Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove
Guest
Philip Gordon
Philip Gordon is a former U.S. National Security Advisor to Kamala Harris.
Episode Summary
In this episode of One Decision, host Kate McCann and co-host Sir Ben Wallace, former UK Defence Secretary, speak with former US National Security Advisor to Kamala Harris, Philip Gordon. They dissect the Trump administration’s military actions in Venezuela, including the arrest of President Maduro, and also discuss the US’s threat to take control of Greenland and what these moves could mean for the future of global politics. Gordon begins by offering a candid explanation of what is really driving Donald Trump’s decisions and warns whether America is taking extraordinary risks without a credible plan for what comes next if its strategy fails. Gordon and Wallace argue that the United States is moving away from a rules-based international system and toward a “spheres of influence” approach, aligning the US more closely with the worldviews of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and question the future of Western foreign policy. They also discuss Europe’s inadequate response, whether divisions between countries have made it hard for Europe to respond effectively, and what steps Europe could take to become less dependent on the U.S to better handle global conflict on its own. Gordon closes with a discussion on the growth of public fatigue in the United States after decades of global leadership and considers whether this fatigue could limit America’s ability to reclaim its former international role in the post-Trump era.
Episode produced by Situation Room Studios. Original music composed and produced by Leo Sidran.
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Transcript
COLD OPEN
Mccann: Did Europe see this coming? Did Europe believe that Donald Trump would do what he's done in Venezuela? Donald Trump just doesn't believe in rules based order at all. His worldview is that
Wallace: the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. You only have to, you know, meet people, do the job, read the room to realize that sucking up to Donald Trump, giving him gold watches from Switzerland doesn't work.
INTRODUCTION
Mccann: Hello, and welcome to One Decision. I'm Kate McCann, and I'm joined by my cohost today, Sir Ben Wallace. Hi, Ben.
Wallace: Hi. Hello, Kate. Happy New Year.
Mccann: Happy New Year to you too. And in today's episode, we're gonna be talking to Philip Gordon, the former national security adviser to the vice president, Kamala Harris, among many other things. Phil, welcome to the podcast.
Gordon: Good to be here. Thanks a lot.
INTERVIEW
Mccann: You are the perfect person to join us for this episode because there is so much going on in the world right now, Venezuela being, of course, one of the biggest issues that everybody is preoccupied with. So we thought a good place to begin would be to step back slightly. And with all of your expertise in American politics and also knowing Europe and how America and Europe sort of work together, what do you think is the motivation for the Trump administration here? What do you think is driving Trump's decision when it comes to Venezuela?
Gordon: So it's a great place to start, Kate, because one of the things the administration has really failed to do is to provide a clear justification. They've had so many different reasons why we're doing this. If there's one that has dominated, it was fentanyl. You know, these guys are drug runners and they're killing Americans. The irony of that one, of course, is the lead one is, like, it's just not true. Venezuela is just not a main source of fentanyl. It is a sort of pass through for some other drugs. But they've talked about this in terms of democracy, legitimacy, US law enforcement, drugs, keeping China out, keeping Russia out, and just like looking for whatever fits the bill. The thing that was most striking right after the raid that captured Maduro is Trump kind of came clean. You know, and I'm not saying the other factors weren't relevant because, you know, all of these decisions are a compilation of different interests. But when you really boil it down in Trump's mind, this seems to be about dominating the region and letting US oil companies make money in Venezuela. Simple as that.
Wallace: Phil, can I ask, how much do you think this has been thought through in any way? I mean, if American engineers go off to the refinery in Venezuela and start diverting oil or running oil for The United States. And the bulk of the Venezuelans are not welcoming, saying, you know, hang on. You know, we don't want you here. It's our oil. And people start getting killed. I mean, it's, as you and I know, stopping terrorism is incredibly hard. Stopping certainly where there is a population that is not in your favor, it becomes a very — it doesn't matter how big and mighty you are. What happens then? I mean, you know, there are secret police. There are terrorists. There's the GRU active in Venezuela. The IRGC are active in Venezuela. I mean, what's gonna happen then? Is he gonna have to invade?
