Welcome to Keith knight. Don't tread on anyone, any
libertarian institute. Today I am joined by Joe Salas
Mullins. He is an independent researcher
and journalist who's worked can be found at the Ludwig von Mises
Institute, the Libertarian Institute, the Eurasian Review,
Journal of American Revolution, antiwar.com and the Journal of
Libertarian Studies. Mr Mullen, thank you so much for
your time. Thanks so much for having me,
Keith. It's a pleasure to be here one
of the big military. Buildups in the world and one of
the huge provocations going on is a potential dispute between
China and Taiwan. I wanted to get you on to talk
about this because you wrote such an excellent article
conveying the importance of this issue.
I want to start with when was the last time China invaded a
sovereign nation? Well, that that depends on who
you ask, the Indians would say quite recently.
For example so I I don't think it's it's a strictly black and
white question. They have fought they invaded
Vietnam for example back in 78 as part of kind of an inter
party struggle there is kind of complicated but anyway so so
they have they have fought wars within living memory but.
Apart from the aggressive moves, certainly from the Indian
perspective, I'll make clear what I'm talking about here.
In case people aren't familiar, there have been some border
clashes over the last couple of years between Indian and Chinese
service people. And a couple of years ago it
actually turned into a bloody melee.
Like hundreds of guys got killed getting beaten to death with
like sticks with nails and rocks and stuff.
I mean, it's just horrifying stuff.
And it really marked a kind of a worsening of relations there
between between the two. Countries but yeah so I don't
know it's complicated the they are they are aggressive they
they certainly assert their prerogatives within their their
what they see as their their sphere so you know they
obviously you know from the Philippines perspective violated
their territorial waters seized you know the Scarborough Shoals
you know back about 10 years ago.
So it depends on who you ask and and what counts so.
If China invades Taiwan, America has an obligation to protect the
victim from the aggressor. How do you respond to that
logic? I I don't know what to what to
say to an assertion like that. I I don't know why there's an
assumption of moral responsibility on on us to do
that if you're referring to sort of the.
The legal commitments that we've taken on, I would say that it
doesn't obligate us to militarily intervene.
What was agreed upon on paper back in 78 was that the United
States would be able to supply Taiwan with the means of its own
self-defense. Umm.
So, so I I would, I would not engage on on those terms that we
apriori have an obligation to do that.
Yes or no. I would say there are certain
legal obligations that we've undertaken and which I think
should be put under a closer microscope given how how as you
said there's been an intense military build up there.
I think we need to ask the question again now this is not
1997, this is not 1957. If Beijing were to try to
blockade Taiwan. Resupplying them would
necessitate sending. Ships.
To penetrate the blockade in like a reverse Cuban missile
crisis type situation, is this something that we would like to
do? I think that needs to be an
actual national debate instead of simply being thrown together
in a package. You know, like the the New
Taiwan Relations Act, the Taiwan Defense Act, which is basically
just giving whoever's in the White House a blank check.
I mean, this is World War One type stuff here.
Just writing a blank check and and pushing the chips forward.
When really the status quo can endure.
The status quo can endure if both, if all three sides are
willing to. Issue escalatory actions, which
so far no one's really been willing to do so.
So Taiwan is one of the major producers in the world of
microchips, which the world economy relies on.
We must protect the world by protecting Taiwan.
Therefore, we should go in and defend whether we previously
have made obligations. We now need to commit to
defending them to disincentivize China from invading and
destroying the world's economy. Well, first I would say if.
If. China tried to invade Taiwan.
If that were to happen, I would say the world economy would
already be. Pretty pretty irreparably
damaged in in the near to medium term, microchips
notwithstanding. It would be that that
disruptive, this would not be Russia.
Russia is a big, you know, raw materials provider.
That's true. But there are a lot of
alternative sources of raw materials, the, the, the value,
the the supply chains, the production lines that China is
involved into to see a serious rupture in that.
That would mean like a stop of of global trade.
I mean it's, it's, it would be the two largest economies by
far, not on speaking terms, it's just so.
Yeah. The microchips, sure.
Yes, Taiwan is a big source for those.
There are other countries that also make those, including the
United States. OK.
So microchips alone, I I think that can be a consideration if
you want it to be a consideration.
