August 24, 2025 • 27 mins
Newt talks with Ivan Eland Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace and Liberty at the Independent Institute about his new book, “Domestic Causes of American Wars: Economic and Political Triggers” Eland presents a critical analysis of the underlying domestic economic and political factors that have influenced America's involvement in wars, challenging the traditional narrative that focuses on foreign threats. He argues that many wars were unnecessary for national security and had detrimental effects on civil liberties and constitutional checks and balances, contributing to the rise of an imperial presidency. Their discussion also touches on historical and contemporary geopolitical issues, including the impact of American election cycles on war decisions, the influence of economic motives, and the potential for alternative strategic visions in international relations. Eland's insights encourage a reevaluation of historical events and propose a more nuanced understanding of the causes and consequences of American wars.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
On this episode of News World. Domestic Causes of American
Wars Economic and Political Triggers offers a unique and critical
take on the causes of major American wars throughout its history.
Unlike most histories that designate foreign threats as cassas belli,
this work examines their important underlying economic triggers, reaching the
(00:26):
striking conclusion that many were unnecessary for national security, nor
were they as heroic in upholding American values as commonly concluded. Further,
conventional histories often dwell on the positive outcomes of those
wars rather than on their much more important domestic ill effects,
the erosion of the American Founder's Constitution and of the
(00:47):
civil liberties and constitutional checks and balances therein while enabling
the rise of an imperial presidency. In his new book,
ivan Eland addresses those often buried domestic causes and effects,
in particular how American election cycles often affect us contry
into wars and how economic motives incentivized war. So I'm
(01:08):
really pleased to welcome my guest who has a fascinating thesis,
Ivan Eland. He is a senior fellow and director of
the Center and Peace and Liberty at the Independent instant Ivan.
(01:31):
Welcome and thank you for joining me on this world.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Thanks for having me on. It's really great honor.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
So first of all, tell us a little bit about
the Independent Institute and the work that you're doing there.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Well, I run the Center for Peace and Liberty. It's
sort of a libertarian think tank, libertarian ask oriented and
we explore the roots of big government. And of course
big government has been caused not in the United States
but in other countries by warfare first and foremost o
there are other causes, of course, but a lot of
(02:07):
our programs, even if they're not defense related. For instance,
our healthcare system came during World War Two, and so
you need to like the systemer hate the system. But
its derivation was that daylight savings time came originally in
World War One, and then another bout of it was
in the early seventies with the oil crisis. These types
(02:29):
of things originated war and so the government naturally balloons
with defense spending and military spending during warfare, but also
war drags erosion of civil liberties that is, government and
intervention into speech and assembly and that sort of thing.
And then also economically we saw price controls in both
(02:51):
World War One and World War two, and these are
domestic effects which are not very beneficial to the economy
in the long run at all.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
What you into this particular study.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
We always focus in histories, will always focus on the
foreign aspects, because most of our wars are foreign wars. Nowadays,
and even back then, we've only had really two domestic
wars of civil war and then the wars against the Indians,
if you want to call that one war. So most
of our wars we focus on the foreign aspects of it,
(03:24):
whereas there are domestic causes and domestic effects which are
really under studied, so to speak. So that's why I
wrote this book. I'm not saying that all wars are
caused only by domestic factors, but I think the domestic
factors have been ignored or just not studied enough. And
(03:44):
also the domestic outcomes are very important. Erosion of civil liberties,
erosion of the checks and balances, excessive growth of the presidency.
These types of things are the outcomes of domestic outcomes
of foreign wars.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
You warn right after the terrible attacks of October seventh
that Israel would regret overreacting. Two years later, do you
think that events have confirmed or challenged that prediction.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Well, I do think they're reaping a lot of international
probrium for this. If their purpose is to take over Gaza,
then that's what they'll do. But I think they're being
drawn into a quagmire if they do that, and I
think the Israeli military is definitely against that. And I
think they proved their point that they retaliated for the
(04:33):
October seventh attacks, which were heinous and which of course
required some response, but I think that it should have
been more measured than it was. And I think they're
only going to reap a long term program because they're
really creating hatred in the Gosms, which I think will
even if you get rid of Hamas, the idea that
(04:55):
they have to retaliate for Israel's overkill in my opinion
of God. And I think even the Israeli military has
leaked out that their military objectives were satisfied a year ago.
And so this is one area. I know we're not
discussing Israeli domestic politics, but I think this is one
(05:15):
area where domestic factors after that year have taken over.
And that's Netnya, who's standing within Israel and within his government.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I mean, that would be a fascinating place to take
your thesis and look at the impact of Israeli domestic
behavior on the way in which they've waged war. Now,
when you look at President Trump, some historians argue that
he is recreating a nineteenth century style international order, complete
with spheres of influence, a territorial expansion, and trade protectionism.
(05:49):
Do you think that's accurate.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Well, he certainly as a protectionist in the trade area
in his foreign policy area. I have supported some of
what Trump has done with the Europeans in that they've
always been promising spend more on defense and they just
never got around to it. I think that the two
things have wakened them a bit at least. That is
the Ukraine War, Putin and dating Ukraine, and the other
(06:13):
one is Donald Trump, and he's been very adamant that
he wants them to do five percent if he ends
the war as he's trying to Whether that promise will
go by the way when the threat is reduced to
or at least goes under the covers again is one thing.
