Dr. Fiona Hill - What's Next for the Russia-Ukraine War | Prof G Conversations

Summary

Dr. Fiona Hill offers an in-depth analysis of the complex geopolitical landscape surrounding the Russia-Ukraine conflict. She highlights the contrasting leadership styles of Trump and Putin, explores the intricate support network backing Russia, and evaluates Europe's potential response. Hill underscores the significance of nuclear arms discussions and the broader implications of global alliances shifting toward a multipolar world. The conversation also touches on the evolving role of the educational sector and its wider economic impact.

Highlights

• Dr. Hill examines Trump and Putin's negotiation styles, noting Trump's unpredictable nature and Putin's deep-state cooperation. 🤔
• The discussion explores complex international alliances, emphasizing how China, North Korea, and Iran factor into the Russia-Ukraine conflict. 🌍
• Europe might need to act independently of the US, masterfully crafting its defense strategy. 🛡️
• Financial tactics, such as seizing Russian assets, present ethical and strategic debates about funding Ukraine's defense. 💵
• Key geopolitical players like India and Saudi Arabia balance their relationships, affecting global dynamics significantly. 🌏
• The conversation touches on the pivotal role of education and economic sustenance from institutions, as seen in US and UK universities. 📚

Key Takeaways

• Dr. Fiona Hill describes the contrasting approaches of Trump and Putin. While Trump is seen as a one-man operation, Putin engages with a deep state structure. 🕵️
• The Russia-Ukraine conflict is more intricate than just a bilateral issue, with multiple nations like China, North Korea, and Iran backing Russia. 🌐
• Europe's opportunity to strengthen its military position independently of the US comes to the forefront amidst this geopolitical shake-up. 💪
• The potential seizure of Russian assets could fund further support for Ukraine, highlighting a controversial financial strategy. 💰
• India and Saudi Arabia are seen as pivotal swing voters in the global geopolitical arena. 🗳️
• Education, particularly in the US, faces challenges that underscore a broader economic and societal impact, as highlighted by Dr. Hill's experience in both US and UK sectors. 🎓

Overview

In a rich dialogue, Dr. Fiona Hill explores the geopolitical intricacies of the Russia-Ukraine war. She contrasts Trump's solo-driven ambitions with Putin's strategy, which heavily relies on his deep state machinery. Trump’s approach to negotiations is marked by a more personal agenda, while Putin’s long-standing power base allows for a more calculated geopolitical play.

The conversation delves into how Russia’s alliances with countries like China, North Korea, and Iran complicate the narrative of the conflict. Dr. Hill suggests that Europe faces a critical juncture to bolster its defense independently of the United States, a move that has historical echoes of autonomy quests in global politics. The seizure of Russian assets as a war strategy against imposed geopolitical norms adds another layer to the discourse.

Beyond geopolitics, the discussion shifts to the educational sector’s role in economic rejuvenation, with Dr. Hill advocating for expanded access to quality education. She echoes concerns regarding the exclusivity and endowment management in top-tier US universities, contrasting them with the public funding models in the UK. The educational sector emerges as a key player in shaping resilient and adaptive societies, much like countries adapting to geopolitical changes.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Opening Remarks The chapter discusses the differences between Trump and Putin in their approaches to leadership and governance. Trump is described as a one-man show who disregards the state's advisory bodies like Congress and the Senate, using them only as rubber stamps. In contrast, Putin is portrayed as a figure who operates within the state's structures, a part of the 'deep state,' and not someone dismantling the Russian state, which had already experienced such processes under previous leaders. Trump does not seem to value the advice of people around him, using them merely as emissaries without doing much preparation or listening to their counsel.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Dr. Hill's Location and Discussion Context The chapter begins with a discussion about the unpredictability of Trump, particularly in relation to Russian affairs. There's a mention of understanding and interpreting conversations and notes, suggesting complexities in diplomatic communications. Dr. Hill is located at her office in the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, as she participates in the discussion. The context suggests they are recording the podcast on a Tuesday, and there's a mention of Trump, indicating that the conversation might be centered around political or diplomatic issues related to him.
• 01:00 - 01:30: US and Russia Bilateral Relations This chapter delves into the complexities of US and Russia bilateral relations, particularly in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine. It discusses President Trump's involvement and perspectives on the conflict, presenting a multifaceted situation that involves not only direct relations between the US and Russia but also Russia's engagement with Ukraine. The chapter explores the various interests and potential outcomes of the discussions between President Trump and President Putin, highlighting the intricate geopolitical dynamics at play.
• 01:30 - 02:30: Global Involvement in the Russia-Ukraine Conflict The chapter discusses the global involvement in the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. It highlights how this conflict, which began as a special military operation, has escalated into the largest land war in Europe since World War II. The chapter sheds light on the countries that have supported Russia, namely China, Iran, and North Korea. These nations have provided various forms of support, including ammunition and drones, which have bolstered Russia's military capabilities.
• 02:30 - 03:30: European Security and Russian Aggression The chapter discusses the complex geopolitical dynamics surrounding European security in the context of Russian aggression. It highlights the involvement of various countries, such as China, Iran, and North Korea, in the conflict. China is noted for facilitating the transfer of dual-use projects, although not actively supporting Russia like Iran and North Korea have. North Korean troops are reportedly fighting alongside Russian forces against Ukraine, and Iran is building drone factories in Russia. These developments underscore the multifaceted and serious implications for Ukraine as a European nation.
• 03:30 - 05:30: Trump's Diplomacy with Russia The chapter discusses Trump's diplomatic relationship with Russia, with a focus on the context of the war in Ukraine. It highlights the geopolitical tensions and security concerns in Eastern Europe, particularly for Ukraine's neighboring countries like the Baltic states and Poland. The role of Belarus, which has close ties with Russia and is used as a launching pad in the war, is emphasized. The conflict is portrayed as a significant security threat not only to the immediate neighboring regions but also to the whole of Europe.
• 05:30 - 07:00: Potential European Autonomy in Defense The chapter discusses potential European autonomy in defense against a backdrop of various sabotage operations attributed to the GRU, Russian military intelligence. These include arson attacks on shopping centers in Poland and Lithuania, and other sabotage activities at warehouses across Europe. The complexity of the situation is highlighted by the range of aggressive actions such as cyber attacks, critical infrastructure attacks, poisonings, and assassinations. The chapter provides insight into the urgent need for European nations to consider enhancing their defense strategies autonomously.
• 07:00 - 08:30: China and India's Role in Global Politics The chapter discusses the intricate connections between global leaders, specifically focusing on Trump's desire to establish a strong relationship with Putin. It suggests that significant communication may have already occurred between Trump and Russian representatives, possibly including discussions about Ukraine being sidelined to facilitate a larger deal with Russia. Rumors from Russia hint at ongoing plans involving high-profile economic figures.