But I also think when you realistically look at the
numbers that we're talking about here like there are choices,
South Korea. The UK, the United States, the
Dutch, like they they all have high grade semiconductor
manufacturing capabilities and they're they're spending many
billions of dollars to build more.
Why are we spending this money to build more if if the real?
Really if we if we really need to defend Taiwan, like why are
we building all these alternative sources of of
microchip which which already publications that are very
mainstream like The Economist and Wall Street Journal are
speculating is going to lead to a a semiconductor glut similar
to like the the fiber the fiber optic cable glut that bankrupted
firms back in the late 90s early 2000s because you have the
government distorting the market so much with all of its dollars.
So but we'll see that's speculative.
China is the fastest growing economy in the world.
They must face resistance or they will take over.
They have been the fastest growing economy.
Over the last 20 years. That's true.
Going back 30 years, even again true, a lot of that was catchup
growth. This was early industrialization
growth. We were talking about going from
like peasant agriculture to like large, the biggest scale
industrialization you've ever seen that the world has ever
seen. So there was always going to be
huge productivity gains from that.
Also you had one off productivity gains like the No
child policy, which basically gave you, you know, a half a
million or 500 million people who had like basically no kids
to look after and to just. Worked their butts off.
So you had all sorts of favorable things working in
their advantage during those, I would say 25 years starting
around 2012. When you actually look at the
statistics, you find that since that time, which is actually
since she took power, total photo, total factor productivity
has actually declined and so has GDP growth each year to the
point that just before COVID hit.
It was growing at 6%. 6% is like, yeah, that's very good.
You know, in the United States we're like, wow, 3% would be
great. But seriously for a developed
for a developing economy, 6% is nothing to.
To like, whoa, Oh my gosh, like Saudi Arabia is gonna be 10%
this year, you know? So I think keeping it in
perspective like China's economy is naturally slowing.
I mean, there's a lot. I mean there's a lot of good
literature that suggests it's already peaked.
They're like we are barring some incredible new unforeseen
breakthrough that China alone makes and that transforms its
productivity power. Yeah, the community, I think
there's a very strong chance that they'll get stuck in the
middle income trap and then you have their population collapse
coming. So no, I I don't think any
reason to worry. Actually the Wall Street
Journal, which has been super alarmist about China for years,
actually did a front page story. Uh, two weeks ago now, where
they cited this new study saying that actually the more numbers
we get, we actually don't think China's economy is ever going to
surpass the United States, not even for a brief interval.
Things have changed that much over the last 30 years, you
know, so. I I don't worry about that.
I really don't. You're asking me essentially, do
I wanna bet on an essentially free market system or do I wanna
bet on a centralized state controlled system?
I'm always going to bet on the former.
We've seen this experiment run several Times Now.
There's really, in my mind, no reason to doubt at this point.
And the major examples would be north or South Korea E 1st West
Germany. What are some other empirical
examples that tell us that if we embrace free markets, we will be
the wealthiest country on the planet?
Oh, I would. I would absolutely point to the
Cold War, the Cold War block system too.
Just looking at how much richer the Western bloc was than the
Eastern bloc, that's one of the things that really freaked out
early China Hawks was it looked like China was actually going to
be able to compete long term over the 21st century with the
United States and maybe even surpass it, which is something
that the Soviet Union was never even close to doing.
They were always hopelessly overmatched economically by the
by the late 1960s, when it became clear that there was too
much bad investment building up, there wasn't enough creativity,
there weren't enough incentives to work.
I don't think it's a coincidence, frankly, that
you've seen China's numbers reversed since 2012 because she
was much more concerned with. Cementing his own control on
power, then risking further liberalizing reforms which had
led to the private sector, which contributed the overwhelming
amount of growth year on year to the Chinese GDP.
So he's cracked down on them. He's been going in, purging
people, you know, I mean that's, that's what he's concerned
about, his own power, not about the, you know, the Chinese
economy, you know, liberalizing to be the true colossus that it
really could be. I mean, at least in the short
term. At least one.
Sure. Ronald Coates wrote a book
called How China became capitalist.
His general thesis is that after Mao there was a large increase
in the private property ethic that was respected in China.
So if we have from one to zero, they moved drastically in the
direction of more private property and more free trade.
