hello and welcome to crossfire were all things considered i'm peter lavelle does the biden foreign policy differ from that of trump's at this point not really however there is one difference trump a challenge the bipartisan consensus in failed biden on the other hand appears to happy to oblige the interagency consensus is winning again.

cross talking american foreign policy i'm joined by my guess ivan eland in washington he is a senior fellow at the independent institute and author of the book war and the road presidency in del mar we have scott ritter is a former intelligence officer and the united nations weapons inspector and in los angeles we cross it joe collins he is a former california congressional republican candidate and u.s. navy veteran all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate let me go to scott 1st and elmore i want to go offer my introduction here we have a new president we have a new administration we were told that would be everything different from tom but in terms of foreign policy there's an enormous amount of continuity and i think it's very important to point out too is that as i said is that. the bipartisan consensus any largely lost. with joe biden seems to be really quite willing to

embrace that i mean when we look at biden's policy towards russia towards china his administration is going to places really fast i don't think they know how they're getting there and what the outcome is going to be because it's terrifying a lot of people how do you see this scott go ahead. well understand it by do ministration was compelled to reconstitute the mechanisms of national security policy and foreign policy making that the trump administration had done rogue for their term in terms of how policy was made many positions were not staffed other positions were just ignored and you know trump and his inner circle were making policy as opposed to the old fashioned way where you know ideas were put out to different departments they came together and deputies committees in the national

security council came together and principals committees where the cabinet members got together and made you know again the president. that's what's his returning to and when you do that you become a prisoner of process and so that's what we see with you know american foreign policy national security problems it's day is that joe biden has allowed the bureaucracy. of decision making to once again take over and as a result we see a lot of confusion we see a lot of cross talk as they try and get their act together i don't think we have a mature foreign policy 'd that was relevant that was it was evident in the fact that biden released what he called the interim national security sam energy. normally this document takes months to prepare it is a finalized document to provide 'd solid foundation upon which departments and it can formulate policy this was interim guidance it was really group and it's going

to the back at the by demonstration is this drain water they're struggling to keep their head afloat they really don't know what they're doing well scott i mean and they didn't have this a normal amount of what i would say bombastic rhetoric without a coherent policy let me that i've been here i mean going back to the on the processes of. foreign policy making but what about the policies themselves i understand they're going back to the ways of how to formulating it but i'd seems to me that they're defaulting back on policies that we're not going wring success i've been i mean even in washington going you can i think you can make that argument i would say that biden is certainly more conventional and trump and he's certainly a scott put it he's going back to the original bureaucratic. motto but of course that allows the agencies to you know fire the process and squelch any new ideas now the problem with trump on the other hand was he himself

some of his policies were very new and some of them were actually acceptable and so the problem that he had was he just shot from the hip there were there was nobody even. to challenge him when he when he kind of went off the reservation sometimes so i think you know that's me sort of a happy medium but i think joe biden is more conventional certainly but i'm not sure that biden you know for instance i don't think biden is all that enthusiastic about these 4 or wars being there now of course he's more cautious spec getting out of them that's one area that's different and i think you saw. the russia that biden quickly wanted to remind you the most probably the most important thing in u.s. security is still the axis stanch all threat of russian nuclear weapons and also

for russia american nuclear weapons and so i think that that has been a one positive aspect of biden's. ministration it was done quickly and also i fully support that i think it's an i report now you can argue that i thought i would criticize biden for trying to be. opposed to both russia and china at the same time that's not henry kissinger yeah. if you're getting what you're getting ahead of me with china you are getting ahead of me that's important you have to do the opposite here you have to make about russia balance against china in this case but i don't see that's being a very smart policy ok that's exactly where i wanted to go in this program let me go to joe and los angeles here i mean i find it be kill you are very troubling this bombastic rhetoric against russia and china simultaneously and essential talking

you know putting out these statements in public you know we're going to do with we will defend ukraine sovereignty will defend taiwan sovereignty i mean have they thought all of this through here because and for the chinese percent respectively and the russian perspective these are fighting words ok and people are preparing for it seems to me very very. immature and bombastic from the outgo i mean what there's not even an attempt to reach out and try to negotiate that we we have a new administration this is an opportunity to do it it's just the opposite of what we're seeing right now go ahead joe. yeah i have absolutely agree you know when it comes to the by an administration foreign policy i think it's one of the worst i've ever seen and in my entire life i think this is the 1st time we had a president who with sane people in this place in order to make deals i think you know we can for you that you know joe biden is using the americans as a personal. to give funds back over to different countries without taking care of