Gordon: Completely. That's why this is such a huge gamble. I mean, your first point is interesting and like how much of this has been thought through. Let us just say that is not Donald Trump's strong point. And look. There's a case for being a risk taker and being bold. Presidents sometimes have to do that. But, you know, I sometimes note President Obama, who I worked for, was often accused of thinking things through too much. You know, we think about Syria, and he would be second order effect, third order, fourth, and critics would say — and as you know, having served in high levels of government, you can be paralyzed if you worry about everything that could happen because lots of things can happen, and you have to be sometimes decisive and take risks. But if Obama was guilty of thinking a little bit too much about second, third, and fourth order effects, Trump is guilty of not seeming to think about them at all. And I think that's what this is in Venezuela. Even when he first started saying Maduro has to go, we're putting an armada in place, I don't think he had an answer to — and there's been some good reporting on this lately. He wasn't inclined to intervene. And then Maduro pissed him off by dancing and rejecting him and making fun of him, and he decided to do it. I think that's where we are now too. But that's the big risk is they don't have a good answer to what next if plan A doesn't work. So I think plan A right now is to hope that, okay, they got Maduro. Maybe his cronies will be so afraid of the next wave of intervention that they'll do a deal. And they'll pay back US oil majors for money they owe them. They'll give them opportunities to invest in Venezuela, and they'll, as Trump says, do what he says. So that's the best case scenario. But the worst case, and arguably even more likely case, is that they don't for the reasons you said. Even if Delcy Rodríguez personally decides it's in her interest to try to do a deal, you have the security services, the corrupt ministers of defense and interior, the gangs, the Cubans, the Russians, the Chinese. They will have every interest in not doing that. I don't think Trump has an answer to that question. If plan A doesn't work, would they bend to your will because you tell them to? Because last thing, we're not there. When Trump says we're running Venezuela, we're not because we're not there. It's all just based on the hope that the fear of Donald Trump will lead them to do our bidding. That's just really risky.
Mccann: I think, you know, you are right. There doesn't seem to be a concrete plan for what happens next, nor does there really seem to be a massive appetite for boots on the ground, although he's opened the door to that. It does seem like a shift has happened here that this administration has indicated would happen, and now we are seeing them putting that into practice.
Gordon: Sure. And I'm not saying that he doesn't have, you know, big ideas or grand visions of where he wants to go and, you know, dominating the Western Hemisphere in the Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine and putting his right wing allies in place throughout the hemisphere is absolutely a goal. I mean, there's no question about that. He's had longstanding principles of dealing with autocrats and anti free trade and anti immigration, some core principles that he is putting in place. What I'm saying is what he doesn't have are specific and implementable plans to operationalize those objectives. So sure, his objective is to put a regime in place in Venezuela, not just Venezuela, by the way, but throughout the hemisphere, that will, as we said, you know, stop drug trafficking, give US oil companies a stake in the region, keep the Russians and the Chinese out and bow to our will. That's a clear goal. What is lacking is a realistic plan for implementing that goal. And, if, as I've said, if plan A doesn't work, I don't think he knows what plan B is. And if plan B is to have to use force and actually go into Venezuela and do this ourselves, then we run into the same sorts of, you know, post regime challenges that we've seen in places like Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya, and it usually doesn't go well for The United States.
Mccann: But Ben, I mean, you are very sort of ingrained in the security sort of world, I suppose, Europe and beyond it. Did Europe see this coming? Did Europe believe that Donald Trump would do what he's done in Venezuela?
