Transcript – Might Makes Right? Michael Morell on U.S. Power, Allies, and Adversaries – The Steady State Sentinel Episode 15

TRANSCRIPT

Jim Lawler (0:1.273)
Hello, you’re listening to the Steady State Sentinel from the Steady State. I’m Jim Lawler, a former senior CIA operations officer. And joining me as my co-host today is John Seifer, my friend and another former senior CIA officer. Today, we’re talking with Michael Morell. Michael was the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2010 to 2013, and twice he was acting director of the CIA. His book, The Great War of Our Time,
the CIA’s fight against terrorism, was a New York Times bestseller, and it traces his three-long, three-decade-long career at the CIA. Michael, welcome to our program. You’ve been involved in vital national security issues now for about three decades. How is our current national security posture different today than in previous years when you were active in government?

Buckeye (0:54.691)
So Jim, John, it’s great to be with you guys. ⁓ Couldn’t think of a better way to spend the afternoon than ⁓ talking with both of you. ⁓ We have two ops officers here and we have an analyst, right? So there’s gotta be a joke in there somewhere, but you guys are better at making up jokes than I, so I’ll let you do that. ⁓ But.

John Sipher (1:2.138)
You ⁓

John Sipher (1:8.998)
.

Jim Lawler (1:12.933)
Well, my joke, Michael, is whenever an analyst comes into a room full of DO officers, the average IQ goes up about 30 points.

John Sipher (1:12.972)
We’ll try to be ⁓ easy on you.

Buckeye (1:21.179)
⁓ But the analyst is always looking at their shoes while they’re talking to you. ⁓ I do want to tell one story because it ⁓ puts me in context. And Jim, you mentioned that I was acting director twice. So when I was acting director the second time between Dave Petraeus and John Brennan, ⁓ my wife and I went out to dinner ⁓ in Arlington. ⁓ And the difference between
a director’s security package, Is the director gets two cars and four agents and a deputy director only gets one car and two agents, probably because they’re deemed less important. ⁓ But that day we had ⁓ two armored cars and four agents and we pull into this parking lot and there is this guy standing against the wall and he’s looking at us and you can tell by the look on his face that he’s thinking like, who is this, right? Is this Michelle Obama? Is this Secretary of State? Like, who is this?
So he’s on my wife’s side of the car. And when my wife gets out, he says to her, ⁓ is that somebody important? And my lovely wife says, no, he’s just acting important. ⁓ She could be an ops officer.

John Sipher (2:30.478)
⁓ well played.

Jim Lawler (2:30.606)
Hahaha!

Jim Lawler (2:34.885)
Good one.

John Sipher (2:36.844)
Yeah, yeah, she can. So let me let me ask you a question and we’ll get back to sort of that general thing is, I mean, you were center stage as well when we entered what eventually became called the war on terror. Right. And so ⁓ how do you see that the ⁓ I see and how it’s adapting to challenges now? Did we stay focused on terrorism for too long? And then alternatively, have we overcompensated from counterterrorism to this great power competition stuff they seem to focused on today?

Buckeye (3:5.083)
So it’s a great question. I’ll caveat it by saying I really have no idea what’s going on ⁓ inside. ⁓ So really important caveat. Look, I ⁓ think in retrospect, the country ⁓ and the intelligence community, ⁓ no surprise, given what happened to us on 9-11, overreacted. ⁓

John Sipher (3:12.706)
Neither do we, so don’t worry about it.

Buckeye (3:33.539)
you know, the pendulum swung too far. So while we were successfully post 9-11 focusing on Al-Qaeda, and I don’t think, ⁓ I think CIA’s performance on Al-Qaeda post 9-11 was perhaps ⁓ its single greatest sustained performance on anything at any time in its history. So I’m gonna give us a ton of credit, right?
We ⁓ brought all those people who were involved in 9-11 ⁓ to justice, and we brought Bin Laden to justice, and we prevented attacks on the United States. ⁓ And you guys know as well as I do how many they were planning in that post-9-11 period. So great success. But ⁓ did we in the country, ⁓ we by moving so many resources to terrorism, to counterterrorism, and the country
moving so many resources to the military, the long sustained campaign in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq period, right? Did we swing too far? And I think there’s an argument ⁓ that the answer to that question is yes. And I think it cost us because during that 20 year period, right, certainly 10, 15 years for sure, I don’t know what happened after I left, but during that 15 year period, we weren’t focused as much as I thought we should have been on Russia.
We weren’t as focused as much as I thought we should have been on China. ⁓ And I think ⁓ that left us not in as good a position vis-a-vis those adversaries as we should have been as an agency. So I think there is an argument to that. Did we shift too much away? I don’t know because I’m not there. But it does seem to me that if you’re going to track the most significant threats facing the nation right now,
⁓ there was a significant shift that was necessary, right, from counterterrorism to two nation states, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea.

