Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Let's see. Great. Well, we'll go ahead and get started, um, while, uh, doing a little more sharing. Thank you for joining us today. I'm Scott Schiff with Atlas society, senior scholar, Jason Hill, discussing an objectiveist inquiry into colonialism. Uh, I hope everyone shares the room and please raise your hand if you want to join the conversation after professor Hill's opening. Um, I also wanna note that professor hill and our other scholars will be speaking during our gala in Malibu, October 6th. I'll put up a link for tickets. Uh, Jason, thanks so much for doing this topic. Uh, colonialism is pretty widely seen as a bad thing. Exploiting natives. Is there another side,
Speaker 1 00:00:47 Right? Well, there is another side. I mean, I just in interviewed Bruce Gilley. Um, who's the author of that very controversial piece called the case for colonialism. And he's written a number of books called the case for German colonialism, uh, and how it's, um, let's see if I can find it. I think how it's rejection led to Nazi and authority organism, and he's written a book called the last imperialist, uh, sir Allen burns and the case for colonialism. So, um, having come from a post-colonial society society to myself and, um, I thought I would rethink it in certain terms. I'm not this, this presentation is part of a long 50 pitch chapter from a book on American foreign policy that I wrote. Um, I'm still working on it, cuz it needs to be shortened. It's 700 pages, but I wrote this eight years ago. So I'm not that influenced by Gil's arguments.
Speaker 1 00:01:45 Um, the, the case that I want to make is that I wanna focus on moral rogue nation states. And the case that I wanna make is that given what Rand said about states that have so egregiously violated the rights of their citizens, um, such as authoritarian, despotic states and had in some sense, taken themselves outside the ambit of rights, uh, that is they had violated the sovereignty principle because sovereignty is cons con is subjected to constraints of justice. And in violating the rights of the people, they had relinquished their right to sovereignty. Um, in my understanding rogue stakes behave so egregiously and P and pose such a threat to the international world order that, um, the moral grammar for what happens to them is not really up for grabs. They have placed themselves back into a state of nature by taking themselves outside the pan of moral societies through their egregious behaviors.
Speaker 1 00:02:59 Thugy they're systemic violation of human rights, individual rights. So I wanted to present a case for what qualifies as a rogue nation, um, a rogue nation state, and look at the idea of recolonization or colonization of such states as a way of what I call global incarceration or, uh, re socializing the political sensibilities of those states in such a manner that they would be fit to be part of the global commons, because I'm gonna repeat this again, but, um, the problem with global global I'm sorry, roast states is that they not only pose a regional threat to their neighbors, they pose a threat to the global order because in the age of porous and vast waths of unmanned seas, nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and bombs, they're likely to get from Yemen to Soma into the hands of terrorist, Easter, Jerusalem, and London and the United States as they are any other place on earth.
Speaker 1 00:04:10 So, uh, a moral roast state sort of violates the found foundational letter or spirit of the law that binds the league of moral nations of the world. These moral nations need not agree on all matters of policies of governance, right? But they are United like Canada, United States clearly have different and Sweden, we have different, um, policies or, or, or about how we govern internally and how we approach let's say, um, in term, in the case of many European states Iran, but they're United by a set of common core commitments that characterize the body of nations who are its member nations that is free trade, free markets, human rights, and individual rights, gender racial equality before the law, Bodi, integrity, democracy and transparent, uh, transparent go governance, freedom of association and of religious affiliation without persecution, the right to ones conscience and the judgment thereof, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of association, the right of each individual to cultivate a life plan that corresponds to his or her values and values in the name of personal autonomy and the right to acquire property and the right to have one's property rights protected.
Speaker 1 00:05:36 So moral rogue states, in some sense, reify the spirit of anarchy that characterizes the global commons by feeling in many cases to ratify the international political spheres with sphere with treaters laws, protocols, proliferations referenda that would add law order to it in a way that secures a lasting piece for all. So part of what I wanna do is I want to abstract the features, the next existential qualities that all rogue nations nations share that is regardless of what action each may have committed. I want to abstract and the differences and unite under common conceptual dominator with a view to recommend in what ought to be done about them, right? Um, so rogue, state inflict, um, type of metaphysical harm against their victims and the degree of harm may vary and con confidently the punishment should be commensurate to the egregious crimes committed, but the basic assault, the dignity to the moral order of the, what I call the league of civilized nations remains the same.
Speaker 1 00:06:47 So I think we can make sense of the term even before president Clinton became the first to give it its first official coinage in 1994 in Belgium, um, in, uh, by reference to historical behavior of any state that behaved with belligerence and without, um, impunity to the United States. But the idea of rogue nations presuppose is some semblance of order and establish Ary law in the political imaginary and in international public sphere. So traditionally there have been four transgressive criteria used to determine the nature of rogue state. In theory, a state had to one pursue weapons of mass destruction, support terrorism, severe abuse, its own citizens and VIR. They criticize the United States and throughout the history of us foreign policy, the latter has revised its conception of a rogue state depending on political expediency. And the shift in criteria that I use to determine who is, or is not an ally.
