← The Long Game with Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer
The Long Game with Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer
Iran War & Trump’s Europe Troop Drawdown: What Comes Next?
01:11:28
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- [00:00]
A
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month, of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra.
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B
See full terms@mintmobile.com does anyone really know
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A
what goes on behind closed doors at the Supreme Court? Four years ago I got a tip about the court and I was not in the market to cover it whatsoever, but this tip was about a secret influence campaign that had been carried out inside the court. As you know, the very idea of that is outrageous. I'm Preet Bharara and this week New York Times investigative journalist Jodi Kantor joins me to discuss her expose on the Court's shadow docket. The episode is out now. Search and follow Stay tuned with Preet wherever you get your podcasts. What's also not helping is that he keeps getting surprised by things that shouldn't surprise him from his perspective. Damn, the regime didn't crack. Damn, they closed the strait. Damn, we couldn't bomb them into submission. Damn, we can't seem to blockade them into submission. And frankly, with each realization he gets impatient and then says we gotta try something else. Welcome back to the Long Game. I'm Jake Sullivan.
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B
And I'm John Finer. Jake, it's just us again today. It's quiet in here, but we're going to fill the time, I think, quite constructively with a look at a topic we've covered extensively on this podcast but haven't really gone deep on in a couple weeks, which is the state of play in the Iran war. There's been a dizzying set of developments recently, including right up till the president present moment, that we will recap and analyze and try to give some sense of where all this is headed, including some of the implications of this conflict that have started to spin out, like the UAE's withdrawal from OPEC and kind of the broader implications of that for energy markets, energy security, for Gulf relations, which we have hinted at previously but haven't gone deep on. Then we'll talk about another, I think, topic that is related to this conflict, but only tangentially, which is the relationship between the United States and Europe and the increasing tension that the conflict has generated up to and including the president announcing in recent days the potential withdrawal, the likely withdrawal, I guess, of thousands of American troops from Germany amid a spat between Trump and the German chancellor. So we'll conclude with a wrap at the end of all that, but a lot of topics to dig into and looking forward to getting started.
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A
I'm also looking forward to it. John, I have to report to you and to our listeners that it is 6:30am Pacific Time. I'm out on the west coast, and I want to say that both because it reflects the full measure of my devotion to this podcast that I am up, I'm showered, I'm in front of the studio.
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B
Thank you for your service.
- [03:14]
A
Ready to pod with you at 6:30am but the more functional reason I am timestamping this episode, this is Wednesday morning, 9:30am Eastern Time, 6:30am Pacific Time. Where Jake is, is because we're gonna spend quite a bit of time talking about Iran, and things are changing by the hour. So this episode, you know, by the time it comes out, by the time people listen to it, something will surely have changed. And that's because I think you used the word dizzying. It really has been a quite dizzying and dynamic situation where things have evolved even since last night when we last touched base on the state of play. So we'll get into all that. But I did want to come back to the topic of showering. I mentioned I had showered because I had real difficulty operating the shower in my hotel room this morning. And it reminded me that one of the most stressful and vexing aspects of traveling the world on behalf of the United states as a U.S. government official, both at the State Department and the White House was, was that every shower in every hotel in every country in the world was just different enough that in the morning, in the midst of jet lag, you had to take time to figure out how it operated. Some of them have multiple shower heads, some of them have multiple knobs. Some of them have kind of the stealth shower head where you don't even know where the water's going to come out of from the ceiling, from the side, whatever. And I have to say, there is a certain prosaic humiliation that goes with standing there, usually in the dark, trying to figure out how the heck you're going to get clean so that you can go about the business of the US Government and American diplomacy that day. Is this just me, John, or is this something where I speak to a silent majority of American diplomats and officials?
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B
It's not just it might be Just us, for all I know. But I have myself multiple times had to call the front desk of the hotel to ask how to get the shower working or how to shift from a bath faucet to a shower. One time, I remember somebody had to be sent up to the room to explain this to me in person. So, yeah, it's a bit of a basic intelligence test that I have failed a couple times at least.
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A
I do wonder if that's what it is. It's like the universe making us go through trials just to prove that we're staying mentally sharp or have something reminding
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B
you to be humble.
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A
Yeah, yeah, right, exactly. One thing I learned actually, in the midst of all this, when you're in Europe especially, they have this new design of the showers where they only have half a pane of glass. So you're kind of taking the shower open in the room with just half a pane of glass. The reason they do that is A, glass is a lot easier to clean than the old school showers. But then, B, based on what I have been informed in debriefings on the subject, having half a pane of glass, as opposed to the full glass enclosure, means you don't have hinges, means the thing doesn't break. So it's just a much easier thing to maintain. But apparently American guests really don't like it. I personally am agnostic. Maybe that's enough shower talk. But these are the kinds of things you have to worry about.
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B
You've gone deeper on this than I have, but I'm here to learn as well, so I appreciate the shower briefing.
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A
Okay. Let's actually turn from the ridiculous to, well, maybe the sublime. And what's happening in Iran. So do you want to bring our listeners up to speed or to more
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B
ridiculous or more ridiculous?
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A
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Let me turn it over to you to get us going in terms of a review of the bidding of where we are and where we've come from.
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B
I do think just because, again, we've not done a deep dive into this in a couple of weeks and there's been a ton that's happened, it's worth just recapping some of the main events since we last went at length on Iran. So the United States and Iran declared a ceasefire that involved no additional concessions, really, from either side, including Iran, despite the fact that the US had made a bunch of demands of Iran leading up to the ceasefire. The theory of that was it would give space for talks between the two countries. J.D. vance, Vice President, led a delegation to Pakistan for those talks. They lasted about a day. He announced at the end that nothing had been achieved. Sometime after that, the United States then added its own blockade of the Strait of Hormuz to the blockade that Iran already had underway. The intention of the US Blockade was to stop Iran from exporting its hydrocarbons products, which it had been able to do during the course of the war, and generate revenues from that. The United States decided that can't happen anymore, so added its own blockade. Then the United States announced, after imposing the blockade for a week or more, that that it would be launching some sort of what it described as a humanitarian escort mission to allow stranded ships in the strait that were not tied to the conflict, flagged by countries unrelated to the conflict, to actually make it out and transit and get on their way. In response to which, Iran then attacked both the US Navy and the uae, which has, and we'll discuss this more, suffered the brunt of the attacks from Iran during the course of this conflict more than any other country, including the United States. But the President and the Defense Department described these attacks as not enough to count as a violation of the ceasefire, even though they looked to the rest of the world like they were a violation of the ceasefire. And then just in the last 24 hours, the President has called off the escort mission, citing a request from Pakistan and maybe also from Saudi Arabia, citing the supposed enormous military success of the campaign against Iran, which he's pointed to on other occasions, and citing, again, what he calls progress towards a deal with Iran based on, I guess, some indirect talks that are still going on, even though the two sides have not met again face to face. So my head is spinning a bit at all of this, but I did think it was worth just kind of recapping, reviewing the bidding as we head into another week. That is likely to be something of an inflection point in this war one way or the other, or potentially just more of the same as we continue to muddle through.