Jim Lawler (5:36.901)
⁓ Looking, Michael, at our current national security posture, do you think we are actually safer today than we were on 9-11 because of current administration policies and IC leadership? Or is it simply that we’ve inherited a lot of the strong foundations that you and other officers put down for us? What’s your thoughts on this?

Buckeye (5:59.237)
So let me offer, let me say something about where I think we are ⁓ as a country with regard to foreign policy and ⁓ maybe ⁓ why we’re there ⁓ and ⁓ maybe a little bit about how this evolves. ⁓ So, ⁓ my strong sense, you guys probably see it too, my strong sense is that we to some extent have joined our adversaries
in what is a might makes right world, right? That we are ⁓ threatening countries ⁓ to get what we want, ⁓ either militarily, in the case of Venezuela, or economically, in the case of tariffs on pretty much everybody, that we’re kind of acting like these adversaries that we’ve not thought very highly of for a very long time, right? This is the way they act. ⁓
You know, why are we there? Is it just the president’s approach to things or is there something deeper? ⁓ And I think that there’s probably two ways that the U.S. can approach the world at this moment. ⁓ know, we can’t be the single hegemon in the world, right? We simply don’t have the relative power that we had when we did that. Right. ⁓ The strength of China, right, is the
The emergence of China as a great power, right, is the most important reason for that. know, we can’t be that global hegemon all by ourselves. We simply don’t have the resources. China is strong. ⁓ And ⁓ we simply can’t do that. So you really, seems to me, we have two choices. One choice is ⁓ to pull together the biggest group of allies and partners that we can and work with them.
to sustain to the extent we can some sort of global international order that was somewhat, at least somewhat similar to what we had before. Where we’re acting certainly in our own interests, but we’re also acting in the broader interests of our allies and partners, right? That’s one way we could do this. That’s what President Biden focused on. ⁓ That was exactly how he was gonna approach these difficult problems in the world. And he…

Buckeye (8:23.351)
You know, he built a lot of things, right? He built the Quad in East Asia to try to stand up to China a bit. But you could also argue that
You can also argue that ⁓ it didn’t work very well, that the US didn’t seem to have ⁓ as much power as it needed to have to ⁓ push back on adversaries or even allies. So the best example is Ukraine, right? Biden ⁓ did a lot. He felt constrained a little bit by ⁓ Putin’s… ⁓
Maybe more than a little bit. He felt constrained by Putin’s escalation rhetoric, particularly with regard to nuclear weapons. ⁓ But ⁓ he, you he couldn’t prevent the Russian attack on Ukraine ⁓ and he couldn’t dislodge Russia from Ukraine. Right. ⁓ Perhaps Ronald Reagan would have taken a different approach. ⁓ Maybe not. ⁓ You know, President Reagan was deeply concerned about nuclear war as as ⁓ as President Biden was. So who knows? But.
⁓ He wasn’t able to resolve that, right? He helped Ukraine stand on its own two feet and fight ⁓ and push back the Russians and all that’s really good, but he didn’t dislodge them. ⁓ And then on Gaza with an ally is, you know, he was incredibly supportive of Israel in the aftermath of October 7th, as he should have been in my view. ⁓ But when he wanted Netanyahu to ease up in Gaza, he completely failed. He was not able to do that, right? Netanyahu did what he wanted. ⁓
So this allies and partners thing, you know, really didn’t deliver. ⁓ So I think probably our current approach is rooted in the philosophy, maybe not philosophy, but ⁓ in the mindset ⁓ and personality of our president. But it’s really the alternative to the allies and partners approach. ⁓ I don’t think it’s going to work.

