VICE (2013) s05e00 Episode Script

1 (chanting in foreign language) Newswoman: North Korea claiming it's now within striking range of the US and can put nuclear warheads on this missile.
Newsman: Syria's cease-fire is in tatters.
The latest-- an air strike on an opposition hospital in Aleppo.
(shields clanking) Newswoman 2: Ukraine is where we turn next, as world leaders talk about how to respond to Russia's apparent invasion of that country.
China makes a bold and alarming move.
Antiaircraft and other weapons systems have now been installed in the contested waters of the South China Sea.
Michael Moynihan: The world wasn't supposed to be this way.
In the decades following World War II, the United States led the way in shaping the world order.
John F.
Kennedy: Let every nation know that we shall pay any price to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
Moynihan: And no matter how the world seemed to change, American moral, military, and economic dominance never seemed to waiver.
(shouting) The Cold War ended.
Democracy won.
So, how did we get here? - (crowd shouting) - (gunfire) With old alliances fracturing, new rivalries have arisen, and today, weak states threaten global stability just as much as strong ones.
With the balance of power in flux, the world order has been upended.
- All: Allahu Akbar! - (explosions) Moynihan: We want to know why this is happening, so we'll sit down with leaders and policymakers who have shaped the modern world, take you to the flashpoints to meet people living through the conflicts defining our future, and find out how the relative peace of a post-Cold War world collapsed into a world in disarray.
Sebastian Walker: Inside Syria itself, there are more than six million displaced people.
Right now, we're going to a frontline position that's known as the "Shug.
" There's a Chinese navy ship right down there that definitely has its eye on us.
The guys in gas masks were looking for weapons of mass destruction.
What year is this '90, '91? Something like that? This is August, 1990.
This is about two weeks after - the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait - Yeah.
and King Hussein was there to plead Saddam Hussein's case, and the Saudis were there to basically talk about how we were gonna oppose Saddam Hussein.
Moynihan: Richard Haass is the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, a storied New York institution that for nearly a hundred years has been a hub for thought and discourse on what kind of relationship the US should have with the rest of the world.
And you've served a lot of presidents.
You started with Jimmy Carter, right? At the Pentagon.
And Reagan? At the State Department.
- Uh, H.
W.
Bush? - White House.
Skipped the Clinton years.
Skipped the Clinton years.
A little Clinton retirement.
Okay.
(laughs) Back for "W.
" It's been interesting.
Moynihan: In his new book, A Word in Disarray, Haass argues that the world is increasingly defined by chaos, and for the first time since World War II, the United States is struggling to maintain its place at the helm of the global order.
When you're writing a book that says the world is in disarray, is it in any more disarray than it's been-- Is now a particular moment? I actually think the world is in much greater disarray than it was during the Cold War.
During the Cold War you had two fundamental concentrations of power in the United States and the Soviet Union, our respective alliance systems.
We understood how to avoid direct confrontation, because anything might lead to nuclear escalation, and you had formal and informal rules.
Well, now it's anything but.
We have power much more widely distributed in the world, plus, we have globalizaton.
So, I do think this period is qualitatively different.
Moynihan: Haass was a senior advisor to President George H.
W.
Bush as he set out to define America's role in a post-Cold War world.
1991, Berlin Wall had fallen, Soviet Union collapses, and George H.
W.
Bush gives a famous speech in which her heralds the dawn of a new world order.
I come to this house of the people to speak to you and all Americans, certain that we stand at a defining hour.
Moynihan: Just two weeks into leading an international coalition of forces, to repel Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, Bush, in his 1991 State of the Union address, laid out his vision of American moral preeminence.
It is a big idea: a new world order, where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind: peace and security, freedom, and the rule of law.
Richard Haass: This was the opening act, if you will, of the Post-Cold War world, and we were conscious of the idea that what the United States did and didn't do and how the United States did it would put down markers.
And we thought that any chance of bringing about a more orderly world depended upon showing that you couldn't use force to change borders.
This is the basic premise of world order.
Moynihan: The coalition's resounding victory in the Gulf War seemed to reaffirm the supremacy of the Western liberal order, underpinned by American military power.
Strobe Talbott: In the '90s, there it was often said that for the first time in human history no great powers are at war with each other or even having to worry about war with each other.
The world came together-- all these UN resolutions, global coalition.
It was It was, you know, unprecedented.
But what the history of the last 25 years showed-- and we didn't know at the time-- that that was the apex.
(plane approaching) Man: Fuck! Woman: Oh, my God! Oh, my God! (screaming) (sirens in distance) (indistinct conversations) Moynihan: Just a decade later, 9/11 would shake the foundations of American preeminence, and the American response to the attacks would redefine America's place in the world.
9/11 exposed our vulnerability, and it exposed it in a way that also highlighted the dangers of globalization.
That something could come from anywhere-- in this case, a remote part of Afghanistan-- and suddenly 3,000 people in this country were-- were dead.
Moynihan: President George W.
Bush declared a global war on terror.
Washington would target not only those directly involved in the 9/11 attacks, but those who might aid future attacks.