- [09:32]
A
Keep in mind, all of that's compressed into a really short timeline in the broader context to geopolitics, basically just a couple of weeks, everything you said unfolded. And now here we are Again, Wednesday morning, May 6th. And the latest development, building off of that statement that President Trump made is a report in Axios from Barack Rabid, who you and I both know well, basically saying he said this multiple times over the course of the conflict, so how much validation to give? It is up in the air. But what he basically says is that they are close to a MOU that would lead to an end of the war in the region and the start of a 30 day period of negotiations on a detailed agreement that would open the strait, that would limit Iran's nuclear program and that would lift U.S. sanctions. So he goes into some detail on this. The Iranians have sort of already, already come out, at least through some of their spokespeople, and said, no, this is more a list of American demands. It's unclear exactly what the state of this proposal is, but what does seem to be clear is that the Trump administration believes, or at least wants to project its belief to the public that they are making progress towards some sort of framework, some kind of document that would allow them to declare an end to the war and that would launch some period of negotiations to try to resolve the big open issues in this. What's your take on this element of it? How do you assess what's come out in the reporting now in terms of the progress, or at least purported progress, maybe the lack of progress in the negotiations?
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B
I'd start by saying I love Barack. He's a friend of mine and I think one of the best reporters in Washington. But there was a funny tweet this morning that said he has predicted seven out of the last zero agreements, I guess is the way it was phrased, because he keeps foreshadowing that there's gonna be a deal and ultimately there isn't. So I take this with a big, big grain of salt. This is, I think, American messaging, and by the way, I think not a coincidence that it happens sort of early in the week and intended to kind of influence market reaction, which it is already. You've seen oil markets react to this. We'll talk a little bit more about how the United States has kind of continued to talk down market reaction to the war fairly successfully, although not perfectly. That said, where I think he is onto something and where I think ultimately this is worth digging into, is that I think you and I would both agree that ultimately if there is going to be any sort of deal, it is going to need to involve the sorts of elements that Barack lays out in his piece. Because ultimately that is the only way to get a deal that can address Iran's nuclear ambitions. It is going to involve, as he says, a significant measure of financial benefit for Iran. Exactly what form that takes and the magnitude of it is going to be the subject of negotiations. It's going to be involved some limits. It's going to involve some limits on Iran's nuclear program. You know, he flags the possibility of a moratorium. You know, A period in which Iran does not enrich uranium. By the way, Iran is not currently enriching uranium, doesn't really have the prospect of enriching uranium in the near term, given the damage that's been done to its program. But how long that moratorium would be in place and then what happens after that is going to be another obvious topic for negotiations and for a possible deal. And then the subject of how this deal would be monitored and implemented and enforced is going to be a major topic of discussion. And so when you see these categories laid out that are part of this report, it's not surprising, because I think this is, by the way, the core elements of the only deal that's ever been reached with Iran on the nuclear program, which is the jcpoa, which we talked about at length and both of us have worked on. So I think we could dig into some of the details of this, because I think the details do matter, but not at all surprising that this is where the United States is trying to steer the conversation. And I think the real question is, do we, does the United States have enough leverage over Iran to get any sort of deal at all, or is Iran more inclined to just sort of hold out, given how angry they are at having been attacked and given that they still believe? I think that the longer this goes on, the more pressure is on us, economically and otherwise, to try to end it on terms that are even better for Iran. So that's kind of how I see things.
- [14:05]
A
So I want to put a pin in this question. Will Iran do a deal that's close to or in the zone of what's been laid out in this Axios report, really important question. And underlying it is this question you just posed of whether we have enough leverage to make that happen. But let me take a step back for a minute and connect your first observation, which is that we've had this dizzying array of developments over the last two weeks with an observation you just made a second ago that there is a certain inevitability to all of this. At the end of the day, the only way in which there is an end to this war, an end to this crisis is through some kind of negotiated settlement. And I find those two facts, those two kind of bookends to this overall crisis, really important to keep in view as we follow the day to day developments. For me, going back to the beginning of this crisis, the Iranians in a way have been fairly straightforward to predict. We could have predicted that when you take out the Supreme Leader and threaten the whole regime that they would close the Strait of Hormuz because that was, for lack of a better term, their trump card. All along. We would have predicted that they would strike Gulf bases and infrastructure to try to raise the costs, economic costs in the United States and the rest of the world. We would have predicted that they would hold firm on their basic position that they were not going to surrender their entire nuclear program. We would have predicted that they weren't going to rapidly fracture or collapse and the regime was not going to give way to some new government that was more significantly more friendly to the United States or more democratic. And frankly, we would have predicted that they would settle into a position of strategic stubbornness. And they're basically playing their hand out about as expected. Now, President Trump, unsurprisingly, has been a little bit less predictable. And what's not helping from my perspective is that he didn't know why he really got into this in the first place. So his strategy has never had a strong mooring. And what's also not helping is that he keeps getting surprised by things that shouldn't surprise him. So it's like from his perspective, damn, the regime didn't crack. Damn, they closed the strait. Damn, we couldn't bomb them into submission. Damn, we can't seem to blockade them into submission. And frankly, with each realization, he gets impatient and then says, we got to try something else. So kind of sum this up. I think Iran has found itself in a standoff with a US President who frankly doesn't know how to stand still. So it's just hard to say what he'll do next. He plainly doesn't want to go back to war. He also doesn't seem to want to just settle into a long term staring context contest. But he's damn nervous about a diplomatic compromise that looks a lot like the Iran nuclear deal. So Donald Trump, in a way, would kind of like to choose none of the above. But he lost that option when he launched the war. He has to do something. And I think that's why even when he tries new things like this operation Freedom, or he threatens civilizational destruction, remember that happened not too long ago. Or he blockades the blockade. These are all in service of trying to find some button he can press to get out of this war. But all of them lead back to the fundamental reality that there is only one durable way out. That is a deal. And that is where he keeps coming back to. That's where Axios has put us again today. And I guess the question, John, of whether or not there is a zone that the US And Iran can land in, that President Trump can say, okay, I'll take that, and Iran can say, okay, I'll take that. Do you think that is plausible and how do you answer the question you posed on whether or not the US has enough leverage to get there?