• 08:30 - 10:00: Impact of Russian Assets on European Defense The chapter discusses the impact of Russian assets on European defense, with a focus on the collaboration between Russian space agency and Elon Musk. It highlights the historical achievements of the Soviet Union and Russia in space exploration, such as launching the first satellite and the first human in space. The chapter also touches upon Elon Musk's aspirations to reach Mars. Amidst these discussions, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine is also mentioned, reflecting the broader geopolitical tensions.
• 10:00 - 12:30: China's Involvement with Russia and Global Implications The chapter discusses Russia's ongoing strategy and goals regarding Ukraine, emphasizing Vladimir Putin's steadfastness in not conceding beyond his initial goals. The chapter touches on the power dynamics between international leaders, including a mention of Donald Trump, suggesting a self-negotiation in terms of global influence and decision-making, particularly in the context of Europe's involvement.
• 12:30 - 15:00: US, Russia, and China's Strategic Dynamics The chapter delves into the strategic dynamics among the US, Russia, and China. It highlights the notion that major powers might sometimes make decisions without the full consensus or involvement of other key stakeholders, such as European nations in this context. Despite providing significant funding and being key players on the ground, Europeans and the actual combatants, like the Ukrainian people and their military, might find themselves sidelined in critical decisions. The discussion suggests there's a symbolic nature to some of these decisions rather than substantial, real-world impacts.
• 15:00 - 17:30: Trump's Historical and Current Foreign Policies President Trump's foreign policy efforts have been active in addressing issues in Europe and Ukraine. Recent reports indicate that he has been engaged in negotiations, particularly during a weekend at Mara Lago, highlighting internal discussions with his team. There have been extensive dialogues between Trump's close associates and Russian President Putin, with Steve Wickoff engaging in prolonged discussions to understand Russia's perspective.
• 17:30 - 20:00: Analysis of US and Russia Nuclear Policies The chapter analyzes US and Russia nuclear policies with a focus on diplomatic interactions involving the US, UK, and France amidst the tension with Ukraine. It highlights the parallel negotiation efforts pursued by European leaders and the diplomatic challenges faced in reaching an agreement. The narrative suggests a diplomatic struggle as leaders attempt to maintain stability and formulate a strategic response.
• 20:00 - 22:30: Future Scenarios and Implications The chapter explores historical parallels between past and present diplomatic scenarios, with an emphasis on secret diplomacy from the 18th and early 20th centuries. It highlights how these historical strategies might provide insights into future international relations, especially as we approach significant anniversaries like the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. The comparison includes instances of backchannel dealings such as the partition of Poland, suggesting a recurrence of history in modern diplomatic contexts.
• 22:30 - 26:00: Comparative Analysis of US and UK Higher Education The chapter discusses the similarities and differences between higher education systems in the US and the UK. It examines historical developments over the past 250 years and comments on the current global context where major powers like to influence global systems. The chapter also poses hypothetical scenarios, such as considering the European Union's economic strength of $19 trillion, to explore potential positive outcomes for the education sector. The discussion invites reflection on biases in projecting future scenarios.
• 26:00 - 30:00: Closing Remarks In the closing remarks of the chapter, the discussion revolves around the geopolitical dynamics involving North Korea, Iran, and China. The small-scale economy of North Korea, estimated at about 30 billion, contrasts with Iran's larger 500 billion economy. China's interest in the ongoing war is scrutinized, particularly due to their benefit of purchasing discounted oil from Russia, amidst global reluctance to buy Russian oil. The chapter underscores the potential strength of the EU, emphasizing its advanced military infrastructure and superior weapons manufacturers, suggesting that coordinated action might alter the geopolitical landscape.

Dr. Fiona Hill - What's Next for the Russia-Ukraine War | Prof G Conversations Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 big difference between Trump and Putin is Trump is a totally one-man show. He's destroying the state. He's not acting uh with Congress and uh with the Senate unless that they're like rubber stamps. Putin operates within the state. He's a creature of the deep state. He's not dismantling the Russian state that was already dismantled, you know, under Mikl Gorbachov and Boris Yelten from the Soviet. For Trump, he doesn't really pay any attention to any of the people around him. He uses them as emissaries and envoys, but he doesn't do his homework. They can't actually advise him on anything. They just kind of come
• 00:30 - 01:00 back. God knows what kind of conversations they have. Do they have notes? Do they fully understand, you know, what they've heard? And that makes Trump very unpredictable in Russian times that, you know, the Russians have moved on beyond that. So, I think if Putin's looking at his own crystal ball, he also can't say. Dr. Hill, where does this podcast find you? It finds me um in my office at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. Uh, good. Let's bust right into it. We're recording this on Tuesday. Trump
• 01:00 - 01:30 is speaking with Putin today ostensively to discuss ending the war in Ukraine. Give us give us the what you believe is the state of play, what each party wants from this and what you think the likely outcome will be. Well, it's actually pretty complicated situation because we're tending to see this um in a bilateral sense between the US and Russia and also then with Russia and Ukraine. uh President Trump has inserted himself into what he's uh basically saying is a conflict with two sides with
• 01:30 - 02:00 Ukraine and Russia, but it's far beyond that. Russia's been supported certainly since uh well into the war in the first year in 2022 by an array of other countries um in its ability to uh continue the fight with Ukraine. It's gone from being a special military operation to the largest land war in Europe since World War II. China, North Korea and Iran have come in on Russia's side initially on the parts of Iran and North Korea to provide Russia with all kinds of ammunition and drones that it
• 02:00 - 02:30 didn't actually have in its arsenal. and China um has facilitated um the uh transfer of all kinds of other dual use projects although it hasn't actually actively uh supported Russia in the same way as Iran and North Korea rather a North Korean troops uh fighting against Ukrainians on the Russian side and uh the Iranians have been building drone factories in Russia and I want to put that on the table because it just shows how complicated this whole situation is and on the part of Ukraine obviously Ukraine is a European country and this has really serious implications ations
• 02:30 - 03:00 for all of Ukraine's immediate neighbors, including the Baltic states and uh Poland, uh because uh Bellarus, which is another supposedly independent country, which Russia is in a tight uh unionlike arrangement with, has been used as a launching pad for the war into Ukraine as well. Barus directly borders the Baltic states and also Poland. And of course for Europe, this is an existential European uh security issue. They are under assault 24/7 from Russia.
• 03:00 - 03:30 one way or another, either by cyber attacks or critical national infrastructure attacks, poisonings, assassinations, all kinds of things, sabotage operations. It's just been announced in the last uh day or so, right ahead of these negotiations, that the GRU, the Russian military intelligence are being um held responsible for arson attacks at shopping centers in Poland and also in Lithuania, as well as other sabotage attacks at warehouses around Europe. So, this is a very complicated situation.