Wallace: I don't think they would think he was gonna go that far as rendering the president of the country to The United States custody. I think what we saw, we saw a buildup of approximately 15,000 troops. We saw assets moved. We saw special forces command move assets from one part of the world to another, which was surely a sign of something. But I think all the theories within our diplomatic networks were around he was probably gonna use — if he was gonna do anything, he was gonna use his armada to effectively blockade and maybe — where I think Chevron, The United States oil company owns a large share of the single refinery in Venezuela, maybe use something around that key asset. But I don't think anyone thought we would see the swooping in and the rendering away of the president of the serving country. But I think the point Phil also makes, which I think is really, really important, and you too have made it, which is the big shift here is away from a rules based order to a sphere of influence type of foreign policy from The United States. And the significance of that is that, basically, it shows two things. It shows, first of all, that Donald Trump and President Putin align in many ways on how power works around the world. It actually also rather foolishly aligns probably with how President Xi sees things around the world in his backyard, e.g. the Pacific. But it is also a rejection of post-West 1945. In 1945, the West effectively rejected spheres of influence that were delivered by force and ideology. The, you know, the Soviet Union, you could argue, the Cold War was cold because we were fighting that type of creeping communist sphere of influence and saying everything should be based on a rules based system equal to all, where freedom — because we factored that in. Freedom helps us all succeed and thrive. And we all became very rich on that, including The United States. That's how The United States and Britain and Europe traded. But if we are going to a spheres of influence policy, I think that's something that is going to be very dangerous for areas such as Europe because our nations are far too old, far too civilized to bend the knee nowadays, to anybody's sphere of influence. And I think that's why JD Vance hates us so much because it doesn't matter whether you're a little Denmark founded in August or whether you're, you know, a new country coming out of the East. We are not going to easily fall into a sphere of influence type of foreign policy. And that means Donald Trump ultimately becomes more aligned with Putin and probably President Xi if a deal can be done than he will be with the values of his own population.
Mccann: Phil, is that — in your view, is that where things are headed for Donald Trump now?
Gordon: Yeah. I mean, I basically agree with that. And in the long run, that's probably the more consequential result of Venezuela than Venezuela itself. Obviously, we'll have to see how that plays out. But what it also is, as Ben just said, and I think we knew this before, but if we didn't know it then, we sure know it now that Donald Trump just doesn't believe in rules based order at all. His worldview is that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. And again, as Ben said, that happens to be very similar to the Putin Russia view of the world and the Xi China view of the world. And Donald Trump — and that's just a fundamental break with eighty years of US foreign policy, where after the Second World War, we decided it was in our interests to have rules and norms and institutions. Not that we respected them personally, perfectly all along the way. But every president other than Donald Trump at least believed he was working to try to prevent and deter aggression, to preserve principles like you don't violate borders by force because we had an interest in that world and a relatively open trading system within it. And Donald Trump has essentially said, I just don't believe in that. Trump isn't even pretending — or some of his officials are, but he's not even pretending to argue there's a domestic or an international legal basis for this. He's just doing it because he can, and he's sending that message throughout the region that people need to line up with The United States or he's capable of using force against them. Last point briefly on the spheres of influence, that remains to be seen. To me, that's a different question from international rules and order. There, it's clear Trump has violated that. We'll have to see if he agrees to respect Russia and Chinese spheres of influence as much as he insists that they respect ours. He does seem to be doing that in Europe already where kinda he thinks that Putin — he understands Putin's desire to grab parts of Ukraine. In that case, it's not their oil, but it's territory and minerals and nuclear power plant that Putin wants. And he's kinda sympathetic to that. He hasn't yet deferred to Xi throughout Asia, and so far, we're still standing by our allies in the Indo-Pacific. But it is easy to see how this slips into that sphere of influence too, and Trump kind of does a deal with these other autocrats. If you let me rule my hemisphere, I'll stand out of your way and yours.