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B
I think a deal along these lines was probably plausible before this war. And in fact, I think something along these lines is what was under discussion between the United States and Iran both last summer before Israel and the United states launched the 12 Day War and disrupted what were ongoing negotiations, and then again this year when the United States chose to interrupt negotiations by returning to conflict. I think a deal along the lines that we've been discussing was very much on the table and within the realm of possibility. And I guess I feel like now the fact that we have waged this damaging conflict, damaging to us, damaging to the global economy, damaging to our allies in the region, damaging obviously also to Iran, at least in terms of its military capability, but ultimately strategically, as we've argued many times, not beneficial to the United States, given where things stand today and are still talking about basically the same terms of the deal, just continues to bring me back to the question of why we bothered to go down this path in the first place and cause all this harm. I also think it is now harder to get this deal than it was previously because you've got a more entrenched, more dug in, more hardline set of decision makers in Iran, a more discredited set of people who might actually argue that doing a deal is in their favor. And I think they are going to have the foreign minister, who we know and have talked about on this pod, the speaker of the House, National Security Advisor. These people are maybe the ones who are inclined to do a deal if it's good enough for Iran. And I think they're going to have an even harder time now after this war getting the people who are ultimately making the decisions. Maybe it's the Supreme Leader, much more now, the IRGC leadership, to sign off and say yes. And so that means the terms that the United States is going to offer will have to be better now than they would have been before having gone to this war. And the idea that you go to war to generate terms that are better for the adversary is generally not how and why you enter to conflicts, quite the opposite. So we look at sanctions relief. There's going to be billions of dollars on the table in assets, Iranian assets that are currently frozen, that'll be unfrozen. What other sanctions relief are we going to provide to get this deal certainly will enable Iran to sell oil. It's already was doing so even under previous sanctions. We will probably authorize that. Are we going to do more? Are we going to offer sanctions relief under what we call our primary embargo, which is direct US Sanctions on even doing business with the United States or touching the United States financial system, which, by the way, the JCPOA that the Obama administration did did not include any sanctions relief under that. Is that now on the table to try to induce Iran into a deal? And then what are we going to get on the nuclear side? There are some indications that we might get actually some significant things from the Iranians, maybe even beyond what was in the jcpoa, like moratorium. The jcpoa, we should acknowledge, did not include a period in which Iran was not permitted to enrich. It seems like they're at least discussing some period, five years, 10 years, whatever it is with Iran that would be of value. But I suspect strongly that we will have to pay quite a lot if we're going to get Iran to agree to a period like that. So the details here really do matter. And as we've indicated previously, we do not have exactly our Most detail oriented U.S. officials at the forefront of these talks, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who, by the way, have other jobs, are not full time US Government employees, and are not bringing a lot of US Government expertise into these conversations from what we can tell. So I'm a bit pessimistic, to be honest, that this gets done.
- [22:03]
A
So there's a bunch in what you just said that I'd love to unpack. But let me zero in on two things. One is the point you and I have both made over the course of several episodes, that we could have gotten a deal without going through this war and all of the costs that have been imposed on the United States, human costs, economic costs, and frankly, maybe even most long lasting and significant strategic costs to the United States. We could have done all this without that. And I think part of the reason that President Trump hasn't been prepared to do a deal to date is because he's just so nervous about conceding that President Obama and Secretary Kerry were frankly right all along that there has to be compromise if you're going to get a durable nuclear deal. I think ultimately he will end up acting on that realization. But we've gone down this road because he just has not wanted to stare that reality squarely in the face. I think something else has been going on, though, too, which is the people in his ear are telling him a series of things that continue to reinforce his mistaken assumptions. So we had H.R. mcMaster and Matt Pottinger on the podcast two weeks ago. They're not in his ear. I don't think they're talking to him day to day, but they reflect the kind of people who are. And HR's proposition that the regime is going to collapse at some point soon. He said that with relatively high confidence. That's something that a lot of other people around Trump have said to him. There's a guy named Mark Thiessen who writes a column for the Washington Post, who reportedly has been talking to President Trump on a regular basis. A few days ago, he wrote a piece saying Iran is 14 days from collapse. These are the kinds of things that I think President Trump is hearing, and basically he's being told, you have the cards, you have the leverage. Iran doesn't. They can't endure the economic pain, they can't continue to endure the blockade because they're ultimately going to have to shut down their oil production. These are the kinds of things, I think, that have led us down a problematic path to begin with and also mean that President Trump is not, in my view, kind of properly assessing the risks and benefits of various courses of action in this war. And I have a question as to whether ultimately there's going to be something that makes him say, okay, just do it. Just go do the deal. Could that be gas prices hitting $5 a gallon? Could that be his increasing concern of the risk of some wild card, something a US ship getting hit? Could it be the summit with Xi Jinping next week? Does he want to have shown really substantial progress between now and then? I think these questions about how Trump's calculus around what he's prepared to accept in the way of compromise are very real. And then on the Iranian side, the question of the extent to which they want to say, look, we could just hold out, we could keep trying to increase the pressure on the United States, but heck, there's a deal on the table that helps us deal with some of our problems, too, how they run that calculus over the course of the coming days and weeks. So we'll have to look at both sides of that on the terms of the deal itself. The thing that I find most challenging, beyond the fact that we don't have detail oriented people actually negotiating it, is we do not right now have a good sense at all of what the baseline of Iran's nuclear program is, actually how much enriched Uranium they have actually, how many centrifuges they have actually, what the status of their facilities beyond the main facilities are, whether or not they've used the last year to divert capabilities to places we don't know about. We have very little sense of that. That's a huge change from before the jcpoa, when we had a good picture of every element of Iran's nuclear program and were able to use that picture to shape a deal that we could confidently look the American people in the eye and say, this deal will stick. So it doesn't seem to me like that's even really in discussion, how to get that baseline where we have the confidence that whatever we agree to is actually rooted in the reality of Iran's nuclear program today. And I'll be curious how they grapple with that challenge in the period ahead. But the question, I guess, sitting here today, Wednesday, is do the two sides actually go sit back down at the table and try to hammer this out? Will this continue to be done in this more indirect way or this standoff way? And you speak of your pessimism on it. I guess I've tended to be, compared to you a little more optimistic that ultimately they'll land in a zone because there's no other outcome here. And eventually President Trump will come to that realization and Iran will want to do a deal, at least at some level. So I'm a bit more optimistic than you are, but I still do think it's going to take a lot of time to unfold. Hey, I'm Matt Buchel, comedian, writer, and floating head you may or may not have seen on your episode. And I'm starting a brand new podcast. Wait, Don't Swipe Away. It's called that sounds like a lot. I'm gonna start by breaking down whatever insanity is happening in the world, and then I'll sit down with a comedian or actor or writer or honestly, anyone who responds to my DMs. This is not the place to get the news, but it is a place to feel a little bit better about it. You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcast. That sounds like a lot part of the Vox Media podcast network. So we are 250 years into this American experiment and I'd say it's going okay. I give us like a C. There is no perfect past, but there is also no exclusively negative past. Because humans are going to human. That's what we do. I think the story of America is the struggle of people who have not been included in the promise of America to expand those principles to include more people. What's going to determine the next 250 years of America?
