00:00hi everyone welcome to the a 6nc podcast
00:02today's episode based on an internal
00:05lunch series conversation is moderated
00:07by a six in Z policy team partner Matt
00:09Cole furred and is what the author of
00:12the new book destined for war can
00:14America and China escape that the
00:16Citadis trap their conversation also
00:19touches very briefly on centers of
00:20creativity and powertech North Korea and
00:23finally the role of applying history to
00:26our thinking about the future but first
00:28more about the author political
00:30scientist Graham Ellison was Dean of
00:32Harvard stron of Kennedy School of
00:34Government and is currently the director
00:35of the Harvard Belfer Center for Science
00:37and International Affairs he's been a
00:40mentor to innumerable senior government
00:42officials including as assistant
00:44secretary of defense for policy and
00:45plans under President Clinton and
00:47special advisor to the secretary defense
00:48under President Reagan he's also served
00:50as a member of the defense policy board
00:52for seven secretaries of defense dating
00:54back to the Reagan administration in
00:561971 Graham wrote this essay which was
00:58subsequently turned into a book called
00:59essence of decision explaining the Cuban
01:01Missile Crisis which remains one of if
01:03not the most widely read pieces in
01:05government among senior national
01:07security leaders so really when you talk
01:09about people who have institutional
01:10knowledge particularly at the Defense
01:12Department there's really nobody who
01:13equals Graham we're really here to talk
01:15about your new book about the state of
01:17the us-china relationship particularly
01:20around international security issues the
01:21kind introduction so who was this
01:24why was he important and what is this
01:26so-called facility strength acidities
01:28was a chronicler of the great conflict
01:31between Athens and Sparta in classical
01:34he wrote a spectacular book called the
01:37history of the Peloponnesian War
01:39lucidity 'he's captured in this book an
01:43insight which is essentially as old as a
01:46recorded history itself which is that
01:48when a rising power threatens to
01:50displace a ruling power happens
01:53so he says famously this quotation it
01:57was the rise of Athens and the fear that
02:00this instilled in Sparta that made the
02:02war inevitable we'll give you the
02:04lecture of the Peloponnesian War but
02:05just to remember that the Persians were
02:07ruling the area though Sparta was the
02:09main power on in Greece Sparta was the
02:13culture kids at four or determined
02:15whether they're strong enough if they're
02:16not strong than if you kill them okay
02:18and if they're struggling after they go
02:20into training and then they train and
02:23then they become warriors and they're a
02:24great warrior said they were great
02:25warriors and they beat everybody that
02:27they fought because that was that was
02:29what they did Athens and Sparta got
02:31together and fought together and after
02:33that you had this explosion of
02:35creativity in Athens I mean if you think
02:37of Silicon Valley is a place where
02:39basically everything is happening and a
02:41lot is happening and people are
02:42inventing things every day well just go
02:45back and think about classical Greece
02:46what did they invent well the infinite
02:48drama so Aristophanes Sophocles
02:51Euripides davejin if history lucidity
02:55Herodotus then with philosophy Socrates
02:59Plato Aristotle they invented democracy
03:03Pericles look at the Parthenon you can
03:06find a better building in that in
03:07Silicon Valley right every day some new
03:08thing that's happening and the Spartans
03:10are sitting there thinking what the hell
03:12is going on it we've been accustomed to
03:14the things being this way and you keep
03:16making things different
03:17so one thing lead to the other and this
03:19competition becomes then a vulnerable to
03:24external events neither the Athenians
03:26know the Spartans wanted a war both of
03:29them knew that was a bad idea
03:30but they each had allies the Allies got
03:33into a tangle and then one thing led to
03:35the other and that ultimately did it a
03:36war so in this book I take this insight
03:39Thucydides trap to try to illuminate
03:41what's happening in the relationship
03:43between the US and China by particular
03:46on the canvas of history so I look at