• 03:30 - 04:00 Trump wants to get facetime with Putin. I mean, we should already anticipate, I think, that he's had a whole host of phone calls. I find it hard to believe that Steve Whit has been talking for hours with Putin without any other sets of interactions with uh President Trump. Um, in the meantime, and basically what President Trump wants is uh Ukraine put to one side so that he can get on with having a big deal uh with Russia. We've heard reports today coming out of Russia that there are plans uh for the heads of the Russian sovereign wealth fund, the
• 04:00 - 04:30 Russian space agency and others to meet with uh Elon Musk uh to talk about space collaboration including uh with Musk's aim of getting to Mars. I mean remember of course that Soviet Union and Russia were the countries that put the first satellite, the first dog, the first man, the first woman in space and obviously a personal dream of Musk uh uh not just to access space but also uh to get to Mars. So there's a lot going on here and in the midst of all of this is Ukraine uh that was basically fighting for its
• 04:30 - 05:00 survival and Russia wants a maximalist uh approach still with Ukraine. It's been very apparent from all the statements coming out of Russia, that Putin is not prepared at all to concede uh beyond the goals that he laid out at the beginning of this conflict, which was taking control one way or another of key territories in Ukraine and having a say about where Ukraine goes in the future. It feels to me like Putin and Trump are to a certain extent negotiating against themselves in the sense that without Ukraine or Europe at
• 05:00 - 05:30 the table, they can agree to whatever they want. It feels to me that they're under the impression they get to decide what happens here without getting the okay from Europe who's been providing 60% of the funding or the people actually doing the fighting who would have to put down their weapons which is the Ukrainian people and their army. I isn't this a bit of a quite frankly more symbolic than real in terms of what actually happens? I'm completely with you Scott. I mean it's not naive at all and I think you're just calling it like you see it which I think is how most people see it you know including in
• 05:30 - 06:00 Europe and in Ukraine. Um, President Trump was recently on Air Force One. I think yesterday I was reading, you know, some reports where he was talking about how over the weekend he got it all worked out uh with in Mara Lago. Well, who was he working it out with? His own team. You know, there's a there's a lot of, you know, as you're putting it here, negotiating with ourselves on on the US side or at least, you know, Trump and his uh immediate circle. a lot of talking uh to Putin uh going on Steve Wickoff, you know, meeting with Putin for many hours and hearing Russia's side
• 06:00 - 06:30 uh of the the argument here and then them going to Ukraine and putting a lot of pressure on Ukraine and as you're also pointing out and the Europeans have had to basically go into a parallel negotiation channel. I mean, it's certainly the case that we've had President Mron of France, Prime Minister Starmer of the United Kingdom and others were trying to interact with President Trump on this, but it really feels in many respects like they're fighting in some respects a Maria guard action diplomatically trying to kind of figure out, you know, how on earth they salvage something from this. It really smacks
• 06:30 - 07:00 not just of 19th century or early 20th century secret diplomacy, but frankly of 18th century. uh Trump is going to preside next year over the 250th anniversary of American independence, you know, the American Revolution. And at that same uh time frame, if you kind of look back to that later part of the 18th century, there was all kinds of diplomacy going on in Europe over the heads of other countries, there was the partition of Poland, you know, for example. We're in that kind of historic space. And that's, you know, something that most of us would never have
• 07:00 - 07:30 anticipated, you know, given how far we've gone in this last 250 years. But we seem to be just right back to that whole period where great powers just think that they can carve up the world and then make everybody else go along with it. I always like to ask what could go right and let me outline a scenario and you tell me if you think there's any veracity or likelihood or if I'm just, you know, there's too many biases in my scenario here, but the EU combined has an economy of $19 trillion. You listed
• 07:30 - 08:00 North Korea. They're basically I mean they have they're willing to send their kids into a meat grinder, but their economy is about I think about 30 billion. Iran's is 500 billion. China obviously that's a huge economic power. But my sense is they actually have a vested interest in keeping this war going because they get to get oil on sale from Russia because no one will buy their oil. If the EU gets its act together, coordinates their incredible military infrastructure, they have great military, great weapons manufacturers, they have incredible IP. If they could
• 08:00 - 08:30 find the resolve to coordinate and perhaps, you know, make the requisite commitment, take their defense spending from 1.9 to 3%, which they've stated, quite frankly, they don't need the Americans. Is there a silver lining here that Europe can actually do what they did in 1939 and say, "No, we're not we're not backing down to a murderous autocrat regardless of whether the US backs us or not." Isn't this isn't there an opportunity here for Europe to become a union and push back on their own with or without the US's help? There
• 08:30 - 09:00 absolutely is. And um I think we're seeing some signs of this already. Uh there's just a couple of issues that are probably, you know, quite significant obstacles right now, but it doesn't mean to say that they can't be overcome. I think you've laid it out perfectly and um you you know you didn't also talk about the limited um extent of the Russian economy and there's a lot of talk about trade um being restored between the US and Russia uh but on when we look back to the previous levels of trade the volumes of trade between Russia and the United States it was the same level as the US and Costa Rica. So
• 09:00 - 09:30 it just reinforces the point that you've made and you've laid out there, you know, very succinctly. The the obstacles are really that we're seeing in aggregate a lot of the efforts being taken by the European Union uh to basically put money on the table for reinvigorating uh the defense and manufacturing sector of Europe. And of course, not all of the key countries are members of the EU. The UK famously took itself out with Brexit. uh and that's uh obviously the UK revitalizing its manufacturing sector will be pretty
• 09:30 - 10:00 critical here. You've got Norway which of course has a major sovereign wealth fund and as you've pointed out is also a major arms and uh manufacturing uh power obviously not to the kind of scale of others but it's pretty significant. You've also got Turkey uh which is a NATO member and has a really serious uh manufacturing capacity and also pretty serious military capabilities as well and Switzerland uh which is in obviously a strange uh position debating its own neutrality but also has a lot of capacity in manufacturing including in the uh weapons sphere. So absolutely