This is what gave them a significant increase in wealth.
Do you agree with that thesis in general?
Oh, in general, absolutely. They made tremendous, tremendous
reforms. Yeah, and there were some.
There were some fraught moments for the CCP, but they managed to
weather them. And uh, yeah, they transform.
They transform the society. And in many ways, yeah.
One of the great scams is talking about things and only
their potential upsides, where they basically have no downsides
at all. We should defend Ukraine this
way. Russia won't be in Ukraine
anymore. We should defend Taiwan.
This way there will be peace they never mention.
Well, let's look at the potential other side of this
equation. So with that in mind, what are
the potential downsides, costs, or unintended consequences to
defending places like Taiwan? Well, I I think, I think first
we just need to bring these things out into the open and to
rehash how we got here in in a in a in a way that I don't think
public discourse today can handle quite honestly.
It would really be something, though, to hear a couple of
presidential candidates have a back and forth about whether or
not this Cold War obligation. You know needs to be reexamined
and to look at how our actions since our apparent our supposed
reorientation of relations in 1978 when we recognize Beijing's
government as legitimate. What were the commitments that
we made? Have we been keeping those
commitments, having an honest talk with ourselves as a country
because it is a serious thing. The Taiwanese really don't seem
to want to be unified with the mainland and.
I can respect their wishes not to be looking at Hong Kong
especially. At the same time, the deal was
that everyone was going to work towards peaceful reunification.
Now, so far, Beijing hasn't actually done anything.
I mean, yes, they've done some some provocative things, but
they've not actually tried to even see some of the near the
the the islands that Taiwan claims as its own that are right
off China shore. Which realistically, it could do
with with no difficulty at all. I mean, these are, you know, a
few miles from China. They're just rocks.
So I really think we we need to do that because of course we
want people to be able to as libertarians, we want people to
be able to choose their own way, to embrace their own lives,
their own you know, cultural identity and and things like
that, and to as far as possible make their own decisions.
But I don't think we can do that blind to the wider context.
It's true that Taiwan has never officially been part of this
instantiation of China. It was a part of the late
Chinese imperial possessions, but it was lost to Japan.
I guess we don't need to go into the whole history, but suffice
to say Taiwan kind of feels like.
As time has gone on, they don't really like the agreement as it
was made and they've changed. We have to keep in mind at the
time they were a dictatorship. They hadn't democratized yet.
And so it's just, it's a different place now.
And I do, I do foresee trouble. I do foresee trouble because.
I feel like increasingly Washington is writing them a
blank check. I feel like Joe Biden's, you
know, quote UN quote, slip of the tongue.
It's not a slip of the tongue. You don't say something four
times and have it be a flip phone first.
The very first time I was willing to say, guys, it's Joe
Biden. Everybody's and China played
along too, which like, because you have to keep in mind they're
under pressure too. And this is what I mean by like
not doing escalatory things like Nancy Pelosi's visit and the
several visits that followed right after that is like.
This is a complicated situation and when we look at the World
War One literature, we find that the German imperial government
was very motivated by public opinion, feeling that like they
needed to go to war. In in the aftermath, the the
Chinese social media, they were whacking down the rabbits.
A lot of them that they were canceling were people who were
not pleased that she had not like tried to shoot down her
plane or something like that, that his response was not tough
enough. So like you have to keep in mind
that like she especially has built up this like very powerful
revanchist nationalism like it is is a pretty powerful
motivating force and he's he's he's.
He's painted very prosperous, impressive prospects of their
future. And when I look at the
situation, I don't see really any of them coming true, even if
the United States really isn't involved in trying to contain
China. I just think China's
geostrategic and economic and demographic situation is just so
bad that, like, this is as good as it's ever going to get.
And so this might be our moment of maximum danger, and so we
need to behave accordingly. In a long run race, there's no
question who's going to win. If it's a question of systems
competing, there's no question who's gonna win.
And we don't even need to be belligerent about it.
We just need to compete. China has so many internal
problems. It's, you know, it's going to
collapse eventually, in my opinion.
Independent of anything that we do.
As far as potential downsides go, could there be a nuclear
exchange or is that just completely unrealistic?
Ohh no. Of course there could be a
nuclear exchange 100%. I mean we are talking about
playing a game of chicken when game theoretically you know.