It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.
Moynihan: The international community largely backed the invasion of Afghanistan after the Taliban refused to give up Osama bin Laden.
But the US decision to go into Iraq caused deep divisions amongst Western allies.
After 9/11, President Bush and others around him saw this as a real opportunity to change the course of history.
That if we could oust Saddam Hussein, they believed-- I think, wrongly-- that we could promote democratic tendencies inside Iraq, and it would set an example the rest of the region couldn't resist.
So, you believe that? I mean, that that was really - one of their biggest motivations? - A hundred percent.
I am confident that they saw Iraq as setting in motion a set of regional dynamics that would leave the Middle East transformed.
But the opposite is true, right? The projection of American power after 9/11 brought the world to a more dangerous place? Historians will be extraordinarily critical, and they will say this was an example of the assertion of American power in ways that were counterproductive.
Moynihan: After the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration's hopes for democracy in the region quickly vanished.
(explosion) And for the next eight years, the US was bogged down in a bloody occupation.
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of American military personnel were killed.
You know, it's important to realize what the Iraq War taught us.
It taught us two things.
First of all, when you remove the dictatorship of a country that's been under oppression for a very long time, where you have the presence of strong Islamist forces, you are going-- once you remove the dictatorship-- to have a whole other form of battle.
The second thing is, that battle's going to be really tough, because you've got people-- extremist groups-- on the one side, supported by Iran, Shia extremism, on the other side, various forms of Sunni extremism, who are prepared to come into the situation, and fight to the death.
(excited chattering) Moynihan: As war between rival religious sects consumed Iraq, it became an incubator for a new generation of terrorists, including ISIS, the most psychopathically violent group to emerge from the rubble of the Iraq War.
ISIS would grow powerful enough to control entire swaths of Iraq and Syria, declaring it the Islamic State, the so-called caliphate.
(in Arabic) I'm aways struck that people who say the United States unleashed all of this, perhaps, have an overestimation of American power.
There's no doubt that by taking out Saddam Hussein, certain forces were unleashed, but the Middle East was not stable.
And the idea that had the United States sort of stood back and allowed this bucolic Middle East to continue, we would not have faced the ISISes of the world or the Syrian civil war, it it's just not right.
It's hard to think of a bigger mistake that the United States has made, over the course of the last 50 years, than the invasion of Iraq.
It cratered the image of the United States in the minds of many of our friends and adversaries in the region, and we're still dealing with the fallout from that.
The repressive authoritarian regimes all throughout the Arab world, at some point, were going to go down, but I do think that the United States trying to insert itself into this region as fully as it did, turned it in a kind of anti-American direction in a way that it didn't really need to go.
(cheering) Moynihan: When Barack Obama assumed office in 2009, the world was in economic disarray, and resolve for foreign intervention was weak.
In response, President Obama rejected the Bush doctrine of spreading democracy through overwhelming military force.
I announced a new strategy that would end our combat mission in Iraq and remove all of our troops by the end of 2011.
He was elected, as he saw it, to dial down dramatically American presence in the Middle East, and he did it.
I think, uh, he overdid it, and he took some conditions of stability and created instability.
If Iraq in 2003 is the textbook case of the dangers of overreach in foreign policy, Syria is-- has emerged as the textbook case of doing too little.
When you don't act, it can be every bit as consequential as the mistakes you make when you overdo things.
Moynihan: In the wake of American retreat, the Middle East would continue to fracture and descend further into chaos.
And in no place were the consequences more catastrophic than the war in Syria.
The UN calls it the largest humanitarian crisis of our time.
The war has killed an estimated 400,000 Syrians, created six million refugees, and has had destabilizing effects around the globe.
Syria was a disaster.
Moynihan: Is a disaster.
Is a disaster.
And will remain thus, painfully and sadly and tragically, for a very long time.
Look I understand why President Obama made the decisions he made, because the American people, after Iraq and Afghanistan, were tired of sending their blood and treasure off to foreign lands where they didn't understand what was going on or what the purpose was.
Moynihan: The Syrian civil war began in 2011.
What started off as peaceful street protests inspired by the Arab Spring, quickly spiraled out of control after a brutal crackdown on protesters by government troops.
The crisis in Syria started out as a war between the government and its own people.
It then became an intercommunal struggle between different sectarian groups.
It then became an intraregional power struggle-- Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey.
It then became a global geopolitical struggle, and right at the beginning, the decision of a number of Arab countries and a number of Western countries to say Assad must go but then not be willing to push him out, creates a mismatch between means and ends that is very dangerous and damaging in international affairs.
Moynihan: Battle lines were drawn, backed by both regional and international powers, taking up the fight both for and against Assad's dictatorship.
But one party notably absent from the fight was the United States.
Moynihan: Most often, I hear people of my own generation saying that America should retreat in the world because American interventionism has created so many problems.
Was the president's response to Syria, for instance, was that something that was greatly informed by America's failure in Iraq? What Iraq drove home was the immense complexity of foreign intervention of foreign deployments, of being in someone else's country.