Speaker 1 00:07:50 So I find it very interesting that our beloved ally, Saudi Arabia country, that exponentially kills more Americans in other countries in the world. And that routinely abuses its citizens through beheadings trials, without representation, the absence of due process, the presumption of guilt before innocence, floggings, gross, gender and religious discrimination and other egregious human rights violations is not classified as a rogue state, but as we have already seen, and we know that Saudi Arabia is I think the third following Iran and Qatar, um, sponsor, or maybe it's a second sponsor of terrorism and it's international funding and indoctrination program in which Wahabi faith of, of the tide that cause it elite to jihadism and want and violence in the west. So there can be no doubt that Saudi Arabia should be in a legal leading example of a rogue state parlance. But what is clear is that the definition of a rogue state advanced by the United States under several administrations over the past decades is one that fails to capture the subtlety of behaviors exhibited by several states and nations that ought distill, render them consumable under the label rogue state.
Speaker 1 00:09:05 Um, so I want to, in some sense, argue that the more increased actions that more increased actions ought to be taken against rogue states, depending on a degree of harm, even threat posed and leveled by such states against those within the United nation of moral states of which the United States is a member. Um, so in some sense, a moral rogue state violates the world order on which human rights and individual rights and established protocols securing world peace are secured because moral rogue states betray civilizational maturity by above, among other things, engaging in what I would call political Ry that engender regionals destabilization and in other forms of transnational regional peoples that if left unchecked threatens threatens the capacit of leading states, such as the United States of America and leading European players to enforce, uh, order and law and civilized, customs and morals, uh, in the west and the enforcement of such phenomena are crucial.
Speaker 1 00:10:21 I think to the exercise of our individual rights in this country, probably more on that later, but moral rogue states left unchecked posts, unchecked threats to those who fall within their own geographical ABIs. They filed individual rights of their citizens and residents in a way that undermines the judicial personalities and more integrity of those individuals. So put formula, we can say that a moral rogue state de ratifies the structured alignment of human moral personalities from their foundation AEs. And, um, the essence of its moral violence is divestiture of the entire judicial personality of persons through foisting, a political system and or moral morality that is totally antithetical to man's rational nature quad man. So they commit egregious moral violence against individuals and more violence. In one sense is a production of the material, intellectual psychic. Uh, another means that dislocate the individual from his or her moral nature.
Speaker 1 00:11:37 So more violence is a system of political machinations that violate the in viability of the laws of nature in which human survival rests, the inalienable rights that secure a fit between the external world and the requirements of, um, the inner life. And it is a process by which we discover as rational creatures through reason, the requirements for our survival in external life or world like Liberty in the pursuit of rational happiness. So moral violence is the systematization and politicization of more, more raise beliefs, attitudes, and CHES that are codified ways of legally dismantling the coherence of the self by legally prohibiting the individual from creating life plans in the free service of his or her life. It is a legal imposition of a sort of soul killing anti-life, uh, form of governance, whether it's authoritarianism, totalitarianism, despotism, Sharia law on individuals who have no choice to contest it and new opportunity to negotiate the alternative.
Speaker 1 00:12:50 Um, so moral rogue states, I think consciously remove the possibility of a lasting piece by subjugating human beings in the global community to continuous fear by a exposing them directed to the threat of war B, compromising or destroying those institutions that are devoted to maintaining a peaceful world order and a balance of power among the union of moral nations and states devoted to peaceful international relations and see by inflicting brutality and oppression against their own people. So in some sense, um, you know, one of the reasons that I think China should be treated and punished though, not through colonization, which I'll get to in little while as a rogue state, is that it was very instrumental in developing north Korean rocketry, right period. So any country state and its complicitness in the nefarious activities of a Navajo nation ought to fall under the category of either a rogue state or a misdemeanor state, depending on the degree of harm done by the practices of the rogue state.
Speaker 1 00:14:07 Um, so by definition, I think, and by their existence, they're not just inimical to the world moral order, thereby political behavior, ecological political ballast, because the very existence, their very existence in some sense are the very existence of a domain of the global political, um, system that the advance, I think warrant some kind of what I would call global incarceration or containment. So rogue states like criminals represent a threat to world society at large, and they need to be removed for the threat that they represent in, in both cases, political resocialization, when we're talking about a criminal remains a lofty goal, but this free socialization I think could result in a rogue state being inserted back into the historical process and into the pan of the United union of moral states. So it may involve removing the leader of a country by aiding an opposition party within that, within that the members of the union of civilized states can endorse and respect.