• 10:00 - 10:30 there is an opportunity there. The obstacles is getting past these seeming constraints of who's in what and actually agreeing uh to work on this uh together. And I think we're seeing signs of that because you are seeing all kinds of different meetings going on, all kinds of agreements of pooling funds and pooling some of this manufacturing capability. But the second obstacle is really speed because you know the US is barreling along on this path or Trump is barreling along on this path uh towards a ceasefire and is also cutting
• 10:30 - 11:00 relationships with Europeans at the same time. These tariffs are essentially a sanction on your allies. And if you're imposing tariffs on the EU and on other European countries that might not be part of the EU, but a part of NATO, you're making hostile claims against your NATO allies, including Denmark, over Greenland. Remember, Greenland is actually a member of NATO through its association with Denmark. You're menacing Canada and imposing enormous uh tariffs on Canada. And remember, Canada is also part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. you're actually also then hobbling, you know, your
• 11:00 - 11:30 allies at a time when they actually do have this opportunity to stand up. So, I think that, you know, what we're going to have to see is uh European uh countries and Canada, which is part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, really push back and uh get together and figure out ways in which they can actively cooperate on uh the military defense sector as well as, as you're suggesting, diversifying away from their reliance on the United States. It's long overdue, frankly. I mean, they should have been doing this decades ago. It strikes me that a lot of this comes down to resources or money and who's going to
• 11:30 - 12:00 foot the bill to continue the fight, if you will, or at least put us in a stronger position such that we can negotiate from a position of strength. And it also strikes me that the most obvious and simplest means of funding the war for another 2 years is to seize Russian assets. We have somewhere between 200 and 300 billion dollars uh in Brussels. And the fear is that people don't want to do business with Russia or excuse me with the EU if they're worried that geopolitically their assets can be
• 12:00 - 12:30 seized. I would argue that that that incentive or disincentive to uh work with Europe is vastly dwarfed by the disincentive we should put in place not to invade your neighbor. your thoughts on seizing two to300 billion dollars in Russian assets to fund uh Ukraine's fight. There's no question that this is the way that uh Europe should go. I a lot of the debate before was if the US um this is here of course in the United States was that this could be you know very detrimental to trust in uh the US
• 12:30 - 13:00 economy in US financial markets in the Treasury. I if we go back to Trump 1.0 For example, um Treasury Secretary Minutuchin was always extraordinary concerned about the impact on the dollar and the dollar's uh future as the reserve currency and the global currency if um there was too much emphasis all the time on the punitive um side of uh financial sanctions. Well, look, I mean, the United States, I think, is raising all of those questions irrespective of all of that again by uh the tariffs and
• 13:00 - 13:30 uh which is again sanctioning your allies, adding a value added tax uh onto um every uh particular uh product here and just the kind of chaotic nature in which um all of this is being uh played out as well as the hostile rhetoric uh towards the allies. So at this particular stage, if there'd been any quams on the European side um that were basically being transmitted from the US, those should have gone. And as Europe is now confronting the fact as you've laid out very clearly here uh that it's uh pretty much going to be on its own in
• 13:30 - 14:00 sort of dealing with the aftermath because what Trump is seems to suggest is I'm going to give you a ceasefire and then I'm going cut and run but you know we're already uh today as we're recording this looking at the breakdown of the ceasefire in Gaza uh which uh Trump has made you know a lot of um noise about and you know kind of and basically put into place with greater claim. um that's being uh basically pushed back on uh by Israel at this particular juncture. So we can't really expect that a ceasefire or truce is going to hold for any particular length of time. The Russians are most likely to
• 14:00 - 14:30 drag off the negotiations. They're likely to, you know, perhaps even agree to something. But again with all of these uh preconditions and immediately um you know look for some pretext to violate it again and put the blame on uh Europe or on the Ukrainians or both which will put you uh Europe in a very tricky position where they're going to basically need to move with speed with real speed uh to build up uh the defensive capacity and that is going to put the onus right back on uh the uh frozen assets of as you have suggested
• 14:30 - 15:00 along with basically uh the aggregate of their own uh capacities which is again as you've said pretty significant. We'll be right back. You listed China in the same group as Iran and North Korea in terms of their support of Russia. And my impression, it might be the wrong impression, is that China wants to stay on good terms mostly
• 15:00 - 15:30 with everybody and they're being polite. um maybe even supportive of Russia but don't want to alienate the rest of the world and haven't gone I mean China my sense is if China weighed in kind of feet first behind the the you know behind Russia in this conflict it would be really really meaningful describe or give us some nuance to what you meant by the Chinese support of Russia in this conflict yeah I did say that it wasn't the same as North Korea and Iran in terms of uh you
• 15:30 - 16:00 know supplying weapons and frankly there was other countries like India that have been sending you know kind of weapons to uh Russia because they have also very tight relationships uh with Russia on the um arm sales side. Um India traditionally got all of its weapons from the Soviet Union and uh also from Russia but India hasn't rhetorically you know come out in support of Russia in the way that China has. President Xi and President Putin have very close personal relationships. You can't basically under score enough about how close that
• 16:00 - 16:30 personal relationship is. uh they have the same uh rough birth date uh the same outlook on the world uh they they've met each other more times than any other you know set of uh leaders and if you recall just before uh Russia's launch of its invasion of Ukraine there was the meeting on the sidelines of the Beijing um Olympics between the Winter Olympics that is between Putin and she in which they declared basically a strategic bilateral relationship a partnership
• 16:30 - 17:00 without limits Now, the Chinese have been quick to try to point out that they didn't realize that Putin was essentially going to move into uh Ukraine quite so soon afterwards. I think there's a lot of regret that, you know, a bit of buyers remorse there that they made this statement and then that was so soon on the heels of uh this um invasion. Of course, if it had turned out differently, it was indeed a special military operation, not this largest land war in Europe since World War II, you know, China might have felt a little bit, you know, more sanguin about this.