But I think his solution for supporting the Ukraine is
the right one. I think we should back off from
(06:34):
direct support, and he can do the same thing by
selling the weapons that Ukraine needs from the US through
the Europeans. Sell them to them, and Europeans could get
them to the Ukrainians, and I think that's the way
to go. So I think he's right on that particular issue,
and in general, I think he's probably less interventionist, although
(06:55):
he occasionally talks about taking military action gets Panama and
Green which I think would be very counterproductive. But he
does in the sense he doesn't mask imperialism with rhetoric.
He just says it. So we'll have to see what
his record is. I think he's taken military action a
couple of times against Iran in both of his terms,
(07:17):
but he hasn't run wild with wars like the Clinton
administration did with intervening for dubious reasons in the developing world.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
When you think about nineteenth century international relations, you wrote
an article that Trump can create a concert of Greek powers,
which in some ways reminded me of Vienna and the
concert after the defeat of Napoleon. What did you have
in mind how that would work.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
I think that we're approaching a multipolar world, and our
data is so huge that I think we're going to
have to cut spending eventually in the military and in
domestic programs to get this under control. It's thirty seven
trillion now and it's going to go out some more
according to the projection. So we're in a different world
now than the end of World War Two, and we
(08:06):
dominated the world, and even during the bipolar Cold War.
We've really got to have a manageable security posture for
the multipolar world. And we have rising centers of power
like India that weren't there before. And of course Germany
and Japan are economic powers, and China is both in
economic power and letting military power as well. The Russians
(08:29):
now they're a bit debilitated by this war. But I
think Roosevelt, before he went on his un binge at
the end of his presidency, his initial thinking of what
would happen after World War Two was to be sort
of a concert of powers to manage things. But of
course he never really sold that to the American public,
and Truman came in and had a different idea. But
(08:52):
my current vision is sort of a version of his
four policemen, except I think they would probably have to
be five or six police or more on the Security
Council if you count the economic powers as well. But
each power would sort of police its own area. And
you know, the US can't guarantee that the other powers
are going to be benevolent. But I think we should
(09:14):
have learned by Hoover and Roosevelt's good neighbor policy in
the nineteen thirties really paid off because those countries were
much more receptive to anti US, anti Hitler the need
for measures that you know, against Hitler's. My mother used
to say, you get more with sugar than vinegar. Of
course no one told Putin that. But the question with
(09:35):
Ukraine is which sphere of influence do they want to
be in? And of course Ukrainians want to be in EU,
Russians don't want them, and they don't want them to
be in NATO, so you'd have boundary disputes. But if
you could get everybody to agree on the spheres of influence,
you could go back to a realist sort of thing. Now,
of course, there would still be issues that you need
(09:57):
to go to the UN for that, cross national borders,
drug trafficking, people trafficking, et cetera. But I think that
letting the powers police their own regions would be a
start that seems to be the only feasible alternative. Everyone
always criticizes intervention here or there, but they don't come
up with an alternative strategic vision of what the US
(10:21):
should do. We're always kind of ad hoc. We get
dragged back into the Middle East, every time we try
to pivot to Asia to counter China. We're easily distracted
by the latest dust up. And I think we could
probably do a little bit more strategic thinking. My proposal
is not foolproof. It's to start on thinking about how
(10:41):
we would be able to do this in a more
fiscally constrained way, which I think of that will eventually
come one way or the other.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
To what extent is it in our interest to stop
Putin from taking over all of Ukraine, And to what
extent is that in fact not a primary American interest?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Well, I would say it doesn't really affect a primary
American interest. I mean, we dealt with Ukraine as part
of the Soviet Union, and of course Ukraine is more
strategic to Russia than anything else. But of course, the
policing of international boundaries and not changing them by force
as the principle that we've had in the past, which
(11:38):
we've only followed ourselves radically over our history. But certainly
that's been a principle that the US has followed more recently,
so that's an issue. But you're correct. I don't think
Ukraine is a vital interest in the US. I mean,
the press and every other place has made as such.
And I also think in the long term we should
have a better relationship with Russia, but it's hard to
(12:02):
do when we have this current situation going on. I'm
hoping that Trump can solve the issue. It would be good,
and if we can rehabilitate relations with Russia, we don't
have to like Putin and the way he governs his country.
I'm sort of a realist. That's my basis for this concept.
I would say that Trump does have some possibility here
(12:23):
of solving the crisis if he plays his cards right.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Do you worry at all that if Putin were to
win all of Ukraine, that, in fact, after taking a
pause to rebuild his horses, that that would put Poland
or Latvia, Lithuanian and Estonia at some risk.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Well, if NATO doesn't mean anything, it would. But I
think we've always expanded NATO and pledged to defend these countries.
