Veteran U.S. Diplomat Dr. Kurt Campbell on Tariffs, the China Challenge, and Allied Scale in Asia

Dr. Kurt Campbell, former Deputy Secretary of State and an architect of the U.S. “Pivot to Asia,” joins the Burn Bag to unpack the strategic crossroads the United States faces in the Indo-Pacific. In a wide-ranging conversation, Campbell discusses the Trump administration’s ongoing tariff negotiations with key allies and partners, the shifting contours of U.S.-China competition, and why he believes the United States is underestimating Beijing’s long-term scale and capacity. Drawing from his recent Foreign Affairs essay with Rush Doshi, we explore his call for a new strategy of “allied scale” that fuses defense, trade, and technology cooperation. Campbell shares sharp insights on the future of AUKUS, the role of partners such as India, Japan, and Korea, and how the U.S. must adapt its strategy to stay competitive in a region that’s central to the 21st century.

Read Kurt's Foreign Affairs op-ed (co-authored with Rush Doshi) here.

Transcript

Andre Gonawela: 0:00

Hi, my name is Andre Gonawela. Welcome back to the Burn Bag Podcast. My guest today is Dr. Kurt Campbell, one of the architects of modern US strategy in the Indo-Pacific. He recently served as the Deputy Secretary of State and was the Biden administration's first Indo-Pacific coordinator at the National Security Council. A former assistant secretary of state and U.S. Navy officer, he's widely credited with shaping the pivot to Asia and co-founded both the Center for a New American Security and the Asia Group. Folks, for transparency, I also work at the Asia Group, so I'm going to be quite really nice to Kurt today.

Kurt Campbell: 0:45

Exceptionally careful, Andre. That's what's on tap for today.

Andre Gonawela: 0:49

Exceptionally careful. Thanks, Kurt. So in today's episode, we'll be unpacking the U.S. approach to China, the role of allies and partners, ongoing tariff negotiations, and what it will take to compete at scale in the region. Kurt recently co-authored with Rush Doshi, a great piece in Foreign Affairs called “Underestimating China”. We'll dive into that piece in a little bit as well. But Kurt, thanks so much for joining me here today. I really appreciate it.

Kurt Campbell: 1:16

It's great to be with you, and I really look forward to the conversation.

Andre Gonawela: 1:19

So, Kurt, big picture, the U.S. posture in the Asia-Pacific. So, as I said, you've been credited with shaping that pivot to Asia during the Obama administration. Are we still pivoting to Asia or have recent crises such as what we've been seeing in the Middle East, the recent tariff agenda and other things? Has that pulled us back towards a more narrow protectionist posture? ,

Kurt Campbell: 1:46

Let me first say, Andre, that this idea of spending more time, focusing more resources on the Indo-Pacific is not a recent thing. Several preceding administrations have sought to make the turn to perhaps spend more time in the Indo-Pacific and less in some of the very challenging geographies of the Middle East in particular. What turns out, however, is that it's easier said than done, much harder to do than people realize. And so every administration has sought over the last 30 years to focus more on the Indo-Pacific, only to find that either domestic preoccupations or challenges that arise in Europe with the Russian invasion of Ukraine or the cascading conflicts in the Middle East draw the United States as the global superpower into the fray. And as a consequence, some of the time and attention that would be naturally devoted to the Indo-Pacific gets focused there. And so I think in truth, this challenge has, struck every administration, including the one I most recently served in. I think President Biden did an admirable job at continuing to focus on major initiatives like the Quad, like AUKUS, like the trilateral engagement between the United States, Japan, and South Korea, even in the midst of pressing other challenges in other regions and the like. But it is undeniably difficult, and it stresses our system to have these competing interests and areas of focus. I think when the Trump administration came to power, many of their key adherents inside the government talked a lot about focusing more on the Indo-Pacific, but but often in a very narrow way, almost a singular military focus on the China challenge. Less focus on building up allies and partners. Indeed, the major initiative in the Indo-Pacific to begin with has been frankly, discord in a variety of capitals around trade issues, which rather than building consensus and partnership among like-minded states, if anything, has just created anxieties.

