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Home » Lawrence Wilkerson: Failing to Adjust to a Multipolar World (Transcript)

Lawrence Wilkerson: Failing to Adjust to a Multipolar World (Transcript)

Editor’s Note: In this episode, host Glenn Diesen is joined by Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, the former Chief of Staff to the U.S. Secretary of State, to discuss the profound geopolitical shifts reshaping our global order. Together, they analyze the complex challenges facing the United States and its allies as they struggle to adapt to an ascendant, multipolar world, driven by shifting power dynamics in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. From the precarious situation in Ukraine to the breakdown of traditional diplomacy, this conversation offers a stark assessment of the rising risks of international escalation and global conflict.

Introduction

GLENN DIESEN: Welcome back. We are joined today by Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, the former Chief of Staff to the US Secretary of State. So thank you for coming back on the program.

LAWRENCE WILKERSON: Good to be with you, Glenn.

The Strategic Landscape: China, Iran, and Ukraine

GLENN DIESEN: So there’s a lot of things happening in the world now. For one, Trump appears to be, well, appears to be recognizing that he doesn’t have anywhere to go with the Iranians. I don’t think he’s ready to admit defeat, but we see more of this rhetoric emerging in the United States. But we’re seeing other things as well, the ability of Russia to balance NATO in Ukraine, and also China seemingly prevailing in the economic war.

So if you take a step back, where do you see this going? And how will this compel the US to change course, or do you think it will begin to adjust to being balanced, or do you think the US will continue to push forward?

LAWRENCE WILKERSON: That’s a huge question with both tactical, operational, and strategic implications. Let’s take the top ones first.

One, you know what I think about the inexorable movement of power to the East, and I just say that the strategic situation is that China is winning. And doesn’t want to do anything to interrupt that victory. Will protect its skirts, if you will, but it doesn’t want to do anything to disturb its victory. Very Confucian, very Central Party school, very strategic.

If you look at what Trump is doing, on the other hand, it is all the opposite. And having listened all morning to as disparate characters as Steve Walt and Chris Hedges and David Petraeus and Doug McGregor and a host of others as they essentially opined on what this means, this being the supposed somewhat of an agreement between Iran and the United States. I’m confused, thoroughly confused.

David Petraeus made an ass of himself just as he usually does, both on the Iran War and on Ukraine, claiming that Ukraine was going to be victorious ultimately, it was inevitable and so forth. And I told myself, what’s the new company he’s working for? The BlackRock-sponsored KKR or something like that. He’s shilling for them. So, David, you don’t have Paula Broadwell around anymore, but you do have KKR and they’re just as poisonous.

The Iran Diplomacy Illusion

So all to say that I think we’re to the point where no Iranian interlocutor and US American interlocutor have faced each other, period. There has been no— I have that on really good authority— there has been no talk between a single American diplomat or otherwise, Bradley Cooper, or, you know, what’s his name, Kushner or Whitcomb. There’s been no conversation between an Iranian in responsible position and an American in responsible position. It’s all been, I won’t call them good offices, it’s all been intermediaries. Pakistanis, Omanis, you name it, it’s been intermediaries.

So all of this miracle has been achieved in defiance of the first principle of diplomacy, to quote the man who wrote Relations of Nations— I just lost his name, but he was at Newport at the Naval War College for a while— you can’t do diplomacy without some kind of face-to-face episode, because the first ingredient in diplomacy is trust. And if you don’t have any trust at all and you even have a negative quotient in that regard, you even need it more so to build a little trust. There’s been none of that.

So all to say, I discount this totally. I don’t see anything in this supposed agreement— I’ve read 4 or 5 versions of it— that is feasible, that is going to happen. And I think Donald Trump is frenetic to find a way out of this because he is at least comprehending the disaster he’s causing, in some ways. I don’t for a minute think he’s got the full import of it, but he does have some of it. And the political aspects and the monetary aspects are probably the facets he has the most grasp on.

So I think what we’re looking at is another kabuki show that will wind up with, again, for a third occasion, the Iranians thinking they’re in a diplomatic exchange when the bombs fall again. And this time it’ll be just as ineffective as before, except it will kill a lot of innocent civilians in Iran. And if it includes, as some are telling me it will, a small ground element to try and snatch uranium, we’ll have some prisoners of war and some dead people on the screen in Tehran. So that’s my assessment of where that is.

Ukraine: A Battlefield Laboratory

As far as Ukraine is concerned, as I was telling Lasha this morning, I think Ukraine is being held up by Europe and the United States, and we’re holding them up in part because they are experimenting with incredibly sophisticated technology, and they’re doing it with our dollars and our facilities, really, on their soil. And we’re like Hitler in 1936 in Spain, watching those Stukas dive and amending their performance accordingly.

So in other words, Israel, Britain, the United States, and others are learning from the battlefield in Ukraine and don’t want it to stop. And so they will continue funding Zelensky as long as he is making that continue, and as long as he’s doing this experimentation on new ways of warfare within his country.