• 17:00 - 17:30 But nonetheless, all the way through, the Chinese have made it very clear to Ukrainians and others that they they do not want to see Russia lose. Now, ironically, China was also the largest investor in Ukraine as a single country before the war. They have no beef with Ukraine. They've made that very clear to the Ukrainians. They've also said this to the Europeans. They see this as a proxy war against the United States. And so, they don't want to see Russia lose. Now, the interesting factor is that the United States is pulling out of this. Trump has also recognized this. He said that, you know, he never wanted to be
• 17:30 - 18:00 part of this. They've recently started to say this. Now, the United States was never actually embarking on a proxy war against uh Russia like uh Europeans. They were trying to basically help uh Ukraine defend itself, which Ukraine has every right to under the terms of the UN charter. And of course, it's very similar to Kuwait, you know, back in the day and to other countries that have been invaded by a much larger neighbor. But for China, basically the failure of Putin to prevail in this war um in
• 18:00 - 18:30 Ukraine would be um very symbolic then of a mistake that would have been made by shei in backing Putin as his horse in this uh in this race. And so the the Chinese have been saying to the Europeans and I was at the Munich Security Conference in February, you know, through the infamous uh JD Vance speech there, but where the eur uh Europeans were hearing from the Chinese a lot of pleasure, frankly, about the rift between Europe and the United States. And China saying to Europe, look, there was nothing personal in our
• 18:30 - 19:00 support of Russia here. I'm sure you understand our position, and we're going to be there for you. You know, when this war ends, we're going to help in terms of construction and um and investment. you know, you there's been a a great deal of desire on the Chinese part to pull away European countries from the United States, but I think they have got a fundamental misreading of the situation. In fact, they're aiding and abetting this major war in Europe. And in World War II, China was on the other side of the ledge, right? I mean, China was part of the Allied powers. Of course, that was in its war with Japan um after all the Japanese invasions of
• 19:00 - 19:30 China. But this time, for the first time in history, China is on the wrong side from the European perspective of a major landmar in Europe. And again, even if it isn't to the same extent as North Korea and Iran, China has been putting all of its uh focus on making sure that Putin and Russia are propped up and that they don't fail in this endeavor. And really, what is this endeavor? It's a slice and dice Ukraine and to dominate Europe. So loosely kind of a a crude overview is
• 19:30 - 20:00 that the world is bifurcating and it's sort of the US and Europe and some of um democracies globally whether it's Japan or Australia and then there's Russia, Iran, um uh North Korea and to a certain extent China and there's some nuance there but just as the swing voter is the most important voter in the US that small group of people that swing elections one way or the there. It feels as if this new swing voters in terms of
• 20:00 - 20:30 size of economy and playing both sides a little bit are India and the kingdom and it sounds like you're saying India if you had to tilt them towards one side it's towards Russia. Uh one I just want to confirm that that thesis is correct and two I'm curious what the kingdom's role in all of this is. I think that's a great observation Scott and I just like to be a little clear about India. I don't think they're really tilted towards Russia um in so much as that was the um original relationship. India and
• 20:30 - 21:00 the Soviet Union you know had this very close relationship for decades and India was of course always unaligned and India just doesn't want to choose sides and of course you know where there's an option for you know expanding some of the relationships some of the arm sales I mean the US didn't kind of come through you know particularly quickly on offering an alternative and remember of course that India um always feels itself in a standoff also with Pakistan but very importantly with China we've had a real hot conflict on the border between
• 21:00 - 21:30 China and India in the Himalayas. That's a a hot dispute all the time where you know soldiers have died on the Indian side and India's always been wanting to try to see if it could indeed pull Russia away from China. I think India's kind of given up on that idea but it never quite uh uh basically gives up the ghost but uh understands it has to keep this relationship with Russia. India also wants to have a relationship uh with the United States. it um also uh just to underscore has deep uh interests in Europe um especially in the other
• 21:30 - 22:00 kingdom the United Kingdom where you've got a kind of a reverse a reversal of the old colonial relationship. India is a major investor in India. They're of course very prominent AngloIndian uh populations uh most notably Rishi Sunnak um former UK prime minister. India's been uh heavily invested in steel and manufacturing. India is also heavily invested in global education. Um has been uh building universities and all kinds of uh relationships uh with UK and other educational sectors. So India is
• 22:00 - 22:30 complex. India doesn't want to have to choose. Um it wants to um basically chart its own course which you know fits back to the old role in the online movement but as you know you're saying they're very much a swing voter and a lot of complexity there. In terms of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, I think it's absolutely fascinating that the role that they're likely to play. I've had a number of conversations with them in other settings as well. It's not just about Russia. It's not just about um what's happening with Iran in the region. It's not just about the United
• 22:30 - 23:00 States either. Um you've got to um remember that also the uh Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom have very close relationships. Lots of investment by the Saudis in uh the UK. And as the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund uh diversifies its um activity, you know, in many respects, they're going to be the finances of lots of global projects. I kept thinking as I was kind of listening to some of the things that the Saudis were saying, it's almost like the Rothschilds of another century in terms of being the bankers, you know, to the world, not just to to Europe and the
• 23:00 - 23:30 crown um heads of Europe with the sovereign Saudi sovereign wealth fund. you know, heavily thinking about what does Saudi Arabia become and what do they do beyond oil and uh and gas. So there's a lot to uh look into there. But beyond that, there's Brazil, there's South Africa. I mean Turkey is a kind of swing voter in the European and you know kind of broader Middle Eastern uh perspective. Um we've seen Israel you know driving its own uh future and not um being aligned with the United States
• 23:30 - 24:00 on um every front by any stretch of the imagination. So look, I think we've got a world here where there's a lot of other powers, regional powers and some with global impacts who do not want to have to make a choice here. They don't want to be caught between the Russia or the United States. And anyway, the United States seems to be coming over to the Russian perspective. And they certainly don't want to be a part of a world in which the United States, China, and perhaps Russia are carving things up for themselves. And within that, I mean, Europe gets back to where you started with Europe itself in its various
• 24:00 - 24:30 different uh connotations of EU uh European members of NATO if they start to, you know, set up their own uh subNATO regional alliances could all play swing roles in all of these issues. So, this is not a world dominated just by great powers in the old 18th, 19th or 20th century. The 21st century is a much more complex and messy place. So you've worked on Russia policy across
• 24:30 - 25:00 three different administrations, Bush Obama and Trump. So I want to ask a more basic question and that is it is difficult for a lot of us to understand the endgame here and the strategy behind what Trump's approach to Ukraine. It feels as if he started the negotiation with Russia by folding. Like, okay, you can have everything now, let's start the negotiation. And from someone such as myself who I think has a bias against Trump, it feels to me like Putin has
• 25:00 - 25:30 agreed to buy billions of dollars of Trumpcoin and that in exchange, they've decided they're going to have two spheres of influence between two autocrats and carve up the world for their own financial benefit. steel man a more logical explanation of the current complexion of Trump as it relates to Ukraine. I I in some what are they thinking? What is the endgame? Well, look, this isn't about America, Scott. Let's be frank. And um you know, if I
• 25:30 - 26:00 really kind of think about it, I mean, you cover this a lot on your podcast. It's kind of thing that I also look at this whole de-industrialization of the United States. I wrote a book a few years ago about this in the United States, Russia and you know UK context. Um there's a whole host of issues that have been decades um in the making that need to be addressed and this isn't one way of doing them. You know basically a convergence between Russia and the United States. It's a convergence of autocratic thinking to be honest. I mean, we're talking about the very top of our economic pyramid here, and it's
