US-China Relations and the Latest in Ukraine

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Hope you had a great three-day weekend and got to enjoy the picture-perfect weather around here. Before we move on, I want to acknowledge out loud that yesterday was Memorial Day. I saw so few references to it in any context this year. My inbox was filled with ads for Memorial Day Weekend sales of all kinds and activities of all kinds, same in most of the media, plus a lot of talk about the weather.

That's all fine, but let's also acknowledge that this is supposed to be perhaps our most solemn holiday, honoring the memories of Americans who died in wars. It was established after the Civil War, as some of you know, maybe some of you don't, and was originally called Decoration Day. People were supposed to decorate the graves of the soldiers killed in that war.

Decoration Day would actually be today, the 30th of May. It was only in the 1970s for commerce and for the pleasure of a three-day weekend that it was moved to the last Monday in May, regardless of the date. Veterans Day, remember the difference, celebrates the veterans still alive. Memorial Day is for those who served and died. Big distinction that people sometimes forget.

Unfortunately, we have had plenty of war dead to honor over time. According to the data website, Statista, these numbers are mind-blowing if you don't know them, our deadliest war was the Civil War in which about 620,000 people died between the two sides. Then you have World War II, 405,000 people, World War I, 116,000 people, the Vietnam War, 58,000-plus Americans. Some of you know every name is engraved on the Vietnam Memorial Wall in D.C., a site worth visiting if you're in the nation's capital.

By the way, not to forget, Vietnam estimates 2 million of its citizens were killed in that war. Around 7,000 Americans have died in the Global War on Terror, as they called it. 7,000, small by historical standards, some of those other numbers that I just gave you, but it's still 7,000 Americans dead in wars that were questionable at best, from September 11th, 2001 to the present. That's Afghanistan and Iraq combined, plus a small number elsewhere in what they called the War on Terror.

The Washington Post had an article yesterday with a count of 16 American military veterans who have now been killed in the war in Ukraine. Those were not US military deaths, technically. The Post says those have been private citizens who previously served in this country's military, and then who chose to volunteer over in Ukraine to help defend against the Russian invasion. It tells a story, for example, of a 45-year-old ex-Green Beret Paul Maimer of Boise, Idaho, who had been working as an English teacher in Spain, and was quoted by his family recently saying his moral compass drove him to enlist with the Ukrainian War effort. There's now a video of a Russian paramilitary leader holding up Maimer's driver's license and Veterans Affairs Card, and taunting the United States according to that Washington Post article.

For Paul Maimer and more than a million other Americans over the centuries, as well as the war dead in the countries we fought, though some people won't like me saying that, we acknowledge Memorial Day, Decoration Day, on this day, May 30th, when it originally was. May you all rest in peace. Let's try not to have any more wars if we can avoid it.

An article on Slate reminds us that some US military officers are predicting we will be at war with China in the next few years, but it cites as good news this statement by President Biden last week at the G7 summit in Japan about the increasing belligerence on both sides maybe getting ready to tone down.

President Biden: We should have an open hotline. With the Bali Conference that's what President Xi and I agreed we were going to do and meet on, and then this silly balloon that was carrying two freight cars worth of spying equipment was flying over the United States. It got shut down, and everything changed in terms of talking to one another. I think you're going to see that begin to thaw very shortly.

Brian Lehrer: I think you're going to see that begin to thaw very shortly said President Joe Biden.

Republicans, of course, running for president seem to be falling all over themselves trying to be tougher than the next person on China. Ron DeSantis, did you hear this, even signed a bill this month- with all the other things Ron DeSantis did this barely made national news- prohibiting citizens of China from buying land in parts of Florida. His press release on the signing says, "Governor Ron DeSantis cracks down on Communist China."

With all that as backdrop, with us now is the writer of The Slate article on Biden and China, Fred Kaplan, who covers military affairs for Slate in his column called War Stories. He is also the author of books, including his latest The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and The Secret History of Nuclear War. Fred, always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Fred Kaplan: Thank you. Always good to be here.

Brian Lehrer: For you as a military affairs writer, any thoughts first on Memorial Day as we acknowledge it or barely acknowledge it in the United States, or the American veterans volunteering in Ukraine?

