No Statecraft for Old Men: Jack Watling on the New Rules of Power in a Chaotic World

00:00:31 Andrew Keen: Hello, everybody. There seems to be new rules in our twenty first century world when it comes to the great powers and the other powers. Few days ago, Ukraine hit Saint Petersburg with some drones, to ruin one of Vladimir Putin's favorite occasions. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is hitting his limits, at least according to The New York Times, in, Iran and the Straits Of Hormuz. He wants to call the shots, but he's not doing it. Both sides are claiming victory. They both demand victory, but, of course, The US is supposed to be the greatest power in the world, whereas Iran is anything but a superpower. And yet, there's a stalemate there. And Israel has launched new strikes, and Southern Lebanon seems to do it every week. New strikes was trying to wipe out Hezbollah, never managing to do so. So these new rules speak of perhaps a very different kind of world order, which my guest today, Jack Watling, a strategy expert based in London, outlines in his new book, Statecraft, the New Rules of Power in a Divided World. Jack is joining us from the Royal United Services Institute on Whitehall, the center of British imperial power, what was once British imperial power in London. Jack, congratulations on the new book. These new rules that you talk about, are they really new? Isn't it really the history of the world that there have always been many different powers and they've manifested it in different ways?

00:02:14 Jack Watling: Well, firstly, thank you very much for having me on. It's good to be with you. And you're correct. As a historian, many of these principles are old, but they are new to the current crop of political leaders that we have because we were in a world, I think, in which it was largely monopolar, I e, The United States was, as you said, had primacy. And politicians viewed the world as either developing on a linear trend of progress, you know, we were working to cure polio, for example, or eradicate it and other diseases or to develop societies through economic investments, or we had periodic crises like terrorism where we needed to intervene and essentially resolve the problem so that we could return to the status quo. And now we are entering a period of intense interstate competition where you don't necessarily return to the status quo because the changes, the interventions that are being made fundamentally change the trend. And that does require a new way of thinking among our leaders.

00:03:19 Andrew Keen: Are our leaders capable of a new way of thinking? Come thinking of Trump. Certainly, I'm not sure whether he thinks at all. Certainly not in a new way. And, of course, Putin is rather similar. Are these guys trapped in some sort of old world fantasy of their superpower them?

00:03:38 Jack Watling: Well, I mean, to speak of Putin, he has essentially tried to rebuild not the Soviet Union, but rather, a orthodox holy Russian empire, and has grounded his ideology of state in, you know, long past, Russian history, which he cares about deeply. And, you know, his anchoring of his current policy in the deep past is a challenge because it means that when you end up in negotiations as Trump found in Alaska, he's not a pragmatic dealmaker. Instead, he starts referring back to, the history from the August. And so, yes, I think that does make it difficult to shift Putin's thinking about his objectives and how he sees the world, because he's he's essentially locked himself in to a rubric of looking at the world, which doesn't really align with how anyone else reads the map. I think Trump is very different. I think Trump is much less cautious, much more impulsive, actually quite skilled at making the conversation one that occurs on the terms that interest him because he will disrupt things in a way that makes everyone else anxious and uncomfortable, and unsure of what's going to happen next. The problem with being impulsive rather than deliberate is that he will break the rubric or the trend, but not have a clear idea of where he wants to get it to or how to do so. And so I think he becomes trapped as events around him accelerate, which is what's happened in Iran. And he suddenly finds that he doesn't have all of the tools he needs to solve the problem. So I think it's, they're different characters, but both of them are very clearly fallible.

00:05:36 Andrew Keen: Certainly, the fallibility of both, Trump and, Putin is self evident. We live, Jack, you don't need me to tell you this, in a rather pessimistic age. Everything is looked in hysterical terms and apocalyptic terms. Is your message in this new book, the new rules of power in a divided world, is this good or bad news? I mean, on the one hand, of course, it's unstable. Maybe it will lead to the first, a repeat of the first World War. Maybe we'll talk more specifically about that later in the conversation. On the other hand, we seem to be escaping this monopolar world, which you talked about, which I don't think was in anyone's interest except for The United States and maybe even not for The United States or even the bipolar cold, Cold War of the of the post second World War age. So is this ultimately rather good news?

