Lawfare Daily: Arne Westad on ‘The Coming Storm’

I really worry about that aspect, or of personalised, predominance, or rule.

I think that was one of the things that really did go wrong in the summer 1914, was that a number of these people. Because of the personalities, we're not able to pull back when they should have seen that it was in their infrastructure.

It's the law fair podcast. I'm senior editor at law fair, Michael Fimer, and with me today is Professor Arn Westad of Yale University to talk about his book The Coming Store.

“The important thing I think today is to try to get some hostability into the international system in general.”

This is true for the ongoing war at the moment, but regard to Ukraine with the war in Iran. It's also true for what probably in terms of the overall picture is even more dangerous for great power confrontation, which is the situation with regard to Taiwan or the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

Today we will be discussing China's rise, the West's response to it, and what we can learn from prior areas of history about this potential conflict.

“You raised very interesting parallels between the era where the world was just on the cost of what eventually became known as World War I,”

and our contemporary times with a variety of hotspots, mainly in East Asia, that you are, you could very well, without a myelioration, turn into a similar global conflagration. But what I'd like to do is start actually a little bit before you begin in both areas, and examine how our respective societies and those times got to where we are. And I know you think there are a lot of similarities between sort of 1913-1914 and 2025-2026, but I'm curious if we could examine the areas that lead up to those inflection points.

So I was wondering if you could sort of give an overview of how you see international relations in the period from let's say the wars of German unification in the mid-1860s, up through 1914, might compare to let's say 1989 and the end of the Cold War up until today. Well, thanks, Michael, it's great to be with you for this conversation. This is one of the podcasts I most admire and listen to, often myself, so that makes it a double pleasure.

“Now, on your question, I think there are, first of all, there are some really striking parallels, as I try to bring out in the book.”

Both in terms of the immediate consequences of what happens, but also in terms of these longer-term developments in the late 19th century, in the late 20th and an only 21st centuries. So the key is, of course, as you already alluded to, the rise of new powers. So the whole international system starting to become more unstable in the late 19th century, we had towards 1900, and so the same thing happening in the 1990s and only 2000s because of China's tremendous growth and the challenge of other great powers to the established international system.

So that's the, that's already core of this. But if we look at it more in depth, I would say that even though what happens from the 1870s, is very much connected to the rise of new powers, first and foremost Germany, and then, of course, you know, the states, but you know, the states was in a different kind of position, because it was an ocean away from what was then the most important continent in the world, namely Europe, just like East Asia, is the most important part of the world in my view today.

So it was Germany that much of the ascended on, but within a context of the leading power of the time, great Britain, gradually starting to retreat from the international system that it itself had created, which, of course, is another similarity, it's not a complete parallel, but it's a similarity with our own time. Britain had been spending much of the 19th century running around the world, telling everyone that free trade was in their own best interest, that the interest of the world at large, of course, at the core of this was that it was very much in Britain itself interest because of its economic status, and then, gradually, towards the end of this globalization, the 19th century globalization, that Britain had been at the core of,

Britain itself starts to withdraw from that system. It finds that its own interest are not served well enough by world takes place, that other countries are catching up with it.

So it's not, it's not just the story of what happens in terms of rising power, so that is a very important part of the story.

It's also perhaps more importantly to me in the book, a story about how international systems decay, and how they are changed, very often because of actions taken by the predominant powers within those systems. Let's, for now, focus on the latter part of the chronology and China's rise, and I'm sure we'll illustrate our conversation with more historically focused incidents, but. During the first George Bush administration, there was a very widespread belief that getting China to liberalize on the economic front would inexorably somehow lead to political and maybe even socio-cultural liberalization.

And I mean, it was incredibly widespread. The only international relations scholar I'm aware of who really expressed skepticism at the time was John Mirachimer.

“I think there is now a growing consensus at least in the American political class, if not the academic one, that that view of where things would proceed was mistaken.”

And I was just wondering, if somebody who has studied how China interacts with the world, you know, your book on the subject, I think started in 1700 or 1750, what's your take on. China's rise vis-a-vis actions the West may have taken. And before you answer, I know this question is posed from a very orientalist point of view. I'm going to get to the other side next. So please don't assume I'm ignoring that, but what do you think we can say about how the West hindered or inculcated and reacted to the rise of China?

So I was not among those who believed that China's opening to the international system first of all was the economic terms would by itself lead to political or

more basic fundamental constitutional changes within China itself. My view has always been that as long as the communist party stays in power in China, it will put its own interests first and it will put the main interests that any political party of that kind has namely staying in power above everything else. So in that sense, the direction, the overall direction is not to surprise to me.

