Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove
Guest
Episode Summary
Donald Trump ran his 2024 US presidential campaign vowing to be the “peace president.” Now one year into his second term, his tenure has been marked by global instability, and a return down the path towards American isolationism. This week on One Decision: In Brief, guest co-host and former Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh joins former head of MI6 and host Sir Richard Dearlove to discuss the shocks and surprises that have defined the geopolitical landscape of this past year. Sir Richard argues that Trump has acted as a catalyst towards the continued disintegration of Pax Americana, and worries that Trump’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin puts an end to the war in Ukraine in jeopardy. Sabrina reflects on the shift in US foreign policy, from the closing of USAID, to joint strikes with Israel on Iran and a fragile ceasefire in the war in Gaza. Together, they explore what to watch for in the coming year, including AI technologies emerging as a strategic issue, the effects of Trump’s tariffs, the fate of the theocratic regime in Iran, Greenland, and the looming economic and military shadow of China.
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Transcript
INTRODUCTION
Singh: Hello, and welcome to One Decision. I'm your guest cohost Sabrina Singh, former deputy Pentagon press secretary. I'm joined by One Decision host, Sir Richard Dearlove. Tuesday, January 20, marks one year of President Trump's second term. For today's in brief, we ask how has his presidency reshaped US foreign policy and diplomacy worldwide? And that is a looming question that, I think, Richard, we have a lot to discuss.
Dearlove: Well, I'm reluctant to look at everything through the Trump optic, but there's no question that we're all in something of a state of shock because of the change in nature, the change in emphasis in American foreign policy. But I think it's important to have this in perspective. There is this tradition of isolationism, which we've tend to forgotten about in American foreign policy, and Trump, you could argue, is a significant representative of that trend. If you go back in time, Pax Americana, the sort of security system that followed World War Two, began to disintegrate before the arrival of Trump in office. But Trump, as it were, has been what I would describe as an extreme catalyst. He's speeded up the process massively fast. We tend to look at him as driving it and being the cause of it. I'm not so sure that that's a correct interpretation. I would say he's more of a symptom, but as I say, a catalyst which has accelerated the whole process. And we're looking at a series of profound readjustments. And, of course, I'm looking at it mainly from the European perspective, and the shock in Europe at the way he has behaved is quite extreme. And, of course, there are not just negatives, there are some positives. And for me, the positives are the reorganization to an extent of the relationship with China, but that goes back to Trump's first term. I think the more important area is the reality that the Europeans had to face up to in, as it were, getting their own house in order when it comes to defense expenditure and making a proper full contribution to NATO. Now these are all issues that came up during the first Trump administration. I think they came into power the second time around with a much more prepared agenda and with a willingness to carry and push through policies which were implicit previously and now have become actual. These are my sort of general observations. I'm always keen not to be entirely negative about what's happened and try to see some positives, but the negatives are obviously It's hard not to be. Yeah, the one that worries me, I think worries most Europeans is where does Trump stand with Putin? Where are we going to end up on Ukraine? Every time we have an initiative towards Putin that looks too favorable to Russia, there's a pushback, and then three weeks later Trump comes back with another statement. In fact, the last few days he's been saying, well, the blockage to peace in Ukraine is Zelensky, which is a pretty extreme and strange thing to say when we know for a fact that Putin has not adjusted his original war objective one jot and has made absolutely no concessions at all. Anyway, I'm sure you have some follow-up questions, but those are my initial observations.
A YEAR IN REVIEW
Singh: I remember when the election happened and I was in the Biden administration in January. You know, we were, I quite literally was, you know, turning off the lights and letting the new administration come in. And just looking back at the last year, we left office, and, all of a sudden, everything was in the lens of DOGE. Almost immediately, Trump taking office, you know, USAID was shuttered. You had so many news cycles that just kind of became almost like daily occurrences. It was USAID, and then tensions were very high in what was happening in The Middle East. And you had this, you know, somewhat tenuous ceasefire come together. And then what you were just saying of this, you know, literally this red carpet rolled out for Vladimir Putin and that, you know, blow up between Zelensky and Trump in the Oval Office in February. And then you look to summer where we had, you know, we conducted joint strikes with Israel and Iran to — at the, you know, starting the year, three days into the new year, we led an effort to change a regime in Venezuela under kind of the guise that this was about, you know, narco terrorism and drug trafficking out of Venezuela. It just seems like kind of every day, it's like hard to keep up with what the news is and what this administration is doing. I think what you were just getting at too is, like, this idea of, you know, isolationism. We're returning to that. Something that my old boss used to say or would always talk about is the international rules based order and something that, you know, we pride ourselves on as The United States is upholding. And now it's sort of, I think, I don't know what the future holds, but a new order is emerging and that consequence that it will have for our, you know, our very special relationship with The UK and other partners and allies around the world. And we're only, you know, three weeks into January at this point. We haven't mentioned Greenland. We haven't mentioned Iran.
