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Strategy&Future
Now you know podcast ep.01 I Jacek Bartosiak & Albert Świdziński I Strategy&Future.
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Join Jacek Bartoszak and Albert Świdzinski in their insightful new podcast, "Now You Know Geopolitical Insight". Delve into the heart of current events, dissected from a captivating geopolitical perspective. In recent episodes, they unpack the implications of Henry Kissinger's visit to Beijing, exploring his role in shaping the geopolitical landscape in the 70s and his recent controversial comments on the Ukraine war and US relations with Russia and China.
They also discuss the US's lack of strategic plan in dealing with China, highlighting issues in the US's shipbuilding capacity, lack of engineers, and a deficiency in strategic thinking. Discover how the US has managed conflicts between Russia and China, favoring its own interests and those of European countries, and how it lost control of the system when Russia initiated aggression.
They also delve into the precarious situation in Europe, particularly Germany's policy mistakes and dependency on Russian oil. The upcoming elections in Taiwan and the US pose potential threats to the already delicate US-China relationship.
In the midst of the escalating tensions, the podcast discusses the importance of establishing a stable equilibrium between the US and China. The hosts also explore the lack of communication channels between the US and Chinese militaries and the consequent ease of brinkmanship.
Finally, they touch on Duterte's conciliatory approach towards China and the potential future transformation of security architecture in both Europe and Asia. Stay tuned for more enlightening discussions on these topics in future episodes. Subscribe to "Now You Know Geopolitical Insight" for your regular dose of geopolitical analysis.
Transcription generated by Skrybot
Hello everybody, my name is Jacek Bartoszak. Welcome to Strategy in Future. With me is Albert Świdziński. Hi Albert, how are you? Hi Jacek, I'm good. And both we are honored to introduce to you the new format, the new podcast, the new program that we are just launching and that's the first one in the series called Now You Know Geopolitical Insight by Strategy in Future where both Albert and I will be discussing the current events geopolitically from the prism of geopolitical sort of attitude and approach to things.
We will be discussing not only the current events of course but we will try to explain the structural issues between great powers, between the countries that we will be talking about, the Pacific, Eurasia, Europe, wars, trade, all other things that all combine all those elements of sinews of power that determine the geopolitical landscape of our planet. And if you are interested in what we produce, what we are doing, you are more than encouraged to take a look at our Strategy in Future YouTube channel where we have almost 200 000 subscribers already and we'll be happy to see more of you joining.
And many many more programs also in English that you can watch on war, geopolitics, warfare, trade, all other things as I said before. So let's get started Albert. This past week we witnessed the entirely outstanding trip of very senior Henry Kissinger who traveled to Beijing to meet with senior Chinese officials including Xi Jinping himself. So the emperor met elderly Kissinger there were many commentators that commented on that this way or other way.
What is your take on that Albert? What does that mean? Why the elderly gentleman who of course was the engineer of the major reshuffle of geopolitical landscape of Eurasia in the 70s of the 20th century where China became an actual ally of the United States and confronting and containing China in a way it banned the wagons with the United States and the containment strategy designed by Kennan in the 40s at least in terms of long-term effects. So what is your take on that this way? Why Kissinger made this trip? You know he could have died on plane at the end of the day he's 100 years old man.
There is a way for Kissinger to die I guess on a plane to Beijing while trying to set up a visit during times of huge tension between the US and China. It's probably the way he would like to go I suppose. So I understand this heroic, this outstanding way of concluding your lifetime. Oh yeah, I mean you know generals or people of war would like to probably die in war rather than of old age and organ failure. In the same way I suppose if there's a way for Kissinger to go that would be it but he didn't die.
Kissinger is 100 this year and he went to China in 1971 in July 1971 almost exactly 52 years, half a century ago. Now he's there again. A little fun thing you know if you look at how US establishment these days thinks of Kissinger he is not revered in many circles at all. Maybe because we have discussed that between you and me many times that still in Washington DC and the capital of the United States in those sort of quarters of the decision-making circles there are people that have been accustomed to the golden age of the unipolar moment.