the united states. but i think when it comes to foreign policy you know i can't think of one thing that by the ministration has done that is going to positively affect the united states in the engine of the united states globally ok very good point there scott what is this with ukraine here i mean what is driving this is it is it the jake sullivan is victoria nuland and tony blinken says that the president of ukraine is alinsky i mean why is this such an imperative thing right now you have all these phone calls with nato officials e.u. officials everyone's really wound up here what's going on here what is driving this . what struck out in this is russia's asserting itself as not only a regional player but a global player. and the fact that the united states it never forget. that you know by this falling back on

a foundation of ideological beliefs in the united states east of the russia russia lost the cold war and we've never forget and forgive and vladimir putin we're trying to rebuild russia in the aftermath if you want to understand what's going on in ukraine today you need to understand that united states in the decade investing in a gentleman named boris yeltsin who was supposed to subordinate russia to all things western all things united states and this failed. just like and the people who promoted this promoted the embrace of course yeltsin had to deal with the reality of latter mere putin under barack obama there was a reset attempt but it wasn't a reset for vladimir putin it was a reset for dimitri meant the a.v. while crude was prime minister so his hopes that $130.00 min v.a.d. of we could push putin out of power and have russia rip current to the fold down minutes this didn't work so what's happening in ukraine is an extension of

a policy that seeks to undermine vladimir putin's russia by empowering them near abroad we saw that in georgia we see that ukraine we see that within the former republics in the baltic. it's a policy that's out of control and not in touch with reality supporting more of the most corrupt governments in the world who are supporting a state a nation that doesn't function properly and we're destabilizing an entire region all out of fight. and that's all this is his fight for glad to hear putin yes i mean for him that's not a foreign policy and demonization is not a foreign policy and i mean let me come back to what the team in washington you know what i find so peculiar here the all of the. quote unquote help from the obama administration to help ukraine you know with the being part of the overthrow of the legal government in 2014 as a result of crimea left and then you have the donbass that went into revolt and now

they want the same b. team from the obama team to come and help ukraine some more i mean they keep talking about its sovereignty but it's because of these people that the sovereignty of ukraine is changed and not to obviously to the betterment of camp i mean why do they keep trying the same failed policies go ahead in washington. well i think they were they were essentially put down this path by george w. bush to promise ukraine to get into nato and i think you know you ukraine it's very important historically to russia and i think there's a big lack of empathy in the united states for russia and i agree that vladimir putin has been excessively demonized because then it becomes difficult to work with him on a certain issue right now as i mentioned did they did do that with the strategic arms. treaty and that's very important i think for for the whole world but i think

you know this is this demonization biden start that you know. it's been going on ever since 1909 i think when put in turkey over and for some of the reasons that have been stated and i also think that you know i dare i say this fears of influence whether we like to talk about it or not that's the way the world you know works great powers expect to have security because they have enough power to create a security software and if you run an alliance like need to right up to the border of russia and also try to include a key country like ukraine that has always been very special to russia you're going to get pushback from russia in crimea in the dons boss etc and so i think some of these policies go way back all right i have to jump in nice guys biden but also i have to jump in here i have to jump in here we're going to we have to go to what europe we have to go to

a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on american foreign policy stay with r.t. . the world is driven by dream. no dares thinks. we dare to ask. you this a bit like it's a cold this if. you give us the 1st one to open your eyes to go forward from the hundreds. that's

awesome useful to door to. see if it was national guard can you pull off. the top of the plate you talk a little. it's a local shop and of course mrs. megilp little support school board of these critics one of the least musical yet the middle east because the. machine into life will be smeared. all over the city and new those symbols. to follow someone into bulimia as a result of all the stuff like you have to wait for 80. was abundant make no soup you know borders just blind to nationalities.

you. as a much needed touch with reality we don't look like seeing the whole world needs to take action to. judge. comedy prices it is distance and sometimes. we can do better we should be. everyone is contributing each other own way but we also know that this crisis will not go on forever the challenges create the response has been so many good people are helping us. it makes us feel very proud that we're in it together. welcome back to cross talk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing u.s. foreign policy.