Buckeye (10:31.283)
any better and I think arguably it’s going to work a lot worse. ⁓ That we’re going to be ⁓ in worse shape in the world than we would have in the allies-partners approach. ⁓ But we’ll see how this plays out and I think people are going to start comparing these things. ⁓ One of the implications ⁓ of the ⁓ might-make-right approach is that it forces ⁓ Russia
China and the United States into spheres of influence. Because where your ⁓ might matters most is in your neighborhood. So that’s where you’re going to focus the might makes right approach. ⁓ And it seems to me that the US ⁓ is slipping into this ⁓ might makes rights approach in ⁓ the Western hemisphere. ⁓
We risk China doing the same in East Asia in a very significant way, I think. And we risk letting Putin do that right in his backyard or neighborhood, whatever you want to call it. ⁓ So I think the spheres of influence thing ⁓ is a real possibility. And we seem to be heading in that direction. And spheres of influence, as you guys know, ⁓ seem stable until the spheres of influence bump up against each other. And then they’re not so stable.
This is World War kind of stuff. So ⁓ I think that’s where we are. I don’t think it’s particularly helpful, but I understand it to some degree.

John Sipher (11:54.028)
Right.

John Sipher (12:3.470)
I mean, your insights like this are really very useful and you’ve written a lot of op-ed pieces. You’ve written a book. You had an excellent podcast series. So let me ask you a question that that Jim and all of us have to sort of deal with since we spent a career in a secret intelligence agency. How should people like us, how should intelligence agencies that operate largely in secrecy maintain public trust? How should people like us, former intelligence officers, engage publicly without undermining the sort of apolitical norms of their profession?

Buckeye (12:31.450)
Yeah.

John Sipher (12:33.516)
or finding ourselves being sort of like played around with by politicians who just create their own narratives based on what they want us to have said.

Buckeye (12:41.807)
Yeah, so it’s a great question. And you guys know that there are a number of our former colleagues who think that we shouldn’t even be doing this, ⁓ that once you leave CIA, you shouldn’t speak.

John Sipher (12:57.240)
But many of them say that when they’re in, then when they come out, they do the same damn thing. ⁓

Buckeye (12:58.939)
⁓ No, here’s the other thing. ⁓ Many of them on the outside are doing the same thing while they’re telling us not to speak. ⁓ That’s the best part, right? ⁓ And many of them who are saying to us, don’t be political, are being political when they’re saying, don’t be political. So I don’t have any time for those people. ⁓ But ⁓ I always thought, ⁓ and I think one of our really

John Sipher (13:7.561)
Exactly. Yeah.

Buckeye (13:27.685)
great directors, Mike Hayden felt the same way, that we keep the fence line of what we’re willing to talk about too close in. That there is a lot of room to push that fence line out. There is a lot of things that we can talk about, stories we can tell, ⁓ successes that we can talk about, failures that we should talk about, right? ⁓ And you can still protect…
classified information that you need to protect by pushing that fence line out. In fact, you actually strengthen your ability to protect that classified information because ⁓ all the reporters out there are focusing on the things you’re talking about, right? They’re not focusing on the things you’re not talking about. So ⁓ I’ve always thought there’s room for the agency itself and the intelligence community itself to push the fence line out and talk more about what we do to the American people and not let somebody else do it on our behalf because nobody’s going to do it as well as we do.
⁓ The second thing I’d say is, ⁓ obviously, you know, when I left the government, I wrote a book, ⁓ I worked for CBS News, ⁓ I had a podcast, I was out there talking all the time. ⁓ And ⁓ I think that’s just as important for former senior officials to do, because we do live in a democracy. The American people do have a right to know as much as we can possibly share with them.
And when you’re a senior official like all three of us, ⁓ we know where the lines are. ⁓ We know what we can say here and what we can’t. We know what’s been declassified and what hasn’t, right? So ⁓ I think we’re part ⁓ of the system for helping the American people understand what intelligence is, ⁓ why we do it as a nation, ⁓ how we approach it as ethically as we possibly can, ⁓ talk about our successes.
and why they’re successes and talk about our failures and why they failed and what we’re doing to make sure it never happens again. I think it’s incredibly valuable.

John Sipher (15:30.446)
⁓ that’s awful.

Jim Lawler (15:33.303)
Michael, if you were currently in power as either director of CIA or a major policymaker, and my question may be a little overtaken by events very quickly, but what should we be doing vis-a-vis Iran? Should we be just a cheerleader on the sidelines or how should we encourage these people to throw off the mullahs ⁓ and ⁓ perhaps pursue their own ⁓ democracy or whatever system they choose?