Fred Kaplan: Well, it is true. You said that you saw very little note of it. This is only, what, the second year when we've had nobody dying in a major war abroad. It is interesting. There is, the estimates I've read, something like 4,000 Americans having fought in Ukraine. I don't think all at the same time, but over a period of the last year or so. Most of them, as that Post story recounted, veterans who either feel empty or feel that this is a war that they need to go fight for, something with principles that seem a bit clearer than some of the wars that the US government has been involved in, in recent years.

By comparison, the Spanish Civil War where, remember, there was something called the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, which was a lot of democratic and leftist people in the United States went over to help fight against Franco from all kinds of countries, 32,000 people went over to fight and about 5,000 died.

Brian Lehrer: Wow.

Fred Kaplan: What's going on in Ukraine isn't anything remotely like that, but it is a war that, I think, unless something quite drastic happens politically, is going to go on for quite a while.

Brian Lehrer: We'll get back to talking about Ukraine a little later in the segment. The clip we played of President Biden is what you cite at the beginning of your article on avoiding war with China. You also cite those military officers who predict we will be at war with China, including one who predicted as early as this year. Can we start there, and you'll tell us who's predicting war with China and why?

Fred Kaplan: Well, it was in March of 2021 that Admiral Philip Davidson who was the outgoing commander of US military forces in Pacific said in a hearing that he thought we would be at war with China in the next six years. He said that without having his testimony approved by any superior, which was very unusual. It also was something that was disputed explicitly by the Defense Department's own report about Chinese military power, which doesn't make any prediction like this at all.

There have been statements that Chairman Xi and other Chinese officials have talked about, by the end of this decade, having attained a certain level of a professional army, but nothing even remotely hinting at being able or even willing to go to war for Taiwan or any other goal that it has in mind.

What's going on politically, it's very interesting. We might remember earlier this month, Jake Sullivan, Biden's national security adviser, and his Chinese counterpart met in Vienna, and held 10 hours of talks, which is just extraordinary, and according to the readouts from both sides, talking about the most fundamental issues dividing the US and China now. At the end of it, the White House released the statement calling the talks candid, substantive and constructive. China called them candid, in-depth, substantive, and constructive.

Brian Lehrer: Same language, basically.

Fred Kaplan: Basically, and these things mean something It might sound empty and bland to us, but those adjectives mean something. They mean that things were discussed and it was actually positive and creating the basis for further constructive dialogue. Then put Biden's remark on that.

Then the thing about the balloon right before the balloon happened, Tony Blinken, the Secretary of State, was going to go over to Beijing and talk with Xi himself, the first time that a Secretary of State had done so for six years, presumably to lay out some areas where there might be some re-engagement. The balloon made that impossible. The question is just whether and when things can get back in track. I assume it's going to be at the meeting in Bali later this year, and it's the kind of thing that really has to be done by Biden and Xi directly. Unless there's some other crazy incident between now and then, I think both sides have a real incentive for this to happen.

Brian Lehrer: We'll talk about the Ukraine War relationship to this, China caught in the middle in a certain respect. You wrote that good news article last week then just yesterday, I saw the reports of China turning down an invitation for the two countries' top defense officials to meet. Did you see that or know what that's about?

Fred Kaplan: Yes. Well, this is the second time this has happened. There have generally been routine military-to-military relations. We have them with Russia even on certain things, with China, with all kinds of countries. There are regular meetings and twice in a row now, China has said, "No, we don't want to do this." Now this is the Chinese military force. It's not necessarily Xi. They may be waiting for cues to be read from the political level. I don't know. These things are quite cryptic and from an outsider's point of view, impenetrable.

It is disturbing. It does show that maybe they're telling Biden, "Hey, don't get too far ahead on your skis there. We still have a lot of things to work out." There are very good reasons why you want to have [laughs] generals and generals talking with each other.