It's use them, it's use them first, right?
And we're talking about a situation where we are now.
It's, it's it's a little bit ambiguous.
The the status is a little ambiguous, but like this is
recognized as part of China. So like technically the United
States would be trespassing. Like according to the UN this,
according to the UN and according to official US
positions, we would be the ones intervening there.
So I mean I don't know that we would be able to count on the
rest of the world being on the United States side.
I would certainly not rule out a nuclear exchange.
You know, China has said that their nuclear weapons, the
reason that they're not willing to engage in nuclear weapons.
Talks jointly with the United States and Russia is because
China has so few. And that's because China, their
official policy is it's only for use if we are directly attacked.
Like the US and Russia are not kidding anyone like that they're
trying to gain first strike capability because they're just
both crazy and nuts. You know, China, it really from
what their capabilities suggest. I know they're starting to build
up now because they feel like maybe they need to because the
US and the Russians have failed so badly in their own arms
control talks that now we have a new arms race between the
Russians and the Americans. Now, you know, we talk about the
military build up there. You know, the Chinese are
feeling dragged into that and that's going to carry over into
potential conflict over Taiwan. I think one thing we have to
talk about is are we willing to lose, you know, a super carrier
battle group over this? And attempted intervention
because they have the missile capability now to potentially do
that, to make the waters surrounding Taiwan completely
unapproachable for hundreds of miles.
So are we willing to put 10s of thousands of American lives
immediately on the line? That's a question.
The nuclear question, that's also one, I don't think right
away it would lead to like everyone breaking out nuclear
weapons. I really don't.
But I do think if 10,000 Americans got blown up, I think
that there would be a. A clamor for for some kind of
response because that is just the way of the crowd and it's
not stop and reflect. Let's think about what might
happen. It's just knee jerk reaction.
I I got crushed because I think a couple of years ago I said I
thought the American people actually have learned a lot over
the last 20 years about the government and how they lie, try
to lie you into wars. And I've been forced to eat my
words a couple of times since then.
So I'm just not going to trust the public to be a restraining
impulse on their politicians. Who think the safest thing
naturally is to seem strong on any national security issue?
So that's that's the public, that's public policy dynamic
that we as advocates and as voters can can work to get
changed, you know, to not punish people for not being willing to
say something stupid and hawkish.
Pat Buchanan said that if the United States ever went to war
with Russia or China, there would absolutely have to be a
reenlistment of military conscription.
Do you agree with that? Not over, not over Taiwan, no.
I mean, they, they have this air sea battle all mapped out that
they're going to try, so. No, I I don't think so.
I mean, I get, I I don't think the US would engage in a land
war in Asia. I don't, I don't know how that
would work public. I don't think you could sell the
public on it. I don't know how how that would
even work strategically. Why you would even engage like
that. I again, I don't know why you
would ever want to any of these countries fighting each other.
I certainly will do everything I can to keep them from trying to
fight each other. If it happened, I I just don't
think. I don't know.
We have, we we definitely have a recruitment problem right now
that's been pretty public knowledge.
But you also have like kind of a broader sort of antipathy
towards something like that. Something like forced service.
Our our society today is just not the same one as our
depression era grandparents or great grandparents or parents.
Whoever's listening to this I I know from spending a lot of time
with with my grandparents who were actually depressing your
kids and my grandpa and all his brothers who got enlisted in
multiple. Conflicts called up, you know,
they had a different idea of of what they were doing and how it
all fit into the world and what you what you owed to society is
not it's not the same society today.
And the consequences for the types of things that we're
talking about are much bigger. You know, tactical nuclear
weapons used, for example. You know, we just have to keep
in mind these are these are different times and they're
different militaries too. Our military is very high tech.
It's not even clear that like a mass, you know, a mass drawing
effort would would really be beneficial.
Considering how our armed forces have been designed to fight so.
What do you say to the mindset that if the United States does
not call the shots in the world, make sure governments of of
smaller countries are adhering to U.S. policy, well then places
like China will fill that void. Therefore, we have to be
somewhat belligerent towards China so we don't become a
victims of their aggression. Well, China would never be
directly belligerent to us. Let's be clear.
