Now that we're telling the truth about why nations do what they do, a lot of the arguments that we have relied upon, in fact, that have been the basis of a lot of our foreign policy positions, are now moot.
So once you say out loud, “we're grabbing Venezuela because we're annoyed they're selling what is our oil to the Chinese, our rival,” once you just say that out loud—and again, it's good to be honest—but once you are honest, it's kind of hard to make the case that, well, for example, Russia doesn't have an interest in what happens in eastern Ukraine. It's hard to scold Putin for moving into Ukraine. Here's a great power threatened on its border, and it takes action to protect itself. And we've been calling that an unprovoked invasion. The Biden administration called that. The State Department still calls it that. And our policy is based on the idea that this is illegitimate. And that's why we've been waging a proxy war against Russia for four years. You can't really make that argument anymore. How is it wrong for a great power like Russia to protect itself? Well, under the rules that we're now operating under, it's not wrong. You can say, I don't prefer it, but you can't point to some abstract principle and say it's absolutely wrong.
Why would it be wrong for China to retake Taiwan? The U.S. government already acknowledges that Taiwan is part of China. We have a so-called one China policy, and yet simultaneously we suggest we would defend Taiwan against Chinese aggression. But wait a second, Taiwan is Han Chinese. Same people, same language. Tons of cultural similarities. We want the microchips in Taiwan. We hope it doesn't happen because it would give China greater leverage over the United States. But as a matter of principle, can you really say it's wrong for China to reunify with Taiwan? No, you can't say that anymore.
All you can say is we will try to prevent it if we can, but we can't appeal to any higher authority. Now, some will say that higher authority was made up. Well, it certainly was made up. That principle was the basis of the entire fabled post-war order. What was the post- war order? It was based on one idea: it is wrong for bigger countries to swallow up smaller countries just because they want to. That's why we declared war against Germany when they went into Poland. But weirdly we did not declare war against the Soviet Union when they did the same thing the same day.
But whatever, the point is big countries are not allowed to act in a predatory way towards smaller countries because that's wrong. And there's always been, as noted, tons of fakery around that, of course, tons of pretending and pretense, we're all wearing a veil to hide our true motives. But that has still been the basis of the way countries deal with each other. And that is no longer the case as of last week because the world's great superpower, the United States, just acted purely in its own interest and said so out loud.
So where does it leave all these international bodies? The UN most famously, but all of them. The World Health Organization. How about NATO? Do they have any authority at all? Is there a reason to have them once we stop pretending? Probably not. They may not know that yet. And of course they're all very well funded and will live on into the future to some extent. But basically they're dead men walking. They're over. That's all over.
Watch the full monologue here:
https://youtu.be/7HgM0aI3IK8
