay, so Blake uh Lake gives a speech that Blinkin wrote I could have called him Blake, but that's another guy, um anyway, and then the the speech is about how we are going to remake the world and we end up in Iraq we end up in Afghanistan we end up in China we end up everywhere we are democratizing we are transforming we are expanding we are getting involved well all betting on the West, what's up, the Putin guy does the same thing in Ukraine and it turns out it's about the West, it turns out it's about transatlanticism, it turns out it's about Germany, the European Union and Canada, and it turns out it's about Japan. and South Korea and Taiwan and oh yeah, that's the powerful thing, those are our friends, that's how the world works, that's what you bet on, okay, you'll have Africa's story right after mine, like this I'm not going to weigh that territory.

You have an expert who is going to talk about Africa, you will realize, this is typical Hoover identity politics, we have achievements. A black woman gives the keynote speech. We have an accomplished black woman giving the third speech, so they had to do identity politics and find. some white manto balance the balance between the two successful black speakers, but whatever, that's just the Hoover institution in our identity politics, okay, yes, the West is a very good idea and when it's open, when there are opportunities, when There is opportunity at home and opportunity abroad, the system works that's how freedom was expanded until we got to the expansion that decreased freedom, okay.

Point number three, so reality is an illusion, that was point number two in case you missed it. Now let's go to point number three, what did I say? Point number three was going to be: choose your story wisely. There are two forms of power in the world and they are very, very different, and one form of power is the land-based Eurasian Empire and that form of power looks like this autocratic. Government sometimes even tyranny looks like extortion instead of trade looks like a large land army seems to threaten its neighbors because it's not land and it's exposed and that type of power that version of land power is the dominant version of power throughout history, but then there is another type of power that emerges late in the game, early for you because it is before you are born, but late in the game in terms of historical trends and that is sea power, which is about a government limited, it's about trade, it's about the Navy, it's about making the pie bigger. it's about win-win it's about open access to the open seas and opening everything up, if possible, correctly and that form of power actually starts with the Spanish, the Spanish Empire, remember the sun never sets on the British Empire , that was Spain, the first that the British stole. that these British stole a lot of things, but they stole them, so in Spain it didn't work because they had an autocratic government, not a limited one, and then the Dutch come and the Dutch do it better and the Netherlands in the 17th century is an incredible story. of sea power, a small country under water, the country is under water, it is below sea level in many places and yet it invents modern trade for the most part, the British come and look at the Dutch and They say this is a good scandal. we have here, let's get into this and the British make an even better version, the British are a little better than the Dutch and the British end up forming the world we live in, which is a world based on sea power, limited government trade and the Navy where openness and access is the story rather than a closed defensive attitude Land army land borders The British don't really have a land army, you need a land army, join one of those Eurasian land empires, go to war with them and use them as your Land Army, that's how you keep costs down, including human costs, okay, so the United States starts, as you know, as a land power, a land Empire, crossing this gigantic continent, right , if you've read um himal, himalion's recent book on uh.

The survival of the Native American empires, the indigenous empires in the United States, is rewriting the history of the United States for you, it is one of the great books I have read. I read a lot of books, more than 120 books a year on average and that is the best book. I've read it in the last few years, maybe in the last decade, but anyway there's a history of the United States that we know poorly moving through the Earth Empire and creating some kind of Earth history, but then you find out it's in this place brilliant. discovers that it has an ocean in the Atlantic on one side, the Pacific and now on the other CU, they went all the way and expelled the Russians from that Russian river so that we could have bohemian growth and then you have these nice people Canada, who We invaded but it didn't work so we didn't do it again and then there's Mexico where we weren't that nice and we still aren't that nice but it's really important to us because our economies are completely integrated and they're not a threat to us militarily. , so we have this springboard and we decided that we are going to do the British thing, not only are we going to do the British thing, but the British are going to get out of our I'm sure that the British willingly, you know, sowed power for the Americans , as always happens.

The voluntary settlement of power, you see, never happens, but it happens occasionally anyway, so the Americans decide they are going to do the British thing and are better. than the British to do it and create this massive, successful version of modern power based on limited government trade and Navy and a really big global Navy, just like the British had, but backed by a bigger economy, so If you're an old Eurasian Earth and Empire you're a great civilization you're Iran or you're Russia or you're China you're like when did this happen? here we are we have one millennium we have two millennia we have five millennia ago, if you believe Chinese propaganda, who are these guys who just started the other day in 1770 and now they're telling us how the world should work and they're organizing a lot of friends and alliances and they surround us and and they even borrow our army when they want to defeat one of the other armies, we will borrow that Russian army when we want to defeat the German one or yeah, so when did that happen?