Maybe we have a distant client state that they might try and
bully. But in terms of like actually
trying to bully the United States, they've never tried to
do that and they wouldn't try to do that.
They want nothing more than for the United States to just sit
back contentedly. The the Chinese say all the
time, you know, there's no risk of any accidental collision in
the Gulf of Mexico because we know that that's your space and
we steer well clear. And it's like, you know, that's
a sensible, that's a sensible policy to have.
They're not. Looking for antagonism.
When you look at the map, it's pretty clear who objectively
seems to be antagonizing whom. Just from just from an out, I
consider myself an outside perspective.
I am pro peace, so pro engagement, so.
Would China call the shots over where in Burkina Faso can you
point to Burkina Faso on a map? I'm pretty educated guy and I
can tell you right now I can't. I really can't.
I know China's up to their elbows there.
And you know what? I'm sure they have the reasons
for doing that. And I'm also sure that it really
doesn't affect the welfare of the of the American people or of
our national security. We have our own friends and I
think, frankly, we should do a better job if we're that
concerned about what goes on where, we should do a better job
building relationships in our own hemisphere because Americans
are pretty loathed. Generally, you look at who's
taking power in South America. They're not running on a pro
America. We love America, you know.
No, not that. Not even close.
We've messed up our relationships horribly in
Central and South America. And you know they they've been
looking at engaging with with China and and with Russia to
varying degrees but they're they're finding that there's a
lot of investment challenges down there.
China's investment in Brazil for example is probably already
peaked the last time they came down there they they weren't
really offering any doubt any any investment and it's because
the return on investment is is actually pretty low.
There are a lot of challenges the climate actually this is an
interesting fact the roads will will melt if you make them out
of like ordinary asphalt. You know, they'll bend, they'll
slide right away. I mean there's just, there's all
sorts of of topographical challenges to doing things down
there. And so in our court system, you
know, we don't, we take that for granted, but like our legal
system is relatively transparent and clean when it comes to like
property rights and that's not the case in a lot of places in
South America. So I think we could do a lot to
build relationships there and to make us all a lot richer, a lot
richer because countries like Brazil and Argentina, gosh,
Argentina could really. I don't wanna say I don't want
to sound patronizing because obviously our own economy is not
in great shape either, but like, you know.
Argentina looks like they could really use a hand.
You know, they're in like their 25th year of crisis now, you
know, kind of like leftist governments, like maybe some
outreach there to help the Argentinian people out, build
some goodwill there. That's an important country.
In our hemisphere, we should be worried less about what's going
on in places like, you know, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, you
know, Yemen like these are. I mean, the whole conflict in
Yemen is just outrageous and our partner is, is just criminal.
But you know, when I look at East Asia, I see a lot of very
powerful, very nationalistic, very industrialized countries
all around China. And China is going to have its
hands full dealing with countries like South Korea,
Japan, Vietnam. I told people a couple of years
ago Vietnam is totally gonna fly under the radar, but they're
just booming. Vietnam is gobbling up so much
of that low end manufacturing that used to go to China and
their economy is just crushing it.
Pick something up today. You find Vietnam on a lot more
stuff. Yeah, it's interesting.
So China's Indonesia. Indonesia, man, that's, that's a
sleeping one right there. If they can, if they can get
their act together, the Philippines.
So in India, of course, India is sitting right there.
India is going to have more people than China next year.
1520 years ago, if you look at projections, they said it wasn't
gonna happen until 2030. So that's how bad China's
population system problems are, is India is already going to be
more populous than that by next year.
So is this the man's search for meaning that Americans can have?
When they look at, you know, the world they say, oh gosh, we got
to go out and spread democracy by going into the country and
installing the government. Maybe the meaning with the
effect that we could have on the world is in the Declaration of
Independence. Of promoting objective truth,
having things like free trade, the state, not monopolizing
weaponry, and making sure that volunteerism is the principle
instead of violence. I I still see that we can still
impact and affect the world around us without, you know,
Karl Rove and Anthony Blanken calling the shots everywhere.
That's absolutely right, because they have a very specific idea
of the US role and it's not different.
You and I know that and it's, and it's actually a divide that
goes all the way back to people like Lodge and Wilson.