Mccann: I suppose, Phil, one of the questions that this discussion throws up for me, and it's around international law and that kind of global order, is if we are saying that something has shifted and, you know, that may well have limitations depending on how you look at it, is the European response to what Trump has done therefore just completely inadequate? Which is to say, well, we need to see what, you know, what the justification is in law and, you know, we need everybody to stick to the rules. Does it feel like Europe is just a bit irrelevant here?
Gordon: Yes. And, you know, I have sympathy for the dilemmas of the European situation. They are dependent on The United States. They're worried about Trump retribution. They're pleading with him to try to stand with them on Ukraine because they fear that without The United States, they're really vulnerable to Russia and not strong enough. They're divided. You have some countries willing and ready to really criticize The United States for violating international law and others not. So I understand it and I get it, but the bottom line is yes, Europe looks irrelevant in this. You know, I think this has been a trend in the first year of Trump foreign policy all along. Europeans trying to preserve support from The United States through flattery and nice words for Trump and hoping that if they're nice to him and they don't offend him, he'll support them. And each time, he just responds to that, again, with contempt.
Mccann: Ben, do you think things would have been different if you were still defense secretary and we still had a Conservative prime minister in office?
Wallace: Well, I don't know, but I do know I would have done what I did with President Putin, is look. Politics is about people. We've lost the art in our governments in the West, which are so over-bureaucratized, in actually reading the people, reading the person on the other side of the table. You know? Exactly what Phil's just said. You know? We're still engaging with Trump as we wish him to be rather than how he actually is. We have foreign ministries who look at the world as they wish it rather than the sad truth that it isn't as perfect as it is. And we have to deal sometimes with the rough and tough of the world. And sometimes that means we have to get tough ourselves. And, you know, you only have to meet Donald Trump. I had lunch with him. I met him a few times. You only have to, you know, meet people, do the job, read the room to realize that, you know, sucking up to Donald Trump, giving him gold watches from Switzerland doesn't work. There's an amazing book called Trump written in 1991 by one of his casino bosses from Atlantic City. It's one of the best reads you can read because it's not written by a sort of kiss-and-tell I-knew-the-president. It was written at the time as this guy exited one of the casinos in Atlantic City. And in there, right in the middle of it, is Trump's obsession with wearing a suit, for example. It goes way back. Right? If we'd had good quality advice to people like Zelensky, we would have known that those are the sort of things that touch him off, but also how he constantly makes decisions in the moment and then blames the person next to him when it doesn't go right.
Mccann: I mean, that's — he's been like that since forever. Right? The reason why we can't talk tough — and maybe we're talking about The UK, but maybe we're talking about European countries more broadly — is because we cannot back it up. We do not have the will or the desire to engage in the way that Donald Trump does in the world. And Greenland is a really good example of that. You know, this is a nation that Donald Trump has said, and I quote, yes, we need that. We need it for defense. And yet there isn't a coherent — there hasn't been a coherent response from European nations who've been very, very cautious about being robust, even linguistically.
Wallace: Phil's done an excellent essay called The Allies After The United States, which I've read. And he's right about some of the observations in it that, you know, we've lost this sort of self-confidence. We've become so dependent for decades on The United States that we actually let ourselves off our own obligations. You know? We should have been funding our own defense capabilities. We should have made sure we were more resilient to anybody that could suddenly pull the rug from underneath us. And that's our own fault. But we can fix it. We do have — we have to have some self-confidence. You know, we are the richest block of nations in the world, right, combined. You know, the reason the Danes aren't so intimidated at the moment is on every single social economic indicator, Denmark beats The United States per capita. Right? It's not the most powerful nation on earth, but it's, you know, I would venture that on all different marks, crime, etcetera, it beats The United States. You know, collectively, this year is the first time Europe has spent more on defense equipment than The United States since the Second World War and will continue to grow. That's a huge market. Right? Britain's intelligence sharing with The United States is incredibly important. But don't forget some of the unique intelligence The United States manages to generate is based on United Kingdom geography around the world. Right? We do have some levers to play in this. We don't have to be reckless or aggressive, but let's have some self-confidence.