ok let's go back to los angeles joe we had the meeting in anchorage a few weeks ago with china on american soil and. secretary of state got a real dressing down and we had i think a week before that the high commissioner for the the e.u. was in moscow and he got a dressing down from the foreign minister lavrov here i mean what's going on here i think scott kind of alluded to in the 1st part of the program. major countries push back because they have the resources to do it and it looks like the by the administration and the gland to assist in general have been caught off guard but when when people push back it's called aggression ok from the other side of the fence and saying we're serving our interests here we get this impression from administration after administration that no other country has interests you're not allowed to have interests and if you express it it's called aggression and that's

not how diplomacy works and we were told by joe but there would be diplomacy under his administration i don't see any of it anywhere right now go ahead joe in los angeles yeah i think you're i mean you're right you know joe biden made a lot of promises. but what we're seeing right now bunch of nations who no longer afraid of the united states i think they've lost all respect for united states not being one of the biggest reason why is because dubai has always been soft on countries like china which try to pressure gresh into which countries like russia and i think that you know we have a lot of age politicians who are sitting in a post cold war era and you know still trying to see him or so saints all of these were at a time where you know the united states need to lead by example not trying to force it now while the countries. so when you see other countries taking their interest. and poor countries with smaller. developments you know this becomes a huge problem for the united states and i'm like i said i think it's time for us

to be relieved by example instead of leave by fortune or american interests and other countries you know scott what one of the i think think that at the core of the problem of all of this is here is that you know the blinken said this world they still believe for some strange reason maybe they watch too much c.n.n. is that the you know polar moment is still with this well that has is long long gone and countries like russia and china see the world as it is it's it's multi-polar and this is why we keep bumping into heads here is that there's different perceptions of how the world order is and is evolving here what do you say go ahead scott. absolutely look you know the united states missed historic opportunity in 19011902 we had in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the soviet union the end of the cold war your george herbert walker bush spoke of you know a new world order where the united states would have subordinates would not subordinate

itself to the world but were worked together with the world through the united nations to create you know something that was different from the bipolar existence that was that exists during the cold war but the united states was unwilling i would say an able to rid itself of the mantle of a sole remaining superpower and so the decade of the 1990 s. was wasted opportunity thinking 911 the united states for the next 20 years bleeding itself to death morally and physically through this global war on terror we forgot about europe we forgot about asia and then done truck came along and freed us from you know what this is this rules based international order that everybody speaks of he said no this is america only america goes alone now battles trying to bring it back but you can't undo history the world has moved on it is not a eunuch or a world is not even a bipolar world is in multi-polar world and the united states is totally out of

step and we lack any of the tools we lack the economic tools we lack the military tools we lack the diplomatic tools to deal with this new reality and so we're just floundering and i think that's what we're seeing with the by administration is american policy 'd floundering because we think we're dealing with you know playing off one rule book one game play the world playing up a different rule book a different game playing we therefore what we want it does not mesh with what the world desires and i don't you know i really like what scott had to say because it's so appropriate but what is he going to take to change that mindset is going to have to take a major conflict where. i mean let's look at. no over the last so instead of the cold war the united states has just punch down on countries that could not defend themselves very well now they want to take on china and russia simultaneously i mean you need a different mindset because all it does is lead to catastrophe and it's obvious for anyone watching what's going on in the world here but i look at the state

department news releases i mean again that they're living in 1902 go ahead i've been. yes i think that to some extent that's true i think the u.s. has to accept other countries having influence in their regions if you want to call that a sphere of influence or what do you want whatever you want to call it to dress it up with a more modern term i think the political reality has us a still has a pretty good lead in military force but of course china is gaining and so is russia and so canonically china is gaining rapidly so you're right there are other centers of power there's also european germany and these type these countries that are economically. viable in japan etc india and so it is a multi-polar world and be nice it's going to have to recognize that now of course other empires like the british empire have they didn't they they still fran in

france as well they still have a colonial mentality so i think it's going to take a while to be disabused of that for the u.s. and hopefully asako to be there is not going to be a conflict with russia or china because they both have nuclear weapons and i think that's the major constraint on anything like that but certainly there can be a lots of opportunities for mistakes or miscalculations and you know you have the old problem of the rising power they have. conflicting with the status quo power in that you know in 16 cases since 1500 wars break it broken out you know in 12 out of the 16 cases now nuclear weapons makes a different story now it has. the oceans that separate the united states from both russia and china at least the european part of russia from the united states so i do have some hope that some of these geo political factors and geo