“I think in terms of what the United States and its western allies could and could not have done, I think it is relatively limited.”

I mean, I think the possibility, even back in the 1990s, of putting some kind of conditionalities in terms of political change to China's integration into the international economic system, would not have been on anyone's mind. What is more about what was expected, I think, wrongly expected, than about anything that could be done about this. And the main reason for that is so close. That integration of China was on the taken, not primarily for China's own sake. It was on the taken in search of the building post-colour of a global economic system that served American and Western interests and were built on the values and ideals that had been developed in economic and social terms.

By those countries, over a long period of time, with United States heading up the general direction. So that's the reason for my sort of lack of surprise. I think if we take this all the way up to today, I think the surprise is rather in how quickly some of those very limited freedoms that had been taken by the Chinese people after the start of the reform process back in the late 1970s.

“Could be rolled back by the Xi Jinping regime. And I think that's, that has in many ways been surprising to me in terms of the speed, not so much a direction.”

I think when she came to power in the early 2010s, there were quite a number of problems that China was facing that I think most people on the Chinese side, even people who didn't particularly care for the Communist Party, taught had to be resolved. I mean, the power of big companies, the moral dissolution as they would see it, particularly in the cities and among young people, the new power that provinces are taken for themselves, all of this stuff that a lot of people didn't particularly like.

That was, I mean, was never part of the bug, as seen from this easy piece, that China would liberalize as a consequence of moving in the direction of a more open international economy.

I didn't plan to make this comparison, but in your answer just now, do you think she, then, was less guiding and dictating policy than he was simply following the natural current of history and taking advantage of it, to bring it back to the 19th century in the way Otto von Bismarck, famously said successful statesmen do.

“I'll get his exact quotes, but I think there's one about grabbing on to the coattails of history as it passes by.”

Is it true to the steps of God as he passes by and latching onto to his coat? I think that's more or less what this book said. Yeah, so, you know, there is a lot of armchair psychologizing in the Western press that she can be explained out of a repatious thirst to see China more powerful on the world stage.

Or that we can trace his political beliefs back to the sort of ostracization and persecution of his father in the Maoist era.

But it sounds like what you're arguing has considerably more nuance than that more popularized view. Yeah, I mean, in the sense that he, as everyone else, reacted to problems that were visible to large segments of the party elite, as I said, beyond the people who had their immediate connection to the party in the early 20th, but why he responded to those challenges, particularly when he had been in power for a few years.

“I think was beyond what the people were put into that position actually expected.”

So I think the, the sort of hypercentralization of power, the preoccupation with his own personal status, the relentless attempts at trying to undermine potential rivals and opponents, even people who would never have identified themselves as such.

That is going much further than anyone that I know expected when he became general secretary of the party. So I think we have to think about those two things at the same time.

He got to various and he was confirmed in that position by the party elites, particularly by the party elders, because he was seen as offering solutions to problems that they also recognized. But then after a few years in power, this took off in, maybe not even in the direction, but with the degree of intensity and personalization, that these people did not expect, or very few people expected, including observers like myself.

“So I think those are the two things that we have to be able to think about.”

We've been talking about China's rise and its leadership from the Western perspective. Let's turn the telescope around. What is the narrative in China, in Chinese public opinion, both among political meets and sort of the general populace about what China's rise signifies and how the West has reacted to it. Because the narrative, at least when I was in government, was one where China was somewhere between 90% and 100% to blame for any burgeoning conflict or deterioration and relations. I'll confess I still hold that view somewhat, but I'm willing to entertain other points of view and be open to changing my mind if that's not the case.

I see a lot of similarities again, a lot of parallels with what happened with regard to Germany's rise in Europe in the late 19th century. So it wasn't that Germany wasn't drawing its way to round in economic terms or in political or even military terms. On settling all of its neighbours, just like China in terms of its rise, on certain money, certainly most of its its Asian neighbours. But it wasn't the other hand also the inability back then of the establishment powers to try to figure out what would a sensible role for Germany actually be at the core of this most important continent in the world back then.

So China's foreign policy as it moved out of the early mid-reformer, if you know, are in the late late reformer, because it was that many of its leaders of the Xi Jinping generation concluded that China had already risen to a point of great influence within its own region, an aiming, just like Germany did, back in the late 19th century.

For becoming the predominant power within that region. Now there is nothing wrong in that aspiration.