Speaker 1 00:15:19 So rehabilitation here is broadly construed to me in establishing conditions that align the political principles of the rogue state with those of the civilized order rogue states like Syria and Iran, for example, that have stockpiles of chemical weapons. We saw a Syria in April of 2017, gassing its civilian population using siren gas would be forced to have their weapon re destroyed or faced the use of targeted military force against them as president Trump did in 2017 against Syria in reaction to that, country's use of chemical weapon weapons against its own population. So, um, when we talk about political rehabil rehabilitation, where, whereas when I talk about political rehabilitation, it is largely predicated on a premise of good faith that the rogue state will in time try to reform certain conditions believe to be central, to its survivability. They are its desire to achieve eventually good standing in the community of moral nations. The realization that it's perent for acting in a particular unilateral manner. And it's a inability to build a coalition of support in the world of nation states will only over up time under minus capacity and strength to sustain whatever semblance of power it believes it holds and that it's global isolation and moral and political ostracism will only weaken its internal capabilities to govern because the resources needed from the outside world, economic aid, diplomatic Ize, regional coalitions, that strengthen internal policies to name a few will be completely cut off.
Speaker 1 00:17:07 So, um, in some sense, I wanted jump ahead a little bit and say that, um, before we get to this issue of how colonization of such states is both a moral, see I'm defending the moral right of certain actions taken against rogue states, the feasibility and the strategic, um, maneuverings of a country of any free society in relation to the rogue state will depend on political expediency and what that country, what any free country feels is in its rational. Self-interest at the moment, but I wanna defend the political right of any free country to deal with a rogue state that exists as far as I'm concerned in a state of nature and outside the Ambi or outside the Panum of rights, rights, recognizing civilized countries, um, anything that a free country society, uh, that a free society does in terms of trying to rehabilitate or punish or re socialize is, is proper, um, to secure that moral principle.
Speaker 1 00:18:25 So some rogue states may be capable of, or rehabilitation through various measures, measures such as trusteeship, military occupation, provisional annexation, or what I would call rehabilitation. Uh, I mean some like Iran and North Korea may have to just be obliterated. I don't know. Um, but, um, the specificities of measures late, uh, dealing with the actual mechanics of say trusteeship, annexation and ethical recolonization are options that I think that are worth, um, thinking about. And we would not be violating the rights of the citizens because the Xinran said when a foreign, when a free country or a semi free country invades a despotic totalitarian dictatorial country, it's leaving its citizens in no worse off of a social and political in no worse of a social and political situation than they had found themselves in quite the opposite. They're actually liberating them. Uh, I'm gonna speak about how this, and then I'm gonna close out after 25 minutes, um, how this could be in America's self-interest economically speaking.
Speaker 1 00:19:42 Um, so when we talk about first dislocating, the will of a, a rope state that are to use the term global incarceration or containment, um, it may involve, but is not limited to the formal dissolution of a nation sovereignty by recognizing first and foremost, the manner in which the offend state has already disqualified itself from sovereignty by violating the norm that secured. So once the state has been divested at the state of sovereignty, it has no legal standing in the international community, and it is therefore left up to the judgment of a benevolent, um, state free state to determine the moral culpability of the citizens in upholding the status of the rogue state. In other words, the questions are, are the citizens complicit in the criminal activities of the old state winning execution? Are they oppressed victims? Do they aid in the bed originally? They could overthrow, but refuse to do so.
Speaker 1 00:20:49 Um, so should any free society judge by objective evidence that the will of the people is coterminous with the actual behavior of the regime and further should the rogue state in such a case pulls an terminable threat to the global order. And in this case, international security and national security of the United States among others, then global containment here could mean an outright war of attrition. If the rogue state poses a serious military threat, or if it doesn't vote that much of a threat that would warrant a war, then I think something like permanent military occupation with a no exit form of colonization in which terms of colonization is punitive, not rehabilitative, but permanent, not provisional as would be the case. I would argue with states that have systematically practiced genocide such as the Congo and Dar four, and that still practice slavery such as Morita, right?
Speaker 1 00:21:54 So the latter, I think is so heinous a crime against the individual that not only should it be the foreign policy of ever government to have the practices eradicate from the face of the earth, but countries that are found practicing it should have their sovereign to DET. And depending on the strategic importance, it holds for say the United States or any member of the moral union estate colonize, annexed, or military occupied in the 21st century. I don't think there's any moral excuse for any state to be practicing slavery and no reason for a political forgiveness, no redemption towards the states.
Speaker 1 00:22:31 So, um, basically, uh, wrapping up in terms of what ethical colonization could do is it would be very economically viable for a state or a set of states that pose, uh, a threat to the United States, uh, or the world order in which the United States is ensconced and is implicated, um, by, among other things after it has withdrawn foreign aid after it's sort of crippled the economy of that country, uh, to sort of move in, to manage the resources of that country and to induct that country into the crucible of what I would call civilizational Moez, uh, to bring it up on par with the civilization political civilization that we find in say a country governed by a constitutional Republic or a co a country governed by a particular form of democracy, not the kind of democracy that we find in Gaza clearly, but let's say the kind of democracy that we find in, in Canada, in, in, in, in France, in England.
