How Great Power Politics Work: Implications for Hungary & Other Country Leaders John J. Mearsheimer

it's good are you to use it let me just it's a great pleasure to be here uh I want to thank everyone for their kind words about me and the university for hosting me and my publisher for inviting me to Hungary this is the first time I've been to Hungary although I've been to Europe many times I regret to say I had not been to Hungary before so here I am I'm thrilled to be here and I appreciate greatly all of you uh including the people in the Overflow rooms uh coming out to listen to me talk as you know what I want to talk about today is great power politics in the 21st century uh and then I want to talk about the impact of great power Politics on Hungary from how I see it and I'd like to start out with a few preliminary remarks to give you sense of the big picture because I'm a person who's very big picture oriented I think the key thing you want to remember about the world today is how we got here and basically when I was born and when I grew up as a young person we lived in a bipolar World from roughly I'd say 1947 to 1989 the world was bipolar then with the end of the Cold War in 1989 and certainly with the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991 we moved into a unipolar world and as all hungarians know the world changed in fundamental ways as we went from bipolarity to unipolarity then I would argue in roughly 2017 the world went from unipolarity to multipolarity and the world that we live in today as you all recognize looks a lot different than the world looked like in 2014 2004 and 1994 because that was the unipolar moment so what I'm saying here is that the structure or the architecture of the International System has changed in fundamental ways since I was put on this planet in 1947 again we've gone from bipolarity to unipolarity to multipolarity and this has fundamental effects on International politics in the multipolar world that we live in today there are three great Powers the United States China and Russia and the United States is still the most powerful State on the planet but not too far behind the United States is China which appears to be catching up quickly and then a distant third is Russia it's very important to understand that Russia is the weakest of the three great powers from an American perspective China is a peer competitor Russia is not a peer competitor it's a weak group great power but those are the three great powers in the system excuse me and I would argue that today what you have in this multipolar world are two conflict diads one is the US China diad the other is the US Russia diad and I would contrast this with the Cold War where you had only one diad which was the US Soviet diad and you understand that in unipolarity because there was only one great power there was no great power politics you can't have great power politics when there's only one great power finally I would note to you that I think the two conflict diads that exist today are more dangerous than the conf lict diad that existed in the Cold War I think the US China diad and the US Russia diad is much more dangerous much more likely to lead to a great power War than the US Soviet diad during the Cold War so we're in a world today where there are two conflict diads instead of one and both of those conflict diads in my humble opinion are more dangerous than the one conflict diad that you all know about which is the Cold War now how do I want to proceed I want to proceed by talking about four different topics first I want to give you my theory of international politics my theory of great power politics I want to tell you how I think the world works at its most basic level that's number one then I want to talk about the US China competition and I want to take my discussion of the US China competition and Link it to my theory then I want to shift gears and I want to talk about the US Russia competition I want to compare the US Russia competition to the US China competition and Link it back to my theory and then finally I want to talk about hungary's situation in this multi-polar world and what the the situation looks like today and what it looks like moving forward so again four parts the basic Theory us China competition us Russia competition and there we'll talk mainly about the Ukraine war and then finally talk about the implications of all of this discussion for Hungary okay so let me start with my theory of international Politics as some of you know I have a very simple theory of international Poli politics I start with five assumptions about the world and then I take those five assumptions and I mix them up and I come up with a series of behaviors involving the great Powers okay so let me tell you what the uh the five assumptions are my first assumption about the world is that states are the princip principal actors countries are the principal actors and there's no higher authority that sits above States as many of you know in international relations speak we refer to this as Anarchy the world is anarchic anarchic does not mean murder in mayam anarchic is an organizing principle the system is anarchic there's no higher authority point one point two or assumption two is that all states have some offensive military capability now obviously some states have more offensive military capability than others do the United States for example has much more offensive capability than Hungary but Hungary does have some offensive military capability as does Belgium as does Switzerland but then there are those countries that have a lot of offensive military capability so the second assumption has to do with capabilities the third assumption has to do with intentions right when I was an Air Force officer I was in technical intelligence and when we looked at the Soviet Union or the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War we always want to know what are their capabilities look like and what are their intentions what are Soviet intentions and what do their capabilities look like okay so the second assumption deals with capabilities that's the offensive capabilities argument the third assumption deals with intentions and the intentions argument goes like this no State can ever be certain as to what the intentions of other states are you just can't know for sure what the intentions of other states are now why is this the case if you think about capabilities offensive capabilities you can see them and you can measure them during the Cold War we could count how many armor division equivalents the warsa packed had we could count how many ss18 missiles the Soviet Union had we could count how many submarines they had because they were material things that you could see intentions are remarkably difficult to figure out because they're in people's heads and you can't see into people's heads so we could never figure out exactly what Soviet intentions were whether Stalin was running Soviet policy kushev was running policy or brn it just very hard to get inside those leaders heads and figure out what their intentions were now if you think that's not true in intentions are reasonably easy to figure out not impossible but reasonably easy my counterargument to that is you cannot know future intentions none of you know who will will be running Russia in 20 years none of you know who will be running Germany or the United States in 20 years so you can't know Russia's America's or Germany's intentions so one of the fundamental assumptions underpinning my theory is uncertainty about intentions this is not to say you can be certain that another state will have bad intentions you just can't be certain that it won't have bad intentions so I've told you so far that there are three assumptions one is states are the key actors the system is anarchic there's no higher authority that sits above States one two all states have some offensive military capability and three you just can't be certain about the intentions of other states now I have two other assumptions that I'm going to throw out the fourth assumption is that the principal goal goal of states is survival and the reason is simple if you don't survive you can't pursue any of your other goals so survival has to be the number one goal for every state in the system and then the fifth assumption is that states are rational actors they're basically strategic calculators they're good at coming up with strategies for maximizing their prospects of survival so the fourth assumption survival and the fifth assumption is states of rational actors so those are five assumptions I think they're all reasonable assumptions you take them you put them in the blender you hit the on switch you mix them up and you get a very very competitive and dangerous world now why is that the case first States fear each other why do they fear each other they fear each other because there may be a powerful state that has malign intentions right if you're France after World War I and you know you're living next door to Germany and you can't know what Germany's intentions are going to be 10 15 20 years in the future and you know that the Germans have a huge amount of latent capability you're going to fear them and the French did fear them right so you fear them for that reason the second reason that states fear each other is if you get into trouble you're in an anarchic system which means there's no higher authority that you can call right so fear is a constant among great powers in the International System the second form of