So I think those countries are a bit different than Ukraine,
since Ukraine is not in there, and Ukraine is more
traditionally in the Russian sphere of infla. It's very important
culturally as well as economically to Russia. I think we
(13:06):
can make that argument ad nauseum as far as falling dominoes,
it's sort of a modern version of that. First of all,
Plutin may learn from this as well, because to me,
he lost the war at the beginning because he thought
it was going to be waltz in there and take
over Ukraine and make it a satellite country like Belarus.
(13:27):
The Ukrainians have a vote and they voted no, so
I think he should have learned some lessons. And also
his military has been torn apart by this. He's lost
two hundred and fifty thousand and it's hard to figure's
hard to estimate accurately, but he's lost more than the
Ukrainians have and his military performed really awfully, so at
(13:48):
least as long as he's a ruler there, I don't
think his military is going to be in very good
shape because in an authoritarian situation, no one likes to
tell the boss that our military, we're having big problems here,
and there's no independent media to discover this. And I
think frankly, shijin Ping and China should be a little
(14:08):
bit nervous about what his military. They can do goose
steps and stuff, and they're probably more capable than the
Russian military, but nobody knows how they'll react. They haven't
than war in seventy years, so I guess that's a
long answer to your question. But I think we also
have to make the Europeans do more. Some of the
bigger European countries need to start supporting Poland and the
(14:31):
Lithuanians and the other Baltic states that are on the
front lines. There. We shouldn't have to do at all.
And Russia is a fraction of the EU GDP, and
so the Europeans are very wealthy and they can do
not only more in Ukraine, but more for Poland and
the rest of the people that are exposed.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
You describe the notion that for the first one hundred
years or so, most of our major wars were either
to pursue commerce or to acquire new territory, and then
after World War Two we really shifted to maintaining a
global head guy and making the United States dominant using
our weight both economically and militarily. Do you think it
(15:11):
was that big and that decisive? And I noticed you
don't quite include World War One in the transition.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Well, world War One, the state certainly penetrated the economy
and you had the budding military. But for World War
Two is the first war that we really had a
dedicated defense industry, because in all the other wars, we
had civilian factories and they would make tanks, they would
make cannon or whatever for the war, and then they
(15:39):
would go back to civilian production when the war was over,
and that prevented a military industrial complex from forming. In
other words, we need lots of military spending during the
peacetime to keep our industries to the next war. While
in World War Two it was such a massive war
(16:00):
are even compared to World War One, that the defense
industries grew from cities to suburbs to actual semi rural areas.
So and a lot of these semi rural areas and
suburban or exurban places, their economy really didn't have much
left after the war was over, whereas the cities were
(16:20):
more versatile and they adjusted. So a lot of these
industries lobbied for continued defense spending and during the Korean War.
After the World War II, this military industrial complex really
became permanent, and so did, of course, a larger military.
That was the first time we had a large peacetime
(16:42):
military in history was after nineteen fifty three, so it's
been a fairly recent phenomenon. And now we have a
situation where our defense industry, most of it doesn't make
any civilian items, so it's dependent on continued weapons production.
Are requiring more competition at the subcontract level so that
(17:04):
the military industrial base isn't quite so dependent on just
defense contracts. A lot of the computer stuff and that
sort of stuff in artificial intelligence, that's one area where
they could reduce its specifications and allow more competitions so
that we don't have that. It's not going to end
the military industrial complex overnight, that it would certainly help,
(17:25):
and the military industry is not very competitive even when
they compete contracts, they're more allocated than competitive in many cases.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
One of our great problems now in defense spending is
that we have basically a government giant private bureaucracy partnership,
which guarantees that you don't get competition, you don't get innovation,
and all too often the companies invest more in lobbyists
than they do in engineers. One of the points you've made,
it's kind of interesting to play with, is the notion
(18:12):
that had the North decided to buy out slavery, it
would have been dramatically less expensive than fighting the Civil War.
Do you really think there were circumstances where Southern culture
would have tolerated that kind of emancipation.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Well, that's a good question, and I don't definit until
we say that. I think you know. But they didn't
try it. And Abraham Lincoln was for it in the
eighteen forties when he was a congressman, but then when
it came time for this secession, he really wasn't because
he really wasn't trying to free the slaves right away.
His main goal and his sole goal was to reunite
(18:49):
the Union by force. And so after a while, in
the middle of the war, he started asking the border
states that were still in the Unions that had slaves
if they would do and they really weren't that interested.
And of course the Southerners weren't interested after the fighting started,
but it was never tried before the war. And I
(19:10):
think most countries, most major countries, got rid of slavery
by compensated emancipation or gradual emancipation. And my view is
that Lincoln he made the classic mistake of thinking the
war was going to be short and over when the
Union army went into the South and everyone was awestruck
(19:31):
by the rabbel was awestruck by the incoming forces or whatever.
But of course wars never turned out that way, and
the enemy does have a vote, and the war caused
so much bitterness that you had sort of a neo
slavery system. Once the Democrats took over the Southern governments again,
you had neoslavery for another one hundred years until the
(19:52):
Civil Rights movement. I'm not sure that all that bitterness
that was caused by the Civil War really helped out
African Americans that much at all. And of course a
lot of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments were all
really eroded in one way or another in the aftermath,
so I think it would have been better to try that.