Andre Gonawela: 4:37

So, I mean, I think tariffs are the top of mind for a lot of folks in Washington, D.C. right now. It's certainly been top of mind at the Asia Group. But I mean, the Trump administration is pressing for these tariff concessions from key partners like Japan, South Korea, India and so many others, while still advancing these reciprocal tariff measures, how do you assess the current U.S. negotiating approach, especially in the context where I think we saw a bunch of letters go out to our trading partners yesterday? Can we secure trade wins in this fashion while still sustaining long-term strategic trust with allies and partners?

Kurt Campbell: 5:19

You know, Andre, there's so much embedded into that simple question. So the first thing that we've got to underscore is that these initial, quote, quote, deals that have been struck with Great Britain, Vietnam, a couple of others, you know, it's something more than musings on a back of a napkin, but certainly something far less than a negotiated text kind of agreement that approaches which is a treaty. These are general parameters that will guide future conversations. And in general, the focus has largely been at this juncture on issues associated with tariffs. There's been much less focus on issues that what might be described as structural impediments that have made it difficult, for instance, in certain markets for American products and services to effectively penetrate. And there's less in the sense of these agreements being caught or defining. Many of these countries struck deals with the Trump administration during his previous term, and so are asking the question, you know, what's different now? You know, and is this a unilateral decision for the United States at any point to decide, well, we need or want more. I think the strategy that has been followed by many of these countries, and there are six or seven ongoing negotiations in the Indo-Pacific, in Asia, as we speak, the most important one obviously being with China. But generally speaking, in a number of circumstances, the country faces a very serious potential step with respect to tariffs on autos, like, for instance, in Japan and South Korea. So the strategy has been for these countries to try to find areas where it can signal a desire both to arrest these imbalances, but also to perhaps find other areas issues on the other side of the ledger that favor the United States. And so Japan is looking at investing more in the United States, buying more agricultural products, perhaps looking at energy infrastructure in Alaska, shipbuilding and the like. But I think the worry now is, after what's happened in Vietnam, is it looked like the Vietnamese were negotiating all these various sort of side deals and complementary elements in order to lower the actual tariff on products. And I think the Vietnamese thought they had done that only at the last to find that the United States had raised that level again to 20%. And so, again, very complicated set of interactions. I don't think many of the countries involved are that comfortable with either the process or the outcomes. It almost feels as if there are a number of negotiations that take place. There's some early work that's been done almost like clearing the field by staffers at Treasury at Commerce and the National Economic Council, then engagement at the cabinet level, and then it's ultimately delivered to the president. The challenge is that the text that presented to the president from our side and from the perspective of our negotiating partners, they've thought of that as being a final text or a final approach. But the president sometimes has different ideas. So once he gets on the line, maybe he decides to add another 10% here or there, right? And it's challenging for these countries because they don't necessarily want to incur the wrath or the disappointment of the president, so are inclined to be more quiet about their misgivings. And so it's a very complicated process. And the way that the government sort of the diktats have been presented publicly has created really substantial market turmoil in ways that I do not think are in the interests of the United States, our key businesses, or the interests of our allies and partners.

Andre Gonawela: 10:22

Absolutely. And I mean, it's so easy to get bogged down in so many of these details, so much of the churn, so much of the daily changing headlines around the tariff negotiations and what we're trying to get access to, what products we're talking about, what services we're talking about. So many of my friends who are not working in foreign policy, not working in economics. They're trying to ask me, you know, Andre, like what's going on with the tariff stuff? And sometimes I have a hard time explaining that my dad who works in retail, my mom who works at a daycare, they're just confused about the whole situation right now. Can—