People like Clinton and Bush. It was between people who saw
the US role as one of going out into the world and spreading
democracy through multilateral institutions, as the Democratic
Party believed, and those who believed that those were
actually constraints on US freedom of action.
And there's a straight line there as well.
Now there has always been a strong anti imperialist streak
as well. Going back Mark Twain was very
famous anti imperialist, but that's still alive today in the
old right and in the Libertarian Party.
Now they believe that the United States needs to set an example.
Of what a restrained constitutional government that
promotes and places as its paramount, you know, stone
individual liberty? We don't do that.
And it's obvious.
And people's admiration for the American system of government
has only gone down in the last 20 years.
And that's according to like, very establishment surveys.
You can read whole books on the crisis of democracy, blah, blah,
blah. A big part of it is that the
world's leading democracy, the United States, has performed
like garbage and done. Speaking of spreading democracy,
those campaigns have seriously hurt our image.
Afghanistan, Iraq wars 1/2. Well, maybe not one but
definitely two and three. You know our our involvement in
Africa, our involvement in Yemen, our involvement in Latin
America, I mean, our involvement in in Eastern Europe, I mean.
It's, it's, it's been very bad for our brand.
Even Iraq War One. Those sanctions against Iraq
that were in effect ten years after were heavily looked upon
negatively by the Islamic world and used as an al Qaeda
recruitment method. So even like the best of the
best still has terrible downsides.
Absolutely. I I give Iraq War 1A pass only
because the rest of the interventions of the unipolar
moment were so utterly disastrous.
But the sanctions? We're we're a step way too far.
That killed hundreds of thousands of people and and it
did it damaged our brand you know and leaving the air bases
there that was another one so you know there's there's a whole
bunch of things that that came from that.
But no I don't think we should be militarily intervening in
other countries trying to set up governments because we have a we
have a track record now that shows we suck at it.
We were living on the fumes of having made out of Germany and
Japan. Whole and powerful and
prosperous and it was like look at that we can nation build.
OK, show me a successful case of nation building since then.
One even then, wait. One that didn't result in the
majority immediately taking power and kicking us out of the
country and aligning with a regional opponent of ours, Visa
V Iraq and Iran today. Yeah, and, and even the German
and Japanese conflicts, they came at the cost of killing
millions of civilians there, and it gave half of Europe to Stalin
and allowed for the expansion of the of Chinese communism in
areas that it might be less influential.
I'm not saying that Hirohito or the National Socialists were
good or anything. Just stop lying about there's no
downsides. We're just going and helping and
making things good again. So let's say that I I just love
America so much, which I do, of course, and I want them to be
the shining city on the hill. I want America to be the place
that people look towards for cultural ideas, for
philosophical ideas. What are examples of some past
empires allocating too many resources, or spending too much
on war and losing their power and influence?
Meaning that if you really want America to be strong, you might
not want to be so belligerent. And foreign policy keep that's
that's fabulous point. And there's actually a book that
was one of the first books that I read when I got into this
study about 10-12 years ago. It's called the rise and fall of
the great powers. Yep.
And it's everyone. It's every single one of the
modern period, from the Spanish to the Dutch to the French to
the English and now to the American.
I mean, it's overextension, it's overextension, it's
overcommitment. It's not rebalancing your
portfolio of commitments as your relative power diminishes.
You know what I mean. Like, yes, there's a certain way
a country can act when it has X amount of power versus its
rivals. Now as it enjoys that position
of relative preponderance, it needs to question, it needs to
think about later. When the balance of power is not
this way, how are my past actions going to have impacted
my relationship today? For example, Visa V Russia?
I think we're at that same moment now with China.
I think we need to take a huge step back.
And just we, we need to set up permanent avenues for dialogue.
We need to commit to not doing escalatory things.
I think we need to clarify, you know, both to ourselves and
among each other. What exactly is the status of
Taiwan right now? Are we all OK with it?
And my my preference would just be for everyone to just say, you
know what, the status quo has worked this far.
Let's just keep letting it be. Taiwan is incredibly prosperous.
China is becoming incredibly prosperous. the US benefits from
trading with both of them. A war would be unimaginably
destructive for everyone. So it seems to me all of our
interests are aligned and there being no war.
So. And when we look at past great
powers, a lot of them ended in cataclysmic wars.
We know about things like the Thucydides and dynamic.