00:06:28 Jack Watling: I think that there was, a consistency in how the international system worked under that monopolar structure, which didn't benefit everyone equally. But apart from a relatively small number of states that deliberately tried to isolate themselves from those international norms, it provided a period of pretty unprecedented, economic growth, prosperity, and security in a lot of parts of the world. And so I do think that the breakdown of a unified international system is one that we should mourn, but we also have to acknowledge that there were systemic threats that were building in that time that we were doing very little to address. And when a system fractures, it also offers the opportunity of renewal. And so I think there is now a question about how we can find opportunity in the fact that the map is being rewritten rather than only risk and threat.

00:07:33 Andrew Keen: Redrawn, I think, as well as rewritten. What's your take on American foreign policy over the last fifty or a hundred years? We had recently Michael Mandelbaum on the show, one of Washington, DC's leading foreign policy experts. He has a new book out, The American Way of Foreign Policy, that suggested that there was a uniqueness about the way in which American America did its foreign policy, and it wasn't purely self interested. And it was certainly more democratic and altruistic than former superpowers. Do you agree with Mandelbaum?

00:08:07 Jack Watling: I think that it's, it's reasonable to say that The United States did a much better job in allowing all of the boats to rise on a common tide, should we say, for those countries that were aligned with it than the British Empire, or previous large multi state, political structures that were arguably more extractive of their clients. In that sense, yes, there is something quite distinct about US foreign policy. But that shouldn't overshadow the extent to which for those countries that were in competition that were not clearly aligned with The United States. The United States was very prepared to unleash an intense level of violence. Vietnam, obviously, being the most, significant probably example in the collective historical memory of that. But now we are in a position where that idea that we can all rise on a common tide under US leadership is one that many Americans don't believe. They believe that they've been exploited. They believe that those countries that were bound to The United States have been, taking advantage of The US. Lots of conversations about trade deficits. And so I think The US is retrenching back into, in many ways, the mindset it held prior to, its donning the mantle of global hegemony, which is, a more isolationist, and protectionist society. One that is returning to a view that trade is a zero sum game or that interactions are won and lost, rather than ones where there can be a mutually acceptable outcome.

00:10:07 Andrew Keen: Jack, I'm talking to you from the West Coast Of The United States. I'm always astonished, and I always repeat this stat so frequent viewers, listeners will roll their eyes. But I'm always astonished with the fact that, I mean, just before or after the first war I think it was just before the first World War, America, The United States had a standing army the size of Sweden or Portugal. Now, of course, it's a highly militarized state. The amount it spends on armaments, I think, dwarfs the rest of the world put together. Is it conceivable in your view that America could go back to coexisting in a world where it had a military that wasn't any larger than many other powers?

00:10:53 Jack Watling: I doubt very much that The United States is on a trend to significantly reduce the size of its military. The use of the military instrument as a core component of The US's ability to shape the decision making of others around the world, is likely to remain. But it's very costly to employ. And in a world where that military is not offered to allies to shield them and offer protection, but is instead one that is used to extract The US's interests, then there is less of a requirement in some ways to impose defeat on other countries because and because it the intent is to avoid protracted conflict. And so the military mission changes. It changes significantly. I mean, I was with a group of US military leaders, quite recently, and they were talking about one of the, you know, the prime directions in the national defense strategy being to counter cartels, which is a far reduced ambition, than the US military of the Cold War or indeed even the global war on terror. It's a hard problem, but we wouldn't have even primarily considered as a military problem previously. And yet now it occupies discussion at very senior levels. So I think the purpose and shape of the US military does shift as The US interests evolve and the definition of those interests by the government evolve. But, no, I think military power is one that will not fade from The US's, toolkit.

00:12:38 Andrew Keen: When you meet your American colleagues in London on Whitehall, and some of them might ask you, Jack, well, what wisdom you Brits can give us about decline, about losing empires and losing world power, what nuggets of wisdom do you give speaking on behalf of the old British empire?

00:12:58 Jack Watling: Well, I'm not sure anyone can say that I speak on behalf of them.

00:13:01 Andrew Keen: Well, I'm giving you the authority. You're giving me the authority.