Even the US and Russia, which has almost no relations now, there are what are called deconfliction talks or deconfliction notifications, say in Syria, where both sides have military forces. Each notifies the other when certain things are going to happen so that you don't ram an airplane into another guy's airplane. It's just natural self-interested kinds of things. It's that sort of thing that is not going on with the US and China now. That creates a dangerous situation, regardless of what political signals might be intended.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, our phones are open on this Decoration Day, this day after Memorial Day. We're going to invite you for one thing, and screeners get ready to decorate the airwaves with any way you want to honor anyone in your life who was killed in a war, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

I mentioned some of the top wars for US deaths at the top of the segment. Some others I didn't mention the Korean War, we still have veterans from the Korean War alive today. 36,000 plus Americans died in the Korean War. There's a Memorial War for that in DC as well as the Vietnam Memorial War. 25,000 Americans according to that chart on Statista, 25,000 Americans died in the Revolutionary War that founded the independence of this country.

There are others at that, the War of 1812, the Mexican American War, and others, so a lot of war dead in US history to honor on Memorial Day. If you want to honor anyone in your life who was killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, anyone you knew personally, feel free, or anything you want to say or ask about war or peace with China, or the war in Ukraine, which we'll also talk about in more detail. There were attacks in both Kiev and Moscow over the weekend, or anything else related, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. You can also text to that number 212-433-WNYC for Fred Kaplan, who writes the war stories column for Slate.

Fred, our non-troop support for Ukraine is controversial enough. What's the US commitment to defending Taiwan if China were to invade? Does it include troops which were not sent into Ukraine?

Fred Kaplan: No, it does not. Although we have this thing that we call strategic ambiguity with Taiwan, and it's very bizarre. For anybody not deeply immersed in the arcana of international relations, it sounds almost absurd. We do not recognize Taiwan as an independent nation, however, we do send them billions of dollars worth of weapons, and we do have a treaty if they are attacked, that we will help them defend themselves. Now, Biden has poured even further confusion on this by saying three times in answer to a question, he's been asked on three separate occasions, "Will we defend Taiwan if they are attacked?" He has said, "Yes."

As one columnist, I forget who, wrote that, one time is a mistake, three times is policy. Does it mean we will actually take part in the war? That's not part of the commitment. It's a very unusual thing that the Chinese call it one nation, two systems. It's hard to say what would happen if China actually did attack Taiwan. Yes, some aspect of the United States would be involved. Whether troops would be sent, nobody is saying, and it's deliberate that we don't say.

Brian Lehrer: Alan in Dobbs Ferry wants to remember somebody. Alan, you're on WNYC on this day after Memorial Day. Thanks for calling in.

Alan: Hi, Brian. Can you hear me okay?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, we got you.

Alan: Great. I wanted to mention my uncle, Herbert Harm. He was the first American-born member of his family, and he was killed in combat in Korea. The way that I remember him each year is in Dobbs Ferry, New York, we have a really nice small Memorial Day event, and the veterans come out and other people come out, and it's very solemn. That's the way it should be done. Yesterday, a 30-year veteran of the Marines was the grand marshal of the parade in Dobbs Ferry, and he politicized the event and talked about things that I don't think should be talked about on Memorial Day. I think we've got enough of a problem with polarization in this country that Memorial Day is something that should bring us together, that should not drive us apart.

Brian Lehrer: In which direction did that person politicize the event?

Alan: Well, it was sort of multiple things. One of the things he raised was voter ID laws, he brought up.

Brian Lehrer: Wow.

Alan: Yes, it was nuts. At one point, he was talking about the United States not being a racist nation, and Martin Luther King never said that Blacks and whites should be equal, he just said they should be like brothers and sisters.

Brian Lehrer: Wow.

Alan: He brought up the Second Amendment. Yes, it was painful not to heckle, but it would've been disrespectful, I think, to heckle. At one point he was heckled. It's just such, I don't know, the word that comes to mind is sacrilegious even though, of course, that's not the right word.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, sac-civic, something like that. Sac-civic. Maybe we just coined a word. Alan, I'm curious if the Dobbs Ferry event was a parade or just a gathering.

Alan: Right. Each year it's just a gathering, and it's a rather small gathering. This year, it was the beginning of the parade, so there was a huge crowd because the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts and various people are there with their kids. We had a big crowd because it was, in essence, the staging ground before we started the parade.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Thank you very much for your call, disturbing is that is, about what the Grand Marshal of the parade said according to that caller in Dobbs Ferry yesterday. Fred, yes, there are Memorial Day parades. I guess we tend to have big Memorial Day sales, big Memorial Day sale. I got how many emails in my inbox, big Memorial Day Sales, and small Memorial Day parades.