Now there's a new one going around called Peking Power
syndrome, which basically they're trying to say, like, you
know, China is 1, Imperial Germany was one, you know.
But yes, these moments where a great power is trying to assert
itself militarily, it often is a military overreach, you know?
Look at look at what's happening in Ukraine right now.
I mean this is this is just a disaster all the way around.
Well how about if Russia didn't have its army fighting the First
World War they might have been able to resist the Bolshevik
revolution in 1917 a a little easier that the Japanese empire
was very aggressive and that didn't just make them purely you
know loved by everyone and they were able to influence the world
that they got blowback from that as well.
It's it's. All these great powers get, can
you give me the name of that book one more time please?
The rise and fall of the Great powers is that by Paul Kennedy.
It is by Paul Kennedy. And it's a really excellent,
excellent book. And it's it's withstood the test
of time so well and he really goes into fine examples.
And I look at things like for example, one of the things that
crushed the Spanish Empire was its diminishing tax base.
The United States tax base has dwindled significantly and there
is a reason that when you look at the Federal Reserve balance
sheet there's so many treasuries on there.
So like the the whole inflation situation is is one that more
and more people are paying attention to.
But I think it's telling that the debate often centers not on
the Fed but on whatever spending package Congress just signed,
which is so besides the point. Yeah, well.
It's what in Randall warned about it, she said, well, when
you discourage productive people from producing and you encourage
parasites like, you know, the the rioters and the looters that
are always being hailed politicians, the biggest looters
of them all are constantly, you know, have we have to salute
them. But business is totally evil and
there's no benefits from from anything like that.
And yeah, devaluing the currency, you'd think if the
people who want to preserve the empire so much.
Wanna make sure we have a strong currency?
They couldn't couldn't be less interested.
Well, the thing the thing about the currency is.
Given the currency regime in place right now with everyone
using Fiat currencies, the dollar is actually strengthening
tremendously. So it's actually been one of the
the interesting divergences that people, I don't know if they
were expecting it or not, but as long as all the governments
continue to behave the same way, you know, by comparison the
dollar is actually strengthening quite a lot, which is also
damaging the emerging markets and so you know more blowback
from from the war in Ukraine and from them.
Handling the the the inflation battle.
That's why I think the Fed really needs to be the focus of
these discussions. the Fed, of course, also enables us to play
empire because we can always just turn on the printing press.
We don't have hard money. So I'm not saying like yes, you
absolutely must have hard money, like you can you can do without
it, but like you have to show restraint, which they show no
ability to do because they're in an incentive environment where
they get money for their campaigns by saying belligerent
things, taking money from the people who make these.
Happens, you know, taking jobs on their boards, taking very
profitable jobs, lobbying for them.
So I think that we need to have something.
I mean, given the amount of unfunded liabilities the United
States has outstanding, which is something like $108 trillion, I
think we really need to have a discussion about the fact that
we're running trillion dollar deficits, essentially putting
the empire on the credit card. That's almost exactly what we
spend on our military. So three more questions for you.
Thank you so much for your time. One way we could falsify the
thesis. Of well, if America just sits
back, then China is going to run rampant across the world.
Well, one thing we could do is look at past examples of America
not intervening in foreign conflicts.
So anytime there's been a major conflict since 1776 and America
has not intervened and the results haven't been
detrimental, would work against this thesis.
Are there any times America didn't intervene in great power
issues and things turned out? Relatively.
OK. Ohh yeah.
Staying out of the Napoleonic Wars was was essential.
Those were human meat grinders. Those were devastating.
And the US was able to relatively benefit from them by
selling to both sides and staying out of the war.
They grew relatively more powerful by comparison.
Again, I think the US is in a different position now in the
world. Like it's it's realistic that
other countries look to see what the United States thoughts on
these things are, and I just don't think that we should de
facto. Assume the worst out of China.
Like, yes, China is investing in like, you know, the Congo in
places like that. Like, these are horribly, you
know, savaged countries by war and desperation and stuff.
Like if China wants to get involved there and like maybe do
something good. I don't see Americans like
American businesses and stuff lining up to do business there.
Like, why? Why should we assume the worst?
You know, we don't assume the worst when the French go out and
do something, even though they're always looking out for
their own national interests as well.