00:13:03 Jack Watling: That's very kind. Well, I mean, I think of the countries that decolonized, it's not a consistent story in terms of the relationships that they have with their former colonies afterwards. And The UK has a much more, constructive relationship with, I think, many of its former colonies than a number of other states largely because it went of its own accord from many of them, and left by agreement, and found solutions that were allowed that disengagement from empire without fighting to try and preserve control. Obviously, there were instances like the Malayan Emergency or in Aden where that wasn't the case. But on the whole, The UK has maintained a fairly, significant level of engagement with its former colonies through the Commonwealth. And so I think the key point is that The US doesn't have colonies, but in the context of withdrawal, let's say, not withdrawal, but reducing the commitment to NATO and reprioritizing into the Indo Pacific, that can be a very vicious process, one in which both sides do harm to one another, and it will do harm to both sides. Or it can be one in which there is a recognition by The US's allies that The US's interests and priorities have changed, but there are still things that the allies can collaborate with The US on constructively, to mitigate harm. And it can be an amicable process that is planned by both parties. So, really, the question for me is how those points of mutual interest can be, retained or preserved even while the direction of travel is changing. And we'll see that play out in July of this year during the Ankara summit. You know, is it gonna be an acrimonious fight, or is there going to be an agreement about burden sharing between Europe and America on European security?

00:15:21 Andrew Keen: We shall see. I mean, when it comes to statecraft, you've noted that there's a lot of bluster, [Chilean? — as spoken] bluster, I think, to Trump, whereas Putin is oddly reactionary and perhaps not particularly rational. When it comes to statecraft, would it be fair to say, Jack, that the third player in the world system, the Chinese and Xi, has the best understanding or instincts when it comes to the craft of state?

00:15:51 Jack Watling: Well, the Chinese, have managed to capture a very, very large portion of the global manufacturing base. They have used those industrial fundamentals to deeply penetrate global supply chains of raw materials, using that to then finance and build leverage, across a lot of Central Asia, South America, Africa. And they have avoided conflict for the most part. I appreciate they're in disputes with a number of their neighbors. But while they're investing extensively in military modernization, they have been very cautious in the application of force, which means that at present, things are going their way. I think you can see the trend line.

00:16:45 Andrew Keen: So the answer is yes when it comes to the craft of state. They've been reading the Well, no. What I was going to say is [Machiavelli — as spoken].

00:16:53 Jack Watling: They're on the upswing. Right? But the question is that if they are challenged, if they hit a point of economic slowdown domestically, right, if they start hitting a point where their military modernization of modernization triggers a more unified opposition from their neighbors, who need to band together in order to be able to deter what they expect to become aggression, then their strategy may need to change. And we don't yet know how good they are managing the downswing. And in the past, over the last century, they have got that catastrophically wrong before. So

00:17:33 Andrew Keen: When specifically have they got it?

00:17:35 Jack Watling: During the great leap forward, for example, under Mao, I think, they pursued a range of policies, which induced massive amounts of economic and social harm to the country, and didn't do very much by way of modernization either. And so, you know, there is the capacity to make pretty terrible mistakes at a large scale.

00:18:00 Andrew Keen: Now I'm picking foreign policy. I just back from Korea. I went to the DMZ. And, of course, how would you read now I take your point on the catastrophic consequences of Maoism domestically, but what about internationally?

00:18:16 Jack Watling: Well, I mean, the last war that they fought was against Vietnam, and they lost. So, you know, there's a reason why they're cautious about resorting to the military instrument, and that is that, even in the nineteen seventies, it didn't go well. But, yeah, you're right. There's a there is a value to that caution. You could say the lesson has been learned.

00:18:38 Andrew Keen: And when, of course, it comes to the new rules of power in a divided world, though, and in thinking about China, Taiwan comes to mind. Russia has Ukraine. The United States has Iran. Israel has Southern Lebanon. China has Taiwan. We did a show recently with Eyck Freymann from Stanford University, defending he has a new book out, Defending Taiwan, a Strategy to Prevent War with China. I know in your book, Statecraft, Jack, you note that the potential crisis in Taiwan what does your book say in terms of these new rules of power about an impending crisis, in the South China Sea?

00:19:29 Jack Watling: Well, I think the challenge there is that the PRC, the People's Republic Of China, wishes to reabsorb the territory of Taiwan, the Republic Of China. But it ideally, it would like to do so in a way in which Taiwan capitulates. And the hope that the PRC has is that they can convince The United States to make clear that it will not defend Taiwan and therefore convince the Taiwanese that they are not able to resist if things become, a military escalation. That is their aspiration. The risk is that they think that The US will not fight over Taiwan and that, actually, The US will because the scale of that conflict is, as you say, a new global conflagration. Right? This is World War three.

00:20:23 Andrew Keen: Well, you sound pretty confident. I mean, the FT just ran a piece. Will Trump abandon Taiwan with a question mark? I mean, there's no guarantee, is there?