behavior you get is self-help as my mother used to say when I was a little boy God helps those who help themselves that's the way International politics works you do not depend on anybody else this is not to say you can't form alliances but it is to say it's a selfhelp world States fear each other and they they understand that they have to take care of themselves the third form of behavior is that you figure out very quickly that the best way to survive in the International System is to be the most powerful state in the system it's to maximize your relative power in a world an anarchic world where you cannot know the intentions of other states and other states may be really powerful the best way to survive is to be the most powerful state in the system I often say to American audiences how many of you go to bed at night worrying about Canada or Mexico or Guatemala attacking the United States it's Unthinkable why because we're Godzilla nobody's going to attack Godzilla in an anarchic system where you cannot know the intentions of other states you want to be Godzilla one of the real problems that Hungary faces is it has a very small population from hungary's point of view it would be much better if you had 350 million people instead of 10 million people you want to be really powerful why because that's the best way to maximize your chances of survival in an anarchic system now let me just unpack this a bit more because it's relevant from what I'm going to talk about with regard to China and Russia when I talk about maximizing power the ideal situation is to be a regional hegemon to dominate your region of the world number one and number two to make sure that no other state dominates its region of the world everybody follow that so just take the United States the United States when it got started in 1783 was comprised of 13 colonies strung out along the Atlantic Seaboard what we did was we marched across the continent and we carved out this huge and Powerful State and then with the Monroe Doctrine we pushed the European great powers out of the Western Hemisphere and we told them you are not welcome back here this is our Hemisphere and you stay out we went to Great Lengths to create Regional hemony in the Western Hemisphere at the same time we do not tolerate PE competitors we played a key role in putting Imperial Germany Imperial Japan Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union all on the scrap heap of history and you can see the United States putting its crosshairs on China today the United States does not tolerate pure competitors we do not want any other country on the planet to ever imitate us according to our Playbook there's only one country that's allowed to be a regional haimon and that's the United States of America this is completely consistent with the theory that I laid out to you I gave you the logic that underpins it now I just want to say a word or two more I've emphasized the importance of gaining power becoming a regional hedgman maximizing your power it's also very important to understand that states that are facing a great power that's getting more and more powerful go to Great Lengths to balance against that state so states in the International System here we're talking mainly about great Powers B balance against Rising States they try to check states that are encroaching on them that's the balancing behavior that comes out of my story but again the ideal situation is to be a regional heiman now that's my theory let's talk about the US China competition let's talk about the US Russia competition and then go they talking about Hungary us China competition what's going on here is very simple as a result of America's policy of Engagement with China which started in the early 1990s we have foolishly helped turn China into an economically powerful country China has grown very wealthy and as you all know it has a huge population population and wealth are the two foundations of military power because China has so many people and it's now so wealthy it's not just a pure competitor of the United States it's also a potential Regional hedgemon and you know what the Chinese are doing the Chinese are interested in becoming a regional hegemon they want to dominate Asia the way we dominate the Western Hemisphere and I want to be very clear here I do not blame blame the Chinese one second if I was in Beijing and I was running Chinese foreign policy my aim would be to make sure that China is by far the most powerful country in Asia and I would go to Great Lengths to push the Americans out be on the first island chain and then be on the second island chain I'd have my own Chinese Monroe Doctrine and I'd want to make sure the Americans are across the Pacific Ocean just like we want to make sure from an American point of view the Chinese are across the Pacific Ocean the Chinese understand full well what happens when you're weak in the International System they call it the century of national humiliation it lasted from the late 1840s to the late 1940s as most of you know I'm sure China was very weak during that 100-year period and you know what happened to them when they were very weak the other great powers in the system including the United States of America prayed upon them they were victimized at every turn the Chinese understand full well if you want to survive in the International System you want to be really powerful indeed you want to imitate the United States you want to dominate Asia the way the Americans dominate the Western Hemisphere this is what my theory tells you it's what the in Americans did and it's what the Chinese are doing they want to dominate Europe if the Chinese want to get Taiwan back they want to control the South China Sea they want to control the East China Sea they want those rocks back in the East China Sea there's one simple way to do it get the Americans out of East Asia and make sure they are the most powerful state in the system so that's what they're doing what about the Americans I told you about the Americans before the Americans do not tolerate peer competitors we're not going to let China dominate Asia unless we absolutely have to unless China just grow so powerful there's nothing we can do to stop it from dominating Asia we've got our gun sits on the Chinese you you fully understand that right and you understand there's a military Dimension and an economic Dimension to our policy we're putting together a balancing Coalition in East Asia mainly based around military forces to contain China we're talking about how to defend Taiwan militarily that's the military part of the balancing Coalition but you also want to understand I'll talk more about this later with regard to Hungary there's an economic Dimension to our strategy we're actually trying to roll back Chinese economic growth we want to strangle Chinese economic growth because we understand full well that military power is largely a fun function of economic power so the United States right the United States is is not simply containing China we're talking about a roll back strategy the United States as many of you know and probably many of you don't know is a ruthless great power you never want to underestimate how ruthless the United States is despite all the liberal rhetoric that we use to cover up our ruthless Behavior we are tough customers and the Chinese are finding that out finding that out now in the early 1990s when I told the Chinese if you continue to grow economically there's going to be a fierce security competition and you're going to be shocked at how ruthless the United States is they simply didn't believe me because the United States was treating them very well at the time I said what you don't understand is that the structure is going to change and when the structure changes when we go from unipolarity to multipolarity and you're a peer competitor we're going to think about you very differently than we think about you now and that's exactly what's happening so you see what's happened here is you have this intense security competition between the United States which doesn't tolerate peer competitors on one hand and China on the other hand which is interested in becoming a regional hedgemon a peer of the United States a full peer why is it so dangerous I'm not going to go into this in any L at any length but Taiwan is the key here Taiwan is a very dangerous situation the United States feels that it has to defend Taiwan for security reasons so you see the United States moving closer and closer to Taiwan it's very important to understand that Taiwan is sacred territory for China the Chinese are deeply committed to making sure that Taiwan does not remain independent over the long term and that it's Incorporated back into the mainland and we're basically saying we meaning the Americans are basically saying that's not happening right and we're tightening our relationship with Taiwan which means de facto Independence for the foreseeable future and this not surprisingly enrages the Chinese so this is a very dangerous conflict di had now let me go to the third part of my talk and focus on us Russian relations which revolve these days mainly around the Ukraine war now the conventional wisdom in the west is certainly true in the United States certainly true in places like Poland the Baltic states and most of Western Europe the conventional wisdom is that the Russians are bent on establishing heemy in Europe the argument is that the Russians especially Vladimir Putin are an imperial power and if Vladimir Putin want wants to either