Fred Kaplan: Well, I was just thinking about this, especially since the draft ended, such a small percentage of Americans serve in the military, and not that much bigger a percentage even know people who did. I was thinking, and this is very strange, but I think I know, maybe I knew maybe one person who died in the Vietnam War. I know more reporters who died in Iraq and Afghanistan than I know American soldiers who did.

Brian Lehrer: It's so class-based, Fred.

Fred Kaplan: There's something fundamentally flawed. I'm not saying we need to bring back the draft or anything like that, but this is a terribly skewed society when it comes to honoring or even having any relationship with the people who make what is called the ultimate sacrifice.

Brian Lehrer: It's class-based to some degree. The former New York Congressman Charles Rangel, in just relatively recent years, used to call for reinstituting the draft because he saw it as an economic draft, the way things stand now, which disproportionately draws in people of color who find that the best way to make a living or get a college education paid for.

Fred Kaplan: It's worth noting that now where there's so little unemployment, the military is having a hard time recruiting the number of people that they need to fill all the billets.

Brian Lehrer: We had a recruiter on the show recently who was lamenting that, in addition to, interestingly, they brought up too many Americans unfit to serve literally, physically unfit to serve. They can't pass the physical fitness test. Then it's also politically polarizing like the caller from Dobbs Ferry was talking about the relatively far right, I guess, Grand Marshal of the local event there. The military tends to be a bastion for more conservative Americans. Do you think that's right?

Fred Kaplan: There is a lot of survey data, which indicates that that's true, yes.

Brian Lehrer: Rachel in Stanford wants to remember somebody. Rachel, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Rachel: Thank you so much, Brian. Thank you for talking about this. I just wanted to bring into the conversation, the number of service members that have died by suicide. My best friend, about six years ago, died by suicide. His name was Isaiah Coker. Then two soldiers from my own unit died by suicide; Sergeant Jonathan Burbank and Specialist Wayne Hill. I think I remember seeing a artist had made a memorial in which it showed that so many more servicemember died by suicide than actually in combat in Iraq. I just wanted to bring that into the conversation.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, thank you. I'm glad you did. I'll note that that's such a prevalent item on people's minds, Fred, that 3 of our 10 lines are people calling with stories like the one that Rachel just told of veterans who committed suicide after coming home as opposed to dying in the war, per se. I don't know if they get listed on any of the memorials, or as war dead. I guess not really.

Fred Kaplan: I don't think so.

Brian Lehrer: Not officially?

Fred Kaplan: No.

Brian Lehrer: Obviously, something worth talking about, and as we have more explicitly on Veterans Day, different than Memorial Day, but yes, a big issue, and one of the many reasons to avoid war, right, Fred?

Fred Kaplan: Yes. Also, it's another sign of what we were talking about a few minutes ago, the neglect. I think we prefer to put this out of our minds. Out of sight out of mind. It's kind of amazing if you think of all the other countries in the world. We don't really have to think about this as something that affects our own lives personally, day-to-day living, and really almost never have which, again, makes this neglect easy to get away with.

Brian Lehrer: Another reason that Rangel used to argue for reinstituting the draft was, if the sons and daughters of Congress members, House members, and US Senators had to serve, our political leaders would be more reluctant to beat the war drums. To that point, how do you see the bipartisan rhetorical toughness on China right now?

Listeners, if you're just joining us, Fred Kaplan from Slate is with us. His latest article is on, or one of his latest articles is on prospects for the US and China avoiding war with each other. All this rhetorical toughness on China, including DeSantis, signing that bill this month prohibiting land purchases by Chinese citizens in parts of Florida.

Fred Kaplan: Was that by Chinese American citizens?

Brian Lehrer: No, I think it's by citizens of China.