So this is this imperial circle of people in the United States that have been used to thinking that it's very good for the world that the United States is really running all the events. So they don't like this balance of power scheme designed by Kissinger and advocated by him in many books including his famed book on China and others as well. So of course the recent comments by Kissinger on war in Ukraine on how to deal with Russia and how to deal with China and how to confront the potential war in Eurasia that the United States might be facing.
He was not well received by the you know dominating opinion in DC that still it seems to us here where we're based in Warsaw believes in a capability to sustain and maintain the unipolarity as it was since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Would you agree with that? I mean a number of countries also really desperately wants to believe that the US can uphold its position right and it's Australia's of the world Poland's of the world. We spoke a while ago with an Australian official basically flat out told us that Australia has no plan B other than the US continuing to dominate Asia which is a very risky bet to take but it is what it is.
When I spoke of Kissinger I think and again I saw it was pretty stunning for a while now really ever since you know the tensions between the US and China came to fore. He's far from being revered because he's viewed as the person that you know orchestrated the return of China as really started to made the first step possible for China to become a part of the of the globalized economy at the end of which process is a situation where now China's GDP is larger than the US in purchasing PPP right in relative terms.
So in that sense he's accused of being short-sighted and myopic that what he did is essentially create a monster woke up the dragon as a woke up. You remember the quote by Napoleon when he said that once China wakes up it's going to be the giant that will make the world tremble something like this. So in this sense he's not particularly or in many quarters in Washington I suppose he's not particularly being thought of in positive terms. It's an interesting trip. A few accents about it, few aspects of it are interesting. We don't really know whether it was coordinated with Washington at all. I think I tend to think it wasn't actually.
Also because I saw an annoyed statement from one of the DC. I think it was one of the spokesperson for state or the White House who said that it's pretty unusual for a retiree basically to be able to meet with Li Shangfu. And Li Shangfu is the Minister of Defense of China with which the US is unable to secure a meeting with Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense. He tried and he failed for good reasons. We can speak about why is it so.
And he also met with Xi Jinping which Blinken did as well but for example Janet Yellen who was in Washington a while ago, not that long ago, early July I think wasn't able to. So in that sense it seems that this wasn't really coordinated or that Kissinger was acting in his own capacity rather than trying to transmit for example a message from Washington to the Chinese military which could suggest that it's a vanity trip of sorts. Those who don't like China or are sort of in combative mood about China say that really the only thing that he achieved is did a favor to the CCP, to the Chinese Communist Party by vindicating the current leadership.
Another line of thought is that he's genuinely concerned about the state. There were reasons to be concerned for many years now about China-US relationship but it seems now that the situation is particularly unstable between the US and China also because the election is coming up and we can get to that too. We'll talk about the elections in two minutes. And in that sense he maybe tried to inject some sort of or believed he could and if it was going on his own accord maybe he hoped he's going to inject some stability in the relations between China and the US.
Of course he is well known for many years now for advocating the some sort of rapprochement between US and China. So some sort of the deal that would that would sort of appease this almost war-directed tensions that might escalate into war. And in this way to avert war in line by the way with the words of Kevin Rudd in his famous book that the war is not inevitable between US and China which we highly recommend as well.
And Kissinger many times on many occasions said that this is the most important task between great powers to some sort of create a stable relationship where both China and United States can have place to grow and foster their own interest. Here at Strategy in the Future we've discussed that. Personally to me it seems more and more difficult to achieve. Structural forces drive events more and more and they drive events towards the open war. And this is why I understand that some commentators commenting on the visit of Kissinger in Beijing commented that he simply wants to have a very war or this is a signal prepare for war anyway.
And that's the life and the mission of old Kissinger of a kind. So I don't know. I don't know but that this is true that this whole trip and the way he was welcomed by the Chinese leadership is even manifesting more and more to me personally that the United States has not provided a convincing strategic plan how to win against China. Not only in open kinetic war should this war start, you know, be you know triggered for breakout but also in this highly intense competition on trade, technology, capital movement, propaganda, PR, you name it.