Speaker 1 00:23:45 Um, and there is a, a more radical form of dealing with extreme rogue states. And I think I'll end here, cuz I only have two more minutes in that sovereign countries cannot be auctioned off properly speaking. Proper sovereign countries cannot be auctioned off or merely incorporated into the larger domains of other countries, but rogue nations that are divested of sovereignty, right? That are a author to right demoted to a state of nature, which therefore have become part of the global commons. And as far as I'm concerned, common spoilage and taking for he or she who can refashion and semblance of the previous state into an entity that can then re-enter the historical process and allow the subjects contain their end to reclaim their freedom of subjects in a cosmopolitan world. Order is going to present before as a case that is ethically, uh, permissible. Uh, and I think I'll just stand there cuz I'm up, I'm at 25 minutes.
Speaker 0 00:24:51 All right. Great. Well we wanna encourage other people, uh, that was uh, deep, rich stuff. And uh, I, I've got a lot to bring up if, if no one else wants to raise your hand, but if you do want to, we'll definitely bring you up. And uh, you know, I guess, um, for me you started to talk about the four criteria that, that other people use, but um, you know, there's just, it, the first thing, it seems like there's just too much of a danger of, if you don't have established enough criteria for it to be a, a tool of, of a, a corrupt global establishment to just kind of take over and declare them rogue states, and now we're coming in to, you know, seize you for your own good.
Speaker 1 00:25:36 Well, that's why I think, I think you're right Scott. That's why I think that there, there have, there must be clear and fixed criteria as to what cones as a rogue state. It can't be just a state that pisses us off because like here's an example. I, I am appalled that, um, there are European countries that are doing business with Iran and enabling Iran to increase its stockpile of uranium and thereby in the long term, um, prepare it to fix, um, to, I'm sorry to create a, a, a new flip bomb. I think those countries should be punished like Germany and those countries doing, um, business with Iran. We should find ways of punishing them, but I'm not willing to say that just because they're doing that, that they're Rouge states because those are trading policies that they have with an enemy of ours. And it's not, it's neither, it's not a sufficient condition for declaring German as a, as a, as a rogue state, cuz it's not, that would be ridiculous.
Speaker 1 00:26:48 There have to be clear. There has to be a litmus test, um, on which it's predicated clear criteria that we can check off the ones that I've listed and falling short of those. We attempt other forms of rehabilitation or reformation, but it, it has to be a very, very strict objective criteria that me that passes certain political meaning tests, uh, in in fact demonstrated behavior of RO thugy over a protracted period of time that has demonstrably undermined regional stability and undermined regional stability in areas where America has vested interests, um, that sort of thing. So I think I agree with you that it would be just horrible to have a sort of free for all, um, highly subjective understanding of what constitutes a rogue nation, a rogue state, and then we just plunge in and, you know, plunder and um,
Speaker 0 00:28:02 In, in the name of the, the new world order or what have you. Yeah. Um, now, uh, what about an example like Hungary and Orban? A lot of Western Europe see him as kind of rogue?
Speaker 1 00:28:16 No, I, I, I, I wouldn't necessarily call Hungary a rogue state. Uh, there is no evidence to show for example, that he's a sponsor of global terrorism. Um, it's a, it's a nationalistic, highly ethnic nationalistic state, but it's not on the order of, let's say slow down OV, which is nationalistic, cultural, culturally nationalistic or ethnic nationalistic state in which genocide was taking place. I don't see, actually I see Ergon as an isolation, as someone who he just doesn't want immigrants in this country, cuz he thinks that they're not and not without good reason, by the way that, um, with ilial certain illiberal groups infiltrating and written about the certain ilial groups who refuse to simulate and whose sole purpose is to destroy Europe actually, uh, he doesn't want that for hungry. He wants something like a greater hungry, I don't agree with his philosophy as a more of a cosmopolitan kind of person and pro-immigration person, but I wouldn't put him in as a rogue state.
Speaker 1 00:29:31 I mean, what has he done? He hasn't slaughtered any, any, he has certain draconian laws, but he hasn't subjected any of his citizens to slaughter or, um, there's still, as far as I can tell a due process going on in the state of Hungary, um, he was elected, but that's not a sufficient condition because a lot of rogue flags have, have been elected by private citizens, but I'd be, I would be remiss to sort of include him because, um, not every single authoritarian leader, um, is the head of a, a rogue state. Um, there, there have to be other criteria that must be met and that can be demonstrably shown to be committing, not as an egregious violation of the rights of their citizens, but also posing a threat to regional stability. So Russia is a rogue state. Russia is definitely a rogue state,
Speaker 0 00:30:34 But in that case, we get back to the, you know, maybe morally we have a right to try to, uh, you know, affect a change of government. But, uh, even though there may be political risk, but you can't just, uh, you know, I mean, I guess in some ways you could argue what's happening now in real time, depending on, uh, you know, our involvement in Ukraine and uh, how things are really going over there. But, um, I'm just trying to get a sense of different, um, you know, which countries qualify, you know, just as some real world examples, um, you know, Saudi Arabia, uh, I just wanted to, uh, question a little bit, you know, that it seems like to some degree they've changed since, uh, MBS became the ruler. And, uh, you know, I mean, even though he, he killed that journalist, but at least he's kind of arrested that side of the family that, uh, seemed to be more, uh, willing to give to terrorist people. There have been some liberal reforms. I mean, does that count for anything?