I mean, China has been the predominant country in eastern Asia for a very long time. The question is how it happens, right? And the trajectory through which it happens. Of course equally important, how it then interacts with what is today the predominant power in East Asia, which is the United States of America. So that's the transition with regard to it.

“Well, if we turn this to be Chinese side today, I mean, what are I sense that I was in Beijing last week?”

What I very often sense is that we are not at a point when there is no coming together among Chinese CCP elites and ordinary Chinese.

That United States is somehow out to contain constrained China in terms of its natural growth. And that of course comes in addition to those in my view mainly self-imposed constructions that China has with regard to its neighbors. But of course the CCP view, the Chinese government's view, is that all of these are in a way created by the United States, in terms of bad relations with Japan, its own career, et cetera, et cetera.

“Just like German leaders before World War I believe that it somehow was all profidious out beyond it, it was all the British fault that other countries objected to the manner in which in which German power rose.”

But of course this also matters in the broader sense. So if you, the one thing that we have to avoid in my view, certainly slightly more long term. There are people on this side as you know, I mean even within the current administration who are thinking seriously about this, is that we move from a series of conflicts between the United States and China, coming out of the kind of developments that we already talked about. In a situation where ordinary Chinese believe that United States forever will be out to prevent them from the kind of growth within their own country, that they expect that they would be able to foresee.

It is particularly important when you think about the average income in China per family, still being somewhat between one-seventh and one-sixth of that of the United States. China has a lot of growing yet to do, just like Germany had in the early 20th century. And it is when you get to this situation that ordinary Chinese ordinary Germans, back then, believe that someone is out to prevent them from doing so, as you read real trouble. I think my L. colleague Paul Kennedy puts this really well in his book about the rise of Anglo-German antagonism.

When he says that, you know what Britain back then was telling the Germans, basically was, you know, little hands, if you could just stop growing, that everything would be fine.

So if you went back to your little wholesome and behaved as you have before, that wouldn't be a problem.

“And I feel for some extent, particularly in the period between the mid-1990s and early 2010s, that that's what we were telling China.”

Instead of creating some kind of formula by which China's aspirations as its group could be incorporated in the better form within any station framework. The German parallel really intrigues me because I'm actually torn personally, whether I see more of the Roman Germany in China's rise, or in what I will just bluntly call America's newfound antagonistic attitude to the rest of the world, including some of our oldest and closest allies. And I'm going to make another comparison of personalities so you don't have to, but if you want to respond, I will more than welcome it.

The home of the second was very famous for a mercurial personality-based transactional foreign policy. He had this weird love-hate relationship with his various cousins, including the ZAR, and some of the leadership of Great Britain.

And frankly, I see a lot of that sort of attitude in how the United States is approaching the globe.

“And it gives me some basis for amusement just because we all needed that, but it also worries me that we could have two countries that are taking on different aspects of Russia and then Germany's rise at odds with each other.”

That is a very volatile combination.

That's a really good point. I mean, I have never taught of Kaiser Wilhelm and Xi in Ping as being identical or even similar in terms of the personal qualities or even personal behavior.

What are the fun things about this? Is that when I did not particularly inform a fair stat, was there many ways the basis for this book about the year or no hope ago? And they had an illustration to that article of President Xi gradually moving into Wilhelm II, which you can imagine went down like a ton of lead in China, didn't make me the man of the day in Beijing. And it's in a way, doubly unfortunate when I discuss this with people in Beijing because I do not actually make that specific comparison.

“I mean, I think they are very different in terms of personalities, but going to your point, I think personality matters to a great deal.”

And I think one should look at this in terms of the combination of what you could call strong and rude, that we had a tendency to move towards before 1914, with what is happening today.

So, I have to apologize, I may not have fully articulated my point, my concern was that I see Xi as a sort of Bismarckian figure, whereas I see Trump as a sort of vell helmet. But to some extent too, I wouldn't quite, I mean, I think if we want to stay in the world of comparisons and my students, of course, love this.

“Channel Bismarckian, in many ways, is done shopping. I mean, he is the one who was able to plan for the future thinking strategically about where China's interests were.”

Xi and Ping is not like that. I mean, he approaches, remind me much, much more of some of those, not necessarily just in Germany, but political leaders that came after the Bismarckian era, who were trying to deal with, as we already talked about, conflicts and issues, that were real and were there, but couldn't quite find a way of doing so. Donald Trump, on the other hand, has some, you know, he certainly has some of the impulsiveness. He also, by view, has some of the striking lack of thinking strategically over the long term that will have the second also had.