03:49the last 500 years I find 16 cases in
03:52which a rising power threatened to
03:54displace a ruling power in 12 of the
03:56cases the outcome of Zwart in four of
03:59the cases the outcome was not war
04:00business as usual in the relationship
04:02between the US and China will likely
04:05produce history as usual but only those
04:08of us who failed to study history or in
04:10the repeat that I want to talk about a
04:12quick case study that doesn't come up
04:13that I think is somewhat instructive and
04:15important though and that's the us-india
04:17yep in both cases we've got countries
04:19China India with ascendant economies
04:22over a billion people
04:24nuclear weapons and a lot of coming kind
04:27simmering regional conflicts why is the
04:30us-china relationship different than the
04:31us-india relationship and say 71 or 74
04:34how is it more fraught with risk no one
04:36imagines India is going to displace the
04:39US as the predominant power in Asia but
04:42in the case of China almost everybody
04:45who's examined the case notices that
04:47China is becoming so big and so strong
04:49that it actually doesn't mention that it
04:51is pushing up against us everywhere I've
04:53had the benefit of a couple of great
04:55tutors including my old professor Henry
04:57Kissinger and Lee Kuan Yew the founder
04:59of Singapore the world's premier China
05:01much of a question that I put Columbus
05:03is our China's current leaders serious
05:06about displacing the US as the
05:09predominant power in Asia in the
05:12and you can go to Kissinger's book
05:13that's 750 pages it says on the one hand
05:16or on the other hand it's complicated
05:18who could tell and Lee Kuan Yew Center
05:20of course why not who could imagine
05:21otherwise how could they not aspire to
05:24this place to the US so you look at look
05:26at this picture and you say wait a
05:27how should you measure either
05:29international economies and I believe
05:31the best yardstick is purchasing power
05:33parity which is also the yardstick that
05:36CIA and IMF think is the best yardstick
05:38by that yardstick China is currently the
05:41largest economy in the world
05:43václav havel the former president of
05:45czech republic's is this has happened so
05:47fast we haven't yet had time to be
05:48astonished and thinking about Silicon
05:51Valley just realize coming here this is
05:53not where I live or obviously where I
05:54spend most of my time thinking but if
05:57you look in your space if you don't see
05:59China in your face you're not looking so
06:01if you look at $0.10 or at the Alibaba
06:07or at the Weibo you see I've been
06:11actually Phoebus compared in terms of
06:14market cap what's happened in the last
06:16in this year Vincent and Alibaba are
06:19both up 45 percent just this year you
06:22know one of the things we think a lot
06:23about in Silicon Valley is the role of
06:25the tech sector in the so-called track
06:27to diplomacy due to the relationships
06:29that the tech communities have
06:30established in China in the u.s. we
06:32actually have a China expert here in a
06:34dreesen Horowitz Connie Chan who
06:36ironically can't be with us today
06:37because she's in China but you know she
06:40and has thought a lot about this
06:43interesting dynamic where the prevailing
06:45narrative was China was this copycat of
06:48the US with regard to a lot of
06:50technology but you look at technologies
06:52like WeChat and increasingly American
06:54that you're seeing American companies
06:55actually copy Chinese companies a
06:57student of mine is from Shanghai she
06:59came and she said you know I feel like I
07:01came to a backward country in China we
07:05have 10 times more apps maybe a hundred
07:07times more apps than you guys we don't
07:10use credit cards we don't have money we
07:14Alibaba pay there's a bridge it does
07:16between the Harvard Business School and
07:18the Kennedy schools across the Charles
07:19River is called the Anderson bridge the
07:21reconstruction this bridge was discussed
07:24when I was Dean of the Kennedy School
07:25and I quit being Dean in 1988 the
07:28project started in 2012 if they've now
07:31given up telling when it's gonna be
07:33completed there's a bridge in China
07:35called the sun-young bridge in Beijing
07:37it's twice as big almost three times as
07:39big as for Edison bridge so they decided
07:42to reconstruct it in 2013 how long did
07:45it take for the reconstruction of the
