always look at when a new administration comes in and we see a lot of continuity and change. only on the rhetorical side of things we hear we hear that the all of the biden mr asian is essentially going to back away from saudi arabia's genocidal war against yemen but he says it will continue to support the sovereignty of saudi arabia and we we on the 1st day of the biden ministration we have troop movements from iraq into syria so that tells us what's going on here just a couple days ago nato has made it very clear that it's going to up its. troop level training level in iraq of course we have the dealing with iran if ministration doesn't seem to know which direction it wants to go but certainly it is anti russia and china and that is just the top bullet points go ahead mark. you know i think the interesting thing is that during the trump years. former biden officials for obama officials often accused him on spending all his time simply trying to wipe

out the legacy obama lost as it was the trump foreign policy and maybe today we're seeing the most sense by this trying to undo everything that trump did so that for instance although it's as you say true to say in the. in the saudi question he is pursuing a rather ambivalent course because yes he's saying we would like the war now meant to stop us we're going to stop providing certain types of support for the war effort but on the other hand we support the saudi state but he also explicitly allowed his spokesman to say i'll only be dealing with the king of saudi arabia he's my counterpart not the crown prince and similarly he waited a month before he spoke to benjamin netanyahu in israel now both the crown prince of saudi arabia and the promise of israel were very close interlocutors with donald trump so what we might be seeing is also a discredited in the electoral terms because elections coming up in israel of netanyahu the americans by the new american especially hoping this a different coalition will be called without netanyahu. but also perhaps more

strikingly in a way by began his period of president and some of the boma did with regard to mubarak in egypt remember i'm sure they have to because president obama very demonstrably met members of the muslim brotherhood when he gave a speech in cairo university and in a sense move the united states was no one with totally behind mubarak and what happened to him and i think the issue may be that as we are sitting through the months of the with us from the 10th anniversary of the so-called arab spring back in 2011 and our states may now be the sense saying we need to see big changes in saudi arabia. you know but you dismiss me kind of begs the question george i mean mark is absolutely right in the beginning you said but i think i'm very weary of just personalizing boerum policy ok because the country's interests don't change very rarely change dramatically with a different leader and and he seabird naisi journalist and made policy makers a moroccan you can the prince but you're still dealing with saudi arabia ok the

energy going to. wait if you're absolutely right i think mark is on to something that there is an attempt on the part of the biden people to us every single thing that the trump of been astray should did and i think that that's a good point about saudi arabia 1 1. you see the same thing in the case though russia and china if you look at. biden's speech at the. munich security conference as well as the speech at the state department he is really really venomous towards russia. you know they would say it's just one condemnation of for another i mean he is pretty much labeling russia as and then we have the united states that it is determined to destroy the power and influence of the united states and its allies and when it comes to china 1. it's a much more much softer approach. you know china is

a competitor. and what yes it does talk about on car on the ins on the best i don't place china as just 8. of the other 3 more than 2 and it's really interesting here is that it seems to me and you know there's many times and has russia this is this is russia gate actually meeting in dearborn policy because he's and this is a domestic issue in the united states mint and then when china will you have the n.b.a. and you have disney and it's so much more complicated because his comments about china where i mean not just buzzy it was muddled i mean i really didn't know what kind you. want to make me go back to market but this is an administration that is next listen we time russia and china see gather as competitors adversaries even enemies in the case of russia this is something and an incoming administration has never done before go ahead yes i mean the suddenly big contrast with the time of obama is of course there is no cause for the reset so there's

nothing offered on the contrary the so-called new cold war seems to be getting much cooler all the time. it's true to say that for instance with china because of all the economic until encouraged despite the preservation of the trump power since also fall it's very difficult devices really to decouple from china without actually having to think about spending a huge amount of money domestically. on reviving the production of finding other sources but the the real question is who is this point for national interests remaining the same me from the people in charge trained but the congress new who interprets the savings and i think one of the issues perhaps in washington more than so in other states is the degree to which national interest in international relations is perceived through the domestic rivalries and resentments because partly our system is very fortunate in the sense that it hasn't really faced the problem of having neighbors that kind of package or. trouble so to

a great extent foreign policy has been much more a matter of internal rivalries and often scoring points over your domestic. ones too that said. as you say the c.p.h. into the political culture of the belief that not only is russia or malign fools but the russia has in some sense some deep demonic powers able to influence develop since other is such a profound cultural shift that it's going to be very difficult to us to escape from that and that of course pushes russia and china together we see in all sorts of areas now military cooperation much more quickly cooperation economic factors infrastructure and then could just between russian energy in china and so one of these things are going to be very difficult to reverse the americans complain all the time about the north stream pipeline between russia and germany bypassing the central european states and how that creates a long term strategic shift well of course in the far east and because the change in a sense is taking place and then i say this is in