Kurt Campbell: 10:57

Can I just add to this real quickly? That is the question that comes up the most from Indo-Pacific partners and friends, either along the quarters of power in government offices or boardrooms. And that is like, what's the strategy behind all of this? And it's difficult to try to convey. You know, I'll give you an example. So in Asia, it's often possible that to do two things that appear contradictory at once. And so, for instance, I remember talking to a very senior Vietnamese diplomat and I asked him, like, what does it take to be effective as a representative of your country in this complex contemporary time? And he said, you have to keep in mind two things constantly. And I said, oh yes, what's that? He said, number one, you have to get along with China. It is absolutely essential. to find ways to get along with the big neighbor to the north. And I understood that. I said, well, what's number two? What's the second thing you always have to do? He said, at the same time, you must always resist China. You must always challenge China. And so this idea of these two seemingly contradictory things, sometimes harder for a Western perspective to fully understand. Likewise, it is hard for interlocutors in the Indo-Pacific to imagine that policy is sometimes being made without some sort of strategic perspective. I think the president is animated by daily events, by contemporary issues, by how he's feeling, by long long-held grievances and disappointments and biases. And so I'm not sure there is a neat strategic frame that can be applied that reveals the deeper you know, kind of understanding about how the formulation and execution of American foreign policy works under President Trump. And so the one thing I would just simply tell you is that when searching for that pattern that somehow links everything together, I'm not sure you're going to be successful in finding it. And what our job really is, is to and convince interlocutors to understand how much even complex policy is being made on the fly.

Andre Gonawela: 13:47

Absolutely. It's all very confusing. There's so much happening. And I think, though, transitioning into another topic that's somewhat related, you've talked about the need for pooled markets, greater allied economic scale to compete with China. As you mentioned earlier, A lot of Indo-Pacific countries are trying to balance, you know, trying to get along with China, but trying to resist China at the same time. Given that current U.S. tariff posture, what practical steps can the U.S. and its partners actually take to build the shared economic space, even though we still have so much of these ongoing trade frictions?

Kurt Campbell: 14:31

Yeah, that's so I would just say the framework that you lay out, which is let's work more closely with allies and partners, I'm not sure that general framework is accepted by the dominant actors in the Trump administration. And in fact, I think in many respects, you have a worldview that suggests that some of these partnerships are encumbering and that are somehow, you know, holding the United States down from being able to accomplish what it really needs to do. And so you occasionally hear commentary about Europe and even about partners in the Asia Pacific, the Indo-Pacific, that question reliability, defense spending you can just go down the list. And so I'm not quite sure that there is the same sense in this administration about the need to create scale. From my perspective, every challenge that we have faced in foreign policy and national security over the course of the last century, we have essentially been able to meet that challenge with our own sort of internal unilateral capacity, right? We had enough during the Second World War, during the Gulf War, during Vietnam. Even though we worked in conjunction and coordination with other countries, we had the capacity necessary to deal with the particular challenges. This is the first time that we confront a potential challenger in which we do not have the advantage of scale. We are not able to take this on alone. But I think that very, in my view, obvious insight, I think might be rejected by folks on the Trump team who would say, look, we've got to be able to manage this more on our own. and be careful and wary about putting too much hope that allies and partners will be with us. I think that worldview, if anything, underestimates the solidarity that we've seen historically between the United States and its allies and partners. And so what I worry about right now is that through the steps that the president has taken in trade in particular, we are running the risk of alienating our closest partners in the region because of perceptions around imbalances in a few key areas like autos.

Andre Gonawela: 17:32

Absolutely. And you mentioned that term scale. And I do want to dive into that theme in the context of allied scale, which you write about in that foreign affairs piece. But before then, I just want to dive a little bit into US-China competition and some of the risks present therein. So you've argued against underestimating China's scale. What's your current read? Is China playing for regional dominance, global leadership, or both? So

