as a small. this. is further down from the final report on an alleged chemical attack in the syrian city of duma last year. documents that suggest a cover up might have taken place. the russian military is state of the. missile system and just. 12 people killed in a plane crash and dozens more are being treated in hospital. although the headlines not safe for me and you will be here next hour to take you through all the latest news from around the world.

hello and welcome to cross talk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle the washington consensus led by the united states says the liberal world order must be defended at almost all costs said differently the foreign policy blob demands the post cold war you know polar moment preserved but alas it would seem multi-polar world has already arrived. cross talking of multipolar world i'm joined by my guest james doubtless in washington he's a former u.s. diplomat and former advisor to the u.s. senate republican leadership also in washington brian becker he is director of the answer coalition as well as host of loud and clear daily new show on radio. all

right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate james let me go to you 1st i'm the reason why i want to do this program at the end of the year is because we tend to look at events in a micro fashion you know what's going on in this country that country trump administration brags that you know which of course we do in the news media but i sometimes think that we love we missed the very big very big pictures of what's going on and the major changes that are happening around the globe and and the international system and this whole idea of multipolar world which is kind of foreboding to talk about in western media because by default it means the west loses something and somebody else gains something is that one of the reasons they don't like to talk about the coming of a multi-polar world go ahead james i think it is peter i mean look you're right i think a multi polar world is a de facto reality now unfortunately that is the last thing that the establishment

in washington wants to admit that they are committed still to this unit polar notion that emerged with the end of the 1st cold war in the early 1990 s. the idea of the united states is the unique power the only really legitimate great power and the other ones have no alternative but to accommodate themselves to the wishes and diktats from washington and even when that policy has visibly failed for example and ukraine or in syria or and in other places that they are committed to you know for example nord stream to we're still trying to sabotage that even though it's quite clear to me that that attempt has and has failed that they cannot let go of this notion that that other powers do not have to ask a mother may i every time they want to do something that is in their national interest that this is something that the people in charge of these tablets been watching just cannot admit to themselves you know brian you know francis fukuyama comes to mind you know the the end of the. in the last man and that is really what

buttresses is going to tear a page from what james just said is that they can't imagine a world differently but it mean if you think historically well this is what the trends are countries go up countries go down countries make accommodations some countries go to war the cities trap for example but it seems to me that the washington establishment of foreign policy they're in a state of stay cis is a they can't imagine the world changing beyond their own expectations and maybe even interest go ahead right. indeed i mean we saw the white paper that was leaked to the new york times shortly after the collapse of the soviet union paul wolfowitz was its real author but that was in fact the de facto sort of new doctrine for world dominance presented by the united states after the collapse of the soviet union what that white paper made clear was that the u.s. wasn't going to have a peace dividend that because the cold war was over because the warsaw pact had had

disintegrated that then nato could be disarmed and the us could use all of the money spent on militarism and war to help human beings like pay for health care or affordable housing indeed what what the white paper established was that the u.s. must now seek to carry out unit polar dominance over all other potential rivals in the world and the and the letter says very clearly we will allow no potential rival to challenge us dominance and that's been the operational principle for the last 27 years but in fact it's come apart it's come apart because the u.s. got bogged down in the wars in the middle east while china came up it got bogged down in the wars in the middle east while russia got back on its feet and so these 2 other major centers of power china and russia big enough big enough economies and strong enough militaries and large enough population wise of those 2 countries have

come up now both russia and china said look let's make this when when our growth our development doesn't have to be your include me american government doesn't see it that way you know that's such a fascinating point you know because james with rising powers they could potentially in a way we have to stress the word potentially be a threat to the unit polar moment i mean would it be kind of maybe a better idea to engage them instead of you know turning them into hostile rivals and that's it. sadly what we've seen happen. so a a rising power by definition is a threat again that is a historical which need you could look at a number of times through history where rising powers you have to accommodate the international system why because it works for everybody you this what we have now it's in washington is having that the very idea of win win is antithetical to their

hedging monic demands go ahead james exactly right and i think as as as brian pointed out of this idea that somehow our dominance was itself the goal not even necessarily what that gets us as a country how does it make our people safer or more prosperous and if you compared to the alternatives in history for example if you look at the the long piece from 815 to 914 where britain was the leading power but it also understood the other powers france germany russia had legitimate aspirations on the world stage and there was a balance among the powers were not willing to accommodate that even though we are here in the western hemisphere we're by nature the most secure of the great powers we could accommodate the russians and the chinese understanding that they have legitimate interests and legitimate sphere of influence we would still be the leading power the us and much the way that britain was during the 19th century but that's not good enough we have to have absolute dominance we have to deny