Fred Kaplan: Oh, okay. I find it very disturbing. The House this year created a special committee to look into things about China, which on the face of it, is not a bad idea, but it's like the only thing on Capitol Hill that has this era of bipartisanship now, because everybody on the committee is just beating up on China and raising the alarm about a war with China, and about how dreadfully threatening China is. I've talked with the people who actually look at this thing closely.

We have a lot of differences with China. I don't mean to paper over any of them, and we shouldn't. China is doing a lot of things that are quite disturbing, that also should not be papered over, but look, they neither have the desire nor by any means the capability of going to war in the next few years. The Pentagon every year puts out a report, it's congressionally mandated, on Chinese military capabilities. Each of the last two years, there are several passages, showing why they just are not in any position to, for example, invade Taiwan anytime soon.

One of the things they talked about is that even in the Chinese military press, they talk about the five incapables. Five things that the Chinese military right now is incapable of doing. For example, commanders, they cannot judge situations, deploy forces, understand the intentions of higher authorities, make operational decisions in combat, or manage unexpected developments. These are things that their own commanders acknowledge that they are unable to do.

Also, there's this fallacy, I had an old professor who talked about, the fallacy of small-scale maps. You look at a map of the world, and there's enormous China, and there's this little dot of Taiwan, and so you think, "Oh, my God, China could overwhelm Taiwan in a second. Well, there aren't any really convenient landing spots in the coastlines of Taiwan. There are 20 million people there, including a capital with 2.5 million. The Chinese military has about three amphibious landing crafts.

Another thing to think about, the last word that China fought was in 1979. It was a month-long border skirmish with Vietnam. A few 1000 people died, and China did not win. Maybe there are two ancient Chinese officers who have ever fired a gun with the intention of killing anybody.

Now, Taiwan hasn't had any military experience either, but they're being trained and armed by people who have. There's this by the way that we talk about an invasion of Taiwan, or Chinese military experience because they have so many people, and it's so big. It doesn't mean that they can go to war in a second. It's a lot harder than the very flimsy look that things might suggest.

Brian Lehrer: Once upon a time, people thought superpower Russia would overtake Afghanistan easily-

Fred Kaplan: Oh God, it's not just once upon a time.

Brian Lehrer: -and Superpower United States would overtake Afghanistan easily, but Ron DeSantis won't let Chinese citizens buy land in parts of China. If you're a Chinese trans person, you're not even allowed to visit Florida. Oh, no, I'm kidding. I'm getting my DeSantis campaign points mixed up.

We'll continue in a minute with Fred Kaplan Slate's military affairs columnist on this day after Memorial Day on Biden and China, and the Republican presidential hopefuls, on the likelihood or not of the US-China War. We'll turn the page some and talk about the state of the war in Ukraine as well. We could be at both a military and political turning point on that right now.

Fred wrote about, and I see one of our callers wants to ask about a certain relevant birthday that's in the news. Stay tuned and find out who's, as we continue in a minute.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue with Fred Kaplan's Slate's military affairs columnist on this day after Memorial Day on the likelihood or not of war with China in the relatively near future. We're going to get into Ukraine. We're going to cite that birthday that some of you know who it is, and some of you may not. Dan Fairfield has an interesting question about a prospective US-China War. Dan, you're on WNYC. Hi.

Dan: Hi, good morning. It's a long-time listener. Thank you for all of your show and everything you provide for us listening. My question is that if there is a conflict between China and the United States, whereabouts do you think that conflict is going to be held?

Brian Lehrer: Interesting question. Fred, does that come to the shores of the United States?

Fred Kaplan: Oh, no. One thing that the Pentagon's intelligence report said is that China's ability to project power anywhere beyond Taiwan really is "in its infancy." I wouldn't worry. Look, they do have ICBMs. If they just wanted to lob off a few ICBMs that would hit the United States, and then we would clobber them in retaliation, I don't see that happening.

No, it's likely to be over something that gets out of hand in Taiwan, maybe in the South China Sea. They have, in recent years, created these artificial islands out in the South China Sea, and then turned them into military bases and declared that this is now Chinese territory. Even though according to everybody else in the world, it's part of international waters.