a sense the promoter of it because most of these 2 states together is a mutual sense that they're under pressure from the americans of the other doesn't our states feels itself in a relative decline. risk flushing out and this is of great interest to in american intellectual circles a big discussion of is china of the new imperial germany is it like the homes job the challenge in britain at the end of life going to the press center but in many ways as the great american historian said he would fear that our states was more like bill holmes seconds germany than it rivals. you know you know george and i'm the thing is that you when i run it will go over the years you know may be sometimes there's one of warm policy was you know you know we have to we want to avoid this roaming alliance between russia and china and you've done everything in their policy to push them together and then we then we know it barry in the waning days of the. ministration the european union with great haste i would say

a sign to make a huge investment deal with china and so you know when bae goes to munich and you know or speaks community we're back in once people say what does that means you because it means something different to us because as united said many times and you know europe must decide but no it's going to be a player on the world scale not or it's going to happen. yes yes that's exactly right and when you get the this of the europeans to say ok we want that we don't like trump trump was very rude to us. emigrated us you know he. is very rude you know you know he just was very dismissive and that wasn't the soothing flattering way that you get into these transatlantic conflict so when they get a biden back and he said well i am america's back 6 but what is by offering your is

if offering yet more of these interventionist wars and they look at what he's doing in the middle east in particular in syria where he is now. massively increased american military presence of syria now he's building a 2nd base in syria now nato is increasing its presence in iraq so they what they europe is getting from america is back is you know military escapades in the middle east which as we saw back in the obama years has a blowback effect on europe through the massive migration flows but just going back to the interest of the national interest well what crumpet lee is did is he identified a specific american national interest which was to rebuild the american industrial economy i mean whether it's feasible or not is a definition but that was nonetheless his agenda that america should because. once

again an industrial powerhouse as it was back in the 1950 s. and sixty's and for that he wanted to shift. america's manufacturing industry back to the united states biden has i didn't find anything of that nature when whenever he talks about america's national interest he teach talking about values rather use has nothing to do with national interest i mean they just. becomes of the justification for pointless interventionist wars you know or it or it's a budget line for diversity but again that still addressing the domestic audience here you know mark one of one of the things that i find very interesting is that i look at the obama administration's foreign policy with the exception of iran which will talk in the 2nd part of the program is basically a failure or a failing grade ok but even seems to me that they just want to put it back in super charge again i mean there doesn't seem to be any kind of critical analysis some of the mistakes made during the obama administration and weaknesses and coming to

terms with the consequences about foreign policy joe biden just like george st bernard talk about about the use them policy go ahead yeah i think it's worth mentioning afghanistan as well as iraq because george mentioned that we're seeing in a sense to just a return to what was going before and in the same saying that there's a kind of attrition we can sustain relatively trivial losses for western side and he's also been supported by their appearance i think it's worth mentioning that there's the macro made the most extraordinary statement in his speech to the conference when he congratulated him on discussing things in his speech which you haven't mentioned. so why the back home was briefed so that biden was going to talk in great detail about the middle east about iraq and afghanistan or he was trying to make a point that the emphasis of biden on russia and china was the to be both views who are for was not really what the european allies wanted they want to see as the war on terror continued they see any withdrawal of nato for fairness. i mean because we

know to support iraq. as being a danger in terms of. oh we're going to get it was not recommend you know by. really the beginning of the changing of the guard you know we're now handing the baton off to china is the number one economy in the 21st century the numbers are there the statistics are there their relationships in your here. are there the relationship with russia and iran is their you know their and their relationship all over africa is also there.

it's been decades since the fall of spain's fascist regime but old wounds still haven't healed. me from you know. in the past at the 6 mean older than just the same question which we know. of newborn babies were torn from their mothers and given away and forced adoption. to this day mothers still search for grown children. for their parents. the world is driven by shaped.