I mean, and this is part of what worries me, so I mean, if a world class crisis of the 1914 kind, sort of black swan event, where to come along today with tensions already running high, I really worry about that aspect of personalised predominance or or rule. I think that was one of the things that really did go wrong in December 1914, was that a number of these people. Because of the personalities, we're not able to pull back when they should have seen that it was in their interest to pull back. Look back, it's some of the more robust in-depth treatments of that summer, whether we're talking popular history like Barbara Tuckman or some of Christopher Clarks later worked that is, I would argue a bit more academic and rigorous, but that's very much an ongoing theme is how personality driven a lot of this was.

And in inability for the leaders to step out of themselves and even attempt to see things from another person's point of view, not as a matter of the empathy or grace, but simply as a means of coming up with a better strategy for themselves, it seems to have never occurred. And I very much worry that that could lead to a black swan event, so I want to address something in a region that you deal with in your book, but not as in depth with China. I was hoping I could pull somewhere out of you about it, and shortly after your book came out, the United States launched a war against Iran, and I can very well see a world in which a distant war in a faraway land as one of the less illustrious British prime ministers would say,

And I was just wondering, should we be concerned about this conflict in Iran, a country which in many sense is integrated into the sort of international ecosystem that Russia and China also belong to, expanding into something that does resemble eras in history we prefer not to go back to.

“There is not only a risk of that, I mean clearly in my view, particularly with how the war has developed over the last couple of weeks, I think there is a definite possibility.”

Not that this in itself, I think, could lead immediately to a greater conflagration, but that it could come together with other issues, right, in creating a kind of situation that it would be really, really hard to get out of. And this was of course the problem, in the summer of 1914, was that, because it well, I've been on this annual selling vacation in the Norwegian Fjords, which was called Back to Podstum in July 1914, and when told that this was because of our work in crisis, he exploded, that's he often did, and said, "You know, why did you call me back here for a lot of work in crisis?"

And I had 13 of these in my reign, and we've always been able to contain them, and then there are those terrifying 36 hours after that.

But it dawns on him and everyone else that this time is different, that this time it might be much more difficult to pull back. I worry about that with regard to the current war in Iran, because, you know, usually through the Cold War, even before the Cold War, we had plenty of conflict in the Middle East. And to use that term, you know, usually the conclusion among great power leaders was what happens in the Middle East, stays in the Middle East. But that's become less and less true, I mean, since the Iraq War, especially, or since 9/11.

But I think we are now in territory where, because of the nature of this US war against Iran, the chances for an international spillover of far greater than we have seen with any kind of US involvement in the Middle East.

“And that's one of the reasons why I think it is so important to pull back, because we do not know in which direction this is heading, and I think the consequences could be very serious.”

So let's get to sort of the latter third of your book then.

How do we effectively walk ourselves back from that cliff edge? And I'll speak from the Americans perspective, like, how do you walk back from that precipice that could lead to horrible conflict? I don't think there is anybody who has ever studied, for example, the PLA and the US military and the build up in the South China seas, or goings on the Taiwan streets, who would argue that war would not be horrific. Even a short war would have unimaginable casualties that have been unseen for almost a century.

How does a nation, whether the United States or China, walk back from that edge? And do you so in a manner that doesn't look like self-humiliation to their constituencies?

“Look, the important thing I think today is to try to get some most ability into the international system in general.”

This is true for the ongoing wars at the moment, for regard to Ukraine, the war in Iran. It's also true for what probably in terms of the overall picture is even more dangerous for great power confrontation, which is the situation with regard to Taiwan or the situation on the Korean Peninsula. And I think, you know, we are still in territory, where it's quite possible to move back from the level of confrontation that we can see now with regard to this regional conflict. We have a summit between President Xi and Trump coming up in Beijing.

Now we are told in May, almost certainly if that goes reasonably well for the meetings between the two during the course of the year. This provides an opportunity, at least, on those current Soviet issues, to try to find ways in which you can infuse a little bit most ability into the situation.

I think it has to be a total of two parts. The first part is what is ongoing already. I mean, there's a desperate need to end the military face of the conflicts in Ukraine and in Iran.

You know, we need to do much more than what we're doing at present to try to find some kind of stability in those consultations. But in addition to that, we also have situations such as the ones with regard to Taiwan.

I just piece that just came out a couple of days ago in Foreign Affairs, where I argue along those lines.