Kurt Campbell: 18:00

look, Andre, I think one of the things that is undeniable is that as a leadership group, China spends an inordinate amount of time on national strategies, both domestically and internationally. And I think some of that work and those gatherings are shrouded in secrecy, but what we think we know is that China believes that its time is coming and that it will... play the dominant role in global politics. And I think most Chinese strategic interlocutors, they may not, you know, kind of shout it from the rooftops, but they probably believe that the United States is in decline. And some would suggest that the United States is in hurtling decline. And so what they have all sought to do in, as they think about China, China's own response to that is the question about when do you challenge the United States head on directly. And I think the surprise with Xi Jinping was that he chose to take on the United States quite publicly early and earlier than probably was warranted with respect to its ultimate power, and that that effort could have waited 10 or 15 years. But by doing so, it alerts the United States and other allies and partners about what is underway. But also, it has made clear to those of us in the West the areas and the terms on which the fight will be based on in technology and a variety of other areas where China is seeking to both husband its own resources, carefully prepare for potential challenges against it, and basically have a game plan for achieving dominance in a number of key areas with respect to technology, at least. So I guess my point here, Andre, would be simply this, that I think the Chinese do have a... clear set of where they want to go. And I think much of that is animated by a belief that their time has come and that they're going to reassert their traditional role at the center of the tributary system in the Indo-Pacific. And I think there are more and more signs that that goal, that objective often hit it kind of clandestine is increasingly animating the views and objectives of senior Chinese interlocutors.

Andre Gonawela: 20:55

So how should we think about our U.S. interdependence with China? I mean, where is disentanglement achievable and where is a structure impossible? Because, I mean, that's the question that so many people have, that we are so dependent on China. China is also dependent on us. Where can we actually... grow apart, if that's at all possible.

Kurt Campbell: 21:16

Yeah. So look, the first thing I would say is that there are no two countries more interdependent than the United States and China. There are no two countries more uncomfortable with that interdependence as well. Both countries have come to learn and realize the hard way that taking steps to reduce interdependence, mutual vulnerability is challenging. It will take decades probably, and that many of the efforts will be met with either failure or will stir the anxiety of the other nation and perhaps those around it. I would say that at a very basic level, the United States is in a position where it is seeking to ease certain areas of vulnerability in rare earths and critical minerals and a variety of other highly significant areas. It turns out that the path towards self-sufficiency is unbelievably long and difficult. And in some cases, we've made almost no progress whatsoever. And so I think the dominant realization on policymakers is just how reliant we are in each other. China, having made such an investment in the dollar over decades, finds it difficult now to diversify. The United States finds it difficult to undertake major manufacturing with certain technologies, given that so many of them have come or will come from China.

Andre Gonawela: 23:07

So your recent foreign affairs piece, with Rush Doshi, argues that the United States has to build, quote, allied scale to offset China's advantages. What exactly is this term, allied scale? And what's the single biggest obstacle to actually achieving this in practice?

Kurt Campbell: 23:26

Well, allied scale is meant to conjure up periods in the past where we working with other countries have been effective at putting together kind of a formidable arena of joint cooperation, whether it's co-production, co-development, operations, military and the like. It's extremely important to be able to undertake some of those steps. And I think the scorecard that you're asking for we would have to, the best we could hope for is an incomplete grade. Because I think what you're describing is a process where it's gone much slower than anticipated for a variety of reasons. Again, this interdependence, these interdependence elements are designed in such a way that they often embed in the system and then it's more difficult to remove them over time. And so I'm not at all clear that we're in a situation in which it will be even possible to do the fundamental reordering that the United States sometimes talks about.

Andre Gonawela: 24:46

So bipartisanship on China has held in so many areas, but we're also living in a hyper-partisan political climate right now. Are we really capable of sustaining long-term coalition building that you say would be essential? I think at the heart of this,

Kurt Campbell: 25:03

Andre, is the key question about national policymaking and the periods in which we enjoyed a degree of elite consensus around the major thrust avenues of American policy, either domestic or international, were clear. There may have been a few outliers on each side, but that dominant view remained. And the view that I think makes the most sense is this, excuse me, deeply engaged set of initiatives on technology and the like between our allies and partners. It means transcending often paternal relationships that are based in earlier security treaties that don't quite measure up to 21st century conditions. The journey is still out about what ultimately this will mean. I do believe at some point in the future that we are likely to have a kind of crisis of reassurance or trust, and then being able to muster the capacity to indicate that no, despite some of the challenges that we have faced mutually, we are determined to tackle these problems together. I think what we've seen to date has been quite a harsh Japanese approach to issues involving Japan, for instance, and much more flexibility when it comes to Vietnam or other countries as well.