legitimacy to those other powers and and ironically we didn't even do that during the 1st cold war with the silver union we were actually much more respectful of the soviet union and its interests even though there were some real ideological differences in those days it wasn't illegitimate for example to have neutral powers i mean neutral countries like austria sweden finland that were buffers between the 2 blocs we don't we don't accept that anymore we have to have our writ go right up to the borders and territorial waters of russia and china not to mention iran or venezuela other countries that we simply want to. to destroy so i don't think these people have a sense of history and how a balance of interests can be beneficial to our own country exactly you know you know brian on top of it you know this mantra to get rid of arms control which is terrifying in itself we all remember the cold war and i think we all remember the good reason to have arms control i mean this is willfully creating instability in

the international system it's willfully being done because this is what kept the peace and that's what these agreements were people invested in major powers invested in them to make them work now we have this the opposite we don't even want to talk about arms control but i mean this is truly dangerous for the world system go ahead brian. indeed you had the nuclear test ban treaty of 1963 that prohibited the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons that was something that was very good we had the 1967 outer space treaty we had the salt treaty then the start treaty start one we had the ballistic missile treaty the antiballistic missile treaty all of those treaties all of them are gone with the exception of the start treaty which is going expires in 2021. that's going to expire and there's no negotiations right now as of yet underway there starting to be some talk about negotiations but bush got rid of the antiballistic missile treaty that was in

20022003 putin says that was the beginning of the modern era of the break up of the cold war architecture for arms treaties now trying just got rid of the i.n.f. the intermediate nuclear range treaty and one of these guys is clearly. open open skies as well open skies and nato 2 weeks ago declared that the outer space is their new fly wharf i didn't mean in contrast to the outer space treaty where the major powers said no we're not going to fight wars in outer space now that's what we're fighting domain so the reason for it the real and you're talking about big picture peter the real reason is the u.s. now believes now believes that it can actually gain military supremacy and thus dominance in these different war fighting domains and that's what the u.s. had basically been forced to abandon during the cold war once the soviet union achieved

a basic parity with the united states that that idea of mutually assured destruction that's gone now now it's full spectrum dominance and military supremacy as the operational doctrine of the pentagon this sets the stage for global war and the military doctrine of the pentagon recently revamped says we're getting ready for a global war with russia and china. that's insanity you know james you know we had over the last few weeks we had the afghan papers released and it was a home reaction from the corporate media i mean it wasn't even mentioned actually from what i could see i mean one huge blunder and all 3 of us and many of our viewers knew it all along that we were being lied to so they want to take they want to militarize space and they can even do an operation like that at a huge cost in every single way and they will and and they won't learn from their mistakes no learning curve one minute before we go to the break go ahead james. well you know that you know we talk

a lot about the military industrial complex but obviously it's much broader that i include finance includes i t many other things but the fact is there's just a huge establishment of power that encompasses a lot of industry a lot of the both the political legislative and executive branches of government there are an awful lot of people with very for rice balls over the established policy the way it is and who cares if it's a failure those people are doing quite well for themselves and well it's very interesting i'm glad you mention that because no one has ever held accountable i mean we can go through this russia gate hoax you know and people that were charged with process violations go get it go to prison and people they'd bring in countries like afghanistan in iraq to destruction are never held to account they just move to another think tank with more air conditioning that's my opinion our gentlemen we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on a multi-polar world state thanks to.

both of. you will. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guests of the world of politics sports business i'm show business. i'll see you.

back to stacy in brazil in a real it's awesome it's beautiful it's gorgeous hey if you were running a country that had an amazing pristine rain forest what would you do it. welcome back to cross talk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing a multi-polar world. ok let's go back to brian in washington and i think the real problem here is i was a trained historian and i love history and i still do it to study history to this day the big problem we face here in understanding and dealing with grappling with the multipolar world which we do have in respect of the denial of the blob and the

media is that it's american exceptionalism is the biggest problem here because american exceptionalism automatically delegitimizes any kind of challenge ok i'll keep it very neutral ok because if you look at great britain i mean a one point covered one 4th of the world's population in land ok and it for the most part gracefully more more or less relinquish that because it was in its interests to do that but it didn't have this exceptionalism in the way it does in the united states is that that's really the biggest barrier it's more of a psychological barrier and that's because of exceptionalism they're blinded to geo political facts and i want to talk about actually a multipolar world is best for everyone at the end of the big go ahead brian. certainly we what we have in the united states i would say is the toxic entered tangling of this kind of american exceptionalism ideology which has basically the