But of course Lincoln he actually supported a different thirteenth
(20:16):
Amendment before the one we got in his first inaugural,
which would have made slavery permanent in the Southern States.
So his goal at the beginning of the war was
not the free slaves, and in fact, he really didn't
free that many slaves at the Emancipation Proclamation because he
freedom in only areas that the Confederate forces occupied, not
the Union forces. So that was sort of a bizarre twist.
(20:39):
So the Congress really freed the slaves with the thirteenth
Amendment when was passed, and of course Lincoln didn't have
anything to do with that, just by the nature of
constitutional amendments.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
When you look at these different things, I know it's
also that you suggest that we could have avoided going
unto World War One, and there was actually economic and
was rather than national security, there was a driving factor.
Can you explain that.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Well, what happened was we came into the war in
nineteen seventeen. The war started long before in nineteen fourteen,
and we had a lot of trade and loans with
the Allies, but not almost none with the Germans, and
the British put on a hunger blockade to try to
starve Germany into submission, and Woodrow Wilson really didn't have
(21:29):
too much of a problem with that, but he did
have a problem with the German version of that, which
wasn't as efficient as the British Navy, which was the
top dog naval power in the world. Then the Germans
were forced to do a seed denial with U boats,
and that's not as efficient as a blockade with your
(21:49):
entire navy around the Baltic area. So Wilson was hardly neutral.
We had a non neutral neutral policy, which was neutral
in name only, and he objected to Americans being unsafe
when they traveled on belligerent ships containing arms shipments in
(22:09):
a war zone around Britain, France, and Italy. So this
was quite a deal and William Jennings Bryan, his Secretary
of State, resigned because he said, well, we're not neutral
here and you're expecting way too much for this. And
the Congress tried to pass a law saying that Americans
couldn't travel on belligerent ships, and they did that in
(22:32):
the nineteen thirties, when the Nazis were rising in Germany
and Italy and Japan were both active and we were
moving towards World War Two, they passed neutrality to do
exactly that, and they could have done so at the time,
but Wilson had these ideas that our people should be
safe even under those extreme circumstances, so he was kind
(22:54):
of holding the Germans to a pretty high standard. We
sort of look at World War One, which I think
most of the story orians would regard as more important
than World War Two, since he's set the base for
World War Two. But we kind of see World War
One only through World War Two. Well, the Germans have
always been evil, but you know, Hitler was certainly a
much bigger threat to the US than the Kaiser was.
(23:17):
And the Kaiser really didn't even want to be in
the war, and none of the countries wanted to be
in that war, but they were dragged into it by
alliances that they may have regretted after the war started.
But I think Neil Ferguson, who's a conservative historian, really
says that the British lost their empire in World War
(23:37):
One by getting involved in He said they didn't need
to and he said that argument the US didn't need
to get into it either, and I agreed with that.
I debated him one time and he goes, you know,
we have a lot more in common than I thought
we did. So I think the US could have stayed
out of that war even if Britain got into it.
(23:58):
But certainly Britain hadn't been in it. We wouldn't have
been into it because we had a recession right before
the war started, and Wilson all these war orders weapons,
and we are also feeding Europe because of the war,
they couldn't grow as many crops, and so therefore, you know,
our economy began to depend on their war, and then
(24:19):
it became our war.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
The British they ignored their obligation under the eighteen thirty
treaty with Belgium and just stayed out of the war.
My guess is the World War One would have lasted
about six to eight months. That the Germans would have
beaten the French and then pivoted and beaten the Russians
and created a very German centered European suit of world order.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Right, But of course the British still had their fleet,
So yes, Germany might have won if we hadn't come
to the English and French. One of the big things
is we always herald the effect of the US soldiers
on the front, But I think when we got into
the war. That triggered a whole bunch of loans, because
if the Germans had known that the British and French
(25:06):
were almost bankrupt, you know, in the lad War in
nineteen eighteen, they wouldn't have done those offensive waste a lot.
Now on the offensives failed, they could have just retreated
and defensive and probably won the war that way as well.
If the US hadn't.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Entered without the US, I suspect in the end the
British and the French lowse if we had stayed out.
And I think certainly at nineteen fourteen, if Britain had
stayed out, I think it's very clear that the Germans
would have won the war pretty fast.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Yes, Yes, the British hadn't been in yes, huh.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
I really want to thank you for joining us. You
look at things differently, You ask a whole different set
of questions. You force us to challenge the assumed version
of history and ask were there alternative ways to do things?
And I think all that's really really valuable. And I
think that you new book, Domestic Causes of American Wars,
(26:03):
Economic and Political Triggers. It's available now in Amazon and
in bookstores everywhere, And I want our listeners to know
that they can find more about the work you're doing
at the Independent Institute by visiting your website at Independent
dot org. And they're going to find themselves really asking
new questions and thinking new thoughts by following your work.
So I really want to thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Thank you to my guest, Ivan Eland. You can get
a link to buy his new book, Domestic Causes of
American Wars, Economic and Political Triggers on our show page
at newsworld dot com. News World is produced by Ganglishtrey
sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guarnsey Sloan. Our
researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was
(26:52):
created by Steve Penley Special thanks to team of Ganglishry sixty.