half. thinks. we dare to ask. well not to cross we're all things are considered. discussing biden's foreign policy. ok let's go back to mark in oxford you were trying to make a point before we went to the break go ahead mark its history the president clearly or criminal laws of nato are all access to continue the involvements enough premised on iraq and the middle east in general because they see these areas of instability his calls influence and the terrorists are actually your goals will

might think we say that there are also reasons for terrorists to your want to live in be involved in filthy or pin nato allies in these places in the muslim world it seems to me that you know i think sometimes we get much a big loss but when it's it seems to mean that they there it is very there are very strong best. interest in these a nato member countries are atlanta's it's ok i mean there again this is what they do ok in an eyewitness i would make the argument that. you know if you get if you're going to focus on terrorism in these countries you know you could get them before they come to us not mentality we're just giving them oxygen to exist you get you eventually it seems to me that that's one of the lessons that was have been learned so whole war on terror again and but you know if nato were to bocas that separate zone border into the whole immigration control and nightmare as in that sense i think that's a good mission in actually it isn't one that. no entrance going door to door

knocking your go that's exactly right because that should be nato's primary mission which is securing the borders of its members stay sue short security for the european people living in europe but that's not what nato does i mean they do justifies its existence by. threats and getting involved in a variety of conflicts over all nobody asked nato to get involved in libya but that was all there was a war of choice nato decided to get involved in libya nato got itself involved 'd in iraq it got itself involved in syria got involved 'd in afghanistan none of these things has brought has brought any kind of security to europe which is the again the ostensible justification for nature. and now with its you

with its constant drumbeat of hostility toward russia again it is not bringing any kind of security to europe because it only leads to confrontations a very you know which could get quite gnostic. 1 in the baltics and in the in the black sea so because of the whole nato boondoggle it's actually creating security threats that it. claims to be the solution to war but of course it isn't so so that what you're saying is is that the they're doubling down on a mistake ok instead of realizing it was them then human in their new policies justified to alleviate the mistake that was originally made. and that's exactly right so you know their way their way they justify their existence is by exacerbating threats and then a. i say well wait things are worse we need mate oh

bad because otherwise you know the horrific things that happened you know we have to fight them over there before they come over here you know mark it with much fanfare in the in the in the national security council but the by mr kind of rolled it out is that if he is going to the asian desk and bureaus have a much more higher profile much more many more resources and all this but you know again i think that they're trying they're looking at and then there's this not just by but i mean ever since the end of the cold air is that you know is that they somehow can replicate a nato elsewhere which they haven't had much success in doing and and i can see that you know in part nato germany and france one of the great reconciliations of our time that's when wonderful but i don't i don't see the same thing being replicated in asia and i can't see how the the the south koreans in the chappie knees and the australians of the b. of minis look dilip you know are going to act in the quite the same way nature we

did during its heart in original creation all the way up to the present go ahead mark. we can see point with that for instance japan and south korea are allies of the united states but they are deeply suspicious of each other and we could see for instance over issues like me on while today japan is not a toll on chris to get involved in. the intel it has of am i right no wrong that's just a huge difference so we're kind of cohesion that the greatest things you had in nato were appliances of old who were 70 years you know they were powerful a glance a state like britain was one of the key members and so you don't really have a tool that i'm trying to do both for instance india and japan as other countries in a alliance raises all sorts of questions because if you have the classic just took away from those who was it it was to stop being attacked but there is a world of danger that you get involved with states that do territorial disputes over one quarter of a joining nato was and. i'm supposed to have any territorial disputes so that we

couldn't have a passes by the just waiting to be true that suddenly we consume concrete that on the korean peninsula between india and china there are all sorts of potential for conflict and you then say would will these all the states necessarily want to sign up to be dragged into a conflict which to them is a long way away and is very meaningless and also would involve with china which is also such an economically important call so even though countries like the philippines want to protect themselves from the sea they don't necessarily want to get involved in a prolonged cold war with china because it's so you can only conclude. you know you know george the the the real issue here is it's really i always find the kind of curious to the point of being hilarious about you know america in protecting american national interest well there's no there's no real country in the world seriously threatens the united states i mean if you want to talk about nuclear power china russia well then they would be destroyed ok the whole issue of met with would be in play here so but really what's the issue and going back to your

original comment about munich as you know biden says we're bad but we want you to back arc in gemini and maintain our gemini and that's what they're saying to their allies in asia do we want you to come on board do you maintain i were are a gemini ok and not everybody wants to be part of that deal anymore but particularly in asia where you know people are you know all these fanatics like my decoupling from china well that's going to be american business is going to have to decide that are in less the government wants to get involved in that which i doubt very seriously as that's why joe joe doesn't speak very clearly about these issues but there is decoupling going on a lot of companies are moving away from the united states are moving to china because that's where they see the future being played out here so it seems to me it's a fool's errand you know to say although we're back we're going to be nice we're going to be courteous but we want you to get in line to protect what we define as our interests the international says. it is far more complex now the cold war is