united states has the right to interfere in every country interfere in every region use military power to get its way that's kind of an ideological premise that there's a sort of righteousness a divine mandate to do just that and at the same time as jim was mentioning in the 1st segment the a.b.c.'s of the whole project is making lots of money for the people who are making weapons and who have created this ad of this and it's not just the war manufacturers it's wall street banks it's corporate tycoons it's hedge funds i mean they're all of their feeding at the public trough they have to constantly create enemies of the united states has as we've also said in the 1st segment an ocean to the east an ocean to the west it's protected the last time the country was invaded was the war of 1812 and yet here we are 207 years later with a 1000 military bases around the world a military budget that's more than a trillion the house of representatives which is dominated by the democrats the

so-called resistance just passed the n.d.a. a with the military budget greater than what trump asked for and greater than what the pentagon asked for i mean this is a society that saturated with militarism because it is good business and the politicians know that and they don't defy it and that's this interchangeably ideology and the business of war mixing so that the united states reinforces the notion that it must use military power above all else to ensure that it's a unit polar world where they have full spectrum global dominance that's a recipe for disaster but brian let me if i can stay with you i mean would if you ever imagined it would be the left liberals that would be the champions of cold war 2.0 i mean because you can throw in the well i think they give an ideological. respectability to it that is irrational go ahead finish up go ahead it's what makes this even more dangerous than the cold war because at least the liberals were demanding band of peace with the soviet union let's not have world war 3 now you

have the liberals so-called liberals maybe that word has no meaning then you will agree liberals agree have become part and part and parcel of the of the military industrial complex yet you know james you know it is that there's a lot of time i wish i had a good laugh i guess it was about 2 months ago the new york times in an editorial kind of no trump maybe you should have better relations with russia which was quite laughable coming from the old gray lady after all this russia gate ukraine gate nonsense here my point is here is that you know china and russia now one of the great boogie men ok state still mostly russia because that's what they in the they like to peddle that ok and there's a lot and there's a lot of people that have business interests in china and they're a little worried about that but none the less here but is china in russia truly a threat to the washington consensus i would argue not it's their hostility towards russia and china that motivates them ok it's not aggression they certainly don't

want to export any ideology for sure and particularly in china they just want to get rich that's what their primary interest in go ahead james yeah i think that well it depends how you define threat if we're going to end a threat to us here in our own country that some kind of aggression is going to be directed against us no of course they're not a threat if you mean threat to global domination yes i guess by definition any country that doesn't want to be dominated is a threat to their program i'm glad that you and brian mentioned this idea of the left having been against the cold war backward i guess one wonders where russia was run by godless communists but now that they're not in they're building 3 churches a day and i guess the left hates them all the more it's yeah a very odd paradox that the. seems to be this imperative now from the left for this that you know the soviet union had an ideology of peace progress and socialism we've got one democracy human rights and free markets and will shove it down your

throats with because ancient and bombs if you don't want it you know this kind of messianic vision a messianic world and you know what it comes to the question of x. well it is i mean the idea we are the savior of the world that we add it is and it's when we talk about exceptionalism i don't think we realize how deeply un-american this is i mean you look at george washington's ad admonition against having these these per these permanent antipathies or attachments to foreign countries or john quincy adams saying don't go abroad searching for monsters roy we want to stay out of the politics of europe suddenly now we're we're supposed to remake the entire globe but our old image where is this coming from it's not from a traditional notion of american identity it's something we've really seen only in the last few decades or you know where everybody talks about neo conservatives paul wolfowitz was what then should i say i think of bob kagan and bill kristol in their piece toward neo reaganite foreign policy in 1906 where they also talk about this

this program for global domination i think this is deeply un-american you know. madeline albright you know we see farther because we stand taller which is ridiculous ok brian i guess what but you know tells me and most of our viewers is that we have a track record which is go from the end of the cold war ok that's a good benchmark where does it work out i just don't see it it's one catastrophic failure after another but they keep pushing this ideology i mean there's no learning curve here and that i think that's what really frustrates me they want to go on one adventure after another and of course you know every 6 months or so we have you know iran's iran's getting you know the threat to the biggest global threat in the world an exporter of terrorism these are all sound bites all of the time and they just keep get repeated over and over again instead of as i started this program watching how the world truly is changing go ahead. well i think the

united states intends to reverse their fortune where they would intend to reverse the trajectory of multiple polarity and the way they were thinking about it i think there is actually a plan here i think the us go by dennis fine china and russia as global power threats and that the us military doctrine is to prepare for a major power conflict the goal really isn't to go to war with russia and china although that may be the consequence the real goal is to overthrow the government in china the us military is they they look at what happened with the soviet union the u.s. was slipping in the world at that time there were revolutions all over the world that was when iran happened in afghanistan in nicaragua and vietnam cambodia laos in goa mozambique guinea but south ethiopia you name it but the united but the reagan administration using the club of militarism they doubled the military budget they put enormous pressure on the soviet union and ultimately the soviet union for