recreate the Soviet Union or he wants to create a greater Russia and then once that's done he's going to push forward to create an empire in Eastern Europe and the argument as you know is that he is determined number one to conquer Ukraine number two occupy Ukraine and number three make it part of a greater Russia and then when he's done with Ukraine he'll march on toward other states like Poland the Baltic states Romania maybe Hungary who knows he's an imperialist he's bent on Regional hegemony in effect right this is the argument and if you believe this story it looks a lot like the China story right China as I told you there's no question that what China is trying to do is establish Regional hity the question is do you think that's what the Russians are doing I do not think that is true I think it is dead wrong first of all it's very clear to me that there is no evidence none that Putin has ever said that he thought it would be a good idea to conquer Ukraine and make it part of Russia there's no evidence that he ever said he thought it was feasible to do that and there's no evidence that he ever said that that's what he plans to do nobody and I've given this talk many times uh I've corresponded with all sorts of people I've had research assistant look into this nobody can show me where he said any one of those three things furthermore Russia does not have the capability to conquer Ukraine much less conquer other countries and oh by the way there's no evidence he ever talked about conquering any other country that's not surprising if he didn't talk about conquering and integrating Ukraine into a greater Russia he surely wasn't going to talk about doing that with the Baltic states or Poland he never talked about that there's no evidence of that but again he doesn't have the capability you all have noticed that the Russians can barely defeat the ukrainians in eastern Ukraine how how are these how are these Russian forces going to conquer all of Ukraine have you ever looked at the number of troops that the Russian Russian sent into Ukraine on February 24th at the most 190,000 at the most you know when the Germans went into Poland September 1st 1939 the Germans went in with 1.5 million troops and by the way in the middle of September the Soviets came in the back door the Germans as a result of the Von ribbon trro Molotov paa understood full well that they wouldn't be conquering Poland alone they'd be doing it with the Red Army and Poland was not a formidable military State at the time they still went in with 1.5 million troops Putin went in with 190,000 troops at the most and he didn't really have any reserves that he could have been brought that could have been brought in afterwards you're not going to conquer Ukraine with a four stat size Ukraine is a huge piece of territory as you all surely understand he wasn't interested in conquering Ukraine and incorporating into Russia what was he doing it's quite clear what he was doing he was defending Russia against the West's efforts to make Ukraine a Western bwar on Russia's border we had a policy in the west driven mainly by the United States that had three prongs to it one was NATO expansion right the goal was to bring Ukraine into NATO the second prong was to bring Ukraine into the European Union and the third prong was to Foster an orange revolution in Ukraine and make it a pro-western liberal democracy these are the three prongs of the strategy and the overall goal was again to create a Ukraine that was a Western bwar on Russia's border now NATO expansion was really the key that's what really spooked the Russians of the three elements of the strategy it was NATO expansion it was as many of you know in April of 2008 uh at the Bucharest NATO Summit where NATO announced when the summit ended that Georgia and Ukraine would become part of NATO Putin who was actually at the summit he was on friendly terms with the West at that point in time went ballistic the Russians made it unequivocally clear that Ukraine in NATO was categorically unacceptable William Burns who now the head of the CIA was then 2008 the US ambassador in Moscow he wrote a memorandum to condar Rice who was then Secretary of State warning against NATO expansion into Ukraine he said that Ukraine in NATO is the brightest of red lines for all members of the Russian Farm policy establishment not just Putin he said I've talked to all the knuckle draggers in the recesses of the Kremlin and I have talked to Putin's most Ardent liberal opponents and all of them agree Ukraine in NATO is unacceptable Angela Merkel who much to her credit [Music] opposed making any kind of offer to Ukraine in the April 2008 Summit said recently that the reason she opposed that idea was she understood it was the equivalent of a these are her words declaration of war against Russia this is with Angela Merkel said nevertheless the United States continued to push forward we had gotten NATO expansion through for the first time in 1999 you all know this is when Hungary became a member of NATO 1999 then in 2004 we had the second expansion of NATO countries like Romania the Baltic states Slovenia came in to the alliance right and here we are 2008 this is going to be this is going to be this the third big trunch going to bring in Georgia and we're going to bring in Ukraine you remember what happened with Georgia four months later in August 2008 you had a war Over Georgia surprise of surprises the Russians were putting their foot down nevertheless we continued to push we continue to push why did we continue to push the answer is Russia was weak think of the century of national humiliation for the Chinese the Russians thought they could the Americans thought they could shove another tranch of expansion to include Ukraine down Russia's throat we thought the Russians were weak and you know when you're weak and the Americans got their gun sights on you they're not good right so we continued to push even after things blew up in Georgia in August 2008 and what was the end result result the end result is that in February February 22nd 2014 to be exact the crisis in Ukraine broke out and this is when the Russians took the Crimea and trouble started in the donbass and you effectively got a civil war in the donbass that the Russians were involved in now the question you want to ask yourself is what did the Americans do do in response you might have thought that the Americans would have backed off seeing the trouble that they had stirred up but the Americans did not back off NATO did not back off in fact we doubled down we then started training large numbers of Ukrainian forces we then started arming large numbers of Ukrainian forces we were giving them intelligence and we were hoping them helping them plan their military operation in the donbas in the Civil War that was taking place in the donbas in effect what was happening is that Ukraine was becoming a def facto member of NATO this is why in December 2021 this is last December about 11 months ago Putin and lavro made it very clear they wrote a letter to the head of NATO and they wrote a letter to to President Biden saying we want a written statement that says Ukraine will never become part of NATO they had number of other demands as well the reason that happened was that uh was that Ukraine was becoming a DEA facto member of NATO and the American response was we're not changing anything nothing is going to change and the end result is on February 24th Putin launched what was effectively a preventive War Putin has decided that there two possible outcomes here one is a neutral Ukraine which is what they preferred all along or a Ukraine that is wrecked and is a rum State and as you all know what the Russians are now doing is they're wrecking Ukraine this is a total disaster it's absolutely horrible I do not want to make light of it for one second but the point point is this is the end result of our efforts the West efforts and when I say the West I'm talking mainly about the United States the West's efforts to make Ukraine a western bwar Russians found this intolerable and by the way I talked about the Monroe Doctrine you all know the Monroe Doctrine that's when we pushed all the European great powers out and we said you are not welcome in the Western Hemisphere I'm old enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis and I can tell from looking at the crowd that there are a few other old dogs in the crowd like me who remember the Cuban Missile Crisis the Cuban Missile Crisis was all about the Monro Doctrine we did not for one second like the idea of the Soviet Union putting missiles in the western hemisphere in Cuba right near the United States I want to ask you something if China decided to form a military alliance with Canada or Mexico and they put Chinese troops in Toronto or Montreal or in Mexico City what do you think the United States would do you think the United States would say oh that's not a big deal we really don't care I can guarantee you that would not be our response we told kushev in 19 62 those missiles are going to go one way or another we are not going to tolerate those missiles in the Western Hemisphere well my mother told me when I was a little boy what's good for the goose is good for the gander you're surprised that the Russians don't want a military Alliance that was a mortal foe of the Soviet Union during the Cold War sitting on their doorstep I don't understand why so so many people in the west especially in the United States and Western Europe can't understand that this is one of the most