to discuss these issues and more i'm joined by my guest mark allman in oxford he is the director of the crisis research institute and in budapest we have joints i mean well he's a pod cast there at the gavel which can be found on you tube and gentlemen crossed up rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate it ok let's go to mark 1st in an oxford continuity in change that's what we 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 the administration 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 trumpeters. former biden officials for bomb officials often accused him of spending all his time simply trying to wipe out the legacy obama as it was the trump foreign policy and maybe today we're seeing the most sense by this trying to undo everything that tom did so that for instance all the it's as you say true to say that in the. in the saudi question he is pursuing a rather ambivalent course because yes he's saying we would like the war namin 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 coup. he is my counterpart not the

crown prince and similarly he waited a month before he spoke to benjamin netanyahu in israel 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 a new american especially hoping this a different coalition will be formed without netanyahu but also perhaps more strikingly in a way by again his period as 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 signaled 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 of us for the 10th anniversary of the so-called arab spring back in 2011 not 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 now between 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 see seabirds naisi journalists and lazy policy makers a rocket if you can the prince but you're still dealing with saudi arabia ok the energy going to. wave you're absolutely right i think not because it was 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. you see the same see in the case though russia and china if you look at. biden's speech at the. munich security guy. friends as well as 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 it is pretty much labeling russia as and then we have the united states that is determined to destroy the power and influence of the united states and its allies and when it comes to china 1 1. it's a much more much softer approach you know china is a competitor. and why yes it does talk about on car on the ins on the best identifies china as just a competitor of the moon and you want to think it's really interesting here is that it seems to me and you and i have not as many times that it has russia this is this is russia gate absolutely leading into warm policy because he's and this is a domestic issue in the united states then 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 this was the 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 more distant 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 sudden a 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 and it's true to say that for instance with china because of all the you can only conclude can still fight the preservation of the trump power since also fall it's very difficult and i says really to decouple from china without actually having to think about spending a huge amount of money domestically on on reviving the production of finding other sources but the the real question is who is this point for national interests.

remaining the same even if people in charge change but the congress the who interprets these things and i think one of the issues perhaps in washington more than say in other states is the degree to which national interest in international relations is perceived through the domestic rivalries and resentments because partly. been very fortunate in the sense that it hasn't really faced the problem of having neighbors that can attack it or cause it trouble so to a great extent foreign policy has been much more a matter of internal rivalries and often scoring points so we'll 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 i did i say this 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 trying together we see in all sorts of

areas now military cooperation much more quickly corporation economic plan does infrastructure linkages between russian energy and 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 when the course in the far east and biggest strategic sense is taking place and then i say this is in a sense the promoter of it because these 2 states together is a mutual sense that they're under pressure from the americans of the states feels itself in the relative decline. risks lashing out and this is a great interest in the in american intellectual circles a big discussion of it is china of the new imperial germany is it like bill holmes germany challenging britain at the end of the licensing of the press entry but in many ways as the great american historian said he would fear that our states was more like bill homesickness germany than. you know you know george the being is the

human eye on a bold over the years you know that me. and the sometimes there's questioning the boreholes he was you know you know we have to meet we have to avoid this growing alliance aren't home between russia and china and have done everything in their policy to push them together and then we then we at the bury in the waning days of the trumpet ministration the european union with great haste i would say assigned in a huge investment deal with china and so you know when bae goes to munich and you know or speaks community to zoom as a 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 that you know europe must decide but now it's going to be a player on the world scale or not or it's going to happen. yes yes that's exactly right and 'd when you get the sort of the europeans to say ok. we

want that we don't like trump trump was very rude to a. great us. who is very rude you know you know he just was very dismissive and that wasn't the soothing flattering way that you get of these transatlantic con fabs so when they get biden back and he said well i am america's back but what isn't by offering your is it offering yet more of these interventionist wars and they look they look at what he's doing in the middle east and that they feel are in syria where he is now is massively increased american military presence 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 bad is you know military escapades in the middle east which. as we saw it back in the obama years as

a blowback effect on europe through the massive migration flows but just going back to the interest of the national interest well what crumbly 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 different issue but that was nonetheless his agenda that america should become 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 identified anything of that nature when well let me talk about america's national interest each talking about values rather use had 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 do 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 but yeah i think it's worth mentioning afghanistan as well as iraq because george mentioned that we're seeing a sense just to return to what was going before and in a sense saying that there's a kind of attrition we can sustain relatively trivial losses for western side and he's also been supported by the europeans i think it's worth mentioning that as the macro made the most extraordinary statement in his speech to new mexico to conference when he congratulated. on discussing things in his speech which you

