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In this interview, renowned geopolitical analyst Robert D Kaplan argues that American power has been in decline for years, and this will likely get worse under Trump. "This time around Trump is more experienced, he's more vindictive," Kaplan says. He explores what this means for geopolitics, in particular in relation to other "great powers" China and Russia. Kaplan also explains his view that "a world where all the great powers are declining... will lead not to a fairer world, a better world, but to more chaos" Robert D Kaplan is the author most recently of Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis, which will be published in January. He holds the Robert Strausz-Hupé Chair in Geopolitics at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He spoke to the New Statesman's Kate Lamble for the New Statesman podcast.
TRASCRIPT
important moment in that story the United States
cannot order events in the world the way it used
to the Middle East was very was relatively quiet
for decades under American tutelage when there was
an Arab Israeli War was the Americans who quickly
ended it essentially that's no longer the cas
case the Americans used to dominate the Asia
Pacific now China does so America's place in
the world is weaker uh than it used to be
America is poorer than it used to be and
America is more decadent than it used to be
I think as American power or the exercise of
American power is based on two things one which
most people grasp but not enough which is it's
B based on presidential Instinct the president
makes choices a number of choices a day on issues
that of great issues of War and Peace and also
many issues that the bureaucracy cannot decide
upon and gets kicked up to the White House when
the National Security advisor says Mr President
here we've got like four choices to make on
this and you make it now during the Cold War
we had a number of excellent presidents from
Harry Truman to George HW Bush Jimmy Carter who
just died it was actually the weakest of those
presidents in terms of presidential Instinct on
foreign policy despite all the great things that
have been written about him in the past two weeks
he was the weakest um since the end of the Cold
War um the pre the quality of the presidency has
declined in terms of presidential Instinct we've
had Clinton George W bush who may have been the
worst president of the last few decades um Obama
who was a mediocrity Clinton was a mediocrity and
then there's Trump you know who is a world
historical figure because he's so different
than anyone else so the quality of presidential
Instinct has gone down significantly then there's
the other thing that nobody writes about or talks
about but which is 80% of foreign policy and
that's the bureaucracy not just the secretaries
of state and defense but the uh the deputy
secretaries the under secretaries the assistant
secretaries of which there are many the deputy
assistant secretaries America has been an Empire
since 1945 and it's this layered bureaucracy
that runs the Empire and under Trump as I argue
in the piece this bureaucracy had went downhill
dramatically between 2017 and 2021 and is and
is set to go down dramatically again because
the quality of people that Trump appoints whatever
you may think of the quality under Biden another
mediocrity and others was much higher under under
all the previous presidents with the exception of
trump yeah what's the difference in Trump's second
term between I mean he's already been president
for four years what's different this time around
well he's he's got some experience he knows that
he because when he came in the first time not only
had he no experience with the presidency but he
didn't even know anybody who is in government
essentially you know he had no knowledge he
thought he could press a button and things would
happen and that's not how it works uh what's
amazing is how weak the presidency is as a general
institution I mean it's made for weak managers not
for uh World historical figures like Roosevelt
and Lincoln who are the exceptions to the rule so
Trump didn't know that Trump and this time around
Trump is more experienced he's more vindictive um
and he you know he's got people around him many
of whom have no experience in the bureaucracy
many of whom hate the very bureaucracies they've
beeno they've been empowered to run um and so uh
we're going to see a decline in American power in
the 80% that's run by the bureaucracy as far as
the presidential Instinct decisions that could
go in either way Trump is very unpredictable
because he has no well-thought out world viw I
mean you talk about the political power but you're
also right about the economics in America at the
moment and and how that's in Decline tell us about
that well in 1945 when World War II ended half
of the world's manufacturing capacity was in the
United States um and that lasted for decades it
it declined very gradually one of the reasons why
why you know Kissinger and Nixon could do so much
is because America was much more powerful then you
know now Amer America accounts for only 16% of the
world's manufacturing capacity then there's the
debt uh which is about $ 36 trillion and growing
dramatically at about a trillion dollars a year
and this and neither party neither the Republicans
nor the Dem Democrats have anywhere near the
maturity and fiscal discipline to deal with the
debt it's it's amazing I mean when you watch
Congress debate the budget it's like the last
days of ancient Rome I mean there is nobody in
the room who's even remotely responsible they just
want to spend and spend and spend um each party on
different things and this debt accumulates and
takes up more of the budget and there's less
money to spend on defense on social issues it's
like a building problem and as I lay out in the
peace this is how Empires decline over history
you know it's not you you know it's not just
ancient Rome it's you know most Empires throughout
history have decline because of economic reasons
and because of reasons related indirectly to
economic reasons if we're talking about about
an Empire falling you said that the US has been an
Empire since 1945 is its decline inevitable can it
be stopped if someone decided to it's absolutely
not inevitable I make two points in the piece that
America definitely is in Decline but also I point
out that China is in a steeper Decline and that
Russia is in an even steeper decline so decline is
relative America could Decline and yet its power
Visa Russia and China even under terrible
leadership could increase because it's
all relative there is no absolute here so we're
really facing a world where all the great powers
are declining and that as I point out at the end
of the piece will lead not to a fairer world a
better world but to more chaos I was interested
that you wrote that the US could be left in an
era of oil and gas of print and the typewriter are
you suggesting that there's sort of a sciance on
fossil fuels the resources that US the US has
that means that they can't get ahead of future
manufacturing these sort of new America was a
great um printon typewriter age Empire because
most of its history was under what I call the
greater print and typewriter age from the founding
fathers all the way to take a take a pick 1960s
1970s 1980s essentially then something happened
America became a pure democracy the founding