And that's not fair and that's not good, so getting the land empires to resist this and they're afraid of this it's not American politics that scares them it's American existence that's an existential threat to them we could expand or not expand we could have an intelligent policy or we could have the policy we have no It doesn't matter, it is our own existence that threatens its existence because our form of power is more successful in competition than its form of power, just as Spain was removed from the We walked through the Dutch and the British and then we pushed the British out of the way, but then we brought everyone in, all our previous competitors are now our friends, our allies and our partners, that's a really cool system, if you can do it Okay, the system is fair, no, the system makes mistakes, oh yes, it makes them. nothing but mistakes, the system commits atrocities oh yeah, I've been to Vietnam, I've been to many places around the world, okay, so we're not talking about something that is ideal, we're talking about reality and just something that is stronger. so if you're competing against this, you're going to have a hard time, you've got to have better trade, you've got to have a better Navy, you've got to have better governance, because if your governance isn't as good, your people might want the government. on the other side, oh sure, I mean, listen, we'll negotiate with you, but keep those ideas out of here, we have to censor the public sphere that we have to control, we have to survive as an autocracy because we have history. a civilization that we have for millennia and you are a star, so that is the world we live in, that is the modern world and it should be better, it should be fairer, it should be more open than it is, there should be more opportunities Instead of fewer opportunities, the Asian century is happening in the United States, what about the African century?

That should happen in the United States too, but even more importantly, within Europe they are desperate for all the talent that is being born and coming on board in Africa, okay? number four and we'll close this remember point number four don't become like them don't become like them you think you know you have to compete against these autocracies and they have censorship they have control they have industrial policy they have all kinds of things these tools that you don't normally use no you become like them that's George Kennan of all things George Kennan wrote the most important thing he wrote in that infamous article that no one reads anymore uh that containment launch on the road we should oppose the power of the Soviet Union in the world don't be like them don't become like them don't act like them was his most important advice for people to say oh you know we're not in a cold war and I don't want to be in a cold war with China, that would be terrible.

A cold war is not a misunderstanding, it is a fundamental clash of interests and values, that's the first thing they say, but China is so different from the Soviet Union that it is crazy to think that we. We are going to have a cold war with China when it is so different from I say yes exactly then the pipian war the Seven Years War the 30 Years War First World War Second World War the Congo War the Korean War the War of Vietnam were all the same, they are all identical, they have identical weapons, identical systems, identical countries, that's why we call them regular wars, hot wars, but cold war, because there are some differences between trying oh no, no, no, that's what cannot be used. the Cold War again, sure, the Hot War, everything is a war, but the cold war, no, no, that would be wrong, that would be wrong.

I say, okay, that's an interesting proposal that you presented to me and then I say, well, okay, you don't. I don't like the Cold War, what are your alternatives? What are you going to do instead? What are the alternatives to Cold War CU? We live in the real world. It may seem like we don't live in the real world here at Stanford. It may seem like we don't live in the real world. I don't live in the real world here at Stanford. What are the alternatives to the Cold War? Well, the Hot War. The Hot War is the most important alternative to the Cold War.

You like the Hot War. I don't like the Hot War. 55 million people died in World War II. It was a multiple of the deaths of the First World War. What will World War III look like? A multiple of 55 million. I don't want to go anywhere near that, so if the Cold War is an alternative to the Hot War, sign me up, what are the other alternatives? Capitulation. capitulation is always an alternative, right, the majority of our political class capitulation is their way of life capitulation is not good for me I have to live on the planet with China I have to share the planet with China but on what terms am I going to share the Planet with China What are the terms for sharing?

Don't tell me you have to share the planet. I know the ocean is wet. I know, but what are the terms for sharing the planet? So I don't want capitulation. I don't want to. I want hot war, what else do I have? I've gone through the list of things. I have Pigmon. I have Pigmon. Do you know what Pigmon is? Do they still teach ID's metamorphosis in school when they got the statue and it's stone? It's difficult, it's a sculpture and it comes. to life and the person marries the statue and then George Bernard Shaw did a version of this in 1913, maybe you know one where Eliza ditt this Eliza ditt woman is kind of from the street and the bad accent It's not refined and that's why this guy says you We know we're going to transform her into a lady, we're going to get involved with China and transform Eliza Dittle from a street person with a Cockney accent to a refined yes, we're going to do that again and again. again and again, so pigmon, that's the other option, so those are your options, Hot War capitulation pigmon when you're in a great power competition, if they don't capitulate because you defeat them in war, let's call them If Germany and Japan do not bow down, capitulate and decide. that it is okay for you to occupy them and transform them, then the Cold War seems by far the best option on the table, but in competing with them, competition is okay, we are not afraid of competition, we are not afraid of geopolitics. rivalry great power rivalry that's just life that's just history that's not earth-shattering we will have a competition with China okay, we've done it many times before many other states have done it many times before okay in conclusion just don't become you like them to them by competing with them because the more you look like them, the less free you are, the less open you are, the more you close and censor things, ban things and stop commerce, and the more you look like them, the more you are becoming weaker, but they're afraid of you because of those strengths that you have, those attributes that you have, so when they have a Confucius Institute at Stanford and they're using it to surveil Chinese students and they're using it maybe for other things you say oh, we have to shut this down di what is America, we didn't close it you open a free Confucious Institute across the street and you say we love Confucious, we are pro-China and you want to come members of the communist party also welcome to our Confucius Institute across the street street This is how you earn these things.

Don't become like them. It's okay. Thank you for your attention.