provocative moves the United States could have ever pushed NATO to pursue it it's just hard to understand we should understand it from our own historical experience and again Bill Burns said and he was not the only one you heard what Angela Merkel said I could go back into the 1990s tell you what George Kennan said Bill Perry who was the Secretary of Defense at the time when NATO expansion first got started all sorts of people said this is going to lead to no end of trouble and you know what George Kenan said not only is it going to lead to no end of trouble when the Trouble Comes we're going to blame the Russians and of course that's exactly what happens because we in the United States are never responsible for any of the world's problems it's always somebody else you know how that works so to basically sum up here I laid out my theory right I explained what's going on with China and the United States and that one looks a lot like the cold war right and then I talked about what happened just now with regard to Russia and the United States and my point there is that's not like the cold war right Russia is not the Soviet Union and Russia was not trying to establish gmany this is balancing behavior on the Russians part they're balancing against NATO expansion and the more General policy of making Ukraine a western Ally uh on their border and again these are two very dangerous situations I've talked about the Chinese situation and Taiwan and I can talk more about that in Q&A if you would like and I'm not going to talk about the US Russian situation or the war in Ukraine because I'm going to say something about that when I talk about Hungary okay let me now go to the final part of my talk which has to deal with how I think as an outsider Hungary fits into this story uh Hungary is obviously a European country and as I'll talk about as I go along the US China competition does matter for Hungary but not that much what really matters for Hungary is the US Russian competition uh and the war in Ukraine and of course Hungary is in the is in the in a disadvantage situation and that it is not a great power right and it is in the midst of two great powers that are deeply involved in the war in Ukraine one the United States and two Russia so the question here is you know had does Ukraine excuse me how does Hungary uh manage its relations in this situation let me tell you what I think hungary's basic aims are I think the hungarians are deeply committed to not having to choose sides in any meaningful way on the military Dimension the EC economic Dimension and the ideological dimension of the conflict between the west and Russia what exactly do I mean by that let's first of all talk about the military Dimension or the security Dimension narrowly defined there's no question that from hungary's point of view NATO and its alliance with the United States matters very very greatly right because the United States is a distant great power it's not a threat to conquer Hungary Russia is always a possible threat because it's right in the neighborhood right you have a deep-seated interest in keeping the Americans in Europe keeping NATO alive and well and keeping hungry in NATO so you definitely want to on the security side have very friendly relations with the United States however Hungary also has a deep interest from a security point of view and not provoking the Russians not causing a war in Ukraine because from a security point of view that's not good for Ukraine Ukraine could end up excuse me that's not good for Hungary Hungary could end up getting dragged into a war and I'll talk more about this in a few minutes the potential for escalation here is significant it is not non-trivial the potential for nuclear escalation is not non-trivial and I'll talk more about that in a second it is not in hungary's interest to have a war in Ukraine from a military point of view from a security point of view and I think this is why the hungarians wisely have been opposed to this war from the GetGo they understood that it is not in the security interests of Hungary so the hungarians had no interest in signing with the Americans against the Russians because they didn't want to provoke the Russians and at the same time the hungarians had no interest in antagonizing the Americans so the hungarians have had to sort of play both sides of the fence here have good security relations with Russ Russia as much as possible and there are real limits there and number two go to Great Lan that same with the United States with regard to the economic Dimension uh there's no question that the ukrainians have profound interest in having good relations with the European Union from an economic point of view you might not like the ideology that the EU is trying to foist on you but there's no question that economically Hungary benefits from the EU but at the same time Hungary is heavily dependent on Russia for energy resources heavily dependent and furthermore Hungary is located in the middle of Europe so if Russia and Western Europe are trading extensively there's a great deal of economic intercourse between Russia and Europe Hungary benefits greatly because it's right in the middle so all this economic intercourse is really good well if you look at what's happening today it looks like there's going to be hardly any economic intercourse next year the year after five years from now this is not in hungary's interest furthermore oil and gas adjusting to the cut off of Russian oil and gas especially since it's cheap it's going to cause all sorts of problems so you see that not only militarily but economically the hungarians have a deep-seated interest in playing both sides of the fence for for good reasons here and then ideologically right the hungarians I think as best I can tell have mixed feelings about which side is the good side here even because if you look at the EU and you look at Western Europe and the profound importance the EU places on liberal values and the conflicts that has caused with Hungary the hungarians can't help but have mixed emotions about their dealings with the European Union and the West more generally especially the United States because you know that the United States is a thoroughly liberal country that is interested in exporting its foreign policy no matter what the hungarians think yet there are certain values Western values that the hungarians cherish and therefore their ties with the West are very important so I would argue the hungarians are kind of schizophrenic about the West right and with regard to the Russians right there's certain aspects of Russ Russia the authoritarian nature of the political system just the history of Russian Hungarian relations that makes Russia somewhat suspect but on the other hand uh the the antagonism towards liberalism the hostility the dislike maybe that's the best word the dislike of liberalism in Russia is shared by many hungarians and and therefore you have a certain ambivalence towards Russia that looks somewhat like the ambivalence towards the West I think there's no question if Hungary was forced to choose between the two it would side with the West over the Russians but nevertheless I think it's quite clear that Hungary has really tried to straddle the fence on the ideological Dimension as well as the economic Dimension as well as the military Dimension and by the way if you contrast Hungary with Poland the difference looks like night and day the polls have a completely different view of Russia versus the United States than the hungarians do and the argument I would make is that up to this point the hungarians have done a good job of managing relations with the west and with the Russians given their basic aims not done a perfect job but hardly anybody ever does a perfect job in international relations I think all con All Things Considered uh the hungarians have done a good job of managing uh their economic military and ideological relations with these two great Powers now the real problem is the dangers moving forward I think the situation is going to get much worse first of all there's the danger of escalation here uh I I think that uh if you if if the West is successful right the West is successful and we push the Russians back in Ukraine the ukrainians who were arming training and helping on the battlefield I if the ukrainians succeed in push in the Russians out of Ukraine and the sanctions begin to bite I I think the Russians will escalate and I think there's a good chance that they would use nuclear weapons furthermore I think there's a reasonable chance that NATO will get involved in a war in Ukraine the Americans have said that they have no intention of fighting in Ukraine but we are doing everything but pulling the trigger and pushing the button to launch the bombs in uh in Ukraine it's amazing how deeply involved we are we are deeply committed I'm talking more about the Americans than the Europeans but even NATO to the point where if the Russians succeed if the Russians succeed then the Temptation for us the West especially the United States to enter the war will be very great Biden will be under tremendous pressure to go in and help rescue the ukrainians so you can see the potential for escalation and you know all know that averil Haynes the woman who is the director of National Intelligence in the United States right she says that the most likely scenario for the Russians to use nuclear weapons would be if the Americans or NATO comes into the fight because the Russians are not going to be able to stand up to us right