Buckeye (16:3.551)
We’re in a pretty delicate moment ⁓ as of this taping ⁓ with Iran. ⁓ It’s quite possible before the podcast comes out that we could be at war. ⁓ But I think…
I think Iran is a very complex ⁓ problem. ⁓ It’s not easy. It’s wickedly hard. I think it’s fair to say, and I’ve heard Prime Minister Netanyahu say this, that the United States ⁓ and ⁓ Israel pummeled the Iranian nuclear program and we didn’t destroy it.
And there is no way the Iranians are going to negotiate on missiles because it ⁓ is their only defense, particularly now that the proxies have been weakened. So there’s no way they’re going to give up missiles, put limits on missiles. They’re just not going to do that. And those missiles are aimed right at Israel. ⁓
And there’s no way they’re going to stop dealing with the proxies, even if they promise not to. We know how covert action works. It works the same way. You can deny it. You can deny it till the ends of the earth come home. So they’re not going to do that either. So the argument of those who are in favor of war ⁓ is Iran’s going to keep being Iran, the Iran we don’t like, until the regime is gone.
And we’re never going to have a better chance than we have right now to get rid of this regime. This is the argument of those people who are saying we should go. ⁓ And it’s true ⁓ that we’ve probably never been in a better position to change the regime than we are now. Iran is weaker militarily than it’s been in a very, very long time as a result of the war last June. And Iran is weaker politically.

Buckeye (18:4.475)
the regime is weaker politically than it’s probably been at any point in its history. So now’s a good time. And if you’re Prime Minister Netanyahu, you’re never gonna have a better partner in the White House, right? And if you’re Prime Minister Netanyahu, you got an election that you have to call by October, right? And if you can go to the voters and say, defeated Hamas, I defeated Hezbollah, and I defeated the head of the snake,
I have brought us permanent security. You can see him saying this, right? ⁓ I brought us permanent security. ⁓

John Sipher (18:35.502)
Mm-hmm. Thank

Buckeye (18:41.247)
you know, he might win, right, which is kind of astonishing, you know, given October 7th and all the failures, you know, surrounding October 7th. ⁓ So that’s the reasons, right, to go. ⁓ The reasons not to go are, number one, there is no guarantee that either ⁓ a significant sustained military campaign is going to dislodge the regime.
In fact, the probability is less than 50 % that only an air campaign can dislodge the regime. So there’s no guarantee that this military action, even a significant one, is actually going to accomplish what you’re trying to accomplish. And then the second ⁓ is, ⁓ even if it does dislodge this regime, there’s no guarantee that the next one is going to be any better than this one. In fact, the most likely outcome, seems to me, ⁓
of this regime disappearing, the clerics, right? The clerics who rule the way they rule and with the ideology that they rule with. ⁓ That resulted, right, in thousands and thousands and thousands of deaths of the protesters you talked about, Jim, that ⁓ the most likely outcome is the IRGC takes over, right? They got the money. They got the guns. They got the power. They have the know-how. Now, they might cut a deal with Trump because they’re not ideologues.
⁓ They’re in it for the money. They own all these industries. They’re in it for the money. They want to sustain that. They might cut a deal with the president visa the way Delcy Rodriguez has. ⁓ Yeah, so they could do that, but maybe not to. The other thing I remind people of ⁓ is ⁓ even a democratic, a truly democratic Iran might not be Iran we like. So this desire for ⁓

Jim Lawler (20:14.957)
I was going to say it sounds a lot like Finis of Weyland. ⁓

John Sipher (20:16.406)
Mm. ⁓

Buckeye (20:34.315)
This Iranian desire for hegemony in the Middle East, it’s what the proxies are about, it’s what the missiles are about, it’s what the nuclear program is about, right? That’s not a clerical regime thing. That’s not an Iranian thing. That is a deeply Persian thing, right? ⁓ They had one third of the world’s population under their control when it was the Persian Empire.
They think they have a right to that again, just like Vladimir Putin thinks that Russia has a right to ⁓ the Russian empire. ⁓ The Shah used to talk openly about his desire for nuclear weapons someday. ⁓ And the father of the current Iranian nuclear weapons program is a guy named Rafsanjani, who was a moderate in this regime. ⁓ even a truly democratic regime

John Sipher (21:25.006)
⁓ Mm-hmm.