Speaker 1 00:31:45 I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, I think the Wahabi faith and, um, the, the com the commitment of dollars to institutions, including Madrass across Europe and, uh, is still taking place in both Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Um, Qatar is just a big gas station that United States actually needs, but it it's not even the country. It's not even civilization. It's just, it's one big giant gas station, uh, some monstrosity. And, um, and I would argue that one of the mistakes that was made in nine 11, given the fact that 17 of the 19 terrorists came from Saudi Arabia and given the collusion of Saudi Arabia and cultivating the sensibilities of terrorists across the world, that one of the biggest mistakes that United States government did not make was to invade Saudi Arabia, um, colonize it and exit take over its oil fields, um, and deem it, uh, countries completely.
Speaker 1 00:32:48 It's a medieval kingdom, completely unworthy of it. It's almost living in an existing, in a sort of quasi state of nature, uh, take over the whole country. I felt the same about the war in Iraq. I thought the war in Iraq on principle was proper. That is Saddam Hussein was a cancer in the region that had to be removed, but we unfortunately fought an altruistic war instead of, um, fighting the war that, well, it wasn't a war, but that the imperialist fought in parts of Africa in making alliances with global chiefs and tribal chiefs, and so on governed actually through those chiefs. Um, and, and I would just come outright and say, when you're going to war with the country, the, the goal of the war is the vanquish, the enemy. And we sort of, you know, played this altruistic war with, with, with Iraq rather than sort of colonizing the country, taking it over if only temporarily using the resources to finance the venture itself.
Speaker 1 00:33:51 Um, and to do what we did with Japan, look at Japan. I mean, Japan was an imperialistic, uh, horrific empire, and we destroyed it through Hiroshima, Nagasaki, um, and the Tokyo fire bombings. And we imposed a us constitution, a constitution on it. That was a fused with us democratic principles, ending imperialism. Within a couple of years, we did the same thing with Germany through the Marshall plan. Um, now you could say that we did colonize Japan. That was, that was a form. We occupy the country, we democratically reformulated it. And then we got out. So this, this form of ethical recolonization is not a permanent, um, I'm not asking, I'm not advocating like an, some sort of us new us empire that rivals the British empire, but I use Japan and Germany as examples to show that it is possible to take rogue states and thug states that have evicted themselves from the ambit of, of rights and are existing really in a state of nature and to properly reformulate them, re socialize them, rehabilitate them to some extent if they are, and Germany certainly was.
Speaker 1 00:35:21 And Japan certainly was. So I don't think what I'm suggesting is, is all that cookie. I think we, we, we colonized Germany for a while. We colonized Japan for a while. We did the business, and then we, we got out and the same thing should have been done with Iraq and, and say, anything should have been done with Saudi Arabia. Of course we didn't, and it's not surprising why we didn't. Um, but it's along those, I use Germany and Saudi Arabia, I'm sorry, Germany and Japan as my two examples to show what both military and ethical recolonization can look like have looked like, and the results that have been produced, um, from them,
Speaker 0 00:36:07 I guess, one thing, uh, that makes me think of, and, and I do wanna encourage people to raise your hand if you wanna be part of this, but you brought up the cultural more raises and, you know, have we figured out all the cultural morays it's like when Japan, you know, we, we already had the new deal. By the time we were helping Japan write their constitution yet today, you know, you brought up altruism, we're so much more altruistic. I mean, are we even in a position to help someone create something that's, that's not gonna be progressive in the first place?
Speaker 1 00:36:41 Well, I think it would be terribly narciss morally narcissistic for us to say that we have to get everything right in our own backyard before we can extend the hand of interference or assistance or whatever one, however wants one wants to sort of characterize it in political terms. That is, we are not so far gone beyond a certain threshold that would disqualify us from, from, from the sort of venturesome activities, political adventuresome activities that I'm suggesting. Um, we may never get to that perfect state and no country need get to that perfect state because it's just, it's not possible. But the question that's interest that the more interesting question is, are we in a position that would give us the kind of leverage and the kind of authority to act in a certain way? So, um, in an imperfect world, I think conceptual distinctions have to be made. And in an imperfect world, I think certain activities have to be made even by, uh, government actors of a free society that themselves are ensconced in a world or in a country or in a state that is far from being perfect, uh, to wait for a sort of a state of absolute perfection or near perfection, um, just seems politically Inex expedient to me.