you all know as I said before the Russians can barely handle the ukrainians in the donbass right the Russian military is no match for the United States no match for NATO and what ail hay was saying is that's the circumstance under which the Russians will be desperate and you all understand the Russians believe they're facing an existential threat just very important that you understand this they believe that they're facing an existential threat they thought Ukraine and NATO was an existential threat well now we're talking about a situation where you're not only being threatened by Ukraine becoming part of NATO becoming a member of NATO you're also threatened by the fact that the United States is talking about defeating you on your doorstep and if the American Military is to come into the fight and the American Military is fighting on Ukrainian territory right next door to Russia this is an existential threat this is where States use nuclear weapons right and and we're not that far away from that point so the threat of escalation is very great let's assume that doesn't happen let's hope that doesn't happen right that the United States does not get involved NATO does not get involved let's hope nuclear weapons are not used but what's the alternative then it's a stalemate that's the alternative a stalemate that goes on and on and on this is going to have significant negative consequences for Europe and for Hungary right uh you if you talk about individual countries right the economic costs of this war to individual countries in Europe are already profound and it's almost impossible to find anybody who says the Situation's going to improve markedly next year or the year after we're staring many years of bad economic news in the face because of what's Happening Here and as you all know those economic consequences are going to have political consequences you can already see that happening right so there's going to be economic turmoil and political turmoil if you have a stalemate if the present situation continues on and on and you don't have escalation a and the problem here is not only the effect on individual countries like Hungary there's also the effect on the institutions like NATO and the EU I think you can already see cracks you can already see fissures in these alliances just think about the poles on one hand and the hungarians on the other think about the poles and the Germans think about the Germans and the French people think about what's happening in Ukraine countries think about what's happening in Ukraine in different ways and as the economic and political costs continue to ratchet up I think I think you're going to see fissures in those institutions and this is going to have very negative consequences for Europe as a whole and for Hungary uh in particular uh so the point I'm making to you is that I think things have worked out quite well up to now given the circumstances right and again I think the hungarians more than any other country in Europe wanted to avoid this war for Good Reasons from hungary's point of view they wanted to avoid the war it was unavoidable because the Americans were driving the train but given what's happened over the past U year I think the hungarians have done a good job managing the situation uh I'm not very sanguin about the future uh just because I think this is such a volatile situation now the last set of comments I want to make about Hungary have to do with China right uh as I said in when I first started talking about Hungary there's no question that Hungary is a European great power and what's happening with regard to Russia and the United States or Russia and nato in Ukraine matters the most to you but nevertheless China matters to you as well remember what I said about American policy toward China it has two Dimensions one is the military Dimension that's the balancing Coalition that we're building and then second there's the economic Dimension and the military Dimension does not matter to Hungary because Hungary thankfully from your point of view is not going to be part of the balancing Coalition against China that's going to involve Asian countries Australia India Japan South Korea the Philippines so forth and so on and of course the United States but where Europe is going to matter is on the economic front and what the Americans are going to want is they're going to want you not to have significant economic relations with China they're especially concerned about the Germans you know the German Chancellor just went to Beijing took a bunch of business people with him this and the Americans because again you have to understand what the Americans are up to here the the Americans are interested in rolling back the Chinese economy especially when it comes to high-end Technologies European countries in my opinion over time are going to have a deep-seated interest in having extensive economic relations with China one reason for that's an obvious one from my talk Russia you have depended in the past very heavily on economic intercourse with Russia all that economic intercourse between Europe and Russia has been wonderful for Hungarian Prosperity well it's coming to an end in all likelihood it's not going to start up again for a long long time so Europeans are going to be looking for an alternative trading partner the German chancell understands full well he's got to get to China and he's got to talk about cutting deals right otherwise the German economy is really going to go down the toilet bowl right you you understand here and and this is you understand this is going to enrage the Americans most of you are not old enough to remember this but in the Cold War when the Germans decided Midway through the cold war that they were going to trade with the Soviet Union just drove the American Stark raving crazy right because we wanted to strangle the Soviet economy right we were interested in winning the Cold War we don't tolerate peer competitors so if you get a situation where Hungary right trades extensively with China or is involved economically with China and you and actually you see that Hungary has had reasonably if not very good relations on an economic level with China in recent years you were the first country in Europe if my memory is correct to sign on to the belt and Road initiative smart from hungary's point of view don't misund understand me you've been involved with 5G you've been involved with Huawei this makes sense from your point of view you just want to understand from the American point of view this is going to be in all likelihood a no no and there's going to be a lot of pressure brought to bear on you the hungarians on the Germans and All European countries that want to trade with China and help their economy grow not the Chinese economy but help the hung their economy the Hungarian economy grow but of course that's going to help the Chinese economy grow and that will be uh not something the Americans like so what's my bottom line here my bottom line is the unipolar moment which is a time that most of you grew up in was really a wonderful time uh such a great improvement over the Cold War for hungarians it's is wonderful but it's gone away and we actually live in very dangerous times right as I said to you before we now live in a world where there are two major conflict diads there was only one in the Cold War uh we're very close to where the United States and Russia could end up shooting at each other we were never this close in the Cold War maybe the Cuban Missile Crisis uh I mean we are in a very dangerous situation ation in Ukraine and and I I know a lot of people who would agree to that and say the Situation's even more dangerous uh in uh East Asia especially because of Taiwan this is a very dangerous world and the Hungarian governments Hungarian forign policy Elites I think have done a very good job of negotiating these Troubled Waters in recent years but I think moving forward it's going to be a very difficult task to avoid serious trouble for Hungary and for all the other countries in Europe uh and for the United States as well thank [Applause] you you I gladly take questions as long as people want [Applause] uh what sir thank you very much for your presentation just following up on your uh on your uh summary at the end do you foresee a scenario in the word where uh the west and the East will be completely separated economically technologically there will be very very limited uh trade like as during the Cold War era tell me what you mean by the West in the East I mean I mean you know the the West mostly driven by the US and the East uh by led by China I had a a previous question to that uh but partly maybe your uh presentation answered that that was if the US considers China as a peer competitor wouldn't uh wouldn't it made sense for the us to have a strong Ally in form of Europe and not uh like weaken them against the Russia conflict when China is the real pure competitor but now I kind of felt like you were saying okay okay okay good uh I should have understood your question to begin with uh let me start by saying that if you're the United States of America and you're in a multipolar world and China is a peer competitor and a potential Regional hedgemon and Russia is a weak great power it's in your interest to have Russia as an ally okay and what the United States should be doing is it should be minimizing the forces that it has in Europe and forming an alliance with Russia so that Russia is part of the balancing Coalition against China that's what we should have done but