But I also think it's incredibly important to make use of this opportunity, then to move on to these other territory-based strategic issues. And this is the reason why I'm a limited optimist. I mean, I think there is room at least for temporary compromise on some of these issues.

“I mean, if you take Taiwan, I think the problem is that both sides, you pull on a string from two ends and you just make the not hard and hard run tougher and tougher to resolve, right?”

Everyone, you know, with any sense, knows that the best that can be achieved from either side at the moment with regard to Taiwan is status quo.

But yet we know moved ourselves into a situation where both sides behave as that is not the case, right? That they could achieve in some undefined way, something more. I think one of the, and I've said this in other contexts as well, and I go into it in the book to some extent, I think if you know the states were to declare that it would under no circumstance to pull Taiwan independence, which is not a departure from what American policy has been in the past. But needs desperately needs to be restated by the president under the current conditions, that could go a long way in terms of dealing with some of the aspects of the situation, particularly if it's followed up, which it's much harder, but not unthinkable by a PRC statement in some form or another, that they regard it as some thinkable that they would take military action against Taiwan, unless it takes less independence.

“If you look at the, the decision law on the Chinese side, they have this, this, this very unhealthy lack of clarity between the facto and the jury independence for Taiwan.”

It's in China's own interest to be very clear about this, and it, that it is the jury, and it wouldn't cost very much politically, for she and think to move in that direction.

So there is room for compromising, the question is whether people are actually going to seek it and make use of it, because if they don't, believe me, this is going to get much worse. It's problematic at a moment, but it could get much worse than what it is today. So what worries me about that, and I don't have a better answer, let me be very clear about that to begin with, but the world in which you're describing in which we seek consensus on the things that we can seek consensus from. You can see consensus for whether because they're easier problems or because there is a domestic constituency for them in both countries.

I don't know that, you know, it doesn't solve the problem, it moves it down the road and what it puts me in the mind of to bring it back to the other part of your book is the concert of Europe, you know, this sort of post congress of Vienna consensus. It worked for a bit, but it didn't stop the revolutions of 1848, it did not stop the wars of German unification, the word countless other smaller conflicts. It definitely post-pone things, and I guess this makes me in contrast to you a limited pessimist.

“You used the analogy of a knots before, and I will use another trope, and what worries me is that so many people in power in both countries see the only way to untie that knot as to cut it with a sword.”

I don't want that to happen, obviously. It would be immensely destructive, not just for the United States and China, but for the entire world from an economic and trade perspective to say the least. So, I'm going to sort of peel back the curtain on something I noticed when I was still in government working on PRC matters, and ask you a question that I hope you have not been asked before. And one thing I noticed always, when I was representing the country, was this horrible tendency among people in charge of policy to buy important rigorously analytic books and drawn entirely the wrong conclusion from them.

So, I'm thinking in particular, when Gram Allison came out with his book, which was an expansion on an earlier Atlantic article, and the book was actually a fairly quantitative nuanced discussion of what happens when a rising power confronts a declining one on the global stage.

But the consequence of trying to resolve them militaristically is so huge that punting them is a good idea even if fault does is move it down the road.

And what everybody in government took from that was, well, conflict between China and the United States is inevitable, there's this old Greek guy through cities who talked about it, and we just need to prepare for war, which I think is precisely the opposite point of Allison's book. So, you know, the last question I really have for you is, what is the main point you hope practitioners of diplomacy and military policy can draw from your work? And what is the biggest fear you have that they may draw from it mistakenly?

“Really good set of questions, and I would respond as almost anyone I think of my age would, what is most important that life is time.”

To have enough time available to do the things that you think you would want to do, not just in terms of the specifics of the conflicts that we've been talking about, but in general, I mean, well leaders have a lot of issues on the agenda and terms of things they want to achieve.

And the only thing we know for sure is that great power will do away with all those, right?

So, playing for time, going back to us you said that 19th century president, which was imperfect, but was good enough for almost 100 years to avoid cataclysmic great power. That is I think in our own time also the best we can hope for, because with that long postponement, let's call it that. There is a chance for other developments, other changes, like the ones you alluded to, to take place if not peacefully, but without a world conflagration. That's the key.

“I mean, we must not have an order and I think that's the 19th century lesson from this, one of those who pointed out better than anyone else is Henry Kissinger.”