One could imagine in an escalating tense situation, there being some blows at sea over the contesting of the right of a ship to pass by. Or maybe they're forming a blockade around Taiwan, which would be a lot easier than invading Taiwan, and we send some carriers in and we cross something that they say is their territory, and they fire a swarm of anti-ship missiles, that kind of thing. It would be step by step by step, a war escalating beyond what either side had intentionally desired or expected, and then careening out of control. I think that's how it would happen, if it happens.

Brian Lehrer: Listener texts. DeSantis is barring people from China from buying land in Florida, but Russians have been and are buying up land there. Interesting commentary by that listener writing us a text on, I guess, how the Republicans view China [chuckle] versus how they view Russia as in some respects, a potential ally. Saul in White Plains, you're on WNYC. Hi, Saul.

Saul: Yes, good morning, Brian, and good morning Mr. Kaplan. Given the focus of this conversation on individuals that come to mind on Memorial Day, as well as the China topic, I'd like to ask Mr. Kaplan about Dr. Kissinger, who has been celebrating his 100th birthday, I think on May 27th, and is being both lauded and vilified all over the news at the moment. He certainly comes to mind with respect to all the tragic losses during many wars in the United States, from Vietnam to the military situation in Chile, to Cambodia to many other places.

With respect to China, he's always been a proponent of engagement with China, but sometimes at least some critics believe to the detriment of the United States. I read, and Mr. Kaplan I don't know if you did, a recent book called America's Second: How America's Elites Are Making China Stronger, arguing that particularly people engaged in commercial interaction with China over the last 30, 40 years, prominent people, have actually contributed to the type of strength and confrontation we now believe we may have with China. A big chunk of that book is devoted to Henry Kissinger. I'd like to ask Mr. Kaplan for his assessment how we should think about Dr. Kissinger in the conversation we're having this morning.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for that, and I will note for our audience that Fred did write an article on Slate on the 100th birthday of Henry Kissinger. Fred, where do you want to take it?

Fred Kaplan: Yes, well, I'm mainly on the side of team vilify, I guess. Kissinger used to be commended for a few things. The Dayton with the Soviet Union, the opening of China, the shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East, but even those things didn't have much long-term effect. Jimmy Carter's negotiated peace between Israel and Egypt has endured all this time. Kissinger's peace with Syria and Israel has not. His opening to China was primarily as a part of a triangulation to beat back the Soviet Union and try to coerce them out of supporting Vietnam. Neither of those things worked.

More than that, Kissinger has been involved in some of the most disreputable and really reprehensible aspects of US foreign policy in the last half-century. Secret bombings of Cambodia, Vietnam. That was in conjunction with Nixon. He was pushing Nixon on. For example, Chile where Salvador Allende, a socialist, was elected president in a Democratic election, Nixon was about to receive a briefing from State Department officials calling for him to reach some kind of modus vivendi with Allende. Kissinger, who was National Security Advisor, got the briefing postponed and convinced Nixon that he had to crush Allende. He had to make the economy scream.

Kissinger was the head of a committee, which was mainly people by CIA agents to wreck the Chilean economy, to pay off truck drivers to go on strike, to help support the military. The economy was reeling as a result of this, and Allende was overthrown. General Pinochet came in power and started a campaign of brutal repression and torture of his critics. The assassinated prominent exile critic, Orlando Letelier, with a car bombing in the streets of Washington, D.C., which also killed a young American colleague of his.

No protests of this by the United States or by Kissinger. In fact, later declassified document showed Kissinger encouraging Pinochet to do what you have to do and do it as quickly as possible. He did the same thing with the coup plotters in Argentina. Yes, we understand that you have a civil war going on. Do what you need to do, encouraging Suharto's, the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, East Pakistan's invasion, just I mean all over the map. Just some of the most brutal events of mid to late 20th century, Henry Kissinger supported and got the United States to encourage.

Kissinger is known to be a realpolitik, realism in international affairs. Don't clutter your policy, which should be based just on foreign policy interests with notions of morality and that sort of thing. Well, he wrecked realpolitik too, because as a result of American alignment with some of the most dreadful things on the planet, he actually harmed American national security interests. He gave America a black eye in the world. He made us look bad. He made us look immoral.