The Chinese are doing the same thing.
We need to be adult about it. I think we've forgotten how to
do diplomacy you mentioned earlier.
We made a deal with Stalin. We shook hands with Mao.
Now we talk like. Now we we can't talk to Putin.
It's like. We've forgotten what it's like
to be among relative equals, let's put it that way.
The unipolar moment, I think, really warped our sense of
diplomacy. The Cold War really kept us in
check in that way. And even during the Cold War
there were times that the so I I read one story about the Soviets
killing an American congressman in 1983 in the Kal 007 flight.
Guys name was Larry McDonald I think.
And the US managed to not wage war on the Soviets in response
or like the Hungarian uprising in 1956 Eisen, even though the
Soviets went in, killed innocent people, shut it all down
Eisenhower. Uh, invited Kruschev to to Camp
David. Even after that, you mentioned
an incident in 1968 in Czechoslovakia.
Could you quickly summarize that?
Well, again, that was an example of a popular uprising that was
brutally suppressed. And again, the United States did
nothing because it was perceived to be within the Soviet sphere
of influence. It was simply a recognition that
while certain things are morally repugnant to us, there is a
context in which they occur where we are not going to do
anything about it. Now that's not every context and
I think we really need to think about the amount of security
commitments that we still are carrying over from the Cold War.
When our relative power differential and really look at,
look at our situation now, we're not in the same situation we
were then, we were oil importers then now we're net oil
exporters. It's much less important to the
American economy what happens in the rest of the world,
especially in places like the Middle East.
It was once admittedly pretty doggone important, now it's less
so. It's certainly not anywhere to
the extent that we need to be getting involved actively there,
you know, I think actually us stepping away will encourage
them to actually have to get along.
Because no one's gonna be able to call in, you know, the giant
with the big stick to just start smashing everything up.
So they're going to have to get along.
One of the main contradictions that the Hawks in society push
is they say things like war is really good for the economy, it
gets people spending money, it brings resources into work, and
this is how economies grow. And then they also say, thank
God those idiots. Soviets got duped into
Afghanistan in the late 70s. That's what brought down their
economy. Well, certainly you would think
that that would have stimulated it, just like you guys always
said. So Joe Mullins is war.
Good or bad for the economy, it's actually a net loss and so
is military spending in terms of what it contributes to civilian
and commercial uses. That was not the case all the
way up through 19, gosh, I want to say 1992.
But at that point the return started to become negative.
So, and this is all according to like high high grade academic
stuff here. It's just not money well spent
and you know all the money that you can spend blowing stuff up,
you could use it much. Better and much more
productively building stuff up, to say nothing of the human
cost. So the idea that war is good for
the economy, or that World War Two got us out of the
depression? All false.
What is the biggest lesson you learned from hotter than the sun
by Scott Horton? Gosh, just how close we've come.
To a nuclear explosion happening just by sheer accident.
It it was just so unbelievable to read all of these, you know,
first hand accounts of like, yeah, then this happened and it
was like, ohh, we dropped that. And it was like, are you kidding
me? Is this the kind of stuff we're
talking about? They accidentally dropped one,
you know, like in North Carolina.
Yeah, it is. Just like, what?
Because my fear is what if it had detonated?
Like how many questions are gonna get asked before?
Like our bombers are in the air and like.
Is that are we gonna know, are they gonna know quick enough
that central command gonna know that that was one of ours?
And not, you know, the first strike of an attack.
Like, I don't know, I, I I'm really opposed to nuclear
weapons. I understand that they're here
at this point, probably now that certain regimes have them that
the United States is like allergic to, like North Korea.
We're probably always going to have some.
But gosh darn, I just, I don't want them to be anywhere near
anyone's finger. I mean, not unless, you know,
the United States is going to be overwhelmed by an alien army
because that's literally the only conceivable situation I can
imagine us. Were being under threat.
No, we are literally invulnerable.
Check out the links in the description to find the work of
Joe Salas Mullins. I will also link to that book,
the rise and fall of great powers by Paul Kennedy.
Thanks to everyone for watching the Libertarian Institute.
And Keith Knight, don't tread on anyone.
Mr Mullin, thanks so much for your time.
Thank you, Keith. It was a pleasure.