If you've been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to
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(27:12):
Slash newsletter. I'm Newt Gingrish. This is Newtsworld.
On this episode of News World. Domestic Causes of American
Wars Economic and Political Triggers offers a unique and critical
take on the causes of major American wars throughout its history.
Unlike most histories that designate foreign threats as cassas belli,
this work examines their important underlying economic triggers, reaching the
(00:26):
striking conclusion that many were unnecessary for national security, nor
were they as heroic in upholding American values as commonly concluded. Further,
conventional histories often dwell on the positive outcomes of those
wars rather than on their much more important domestic ill effects,
the erosion of the American Founder's Constitution and of the
(00:47):
civil liberties and constitutional checks and balances therein while enabling
the rise of an imperial presidency. In his new book,
ivan Eland addresses those often buried domestic causes and effects,
in particular how American election cycles often affect us contry
into wars and how economic motives incentivized war. So I'm
(01:08):
really pleased to welcome my guest who has a fascinating thesis,
Ivan Eland. He is a senior fellow and director of
the Center and Peace and Liberty at the Independent instant Ivan.
(01:31):
Welcome and thank you for joining me on this world.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Thanks for having me on. It's really great honor.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
So first of all, tell us a little bit about
the Independent Institute and the work that you're doing there.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Well, I run the Center for Peace and Liberty. It's
sort of a libertarian think tank, libertarian ask oriented and
we explore the roots of big government. And of course
big government has been caused not in the United States
but in other countries by warfare first and foremost o
there are other causes, of course, but a lot of
(02:07):
our programs, even if they're not defense related. For instance,
our healthcare system came during World War Two, and so
you need to like the systemer hate the system. But
its derivation was that daylight savings time came originally in
World War One, and then another bout of it was
in the early seventies with the oil crisis. These types
(02:29):
of things originated war and so the government naturally balloons
with defense spending and military spending during warfare, but also
war drags erosion of civil liberties that is, government and
intervention into speech and assembly and that sort of thing.
And then also economically we saw price controls in both
(02:51):
World War One and World War two, and these are
domestic effects which are not very beneficial to the economy
in the long run at all.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
What you into this particular study.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
We always focus in histories, will always focus on the
foreign aspects, because most of our wars are foreign wars. Nowadays,
and even back then, we've only had really two domestic
wars of civil war and then the wars against the Indians,
if you want to call that one war. So most
of our wars we focus on the foreign aspects of it,
(03:24):
whereas there are domestic causes and domestic effects which are
really under studied, so to speak. So that's why I
wrote this book. I'm not saying that all wars are
caused only by domestic factors, but I think the domestic
factors have been ignored or just not studied enough. And
(03:44):
also the domestic outcomes are very important. Erosion of civil liberties,
erosion of the checks and balances, excessive growth of the presidency.
These types of things are the outcomes of domestic outcomes
of foreign wars.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
You warn right after the terrible attacks of October seventh
that Israel would regret overreacting. Two years later, do you
think that events have confirmed or challenged that prediction.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Well, I do think they're reaping a lot of international
probrium for this. If their purpose is to take over Gaza,
then that's what they'll do. But I think they're being
drawn into a quagmire if they do that, and I
think the Israeli military is definitely against that. And I
think they proved their point that they retaliated for the
(04:33):
October seventh attacks, which were heinous and which of course
required some response, but I think that it should have
been more measured than it was. And I think they're
only going to reap a long term program because they're
really creating hatred in the Gosms, which I think will
even if you get rid of Hamas, the idea that
(04:55):
they have to retaliate for Israel's overkill in my opinion
of God. And I think even the Israeli military has
leaked out that their military objectives were satisfied a year ago.
And so this is one area. I know we're not
discussing Israeli domestic politics, but I think this is one
(05:15):
area where domestic factors after that year have taken over.
And that's Netnya, who's standing within Israel and within his government.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I mean, that would be a fascinating place to take
your thesis and look at the impact of Israeli domestic
behavior on the way in which they've waged war. Now,
when you look at President Trump, some historians argue that
he is recreating a nineteenth century style international order, complete
with spheres of influence, a territorial expansion, and trade protectionism.
(05:49):
Do you think that's accurate.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Well, he certainly as a protectionist in the trade area
in his foreign policy area. I have supported some of
what Trump has done with the Europeans in that they've
always been promising spend more on defense and they just
never got around to it. I think that the two
things have wakened them a bit at least. That is
the Ukraine War, Putin and dating Ukraine, and the other
(06:13):
one is Donald Trump, and he's been very adamant that
he wants them to do five percent if he ends
the war as he's trying to Whether that promise will
go by the way when the threat is reduced to
or at least goes under the covers again is one thing.