a lot of reasons cracked apart and the us became sort of the ruler of the roost again and i think the u.s. intends to overthrow the government in china and they hope that in the post putin era russia will come apart and that would be the way they're used to polarity would be reassembled and i think that's the real plan here ok well i think it's an interesting plan but i think it's really really far fetched ok if you look at the the end band i mean it's a far fetched you know but i think that i thinking you know because we're all the stuff we've seen in the last 2 decades i think you're right ok unfortunately i think you're absolutely right and that's what makes it really insane look at you know that we go to james here i mean 40 years of relative success in china i mean hundreds of millions of people being pulled out of poverty russia's turnaround in the last 20 years is quite remarkable people that come and visit notice it is well i mean thinking that they can undermine these. legitimate governments through their

shenanigans they haven't been very successful leg and venezuela wow they think it's going to work in china go ahead james. reminds me of what some 19th century french statement said the statesman said that the opposition says our policy has failed i ask you is that any reason to abandon it that that's the kind of thinking we have here in washington that i don't think we can underestimate the extent to which the establishment was spooked in 2016 when trump said he wanted better relations with russia when we look at all this impeachment stuff and all this loony tune stuff about russia and ukraine that not only the democrats for him and basically accused him of treason but even the republicans don't dispute they say well well but he gave them the chapel and missiles he's even more militant that obama is what more do you want that they cannot that both sides of the aisle cannot understand a policy toward russia especially i think also toward china that doesn't essentially recapitulate the maximum pressure policy against north korea or

venezuela if we just keep the heat on we keep the pressure on sooner or later they will collapse sooner or later we'll get the regime change we want and maybe a dismemberment of russia which i think is their real goal with respect to that country well this is going to go to you and kind of end on an irony ironic point here is that after all of these force regime changes attempts and successful ones here and now we have the foreign policy attempting it on donald trump the blob has taken their playbook to washington against him and irrespective of how you feel about trump they're the blob and they're pliant friends in the media or undermining institutions so add that layer to the onion go ahead brian well i think the american elites have become more and more factionalized you know we always talk about there's only been 3 impeachments u.s. presidents in the entire history of the american republic but 2 of the last 4 presidents have been impeached i mean clinton on minor charges and now trump on this ridiculous. charge about

a phone call that 100 people were listening to openly when he talked as alinsky i mean there is a factional sort of warfare in washington but there's no warfare when it comes to the military industrial complex and that they are all united and that they they they all genuflect at the altar of militarism and that's what the real problem with american politics is whether you like republicans or like democrats the fact is both are addicted to war and militarism in the military industrial complex therein lies the danger to world peace is that on that point we end the program and it was perfectly said here many thanks to my guests in washington and thanks to our viewers for watching us here darkie see you next time and remember crosstalk rules . what holds it's to you should. you put themselves on the line. to get accepted or

rejected. so when you want to be president and should. want to listen. to the right person this is what before you can't be good. interested in the water. pressure. you may go is like the child in the room it's impulsivity it's narcissism it's us versus them it's fear the prefrontal cortex it's empathy it's compassion it's thinking about the future in terms of what we do today that's where we need to make our decisions based from from the prefrontal cortex unfortunately when we eat the modern diet of our planet or when we watch the news or. spent too much time online

we lock in to be a megalo we lock in to the child in the room and we're not able to make good decisions. today there are good terrorists and bad evidence the bad news in yemen who the united states deems to be a threat the looked at those who are in syria the cia and the us military were engaged in covert actions really throughout the world. where they were assassinating populist leaders they were backing up the right way military funding and arming death squads there's no phones and more because there's always a small income for one really good that's. a profit.

max kaiser this is the kaiser report back to stacey in brazil in rio de janeiro it's awesome it's beautiful it's gorgeous hey if you were running a country that had an amazing pristine rain forest what would you do with it let's think about this stacy i would not chop it down and sell it for matchsticks as max keiser famous little video you made back in 2004 or 5 talking about gold and that gold actually comes into this because. after this 1st have i'm brazilian amazon deforestation this year nearly the size of puerto rico says agency destruction of the world's largest tropical rainforest total 563 square kilometers in november which is more than double the area in the same month last year according to the country's space research agency i.m.p.

on friday that would bring total deforestation for the period from january to november to 8934 square kilometers 83 percent more than in the same period in 2018 and an area almost the size of puerto rico yeah you know i have an idea for brazil actually they should entered this a oxygen futures market and so countries around the world to italy and india places in china that are dying from air pollution they can mitigate that risk by buying oxygen from brazil on the oxygen futures market that alone could be a multi-billion half a trillion dollar industry right there turning the rain forest into a recurring stream of revenue instead of just chopping it down to make money never feel the money is made out of paper so here they're just feeding the fear of money apocalypse by chopping down actually the longs of the earth there's so many ways you can turn that into a valuable.