instead what has happened is we have picked a fight with the Russians the Russians are now a mortal enemy and we have pushed the Russians into the arms of the Chinese and we have gotten more deeply involved evolved militarily in Europe than was the case during the unipolar moment this is at a time when we should be pivoting to Asia you know all the emphasis the Americans put on pivoting to Asia it's very hard to Pivot to Asia when you're increasing your commitment in Europe so we're increasing our commitment in Europe and we've driven the Russians into the arms of the Chinese this gets to your question I think that What's Happening Here is we are for the foreseeable future moving to a world where you have the Russians and the Chinese on one side the Iranians and the North Koreans as others and others as well right and then on the other side you have the Americans the West Europeans the Japanese the South Koreans and the Australians the so-called West so I I think you are getting I I wouldn't have thought to call it an East West divide but that's a good term you are getting something of an East West divide here and remember what we were talking about with regarding to economic intercourse in Europe it looks like Russian European economic intercourse is going to dry up in large part in the years ahead it's already happening uh which would just reinforce the point point that I'm making so I think yeah this is what's happening and I think from an American point of view it's not in our interest because again it would be in our interest to have an alliance with the Russians by the way just look at the Iranians the Americans have this thing about Iran where we constantly right talk about how evil the Iranians are we're will unwilling to you know reach any form of meaningful agreement with them and so forth and so on and what we've in effect done with the Iranians is driven them into the army of the Russians the Russians are getting all sorts of drones and ballistic missiles from the Iranians that are invaluable in their war in Ukraine and that's because the Iranians have a vested interest in uh in working with the Russians because the Americans have their gun sights on Iran I don't think that's smart either you good evening my name is D andash and I serve at The Institute of strategic studies here at ludovika the National University of Public Service I'd like to ask a question regarding the vagad cooperation that is czechia Poland slov iaka and Hungary you highlighted the importance of economics and population together these four countries are the third largest in the European Union with 68 million people with the fifth largest economy in the European Union on the world stage we're the 12th largest economy so in our place what is your playbook to us so that we can become the regional hegemon of Europe as the vishad group K thank you well the the problem that that argument faces is that we live in a world where the most powerful political ideology is nationalism and that means that we live in a world that's populated by Nations states that care greatly about their sovereignty and they're willing to form institutions and they're willing to follow the rules that those institutions come up with but they are not willing to surrender their sovereignty this should be music to the ears of a Hungarian audience but just think about brexit brexit tells you that the British even though they joined the European Union remained a sovereign state because they had the ability they had the authority right to pull out of the European Union if they thought that was the right thing to do Hungary could pull out of the European Union what this tells you is that clusters of State can form institutions but they can't create a new nation state just think about Europe people will often say to me you know you got the United States here Europe there and Russia here I say what's Europe Europe's not a state it's a collection of States I want to know what are the Germans think what do the French think and so forth and so on Europe's not a state right so you can take take a bunch of relatively small countries in Central Europe and you can form a you could form a military Alliance or you could form you know an economic institution that was very powerful as well a mini EU a mini NATO what have you but you still would not be creating a state and a hamod is a state states are WI matter in international politics again nationalism nationalism is the most powerful political ideology on the planet and the concept of a nation state in is the embodiment of nationalism right so the fact of the matter is that for the foreseeable future I believe almost forever right Europe is going to be comprised of a series of states the CTIC characters may change over time but it's going to be dominated by States and Europe uh as a single entity is never gonna happen and by the way you you know my theory because I've laid it out for you now my theory says that if Europe the EU were to become a nation state it would be a regional hedgemon right it would be a regional hedgemon the United States would go to enormous lengths to wreck that nation state you understand the United the United States has talked about this the United States does not want a United Europe a Europe that is a powerful single state because it would be a threat to us hello uh I wanted to ask you about uh the option of nuclear escalation again in terms of the scenario where we presume that American boots are on Ukrainian soil so you argued that as that option would be seen by Russia as an existential threat they it's it's a potential uh for uh the usage of nuclear weapons but I would presume that in a Russian nuclear nuclear strike in which there are American casualties um that that scenario would weant a similar response so is it wrong to presume that maybe mutually assured destruction is a strong enough Force to um prevent the usage of nuclear weapons even in such a radical situation like say if as long as Russia's territorial uh Integrity is not directly threatened yeah another great question uh let me just say a few words about nuclear use the different scenarios the most likely scenario at this point in time where Russia uses nuclear weapons would be in Ukraine if Russia is losing the war in Ukraine it would be tempted at least powerfully tempted to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine against Ukrainian forces and Ukrainian targets so in that case the United States would not be involved NATO would not be involved and we would therefore not have to retaliate this is one of the reasons that I'm very nervous that the Russians may use nuclear weapons if they're using if they're losing in Ukraine because if they're losing in Ukraine they can use nuclear weapons inside Ukraine with a low risk that the Americans will hit them with nuclear weapons okay so that's one possibility now the other possibility is that if the Russians uh uh if the Americans get involved in the war that NATO gets involved in the war the Russians are likely to use nuclear weapons this is what averil Haynes the Director of National Intelligence said and I think she's correct so the Americans get involved now this is where your logic kicks in right so the Americans come in it's a conventional war against the Russians it's a conventional War and my argument was the Russians would use nuclear weapons I'm following in the footsteps of averil haes likely to use nuclear weapons that's the scenario your question is is the threat of mutual assured destruction which is certainly there you're absolutely right it's sitting in the background both sides appropo this gentleman's question both sides have the ability to turn the other side into a smoking radiating ruin okay that's mad Mutual assured destruction does that mean this is his question does that mean the Russians won't use nukes because they don't want to get incinerated of course they don't want to get incinerated but the way around that and this is this was NATO policy during the Cold War is you launch a small number of nuclear weapons against the other side and you make it clear you're now out on the slippery slope to Oblivion this is what Thomas shelling called the manipulation of risk you all understand just to go back to the Cold War I'm NATO The warsa Pact is coming into West Germany NATO's forces collapse okay NATO has said this is Article Five of the NATO treaty that we will then countenance using nuclear weapons and we had thousands of nuclear weapons in Europe in Germany to we would use those nuclear weapons against the warsa PCT how did we think about using them we thought about a limited use of nuclear weapons because we wanted to avoid Mutual assured destruction and what we do is we launch a handful of nuclear weapons reminding the Russians excuse me the Soviets during the Cold War that in the background is that mad capability and if this one spins out of control we're all going to get incinerated so our belief was a handful of nuclear weapons you know manipulating risk would convince the Soviets to pull back whoa the Americans are deadly serious here right now a lot of people said we would never use nuclear weapons if even if the Soviets were overrunning Germany because we the Americans and even the Europeans we don't want to get incinerated and that's the implication of your question maybe the Russians contrary to what John says won't use nuclear weapons if the Americans get involved because even if they use them in a limited way there is the danger it'll spin out of control and we all