Speaker 0 00:38:07 Yeah. And I'm not even saying that we have to wait till we're perfect. It's just at a certain point. The establishment can seem so corrupt that I worry about the advice they'd be giving, if they'd just be focused on trans rights, more than free markets or something.
Speaker 1 00:38:22 <laugh>.
Speaker 0 00:38:23 Um, but I, I also, uh, just going back, uh, I think something that happened in Iraq was that, um, they, uh, you know, we had this coalition of the unwilling of, of countries against us, like France and I think Germany and, uh, you know, ones that, that didn't want us to go in. And so that also, I mean, even to the extent that we, I don't know if that just comes under the, you know, what's practical to do at a certain time, but we, we don't have that one world order. And, and it's almost like some countries want to be outside. What, what everyone else is doing just to, you know, use that to, to show off their power.
Speaker 1 00:39:10 Right. Well, this is our war, right. We, we went to, to, um, Congress and we went to great lens to legitimize the war and president Bush did. And whether one agrees with, um, the manner in which it was done, it was still, you know, it was still a war that was authorized. So this was kind of like our war wasn't really Germanist war or Francis war, um, that they didn't come on board poof on them. Um, because they're just as much subject as Western countries to the, the long term fallout from any kind of damage that Iraq could inflict on the United States. Um, so I, I, I'm not even sure that we needed, I'm not even sure that we needed a coalition of a vast coalition of countries to be on board. We, we certainly did have an international coalition in Iraq. It wasn't, we, it was just wasn't our forces, there were reluctant, but there were, there were other, uh, other allies there with us.
Speaker 1 00:40:21 I agree, fighting reluctantly and, and sort of halfheartedly. Um, but I think also Scott, is this the, the case a proper case for it was a halfhearted half big case for going to war with, uh, Iraq. I don't think the moral case was actually made, I think some, some nonsensical case about potential chemical weapons that could reach America, or that could be unleashed America, uh, was made the, the, the, the deeper, the deeper, um, case that could have been made was that Saddam Husain was a cancer in that region and his removal, like all cancers was, uh, was absolutely necessary. Um, yeah,
Speaker 0 00:41:15 Sure. I guess my, uh, what I'm thinking is that to the extent that we don't have everyone on board, then it's just us, or just these certain countries that are acting as these colonizers to what we determine a rogue states.
Speaker 1 00:41:33 Well, I think we can make a case to convince other countries it's just a matter of leadership and how it's, it's sort of, um, the narrative that we use, um, to, I mean, look, we saw in some sense though, they were not as financially forthcoming with dollars as was America, but we saw in some case the European countries giving steadfast support to, to Ukraine and setting against Russia, um, that is understandable given that Russia is in their backyard and they sort of, many of them feared an expansionist agenda on the part of Vladimir Putin, um, beyond Finland and the Baltic states, actually that he might have had more expansionist, um, ambitions, or just the fact that never again, would wanna allow a sort of rapacious, uh, thug to pose a kind of threat to, to, to civilize Europe as did hit. But I guess the point I'm making is that, um, winning the support of other countries requires systematically laying out the foundations for why those countries in the long run, by promoting regional instability, in whatever parts of the world they are, are truly inimical to a global civilized world order, which ultimately will affect the capacity of countries to trades consistently in a sustainable way, um, to carry out policies and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1 00:43:15 That case has to be made. It's just that again, U us foreign policy in the past 75 years has been so disastrous, so hypocritical. So, um, comp mixed up that a consistent, I think rational case has never, ever really been presented to our allies as to why they have both the moral, right. Well, let's just say the moral right of interference because when the principle of sovereignty has already been dissolved by the countries themselves, and, um, and this, those countries have evicted themselves from the ambit of rights, that any number of solutions, any number of, of, um, alternatives would be better. Look, I think I wanna read something here that, um, and it's, it's a case in which, um, one, a couple of African countries have it in my notes here. I wasn't prepared to read it, but a couple of African countries. Um, well, I think it was to Gilley that it wasn't an African country that in 1985, the Indonesian government, you know, fired all of its inspectors, thousands of inspectors at the Jakarta airport, um, and replaced the corrupt and inefficient custom services with the Swiss firm SGS and the Swiss rebuilt the custom service handing back partial control in 1991 and full control in 1997.
Speaker 1 00:44:57 And Indonesia's Indonesia's exports boomed, right? So this could also be a way of contracting mercenaries and contracting private corporations, um, to do certain perform certain jobs that are activities that could be sort of contracted out by state actors, themselves in these countries, um, NGOs, um, various organizations that can actually go into a country and, um, and act as political, be authorized to act as political actors in order to, to bring up these countries to sort of, civiliz what I would call a civilizational threshold. That's just simply lacking.
