I was joined by the great foreign policy expert and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul to discuss the tumultuous and rapidly shifting global landscape—from Trump’s NATO summit and the escalating conflict with Iran to the latest developments in the war in Ukraine.
We explored why America’s allies remain deeply uncertain about U.S. leadership, how Trump’s foreign policy may be strengthening America’s adversaries, and why McFaul believes cracks are beginning to emerge inside Russia despite Putin’s continued grip on power. It was a wide-ranging conversation about democracy, authoritarianism, and the stakes for the United States in an increasingly unstable world.
Here is a transcript of our conversation:
*Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers and may contain errors. Please check the audio for the most accurate version of the conversation.
Harry (01:29.774)
Hello, Fed Heads. Welcome to another Substack Live when we are always thrilled and privileged to welcome Michael McFaul, the former US Ambassador to Russia, Stanford professor, and one of the country’s most eminent thinkers on democracy and authoritarianism. We’ve done a series of conversations with Ambassador McFaul focusing on the world and the US’s place in it, both of which seem to have degenerated in the six months since we spoke.
And now, besides the on again, off again Iran war and the more than fifty-month-old Russian-Ukraine war, we have the current breaking news of Trump at the NATO summit in Turkey. Very much to talk about. Let’s just launch in. Thank you so much for being here as always.
Michael (02:21.825)
Sure, great to be back.
Harry (02:23.753)
Okay, so let’s just start with Trump is in Turkey today. Did I say Trump the No, I said in Turkey for a summit with NATO leaders. And while he did his usual berating of allies in public, behind the scenes, he was apparently chummy. He walked back his talk of leaving NATO, which would be pretty big news. But I guess my question is, can anyone trust his comments, public or private?
Where does Trump and the country now stand on NATO?
Michael (02:58.649)
Well, the good news is that we didn’t have a big blow-up. we didn’t have him walking out threatening to leave NATO. That’s also tragic that that’s the good news, right? That that this is how below the bar is. they had a meeting and they the alliance didn’t end, and we celebrate that. I think that does tell you a lot about the fragility of the alliance, the nervousness that our NATO allies had in the run-up to this meeting.
I was just in Sweden and two other NATO allies over the last 10 days. I just got back last night, and the run-up, everybody was nervous. What’s gonna happen? Because Trump is so volatile. He changes his mind every single day. But he ended. you know, I watched his press conference. He used the word unification, a lot of unity, a lot of love in the room. So that’s very good news as far as I’m concerned. Second, he did make a little news. We’ll see if it really pans out.
But in his meeting with President Zelensky on the sidelines of this summit, he floated the idea that we would be willing to license an agreement to make interceptors for the Patriot Missile Defense System with Ukrainian defense companies. Now, you know, President Trump is not the CEO of Lockheed Martin yet, although he sometimes acts as though companies are beholden to him.
but that was pretty big news. we’ll see if it actually leads to to the results that he announced. But that even the mood music with respect to Zelensky was different in this meeting. And that I think is a sign of the fact that Ukraine is doing better on the battlefield, Russia is doing worse, and and Trump now is leaning more towards the winners and away from the losers.
Harry (04:42.189)
Yeah, and we’ll talk about that more, but he does always seem to be someone whose fingers in the wind and wants to be on the side of the winners. Just doubling back with a quick question on NATO. I mean, really, between now and January twentieth, twenty twenty nine, you know, his word seems as good as the next half hour. Well, NATO, which we know is already doing more defense spending and preparing for a non-US world,
Be able to take a deep breath and relax and assume the alliance is stable or is this something that’s mercurial as long as Donald Trump is president?
Michael (05:22.741)
I don’t think anybody’s gonna be relaxing. That’s a great point. Just because he said some nice things today doesn’t mean he won’t say some mean things tomorrow. And he did single out, as you noted before, some of our allies, the Spanish in particular, threatening to cut off all trade because they didn’t go to war with him in Iran. So that dynamic continues. Also, let’s not forget, it seems in ancient history, but just 24 hours ago, he said that we need to annex Greenland.
Harry (05:25.057)
Yeah. Right.
Michael (05:50.342)
Most certainly, that doesn’t win him any friends in Denmark or the rest of the alliance. So everybody kind of ignored that, you know, kind of the crazy uncle saying something on Thanksgiving. Let’s pretend it didn’t happen. But maybe he’s serious about it. So that is most certainly true. Where it really matters is whether we would go to war if one of our allies were attacked, one of our NATO allies were attacked. And one of the countries I was in just last week was Estonia.
Harry (06:13.538)
Right.
Michael (06:19.459)
That’s a frontline state where they need an Article V commitment from the United States to deter Russia. And there’s nervousness about that. There’s nervousness that if Putin, God forbid, would try to expand the war because he’s losing the one in Ukraine, to go into a country like Lithuania or Estonia, would we rally to their cause? And I think there’s deep anxiety about that. I think many people do not think that President Trump
Would go to war with Russia over an attack in a place like Estonia or Lithuania.
Harry (06:54.411)
And without that confidence, really, what is NATO? Okay, we w and we’ll return to that as I say. But let’s let’s let’s go to where we are more actively involved with the two wars in in Iran. So of r recently, Michael, and thank you for letting me call you that, your assessment of where things stand with Iran is quote, American national security, the security of our partners in the Middle East.
Michael (06:58.115)
Exactly.
Harry (07:24.289)
The global economy and US inflation are now all worse off than before Trump launched his war. Why is that and can you give that sort of bottom-line assessment?