Gordon: Well, after what we just saw in Venezuela, nothing is off the table. People need to start, like, taking Trump seriously when he makes these warnings. I mean, Kate, you asked the question, as you rightly stated. You know, Europe is weak and divided, so that's why it is constantly just trying to keep the Americans on board. But the lesson I think Europe needs to draw from this entire, you know, first year of Trump foreign policy and more to come is unless and until it builds up its own strength with defense spending and alternatives to dependence on The United States, it's just going to have to suffer at the will of Donald Trump. And now we see, like, direct threats, including the one in Greenland, that would be a consequence of that. And I mean, think about an area where Europe is united and strong, which is trade. It's the biggest market in the world. It is united, no longer Britain after Brexit, but the EU negotiates trade agreements. But even there, they weren't even willing to stand up to Trump and his tariffs because they felt dependent on the security side. And because of Trump's tariffs and threats of tariffs, the EU agreed to an unbalanced trade deal where The US raised tariffs and the EU lowered them. So it's a mindset as well. Comparisons with China are imperfect. China is very different. It's not an ally. It's not security dependent. But we saw there when Trump tried the same approach to the Chinese, bullying and threats and tariffs and certain new export controls, the Chinese said, okay, you know, two can play at that game. And they retaliated with restrictions on rare earths, just as they had retaliated previously with high tariffs that made US bond markets freak out and Trump backed down. And then Trump goes off to South Korea, sits down with Xi, and backs away from the new export control and lowers the tariffs because he met a united strong force. And I think Europeans, again, all the differences we're aware of, need to get it in their minds. The only way he's going to back down is if they are strong and united and determined, which does take us to Greenland. And I think Europeans have to take that very seriously. You know, it is so out of our normal consciousness to imagine that a president of The United States would just grab land from an allied country. But we need to stop and actually understand that he is perfectly able to do that. He's very serious about it. It was hard for us even to get in our minds for a time that Putin would just up and invade a country and grab territory. That was Putin. But as I was saying earlier, Trump is of that same mindset and he doesn't understand why he shouldn't do that. And, you know, in the nineteenth century, that's what leaders did, and The US is a great power, and who's gonna stop him? So unless and until there is some notion that there would be a cost to him for doing that, I think Europeans absolutely have to take it seriously.
Wallace: When you did your essay, The Allies After America, you know, do you think this is going to be an enduring issue with The United States? I mean, you know, historically, we've seen The United States go through a period, but then it settled back down, and it's gone back. Well, do you think, sadly, that this is here to stay?
Gordon: No. That is a fundamental question. One other thing about the essay, which was in the last issue of Foreign Affairs, and it grew out of — I mean, we've all been paying attention to this, but with a colleague, Mara Karlin, former Pentagon official, we had happened to be doing some international travel together. We were in Germany or Taiwan. I was in The Middle East. And everywhere we went, people were asking just that question, Ben. Like, a, can we really count on the Trump administration in The United States right now? And b, like how enduring is it? Because they know they survived quote unquote the first Trump administration. They had the same concerns, but they persuaded themselves there were adults in the room. There were still traditionalists around Trump. He bent the international system, but he didn't break it. And then they hoped that there would be a restoration of more traditional American foreign policy, and there was — Joe Biden came in. Now this time, you know, they're asking the same question with a bit more anxiety because Biden didn't last. Trump came back. And, you know, everywhere we went, the question was, how enduring is this and, like, what can we do if it's actually true? And I think everywhere we went, there was also an underestimation. People just didn't want to believe that America had changed, and not only was this Trump, but, you know, this was the future. I fear that it's more fundamental than just another passing phase. I mean, Trump is not an accident. Of course, he's driving American views and influencing them, but he's also resulting from them. And I say this with some regret because it pains me to think that my country, which has always, I think, at least tried to do what's right in the international system and seen by our allies as doing just that, as you described post World War II, trying to uphold an order that we all benefited from. It pains me to say it, but, you know, Trump also results from the fact that a lot of Americans have just tired of that and no longer believe in it. And this results from, you know, exhaustion of playing that role over eighty years and the economic problems that we've recently had and a perception that the costs of upholding world order and intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan and, you know, Libya are just too much and Americans are fed up with it and Trump results from that. So I'd be lying if I tried to reassure you or others, you know, look, he won a close election, but we'll be back and everything will be the same. There is a fundamental issue that Americans are tired of the responsibilities of world order and the costs that stem from it. I'm not ready to throw in the towel. I have hope and I'm, you know, I will — I'm working with other colleagues who still believe in that role for America to try to push things back in the other direction. But I think any responsible ally of The United States has to plan on the possibility that Trump is enduring, Trumpism is enduring, and The United States is just not going to be what it used to be.