be vaporized right so we won't use them and in this story The Russians won't use them either the question is who knows do you know what I'm saying who knows what the Russians will do they clearly believe they face an existential threat who knows what we would have done during the Cold War if the Soviets or the warsa paa was overrunning West Germany just very hard to say that's what makes the situation so dangerous but again the two points I'm making to you is you want to remember the first scenario is that the Russians use nuclear weapons inside Ukraine and there the threat of mad is Tiny the second scenario is the Americans get involved Russians use nukes against the Americans but they do it in a very limited fashion thinking they can avoid mad but use mad to convince the Americans and NATO to back off that's how I think about nukes hello hi so I really have a interesting question as to in your holy spe you were talking about this uh mobile um let's say mo mobile polarity in our in our International Society so the question goes as follows so we are living in a world in which um according to the West the West the Western uh hemisphere in the western perspective you you mentioned that there's this competition among like us and the US and Russia but in the differentiation of the US with China so I would like to ask from a western perspective would it be wise to consider that China and Russia could form a natural Alliance or should should we consider uh Russia and China as a un unified threat to the to to Western Western Security that that would be my question and and the argument I would use to to pull up this question would be that okay but okay that that's my question it would be wise to count uh Russia and China as a natural Alliance my experience going to Moscow before the Ukraine crisis blew up was that the Russians could not understand why the United States was picking a fight with Russia when it made eminently good sense for the United States and Russia to be Allied the Russian perspective was that historically China and Russia had been mortal enemies on a number of occasions when I was young back in 1969 they fought a series of battles uh uh out in the Siberia area and uh there are all sorts of potential disputes between the Chinese and the Russians and Russians you know in recent years have said to me we are your natural allies we are not a threat to take over Europe and why aren't you forming an alliance so I think if you talk about a natural Alliance in my opinion the natural Alliance was the United States and Russia against China I will just point out to you that I had a number of Russian friends very smart young Russian strategists actually who said to me John you think about us Russian relations in a binary fashion which is wrongheaded I used to talk about whether Russia should be allied with the United States or Russia should be allied with China and that's what I've done here tonight just for simplicity's purposes but their argument was these were young Russian strategists their argument was that the ideal strategy for Russia was to sit on the fence and not get involved either with the Chinese or with the United States and in a very important way that's sort of what I was describing as the Hungarian approach to dealing with the United States in the west and Russia on the other hand trying to play both sides of Defense these young Russian strategists very smart said to me that this was the way that Russia should play its hand not get too closely involved with the United States and I had to admit that I hadn't even thought of that and I think that they were right but uh the end result is that we're not going uh we're not going there we've now pushed the Russians into the arms of the Chinese no yeah yeah continue I'm fine thank you my name is miklos kach uh you are together with other realist are very respected but nevertheless a minority of the international relationship establishment let's say do you see any chance that your view became dominant in uh your view realism in international Politics as a school comprise minority within the so my question is you you see any chance that you or you became dominant there is no question that realism is a deeply hated theory of international relations in the United States it's very very tough to be a realist in in the United States uh I've told a number of people here that uh when I go to China uh that I feel like I am among my people I've told some people that when I start my talks in China I say it's good to be among my people now I want you to understand I do not speak a word of Chinese I feel like I am really in a foreign culture when I go to China and it's one of the few times when I am conscious of the fact that I'm an American most of the time I come to Hungary I don't think of myself you know in nationalistic terms I don't think of myself as an American right part of the West that sort of thing when I go to China I feel very much like I am in a foreign culture but intellectually intellectually I'm at home in China much more so that I am when I go to Washington DC uh certainly when I'm on University campuses because the Chinese are realists to the core right this is true of the Russians as well you go to Moscow you talk to the Russians go to Iran I was in Iran in 2018 uh the these countries are filled at the top with people who are realists and even in the universities this is not true in the United States now take this a step further during the unipolar moment remember what I said about the unipolar moment there was only one great power by definition and I said you therefore cannot have great power politics so it was really easy to dismiss realism during the unipolar moment and the end result is that you got liberal hegemony this is what my book is all about the book that has been translated by these folks here by aella right the book is all about liberal hgy during the unipolar moment the problem is from the liberal perspective we're now in a multipolar world great power politics is alive and well and there's no way the United States can avoid behaving like a realist great power realism is back and I want to give you one example to highlight that but before I do you still never want to lose sight of the fact that even though the United States will act like a realist great power it will put a velvet glove of liberalism over its realist fist to make it look like we're not really behaving in realist fashion but we will but here's the example I want to give Joseph Biden was the vice president of the United States uh under Barack Obama this was during the unipolar moment and during the unipolar moment we pursued a policy of Engagement with China I referenced this in my talk we foolishly helped turn China into a great power we foolishly helped turn China into a peer competitor every single Administration Republican and Democratic from basically 1989 up until 2017 participated in that Enterprise Republicans and Democrats alike Joseph Biden as vice president was a huge proponent of Engagement which is a thoroughly liberal policy okay Donald Trump comes into office as I say in the book Donald Trump explicitly ran against liberal hegemony furthermore he moved into the White House when the world was turning multipolar and therefore Trump approached China in a realist fashion there's no question about that he abandon engagement he explicitly abandoned engagement this liberal policy and he adopted a realist approach toward China okay then Trump is defeated in 2020 and who becomes President Joe Biden he has a track record engagement the question you have to ask yourself is when Biden becomes president does Biden go back to engagement liberal policy or does he follow in the footsteps of Donald Trump and even toughen up our balance of power approach to dealing with China the answer as you surely know is that Joe Biden does not go back to engagement and one can easily argue that Joe Biden has been tougher on the Chinese than Donald Trump was so Trump was clearly the guy who flipped the policy from engagement to real politique but Joe Biden is following in his footsteps but nevertheless if you listen to the Americans talk about the competition between the United States and China they don't describe it in balance of power terms they don't describe it in the terms that you heard me describe it in here in my lecture they describe it as an ideological fight between authoritarian regimes and liberal regimes right It Go goes back to that gentleman's question in the rear before about the East West divide we in the west especially in the United States Define it in Liberal terms we have this very manichan view of the conflict they're the good guys liberal Democrats they're the bad guys authoritarian States and we're involved in this deep seated ideological struggle but I would argue that this is crazy China was a communist state when we were playing kissy face with it when we were involved in engagement China's China's political system is not changed what changed was the balance of power but anyway uh that's an excellent question okay uh thank you so thank you so much for the great lecture tonight um your thoughts really made me wonder about Europe and actually I was wondering in the great polit uh in the power of sorry in the politics of the great Powers how do you see the role of Europe are we actually an ally to save let's say politically and economically in econom economically or are we actually just a collateral damage um let's say in the eyes of the US thank you well is as I said before um I mean