- [28:12]
B
And how do we write a new
- [28:13]
A
social contract that can give us the democracy we deserve? Okay, so I'm just gonna be a jerk here because I'm a historian. So we have to have a prologue explaining, you know, we the people. Okay. You know, I do still remember it from Schoolhouse Rock. We the people, in order to form a war, perfect union established justice. What is it? Ensure domestic tranquility. So you're talking about a foundational document. So I'm building a document that will protect American democracy. That's this week on America, Actual League.
- [28:50]
B
I guess maybe to qualify my pessimism, I'm pessimistic that there will be a deal that has kind of sufficient detail and verification and this accounting that you just described of even the status quo of Iran's nuclear program. So as one of our colleagues has called it, we know what we're buying. If we give them a measure of sanctions relief, that would seem to be a prerequisite for doing this the right way. I'm not, I guess, pessimistic that we could ultimately reach a kind of one page framework along the lines that's been reported to kind of pause the pause and give space for talks yet again that may ultimately not lead anywhere. I do think it is possible that kind of agreement could be announced and the two sides could return to negotiations. But a one page framework that has some general language on all these topics is pretty different from the hundred plus pages of detailed technical agreement and annexes and everything else that went into that would go into a real arms control agreement and that went into the Iran nuclear deal from back in 2015, 2016. And obviously that's not going to get done in 30 days. The amount of time, the window of time that supposedly would be given for these talks, if they even get off the ground. So I guess where I come down is yes, possibly some sort of framework could be reached. Very unlikely that would actually lead to meaningful changes or ultimately a serious deal of some kind. But maybe that's a way out of this conflict for a Trump administration that seems to badly want one and seems unable to get one on the sort of dominating terms that they have been seeking up till now.
- [30:29]
A
How much do you think what President Trump is guided by is his look at markets or his look, which really haven't moved much, or his look at gas prices, which are now creeping up, have gotten to around $4.50 a gallon for the national Average. Do you think that that's playing a big role in his thinking, or he's kind of setting that aside and trying to figure this out without as much reference to some of these things that we used to think were really core to his calculus on some level?
- [31:01]
B
How could it not? I mean, we've discussed how we live through people walking into our office during periods of crisis in the Middle east and telling us this is actually now having broader implications on the economy, on the political standing of the administration. And the national security considerations are paramount, but they're not the only considerations when it comes to these sorts of crises. So I'm sure that's the case in this White House. We've also, though, talked about this paradox of when Trump projects that we are on the cusp of a deal, the market's reaction tends to be then more muted to the crisis because nobody wants to miss the sort of surge that will come when a real deal is announced. And so market reaction is much more limited. But then that blaseness, if that's actually a word, actually puts less pressure on the administration to end the war because the market reaction is so diminished over the last week or two when there started to be indications of, I wouldn't call it market panic, but at least market reaction commensurate to the level of the crisis. The price spikes that we saw, paradoxically, that actually put more pressure because people started to believe that the war might go longer, put more pressure on the Trump administration, I think, to actually put more effort into ending it. So there is this loop that we end up in where the markets actually have not pressured Trump as much as I would have expected them to put a stop to this. And he's been quite successful at always dangling the possibility of a deal that people don't want to miss and limiting the reaction in that way. And maybe he'll be able to keep doing that for a while. Although, as you say, the higher the prices climb and there is this scoreboard that people can look at with their own eyes out in the country, it's going to be harder.
- [32:47]
A
It's interesting. It's the markets and geopolitics version of that short story, the gift of the magi. The market thinks that this is going to end fast. So prices don't go up that much. Because they don't go up that much. The conflict drags, and then people think, oh, maybe it's going to drag. So then prices start going up. But that would mean it would more likely end. It is a crazy doom loop. The Likes of which is we really haven't seen that frequently in these kinds of conflicts and is worth keeping an eye on in the days ahead, because if an announcement to progress in talks leads to downward pressure on oil prices, which almost certainly it will, does that then take the pressure off Trump and make him think, okay, I can keep trying the black blockade for a while longer. We'll just have to see how that particular dynamic plays out. One other thing I just wanted to make sure that we touched on. I mentioned this risk of a wild card. Dan Kaine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said something interesting. He said that since the ceasefire went into place, there have been 10 efforts by the Iranians to hit US naval vessels. I think it was US naval vessels in the Gulf you and I live through, the Houthis working to try to shut down the Red Sea and the Bab El Mandeb and trying to directly hit US Naval vessels. And we saw very clearly the skill and capability of the US Navy in being able to intercept the inbound projectiles, shoot them down, protect the ship. But we also saw a lot of close calls and the fact that you have to be right every single time. And so I think we have gotten kind of used to the fact that our Navy can just defend itself against inbound missiles and drones, inbound fast boats, whatever the risk may be. But the enemy only has to be right once to cause a strike that could. Could take further lives of sailors, that could disable a ship. But certainly that would create a whole different strategic context. And I think we just should make sure we don't take our eye entirely off that ball. And my guess is that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is telling President Trump, look, I have every confidence in my operators to be able to defend our fleet and defend our ships. But. But also, I'm sure he's being straightforward, that this risk remains very elevated and something for us to watch. We could wake up any day and have had a US Ship hit in a way that just creates an entirely different strategic equation.