• 26:00 - 26:30 really driven in a large part by Trump and his own uh worldview, and I'll get to that in a second, but also by people like Elon Musk. I mean, Musk has a vested interest, I mentioned this earlier, in uh basically engaging directly with Russia. I think he's been a big driver of this as well. In parts, it's for Starlink and for the relay stations, the terrestrial relay stations. He needs to have global coverage. Russia is the largest territory in the world, you know, along with China. And then you know Iran as well as the United States, Canada, all these giant countries. You know he needs
• 26:30 - 27:00 to have those uh within um his frame for his business to succeed. And look at SpaceX it developed using you know the first rocketry uh and uh all of the systems developed first in the Soviet Union Russia. The first inventor of the rocket ship was a Russian uh scientist an auto deduct very similar to Musk frankly you know back at the period before the Russian revolution. So the Soviet Union and Russia have been the pioneers in space and as I said there's
• 27:00 - 27:30 now discussions going on about how to uh work uh for um Musk with uh the Russian space agency uh the Russian atomic agency you know etc etc. So there's that and then there's also this great desire that Trump has had since the 1980s of doing business with the Soviet Union and with Russia on a whole host of uh different fronts from his family uh perspective and that's definitely out there and you mentioned cryptocurrency and all the all the other kinds of issues that are out there on the table. So that's a major part of this. Of
• 27:30 - 28:00 course it is. And it's autocrat to autocrat, oligarch to oligarch. You know, very similar sort of setup here. It's got nothing to do with Americans, particularly given back, as we said before about the possity of the trade relationship between Russia and the United States in the past, but it could be very significant in this few set of areas. But the other thing is, and Trump is genuine about this, he is extraordinarily concerned about the risk of World War II, nuclear Armageddon, and uh, you know, the real risks uh that are still prevalent in uh the tense
• 28:00 - 28:30 relationship between the United States and Russia as it comes to nuclear weapons. Next year is the end, the formal end of New Start. The um RAM's regulation uh treaty that was uh first, you know, put into play in 2010. The Biden administration extended it, but it expires now in 2026. This is the year that you would have to negotiate something. And Trump always has a fixation on nuclear weapons. I think he's a nuclear zero guy. I've talked
• 28:30 - 29:00 about this in, you know, other settings. He would like to see basically a process in which he works with Putin to lead towards a major arms reduction. So the super Trump arms regulation treaty for a new start. He wanted to do that in Trump 1.0, but it all got lost in the whole mix of the Mueller reports and investigations and all of the drama about Russian interference in the 2016 and, you know, 2017 election and first part of uh Trump's uh presidency. He could never get, you know, to that
• 29:00 - 29:30 stage. the Helsinki uh infamous meeting between Trump and Putin was supposed to start those strategic nuclear discussions. That was the basically the whole frame for those meetings in Helsinki just as Gorbachov and Reagan and Reagan and HW Bush had met in place like Helsinki and Rekuik and Geneva in the past. Trump has said multiple times that he wants to get back to this and he wants to get Ukraine out of the way. He basically believes when he said to Zilinski in the Oval Office, when you're gambling with World War II, that the
• 29:30 - 30:00 real risk from his perspective is Ukraine dragging everybody into a conflict when he actually wants to get uh this gone off the page, he doesn't like the slaughter of people either. He's genuine about that. He really just doesn't understand that for Putin, this is a price he's willing to bear to bear. And for Ukraine, obviously, it's a fight for their survival. So, of course, you know, they they have been engaged in this horrible fight. But for Trump, this is just incomprehensible. He wants it gone and he wants to sit down with Putin on nuclear weapons. The problem with this thinking, of course, is that
• 30:00 - 30:30 Ukraine was once a nuclear power. It was part of the Soviet Union and it inherited along with Bellarus and Kazakhstan a strategic nuclear arsenal. Admittedly, it didn't inherit the command and control aspects of this, but it did have the weapons. It had leverage. And in 1990s, we pushed the United States and the UK as another nuclear power, Ukraine, Barus, and Kazakhstan to return those weapons or send those weapons. They weren't really turning them because they were on their soil uh to um Russia for dismantling. So
• 30:30 - 31:00 after that, we gave promises and asurances to Ukraine and Barus and Kazakhstan that nothing bad would happen to them. The UK has signed that along with the United States and Russia and only the UK has taken that seriously, those assur asurances and guarantees. And what this means is that Ukraine gave up nuclear weapons and what happened? It got trashed. Similar thing happened to Mama Gaddafi in Libya. He was persuaded to give up nuclear weapons and what happened? He got shot in a pipe basically you know kidnapped and taken in by um his rebels and his whole uh
• 31:00 - 31:30 system collapsed. So this is a signal to the rest of the world to the Indas, the Pakistans, the South Africas, the Israels, uh all of the countries like Iran and North Korea that have been thinking or about or pursuing nuclear weapons, the Japans, the South Koreas, Taiwan and other European players that if you don't have a nuclear weapon and you don't have a guarantee by a nuclear power, you're in big trouble. That's the lesson of this. And what's more likely to happen than Trump being able to sit down with Putin and then perhaps later
• 31:30 - 32:00 uh with Shei and he's already made approaches to uh obviously North Korea in his previous administration and now again to Iran for nuclear talks is that you're going to end up instead of disarmament but with more proliferation because the message is that the United States doesn't live up to its guarantees and its promises and why should the United States then be trusted as the nuclear guarantor for all of these other countries? ries that fall under it by uh treaty alliances or the likelihood that
• 32:00 - 32:30 they could turn to the United States when they're under duress. So, this is a huge problem. It's one of the key issues um that is underappreciated about Trump. He's serious about this and I think to his credit, he's serious about wanting to stop, as he puts it, the senseless slaughter of young men at the front. But he's not really fully appreciating the dynamic. Putin doesn't care about all this death and destruction. And also why now would Putin give up the nuclear arsenal? Because for Russia, that's the
• 32:30 - 33:00 ultimate guarantee guarantor and guarantee of its uh prowess on the battlefield. Its ability to force Ukraine to capitulate and also its ability to deter Europe, the United States, and all these other countries. And Putin's lowered the threshold for at least rhetorically talking about using nuclear weapons because he threatened basically to use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukrainians when he was losing on the battlefield in 2022. So this is a really intensely difficult situation. And although I think Trump is very sincere, I don't think he's fully
• 33:00 - 33:30 grasping the implications of some of the things that he's done and said. How do you think this plays out? Many of us are just befuddled trying to figure out the incentive structure here. trying to figure out geopolitically if Europe steps up, the resolve of Russia, whether the US is in, out, in, out regarding funding, intelligence, sanctions. If you were trying to do scenario planning here, maybe it's unfair to limit you to one outcome. What do you think are the
• 33:30 - 34:00 most likely scenarios for how this plays out through the rest of 25 and into 26? Well, it it is difficult because we're not talking really about the United States. Let's be frank, we're talking about one guy and a group of people around him. I mean, that is, you know, kind of unprecedented. We're talking about Trump because I think for Putin and sometimes I mix the two up myself, you know, because there's a very similar, you know, outlook and um uh you know, often sometimes game plan, but there's uh and also in terms of, you
• 34:00 - 34:30 know, the unchecked nature of their power, but there's a couple of very specific differences uh between the two which um are very important in thinking about how this plays out. First of all, Putin's been in power for 25 years, and the people around him are the people who've been around him for decades. They know their stuff. They have a proper plan. Basically, Putin wants to dominate again the the regions uh that were formerly part of the Russian Empire, formerly part of the Soviet Union, one way or another. Doesn't mean that he's going to send in tanks, you know, here,
• 34:30 - 35:00 there, and everywhere. But he wants the veto on what they do, what they say, where they go. uh and he certainly doesn't want them to have any other options and he's absolutely hellbent you know on basically preventing the Europeans from getting their act together as well. There's all these acts of sabotage and I said and psychological operations and interference going on there all the time as well. Now Trump also doesn't want Europe to get their act together but you know for all kinds of different reasons. I mean actually Trump and Putin both don't want to see NATO continue. Trump thinks it's because