Andre Gonawela: 26:43

So in stepping into this concept of the scaled leadership the United States needs, how should we think about the roles of allies such as Japan and Korea or partners such as India? Can they step into this idea of scaled leadership or would we still be defaulting to a hub and spokes type of model?

Kurt Campbell: 27:04

So I think my own counsel, Andre, is that the hub and spoke framework, the metaphor was most applicable during an earlier period of American strategy. And that had it with the United States kind of at the center, reaching out to a variety of disconnected actors. What we're increasingly seeing is coordination and engagement among those actors, among themselves, right? Some of it involving the United States, but some of it acting and taking place alone. And so I think that is a new and important feature that is playing out as we speak. I think it is also the case that it would be hard to describe the level of anxiety in the Indo-Pacific, largely because they do not know what to expect going forward. So for instance, Japan, who has basically put so much towards the idea of a close U.S.-Japanese relationship, we have the same thing with Korea, only to find that they're in a situation sort of a disintegrating security situation around the Indo-Pacific. You know, challenges from a revanchist Russia, provocations from North Korea, China on the march, huge defense spending. In that environment, you want a rock-solid relationship with the United States, but every headline is of every newspaper and news show across Asia is about how much the United States and Japan are struggling to end up with a final sort of agreement. And much as they talk and try to explain it to Japanese friends, much as they try to explain it to us, it's been hard to get that message through, if you know what I'm saying.

Andre Gonawela: 29:06

No, absolutely. Kurt, I want to touch on another topic that you worked on in the Biden administration that a lot of people have been paying attention to in a defense context, and that is AUKUS. This defense cooperation agreement, this pact between the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, pillar one focused on submarines, pillar two has focused on other critical and emerging technologies. It was seen as, I think, a great achievement by the Biden administration to push forward that defense cooperation but there's been recent growing concern among allies about the AUKUS review that the Pentagon is now undertaking. Kurt, can you tell us a little bit more about why is AUKUS important, and is AUKUS actually at risk with this review?

Kurt Campbell: 29:53

Andre, thank you for the question. Well, first of all, as you underscore, it links Great Britain, the United States, and Australia in a unique way in terms of the construction and engagement on the next step nuclear-powered conventionally armed submarine. This would be the first time that we shared this kind of technology with a country since 1957, 1958, so more than 65 years. I think there was a belief that Australia reached that level of partnership and mateship that they should be and wanted to be included in this. Great distances involved, the size of the oceans meant that nuclear power Propulsion made more sense than simply conventional diesel submarines. So I think the strategic rationale was clear, bringing our partners in Europe more into the Indo-Pacific made sense. So I think the strategic rationale is exciting. It also brought substantial Australian resources into the United States to help our own submarine industrial base here. The truth is that both Great Britain and Australia did a review with new governments coming in, new groups. It's not unusual for the United States to do a review. There are elements in the U.S. government that question some of the central parameters of AUKUS, but I am confident that, first of all, it's completely appropriate to do a review, and we have to be open to some of the conclusions There may be suggestions of more defense spending, more certainty associated with the use of this incredible platform. But at the same time, the larger questions about whether to undo the pact or move in another direction, I do not believe fundamentally that kind of recommendation is possible. likely or valid. I just think there's so much money, there's so much focus on this program. If there was a decision to walk away from it on the part of the United States, then I think that would lead to a crisis in confidence, not just with our allies and partners, but others who are watching this agreement closely. Lots of things that are being debated, whether Australia would provide some assurances about how a submarine in this arrangement would be used in a warfighting situation. All I can tell you is that the Australians have been with us at every major turn. They would probably be a little bit more careful to talk about it. publicly or to deal with it. I think, Andre, you probably have tracked this as well. But at the same time, you know, there is, I think, a belief in some quarters that the momentum is there and it will carry on and the recommendations will be on the margins. I've engaged with a lot of people who are working on it and with undersecretary at the Defense Department who is undertaking the review. Time will tell. But ultimately, the number of senior leaders and others who've weighed in in support of AUKUS is substantial. The British Prime Minister engaged President Trump and basically said, look, we're all in. And at least in that meeting, President Trump gave it the vote, the thumbs up. Now, we'll just have to see how this plays out. But I worry that too much tinkering and focus on how it looks, whatever could lead to a situation in which we have backlogs and difficulties coming forward.