- [35:34]
B
Yeah, I think it's safe to say we've been both good and lucky up till now. And actually, maybe not as lucky as the public narrative would suggest. We're also starting to learn. I mean, there have been now increasing reports that damage to US Military facilities in the region is more extensive than the Trump administration has acknowledged. Billions of dollars in damage. We probably don't know the full extent of that. They've tried to keep that under wraps, I think, in large part to avoid letting the Iranians know where they've been successful and in large part to project the military dominance that's such a part of the Trump administration's messaging. We also had attacks that have killed U.S. service members, could have killed more U.S. service members. We had an aircraft that went down in Iran with a crew on board that we were able to rescue. That also was not a foregone conclusion. So there have been these moments where things could have gone significantly worse and then would have put significant pressure on the Trump administration to do more, to escalate in retaliation and in response. And as you say, if a naval vessel gets hit or God forbid, people are killed or the vessel is sunk, there will be massive, I think, escalatory pressure on Trump to respond. So that is one of these wildcards. The other thing I think we should just note, and we've talked about it before, is there are also increasing reports of how depleted American munitions are as a result of this conflict. Both depleted in terms of our ability to perpetuate this war indefinitely, keep ships at sea, keep shooting things out of the sky, keep attacking Iran. All of these supplies now are reaching critical levels and depleted in the context of other potential things that could happen in the world. The Russians messing around in Eastern Europe, the Chinese taking aggressive action in the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea. There are real questions, I think, based on how much material we've used in this war, about how ready we are for these other things. And that has to be part of the calculus, at least for Dan Kaine and the Pentagon, in advising the president about how long this can go.
- [37:45]
A
No doubt about it, the reports coming out about exactly how much we've blown through in terms of Tomahawks, this new missile, the Prism, some of our key interceptors like Patriots and SM3s and SM6s, it's really quite striking. CSIS said four of the seven main munitions that we need to keep fighting the war have fallen by more than half from their pre war inventory. And that rebuilding them will take one to four years. I mean, really, really quite striking. And that is a factor that the United States military will absolutely be briefing up to the President and his key advisors and will be very much on their mind as they think about the scenario in which this war gets restarted and is sustained over a period of time. So you had mentioned at the outset something important, which is that in the midst of all of this going on in the Persian Gulf between the US And Iran, we've had the United Arab Emirates, the UAE make a big decision, which is to pull out of opec. And that has both the oil market implications that are real and direct and also a broader set of strategic implications. How are you reading that situation?
- [39:01]
B
So it's interesting on the one hand, and I think we both know this from personal experience, this is something that the Emirates has been looking to do and dangling the possibility of doing for quite some time. I think they have been frustrated for a long time about the quotas that are imposed by OPEC on their production, on their exports, because they like the Saudis, but are two of the countries and they believe they are maybe the one with the most spare capacity to put on the market. And so they believe that the OPEC quotas have hurt them in some ways more than they have hurt other countries. And they've been making that case privately, quietly to us for quite some time and increasingly publicly over the years. But second, and I think this was interestingly, I think pretty well laid out in an op ed in the Wall Street Journal by Yusuf Al Oteba, the Emirati ambassador who we know well where he argued, look, unlike some of the other OPEC countries, we are not a his argument hydrocarbons dominated, oil dominated economy. It's less than a quarter now of our, our overall gdp. And so we are more focused on energy security, on the broader performance of the global economy because we are more intertwined in the global economy than we used to be and more bound up in the global economy than maybe some of the other OPEC members. And so we believe that our goal should be safe, stable energy markets, much more so than generating higher prices, which is at least part of how they see OPEC's motivation that is maybe misaligned now with the Emirates strategic goals and with their own economic interests. So they basically see a divergence between the goals of the OPEC cartel and their own economic strategy driving their desire to be out. I will say, though, and want to get your reaction to kind of which of these factors is the most prominent or if it's something else. There has also been hanging out in the background of all of this and certainly looming, looming quite large before this war, this political, personal, strategic dispute between the Emirates and Saudi Arabia that was just starting to boil over when the war erupted and forced everybody to, at least on the surface, align against a common enemy, a common adversary in Iran. That dispute has not gone away. And I think that is also part of why in the current moment, where maybe you might otherwise want to profess a degree of unity, the Emirates was comfortable saying, we're stepping away from this institution, which Saudi Arabia has informally dominated for quite some time as the sort of largest producing OPEC country. But do you see these as being the main factors, which among them or is there something else going on here?
- [41:51]
A
Look, I do think the proximate reason that the UAE pulled out is because it wants to maximize its oil production now, to maximize its revenues now, to hasten the transition of its economy away from hydrocarbons and to finance clean tech and especially artificial intelligence. So I do think they had a clear calculus about why the restrictions they were living under in terms of how much oil they could produce and sell on the market in OPEC didn't make sense for them. They want to be able to pursue their own national growth strategy. I think that's the proximate reason for this. I don't think it would was purely triggered by the war. I think they've been thinking about this for a couple years and now they've done it. But I think the larger implications are going to be the real story as we go forward. And the larger implications are, I believe, a structural rift between the UAE and Saudi Arabia that will be a major feature of the regional landscape for years to come. Now, there's an interesting and immediate dimension to this, which is who is Iran hitting when it fires against Gulf countries to try to put pressure on the United States and to try to flex its muscles and show its leverage? It's not hitting Saudi these days, it's hitting the uae. And who's involved in the diplomacy with Pakistan to try to bring an end to this war and position itself in the post war era as a key broker? It's Saudi. So already in the larger dynamics here you see the UAE and Saudi occupying very different positions. And I think the Saudi effort to establish itself as the dominant player in economics and technology, the dominant player in terms of regional geopolitics and security affairs. And for MBS himself, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, to establish himself personally as the key leading figure in the region. These are all driving towards, I think, a more fundamental change in the UAE Saudi relationship that will have implications not just in places like Yemen and Sudan where they found themselves on opposite sides of proxy conflicts, but in virtually every country in the region and in terms of how each of them relate to Iran. And so I think this is a very big deal. And the UAE move here is one move in a larger context that from my perspective we'll be talking about for years to come, this kind of UAE Saudi dynamic and how everyone else in the region and even countries outside the region are going to have to relate to things. And so as you mentioned, for many weeks in the fall on our podcast, we'd say, hey, watch out for this. We're going to come back to it. Well, here we are, are coming back to it because events have forced us back to it. And I predict that in the months ahead, we'll be doing deeper dives on this issue as well, because it's going to be very much with us as something two, three, four, five years ago was not a significant factor and now is.