00:20:33 Jack Watling: No. No. But this is my point. If The US doesn't fight over it, then the PRC hope that they can essentially coerce Taiwan into joining them. If The US does fight over it and if the Chinese are wrong in thinking that The US won't, then this escalates very, very dramatically. The challenge for Taiwan is that unlike Ukraine where they can be resupplied across a border, a European border, Taiwan is obviously an island, and breaking a Chinese blockade of Taiwan, is a protracted and difficult military endeavor. And so it what's interesting about that is that it doesn't become a question of can The US beat China in a global conflict. It becomes a question for Taiwan of can The US beat China in the South China Sea, and that is a much more challenging prospect for The United States.

00:21:32 Andrew Keen: But the difference, isn't it, between Taiwan and Ukraine is Ukraine has some military power but not much else, whereas Taiwan has very significant economic power. There are all sorts of stories about Taiwan curbing AI chip sales to China. Of course, Taiwan being the leader chip manufacturer in the world. So what advice does your book, Statecraft, what advice would it give to Taiwanese strategists?

00:22:01 Jack Watling: I think the Taiwanese firstly need to show that they can inflict very substantial damage if the PLA does escalate against them, and that means significantly improving the readiness of their own military. It's been left without proper modernization and without proper training for a long time. We are seeing the Taiwanese actively address that problem, and so they're cognizant of that requirement. The second thing is using things like what they would term the silicon shield, to showcase their indispensability around the world, but then to leverage that to try and achieve recognition. Right? Recognition from other states of their status is extremely important, because that's what underlines the unacceptability of a threat against them, from the Chinese in international law. And so they have made some progress, but it's been very, very slow. And they also need that in some ways to diversify away from an absolute dependence on The United States. And then the third element is that The United States does remain critical to their defense. And so, you know, for The United States is also critically dependent upon, their semiconductor production capacity And how they can use that and other means to keep The United States concerned and engaged in their theater is critical to their deterrence posture.

00:23:36 Andrew Keen: But given the successful defiance of the Ukrainians against the Russians, the southern Lebanese against the Israelis, the Iranians against The United States, you gotta fancy the Taiwanese successfully resisting China.

00:23:55 Jack Watling: I mean, Ukraine's resistance firstly, it's important to note that it's founded on Ukrainian bravery, but NATO ammunition. The Ukrainians would have lost in late twenty two simply for want of the tools to fight if it weren't for the fact that they were resupplied. And so we can absolutely see a envisage scenario in which the Taiwanese put up stiff resistance. But because they are an island, resupplying them is very difficult, and it means that their resistance is time banded unless that blockade can be broken. So they there isn't a direct correlation. Nonetheless, you are correct that military operations are extremely risky, and the crossing of a large waterway, a contested waterway, is one of the hardest military operations to undertake. And so, you know, for the PLA, they will be watching the inability of the US Navy to force an opening of the Strait Of Hormuz, and it may well give them pause for thought in terms of, what the casualties they might take and the humiliation they might suffer even if they eventually succeed in subduing the island were they to attempt a forceful seizure of Taiwan.

00:25:16 Andrew Keen: Yeah. I think your caution is, compounded with, Eyck Freymann. I'm not sure if you're familiar with his work, but he's got some interesting ideas. You note NATO and Ukraine. What, given the unclear future of NATO and this increasingly sharp split between The United States and Europe. What does your new book, Jack, Statecraft, the New Rules of Power in a Divided World, what do they what does it tell us about for Europeans, for in Brussels, in London, in Berlin? I assume that the book is being digested in all the capitals of Europe.

00:26:03 Jack Watling: I think for a long time, policy has been driven by consensus. The idea that we want to act as a European whole or indeed as a NATO alliance or wait for The United States as the leading country to signal the direction of travel and then build a coalition to reinforce it. And, of course, that idea that you, grant others the ability to significantly shape your definition of your own national interests, delays your own decision making substantially because you have to reach that consensus. And what we are seeing is that the states that are being most successful at the moment are those that are decisive and opportunistic. Maybe not opportunistic in what they pursue. Their definition of their interests may be consistent, but opportunistic in how they leverage the current situation to advance those interests. And so for medium powers in Europe, I think it's a case of rather than being paralyzed by the fear of the damage that more powerful states can inflict, whether it be economic, military, or social, and instead appreciating that the best thing to do is to move, right, to make decisions and move forward. That requires a more proactive policymaking and a more ruthless, in some ways, approach to defining national interests.