hadn't mentioned. so why the battle was brief so that i was going to talk in great detail about the middle east about iraq and afghanistan while he was trying to make a point that the emphasis on russia and china was the tube of bogeys. was not really want the or penalize wanted they want to see the civil war and terror continue if they see any withdrawal of nato fluff aniston any bickel of the nato support for iraq and also involvement in syria as being a danger and tom so. they're going to get it was not recommended that you know what . they were.

this is really the beginning of the changing of the guard in our are now handing the baton off to china as 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 there you know their and their relationship all over africa is also there. it's been decades since the full of spain's fascist regime but old wounds still

haven't healed. me suppose. in the past at the source mean that an interest in the singles in 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 adults looking in hope for their parents. welcome to cross not where all things are considered i'm reminded we're 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. it seems to me the president of the or korean allies of nato are all anxious to continue the involvements in afghanistan and iraq or the middle east in general because they see these areas of instability is causing for instance the terrorists in your goals for my think we say that. the reasons for the thirst for your warmth about who can be able to nato allies in these places. as in the muslim world it seems to me that you know i think sometimes we get to know much about why hospital when it's it seems to mean that they there is very very strong best. interest in these a nato member countries the red lanterns it's ok i mean there again this is what they do ok and i would not i would make the argument that they did you know if you're going to begin to focus on going to nigeria resume in these countries you know you could get them before they come to us night mentality we're just giving

them oxygen to exist to get you mentioned it seems to me that that's one of the lessons that was have been learned on the so-called war on terror and you know if nato were to bocas that separate zone border control immigration control and nightmare is in that sense i think that's a good mission in actually it is in the national entrance to get going north and you're not you're going to go that's exactly right because that should be nato is primary mission which is securing the borders of 'd its member states to show security for the healer paean people living in europe but that's not what nato does i mean they do justifies its existence but. stoking up threats and getting involved in a variety of conflicts overall nobody asked nato to get involved in libya but that was there was a war of choice nato decided to get involved in libya nato got itself involved in

iraq to go to south involved in syria got involved in afghanistan now these things have brought has brought any kind of security to europe which is the again the ostensible justification for nature. and now with its own with its constant drumbeat of hostility toward russia again it is not bringing any kind. the security to europe because it only leads to confrontations a very you know which could get quite gnostic. in the baltics and in the in the black sea so because of the whole nato will it's actually creating. security threats that it. claims to be the solution to war but of course it isn't so you're saying is that they they're doubling down on

a mistake ok instead of realizing it was them then you know their new policy is justified to alleviate the mistake that was originally made. that that's exactly right so. they way they way they justify their existence is by exacerbating threats and then they say well wait things are worse we need 3 nato bad because otherwise you know horrific things will happen you know we have to fight them over there that before they come over here you know mark in with much fanfare in the in the in the national security council but the by mr ation it kind of rolled it out is that in the 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 this is not just a bite but i mean ever since the end of the cold war 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 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 south koreans in the chappie knees and the australians of the of mini's look dilip you know are going to act in the quite the same way that nato has during its heart in original creation all the way up to the present go ahead mark. we consume coal with it for instance dependency. career allies of the united states but they are suspicious of each other and we could see for instance over issues like me and while today japan is not a tool i'm just to get involved in the intel it has of am i right no wrong it doesn't huge difference. the kind of cohesion that the grades that you had in nato were appliances of old over 70 years you had a very powerful of lance's state like britain as one of the key members and so you don't really have a tool that i'm trying to involve for instance india and japan of us other

countries in a alliance raises all sorts of questions because if you have the classic just occasionally to watch that it was to stop being attacked but there is a world the danger that you get involved with states that do territorial disputes over one quarter of a joining nato was supposed to have any territorial disputes so that you couldn't have a councils by the just waiting to be true that suddenly we can see concrete that on the korean peninsula between india and china there are all sorts of potential for conflict and you then say would wall these other 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 unfold with china which is also such an economically important partner so even though countries like the philippines want to protect. privacy they don't necessarily want to get involved in a prolonged cold war with china because it's an economic importance and you know you know george the the the real issue here is it 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 when there's no there's no real country in the world who 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 mad will be in play here so but really what's at issue in going back to your original comment about munich is you know biden says we're back but we want you to back arc in gemini and maintain our gemini and that's what they're saying to their our. lies in asia do we want you to come on board to maintain i want our 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 even less the government wants to get involved in that which i doubt very seriously as good that's why joe joe doesn't speak very clearly about these issues but that there is decoupling going on