- [45:00]
B
So I think that's very well put. I would add that to a large extent, this is not good for the United States, not good that two of our closest friends, partners, allies in the region are at odds with each other, are in different sides of different conflicts taking place, still taking place, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, et cetera in the region and now are increasingly at odds over the state of play on Iran and the current conflict that the United States is engaged in. I will say there's one, maybe small way in which this is not so bad for the United States in a time of high energy prices, which is we live through the idea that the United States has one address to go to to try to increase production, bring prices down, give the economy domestically for the United States a bit of a boost. And that destination is opec. Gives OPEC a significant amount of bargaining power, leverage in these discussions with the United States and the fact that they're now may well be multiple addresses to go to to try to improve and enhance energy security in ways that benefit the US Economy. Not all bad, I think, for the United States. So overall, I think strategically not a great situation here with maybe a small silver lining at a time that we're currently in of kind of high energy prices coming out of this conflict where OPEC may prefer a slightly higher overall price of oil than the United States government would would for our own economic interests in many cases. And the Emirates may now be a partner in that going forward.
- [46:38]
A
I think that's well summed up strategically, I think challenging to have these two countries at odds. From the economic point of view. We don't like opec, so fewer countries in OPEC is probably better from the US Perspective. Elon Musk spent most of this week sitting in a courtroom litigating some of the most important moments in the early history of the AI revolution. He didn't do a great job. And the ways in which he didn't do a great job may come back to haunt Elon Musk in a pretty Big way. This week on the Vergecast, we're talking about what's going on in Musk vs OpenAI and how it might affect the rest of the tech industry. Plus the most exciting laptop we've seen in a while and maybe the most exciting game controller we've seen in a while. All that on the Vergecast, wherever you get podcasts. All right, let's zoom out even further because the war in Iran is having ripple effects that go way beyond just Gulf dynamics. They're affecting the transatlantic relationship as well. And in particular, President Trump and his team have made an announcement that they are going to reduce the Overall level of U.S. forces in Germany, take out 5,000 forces. And it seems like the trigger for this was the German Chancellor, Frederick Mertz, saying that the US Was getting humiliated by the Iranians in the Iran war. Now saying this in front of a
- [48:24]
B
kindergarten class, I think like a bunch of. In front of a bunch of kids.
- [48:27]
A
Oh, I actually missed that odd format for it. So he says, we've been humiliated. Trump says, I'm gonna draw down our forces in Germany. And the Pentagon comes out and announces 5,000 fewer forces. They say it was a result of an extensive process, but of course, the relevant forces learned about it in real time, which suggests that, in fact, it was directly connected to President Trump reacting to what he saw as a direct slight from the German chancellor. President Trump has also said there are likely to be more reductions in US Forces from Germany and said other countries may face reductions in US Forces as well, including name checking both Spain and Italy and reserving some choice words, especially for Spain. So, John, we're going to do a Red Team, Blue Team on whether it makes sense for the United States to do a significant material reduction in our overall force posture and troop presence in Europe. But before we get to that, any reactions to these developments over the course of the past few days, culminating in this announcement of a reduction in US Troops in Germany?
- [49:43]
B
No, other than to say something we've said previously, which is, none of this is good. All of this is beneficial to Russia. The higher price environment, the tension in the transatlantic relationship, the reduction of U.S. support for our allies and for Ukraine. But we are where we are. And so we thought it was worth discussing on the merits. The prospect the President has put on the table of reducing further the US Footprint, the US Commitment to Europe. And as always, in our Red Team, Blue Team conversations, we start with a caveat that the arguments that we may be making are not necessarily our personal views particular. I think that'll be the case for me this time around, because I'm going to argue for reducing the footprint. I think you're going to argue against, and, you know, we'll see how it goes.
- [50:32]
A
Yeah. And I think just to set the terms, because pre Ukraine war, or pre. The buildup to the Ukraine war, the US had somewhere in the range of, call it 65 to 70,000 troops in Europe that got up to as high as 100,000 as we fortified the eastern flank and prepared for contingencies that might take the Ukraine war beyond the boundaries of Ukraine. That has now come down a bit over the last couple of years at different points. There are different levels of troop presence, but it's between 80 and 100,000. So this debate is not about kind of minor adjustments at the margins. It's really a debate about whether we should have a substantial structural reduction in US Forces on the continent. And since you're the one arguing for it, at least in this Red Team, Blue Team exercise, not, not necessarily reflecting your actual views, I think it probably makes sense for you to go first and lay out the case for why we should do that. And then I'll tell you why you're so very wrong.