07:47Chinese bridge a week forty three hours
07:50well if they would come in in 43 hours
07:52fix the Anderson bridge I would save
07:54some time driving so let's talk a little
07:57bit about the Obama ministration
07:59proposed pivot to Asia and you make a
08:02great point in the book that the
08:04administration was really fully
08:05intending on recenter in Asia as a
08:07priority in their foreign policy but
08:09that you know fighting two wars in Iraq
08:12and Afghanistan not to mention the rise
08:14of Isis and you know extremism in the
08:16Arab Spring just totally controlled the
08:19agenda I think I can count on one hand
08:21the number of DCs and peace deputies
08:24committee means and principle community
08:25means that I remember that were about
08:27Asia and the majority of them were about
08:28the Sony hack in North Korea at least
08:30when I was there so talk about what the
08:32center points were with respect to you
08:34know what what role was China policy
08:35gonna play in that and then where did it
08:37go wrong the pivot had a very right idea
08:39which was the future is in Asia think
08:43about the economic balance of power just
08:45as a first approximation as a seesaw and
08:48the pivot is really an argument about
08:49whether we put more way there
08:51left foot the Middle East will refining
08:53wars that Isis or on our right foot in
08:56Asia where the futures but as we
08:59continue this conversation we don't
09:02quite yet get it that our feet have just
09:04lifted off the ground and you can do
09:07this same seesaw for a principle
09:09economic relationship with every country
09:12in Asia if you go around the ASEAN
09:14countries or you go around Northeast
09:16Asia the principle buyer the principle
09:19seller the principal investor China and
09:22the Chinese would not only have economic
09:26power but they exercised economic power
09:28so when the Philippines behaves in a way
09:30they don't like they say I think you're
09:33bananas that you're importing the China
09:35may be suspect so they just leave them
09:38on the doctor they rot when the
09:40Norwegians actually gave her the Nobel
09:43Peace Prize to a dissident China had
09:46been their number one market for salmon
09:48and they imported their 4:07
09:51and that Norwegians have now grovelled
09:53back and said we're so sorry we gave
09:55this wasn't us it was an independent
09:58committee and now they're buy a little
09:59bit more salmon so they're perfectly
10:01prepared not only to have economic power
10:03but to use it to squeeze people yeah
10:04well it seems like the other
10:06illustrative example is the Asian
10:08infrastructure bank we have the World
10:09Bank which is this existing institution
10:11that with the IMF finances a lot of
10:13projects around the world and China
10:15essentially said we don't like how the
10:17World Bank allocates this money or how
10:19the decision-making process operates so
10:22we're gonna start our own infrastructure
10:23Bank essentially you talk about this in
10:25the book actually you call it a
10:26transitional friction which is when you
10:28have these rising powers that feel
10:29constrained by existing institutions at
10:32some point they say you know forget the
10:34existing institutions we're gonna go
10:35create our own so at the end of World
10:38War two the US and a great exercise of
10:41leadership created the International
10:44order that's accounted for the seven
10:45decades without great power war this is
10:48very anomalous the big part of the
10:51reason why they didn't happen was the
10:52u.s. helped create an international
10:55rule-based system the economic order a
10:58political order or security order that
11:01order included the World Bank
11:04that gives development loans for
11:06countries trying to develop and
11:07importantly the IMF the international
11:09monetary system that basically provides
11:13for financial markets so if you didn't
11:16have these institutions we would have
11:18what you had before which was the chaos
11:21that had previously both not only
11:25allowed financial crises like the
11:28depression to become worldwide Great
11:30Depression but when the u.s. set this up
11:32we set it up with the rules but there's
11:34one country that has a veto that's us we
11:37set up the system and we don't generally
11:39we don't usually take advantage of it
11:42but occasionally we do so the Chinese
11:44said we're bigger we're stronger we