strategic factors. the real ism will kick in at some point and i think biden at least as. he's an experienced foreign policy and but on the other hand has been saying that can be a wag meyer being captive to you know old thinking and the reactor sees and that's what he's going to have to fight trump had to fight the opposite that he was he didn't really follow any of that and sometimes he got himself into trouble by just going doing whatever he wanted so you know it's one there's advantages and disadvantages to both approach but i think the united states really needs to get attention to that the world has changed and needs to you know rid of some of these alliances i'm pretty radical on that point i think they're outdated and you know they can drag us into wars that we don't want to be in both in east asia and in europe i absolutely do but on many times on cross talk and you

and i completely agree on that point here joe one of the things that's happening and it's something that again part of the bipartisan consensus they won't really say it out loud but what they're doing is they want to create a global nato ok i mean it's really amazing how you know these nato officials say china is an opportunity for nato i mean they actually say that kind of stuff here because they're looking for a mission and what they do what they can do is what they want to do is they really want to create a global nato because you then they don't need the united nations they are the legitimate power deciders in the world here and instead of learning from past mistakes because nato should be dismantled completely should have been a long time ago what they want to do is expanded and they're the major targets russia and china go ahead joe. yeah i think the global nato concept is it is a is a far statement i don't think that's something that's ever going to happen i think

we have to look at a new way of being able to expand our reach out the country and i think through i'm best at the same thing that scientists do in the united states have been doing a very long time ago and we've been quick question gresham towards other countries i think more of an investment type of opportunity to be able to expand our reach and in certain countries that's louis help the united states when it comes to foreign policy when it comes to global policy as well those are those are just my thoughts i think it's on for us to turn away from that aggression start looking at more diplomatic ways to expand united states interests in different countries if scott were rapidly running out of time here one of the things that it's really curious i mean the all of this it has bled from the russia gate hoax this and to the towards russia but if we you know look at north stream to i mean what the by the administration is doing a continuation from the trump one is willing to punish russia and germany a nato ally all at the same time and you know and you know kind of thinking about

what did joe just said here i mean yeah i think trade is a good thing that tends to cut down on conflict here but what about when you dictate to your partners who your other trading partners can be i mean that that is such a chauvinist stick way of dealing with your foreign policy nato is very important germany's very important but you have to have the energy policy that we decide in washington and what is not decided in europe it is really ridiculous go ahead scott 1st of all it's not about energy policy because if you if you take a look at what north stream too does it actually bring stability to europe to provide cheap gas to germany which then can disseminate it through europe and its links russia's long term economic viability to european stability you know russia you get to play the gas weapon why. yeah one time russia will turn up the gas to europe and they'll be the last time they sold any gas to europe now would destroy

the russian economy so this is ludicrous for the united states to to play this game this is about american domestic politics that's what all russia policy is it's not about real geopolitics it's not about you know global real politic it's about american domestic politics where we have been minimized russia vladimir putin and now our political leaders don't have the intellectual curiosity or the moral courage to stand up and say hey enough of this let's deal with the world as it is and as as we can to washington well i've been there one of the things i worry i worried about during this russia gate hoax is that it would bleed into policy and it is done a good sack clean that ok and that that is very destabilizing and everyone everyone on this side of the pond is reading and listening to what they or western leaders are saying about this and they're preparing and for good reason here i'm sorry guys we've run out of time many thanks to my guests in washington del mar and in law such a lot angeles and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.k.

see you next time remember. this 3 pieces in the millions of you will know the. d.-day vacations will be all about making money making profits and some of the corporations international markets import export do you imagine the number of throwing the diseases in every community then you can do to new viruses own new microbes that's not true so it is due to environment less to see that not going to say he's all that momentum this is a political. they sort of lost i was obviously just accumulate could only come in to see in them to be. declared some of the scum if the so food

industry is successful it will create more jobs it will create more value added it will create more growth so i don't see why we shouldn't also fight for the interest something into st outset that we are british and we want regulation i was in the industry and if we don't behave zinnias penalty that's fine. is your media a reflection of reality. in a world transformed. what will make you feel safe. isolation or community. are you going the right way or are you being led so. direct. what is true what is faith.

in the world corrupted you need to descend. to join us in the depths. or a maybe in the shallowness. rages for a 3rd night in minnesota a black man fleeing a traffic stop a show police across the country are again calling for forces to be defunded. on the rampage leaving local businesses fearing the worst. also ahead in the

program president biden promised to.