And it's critically important because if we diligently read Elbridge Colby's book Strategy of Denial and you know we should read it carefully. At the end of the day he was the main guy who was behind the Pentagon, who was behind, who was sort of an author of the National Defense Strategy on Trump where he posited that, you know, the best way to contain China or to deny China influence is to create a balancing regional coalition. But you need to have a cornerstone offshore balancer who'd augment this coalition and disperse any doubts or shortcomings in the will and capabilities for this coalition to glow, to sort of emerge in reality.
And this is why it's critically important to provide to the allies both in Asia and also in Europe because here in Europe we are witnessing the same vehemency, the same hesitance, you know, on part of Germans and the French to join the US in dealing with in sort of their stance against China. So what I haven't seen yet is the sound strategic plans, what steps the United States wants to undertake to defeat China long term. And, you know, remember Hugh Wight, many conversations that we have had with him, strategies from Australia, has raised this issue on many occasions. But also the Australians have not been provided with a sound strategic plan.
And this is why probably you refer to our conversation with the senior Australian official here in Europe, where it turned out that they didn't have plan B. And it was not only about just, you know, betting on old bets on the United States prevailing in the war. But in concrete terms, it means that Australia is spending money on militaries that is auxiliary to the US power projection, that the Australian assets are in the South China Sea and are in war on day one against China.
And that's a completely different story from, you know, strategy of denial, indigenous strategy of denial that the Australians could adopt to confront China in the future, without being quite certain that the United States would prevail. And this is a completely different story. Still, they didn't provide plan B and they happily joined the AUKUS alliance.
So the United States, for some reason, and I still don't understand, and I'll bet you remember, on many occasions over the last year, I've been talking about it openly, why the heck aren't they providing a detailed plan how they want to handle so that the nations that would like to be allied with the United States could calculate the risks and the benefits of signing with the United States? Tell me, what do you think about it? If I were to give you a quick answer, it's because I don't think they can come up with a plan to defeat China.
And if they have a theory of victory of containing China, there is no feasible way to do it, no feasible way to keep status quo as it exists now.
And so, you know, both, look, if you talk about AUKUS and the way, sure, I mean, clearly, you know, the Australians want to deter by denial, they said it multiple times, but the only way to deter China by denial, that has a theoretical way of working is to align with the US and be again, auxiliary to the US and hence the subs, the, you know, the nuclear powered submarines, which again, which are useful if you want to deter by denial, you know, operate far away from Australia's shores as a part of the US, you know, strike force. They are not useful to defend to deter by punishment.
Should Australia think about its own defense on its own, then it would need different capabilities. The thing is, and this goes back to us not really having plan because you know, the challenge is insurmountable. And it's one of the reasons why it's insurmountable is the US does not have the material industrial capacity to effectively do it. It doesn't have it in so many levels. When you talk about AUKUS, there is a big problem right now in the US, there is a big debate about shipbuilding capacity. As you know, you know, before Australia starts fielding its own submarines that will be built with the UK.
It's supposed to operate US Columbia, I believe, ships, subs, but the US is unable to build enough of them for its own use for its own needs. So, you know, Republicans in the in the Congress are right now having a big problem with this idea that the US can provide Australians with that defense. Another case, and again, we were sticking with the region. So as you know, the Taiwanese semiconductor company TSMC is building a fab in Arizona in the US. Thing is, they had to delay, you know, it's opening because there are no there aren't enough engineers to to work at construction there.
So basically, Taiwanese have to import their own from the island, ship them to the US so they can do the job. But it again points you to a problem with the lack of cadre. So in both in material terms, intellectual terms, the capacity for the US to effectively contain China is outside of its grasp. So it cannot really create a coherent strategy of doing so it doesn't have to doesn't have the required capacity to do it.