Andre Gonawela: 34:10

No, absolutely. And I think we have been seeing bipartisan support for AUKUS. I mean, we recently saw some congressional bills that were introduced by Republican and Democratic members of the House aiming to bolster AUKUS. But I mean, you know, AUKUS sort of fits in to the goal, I guess, of this two-way allied defense industrial base. In terms of driving forward this defense industrial base shared by the allies, especially as we're trying to push forward defense innovation, we're trying to accelerate and advance emerging and new technologies, what's probably the most urgent policy or legal change that we need to unlock to get there?

Kurt Campbell: 34:57

Gosh, I'd love to tell you there was just one or two simple things that have to be like, like, like, you know, in your mind, you've got to like a switch that you just flick. That is not the case. So I would simply say that, like, for instance, I believe being able to share certain kinds of technology work in co-production is, Those are things that are going to be essential. We have plowed through reserves of certain key munitions as we've provided it in both Israel and in the Ukraine. At the same time, it's harder to replace those systems. We've tried to do and work on some co-production. Some of those initiatives are still up in the air, and there's lots of trying to glean where is Trump and his team going here. Ultimately, I believe that we will not be possible unilaterally as a country to be able to deal with these issues alone. I think we're going to need allies and partners to assist us in capacity building, particularly when it comes to high value, you know, kind of low numbers in arsenal kinds of circumstances and that, you know, this kind of initiative is going to be essential going forward.

Andre Gonawela: 36:37

So in our last 10 minutes, I do want to go through some strategic decision points having to do with current events. So first, we've seen these mounting concerns about China's military industrial support to Russia, particularly with sensitive technology transfers that you flagged actually last year while you were in office. Has this deepening China-Russia axis meaningly shifted the strategic picture for U.S. and Asian allies and even European allies?

Kurt Campbell: 37:06

I think it's a great question. I like all these questions. In my view, it does. I would just say a couple of things if I can, though. There's probably no relationship that the United States has gotten more wrong more times than the Sino-Russian relationship. We missed the Sino-Soviet split by something like 10 years. It took us that long to really understand what was going on. And more recently, we have tended to... overlook the deep strategic bonds that President Xi and President Putin have built now over the course of the better part of a decade or a decade and a half in which dozens of meetings, a thousand hours of engagements. It is a major project to rebuild and to make this bilateral relationship a key touchstone in how both countries think about the foreign policy establishment and the foreign policy they are seeking to implement. I frankly am deeply troubled by what China is doing in Russia. Its efforts have helped prolong the war. It's helped Russia in its efforts to basically rewrite the territorial lines of Europe. If you look at China's traditional approach to how to conceptualize the global system. Non-interference and respect for lines of territorial integrity are thought to be absolutely central features of how they think about the world, and here they are supporting a conflict that is seeking to change the lines of sovereignty and nationality in the heart of Europe where American strategic purpose was birthed. I'm quite concerned by that. I'm not sure fundamentally. Europe is anxious, Andre, but how deep that is, I'm not sure. And that's largely because this invasion has been such a shock. It's been since the Second World War that there'd been really no conflict in Europe. You know, brief things in Bosnia and like, but this is a major conflict with huge consequences. It's been deep strategically troubling to Europe friends and partners. The first step they made, obviously, was to cut off oil supplies from Russia. That was a major blow, and they've had to diversify under the gun in a very short period of time. If you tell them that, look, Russia is being very ably supported by China, and then expect the Chinese to take, excuse me, the Europeans to take really consequential sanctions of the like, that would mean at the same time doing both Russia energy sanctions and other things on the Chinese side that would hurt their economy. They're worried about that, and they are very careful how they talk about what China does. and Russia are doing together. And they try to talk with the Chinese about it, but they talk about it often in a fairly polite European way, like, you know, lots of pleases and oftentimes the... Russians tell European friends kind of what they want to hear. And much of that is around Pablum about we want peace and we want to end the conflict. But the truth is, as much as Western nations and Ukraine have indicated they'd be prepared for certain kinds of engagements, more and more, more and more, it looks as if Russia, with China's backing, is prepared to fight this to the finish.