Speaker 0 00:45:52 Okay. Um, I wanna switch gears a little bit to something you said, um, you know, how can you tell how many are aiding and abetting before you know, it, you know, all bets are off and we can just start carpet bombing or what have you,
Speaker 1 00:46:12 Well, I think you can look at, uh, the voting habits of the voting patterns of citizens, of a country, the approval ratings, um, that the leader or the leaders, or usually the leader enjoys among citizens. Um, if clearly, then though a despotic, uh, authoritarian tyrant, who's leading a, a rogue nation, um, still has high approval ratings. Although that would be one to be hard pressed to find how that could be had consistently when, um, but let's just use a case of like, you know, I guess at some point Stalin had very, very high approval ratings during his regime. Uh, the people knew nothing more and didn't really have an alternative, but in those countries where there are political competitors and you can Sensely show that a political competitor that's the member of one party is offering a different alternative, a different vision. And it's being outright rejected by people who, for some reason prefer, let's just say like a Marist, revolutionary despotic government who promises them all sorts of goodies and free biz.
Speaker 1 00:47:31 And, um, as has been the case in much of decolonized Africa, um, that's one way, I think that you can sort of qualitatively show that there is a case of aid and abetting also based on the, uh, forms of resistance are lack thereof that is emanating from the rogue state, um, could be a sign that com you know, that, that they're complicit in the atrocities that are being, that are being committed. Um, so I think there are a number of criteria or criteria's the wrong word. I think there are a number of meaning tests that we could apply to see whether or not citizens of a country are truly aiding and AB betting. I mean, I, I think Iran is a very, very interesting example right now because we're seeing a lot of dissent coming from the young people in Iran who are clearly dissatisfied with the governance to which they're subjected.
Speaker 1 00:48:46 And we see how these dissenting groups are forming and behaving politically. And so one would be hard pressed to say that there is no resistance at all that the people of Iran unilaterally completely support the, um, the theocracy that the despotic theocracy that is Iran. Um, at some point though, look, one has to simply, um, bypass anything like that and say that the behavior of the rogue state and the egregious harms that it's inflicting on the region, or the extent to which it's undermining a lasting piece on which the national security of other countries depend, will just have to supersede the efforts or the inclinations of its citizens vis Avi, whether or not they're complicit or not. It's just, we, we, we, one can't sit there in, in determin, they ringing one hands and watching and hoping that there's going to be a full man, that the fomenting dissent today is going to last in the next, for the next six months. I think one has to measure the, the, the, the degree of harm itself that is being inflicted, um, on the region. And that, again, undermines the capacity of a country like the United States to trade regularly or to, um, to conduct policies, uh, that are in its national. Self-interest
Speaker 0 00:50:39 I, I get that. I, I think that, um, you know, just some of that language, it's like, you know, you can see the, the anarchist considering us to be a rogue state or that, you know, moral violence is, is what the wokes accuse us of for not seeing their agendas as the solution to oppression.
Speaker 1 00:50:58 Yeah. And, uh, there are some people who think one plus one equals six, and we just do we wrong. You're they're idiots and they're wrong. And we, but, but we don't leave it at that. We ask them to find your terms, what do you mean by violence? And we, we, we take their statements to a logical terminal point to show up the absurdity of it that if anybody thinks that United States is a moral equivalent of south North Korea or Saudi Arabia, then, you know, without being mean spirit, then saying they deserve to find out the hard way, which I think they do actually. Um, we ask them to lay out a set of terms that are necessary and sufficient to describe a rogue state. And like, what do you mean by violence violence, in what way? And so we're talking about Saudi Arabia where homosexuals are beheaded. People are tried without, without, uh, there's no due process, um, certain parts of Africa, same thing where, you know, people are just, um, arbitrarily detained, uh, without any evidence against them and sentenced to death.
Speaker 1 00:52:18 Um, so we would have to engage in a very protracted conversation and not just take their self reportage or their, uh, statements or their utterances at face value. We would sit them down, calmly, apply reason, logic evidence, and ask them to explain and define their terms along every step of the way. Cuz I, I certainly would be able to do that. I would be able to show that a country that beheads homosexuals, that arbitrarily detained that puts a woman in jail for 34 years as they did in Saudi Arabia for tweeting, um, what was considered, um, I don't know what it was considered, but it was some sort of dissenting ideas that she had about the, about the country. And she's a mother of three and she gets put in jail for 34 years that there's something ostensibly putatively qualitatively different about that state of affairs than someone who commits a crime in the United States of America and is presumed innocent UN until proven guilty.