11:47think we should have more shares of
11:48basically in both the IMF and the World
11:50Bank you get shares of voting there's a
11:52hundred votes and we should reallocate
11:55the votes a little bit so take a few
11:56votes away from you and give them to us
11:58the administration was actually prepared
12:00to try to find a way to accommodate and
12:03when they could have done the Obama
12:04administration but we said no no we're
12:07Oh Chinese say that's fine we'll set up
12:09our own system so now for for
12:11development loans the Chinese
12:13Development Bank's that if you take the
12:15group together including AAA be have
12:18four times the capital of the world make
12:21a dynamic is like two sort of competing
12:24baseball teams at a middle school and
12:26you know the United States was one and
12:28they very confidently said come on guys
12:30let's get out of here and the British
12:32and the French kind of went well I don't
12:33know maybe we want to join this other
12:34baseball team an example you give in the
12:36book of a relationship that did not
12:38escalate into a hot war was the
12:40us-soviet relationship between 1945 and
12:421991 and there are a lot of political
12:44scientists who have argued that the Cold
12:46War in many ways was a good thing and
12:48that some of these covert actions really
12:49allowed the US and the Soviet Union to
12:51kind of Duke it out in covert ways and
12:53essentially release pressure from this
12:55system of competition and pressure that
12:57was building so I guess the question is
12:58how are we not in sort of a covert cold
13:02war with China already let me say just a
13:04word about what was the Cold War for
13:05world war ii was the most devastating
13:07war ever 50 million people killed in
13:10April of 1946 the number two person in
13:13the US Embassy in the Soviet Union
13:18famous diplomat wrote back something
13:20called the long telegram the long
13:23telegram said the Soviet Union will now
13:27pose for the US a more ominous challenge
13:31to our existence and a way of life than
13:34the Nazis did some people said the war
13:36is over we're bringing our troops home
13:38we're exhausted we don't need some other
13:40dragons to be worried about no no any
13:43case this began a conversation in
13:45Washington which over the next four
13:47years invented something really
13:51unbelievable the strategy that was the
13:54hall-door strategy and the cold war
13:56strategy had in a half dozen different
13:59dimensions initiatives that were so far
14:02beyond the conception of anybody in 1946
14:06that today they would two-speed
14:08virtually inconceivable in June of 1947
14:12the Secretary of State George Marshall
14:14gave a speech and he said I have an idea
14:17why don't we take American taxpayers
14:20money a percent and a half a year of GDP
14:24and give it to the Europeans to help
14:27rebuild the devastated Europe including
14:31Germany and Italy who are just killing
14:35our guys 18 months ago do you think what
14:40forget about it I mean imagine a
14:42president or a presidential candidate
14:43said I have a good idea now climate is a
14:46big deal and if we end up despoiling the
14:50climate so that 50 or 100 years from now
14:52people can't inhabit it that'll be a bad
14:55thing so we're gonna take a percent and
14:58a half of our GDP from your taxpayer
15:00dollars and invest in trying to make a
15:03livable climate they would be glad out
15:07of Washington in a second in any case
15:09this idea and five more ideas like it
15:13were constructed and concocted and it
15:16became a strategy which we then pursued
15:18for four decades to victory to success
15:21what was the Cold War it was basically
15:23competition in every dimension except
15:27one bombs and bullets
15:30direct combatant so it was okay to kill
15:32each other's agents but usually
15:36tit-for-tat it was okay to have economic
15:39and Broncos was okay to steal
15:42information it was okay to put out fake
15:45news and the Soviets of disinformation
15:46through the whole Cold War that's called
15:48information warfare so basically I would
15:51say interestingly we now virtually have
15:54a cold war in cyber between the US and
15:56China right you talk in the book about
15:58some of the similarities between she and
16:00Trump and their aspirations for their
16:02countries what do you view as the
16:03greatest similarities and maybe some of
16:04the greatest differences - so first what
