Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy
01:09:02 · S3
[01:09:02] S3: What do you hope we do? What do you hope America's role is in the next twenty years?
01:09:07 · Walter Russell Mead
[01:09:07] S2: I hope we, first of all, figure out how to keep our balance as we enter the information revolution. That we figure out how to use the wealth and the resources the information revolution creates to deal with the stresses and problems that it inevitably causes and also draw from it the abundance that will keep the American people feeling like America's working, it's working for them, the way things are going is basically a good thing. You have that going, then people will back an American president, American foreign policy in a serious way and I think if you don't have that, and if we don't do that, we lose ground in the information revolution to China in the deck race, we get challenged overseas and at home we're just rabid ferrets fighting with each other in a cage and that's just not pretty and not fun. And if we can get that going, then I think we act purposefully, we say, we don't want any great power dominating Europe, we don't want any great power dominating Asia, and we don't want any power able to interrupt the flow of oil in and out of The Middle East on commercial terms and we build the alliances and the relationships that do it. I don't think that is an unsustainable ask. Germany and Japan in particular have a lot of resources and a lot of ability, but also our problem in Asia is not that China is so big, know, which the rest of Asia has fallen behind. In 1980, India's GDP was something like 60%, 65% of China's, Today it's about 17% of China's. That gap in a sense is the imbalance of power that sort of tempts China into thinking hegemony in Asia is really possible And also ensures that without us putting a really heavy weight on the balance scale, it can't be stopped. If we can create a world that there's room for others to prosper, that not only India but Indonesia and Vietnam are growing, I think what we're going to see is China will kind of reach this point of understanding that Asia is too big for China to eat, nobody can eat it, and so we need to learn to live with folks, which Germany has done in Europe, it's possible. And in the same way, if Russia is stopped in Ukraine, and Ukraine goes like Poland and becomes a prosperous country and all of this, that door is closed without American soldiers fighting and dying to keep it closed.
01:11:52 · Walter Russell Mead, S3
So there is, I think, the potential for the kind of natural balance of power in these key theaters to emerge in a way that we can have the sort of world that is good for us economically and from a security point of view, but does not require an ever escalating defense budget and ever escalating series of American commitments. Is anything there especially unique, you call [01:12:19] S3: it the information revolution, I would think about it maybe as the intelligence revolution, like to make it very specific to AI. Is there anything that you're thinking about that excites you most or worries you most about this very unique brand of technology in global affairs? [01:12:33] S2: Well, is interesting how it seems at least for now to have simplified the international playing field so that people, as you were saying earlier, just they said there's America and there's China and there's no one else in the room. First of all, I wonder how long that will last because originally there were two nuclear powers, America and The Soviet Union, and nobody else was in the room, but then a bunch of other people started getting into the room. Is AI more replicable? Are we going to start seeing other countries come up with their equivalent of these technologies? The Chinese have obviously done it with less need for original skull sweat than we did. Can third parties look comparing The US and China do more? So I'd be definitely watching that one and there I think, you know, the Indians and the Europeans and the Israelis are all very interesting in that respect. [01:13:31] S3: The
01:13:31 · S3, Walter Russell Mead
[01:13:31] S3: The [01:13:31] S2: Israelis got their nuclear bomb just a couple of years, a few years after China, so look at that. I do think the whole question of AIs and national security decision making and deterrence is interesting because the whole goal of deterrence is you want to make the adversary believe that there's no question, if I do X, they will do Y. They will be able to do Y and they are willing to do Y. Automating your foreign policy decision making process increases deterrence and so we've turned that over to the AI and if the AI thinks you're doing this, wham. And anything less than that is, no, I'm leaving a human decision point because I might decide not to do it. That's interesting when you think about how that might play out in the world of deterrence and are we really willing to have the doomsday machine decide whether we're going to go to war or use nuclear weapons or something like that? Very interesting and somewhat perplexing. [01:14:38] S3: Maybe to end on a positive note, what are you most excited about in the future?
01:14:42 · Walter Russell Mead
[01:14:42] S2: The list is almost endless. When I think about the acceleration of medical research that's going to be coming, let's just look at what AI and generally advances in tech are doing in the field of medicine. The rate at which cures are being found or treatments. My friend Ben Sasse, who was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, I mean he's still in a very bad situation, but a drug that didn't exist a year ago is keeping him not just breathing but interacting with people and doing things. It is a stay of execution, but the point is, I can look back at people in my own family who died of various conditions, which would now, if they had them, be treatable, and that's in one lifetime. And I also believe that we're going to be seeing a cost revolution in healthcare that people will have fifty years from now better healthcare and cheaper healthcare than anybody has today. I think this means that things like the federal deficit due to entitlement programs are actually solvable, that we're going to have Medicare is going to be less of a drag and the seniors are going to get better care. So I think many of the problems that are driving us really crazy right now are actually amenable to solution and the solutions are appearing at a fast rate and that our biggest problem is that this cornucopia of wealth that the information revolution unlocks. The stuff is coming out of this cornucopia so fast, we just don't know how to manage it. I am fundamentally optimistic that we are on the cusp of a unique era of human transformation, renewal and development. And it's really exciting to be able to see it.
01:16:44 · S3, Walter Russell Mead
[01:16:44] S3: I've been reading your books and your thinking and your writing for so long. It's such a thrill to do this together in person. When I do these, I ask everyone the same final question. What is the kindest thing that anyone's ever done for you? [01:16:55] S2: I believe Les Gell, but the Council on Foreign Relations was just a magnificent mentor who, when I would do something stupid, would help me see it, but also help me figure out the next step forward. I have had so much undeserved kindness from so many people in so many dimensions of life, younger relatives now who put up with their endlessly boring cognitive, another one of those old war stories, employers who keep me going, put up with me, The Wall Street Journal Paul Geaux letting me be the Global View columnist at the Journal. I float on a sea of kindness and I don't know that it's easy to say there's one thing kinder than another. I've just been blessed. [01:17:46] S3: It's a beautiful visual to close on. Floating on a sea of kindness. Thanks so much for your time.