Mccann: But how do you square this idea off in domestic politics? You know, you've got a country that are fed up of getting involved in wars, and you've got a president that seems to be quite interested in intervening in things. How do you square that circle?
Gordon: So here's how I try to square it, and it's a good question. I square it by noting or pointing out that at least for now, Trump's enthusiasm for intervention and military force and all of its macho displays of power is still limited and only deployed when it's not going to be very costly. Like you don't see him standing up to Russia and intervening in Ukraine and transferring tens of billions of dollars of US military equipment and financial support to Ukraine. His taste for intervention seems to be where he can do it with a big display of power but low cost. So take — I mean, we start with Venezuela because we just discussed that, and it's true that he said the other day he's not afraid of boots on the ground. But so far, what he has done is deployed a mass amount of American power against some, you know, drug and fishing boats in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific and did a raid using hundreds of American aircraft and, you know, F-35s to grab one guy and take him out of the country and then not follow it up with, you know, if we really wanna run Venezuela. I think in Panama, we sent 35,000 troops, and Panama is, like, one tenth the size of Venezuela. But then, like, looking to do a deal with the remnants. Let me take a different case. Remember he escalated against the Houthis in Yemen last spring, and he started bombing them and making all sorts of blustery comments. And people were like, you know, I thought we were supposed to be staying out of the Middle East, but he did that from a distance. And then when it didn't work and the costs started to rise, he just stopped.
Mccann: And I think that takes us quite neatly to, I suppose, the final discussion point in this area, which is that, you know, if you are China right now, if you are Russia, if you are Iran, and given everything you've just said, you might be feeling, you know, not quite so worried for a couple of different reasons. But, you know, if you're Russia and you see Ukraine as your sphere of influence, if you're China and you look to Taiwan and think, well, you know, that feels like my sphere of influence, you've not got a leg to stand on now, Donald Trump. And if you're Iran and you think, well, you know, Trump's making a calculation here, he's probably not going to go all out, even though he's made some pretty stark comments about Iran. And that is a regime very much on the brink, seemingly. You might feel reassured and even emboldened if you are those nation states right now.