16:06is the slogan for President Trump or
16:09just campaign make America great again
16:12well four years before that five years
16:15before that she's in pain became
16:18president of China and what is his
16:21banner say if cloak really make China
16:24great again and in the Chinese narrative
16:27we were great for five thousand years
16:30there was then this 200 year anomaly
16:33which was caused by Westerners like you
16:36coming here and exploiting us in period
16:41being Imperial occupying our territory
16:44fighting worse actually fighting the
16:47opium war and now we are reimbursing to
16:51be ourselves again and we're gonna be
16:53great what's our basis for this for
16:55nationalism nativist nationalism so
16:59Chinese are becoming proud to be Chinese
17:01again one of things biggest challenges
17:05as to how do you persuade people that
17:07you should let me and a few guys rule
17:10and you should just be happy he's trying
17:13to purify as he puts it to rectify the
17:17party they make it virtuous again how
17:21can you do this we build some cadre who
17:24will be so competent in performing the
17:27functions of government that citizens
17:30will say well they're doing a good job
17:31in you know well I'm doing in the Trump
17:34case you see a expression of you know
17:36nationalism that's basically rejecting
17:39the system that was there but the
17:42these two are striking well now you know
17:45the one that I found the most
17:46interesting was actually the comparison
17:47between she and Teddy Roosevelt both
17:49China and US had the sense of kind of
17:51manifest destiny and in fact China as as
17:53you write about the book translates to
17:55the metal kingdom right the thing that
17:57was the center of the universe and
17:59everything else is lesser and in
18:02relationship to it if you look at our
18:05rapper saw the u.s. is almost always in
18:07the center so I say what about if they
18:10were just like us when Teddy Roosevelt
18:13was basically leading the u.s. into what
18:17he was supremely confident was going to
18:19be an American situation I take it back
18:21through the eyes of Teddy Roosevelt in
18:221897 he arrives in Washington to be the
18:26number two person in the Department of
18:28the Navy first there's a mysterious
18:30explosion of the ship the main that's in
18:34Havana Harbor which we take as an
18:36occasion to declare war on Spain
18:38now we defeat it quickly we liberate
18:40Cuba we take Puerto Rico that's how
18:42Puerto Rico becomes part of the US and
18:44we get Guam as a spoil of war
18:46that's how Guam becomes part of American
18:48territory we then threaten war first
18:51with Germany and then with Britain about
18:54a territorial dispute in Venezuela where
18:57they're trying to settle the dispute
18:58then we sponsor a coup in Colombia and
19:02create a whole new country Panama which
19:05the next day gives us a contract for our
19:07canal because Teddy Roosevelt want to be
19:09a little canal between the Atlantic and
19:11Pacific because how else will our
19:12warships you know be able to be on both
19:14sides then we thought what I like the
19:17best is we steal the biggest part of the
19:20fat tail of Alaska so if you look at it
19:23there's a big blob that's Alaska and
19:25then there's a 500-mile tail that runs
19:27down to Juneau that cuts Canada off from
19:30the ocean so how did this come to be
19:32American what else a long story but the
19:34short of it is is this fellow John Muir
19:37he was a big naturalist so Muir had
19:39gotten Teddy was about to come camping
19:41with them in Yosemite and that's how we
19:43made Yosemite to be a national park so
19:46mirrors up in the in Alaska in his canoe
19:49exploring glaciers and he writes a
19:52letter back to Teddy Roosevelt and he
19:55like a hundred Yosemite s and tell us
19:58about turns to a Secretary of State and
19:59he said this is America right and the
20:01Secretary of State says no sir this is
20:03Canada and he said look at what Muir
20:06said this is a hundred years sympathies
20:08this is America and so we basically
20:11threatened war with Canada unless they
20:14gave us this territory and we took it I
20:16often wonder so you know Teddy Roosevelt
20:18avid outdoorsman right loved to hike and
20:21hunt and I wonder if you know Taft had
20:25been president during this period I have
20:27that's kind of overweight he's lethargic
20:29sedentary guy if he would have just gone