Andre Gonawela: 41:25

So I also want to touch on the Middle East now. We have the ceasefire that's still holding between Israel and Iran. How should the U.S. be thinking about regional priorities in the Middle East without losing focus on the Indo-Pacific?

Kurt Campbell: 41:38

Well, look, you know, we've already made our bed in so many different ways. I think the hard thing is going to be ultimately how does Iran respond or have they decided not to? My own sense, and I'm not an expert, but my recent experience working on these issues at the State Department would suggest that Iran is not going to leave it at that. They're going to have some response at some point, either directly at the U.S. or against one of our allies. And so we just have to be prepared for that as a likelihood, not as a possibility. It is also the case that the violence that continues on in Gaza is deeply troubling. And I think in China's interest, excuse me, in Israel's interest to find the best way forward to suspend hostilities, get the hostages released, and try to find some modicum of stability there going forward. What we've seen in the recent weeks is that in rapid succession, Chinese armed forces had moved aggressively in Lebanon, in Syria, against the Houthis, and now against the Revolutionary Guard in Iran. And almost all of those, after the terrible surprise and setback of the October 7th attacks, since then, I think it'd be fair to say that Israel's responses have been probably more predictable and more in line with the expectations I think many had for the Israeli armed forces. But ultimately, The jointness, the ability to operate together, to have very senior folks in bed, those are all things that Israel serves with advantage and to their advantage more directly. How to think about the Ukraine thing is difficult. On the one hand, the Ukrainians appreciate the support all the things that we've done. But ultimately, they believe it is their choice to decide when and where it's time to not fight the challenges that they're dealing with.

Andre Gonawela: 44:09

So to round this whole conversation out, my last question, what is the most persistent misconception that U.S. policymakers, lawmakers, and others have have about the U.S. role in Asia today?

Kurt Campbell: 44:21

Well, look, I think probably there are a couple under. One is to underestimate how much countries think about American decline, which is fascinating given how powerful we have been over the course of the last half century. But there have been persistent anxieties beginning first during the Korean War when North Korean forces smashed through Task Force Smith at the Chosin Reservoir. There was a sense that just a few years after the end of the Second World War that America had lost its fighting edge and would be defeated. Only we came surging back during the Vietnam War, a sense that we had lost, tremendous setback, enormous anxiety in Southeast Asia, uncertainty about what to expect. End of the Cold War, a view that, you know, both the United States and the former Soviet Union were exhausted. Maybe Japan was the winner, followed by a period where the idea was it was a unipolar moment of just tremendous power of the United States as far as the eye can see, 90s financial crisis, 2007, 2008, global economic crisis, these all call into question the Western model, China's rise. In each of these case studies, each of these periods, lots of worry about whether the United States has the staying power, the inventiveness to continue to play such a dominant role. Now, in each previous period, we have had the wit and wisdom to be able to define our parameters, to reinvent using innovation and technology effectively, and then continue to play a leading role. Now, the question is, is there a time going to come where we cannot answer the call of that bell? And my answer would be, I certainly hope not in my lifetime, but I just don't, you know, it's hard to have a a crystal ball here generally. But there are anxieties in the region about the United States, about whether we're either inward-looking or less effective in many respects in comparison to our Chinese and other interlocutors more directly. I think that would be the issue that I would want most for people to understand and reflect on carefully.

Andre Gonawela: 46:57

Kurt, thank you so much for joining me here today. For our audience, we'll have a link to Kurt's piece co-authored with Rush Doshi called Underestimating China, where he talks about those concepts of allied scale in foreign affairs, linked in the episode description. But for now, Kurt, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Kurt Campbell: 47:15

Andre did a great job. You live to work another day. I appreciate all the good questions. Thank you for this opportunity. I look forward to watching it myself. So really appreciate the chance to be with you today. Thank you very much.