Dearlove: Yeah. In all of these extraordinary events, I mean, Greenland maybe is the most strange given the long term nature of the relationship between The United States and Denmark and other European powers that have equities and interests. I think it's worth mentioning, I think there might be a solution to the Greenland issue, which is copying the situation that the UK has to cover its bases in Cyprus. And we have something called sovereign base areas, where effectively the areas of Cyprus which have been conceded as sovereign base areas, i.e. the writ of The UK runs absolutely inside these areas, and it may be that there are wild chunks of Greenland which nobody worries about too much, which could be conceded as sovereign base areas for American forces. But that's by the by. I just cannot see it's in anybody's interest, even Trump's, to force some sort of confrontation over Greenland. But let's see how that plays out, and maybe it is only an issue of negotiation, although he keeps saying things that then persuade you, well, maybe he really is serious about taking it over. Going back to another issue, which is Iran. I mean, I strongly supported the attack on the Iranian nuclear capability because I felt that for years this has dragged on and on and on. There's been a really massive problem in The Middle East in particular, and I always felt the JCPOA was a very poor agreement. And then, you know, Trump cauterizes it by taking this extraordinary decision, which nobody expected him to take. And it's clearly turning out, I think, to be a decision perhaps with positive consequences. Maybe it's too early to draw conclusions. It depends now what happens to the administration, the theocratic administration, the regime in Iran. My own expectation is it's probably on its — I wouldn't say its last legs but on its last months of survival. But it has been such a roller coaster. There's just so much has happened. And I think there remains an outstanding question, because we can't go on indefinitely having these shocks and surprises. The international security system needs to settle down again at some point. But what is the model? Ultimately, what it would depend on is the counterbalance in relationship between China and The United States, the two superpowers. How are we going to order a world where they can live together, trade with each other, okay, have very different and opposed value systems. They're very adversarial, but on the other hand, can we make that work? I suppose you would argue then the Cold War eventually refound a modus vivendi with the Soviet Union, and I think it's important now that people in the Trump administration, the idea legs, and there are some idea legs there, start thinking about how they counterbalance the world between themselves and China because that question is hanging heavy in the air, and there's no apparent progress yet towards an answer.
Singh: You know, someone asked me the other day, is there anything that you agree or that you think the Trump administration has done well at when it comes to foreign policy? And I think we both agree, at least on the point on the joint strikes on Iran and taking action on their nuclear capabilities. I think that that was action that yielded significant results. I mean, we've never seen the regime at its weakest, and I think that's why you're seeing some of these protests in Iran. There's, of course, incredible amounts of deaths, but you're also seeing such widespread protests in regions and provinces that we've never seen before. And I think that's partly because the regime showed its vulnerability and that it is not the power that it projects. So I think you make a very interesting point on those strikes as well, and I have to agree with you on that. I guess just, you know, looking forward, we're only in January. What are some of the issues that you're keeping your eye out for this year or at least the coming months that you think we need to pay attention to?
WHAT TO WATCH IN THE YEAR AHEAD
Dearlove: Well, I think from my perspective, Ukraine is crucial. It's a brutal, ghastly war. It does need to end, but it needs to end without concessions to Putin, and I'm worried as to where the Trump administration is going on that issue. So that's the first one and at the top of my list. I think the second one is how events now play out in The Middle East, whether the Gaza ceasefire will hold. I think it probably will, but, you know, with insufficiencies and problems continuing. And, of course, if the Iranian regime goes down, that supposes a very, very significant change in the whole balance of power in The Middle East. I mean, the third issue is always China and Taiwan, how that plays out. Then I think that the other thing which is important, which we don't talk about much — I mean, well, that's not fair. We haven't talked about it a great deal on the podcast — is the regulatory issue. And what I mean by that is the massive advance of AI and the impact of all of this on social media and the fact that you have a divergence in regulatory thinking in The United States and Europe. And I think it's important that this is seen as a strategic issue, and I would hope that there is some effort, which I don't see at the moment, to create, let's say, a regulatory alignment on the global scale. And the other issue which has sort of dropped off the agenda because it hasn't had the impact that everybody expected is tariffs, of course. Yeah. You know, how will that impact in the longer term? Because we're beginning to think about tariffs running, you know, on global trade. I'm sure I've missed out some really vital and important things, but if I had to sort of give a list of my immediate concerns, those are the ones that I'm certainly thinking about. And you've probably got others you can add.
Singh: No. You know, I think you captured it. I certainly for the immediate future in January, I think it's The Middle East and Iran and looking to see what these protests are and what they evolve into. And if this president does decide to take military action, you know, that remains to be seen. I am deeply interested to see how Venezuela unfolds because we heard from oil executives at the White House saying, it's going to be very difficult to go back into Venezuela. You know, they need the security guarantees, and it's being reported that this administration is looking at private security contractors, but I think we also know how that story has ended before. Will there be a commitment of US, you know, boots on the ground? I don't know that this administration wants to do that. But is that an option that's not off the table? I think the larger, you know, looming question is just, of course, Ukraine is always something that we've seen sort of go back and forth with this administration, and we know Trump really wants that Nobel Peace Prize even though he was just gifted someone else's. Where does that land? But I think, you know, just you really emphasized this point, and I couldn't agree more. It is all about China, and they have the economic military might to, I think, challenge us. And so we can't keep our eye off the ball on that. But we're also, you know, relooking at the Western Hemisphere as a priority through this administration's foreign policy views. So there's a lot that remains to be seen, and I think it's going to be a very, very busy year here in The United States.
Dearlove: Absolutely agree. And I'm sure that there are surprises that lie down the track. So maybe that's a good moment to conclude. Thanks a lot. Yes. Very nice. Exactly.
Singh: Thank you, Sir Richard, for your time. That's all for this episode. Join us Thursday for a conversation about The United States' influence in Latin America with former ambassador to Panama, John Feeley. And for more conversations with leading decision makers and thinkers, check out 1decision.com and our YouTube page where you'll find additional commentaries, conversations, and explainers. Thank you for listening.