Buckeye (21:30.701)
Iran is going to be at odds ⁓ at many times with the United States and our other allies in the region. And I guess the last point I’d make on the why not now, right, those are all why not nows. The other why not now is ⁓ the risks are enormous. ⁓ You know, one risk is that the Iranians ⁓ are ⁓ successful militarily either in Israel
killing a large number of citizens or successful vis-a-vis us in sinking a warship. ⁓ Remember the Falklands War, out of nowhere, the Argentinians ⁓ had a missile that nobody knew about and they sunk a British warship, right? ⁓ Massive fallout in the UK over that. ⁓ I’m not predicting that because I don’t know if they have any special weapons, but who knows? ⁓ It’s always possible, right? The other possibility is that in a ⁓ significant war,
Gulf oil infrastructure gets mixed up in the fight. ⁓ Saudi, Emirati, I don’t think anybody wants to have an oil war here, but you never know. ⁓ If the Iranians feel that this is existential to them, they might want to escalate.
as high as they can go, right, which is attacking oil and trying to escalate so high that we say, my God, and we pull out. They might think that. You know, that could take oil to $250 a barrel, right? In that case, right, forget about the midterms. Forget about the midterms, right? It looks like a bloodbath to begin with. So there are massive economic risks, strategic risks, ⁓ and political risks for the president.
So he’s got to weigh all this. guess he’s even doing that today, right? ⁓ But there’s an argument for ⁓ and there’s a strong argument for and a strong argument against.

John Sipher (23:20.866)
Ha. ⁓

John Sipher (23:29.559)
But I think we learn from our experience too that this notion that these things are easy are sort of ⁓ not true. And I think this administration, this president in particular, likes to think that he can pull off things that are easy. And he’s had a little bit of success with that. So I think it’s in his head. So there is some danger there. But let me ask you more general question based on your long experience as a very senior analyst in the CIA. ⁓ How do you see AI impacting intelligence moving forward?
And what does intelligence advantage mean in AI deep, deep, I ⁓ don’t know what, deep data, big data, better collection, faster analysis world that we’re gonna be living in? How’s it gonna affect decision-making, do you think?

Buckeye (24:11.931)
From an intelligence perspective, right? ⁓ That’s a great question. So I think it has a very significant use in cybersecurity, in cyber both defensively and offensively, right? ⁓ You know, the way these ⁓ cyber attacks are done both by us and by our adversaries is you ⁓ get a foothold in a network and then you got to figure out how to get from where you are to where the good stuff is.

John Sipher (24:13.592)
Yeah.

Buckeye (24:41.687)
And it means making a jump and then evaluating and exploring where you are and figuring out where your next jump is, right? You don’t have a map, right, of the whole network. You got to sort of figure out the map as you go. Put it that way. ⁓ That’s a time consuming process. So somebody might get a foothold in a network because of a successful hack. And it might be two months before the ⁓ offensive cyber guys figure out exactly where the good stuff is and start.

John Sipher (24:50.926)
⁓ Okay. ⁓ you ⁓

Buckeye (25:11.435)
you know, their exfiltration. With AI, you can do that much faster because you can have that AI do the analysis for you. And maybe it makes some mistakes, but who cares, right? It’s just moving so much faster. ⁓ So that’s a place both offensively and ⁓ you respond to it, right, by using AI on the defense too. ⁓ So that’s one place. ⁓ You know, ⁓ I’ve seen since I left government,

John Sipher (25:16.526)
There. ⁓

Buckeye (25:41.217)
all sorts of both collection tools ⁓ and analytic tools that are AI driven. ⁓ And they’re incredibly impressive. You can see all sorts of interesting intelligence use cases. And you say to yourself, I wonder if the CIA has this because they absolutely should, right? ⁓ And then you learn that they don’t. And you’re like scratching your head.

John Sipher (26:1.838)
⁓ Ha ha ha ⁓ ha.

Buckeye (26:5.143)
And we all know our organization, right? We absolutely love it, but not invented here, right, is a pretty strong, pretty strong character trait. ⁓ So I think, I think that’s changing. Director Radcliffe just put out new guidance on how small tech firms can get into the building, which I think is terrific. ⁓ We’ll see if that makes a difference. Other people have tried things like this. This is another attempt at that. ⁓ I think there’s room.
for both collection tools and analytic tools. They’re ⁓ already experimenting with this stuff inside. So ⁓ I don’t know if it’ll affect decision making, operational decision making or analytic decision making, ⁓ because you have a little bit of time. You’re not forced by the adversary to move quickly, ⁓ except in cyber. So ⁓ I think the impact is going to be massive. ⁓
I think probably the best approach, ⁓ right, if I was in my old job and we were having a meeting about AI and intelligence, ⁓ I think the best approach is let a thousand flowers bloom. Let people at the working level experiment with it. And then let’s all compare notes, right? What worked, didn’t, ⁓ rather than trying to straight jacket the whole organization into ⁓ something, right, that might not end up working.