- [51:32]
B
I'll get started. We don't like to acknowledge it. No country likes to acknowledge it. But even the richest and most powerful nation on Earth has limited resources, and we have to prioritize how they're used and be strategic about it. At the height of the Cold War, when Russia was by far and away the most important threat that the United States faced, we had 400,000 troops in Europe and 250,000 in West Germany alone. That actually made sense at the time. It also made sense to drastically reduce that number afterwards and then to increase it again, as the Biden administration did, from about 65,000, as you said in early 2022, back up to 100,000 when Russia invaded Ukraine. But that increase was never intended to be permanent. And since then, something significant things have changed that I think are worth noting. One, Russia has taken more than a million casualties on the battlefield in Ukraine and is using something like 90% of its combat power there. So it is pretty focused on that one theater and a lot less focused on menacing and threatening by traditional means, the NATO countries that the United States is in Europe to defend. Second, the US has launched not one, but two new wars, or at least mini wars in the Caribbean and in Iran. And as we've discussed in this episode, that has had major implications on our readiness, on our force posture, in ways that we have to take into account strategically. Third, warfare has become, or at least is becoming increasingly dependent on autonomous systems and less dependent on manpower. And that's only going to increase over time as aerial, sea and subsea drones are supplemented by even land based platforms that require the same number of human operators on board. Fourth, the main threat to Europe, and particularly to Germany now from Russia, in my view at least, is not a traditional military assault in the way that Russia has conducted against Ukraine, but is something more akin to what we call gray zone tactics, still violent, but much more below the radar, sabotage, even drones used somewhat covertly to menace airports and infrastructure and other things. This is less true, I think, for frontline states, the Baltics and others where we should maintain a presence. But it's certainly, I think, true for the threat to Germany, where the largest numbers of US troops are located. And then meanwhile, in our priority theater, which is Asia, focused on China, we've seen a net outflow of capabilities over recent months, which is just strategic malpractice if that's the place that we are most focused on. So look, I am not for doing this the way the President is doing it. It of course should not look punitive to our allies, to Germany because of what Mertz said, to Italy or to Spain because of what their leaders have said and done. This should not be us lashing out on them or doing it in a way that undermines our Article 5 commitment. In fact, it should be coupled with an enhanced deterrent message, maybe even increased kind of high end capabilities to Europe that require fewer personnel. So not infantry, but things like long range strike capabilities which we were discussing blessing sending to Germany when we were still in office. It also should not come alongside the shameful backing away we've seen in support for Ukraine, which is fighting Russia in a very successful, I believe way at enormous cost and without a single American or European troop engaged in direct active combat. So not a troop intensive way to continue to impose costs on Russia. Does this increase the risk drawing down that Russia will do something reckless? Maybe, maybe, maybe marginally. But the core of our deterrent there, I do not believe is the number of forces we have, but our nuclear umbrella and the perception of our commitment to defend NATO. So as long as that remains high and viable and credible, I believe deterrence will hold. And that combination is what's kept Russia, by the way, from directly attacking NATO, even as our support for Ukraine has caused so much harm to Russia during the course of the recent conflict. And to give the President some credit, he's successfully gotten the European countries to make greater commitments to their own defense. Germany is raising a much bigger army now, doubling or more the size of its standing army as a result, in some sense, of the Russian invasion, of our pressure, of Trump's pressure. And if Germany's army is twice the size that it once was, that should mean that there are fewer troops required from the United States. So back to where I started, responsible foreign policy in a world of scarce resources means accepting some risk where you can so you can decrease that risk where you must. To me, that is Asia. So can we afford to be a bit lighter in Europe, maybe even substantially lighter? I think we can. I'd much rather we didn't launch wars in Iran and the Caribbean. But we have. There are forces committed to those places. We should wrap those places up. But the place we should shift those resources to is Asia, where our deterrent, I think, is most needed and most in question.
- [56:48]
A
All right, very well said. And I am going to make the case that we should not make a structural material drawdown in US Forces at this time or in the near term future. And I want to start with three numbers that Graham Allison has laid out. 80. 80 and nine. 80 years since we've had great power war. 80 years since a nuclear weapon has been used. And nine. Only nine countries with nuclear weapons in the world. And if you had said to people in 1945 that these three things would be true in 2025 or 2026, they would have said, you're crazy. There'll be dozens of nuclear powers. There certainly will be another nuclear weapons use. And how can we possibly go 80 years without the great powers fighting, since we've just had two world wars in the span of just a few decades? Decades. And yet it's happened, and Graham Allison calls it the long peace. And NATO has been absolutely central to that. And because of the role Russia is playing today as one of the chief threats to the long term viability of that long peace, NATO remains absolutely central to that. And yes, it costs money, it takes resources, but prevention always costs money. A war in Europe precipitated by Russia believing that it could take more risk on its side. To attack countries in NATO on the eastern flank would cost a whole lot more money and a whole lot more than money. So this is kind of like that support beam in your house that you get tired of. It's not aesthetically pleasing. You'd like to take it out. You realize, realize you take out that support beam and the whole house comes down. Now, your argument is, okay, fine, NATO remains central, but really the things we have to worry about are two One, the Article five guarantee and two, the extended deterrence commitment that comes with the American nuclear umbrella. And I agree those two things are very important, but they are directly connected to the confidence our allies have in extended deterrence and in the credibility of our commitment. And that is directly connected to whether or not we're sending them a signal that we are reducing, withdrawing, weakening the overall American presence. So I do not believe it is possible to substantially draw down American forces in Europe and not make our allies question, are they still as committed to Article 5 as they were before? Because frankly, they don't have the forces there to enforce it. Are they as committed to the extended deterrence nuclear umbrella? Because they've just said Asia is more important than Europe. And so therefore all of these pieces are interconnected. And if you pull one piece out, I think you could end up with the whole of it collapsing. And I would go further and say even if one day it's right to draw down forces, in part for the basic arithmetic, you laid out that as the Europeans build up their capabilities, it will mean that you need few American boots on the that day is not today or tomorrow. First of all, the European buildup is going to take years, many years. Secondly, there's a whole range of capabilities, including strategic enablers like intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, airlift. The long range strike capabilities you described that they're not going to have for quite some time. And so there needs to be a decent interval where the United States is still present at scale while the Europeans are building up. Second, President Putin right now, today is doing his level best to break NATO. In particular, he's looking to destabilize the east and he's looking to send a message to all NATO allies. You can't count on the United States anymore. This would play into his hands in a massive way. He could turn around and say, I told you so. These guys are pulling out, they're drawing down. You're gonna have to make some accommodation with me or you're gonna have to knuckle under to my threats, because you cannot count on the. And in this moment, right now, today, this would be, I think, a deeply destabilizing act for the United States. Then there's another dimension here that I think at least should be named. Because you talked about Germany doubling the size of its army, there is some question about the extent to which having Germany be the overridingly dominant military power on the European continent is a great thing. Now, I say that A little facetiously, because I think the Germany of today is not the Germany of the 1930s by in any way, shape or form. But there was a really interesting piece by a Lithuanian think tank leader in the New York Times a few days ago where he basically says Europe needs German power. But and I'll quote this, German power remains less worrying when it is embedded in a unified Europe and anchored by the United States and in a Europe that competes within itself is not only less capable but also far easier for Russia to divide and intimidate. And so I do think how the United States draws down over what timetable and with what conditions around it to ensure that Europe remains cohesive and that a growing European defense capability is not divisive and fracturing to the continent, but rather unifying and reinforcing is a really important point. And I think if we do something precipitous like a significant drawdown right now, we're going to create real problems for ourselves. And this brings me finally to the nuclear umbrella, because right now France is saying, hey, we have nukes and we'll sort of offer it to others in terms of defending them. But that's going to be a French decision, not a European decision. I think if the United States begins to raise questions in Europe as to the long term viability of our security commitment to the continent, other countries in Europe are going to want to get nukes. Germany, Poland, you name it, and then the whole thing kicks off, off. So I think we should not take the risk that would be created by a significant muscle movement in the drawdown of forces for this reason as well. And then the final point that I would make is with respect to China, it's true the US China competition is a central strategic fact of the 21st century. But what happens in Europe very much matters to that competition because it's not just about the military posture in a US it is about whether or not we have strong, capable, determined allies working with us as opposed to working against us or being divided from us when it comes to confronting the massive scale challenge that China poses. And if we do a significant drawdown in Europe, Beijing would cheer that on and it would lead the Europeans, I believe, to continue to de risk to a greater extent from the United States and try to cut their own deals with China to our strategic disadvantage. So for all of those reasons, I think it is worth continuing to put the resources into the kind of stabilizing factor that U.S. force presence in Europe has represented over the course of the past 80 years and can represent going forward, and we should not do a material significant reduction of US Forces for the foreseeable future.