00:27:30 Andrew Keen: Interesting. Move fast and break things, in other words, as we say in, Silicon Valley. Are you suggesting, ma'am, that the behavior of Netanyahu historically and this year in South, Lebanon and Iran is the correct way of going about things. How does Israel fit into your narrative in Statecraft?

00:27:53 Jack Watling: Well, we have to start from acknowledging that the Israelis were strategically surprised by Hamas, on the October 7. And much of their subsequent policy has been, reactive to that shock and surprise, and it has been driven, by an acute sense of vulnerability. And so one could say that if they were better at leveraging their intelligence capabilities, they shouldn't have found themselves in this position to start with, and therefore, they have made some very serious errors. However, tactically, the way that they have engaged those adversaries and dealt with those threats has demonstrated the value of that opportunistic approach. Right? They took a huge problem for them, which was they would describe a seventh front threat with overlapping large rockets and missile arsenals aimed at the country. And they managed to use escalation thresholds to engage it and break it down sequentially such that the threats to Israel today couldn't overwhelm their defenses. And so Israel is tactically much, much more secure today than it has been for the last couple of decades. The problem they have is that what I said about having a clear set of interests, right, in the aiming point that you're trying to get to, they don't know what they want to achieve. There is a minority in the government who want to achieve something quite extensive in terms of annexation of territory. That is not where most Israelis are, but there isn't a clear objective. And so, as they cast forward, it becomes harder for them to maintain the coherence of those opportunistic plays because, you know, we've seen that in Gaza where there is a humanitarian catastrophe that is still ongoing, and the Israelis don't really have a plan for what the solution or end state looks like that resolves that humanitarian situation. And it becomes a strategic risk to them because it's a very, very sensitive political issue around the world, and so Israel becomes much more isolated geopolitically as they allow that humanitarian situation to fester.

00:30:26 Andrew Keen: Yeah. You put it politely. Some people might believe that they don't really want a plan. But, what about, the new rules of power in a divided world for other middle powers who tend to be less central to the headlines. Japan comes to mind, India, of course, Turkey, Brazil. What does this new divided world what opportunities and warnings does it give to middle powers like these?

00:30:58 Jack Watling: Well, I mean, you mentioned Turkey. I this isn't a comment about Turkish domestic politics, which my views on are slightly different. But, in terms of foreign policy, I think middle powers can learn a great deal from Turkey. If we look at Turkey as a member of NATO, it is the only country in the alliance that has, in a declared way, overtly killed Russian soldiers several times over the last decade. And yet it probably has the most mutually respectful relationship with Russia of anyone in the alliance. The Russians are very aware of where the Turks have leverage over them, and the Turks don't overplay their hand in relation to the Russians. And so, actually, they are competing with the Russians very effectively in the Caucasus, and in Central Asia without really suffering very much by way of retaliation. And so as a middle power, Turkish foreign policy has been very effective, I think, at incrementally advancing its interests. India is a fascinating example because there is so much latent potential, And yet the Indian government does not really have, I don't think, a desire and has not articulated to its public a reason or a mission to exert significant influence beyond its borders such that it really isn't a global player. It doesn't try and make its presence felt in issues that are not directly relevant to it. And so there is a great question, which is what happens if that changes? Or what happens if India starts to become a much more assertive actor on the world stage?

00:32:59 Andrew Keen: And, of course, there's the flashpoint of Pakistan as well, another nuclear power. So

00:33:05 Jack Watling: Yeah. Although even there, Indians don't consider Pakistan to be their primary security threat. They consider China to be their primary security threat. So, the Indian Pakistani relationship is one which, even in the last flare up where we had missile exchanges between them, they were actively talking with each other. There wasn't really any points of major escalation risk. A lot of it was quite theatrical.

00:33:35 Andrew Keen: You're beginning to make me nervous, Jack. Few weeks ago, we had the Yale historian, Arne Westad, on the show. He has a best selling new book, The Coming Storm, Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History. And he suggested on the show in his book that we might have arrived at a moment just before the first World War. We were always fearful of Hitler and the second World War and appeasement and all the rest of it. But, actually, it's not just West. Other historians are noting that in this multipolar world of so much change, of so much uncertainty, we may be stumbling back into another terrible global conflict. Are there any, historical analogies between the twenty twenties and the nineteen teens?