That couldn't stand in the way of economic and social change, but allowed that change to play out all the time. And they have reduced the risk of great power. That is the situation I think that we are facing at the moment. So, the recommendations that come out of my book are all in that direction. That we really need to think about our own situation today as a situation in which tensions are already running very, very high. Many ways higher among great powers than what they were in the spring of 1914, where the risk of conflict, if a world class crisis, kind of black swan event that we can't even imagine at the moment, could be a terrorist act, could be a lot of things.

“We are not in a position to handle it. So that's why we have to start now. And I echo much of what my friend and colleague Graham Ellison said in his book, but I emphasized probably more, how to sit at this NC's great book.”

He answered, and decided this was a military man for most of his life. And he answered by saying why did war come, war came because everyone thought that war could solve their problems. And he turned out to be exactly the wrong conclusion. That what war did was to undo the world that they lived in. Totally, not just with regard to military affairs, but also with regard to social and economic affairs. And you know, destroy the Greek book, just like with destroy the European world in 1914 and set up for almost a century of conflicts coming out of that disaster of or mountain 14.

There is another point in this, which I want to get across to our listeners. And that is, and you alluded to that quite rightly, is that great power war is different from other kinds of wars. I mean, we've seen a lot of war and conflict and killing and dying in our own time. And all of that is terrible. Sometimes for recent, sometimes not. Great power war is of a different dimension, with regard to this. As many soldiers were killed in the first two weeks of the Battle of the Somme in the summer of 1916,

as in all great power wars combined between 1815 and 1914, so to out the throughout the 19th century.

And of course, the suffering didn't stop when that war ended. It went on for another generation through the resources of the interwoires, the Second World War, and to some extent, the Cold War.

I don't even think we should attempt to abolish war. But we have to think about what the consequences of great power war would be.

And the only way we can do that, meaningfully, is by starting now to look at the individual conflicts that already exist and see how we can reduce attention to them, so that we get enough time to move in these kinds of directions, thinking about how we cannot, we can't resolve all of these conflicts. My guess is that the Taiwan conflict is going to be unresolved for a very, very long time. What we can do is to move it away from the drink of war. And that is what is needed. And that is what the book is calling for.

“I agree with almost everything you said. I just have a concern that when we talk about time, at least with respect to the Chinese government and the United States government,”

the domestic political systems are set up to deal with different lengths of time. It is very difficult for the United States to form in this part as an era, a foreign policy that lasts for more than two to four years,

where as China with a lack of concern about domestic elections, can do five, ten, fifteen year plans. And yeah, it seems to me thinking while you are talking,

almost like the last great power war provides a momentary by which I mean decades long, if not a century, a noculation against the next one, but like many vaccines, it eventually loses its efficacy. And I very much fear that we are herdling to that point without thinking about it. I'm sorry about that too. I mean, I, but I was writing this book, I was a cutely aware that there is only about 0% of the world's population today who actually experienced great power war.

“I mean, that was the situation in the early 20th century as well. And there are a lot of those people on all sides. I mean, not just in the United States and in China, but everywhere, who are actually thinking,”

matters, it may seem that war might be part of resolving their problems. So, I mean, much of that comes out of the lack of understanding and experience with great power war. I don't think China, in many ways, is better placed for this than what you notice that this is. There are so many weaknesses within the Chinese decision making system because of the way that it is set up, especially at the moment. There is so little continuity in terms of many aspects of Chinese policymaking, think about what has been happening within the PLA of light.

That this idea that China really would be able to plan for the long term, at least at the moment, I don't see very much of that. And that's not the good thing. I mean, I would like China, as I would like to notice that it's to be able to plan better for the future.

In the United States, as you say, under the World Serpent Census, which, of course, haven't always been the case in the 20th century and up to now, it makes it harder to plan.

But on the Chinese side as well, I mean, I do think that if you think about planning, I mean, if you compare the kind of planning that in terms of international affairs, that the current Chinese government is able to do compared to, for instance, them shopping, China's Bismok, how he was able to think about these things in terms of generations. You know, there's a huge difference. So, sure termism, you find everywhere, and it is, it is scary, and we have to try to find a way out of it. But we also have to recognize, like you were said, that it exists, and it's there, and it's something we have to deal with.

Well, on that note, which is, I will take an implicit argument for policymakers to study more history, and I would expand that to the general population of both countries as well. I think we will leave it, and I will thank you for joining us today, and wholeheartedly recommend your book to the coming storm to our audience. I think it is probably the next best thing, those of us who did not go to school in New Haven can get to taking the famous Grand Strategy seminar, so thank you again. It has been a great pleasure. Wonderful conversation. Thank you.

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