But I think his solution for supporting the Ukraine is
the right one. I think we should back off from
(06:34):
direct support, and he can do the same thing by
selling the weapons that Ukraine needs from the US through
the Europeans. Sell them to them, and Europeans could get
them to the Ukrainians, and I think that's the way
to go. So I think he's right on that particular issue,
and in general, I think he's probably less interventionist, although
(06:55):
he occasionally talks about taking military action gets Panama and
Green which I think would be very counterproductive. But he
does in the sense he doesn't mask imperialism with rhetoric.
He just says it. So we'll have to see what
his record is. I think he's taken military action a
couple of times against Iran in both of his terms,
(07:17):
but he hasn't run wild with wars like the Clinton
administration did with intervening for dubious reasons in the developing world.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
When you think about nineteenth century international relations, you wrote
an article that Trump can create a concert of Greek powers,
which in some ways reminded me of Vienna and the
concert after the defeat of Napoleon. What did you have
in mind how that would work.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
I think that we're approaching a multipolar world, and our
data is so huge that I think we're going to
have to cut spending eventually in the military and in
domestic programs to get this under control. It's thirty seven
trillion now and it's going to go out some more
according to the projection. So we're in a different world
now than the end of World War Two, and we
(08:06):
dominated the world, and even during the bipolar Cold War.
We've really got to have a manageable security posture for
the multipolar world. And we have rising centers of power
like India that weren't there before. And of course Germany
and Japan are economic powers, and China is both in
economic power and letting military power as well. The Russians
(08:29):
now they're a bit debilitated by this war. But I
think Roosevelt, before he went on his un binge at
the end of his presidency, his initial thinking of what
would happen after World War Two was to be sort
of a concert of powers to manage things. But of
course he never really sold that to the American public,
and Truman came in and had a different idea. But
(08:52):
my current vision is sort of a version of his
four policemen, except I think they would probably have to
be five or six police or more on the Security
Council if you count the economic powers as well. But
each power would sort of police its own area. And
you know, the US can't guarantee that the other powers
are going to be benevolent. But I think we should
(09:14):
have learned by Hoover and Roosevelt's good neighbor policy in
the nineteen thirties really paid off because those countries were
much more receptive to anti US, anti Hitler the need
for measures that you know, against Hitler's. My mother used
to say, you get more with sugar than vinegar. Of
course no one told Putin that. But the question with
(09:35):
Ukraine is which sphere of influence do they want to
be in? And of course Ukrainians want to be in EU,
Russians don't want them, and they don't want them to
be in NATO, so you'd have boundary disputes. But if
you could get everybody to agree on the spheres of influence,
you could go back to a realist sort of thing. Now,
of course, there would still be issues that you need
(09:57):
to go to the UN for that, cross national borders,
drug trafficking, people trafficking, et cetera. But I think that
letting the powers police their own regions would be a
start that seems to be the only feasible alternative. Everyone
always criticizes intervention here or there, but they don't come
up with an alternative strategic vision of what the US
(10:21):
should do. We're always kind of ad hoc. We get
dragged back into the Middle East, every time we try
to pivot to Asia to counter China. We're easily distracted
by the latest dust up. And I think we could
probably do a little bit more strategic thinking. My proposal
is not foolproof. It's to start on thinking about how
(10:41):
we would be able to do this in a more
fiscally constrained way, which I think of that will eventually
come one way or the other.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
To what extent is it in our interest to stop
Putin from taking over all of Ukraine, And to what
extent is that in fact not a primary American interest?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Well, I would say it doesn't really affect a primary
American interest. I mean, we dealt with Ukraine as part
of the Soviet Union, and of course Ukraine is more
strategic to Russia than anything else. But of course, the
policing of international boundaries and not changing them by force
as the principle that we've had in the past, which
(11:38):
we've only followed ourselves radically over our history. But certainly
that's been a principle that the US has followed more recently,
so that's an issue. But you're correct. I don't think
Ukraine is a vital interest in the US. I mean,
the press and every other place has made as such.
And I also think in the long term we should
have a better relationship with Russia, but it's hard to
(12:02):
do when we have this current situation going on. I'm
hoping that Trump can solve the issue. It would be good,
and if we can rehabilitate relations with Russia, we don't
have to like Putin and the way he governs his country.
I'm sort of a realist. That's my basis for this concept.
I would say that Trump does have some possibility here
(12:23):
of solving the crisis if he plays his cards right.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Do you worry at all that if Putin were to
win all of Ukraine, that, in fact, after taking a
pause to rebuild his horses, that that would put Poland
or Latvia, Lithuanian and Estonia at some risk.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Well, if NATO doesn't mean anything, it would. But I
think we've always expanded NATO and pledged to defend these countries.
So I think those countries are a bit different than Ukraine,
since Ukraine is not in there, and Ukraine is more
traditionally in the Russian sphere of infla. It's very important
culturally as well as economically to Russia. I think we
(13:06):
can make that argument ad nauseum as far as falling dominoes,
it's sort of a modern version of that. First of all,
Plutin may learn from this as well, because to me,
he lost the war at the beginning because he thought
it was going to be waltz in there and take
over Ukraine and make it a satellite country like Belarus.