20:31now that the Canadians came you
20:33mentioned a few different possible
20:34sparks for armed conflict between the US
20:36and China everything from trade Wars to
20:38the North Korean regime how does the
20:39North Korea situation play into this
20:41dynamic that you talk about in the book
20:43what are the most dangerous development
20:46in the on the horizon today what's
20:49happening on the North Korean Peninsula
20:50and why is it so dangerous because it's
20:53it's an element in this facility and
20:56dynamic so you have a rising power
20:58threatening a ruling power it's not
21:01usually that one of the parties decides
21:04now's a good time for war what happens
21:07is instead I'm seeing you rising in my
21:11face you're making me fearful this
21:14anxious maybe even a little paranoid
21:16even you're trying to be helpful I'm
21:18thinking you probably have ulterior
21:20motive there's no trust there's a lot of
21:22misunderstanding and then there's
21:24vulnerability to the impact of third
21:26party incidents or accidents which then
21:30can produce interactions that get you to
21:35the result you want to talk so how could
21:37the assassination of an Archduke in 1914
21:42I mean there's a story you still can't
21:45believe so a Archduke is visiting
21:48Sarajevo where even people told him he
21:50shouldn't go and a Serbian terrorist who
21:55belongs to an organization called a
21:56Black Hand kills them assess listen this
22:00strikes a match and the end of which the
22:02whole house of Europe is burned out so
22:04wait what is this guy in Sarajevo have
22:07and Germany and Russia and France going
22:10to war there which answers one thing
22:12leads to the other and that leads to
22:13something else in the case of World War
22:16if you jump to 1918 what's happened to
22:19what each of the major actors cared
22:22about most answer lost so the
22:26austro-hungarian emperors tried to hold
22:28together his empire it's dissolved he's
22:30out the Russian Czars trying to back the
22:33Serbs of course he's been overthrown by
22:36the Communists his whole regime was gone
22:38the Kaiser is trying to back his buddy
22:41in Vienna he's gone the French are
22:44trying to back the Russians their blood
22:46of their youth for a whole generation
22:47they never recover and Britain which
22:50used to be a big creditor country for a
22:52hundred years is the debtor in terminal
22:54decline so if you're given these folks a
22:57chance for a do-over nobody would have
22:59made the choices he made but they did
23:01one thing lead to the other in edgemon
23:03north korea has built nuclear weapons
23:05they have tested missiles that can
23:08deliver these nuclear weapons that's the
23:11train coming down track number one this
23:13story has been going on for a long time
23:15Clinton looked at this which looked at
23:17it Obama looked at it Trump arrives and
23:20he says no no no and the reason why it's
23:23very relevant is if this were but if
23:25this was an issue and it was Britain in
23:27the u.s. the two parties would sit down
23:30and say screw this we're not the Irish
23:33or the Canadians or somebody dragged it
23:35to a force into a war so let's just
23:38figure out what to do and if we can't
23:40agree with a flip a coin but in any case
23:41we can solve this problem in a case in
23:44which you have a lucidity and dynamic
23:46and which basically from the from from
23:49Beijing's point of view they wonder what
23:51the hell are you even doing on this
23:53peninsula look at the map here this is
23:55country right next door to us you
23:56shouldn't even be here and if you
23:58weren't here we wouldn't have this
23:59problem but we say wait a minute we
24:01didn't choose to be there we only came
24:03there but try to help South Korea from
24:06being incorporated in part of this
24:08Stalinist North Korean regime now South
24:11Korea has built a very successful
24:13country the 13th largest economy in the
24:15whole world they have a functioning
24:17democracy there there are poster child
24:20Asia we're not walking away just say
24:23because it happens to be near your
24:25territory so it's hard to get the two
24:27parties to figure out how they would
24:30work now I'm hoping that they will let
24:32start let's go to audience questions the
24:34Western conception of international
24:36order was like on Westphalian politics
24:38and what what differences do you see in
24:41the way China approaches international