John Sipher (27:26.412)
Yeah, we see, for example, like you’ve seen groups like Bellingcat and these other guys that do collection piece of this, not the Atlanta. Well, I guess that’s an analytical in a sense, too. And you see how, you know, those kind of things would be beneficial inside the building. And yeah, the mindset has to change a little bit ⁓ to bring those in. So we’ll see.

Buckeye (27:43.735)
Yeah. But the other thing that I tell companies, right, companies will come in with ⁓ these great analytic tools and it sits on top of open source data. And guys, what I say to them is, guys, that’s great. But when you take it to CIA, they’re going to want it to sit on top of ⁓ all of the data, both the open source data ⁓ and all of our classified holdings, right? ⁓ The open source data is great, but we’ve got so much more.
So let’s use it, right? And the company’s got to get in that mindset that they got to figure out a way how to integrate all of that special data, right? And we as an intelligence agency have to figure out a way because so much stuff is compartmented now, right? ⁓ I it was always compartmented, right? But so much stuff is compartmented now that ⁓ you run the risk that if not all the data is there and you miss something,

John Sipher (28:30.446)
in them.

Buckeye (28:42.883)
and you find out that in some compartments, this was George Tennant’s big worry after 9-11, right? That somewhere in our building was gonna be the next attack and we’re gonna miss it because it’s compartmented. So they gotta figure that out too.

Jim Lawler (28:56.911)
You know, that’s interesting you say that Michael’s ⁓ professor from Stanford in a retired army general ⁓ asked me how AI would affect human recruitment, recruitment of foreign spies. And I said exactly what you did. I said, if you could combine a, an AI tool to scoop up all the overt information and all the covert information about particular people that we wanted to recruit all their financials, their medical, everything else, it would be a fabulous tool. ⁓
enabling case officers how to make the proper recruitment approach. So you’ve talked about Ukraine, we’ve talked about a little bit about Russia, what are any thoughts that you have on China?

Buckeye (29:37.693)
Sure. ⁓
Like I said, I’m a little worried that we are headed toward.
some sort of a deal, right, where we get a good bit of what we want on economics and Xi gets a good bit of what he wants on national security, right, like not sell weapons to Taiwan, distance ourselves a bit from Taiwan. There’s a risk there. There’s a real risk of that happening, I think. With regard to Taiwan,
I say a couple of things about China. One, with regard to Taiwan, ⁓ I do not believe ⁓ that ⁓ a Chinese attack on Taiwan ⁓ is ⁓ likely in the near term. I think without a doubt, actually, think without a doubt that Xi, President Xi, sees military action against Taiwan as a last resort. It would be a massive risk for him.
Imagine trying and failing. Not only would he lose his job, but the Communist Party would be out of power. This issue is so important to the Chinese public. So if he does it, he’s got to make sure that he can do it. And when he told his military to be ready by 2027, he was admitting that they weren’t ready yet. And the reason you see so much discussion about a possible blockade

Buckeye (31:16.901)
is because they can’t do an invasion yet. They don’t have what they need. ⁓

Buckeye (31:25.021)
⁓ So his ⁓ goal is to build such a massive military force across the straits from Taiwan that a Taiwan president wakes up some day and a US president at the same time wakes up some day and says, ⁓ is not worth it. This is not worth it. Let’s find ⁓ a way out of this. Let’s find ⁓ a way to give China what they want here. ⁓ That’s what she wants. I don’t know if that’s possible, but that’s what he wants.
Would he go to war if Taiwan declared independence ⁓ or if the US changed its one China policy? Probably, because he would have to. ⁓ But that’s where the blockade might happen. That’s why they’ve been practicing the blockade, just in case. ⁓ If the US changed its one China policy, China might grab one of those Taiwan islands that are really close to China. ⁓ That would be an easy grab. And they would say, OK, what are you going do about it?
And in a blockade situation, ⁓ they would say, we’re blockading you, no weapons in, we decide what comes in and out. And if anybody wants to take the first shot, Taiwan, US, go ahead. So ⁓ I don’t think Taiwan ⁓ is ⁓ a near-term issue. I don’t think there’s any evidence that Xi has given up on his goal of coercing them back into the fold rather than forcing them.
Second thing I’d say is that, look, we got a lot of problems here, right? For sure. China’s got a lot of problems too. A lot of problems. They got a massive demographic problem. ⁓ The number of workers per non-worker ⁓ is falling rapidly. That is a real economic problem. They are massively in debt. ⁓ They over-invested. There are so many buildings in Beijing, for example,
that there’s nobody, ⁓ nobody in. There are so many factories that are idle because they simply over-invested. This is what Japan did that got Japan into so much trouble. They’ve got, ⁓ they also have a leadership problem. And here’s the leadership problem. China had figured out how to have an authoritarian government, which they need, right, for the Communist Party to stay in power.