over a long long time ago and that was ideological biz's and yes that's exactly right. and that's not said i mean there was the original rationale for nato there was supposedly a. a soviet threat that people forget nato actually predates the warsaw pact but at the last there was at least the rationale that you know the russians were going to do your army there were early on there on the other what if they came to the end of the cold war it became much harder to justify 1 natives existence of them nato's purpose was to exert us hegemony over europe some say well and death for you had to continually escalate the various threats that europe faced and why need that was necessary so we originally have that instead of the threat from instability and instability will lead to

humanitarian crisis that will lead to refugee flows therefore nato has to be there to stop instability then we have the global war on terror again well we have terrorists we have to fight them over there on the before they come over here so. you know it was back to russia so we you know we had to sort of the cold war ducks russia is this. huge threat so it's always a matter of trying to justify the existence of this entity which has absolutely no justification. and somehow talking up some non existence threat and they say they're doing this. in asia and they're really nobody is because they're you you have here you have to start from scratch with with nato the united states was lucky because it was already there in existence you could just sort of keep it going through the. didn't even know it but in asia they would have

to started from scratch a little bit is going to want to do it and then nobody in the united states wanted to precisely because we don't want to get involved in a war between india and china between philippines and china so. there are a few take this relation they know where george already mentioned it but i think it's really important here it wouldn't look at how mainstream media in the main broadsheets how they describe policy under paul and ministrations you know over the last few decades that it's all it's very him bone 2 it's all it's very value driven i mean we just have a few days ago in the new york times to low octane writers talking about they have the west now as the great was. a minus against me and my democratic forces them china and russia and all that which all you know it sounds all nice and fine but that doesn't again go back to what notes will interest our men might not always point out to people the great alliance the defeated bobsy is i'm not

a very different players involved in the novel and they have one goal and they they achieve history when turned out differently but you know he's constantly playing on his bow you know me you know hiding for gay rights in thailand recently when we're going to go to war or that we're going to go to war diversity you know when. it doesn't then top point makes a lot of sense of what people when you get really down to you and you didn't want to how how military spending in a possible conflict over trying to change the ballot use and someone else somewhere else or had i think something warm again big contrast with you know their cold war is rightly or wrongly there was a perception of a big audible trickle threat that communism had as it were great some throwing in support base that if you didn't challenge it most oh by the way who didn't improve the economic conditions of all her complete well thanks actually there isn't a marginal culture and i don't see any signs anywhere in in europe with our states where people say. if only we could be like china. it's gone. the other side is

however the values can be aggressive those as well the moralistic values of supporting the vested the also i think a more likely source of conflict is the emphasis on climate change an environment which of big issues but no less how do you persuade people or do you force people to adult. environmental policies you can see for instance part of the bowl sonora aka base in brazil is the sense that brazilians are being told that they should do things which would affect the global climate now it may be that cutting down the amazon is having a disastrous effect on the global climate but you can see how around the world there's a sense that rich west is trying to save its own skin by forcing poor countries southern hemisphere countries into line over the forces and will it actually use force because we revert to referee what we bring up it's a very interesting how a separate program i would guess in oxford and doesn't want to take our viewers

watching as you know are easy and it's not a member. of . the world is driven by the dreamer of. the day or thinks. we dare to ask. the british and american governments have often been accused of destroying lives in their own interests or you see in this these techniques is the state devising

methods to him to essentially destroy the personality of an individual. by scientific means this is how one doctor has theories well allegedly used in psychological warfare against prisoners deemed a danger to the state that was the foundation of the method of psychological interrogation psychological. the cia disseminated within the u.s. intelligence community and worldwide among our allies for the next 30 years and how the victims say they still live with the consequences today. were more politicized than ever or more polarized than ever the 21st century when speed is measured in megabytes per 2nd. on their. needs in him electronic mail electronic money electronic media infinite possibilities for

exchanging information i mean missed greyish my misery nationalized freedom of speech and social media bends censorship and double standards who should judge what can be said online. already planned but i want. the internet audience now totals almost 4500000000 almost all of them are effective social network users but one wrong move and their pages deleted digital. don't exist anymore. not who runs the show on the web how can anyone stand up to the tech giants if even heads of state face the threat of being banned is there any limits to hold that virtual power of the postal before i look reasonable for a nudist but i will have reasonable way. the

headlines this hour infiltrating russian language media leaked documents suggest the u.k. government sought to boost negative coverage and weaken russia also this hour a texas family sees energy firms after their son alleged he froze to death and how unique stream whether some residents have been forced to turn heating off after electricity bills skyrocketed. to the point where some people have told me you turned up their power because they can't remember going up a bank you can't appoint a. role as a coca-cola worker leeks is online training course that tells employees to quote. a renowned italian opera singer gets the sputnik the job while on tour in moscow the 3rd russian vaccine gets registered in the country.