So it's I would bet if if I were to be honest with you, it's trying to figure out you know, while it's while it's doing, you know, learning while doing and just trying to avert the difficult questions and you know, defer difficult questions for as long as it's possible for now in many corners of the earth that appears to work in Australia sold on the idea but I think that's the reason. So it just cannot it doesn't have the capacity to formulate coherent strategy. There is also the problem of I think I focused a lot on nuclear strategy recently. And whatever you look, I've read a great paper by CSBA.
It's a from for me, from four years ago, it's a really good paper. It's called understanding strategic interaction in the second nuclear age. So you know, Thomas Munk and Toshi Yoshihara, and others pen the paper. And when discussing us nuclear strategy, they point out that there is a serious atrophy of thinking about nuclear strategy in Washington, that the way Americans had industrial complex set up, but also intellectual foundations for thinking about nuclear strategy have eroded after the end of Cold War. You know, unipolar moment, all this stuff.
So basically, what the establishment did was predominantly focus on arms control and non proliferation, rather than those hard decisions of deterrence, the logic of deterrence, the capabilities required to offer assurance, reassurance and deterrence, that thinking has atrophied. So again, you have a and again, that all stems from the best period in the US history, or, you know, for the world probably, which was the unipolar moment, at least for those countries who didn't feel necessary to contest the US leadership. But the paradoxical result of this is that there is a severe atrophy in the US of strategic thinking. I know who am I in Poland to criticize us strategic thinking, you know.
But there is, let alone let me be let me be of course, the opposing force here. But you know, at the end of the day, the US strategy seems to be working well in Europe and the European theater in opposing the Russian aggression in a way that is favorable to the United States, not entirely to the Ukrainians. But the United States apparently has been doing a great job sequencing confrontations between Russia and China, you know, with Russia and with China, separating in time, those confrontations, weakening one after another.
So, you know, beating the enemy separately, at the hands of someone else, at the blood of someone else, in a phased method, under full escalation control, which is, as you know, highly important for the provider of security as a patron, the United States as a patron of Europe as a patron of the intermarium, those countries between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, including Poland and Ukraine, as a patron of NATO, so that neither the United States nor NATO is engulfed in war with Russia, both conventional or nuclear war. So, they've been doing a great job, don't you think? They've been doing a great job. That is a valid criticism, yes.
And also, they are trying to navigate the tension between the United States and China, also on the European soil, in a way to depict China as a malbehaving partner, who should be opposed by the NATO allies as well, in trade and in other commercial activities. And they've been scoring some results, though, you know? I mean, when you speak of how the US managed conflict, I mean, again, we got to remember that there will be a difference of perception and perspectives coming from Ukrainian side, Polish side and the US side.
But when you actually define the US interests as they should be defined, even the fact that, you know, the speed of delivery of different types of military equipment has not been sufficient to get to ensure Ukrainian, you know, route or decisive victory, we shouldn't assume that this was the goal of the United States because of the host of problems and complications, escalation management being one of them. So, when the US interests are defined in a way that is not a mirror image of Ukrainian interests or Polish, Eastern European interests, then absolutely, I must concur. Yeah, the way it happened was very favorable for the United States.
Again, I mean, if I were to be a contrarian, again, two points. One, the US has been unable to prevent Russia from trying in the first place. So, it lost control of the system to the extent that Russia still decided that it can pull the trigger on it. In that sense, you know, the most elegant way of managing this sort of rivalry, which is by co-option rather than coercion, you know, didn't happen. But that's, you know, that's sort of a tough ask from the US, from anyone. It's a young empire too. So, there is that, sure. In that sense, it did manage.
When it comes to China, I think, I'm not so sure. I mean, you know, look, if I may again, now me being contrarian, right at the beginning of the war between Russia and Ukraine, Biden met Xi Jinping and apparently threatened him against doing any action that would be regarded as a dual use or anything that would be undermining the American and the Western sanctions or that would be supporting the Russian military in this continental alliance that the Chinese and the Russians were accused of forming. So, and apparently Xi Jinping followed the request or even blackmail or demand. So, the United States managed to separate the interests, whether those were the core interests of this continental bloc.