Buckeye (33:51.569)
but having a change in leadership every ⁓ number of years. That’s actually brilliant, right? You have a change in leadership so you get fresh ideas. Not only the leader has fresh ideas and new energy, but the people they bring with them have fresh ideas, ⁓ more creativity. But by Xi making himself leader for life, there’s a real risk of sclerosis ⁓ in Chinese policy going forward.
I think you can actually see that a little bit. ⁓ And that is not in the long-term interest of China. ⁓ that’s ⁓ a downside. The other downside is that Xi became so… The other problem they have, ⁓ Xi became so fearful ⁓ of the Chinese who were getting rich because of capitalism that he shut down economic reform and actually rolled it back because he was afraid of those people.
the political power that they would get by being rich. You actually saw a couple of individuals ⁓ who he focused on. ⁓ And by turning off economic reform and rolling it back, you undermine, ⁓ you undermine Chinese growth. ⁓ All of that Chinese growth we saw over the years, those really high rates of growth, wasn’t because China’s socialist communist model was a good, you know, was a great thing and a successful thing. It’s because they unleashed capitalism.
It was pure capitalism that led to 400, 500 million Chinese being lifted out of poverty. And he said, can’t do that because the political consequences are too great. So they’ve got their own set of problems.

John Sipher (35:35.702)
and they don’t have immigration that really can fill the demographic thing. ⁓ so, yeah. So listen, you’ve been really generous with your time. We generally try to keep these sort of at a ⁓ short rate with us. So I know you’re not doing the podcast anymore. I mean, we will, ⁓ we and our listeners will be on our lookout for your writing and the things you’re saying, but is there anything you’d like to tell us that you’re thinking about working about or family businesses you should, you could tell our listeners about?

Buckeye (35:38.521)
Exactly.

Buckeye (36:0.925)
⁓ No family businesses. What I will say is ⁓ I think it’s great that you guys do this ⁓ because I think it’s… No, no. ⁓ that’s what you meant by family business. ⁓ I thought you meant other things. Yes, Middleburg Books, my wife’s bookstore, Middleburg, Virginia. It’s fantastic. She’s built a…

John Sipher (36:11.384)
Wait, you’re not going to hack the bookstore? OK, all right. Good. right. Good. All right. I’m sorry. Go ahead. ⁓ It is good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. ⁓

Jim Lawler (36:16.909)
It’s a good bookstore. ⁓

John Sipher (36:25.742)
There you go.

Buckeye (36:28.613)
Incredible. I have no responsibility in this. I carry boxes when necessary. ⁓ She built something really special. Thank you. But the last thing I wanted to say is, ⁓ you ⁓ spend any time ⁓ at CIA, you know that the vast majority of people there ⁓ are amazing Americans who are working really hard for the security of their country. And that
That’s you too, right? And they see that. I listen to your podcast, right? They see that every week. ⁓ I think it’s really important that you do this. And ⁓ to those people who think we shouldn’t be talking publicly, ⁓

Jim Lawler (37:8.101)
⁓ Thank you, for those kind words. And thank you especially for this very interesting discussion for joining us today. So if you like what you heard on today’s show, please subscribe to the Steady State Sentinel wherever you get your podcasts and give us a five star review on Google if possible. These subscriptions and the five star reviews help us get the important content to the widest audience possible. The Steady State Sentinel is for you, our listeners.
and we want to hear from you. So please stay informed, stay engaged, and join us next week for another episode of the Steady State Sentinel. For the Steady State Sentinel, I’m Jim Lawler, still standing watch.

John Sipher (37:53.678)
All right, thanks Michael.

Buckeye (37:54.287)
That was great guys