24:44order I understand the Western is more
24:45about maintaining some kind of
24:47equilibrium or balance that's a great
24:49question and the fact that I have a
24:50chapter which has a little riff on that
24:53clash of civilizations so a Chinese
24:57conception of order is extremely
25:00different than American conceptions of
25:02order in the Chinese conception of order
25:04you have basically a hierarchical
25:07dominance in which somebody is at the
25:10top of the pyramid and everybody else's
25:12is located in relationship to who's at
25:15the top of the pyramid and as we said
25:18earlier the term China even in Mandarin
25:21means center of the universe and it
25:23connects the universe to heaven and
25:26everybody else is subordinate to us so
25:30that the and that the order in the
25:33Chinese structure and the primary
25:37injunction in the Confucianism in which
25:40it's in which it's rooted is called know
25:43thy place so you discover that you
25:47belong in the third rank and I belong in
25:50the fourth rank and halos in the second
25:53rank but the Emperor is at the top and
25:56Cal Taos to show that I respect you more
25:59and who count house more is the one
26:02that's lower than the one that's higher
26:04so for the Emperor what you're supposed
26:07to do is go prostrate yourself on the
26:09floor because he's with the godlike
26:12level or the quasi government level fact
26:14there was a moment that Trump pulled off
26:17at the very lack of summit where she's
26:20in pain and his wife arrived and Chinese
26:23were terrified to what was Trump gonna
26:25do they like scripted events he's he
26:27likes had live so they couldn't agree on
26:30a script or anything but so he said well
26:34as for you though he pull brought out
26:36his granddaughter who's five years old
26:38his name was Arabella and they said
26:41Arabella has something for you and so
26:44she should be standing there with his
26:46wife and Arabella sings in Mandarin Wow
26:52the song Jasmine which is the signature
26:56song that Lee Kuan Yew's wife sings
26:59who's a famous singer and he he'd been
27:01asked afterwards who's this really was
27:03this was his granddaughter yes really
27:06was his granddaughter and she really
27:08moved out of singing Mandarin well on
27:11that beautiful and off the optimistic
27:12note I want to ask one more question
27:13within the book you mentioned this idea
27:15that you've been kicking around to
27:17establish the White House Council of
27:18historical advisors which would
27:21essentially be similar to the council of
27:22economic and what advisors brings in
27:24economists for usually about two-year
27:26terms to can informally advise the
27:28President on economic issues where is
27:31this idea have you gotten much traction
27:33on it who are some of the other
27:34historians that you've talked to about
27:35this basically here the concept is
27:37applied history should be a
27:40sub-discipline of history in the same
27:44way that in effect engineering is a
27:46subordinate discipline of physics or
27:50medicine is of biochemistry so
27:52mainstream historians don't really like
27:54it because it seems a little too applied
27:56in the same way that theorists don't
27:59like applied and physicists look down on
28:02engineers so apply historians applied
28:04history is the attempt to illuminate a
28:06current challenge like what's happening
28:09in the relationship with leaders in
28:10China by analyzing the historical record
28:13in particular analogues and precedents
28:15to see what clues or insights or lessons
28:18you can draw I published two years ago
28:20and applied history manifesto where
28:22basically said you know this should be a
28:25practice of activity and to be a council
28:28of applied historians just like the
28:30council you know the advisors where a
28:31president could ask though okay here
28:34we're thinking about a problem is there
28:35any illumination who could provide for
28:38us from the historical record the idea
28:40is not dead but I think it'll be a
28:41little time before he gets through this
28:42for you Graham thank you so much I think
28:45we we need a lot more people like your
28:47often think about these historical
28:49analogues thank you thank you
![How To Succeed As A NEW & YOUNG Realtor [Deals Every Month + Luxury Listings]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FrtrRghgTayc%2Fhqdefault.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