- [64:16]
B
So I'm looking forward to the angry messages I get from European friends for having laid out this argument, although you might get a few from the Germans for having called into question the negative potential implications of German power. But I guess what I would say is I basically buy your argument, your version of this. I do think the part of my argument that I had the most conviction around, there are some things I argued somewhat, I think disingenuous, is that it does matter how you do this. And the way that we're going about this is probably the worst possible way in terms of kind of maximizing the risks that you're describing and mitigating them. And so I worry a lot in the current context, and I've been worried for quite some time, even before the Iran war, that this is where we were headed. Trump sort of signaled it a lot during his first term. And in my conversations with European and friends and former counterparts, I have been telling them, be ready for this, because I do not think we get through four years without the United States reducing its European footprint. There are too many people in the Trump administration who want this, and the president himself is just too inclined in this direction to not have it happen. And now it seems like it's playing out.
- [65:26]
A
And I will just say that I'm probably more personally relaxed about the German military buildup than I presented in my blue team side of that argument. But I think it's really important to listen to the voices of countries on the eastern flank, to European voices who say, yes, it's important Germany needs to build up, but this has to happen in a context that is not destabilized by the dramatic drawdown of U.S. capability and forces on the continent, because there are risks associated with this. And I think whether or not you assign a high level of risk to that or a low level, it is a factor that has to be taken. All right, should we do wrap?
- [66:06]
B
We should. Do you have a recommendation?
- [66:09]
A
So I'm reading a couple of books right now, actually. I'm reading one and listening to the other, both by Erik Larson. So I'm reading the Demon of Unrest, which is about the onset of the U.S. civil War. And I'm listening to the Splendid and the Vile as I drive back and forth between home and Work, which is about the London blitz. And it's really kind of interesting to be doing double duty on Erik Larson, but I just find his ability to spin a yarn, to tell the story and paint the characters, even as he gives a very rigorous account of the actual history to be so compelling. So I recommend, even though I'm not done with either of them, I recommend both of them to our listeners.
- [66:51]
B
I'm going to recommend two podcasts, actually, that I have recently started to dig into one, and these will be familiar names to you and to probably many of our listeners. One is called Power and Purpose. It's hosted by our our former colleague at the National Security Council, Amanda Slot and Natalie Tocchi, who I think we both worked with in her capacity as a European diplomat and policy official. And it's interesting to me because it focuses, yes, on foreign policy, but to a large extent on the sort of human side of policy, jobs, policymaking. And they've had a series of interesting guests, many of whom are familiar to us and recommend that people take a listen. And the other is called the View From Here with Jasmine El Gamal, who worked at the Pentagon in the Obama administration. This one tries to connect foreign policy with the people who are either making it or people who are living through the implications of it in countries that are affected by it. She's recently launched that. She lives in London now, but is a former US Government official. So two foreign policy podcasts in our broad zone, in our broad lane, that kind of have a different approach and a different take on the issues that we talk about as well.
- [68:07]
A
So, John, what's ahead? What should people be looking for?
- [68:10]
B
Obviously, coming up just next week is one of the biggest geopolitical events that's going to take place in the early part of this year, and that's at least we expect it to take place. The summit between President Trump and President Xi Jinping in Beijing. This is obviously much anticipated. It's been delayed once because of the Iran war. By all indications, it's going to go ahead even though the war is not yet resolved. And I think we and others are going to be closely watching both the body language and the messaging and the pageantry around it, and also whatever deliverables or deals are announced as part of it, which I think we know have been under debate and discussion and negotiation for months now between between the teams from Washington and the teams from Beijing. So we'll be looking at the economic dimensions of this, the security dimensions of this, the technology dimensions of this. And I think we'll go deeper on this next week in our podcast. It'll be timed, I think, well, to this meeting actually taking place.
- [69:13]
A
Yes, we will do a preview podcast the day before the summit kicks off. Towards the end of next week, we'll be doing a podcast going deep on every aspect of the Trump Xi summit, what to expect, what may be unexpected, and one of the elements that you didn't mention here, which we'll very much be looking at, is the connection back to the war in Iran. The Iranian foreign minister is actually in Beijing now or on his way there to talk to the Chinese, and it will be interesting to see how that topic plays out in the context of the meeting between the two leaders. But we will get into all of that in detail next week. A high stakes summit, a Super bowl of summits in a way, between the two most significant leaders in the world. And there will be a lot to discuss and a lot that still remains up in the air. So we're looking forward to that.
- [70:08]
B
Well, that's all for today. We'll be back next week with a new episode of the Long Game.
- [70:12]
A
Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you never miss an episode and send us your questions and comments@long gameoxmedia.com the links are in the Show Notes.
- [70:29]
B
That's it for this episode of the Long Game.
- [70:31]
A
If you like the show, please follow, share with friends and leave a review. It really helps listeners find us.
- [70:37]
B
For updates and more analysis in your inbox, join the community at stay tuned tuned.substack.com the long game is a Vox
- [70:45]
A
Media Podcast Network Production Executive Producer Tamara Sepper Lead Editorial Producer Jennifer Indig Deputy Editor Celine Rohr Senior Producer Matthew Billy
- [70:56]
B
Video producers Nat Wiener and Adam Harris
- [70:59]
A
Supervising Producer Jake Kaplan Associate Producer Claudia
- [71:02]
B
Hernandez Marketing Manager Leanna Greenway Music is by Nat Weiner. We're your hosts John Finer and Jake Sullivan.
- [71:10]
A
Thanks for listening.