That's another matter to be discussed, of course. But they managed to do it. And the Chinese are not helping the Russians as the Russians would dream of, you know. And that's a major success of the American diplomacy. So, they are defeating one enemy while holding another one with tight hands. You don't know if China didn't provide help to Russia because of Biden's threat. True, but for sure, they were not doing it in the fashion that would be in any way similar to the land lease program that the Americans were doing to the Soviet Union during the Second World War, while the Chinese were capable materially to do it. But also, that's true.
I mean, again, I would stick to the point that we don't know if the reason for that or the key reason for that is the US, you know, the march, so to speak, or some other considerations that the Chinese might have. But it's fully possible that it was more than anything else, the US threat. But also remember, when it comes to what happened in Ukraine and how this war played out, and is playing out as we speak, sure, it went the way, it really ended up, you know, being much more aligned with how the US would hope it's going to happen. But it was a close call. It was a, you know, razor.
It was a close call. Yes, it's true. I concur. But at the same time… But you can't really control everything, right? I don't want to leverage this. That was a mastery if it was premeditated, yeah. And all elements, that would be a masterpiece. But still, you know, also by handling this war in Ukraine, the United States managed to create a sort of a split on the European continent between the intermodal countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Germany, German-French bloc that had wanted to cooperate with Russia and with China all the way, you know, into the future.
And so the United States turned out to be a major European player and a major European power. And this was tested, and tested positively. But also, if you think of a trophy of strategic thinking of the US, you know, there is no… The situation is way worse in Europe, including Western Europe. When you think about, you know, Poland… Compare, yeah, okay. Well, there is, again, there is, I guess, you have to nuance this, I suppose. When it comes to core strategic thinking, that is something much lower level in Europe than, you know, it's in the US, in spite of all the atrophy.
At the same time, where Europe and European elites, especially German elites, are quite aware of the situation and, you know, capable, is the industrial elites, for example, in Germany, which, you know, everybody is criticizing Germany over how it became dependent on Russian oil and how it's a disaster. I mean, it's a disaster now, but it also set up the conditions for German industry to thrive for well over a decade, right? Yeah, exactly. Sure, it's a problem. Maybe they should have had contingency plans better, but I wouldn't call that policy a policy mistake. It propelled German industry to a leadership position.
And globally, the fact that they had access to cheap Russian oil, you have to have access to cheap energy if you want to have an industrialized country focused on experts. And you have to have, you know, markets to sell it on. And that's where China comes in. So, in that sense, you know, industrial, and this is also interesting when people think about how Germany is behaving or what it's doing, I think people way too often focus on, for example, think tank establishment or foreign policy, rather than what's in the people without decision making power, actually. It is true. That's also a common trait across Europe, including Poland, of course.
Now, but let's move back a bit, you know, while we're moving towards the end of our program number one. You have to give me some more time. Elections that are coming in, you know, both in Japan and the United States. And, you know, what I would, I would open this part of our discussion by posing the following challenging question. You know, while I'm thinking about this attempt by both parties, the Americans and the Chinese to create a sort of a stable equilibrium in the relationship, both parties understand that they are in a competitive mode. They want to outwit the other guys. They want to outcompete the other guys. They want to outrace the other guys.
Okay, they outrun and, you know, and so on, outproduce. But still, they move in order to avoid escalation and open conflict that is, you know, never know how it ends and who's going to win. They tend to keep it in certain formats to create a sort of equilibrium. And within this format, to fight. And that has been not achieved. And maybe that's why Kissinger went to Beijing to create this format or to propose format. Because even in competition, just like between the Soviets and the Americans, there was a format. That's why Cuban Missile Crisis did not escalate into the open war.
And you know, that there was this way they were making sure not to breach certain provisions. I mean, it took Cuban crisis to really develop those those forms. I understand, but they were making, they really went into great lengths, trying not to breach, you know, this happened. This happened after they both looked into the abyss and didn't like what they understand. And then it forced them, you know, so it required a serious, severe crisis in the relations, which was unstable and unpredictable, and very difficult to manage in many ways for stability, the guardrails about which Kevin Rudd keeps speaking about to be developed.