I think you can talk about Europe you know you can talk about Western Europe Central Europe Eastern Europe you can use these terms but it's important to understand always that they are collections of States uh as I said before nationalism is the most powerful political ideology on the planet and it guarantees that the nation state is alive and well over the years this goes back to when I was a graduate student back when dinosaurs roam the Earth right people talk about the withering away of the State uh the state's going going to wither away and um we're going to live in a world of no States this is not going to happen right states are here to stay and when you talk about Europe you're talking about a collection of different kinds of States just think about Hungary and Poland just think about Hungary and the extent to which Hungary is different in terms of thinking on having to deal with Russia today compared to most other European States there's just a lot of differences uh between the hungarians and other states the hungarians and the poles think about how the French reacted to uh the German Chancellor going to Beijing the French were irate uh so you have all these different states and therefore I always find it very difficult uh to talk about a concept like Europe uh as if it were a nation state and then just to take this a step further and build on some earlier Co comments that I also made in the Q&A I actually think uh I actually think nationalism is going to go up all across Europe you know Hungary and Poland have been anomalies in Europe in recent years the you know if you in the United States you talk about what countries in Europe uh uh have seen uh uh nationalism flourish people will automatically say they're two countries Poland and uh uh and Hungary uh I I believe that nationalism is going to flourish in many more European States and this is over time in large part because of the Russia Ukraine war and I believe uh the end result of that is these these institutions uh like the European Union and NATO which allows someone like you to talk about Europe right when you know Europe means the EU for lots of people uh I think it's just going to be tougher to do that uh with the passage of time um and uh I mean I could be wrong on that as I said uh earlier if I am wrong and Europe is United and there is this thing called the European nation state the Americans will put their gun sites on that European State because we don't we don't tolerate peer competitors just very important to understand that now liberals would argue that's wrong by the way liberals would say that democracies don't fight fight other democracies democracies don't engage in security competition okay this is the argument therefore a United States of Europe would certainly be a liberal democracy and the United States is a liberal democracy and we can live happily ever after that's the liberal view you all understand just to go back to China here's here was the basis of Engagement okay when we were feeding the Beast and China was getting more and more powerful and I was saying this is crazy people would say engagement is going to work and this is how engagement works we integrate China into the world economy and we make China Rich we make it prosperous which of course we did number two we integrated into International institutions like the WTO right the IMF the World Bank we make it we make it this was Robert zelich's words these were Robert zelich's words we make it a responsible stakeholder think about those words a responsible stakeholder you make it a law abiding or a rule abiding state by integrating it into institutions right so it's prosperous it's a rule abiding State and then what will happen is China will turn into a liberal democracy right because when you become prosperous you become rich and you're surrounded with all these other rich countries in these institutions you democratize and once China democratizes will live happily ever after that that's the liberal Theory of international politics known as Democratic peace Theory my view as you would expect is first of all you can't be sure that they'll democratize second even if they democratize you can't be sure that they won't backslide and third even if they democratize and stay Democratic you can't know their intentions and therefore you do not want to take a chance but you just couldn't make that argument because getting back to your question this gentleman in the front here liberalism was such a powerful ideology during the unipar moment this again is the subject of my book that those were really tough times for someone like me to get up before an audience like you and make a realist argument because people thought the world had changed you've all read Frank fukiyama is very famous piece uh for those of you the younger people in the crowd if you haven't read Frank fukiyama is very famous piece the end of History uh which was published in 1989 in the National interest you should really read it and read it carefully uh it's it's it's an article I think it's the most important article that has ever been written in the United States uh in terms of influencing foreign policy and in influencing how the American foreign policy Elite uh thinks I believed at the time that it was remarkably foolish a remarkably foolish argument and that it would be proved wrong and I do believe it has been proved wrong but it's an argument that says we the United States played the principal role in defeating fascism in the first half of the 20th century and then in the second half of the 20th century we played the principal role defeating communism and now the only viable political system that was left was liberal democracy and in fact what was going to happen with the passage of time was that the entire planet would end up being comprised of liberal democracies liberal democracy was the wave of the future in a way what Frank was saying in this famous piece is that the American have the wind at their back history is on our side even though he was talking about the end of History right we have the wind in our back and Frank said that once the planet is populated with nothing but liberal democracies there'll be no war there'll be no conflict of any consequence and he says explicitly in the peace that the biggest problem that we will face is boredom just think about that and this line of argument is what underpinned engagement the idea was that if you engage with China right the end result would be that China would become a liberal democracy and again we'd live happily ever after NATO expansion most of you young people in the audience probably don't appreciate this but NATO expansion up until 2014 was not aimed at containing Russia it was designed to spread the liberal political order and economic order that had been established in Western Europe during the Cold War into Eastern Europe This is why Vladimir Putin was invited to the April 2008 Bucharest NATO Summit NATO expansion into Ukraine was not designed to contain Vladimir Putin I told you he was viewed as remarkably weak Russia was viewed as remarkably and weak and we were trying to push NATO expansion down the Russians throat right so what we were doing was it was liberal hgy we wanted to we wanted the hungarians to join NATO and to join the EU do because you would then be joining institutions and you would become rule abiding citizens furthermore if the you joined the EU you got integrated into Western Europe you'd become prosperous and you did become prosperous and furthermore we wanted to make sure you became a liberal democracy many hungarians of course complain bitterly about the fact that the Americans and the West more generally are trying to push liberalism on them yes but that was part of the strategy right liberal democracy in Hungary prosperous Hungary Hungary that's embedded in institutions this is what we wanted to do with Ukraine it's what we wanted to do with Poland right and the idea was once we did that we'd all live happily ever after the real the real monkey wrench in the office operation with the Russians right and we didn't think the Russians mattered that much the Bush Doctrine in the Middle East the Bush Doctrine was designed to turn the Middle East into a sea of democracies when we invaded Iraq we thought that Iraq was not the last stop on the train line we thought we'd have to do Syria maybe Iran but eventually everybody would see how powerful we are throw their hands up surrender and the Middle East would democratize Frank fukiyama told us that what was happen that was going to happen fascism was dead communism was dead authoritarian governments nah we're talking about liberal democracy Here There and Everywhere and this is the road that we went down and it it was it was a disaster right NATO expansion led to the war in Ukraine in my opinion as I laid it out here the wars in the Middle East for foster democracy they worked out really really well Afghanistan Iraq Syria Libya geez the amount of murder and mayam that we helped create in the Middle East and China we created a pure competitor right this was liberal hemony but the point I made is that that's in the rearview mirror now rhetorically it's not because that's the velvet glove you want to remember the Americans will continue to talk like liberals and act like realists because we're playing hard ball now because we have two great power adversaries and we're in a very dangerous situation thank you joh we wouldn't like abuse your time so thank you for answering the question and [Applause] [Music]