Gordon: You might well indeed. In fact, I think it's pretty certain that both Russia and China do feel emboldened. I mean, that's why, you know, Putin was so keen to see Trump elected in the first place. I mean, he's demonstrated all along that his instinct is that the Ukraine war needs to end by Ukraine submitting to Russia. You know, I served in the Biden administration. Our theory of the case, along with our European and other allies, was that this needed to end with Russia finally understanding that we're not going to let it just grab a chunk of another country. Trump's theory of the case is, sure. Like, you can understand why Putin wants to have those areas. Just let him have it and tell Ukraine to shut up. And that's why he cut off US assistance to Ukraine and embraced Putin's narrative about the war and blamed Zelensky for starting it, which is obviously absurd. So I think Putin's very happy with it. And the Chinese too have every reason to believe that they can deal with Trump, and he's sending that signal consistently. I think the jury is still out whether he's genuinely going to abandon our East Asian and Southeast Asian allies and partners. But they have plenty of reason to worry as does Taiwan because he seems very keen to have a big trade and strategic deal with Xi. After the South Korea meeting where he backed off some of the tough measures on China, he agreed to go to China, and he said he would invite Xi to The United States. And you can just see him itching for a big announcement of a grand trade deal and strategic understanding with China that would inevitably come at the expense of, you know, Taiwan and our East Asian allies. Again, I say the jury's still out because we haven't completely backed off those alliances. He just did agree to an arms sale to Taiwan, but still the mood music is still, if he could cut a deal with Xi and everybody respects everybody else's spheres of influence and do deals that benefit the leaders, it looks like he would do that. And if I was — again, it comes back to the, you know, plan B article that we've referred to. If I was a US ally, I would be really worried about that and I would be making plans for dealing with that world.
Mccann: Ben, is that what you would be doing if you were defense secretary now? I mean, I note that Keir Starmer, our prime minister, is heading to China pretty soon. I think it's his first big foreign visit this year. That's certainly the plan. Is that the right thing to do in your eyes?
Wallace: Well, I think the right thing — one of the things that we should have been doing even before Donald Trump appeared is to make sure we're not over-reliant on a whole range of countries or supply chains. We need to diversify, you know, our supply chains, our weapon systems, our ability to defend ourselves, and invest in the ability for ourselves to generate intelligence and capability and build alliances and invest in alliances. You know, one of the most sad things about both my government and indeed this government is when they did increase the defense budget, and I had a very significant increase, they did it by cutting the soft power money. Right? They took it from the overseas aid money. Now we can debate whether we were spending the aid budget wisely, I think there were lots of problems with that, but you shore up your hard power and adequacy by taking away soft power. What you need to do is make some tough decisions in Europe, including United Kingdom, about our welfare budget, our healthcare budget, our transport budget, things that Americans do without or have done without to pay for some of the cost of their vast military to police the world. And there is a fair point here with The United States. It goes way back to President Obama. He set the 2% target. We had to carry a greater weight. So I think if I was still a defense secretary now, I would be making sure that we anticipate, you know, as Phil talks about, America in a different mindset. How do we protect ourselves from that? Part of that is strengthening existing alliances, make sure we're closer to Scandinavia than ever before, make sure we build strong alliances in The Gulf, make sure we work our way around The Pacific together in a way that we maybe haven't done before. And at the same time, I'd be trying to persuade my chancellor and the prime minister to give us more money. But at the same time, I would remind people that if you invest in our skills, our education, again, we become less dependent. You know, America has done very well with this amazing tech revolution. It didn't invent the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web was invented by a British guy who gave it for free. You know, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. Apple's revolution came about because of a British designer. America's been brilliant at sucking in the best skills in the world to Palo Alto and developing the world's leading tech. Doesn't rule us out ourselves from generating our own wealth. But I think at the moment, everyone's still hoping that Donald Trump isn't as they see him, and I'm afraid he is. And then the only next question is, will JD Vance come along and be the next president of The United States? My personal view is I sincerely hope not. But I think Phil's point is the American people may have shifted, and it will take them time to realize that without alliances, you're actually worse off both economically and in security, but that will take time to settle in.
Mccann: Phil, it's been so fascinating to have you join us today on the podcast. Thank you so much for giving us your time.
Gordon: Thank you for having me. Really appreciated the conversation.
Mccann: That is it for this week's episode of One Decision, and thank you also to Sir Ben Wallace. Thanks, Ben. It's been great having you with us.
Wallace: Thank you very much, Kate. See you soon.
Mccann: See you soon. And for more conversation with leading decision makers and thinkers, you can check out 1decision.com and our YouTube page where you'll find lots more videos, commentaries, explainers, plenty more besides. I'm Kate McCann. Thank you so much for listening.