The thing is, look, and this actually brings us back to the beginning of our conversation. Yeah, what I wanted to say is the elections in Taiwan, and in the United States, given this brinkmanship that the United States has been exercising and trying to impose on the Chinese, because they have been a hegemon. So the world has been used to their function as a sort of a target bit moving around, sailing the fleet, wherever he wanted.
So it's a sort of a status quo power status quo behavior, by the Chinese behavior, not allowing them is a sort of this, the new guy in the class who's really making waves and is putting the world into the brink of World War Three. And we don't like it. So and also the elections in the US, you never have, Trump might win, different people might win, words are spoken in Taiwan, either Kuomintang, who might want to go, you know, reunite with China somewhere in the future, or the liberals who might wish for the full-fledged independence. And that is a highly destabilizing event, you know, event, both early in the year and later in the autumn.
What do you think? The thing is, I guess about the elections, sure, that's a problem, you know, who wins, but also the problem is, is with the elections coming, the internal political constraints will become huge. And both in the US and in Taiwan, and also mind you, China has its own set of problems, right? Economic, for example, which means that situations might happen where it's going to be very difficult to communicate and be flexible in actions out of internal policy, political considerations, right? And this makes this makes it very difficult to stabilize that.
It was an interesting piece in Wall Street Journal a while ago that I've read, and basically what it stated is that you have to put a floor under the relationship between the US and China within the next couple months, because if you don't manage to succeed in that, there will be no, I mean, you won't be able to do this after the new year, because the election cycle, all the, you know, internal, you know, divisions, discussions, debates, the way you need to present yourself to win, to take away, you know, potential points of critique by your, you know, domestic opposition, will mean that you will be severely constrained in what you can do.
So it will be harder to de-escalate in times of friction, you know what I mean? Because if you do that, you risk losing your elections. So you're going to be heavily, heavily constrained. And the thing is, the thing is, and again, we go back to the beginning of our kind of visits of Blinken and Yellen and China. And because basically, the narrative that the US presented was that they're going there to dispel misconceptions, try to explain what is the goal of the US policy. And it almost sounded as if the Chinese had misconceptions of the US policy, which I don't think is the case. I think the Chinese fully understand what they're trying to do.
And in spite of all the rhetoric of the United States about small yard, you know, fence by a high fence, like tall fence protected by tall fence, which is minimizing the ways or the policy areas or technology areas where the US will try to ban Chinese access, basically roll back Chinese capabilities at this point in time. And that's also a completely different element from what we witnessed during the Soviet era, where there was no rollback. They are, they are trying in many, when it comes to technological prowess, microchips, they are trying to roll back.
And the thing is, you know, for narrative or for rhetorical purposes, it makes sense what the US said, but this will not change the fundamental set of ideas that the Chinese have up have about what the US is trying to do. And you could see this by the fact that they refuse to engage in, you know, in creating channels of communication between the militaries of the two states, which would be something that would enhance strategic stability between those two countries, there was no willingness to do this for understandable reasons.
If you set up those channels of communication, you on this, it makes it actually easier, paradoxically, it makes it easier for the US to engage in some form of brinkmanship of testing the red lines. Also, because when things go south, you have a protocol to maybe try to step back from the line. But this makes it easier for the US to try to do brinkmanship. And Chinese will not make it any easier for the US to do this. So this means that on a fundamental structural level, there is, there is an understanding between us and China.
But the understanding is that they are interested that their interests are, are polarly opposed in many ways, especially if they're trying to retain its position. So in this sense, you know, that's not going to do do much, much good. Taiwan is interesting. And it also shows how how delicate the balance is, because when Blinken was in China, there was the thing where the Chinese were supposedly asking the US very strongly, and, you know, they were very insistent on on trying to get the US to, to communicate to Taiwan to the DPP candidate William Lai, who is more who's vice president right now, he's under Tsai Ing-wen, but he's supposedly a more hawkish when it comes to independence.