• 35:00 - 35:30 Europe rips him off or rips the US off. And he's not wrong. That Europe should have been doing a heck of a lot more for a lot longer time about its own security. And they should have got this message decades ago, not even just when Obama made the points in 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea. But there's been every um conceivable US administration going back uh to the 1960s and to Kennedy has been actually saying to Europe, come on, come on, you know, get going. This is not just all reliance on the US time. And that's beyond obviously the strategic nuclear umbrella, but in
• 35:30 - 36:00 terms of building up and and taking up more responsibility for their um security. Now, of course, Europe thought after 1989, this is great peace dividend. We can just kind of move on and do other things. But, you know, that message has still been coming through loud and clear. So, actually Trump now is basically saying the Europeans are right, you're on your own. That's catnip for Putin. That's fantastic. you know, the fact that Trump's basically saying, "We're not going to um give article 5 guarantees to Europe unless it's article 5%. They have to be paying 5% of their
• 36:00 - 36:30 GDP, you know, and otherwise, you know, we might not even contemplate uh supporting them uh under extreme circumstance. That's another thing that Putin's been looking for." So, I mean, basically what I'm trying to say here is what it's more likely to be is that the United States is going to be supporting the uh Russian position uh because there's so many things that uh you know, Trump uh actually also sees eye to eye with Putin on. But we're going to end up in an extraordinarily messy situation. That's really what I foresee. I see
• 36:30 - 37:00 wearing my crystal ball. It's very cloudy. There's all kinds of, you know, things going on, you know, all over the place. And in part that comes down to the other big difference between Trump and Putin is Trump is a totally one-man show. He's destroying the state. He's not acting uh with Congress and uh with the Senate unless that they're like rubber stamps, which actually for Putin also the Russian doom of the Russian parliament's also a rubber stamp. But Putin operates within the state. He's a creature of the deep state. He's not dismantling the Russian state. That was
• 37:00 - 37:30 already dismantled, you know, under Mikl Gorbachov and Boris Yelten from the Soviet and Russian times. that you know the Russians have moved on beyond that. He's he works through his state uh negotiators, Lavough uh the foreign minister, you know, for example, his advisers, Ushikov, as well as through oligarchs and business people. They all work for him and they're all one very tight team. For Trump, he doesn't really pay any attention to any of the people around him. He uses them as emissaries and envoys, but he doesn't do his homework. They can't actually advise him
• 37:30 - 38:00 on anything. They just kind of come back. God knows what kind of conversations they have. Do they have notes? to fully understand, you know, what they've heard. And that makes Trump very unpredictable. So, I think if Putin's looking at his own crystal ball, he also can't say where this is going to go. He's going to have to be constantly on the ball, not just the crystal ball, but on the other ball, you know, trying to kind of figure out how he can push Trump in his direction. And so things will change very dramatically if others push back, if the Europeans push back, for example, or if any part of the US
• 38:00 - 38:30 firmament pushes back as well. if Congress, you know, suddenly realize that they're a co-equal branch of government and have their own powers or if the Senate do. So, there's all kinds of different constraints there. And in Trump 1.0, Putin was very frustrated because he thought that Trump would already do a lot of the things he's already doing now, but there were all kinds of constraints. So, unfortunately, what I foresee here is a mess. I I could actually see that there could be a truce, there could be a ceasefire, but then it's when all of these other
• 38:30 - 39:00 externalities, all of these other independent variables come into play. So I, you know, I fear that we're going to be in this very messy situation for some time, but gets back to what you said again. There could be a more positive outcome if the Europeans move very quickly to get their act together and there is signs of that, but they've got to have the political will and they've also got to realize that they can't depend on the United States and that they also have to kind of come up with
• 39:00 - 39:30 some kind of um solution there. So, I mean, maybe we should revert back onto this, you know, in a kind of a few weeks. Uh, also to see where we are because the situation is incredibly fluid. We'll be right back. [Music] We're back with more from Dr. Fiona Hill. So, I want to transition. You're the you're the chancellor of Durham University, one of the UK's top institutions and I would just love to
• 39:30 - 40:00 get but you're also very familiar with the US and the US does a small number of things really really well. We're great with technology and software. We're great at media. uh we make the best weapons in the world and I would argue that on a balanced scorecard we have we dominate higher education which isn't to say there aren't other pockets of outstanding higher ed including in the UK but as the leader of a UK higher ed institution how would you compare and contrast higher education in the UK versus the US and what can we learn from
• 40:00 - 40:30 each other well there's a lot of um interesting lessons there and I know Scott that you pay a lot of attention to this so I actually also um I'm on the board of overseers of Harvard I was elected that just a couple of um years ago and of course I came to the United States as many people did uh to study. I came in 1989 and I came because there was much more opportunity in the US system. I had a full scholarship from Harvard. You know my father was a coal miner. There was you know no um uh real opportunities for education for his generation. And you know my generation
• 40:30 - 41:00 was lucky that you know I had a reasonably good level of elementary schooling. My secondary school wasn't great but there was this opportunity for scholarships. I went to university in the UK to St. Andrews uh basically funded by my local education authority but the real step up as you're um uh basically hinting at here was when I came to Harvard I was blown away by the resources you know of course I studied history and Russian and you know all the things that I'm using uh today and there was that aspect also the the founding of
• 41:00 - 41:30 the Russian research center other regional studies uh centers the massive investment in language uh study history I studied with Richard Pipes one of the greatest you know figures in uh Russian um history for example is one of his last graduate students. All of that um was greatly admired around the world as well as all of the scientific research biosciences that um uh has been started off by the US. Of course that was one of the secrets of the United States success after World War II was this massive investment in education and in uh
• 41:30 - 42:00 research and the difference with the UK which is the closest proximate uh to the United States is it's all the public sector. So the role that I have at Durham as a chancellor is more as an ambassador. I have a non-fiduciary you know role at the institution. The 140 plus um UK uh universities are almost all the basically public publicly funded by the government uh which of course has all kinds of constraints on this because it's very difficult for them to build up the kind of private endowment and
• 42:00 - 42:30 investments that you see in the US. Only a few universities have managed to do that. Oxford, Cambridge, most notably to some degree St. Andrews where I was at undergraduate and also Durham but you know these are really small in comparison and they are very dependent uh also on student fees which are capped and you know also you know kind of on international students and they don't have the research capacity that the um US does and there's one thing that I think most people in the United States are completely unaware of is that the
• 42:30 - 43:00 United Kingdom through its re UK research and innovation uh funds and Germany and many other countries invest heavily in US higher education. They're also uh for the big universities like Harvard are on bond markets and on the international markets as um investment opportunities and all of this is going to take an enormous hit. You know some of this freezing of grants and uh you know funding uh that we've already seen through NIH etc. There's also uh
• 43:00 - 43:30 matching funding from Germany, from the UK and you know from other uh countries. huge investments in uh the US higher education also students you know all of this movement now to expel uh students on visas and green card holders you know irrespective of you know the circumstances around this is going to have a huge chilling effect the cutting of NIH grants the cutting of USA ID you know the federal funding looking what's just happened to John's Hopkins you know for example 800 million of money that's
• 43:30 - 44:00 gone from USAD that was on global public health I mean again these are small areas that other countries were heavily invested in. So I actually think that you know what's happening right now is the killing of the golden goose because another thing that I know from the US um and the UK perspective is that universities are anchor institutions in their regions and it's not just private um Ivy League universities that are key in the United States. It's obviously the public and land grant universities which were set up in the 1860s to the 1890s.