a lot of it asian companies are moving away from the you know what is they do 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 oh 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 is our interests the international system is far more complex now the cold war is over a long long time ago and that was ideological this is 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 could get nato actually predates the warsaw pact of the west there was at least the rationale that you know the russians were going to do were army there were early on there on the other but it became you know after the end of the cold war it became much harder to justify nate as existence so that when nato the purpose was to exert us hegemony over europe

some say well in death for all you have to continually escalate the various threats that you're a face and wind mate that was necessary so we originally have the inside 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 other before they come over here so. you know it was back to russia so we know we have to sort of a cold war a duck's russia is this this is a huge threat so it's always a matter of trying to justify the existence of this entity which has absolutely no no justification by somehow talking up some non existence threat and

they they're doing this with in asia and they're they're really nobody is because any 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 deans of inertia but in asia there would have to started from scratch and nobody's 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 few takers for a nation they know where george already mentioned it but i think it's really important here in atlanta look at how mainstream media the main broadsheets how they describe one policy under paul and ministrations you know over the last few decades that it's all it's very him bone it's all it's very value driven i mean you we just having a few days ago in the new york times to low octane writers talking about they have

on the west now as the great. alliance against me and my democratic forces them china and russia and all that which are you know it sounds all nice and bind but that doesn't again go back to what no small interest might not always point out to people the great alliance the defeated naziism had very different players involved in the battle and they had one goal and they the achieved history would turned out . but you know he's constantly playing on his bow you know i mean you know about fighting for gay rights entirely aggressively when we're going to go to war or that we're going to go to war virgin birth city you know when. it does that then top line makes a lot of sense of what people when you get really down to it you wouldn't want to have military spending a possible conflict over trying to change the bally's and someone else somewhere else i had that i think he won again big cultural stuff with you know the cold war

is rightly or wrongly there was a perception of a big ideological threat that communism had as it were great some throwing in support base that if you didn't challenge by the way who didn't improve the economic conditions of ordinary people it might well they interaction there isn't an ideological cult of note that i don't see any sign that it's anywhere in europe with our states where people are saying if only we could be like china. it's gone. the other side is however the same values can be aggressive those us well the moralistic values of supporting. the also i think a more likely source of conflict is the emphasis on climate change an environment which a big issues but most of us how do you persuade people or do you force people to adult. environmental policies and you can see for instance part of the bowl sonora a kind of a simple zille is the sense that there's an incipient told that they should do things which would affect the global climate it may be the 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 the 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're doing a referee if we want to. bring up that's a very interesting hoping for a separate program i would guess in oxford and but it doesn't want to take our viewers now watching as you know are easy and it's not a member. chose seemed wrong. but old rules just don't hold. the world yet to shape out just because the ticket and in detroit equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground.

the british and american governments have often been accused of destroying lives in their own interest or you see in this these techniques is the state devising methods to him to essentially destroy the personality of an individual. by scientific. this is how one doctor's theories were allegedly used in psychological warfare against prisoners deemed a danger to the state that was the foundation for the method of psychological interrogation psychological court for the cia disseminated within the u.s. intelligence community and worldwide among allies for the next 30 years and other 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. just on the views in your local shelters and of course he's in him at a tronic mail electronic money electronic media infinite possibilities for exchanging information and misc greyish my misery nationalized freedom of speech and social media bends censorship and double standards who should judge what can be said on the line of something already planned but i want to. come down to the internet audience now totals almost 4500000000 almost all of them are effective social network users put one wrong move on their pages deleted digital annihilation 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 new list but i was reading way. the headlines in r.t. infiltrating russian language media documents suggest the u.k. government sought to boost negative coverage and we can russia also to come a texas family series energy companies after their son allegedly froze to death at home stream weather this hit parts of the united states while some residents have been forced to turn their heating off after electricity bills skyrocketed. to the point where some people have totally turned up their power because they can't of course not they can't afford it for all as a coca-cola work its online training course that tells employee.