Speaker 1 00:53:32 I mean, there just, there's so many ways of showing the absurdity, um, of these claims. And as far as the walks of premises are concerned, um, you would really have to show them that in no other country would their behavior, their ideologies be tolerated, let's say in Iran or Saudi Arabia or North Korea, Russia, parts of Hungary or hunger itself. And that it's, A's a tolerant state like our Republic United States of America that facilitates competing conceptions of the good life. And for some people, you know, living a life, a life of woke supremacy and all that's contained there in is part of the good life and that America doesn't put these people in jail. We still adhere to the first amendment and give them the right of free speech. So I think it, I think that's an easy one because I think, I mean, that's what I do when I go on give my public lectures and I meet people say, you know, we live on stolen land and, and if you live on stolen land, then you can't even have a moral conversation.
Speaker 1 00:54:42 I said, we, we don't live on stolen land. We live on land that was, um, acquired through treaters and purchases and conquest. And there was a war for resources. The native Americans came in second, they lost the war. And until the 1924 indigenous citizens actors passed, as far as I'm concerned, they were living as war refugees on Concord land. There is no civilization that's ever great civilization that was ever forged outside the crucible of, of violence and war and do not living on stolen land. We're living on, on Concord land. There was a war for resources and they lost. Um, so there are very, there's various ways of just circumventing the arguments of these people and showing the absurdity of the claims that they're making. Uh, we don't have to just sort of take it at face value, uh, that would be relativistic. And, um, anyone who thinks that, uh, I'm not a big fan of president, the former president Bush, but anyone who thinks that he's equivalent of Adolph Hitler is absurd. No, just sit them down and tell them what Hitler did and ask them to give a counter example of, or an analogous example of how Trump has behaved in a similar manner. Yeah. They, they seem just become absurd after a while and people just are not used to being challenged at a deep and fundamental level. And once you do that, they sort of just, you know, go off into histrionics or they shut up really
Speaker 0 00:56:18 <laugh> bet you run into that a lot in academia.
Speaker 1 00:56:22 You oh, I do. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 0 00:56:25 Uh, just, uh, you know, with the few minutes we have left, can you just, uh, ballpark the number of countries you'd consider rogue today out of maybe what, 200 to 20?
Speaker 1 00:56:38 Um, probably probably no more than really, really rogue states. No. Um, probably no more than 30.
Speaker 0 00:56:56 Okay. But Russia is one of them.
Speaker 1 00:56:59 I think Russia is a rogue state. Absolutely.
Speaker 0 00:57:02 Okay. Cause that's, that ends up being a lot of, uh, physical territory of the earth.
Speaker 1 00:57:08 Well, unfortunately, but I think the way that Russia has behaved and continues to behave, um, meets both some necessary and sufficient conditions that I have laid out in the, in the four, the four vectors that would qualify as a rogue state. Um, so, but I, I, I, I don't think, I think there, and I, I have another paper that I wrote called fail states and fail states of course are not the same as rogue states. Although, um, one of the big problems of course, with fail states, I think is, um, that they quickly run the risk of falling prey of becoming rogue states who are a number of reasons. Um, one is that lacking the kind of in economic infrastructure that they do, they fall free to all sorts of demagogues and, and, and, and, and death spots. Um, but there are, there are rocks, there are fail states that are just like sinkholes.
Speaker 1 00:58:13 Like if, if, if fail states are economic sinkholes, then I would say if, if fail states are economic sinkholes, I would say rogue states are political and cultural sinkholes that bring down the, just like of a badly kept house brings down the regional, the neighborhoods value. These countries bring down the regional prestige and value in which they, in which they belong. Um, and it, it, it affects everyone ultimately in the wrong one, I think, um, as we're seeing those and we can end here, but as you know, I was part of the debate about defending Ukraine against the Russians, but as we can see, uh, the actions of Russia, uh, is affecting Europe in its withholding of certain resources. Um, and we're, and we're, it, it it'll affect us. Also, those actions will affect with inevitably have an effect on the United States of America's economy.
Speaker 1 00:59:15 Maybe not in a great way, as much as let's say Germany, that is more dependent on Russia, um, for fuel, but it's certainly going to have some sort of effect on us. And that's why I was making a long protracted argument that what constitutes a country's self-interest has got to be seen in a very long range, protract, you know, a very long range, um, um, manner. And not just the fact that approximately speaking Russia is very, very far away from America. So what the hell could does that have to do with us? So it has plenty to do with us, um, when you look at the its capabilities and how it can sort of, um, function or behave in relation to its its capabilities.
Speaker 0 01:00:03 Great. Well, uh, this was very engaging. I'm glad no one else had questions. So I was able to do my own, um, but, uh, tomorrow one clubhouse at 4:00 PM Eastern, um, I'm sorry. Make that, uh, Friday Richard Tellman will be here on the topic of recession, essence cause and cure. We've also got our gala coming up October 6th in Malibu, honoring Michael sailor. We're gonna have panels with the scholars during the day. It should be very fun. Uh, thanks again, professor hill for doing this and everyone who joined us have a great evening.