Michael (07:39.502)
Bottom line assessment is he claimed that we went to war with Iran, with our partners in Israel, because to accomplish several objectives. He said we’re going to eliminate their nuclear weapons program. We’re going to eliminate their missile production. We’re going to stop support for terrorists. And we are going to create the conditions for freedom in Iran, regime change. None of those things have been accomplished. I want to stress this: none of those things have been accomplished, and people forget.
What he said so long ago because he says so many things. He just floods the zone with other things, and people forget those were the original war objectives. None have been accomplished. In addition, this was not a cost-free war. we lost American soldiers, thousands of people in the region died, billions of dollars of American taxpayers were burnt up, shooting missiles in this war, and the global economy suffered massive inflation.
And we Americans suffered massive inflation. So it’d be one thing to say you didn’t accomplish your goals, but it was really cheap. It wasn’t cheap. It was costly. And then, in addition, the Iranians closed the Strait of Hormuz, and we have not been able to reopen it. That was a consequence of the war. And the fact that we’re just focusing on rolling back that consequence shows you, in my view, how.
Little has been achieved from this war. I think it was just we’ll go down in history as a catastrophic mistake. I hope we can end it. I hope we can get the Strait of Hormuz open. but we’re a long ways from that. And the president said so himself today. The ceasefire, he signed that document. I watched him sign it in Versailles; he signed it with great, you know, fanfare. The war is over. Hormuz is open. well, it’s not, and now we’re back to to.
the air air conflict against Iran.
Harry (09:37.549)
And you know, a lot of people think this ceasefire deal, which is on again, off again is a surrender anyway. But you’re so right that the that Iran has discovered in real time and feet on the ground that the the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is a phenomenal kind of leverage over the whole world. I wanna focus in your you know, he said all those things and more about the objectives, but they changed daily. but one in particular, the notion of
regime change. So just this past week there was this funeral for Ayatolla Khameni the the the supreme leader whom we killed. Hundreds of thousands took part in the public mourning. is that a signal to you that in fact we’ve just helped entrench the regime that we had sought to take down?
Michael (10:31.801)
Well, I hope not. I wanna be clear that I hope not. this is a horrible regime, killed thousands of its own citizens recently. and there are there’s a genuine democratic movement inside Iran that has been squelched by this horrific dictatorship. But has our war, has Trump’s war, I I wanna say Trump’s war because we didn’t get a say in it, right? So let’s call it Trump’s war, done anything for the democratic aspirations of the Iranian people. The answer to that
So far is no. This regime is stronger. It’s different. So it’s different leaders. The president’s right about that, but they’re not reformists. They’re not Western-oriented pragmatists, as he once called them a few weeks ago. Today he called them scum. I’m quoting the president of United States. And that tells you that his optimism about this different leadership was going to lead to a way to negotiate. turned out not to be true.
But if it did turn out to be true, I want to emphasize it’s still the same regime. It’s still the same dictatorship. And he was putting billions of dollars on the table. Everybody go back and read the memorandum of understanding, offering them $300 billion to open the Strait of Utter Moose. That was going to strengthen that regime, not erode that not erode it.
Harry (11:56.461)
Yeah, and just in general, a even as he was so erratic and we wondered what he’s doing, the w the one thing that seemed likely was that it would be not a perma war. It would you know, it would it would one way or another it would end quickly even with a total surrender.
You know, the la the last month seemed to give some tangible reason for thinking this is just going to vacillate back and forth and may turn into, if not the longevity of the Russia-Ukraine war, something just semi-permanent. I wonder what you think the consequences of just that sort of transformation would be the just the mere kind of
Michael (12:21.271)
Yeah.
Harry (12:39.352)
perma situation if it comes if that’s what it turns into.
Michael (12:44.579)
Well, first, tragically, I agree with your assessment. I think it go on could go on, you know, at a minimal level, not a full-scale war every day, but on and on conflict, no war, no peace for a long, long time. I see no indication that increasing the bombing of Iran is going to lead to a different outcome. and and so I’m not quite sure what the president’s strategy is here, but I haven’t been clear what the strategy was from the get-go. I think the long-term consequences for us.
Are of course negative. we, you know, in expending all these Tomahawks and Patriot missile defense interceptors in the Middle East, means they are not available to enhance deterrence in Asia, or especially when it comes to Patriot interceptors, they’re just not available to send to Ukraine. And it’s great that they talked about a future agreement that there might be some co-production of those interceptors, but that’s gonna take several months, if not years, to
To see the results of Ukraine needs those interceptors today. It is tragic what is happening there. Every night now, Ukrainian civilians are being killed by these ballistic missiles launched from Russia because they have no missile defenses left. Second, I think, and I again I hope I’m wrong, but there are indications that I’m right that there’s a change in the way other countries and partners of ours.
See their long-term security in the Middle East. When everything was frozen and deterrence was there, it was an uneasy deterrence, but deterrence is always uneasy. that’s the way it always traditionally is. You never really know. But it there was peace. Once we launched this war against Iran, we showed that our ability to destroy them is finite, that we don’t have the ability to do that. And I think that has meant something.
For a lot of our partners in the Middle East, that maybe relying on American military might is not the way to go. And you see lots of conversations and talks about how we need some kind of rapprochement with the Iranians. We need a kind of new deal with them to enhance our security interests. And that I think diminishes American power in the Middle East as well.
Harry (15:04.94)
And that’s an episode, if not a book, all in itself. I just wanna ask one question about it. It’s great talking to you always, Michael, because of your sort of sophistication of the different stress points in the world. But you you’ve worried in particular that all of this is boosting the status of China, that they now look like the adult in the room on the world stage. So I just wonder if you could speak to the the the connection
between the sort of fecklessness, erraticness, unendingness of the Iran War on the one hand, and the potential for elevating China’s persuasive or other leverage in the world with respect to really so many of the players in the Middle East and elsewhere.