• 44:00 - 44:30 other intermediate uh universities, community colleges, they all have a huge impact in terms of the revenue that they generate and in terms of the jobs and employment. In the UK context, for example, in the northeast of England, which is one of the poorest regions in Europe, let alone in the UK. Um 2.2 billion annually is generated just by the cluster of universities there, including Durham, which is the largest of the research universities. you know, in terms of the United Kingdom uh at
• 44:30 - 45:00 large, you know, there's something almost at 800,000 jobs and literally tens of billions in the hundreds of billions of uh revenue every year. And of course, you scale that up even larger. You think about Massachusetts, Boston, all of the um economies of these regions, uh research triangle in North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, um and Carnegie Melon driving change in those uh cities. It's not just in uh the you know the the coast. It's in the old industrial heartlands where change is being driven
• 45:00 - 45:30 by universities. University of Idaho, the University of Nebraska. All of these universities are taking huge hits. This is going to have enormous ripple effects across the entire country. So I can't resist. I didn't realize you're on the board of overseers of Harvard. So my sense is that there's there's just a different zeitgeist in higher ed or one of the differences is that um people in the UK think of universities as sort of a public good and they don't feel the same obligation or gratification or ego
• 45:30 - 46:00 boost by giving money back to the university. I just pulled up that the endowment at Durham uh is 110 million pounds or about $140 million. Is that accurate? That's about right. Yeah. And I've actually um you know given money myself uh to the university out of my recent book you know for the small stipens and uh you know burseries for for students. It's just not the same scale that it is here in the in in the US including for the public you know um and land grant universities the big state universities where people tend to
• 46:00 - 46:30 you know to give money as well high schools the whole education sector. But where I was headed with it was Harvard, I believe, has a $53 billion endowment and it lets in 1500 people a year. And in the US, I believe that higher ed that we're basically the enforcers of the cast system. That we have we create artificial scarcity despite having the resources to dramatically increase our freshman seats such that we can feel better about ourselves and the value of the degree
• 46:30 - 47:00 goes up for the incumbents at the cost of the entrance. and society real large. Do you think there's an issue with a place like Harvard with $53 billion endowment letting in 1500 kids a year? Do you think the accusation that it's a hedge fund with offering classes and not really a public servant? Do you think there's some truth to that accusation? Well, I think that's an issue that the university is addressing. I mean, it's one of the reasons that I ended up, you know, honestly on the board of overseers. there's kind of like this view on the outside, you know, that this
• 47:00 - 47:30 is some kind of, you know, kind of weird star chamber setup, but there's a lot of people from all kinds of diverse uh backgrounds there. And I came there as first generation. Um I mean, my father left school at 14, went down a coal mine, my mother became a nurse, but also left school at 16, you know. So, basically, I came from a family with absolutely no um means whatsoever, nothing, no savings. And and basically, I got to Harvard on a scholarship. I was immediately struck, you know, by many of the things that you're talking about there. Um, I've given money back, you
• 47:30 - 48:00 know, for scholarships, uh, for people like, you know, myself and at the board and there's been a lot more discussion and there's been a lot more discussion going on at the university over, you know, the last, uh, several decades because they've got people like Raj Chetty and others, you know, kind of pushing out and research this um, a man named Anthony Jackson education school making these same, you know, kinds of, um, cases. The university has been discussing this in their of their admissions for some time now. Many of the people who have come to prominence were first generation and in fact the university just this week announced um
• 48:00 - 48:30 basically an expansion of its financial aid um to um uh students coming from families would be prospective students who you know are at in those lowest uh brackets but it has to do more in terms of expanding um its access and there's all kinds of discussions about this going on about different platforms. I think the argument could be well you know this could have been done a lot more quickly and Harvard and other major universities like it have to actually show leadership. So there's absolutely there needs to be this kind of debate about higher education but I think the
• 48:30 - 49:00 solution to it is not destroying it and in fact it's really getting universities like the Ivy Leagues those were the big endowments to work across the entire education sector not just higher ed with trade schools with community colleges with the public land grants and state level universities. So while you're coming up with these kinds of ideas, I think what we have to really kind of push the educational sector and I I keep saying educational sector because I think it has to be high schools, it has to be libraries and all the other, you know, kind of parts of all this is to
• 49:00 - 49:30 kind of find ways of working together. I was just at a conference in Houston a week ago of all the associations that deal in international education. So this is language instruction, study abroad, you know, and this is not just the elite universities. I mean I was a kid you know from again from a mining community uh the British um underwrote study abroad. This is a you know mind expanding uh opportunity and a life uh changing opportunity for people. So I'm you know look I'm in agreement that
• 49:30 - 50:00 there's something needs to be done and something quite drastic. We can't just talk about this for another decade. We're in the crisis now. Dr. Dr. Fiona Hill is a senior fellow at Brookings, chancellor of Durham University, and a former US National Security Council official specializing in Russian and European affairs. Dr. Hill gained national recognition for her testimony during the 2019 Trump impeachment inquiry. She's also a best-selling author and leading expert on geopolitics. Dr. Hill very much enjoyed this conversation and uh hope and trust that we'll have you on again. really
• 50:00 - 50:30 really I I love how sort of just sober and calm in the way you deliver or try to break down or distill what are very complex issues. Really appreciate your time. No, thank you so much, Scott. [Music]