00:34:27 Jack Watling: Well, I mean, at that period, I think you had a growing revolutionary ideology that was building socially around the world. It wasn't yet, the dominant force in states, but we had attempted revolutions in nineteen o five. We also had the home rule crisis in Ireland and The United Kingdom. You had a desire among a number of burgeoning colonies at that time, but essentially countries that today you would say were in the global South who were beginning to make the articulate the desire for it to be treated as independent and equal states with comparable dignity, and you could start to see that process emerging. And you had a group of countries, the great powers, mainly in Europe, who had been playing a game really since 1815 that they thought they understood very, very well. But when the conflict came, both parties thought it would be extremely sharp and short and that it would be limited in its character.

00:35:34 Andrew Keen: All parties. I mean, there were, what, five, six parties?

00:35:37 Jack Watling: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The assumption was over by Christmas. Right? And it grew. It grew out of any capacity to control it. When we look at the current environment, I think there is a significant social shift happening in many countries. I think if we look at climate change as a good example of something which the global south really does care about, but they also care about the impact of how they can modernize, and the you know, at the point where you have that much energy being added into the international system, what does that do in the context of climate change? And you have a situation where the rules between the great powers don't really reflect where power actually sits at the moment. And so the capacity for a conflagration, as I say, Taiwan being the obvious tipping point, to suddenly trigger a series of escalations around the world is very real. And we have to be cognizant that risk is latent in the system because, obviously, that is also a mutual calamity. It's the outcome we wish to avoid.

00:36:53 Andrew Keen: Your last book, before Statecraft is entitled The Arms of the Future, Technology and Close Combat in the twenty first Century. Of course, drone warfare is becoming increasingly important. And AI as well, there was an interesting piece this week in the Washington Post about Anthropic becoming the most powerful company in the world, many ways more powerful, wealthier than many countries. OpenAI is also enormously powerful. When it comes to the new rules of power in a divided world, Jack, can we include new players? I mean, there's obviously big, trillion multi trillion dollar Silicon Valley companies like Google as well, Microsoft, Facebook. But could Anthropic and OpenAI, could they become players in the future in some ways more powerful than middle powers like Brazil or Japan or India, Turkey?

00:37:53 Jack Watling: I think no. Largely because, you know, a lot of Russian companies made this mistake in the nineteen nineties. They thought that because they had huge amounts of money, and controlled valuable resources that therefore they could play geopolitically and their chairmans could play geopolitically. And they were very quickly subsumed by the state. Power trumps money fundamentally. And I think that

00:38:21 Andrew Keen: All these companies Trumpian power trumps.

00:38:23 Jack Watling: Even Trumpian power

00:38:24 Andrew Keen: Trumps Trumpian money.

00:38:26 Jack Watling: And we've we've seen the extent to which these companies are very subservient to the US government. And so, you know, because the US government can break them in an instance. Right? And so I think, really, they are subordinated to The United States, those that are in The US. And the other thing I would say is that when it comes to some of these companies, they don't yet have a profit model. They don't actually have a model that makes Well,

00:38:51 Andrew Keen: To be fair to Anthropic, they're they're making money or they claim to be making money. Of course, they've got their IPO coming up. We'll know more about their business model in a few months.

00:39:00 Jack Watling: Yeah. But a lot of these companies are taking in huge amounts of investment, and they're they're very, very well capitalized. But when we start looking at the, supply chain for energy, for data that underpins these companies, the landscape is gonna look quite different in the near future, which is not to say that AI is gonna go bust or anything like that or that it's not important. It's just that they have a lot of dependencies that they don't necessarily control. And I think we need to think through what those supply chains in the AI space actually mean in terms of who has leverage on them.

00:39:41 Andrew Keen: And, of course, it seems like we're having a convergence in China and America in terms of the state becoming involved in some of these big tech companies.

00:39:48 Jack Watling: Yes. Although in the European Union, regulation will probably start to play a very significant role in shaping how companies can behave and engage in the market. So, I don't think it's it's a uniquely American or Chinese phenomenon.

00:40:06 Andrew Keen: Well, there you have it. Words of wisdom from, Jack Watling in London. His new book, Statecraft, the new rules of power in a divided world. As I said, I think it's essential reading, not just in Washington, Beijing, and Moscow, but also around the world. Jack, congratulations on the book, and keep, keep up the good work. I think we need, unbiased analysts like you to warn us and encourage us to make sense of, a really scary world. Thank you so much.

00:40:40 Jack Watling: It's been a pleasure.