fathers were actually afraid of pure democracy
Madison was against it he wanted a republic not
a democracy all right what's the difference the
difference is in a republic the elites decide but
the people get to change the elites every four
years for decades the party leaders in so-called
Smoke Filled rooms behind the scenes decided
who would be the candidates for president and
though that was undemocratic and sleazy it
actually worked very well had the party leaders
made those still been in power in 2017 in 2016
Trump never would have been the Republican nominee
Jeb Bush would have been the Republican nominee
and he would have go gone on to be a a very good
president like his father not like his brother um
essentially see people forget all of this and
so now we have a pure democracy with primaries
for each state which means that the most extreme
person wins uh uh essentially because primaries
draw out the most extreme voters and so instead
of Elites deciding the two candidates um we have
pure democracy deciding it and the result has been
worse we've talked about the decline economically
the decline politically if we put that together
what does it mean for the US's place on the
world stage uh because China and Russia are also
declining and faster I think the US's place on the
world's stage will still be very very significant
but but not as significant as it used to be you
can say what you want about great Powers you can
hate them all this but a world of great Powers is
is a more stable world than a world where there's
no no great powers or very weaken great Powers
you'd have more for instance W without the United
States Navy over the last few decades you probably
would have had more Wars between India and China
because with the American Navy in the Indian Ocean
and the Western Pacific it essentially stabilized
the situation in many ways a lot of things like
this just wouldn't happen it's not a matter of
doing good it's a matter of preventing worse
things from happening let's say there is no other
country poised to take over from the US which
means that we end up I mean is there any chance
that you could end up with a more equal world
order if there's not one dominant power it could
be more equal but also more ineffectual I mean the
UN is equal and it's totally ineffectual I mean
that's the world you know um you the problem with
the UN is not the UN per se it's that it's you
know it's the fact that um France is a member
of the security Council and India which is much
more powerful and consequential than France is
not you know um but you know equality doesn't
lead to to capability necessarily so what does
a world without one dominant great power look
like a world of more chaos and Anarchy a world
of more Wars let's look at the Middle East for
for the past even before October 7th 2023 the
real problem in the Middle East is that it was
the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and there's
been no solution found to that collapse and
and without any Imperial overriding Force the
Americans are weaker less respected in the Middle
East the Russians are weaker you know than they
used to be in the Middle East China is interested
in terms of trade and economics but so far not in
great power military um political means the Middle
East has been on its own without great powers to
oversee the situation so to speak and that has
led to Warfare tremendous Warfare one thing we're
going to see probably I've been saying this for 20
years now everybody's saying it um which is that
we'll probably see a new regime in Iran uh so and
maybe even in 2025 certainly in the next few years
you you talk of a world of more more chaos is
this something that one of our listeners in the UK
should be worried about should should think about
the consequences in the future if if the US loses
its dominance yeah see chaos or Anarchy are words
that are overused in the media I mean the you know
if there's a crisis at 10 Downing Street there's
chaos that's all nonsense it's utter nonsense when
I mean chaos I I mean driving outside the capital
of kinaza and the Congo and there's no government
there are just militias with guns and roadblocks
I'm talking about the kind of chaos where people
don't worry about politics they just worry about
the safety of themselves and their children and
we'll see more of that I think we there's already
a lot of it but it's not written about because
it's beyond the radar screen you know essentially
you know it's almost a normal way of doing things
like Haiti is an extreme example so we read
about it but only occasionally what needs to
change to avoid that situation you said that this
decline wasn't inevitable that that it could be
corrected is there something that either the
Democrats or the Republicans have any interest
in changing no because uh Washington is in a
very decadent state it's controlled by money
and in Trump's second Administration proximity to
power proximity to the president will determine
how much money B multi-billionaires make they
won't have to go through the bureaucracy which
is how stable states do it you you know you have
to apply for permits you know there's a Security
and Exchange Commission one of the threats of
a second Trump term is that money has taken
over the presidency and all about it look at
Elon Musk I I mean you know it's not enough
that he's worth $50 billion or so but he has to
determine policy as well um so that's what I worry
about it's it's it's the effect of money in um in
Congress in the White House ironically the people
who are the most honest and the least wealthy and
the most hardworking are the very deep state that
everybody attacks you know um the Deep state is
actually very good it's made of clean cut people
earning regular salaries not from wealthy parents
and uh and often have extremely good judgment on
the parts of the world that they're experts on
the Deep state has been used to define people
who nobody knows who they are who are really
running things behind the scenes and that's true
because uh you know a great power needs a great
bureaucracy so what needs to change to avoid that
fate that you've laid out that possibility
when you get a slide like this where you can
identify the problems but you don't know what
to do about it um what needs to change is some
radical new leadership um and it's possible I'm
not discounting it completely that that you know
that the upheaval under Trump could give America a
new start because remember if you look at American
history we had the founders who were basic and
their sons who were the first six presidents
then there was a dramatic change with the seventh
president when Andrew Jackson replaced John Quincy
Adams and you CA you got in all these corrupt
ruun characters from the frontier which was
then Tennessee Kentucky and places like that
and the founders were absolutely shocked just
like the elite today is shocked at Trump you know
when they lost these Virginians and uh bostonians
lost control to these ruffe corrupt people from
the Appalachians essentially and it was corrupt
and it was free willing but over time it led to a
more Democratic Society and then we had other in
es I won't go into where um you had other
upheavals that were seen as the end of the
world at the time but in fact led to a rebirth
of American statehood so I don't discount the
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