Kip Perry Executive/Director, Is America In Retreat?—Moderator
Elan Bentov Co-director and Writer, Is America In Retreat?
David Henderson Professor of Economics, Naval Postgraduate School; Research Fellow, Hoover Institution
Johan Norberg Senior Fellow, Cato Institute; Senior Fellow, European Centre for International Political Economy in Brussels; Executive Editor, Free to Choose Media
26
DAVID R. HENDERSON: The title of the film is Is American in Retreat? My answer is no, but it should be. Take the example [the question] about why [isn’t] Sweden in NATO? Well, then the Russians would have been closer to the other side, so Finland was an issue. I don’t know if you recall that when West Germany and East Germany merged in 1989, there’s a lot of controversy about this. Did Secretary of State James Baker or didn’t he make a verbal agreement with Gorbachev that they would not expand NATO east? Gorbachev claims in his memoirs that they did make that agreement. Other people deny it. Does anyone know what percentage of the Soviet population was killed in World War II, or what fraction? It was one-seventh. If we had that same loss today, we would lose 45 million people. I’m not defending them at all, but the Russians have always seen this need to have a buffer. So when Clinton said in 1999 we’re going to have Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic as part of NATO, Russia saw that as a threat. When junior Bush expanded it further, that was even closer. [People have said] here’s this aggressive nation—and certainly Russia is aggressive. The question though is would it be as aggressive if it didn’t perceive this threat close to its borders? My strong gut feel is no. I don’t think they would have been. When I look at foreign policy, I see unintended consequences all over the place. I mean, why did the Iranians take over the embassy in 1979? They were upset at the American government, the CIA helping to overthrow Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953. And why did the United States choose Iraq as an ally? Because they saw Iran as an enemy, so they were allied with Saddam Hussein. How well did that work out? It’s always important to go back a little historically, and you can kind of trace the unintended consequences. PERRY: What are some of the potential unintended consequences of retreat, though? HENDERSON: The unintended consequence, I will admit, could be that certain countries are threatened in ways we don’t like. I could certainly imagine that we could lose Estonia. I could certainly imagine that we could lose Latvia. But Lithuanians have a bit of a plan, so I’m not sure about that one. They’ve been very clever on that. But certainly that could happen. But here’s my basic viewpoint, and that is that the purpose of the United States foreign policy should be to defend America. Not American interests—America. Brett says no one else can do it. I look at some, I saw this film a few days ago. I looked at some GDP figures. Do you know that Russia’s GDP is not only less than half of Germany’s, it’s well below England’s, France’s, Italy’s? I am from Canada, eh? I’m not saying pull out of NATO right away, but I do think we should pull out of NATO in say five years. And just give notice, and not like Trump is doing, where he wants them to increase their spending or else, and we aren’t clear on the or else. Just say in five years, we’re pulling out; you decide how much you want to put into defense.
THE COMMO N WE AL TH
ELAN BENTOV: That’s ultimately the question at the very end of the entire project that is presented. There’s the assertion that whatever role America has, it doesn’t have it by some right. It’s a role that is filled and maintained out of self-interest. And, if it were to go away, what would replace it? It could be something better; the question is what? And is it worth finding out? Maybe it is, I don’t know. PERRY: Let’s take a question from our audience. We’ve been speaking about NATO, and the question is, “I’d like to understand more about American allies and NATO’s role in collectively making these decisions on behalf of world peace. Also given Russia’s strategies of undermining democracies around the globe including here in America, what footing does America truly have to interfere? How do we escalate without heading down the path of nuclear war, especially with our current, hot-headed president?” [Laughter.] HENDERSON: So I mean, I don’t think there’s much evidence that Russia intervened in our election, if that’s what’s being referred to. I just don’t see the evidence. So I think the premise is faulty. NORBERG: It seems like the intelligence services think they do or are convinced they do. PERRY: Let’s talk a little bit about the first part of the question, which was NATO’s role in collectively making these decisions on behalf of world peace. BENTOV: I suppose the question is, What gives NATO the right? On paper my understanding is the role of NATO is to protect itself. And it seems like more and more outward threats with no direct impact on NATO members are perceived as potential threats, which I think involves a fair amount of questionable predicting of what the consequences will be of leaving a hot spot untouched or uninterfered with. There’s the idea that NATO is overextending itself, that NATO is continuing to grow. You see members like Turkey— HENDERON: They allowed Montenegro in[to NATO] a month or two ago. BENTOV: Turkey is a great example of a NATO member that is pursuing interest that in many situations are completely countered to the desires of other NATO members. And can potentially lead to potential harm to other NATO members. And you can see that that sort of expansion of NATO can potentially lead to a conflict even within itself. HENDERSON: And can I just add, [Senator John] McCain in pushing for Montenegro—and he really attacked Rand Paul for opposing it—I think he doesn’t understand the difference between a U.S. ally and a dangerous liability. Who here wants to go to war to defend Montenegro? By the way, while we’re talking about NATO—notice that Ukraine is not part of NATO. And so when Brett Stevens advocates lethal aid to Ukraine, how does that fit with NATO? Wasn’t the whole idea [about] collective security, an attack on one is an attack on all? So then you owe us if we get attacked. Ukraine owes us nothing.