(13:27):
The Ukrainians have a vote and they voted no, so
I think he should have learned some lessons. And also
his military has been torn apart by this. He's lost
two hundred and fifty thousand and it's hard to figure's
hard to estimate accurately, but he's lost more than the
Ukrainians have and his military performed really awfully, so at
(13:48):
least as long as he's a ruler there, I don't
think his military is going to be in very good
shape because in an authoritarian situation, no one likes to
tell the boss that our military, we're having big problems here,
and there's no independent media to discover this. And I
think frankly, shijin Ping and China should be a little
(14:08):
bit nervous about what his military. They can do goose
steps and stuff, and they're probably more capable than the
Russian military, but nobody knows how they'll react. They haven't
than war in seventy years, so I guess that's a
long answer to your question. But I think we also
have to make the Europeans do more. Some of the
bigger European countries need to start supporting Poland and the
(14:31):
Lithuanians and the other Baltic states that are on the
front lines. There. We shouldn't have to do at all.
And Russia is a fraction of the EU GDP, and
so the Europeans are very wealthy and they can do
not only more in Ukraine, but more for Poland and
the rest of the people that are exposed.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
You describe the notion that for the first one hundred
years or so, most of our major wars were either
to pursue commerce or to acquire new territory, and then
after World War Two we really shifted to maintaining a
global head guy and making the United States dominant using
our weight both economically and militarily. Do you think it
(15:11):
was that big and that decisive? And I noticed you
don't quite include World War One in the transition.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Well, world War One, the state certainly penetrated the economy
and you had the budding military. But for World War
Two is the first war that we really had a
dedicated defense industry, because in all the other wars, we
had civilian factories and they would make tanks, they would
make cannon or whatever for the war, and then they
(15:39):
would go back to civilian production when the war was over,
and that prevented a military industrial complex from forming. In
other words, we need lots of military spending during the
peacetime to keep our industries to the next war. While
in World War Two it was such a massive war
(16:00):
are even compared to World War One, that the defense
industries grew from cities to suburbs to actual semi rural areas.
So and a lot of these semi rural areas and
suburban or exurban places, their economy really didn't have much
left after the war was over, whereas the cities were
(16:20):
more versatile and they adjusted. So a lot of these
industries lobbied for continued defense spending and during the Korean War.
After the World War II, this military industrial complex really
became permanent, and so did, of course, a larger military.
That was the first time we had a large peacetime
(16:42):
military in history was after nineteen fifty three, so it's
been a fairly recent phenomenon. And now we have a
situation where our defense industry, most of it doesn't make
any civilian items, so it's dependent on continued weapons production.
Are requiring more competition at the subcontract level so that
(17:04):
the military industrial base isn't quite so dependent on just
defense contracts. A lot of the computer stuff and that
sort of stuff in artificial intelligence, that's one area where
they could reduce its specifications and allow more competitions so
that we don't have that. It's not going to end
the military industrial complex overnight, that it would certainly help,
(17:25):
and the military industry is not very competitive even when
they compete contracts, they're more allocated than competitive in many cases.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
One of our great problems now in defense spending is
that we have basically a government giant private bureaucracy partnership,
which guarantees that you don't get competition, you don't get innovation,
and all too often the companies invest more in lobbyists
than they do in engineers. One of the points you've made,
it's kind of interesting to play with, is the notion
(18:12):
that had the North decided to buy out slavery, it
would have been dramatically less expensive than fighting the Civil War.
Do you really think there were circumstances where Southern culture
would have tolerated that kind of emancipation.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Well, that's a good question, and I don't definit until
we say that. I think you know. But they didn't
try it. And Abraham Lincoln was for it in the
eighteen forties when he was a congressman, but then when
it came time for this secession, he really wasn't because
he really wasn't trying to free the slaves right away.
His main goal and his sole goal was to reunite
(18:49):
the Union by force. And so after a while, in
the middle of the war, he started asking the border
states that were still in the Unions that had slaves
if they would do and they really weren't that interested.
And of course the Southerners weren't interested after the fighting started,
but it was never tried before the war. And I
(19:10):
think most countries, most major countries, got rid of slavery
by compensated emancipation or gradual emancipation. And my view is
that Lincoln he made the classic mistake of thinking the
war was going to be short and over when the
Union army went into the South and everyone was awestruck
(19:31):
by the rabbel was awestruck by the incoming forces or whatever.
But of course wars never turned out that way, and
the enemy does have a vote, and the war caused
so much bitterness that you had sort of a neo
slavery system. Once the Democrats took over the Southern governments again,
you had neoslavery for another one hundred years until the
(19:52):
Civil Rights movement. I'm not sure that all that bitterness
that was caused by the Civil War really helped out
African Americans that much at all. And of course a
lot of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments were all
really eroded in one way or another in the aftermath,
so I think it would have been better to try that.
But of course Lincoln he actually supported a different thirteenth
(20:16):
Amendment before the one we got in his first inaugural,
which would have made slavery permanent in the Southern States.
So his goal at the beginning of the war was
not the free slaves, and in fact, he really didn't
free that many slaves at the Emancipation Proclamation because he
freedom in only areas that the Confederate forces occupied, not
the Union forces. So that was sort of a bizarre twist.