So the Chinese were pressing the US that the US communicates basically to Lai, what it once did during 2000, 2003, Bush Jr. when basically Bush Jr. in the presence of Taiwanese president and Chinese Prime Minister said that we don't want to hear anything about independence, we don't want to hear any of that talk. But the US didn't like there wasn't a clear communique coming from Lincoln side that the US is willing to do this. And now William Lai will be traveling to the US, you know, transiting through the US officially.
And the thing is, the funny thing is, apparently, while on the campaign campaign trail, which again, those are those internal political considerations that make things very unstable. Apparently, what he said is that he dreams of a moment, and that's his political goal, to have Taiwanese president be able to walk into the White House, which basically is a language that suggests independence. And the US got crossed, got really crossed about this, apparently via informal channels, they communicated to Lai that they do not wish that sort of, you know, independent policymaking and escalatory statements coming from him. Which again, shows how delicate the situation is. So they try to, to make sure that he doesn't do that.
Again, the visit is still supposedly on but but that's a problem. On the other hand, as you said, there is KMT, the Kuomintang. And, you know, some some people who support KMT with significant amounts of money are and again, remember the visit of the former KMT president, the one before Tsai Ing-wen, who went to China recently, right? And ask and you know, had a had a series of meeting with a very conciliatory message vis-a-vis China. So you have that angle as well to play. So that's a murky, murky situation. But another thing I wanted to mention, and that's an interesting phenomenon.
We had one more former president visiting, not Taiwanese, but former president of a country in the region, Asia Pacific visiting Beijing recently. I'm not sure if you know who that was. But it was Rodrigo Duterte, former president of Philippines, who went to China met with Xi. And we had Kissinger, we had Duterte almost at the same time being in China. And again, you know, Duterte is famous for being far more willing to be conciliatory with China than the current president, Ferdinand Marcos. And that's interesting. So we actually have a, there is a question what it seems to me, to be honest, that a number of countries are trying to hedge.
Yeah, hedger even, you know, it's natural phenomenon across throughout the history that the, when there is this aspiring power like China that wants to establish a hegemony, original hegemony, it's sequenced the enemies, it's sequenced the opponents. Like those who are more favorable towards China, they can, you know, reward. Those who are against, they can split or defeat in war, like Bismarck defeated Habsburgs or France, and he didn't have to defeat other for example, Dutchies in Germany. And, you know, so the Chinese might be sequencing and all countries are probing for benefits, for costs associated, and they are thinking hard what to do.
It's not the case in Europe, where basically Russia has no capacity now to convince the nations to bandwagon with them at the moment, right? So in this way, United States created a coalition that wants to deny the profits, the, you know, the earnings to the Russians. And still it's not happening in China, in Asia, which is a primary theater for the Americans, as Colby rightly pointed.
Of course, for Poles who are talking to you now, to our dear audience, Europe is more important, but we understand the importance and significance of the Asia-Pacific theater for the future of the United States as a primary power on Earth and the whole security architecture that is anchored and acknowledging by other parties, by other countries that this is the case. And we will be talking about that, Albert, in the future.
We'll talk about security architecture, both in Asia and in Europe, how it's being transformed now, the prospects of war, both in Europe, how the war in Ukraine might end and what it means, how it may change, transform into something, you know, skirmishes or something, what we call skirmishes, other tensions, and in Asia. But this will be in the episodes to come. And this new podcast series, now you know, Geopolitical Insight by Strategy and Future, Albert and I. Are you concurring, Albert? Sure. I mean, I have, you know, there's always I wanted to say more, but let's keep our gunpowder dry for the next time. Sounds good.
And we promise we'll be doing it on a frequent basis. Thank you very much. Take care. Stay with us. Take a look at our website. And of course, take a look at our channel on YouTube Strategy and Future. Thank you very much. Take care. .
S K R Y B O T
Skrybot. 2023, Video transcriptions from YouTube
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