Even the most profound practitioners and theoreticians of realpolitik, people like George Kennon, there was always a moral undercurrent to their realism. They always recognized that what really had to sell to the world was the image of what the United States is, that that would have the biggest impact. Kissinger, I think did as much as any one person in the United States to wreck that whole notion of that dimension of international realism.

Brian Lehrer: Mostly on team vilify, on the occasion of Henry Kissinger's 100th birthday, Fred Kaplan, the military affairs columnist for Slate. Ukraine is going to wind up getting short shrift in this conversation. You did also write an article this month, talk about back in the old days as you were just doing, using China as a way of triangulating. President Xi of China called Zelensky, and you wrote an article about that. How do you see China's role in that war, if any, and how China's role relates to the US and Russia? Who's triangulating who?

Fred Kaplan: Yes. Well, I think China could have a productive effect on this, but not the way they're doing it. Xi is in a bind. Xi signed this no Limits partnership with Putin about a month before Putin invaded Ukraine. It is believed that Xi really didn't know that that was going to happen. Then he got stuck with the guy. He hasn't provided any military assistance to Russia, though he's providing a lot of economic aid. He's keeping their economy afloat.

He offered a peace plan to Ukraine, which really was a non-starter, but Zelensky was interested enough in it to at least want to have a conversation. It looks like all the Xi is really trying to do is to split Europe apart from the United States, which by the way is one of his main long-term strategic foreign policy interests. The Europeans aren't biting. They're very much in favor of continuing to support Ukraine. They see what's behind Xi's rather shallow peace offering.

I do think it's true. If Xi really wanted to have peace in Ukraine and put the pressure on Russia and attached continued economic aid to their withdrawal, he could have an effect. He has two conflicting goals on Ukraine. One, he wants to keep the United States preoccupied in Europe, so they can't put more military forces in the Pacific. He wants to split Europe from the United States for the same reason, to weaken the United States.

He wants to build up his alliance with Russia to that end, but if Russia's just going to be a burden, if Russia's just going to be a drain, and if an alliance with Russia is going to make him, make China, make Xi less appealing to the Europeans that he wants to be closer with, then it becomes counterproductive. He has some rather strategic decisions to make in the coming months.

Brian Lehrer: I know we've gone very long in this segment, and apologies to our next guest who's standing by, but I want to extend for one more phone call so that we can end with another listener paying tribute to another loved one Lost in War on this day after Memorial Day, this Decoration Day, as it used to be called May 30th, 2023. It's going to be Susan in Oakland, California. Susan, you're on WNYC. Hi, there. We have a minute for you.

Susan: Hi. Okay. I will talk quickly because this is a firsthand memory. I was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island in 1940. I was living in a home owned by my grandfather for housing for his sons. We lived with my father who was not in the war. I was five. My brother was four. Upstairs lived my Uncle Arnold [unintelligible 00:45:14] family. They were a wife and a three-year-old and a one-year-old. This was May 1945. All this whole story has been verified before she died by my [unintelligible 00:45:28].

I remember the last memory I have of my uncle Arnold was, he came home, he had on his khaki uniform, and he got down on the floor and we played horsey. There were three of us on his back. The little one was too little. Months later, May 1945, he was killed in Okinawa. One army officer, yes, came to the door and told my aunt he was dead, that was it, and went away. I just wanted to pay tribute to my uncle, Arnold [unintelligible 00:46:11] and his brother Harold, who did come home. There were three boys in that family who were serving. Every year, somebody puts a flag on his grave. We think it's a disabled veterans organization.

Brian Lehrer: Susan, thank you very much. Yeah. There are organizations that do that on Decoration Day to--

Fred Kaplan: That would've been one of the last casualties too.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. In May of 1945 in Okinawa. Wow. A listener who remembers somebody who died at the end of World War II. Fred, did they do that anymore? I've seen it in movies and on TV shows where somebody comes in person representing the Pentagon.

Fred Kaplan: Yes, they do.

Brian Lehrer: If you lose a loved one, they do.

Fred Kaplan: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Fred Kaplan writes the war stories column for Slate. His latest two articles are on the prospects for war or not with China, and on Henry Kissinger's 100th birthday. Fred, thank you so much.

Fred Kaplan: Sure. Anytime.

 

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