(20:39):
So the Congress really freed the slaves with the thirteenth
Amendment when was passed, and of course Lincoln didn't have
anything to do with that, just by the nature of
constitutional amendments.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
When you look at these different things, I know it's
also that you suggest that we could have avoided going
unto World War One, and there was actually economic and
was rather than national security, there was a driving factor.
Can you explain that.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Well, what happened was we came into the war in
nineteen seventeen. The war started long before in nineteen fourteen,
and we had a lot of trade and loans with
the Allies, but not almost none with the Germans, and
the British put on a hunger blockade to try to
starve Germany into submission, and Woodrow Wilson really didn't have
(21:29):
too much of a problem with that, but he did
have a problem with the German version of that, which
wasn't as efficient as the British Navy, which was the
top dog naval power in the world. Then the Germans
were forced to do a seed denial with U boats,
and that's not as efficient as a blockade with your
(21:49):
entire navy around the Baltic area. So Wilson was hardly neutral.
We had a non neutral neutral policy, which was neutral
in name only, and he objected to Americans being unsafe
when they traveled on belligerent ships containing arms shipments in
(22:09):
a war zone around Britain, France, and Italy. So this
was quite a deal and William Jennings Bryan, his Secretary
of State, resigned because he said, well, we're not neutral
here and you're expecting way too much for this. And
the Congress tried to pass a law saying that Americans
couldn't travel on belligerent ships, and they did that in
(22:32):
the nineteen thirties, when the Nazis were rising in Germany
and Italy and Japan were both active and we were
moving towards World War Two, they passed neutrality to do
exactly that, and they could have done so at the time,
but Wilson had these ideas that our people should be
safe even under those extreme circumstances, so he was kind
(22:54):
of holding the Germans to a pretty high standard. We
sort of look at World War One, which I think
most of the story orians would regard as more important
than World War Two, since he's set the base for
World War Two. But we kind of see World War
One only through World War Two. Well, the Germans have
always been evil, but you know, Hitler was certainly a
much bigger threat to the US than the Kaiser was.
(23:17):
And the Kaiser really didn't even want to be in
the war, and none of the countries wanted to be
in that war, but they were dragged into it by
alliances that they may have regretted after the war started.
But I think Neil Ferguson, who's a conservative historian, really
says that the British lost their empire in World War
(23:37):
One by getting involved in He said they didn't need
to and he said that argument the US didn't need
to get into it either, and I agreed with that.
I debated him one time and he goes, you know,
we have a lot more in common than I thought
we did. So I think the US could have stayed
out of that war even if Britain got into it.
(23:58):
But certainly Britain hadn't been in it. We wouldn't have
been into it because we had a recession right before
the war started, and Wilson all these war orders weapons,
and we are also feeding Europe because of the war,
they couldn't grow as many crops, and so therefore, you know,
our economy began to depend on their war, and then
(24:19):
it became our war.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
The British they ignored their obligation under the eighteen thirty
treaty with Belgium and just stayed out of the war.
My guess is the World War One would have lasted
about six to eight months. That the Germans would have
beaten the French and then pivoted and beaten the Russians
and created a very German centered European suit of world order.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Right, But of course the British still had their fleet,
So yes, Germany might have won if we hadn't come
to the English and French. One of the big things
is we always herald the effect of the US soldiers
on the front, But I think when we got into
the war. That triggered a whole bunch of loans, because
if the Germans had known that the British and French
(25:06):
were almost bankrupt, you know, in the lad War in
nineteen eighteen, they wouldn't have done those offensive waste a lot.
Now on the offensives failed, they could have just retreated
and defensive and probably won the war that way as well.
If the US hadn't.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Entered without the US, I suspect in the end the
British and the French lowse if we had stayed out.
And I think certainly at nineteen fourteen, if Britain had
stayed out, I think it's very clear that the Germans
would have won the war pretty fast.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Yes, Yes, the British hadn't been in yes, huh.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
I really want to thank you for joining us. You
look at things differently, You ask a whole different set
of questions. You force us to challenge the assumed version
of history and ask were there alternative ways to do things?
And I think all that's really really valuable. And I
think that you new book, Domestic Causes of American Wars,
(26:03):
Economic and Political Triggers. It's available now in Amazon and
in bookstores everywhere, And I want our listeners to know
that they can find more about the work you're doing
at the Independent Institute by visiting your website at Independent
dot org. And they're going to find themselves really asking
new questions and thinking new thoughts by following your work.
So I really want to thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Thank you to my guest, Ivan Eland. You can get
a link to buy his new book, Domestic Causes of
American Wars, Economic and Political Triggers on our show page
at newsworld dot com. News World is produced by Ganglishtrey
sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guarnsey Sloan. Our
researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was
(26:52):
created by Steve Penley Special thanks to team of Ganglishry sixty.
If you've been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to
Apple Podcast and both rate us with five stars and
give us a review so others can learn what it's
all about. Right now, listeners of newt World can sign
up from my three freeweekly columns at gingrishwe sixty dot com.
(27:12):
Slash newsletter. I'm Newt Gingrish. This is Newtsworld.
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