A set of questions that should always have been asked in advance of any use of military force: What are the likely costs? What are the benefits? Can we sustain the commitment that will be needed to achieve the outcome that we say we want? And those kinds of questions weren't asked with great rigor in advance of the Iraq war.
They were asked with tremendous rigor, um, as President Obama grappled with what to do about Syria.
Moynihan: While the US was willing to provide humanitarian aid and limited arms to rebels fighting the Assad regime (gunfire) the Obama Administration stopped short of providing the level of military support needed to overthrow the Syrian government.
You know, in my view, instead of learning the right lessons from Iraq, what actually happened was, we became traumatized by the experience of Iraq and Afghanistan and got ourselves into what I think is the worst of both worlds position, which was to say, "In Syria, Assad should go," but we weren't prepared to go and get him out and create the circumstances in which you could change the government.
And we are where we are today, which is, you know, frankly, the most disastrous situation that you can possibly imagine.
Moynihan: Washington wouldn't commit ground troops to the conflict, but in 2012, President Obama drew a redline.
Barack Obama: We have been very clear to the Assad regime that a redline for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized.
Moynihan: But when evidence confirmed that in 2013, the Syrian regime attacked a Damascus suburb with sarin gas, President Obama was challenged to make good on his promise of military action.
He chose not to.
The Russian government has indicated a willingness to join with the international community in pushing Assad to give up his chemical weapons.
I have therefore asked the leaders of Congress to postpone a vote to authorize the use of force, while we pursue this diplomatic path.
Do you think the redline speech was the right thing to do at the time? Do you regret that Obama actually set a redline and then did not actually respond to it? But he did.
Syria had never even acknowledged that it had chemical weapons, uh, before this.
Then it did.
It signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, and it declared the weapons it had.
I think we did exactly the right thing, and the president is right to stand behind it.
The critics of the redline decision simply can't explain how we would have been better off taking a limited military strike that Congress didn't support than we are having gotten rid of the vast bulk of the weapons and the infrastructure to make them.
The US failure to make good on the threat that if Bashar Al-Assad used chemicals, then he crossed the so-called redline, had real consequences for the region and the world.
In the region, it obviously emboldened the regime dramatically, and they lived to fight another day and another day and another day.
And I think it pretty much destroyed any chance of gaining momentum and building up a serious, uh, opposition that we could work with.
(in Arabic) (men shouting) (man speaking in Arabic) (grenade whistles) (explosion) Moynihan: Without military support from Washington, the fragile coalition of opposition forces collapsed, creating opportunity for terror organizations like ISIS to make huge territorial gains and drive anti-Assad fighters out of the country.
In neighboring Turkey, Seb Walker met with former Free Syrian Army fighters who fled.
Sebastian.
In the beginning, how did you feel about the US? Did you see them as a positive player in supporting groups like yours? (in Arabic) What do you think are the strategic consequences? Moynihan: With the US on the sidelines, Bashar Al-Assad unleashed a barrage of brutality on his own people.
The main locus of the devastation was in Aleppo, Syria's largest city.
Assad's terror campaign indiscriminately targeted large civilian districts in rebel-held Eastern Aleppo, using banned weapons like barrel bombs and chlorine gas.
(explosion) (in Arabic) (shouting) (in Arabic) (medical equipment beeping) (indistinct conversations) (Kheir speaking Arabic) Moynihan: Despite Assad's brutal siege tactics, the battle for Aleppo continued for four years.
But in late 2015, Russia entered the war on the side of its long-term ally Assad, and launched rockets and dropped bombs on opposition-held territory.
(in Russian) Moynihan: They targeted hospitals and other non-military positions.
By the end of the year, the city had fallen, turning the tide of the war in Assad's favor.
Those who survived the siege were forcibly relocated, adding to the already staggering number of displaced Syrians.
Most Aleppo residents were displaced within Syria Nice to see you.
but Hisham and his wife fled to Turkey, paying smugglers to sneak them across the border.
Salam Alaikum.
Nice to meet you.
I'm Sebastian.
(Hashim speaking indistinctly) Walker: Excellent.
Sure.
(in Arabic) - This is your house? - My house.
Can you tell us about what happened? (in Arabic) (interpreter speaking Arabic) Mm.
Walker: Can you take us through those last stages of your time in Aleppo? Was it an overcaution as a result of sort of recent American foreign policy failures with-- I think there's no such thing as overcaution when it comes to the use of force.
I mean, you can be overly cautious and not act and sort of be dithering in some sense while people are dying, right? I think you can reasonably ask whether or not, given how terribly Syria has turned out, and what the effects on the region have been and how many people have suffered, you know, should there have been more support to the opposition sooner? I think you can ask whether there was a moment, particularly after the chemical weapons use, where the use of force could have been used and may have had a catalytic effect or a driving toward a political agreement.
But what you can't do is say that any one of those tools would have been a panacea for Syria.
We asked ourselves and we studied-- how do these conflicts end? How does a civil war like the civil war in Syria end? And then the question is, what can we reasonably do about it? But it's a cauldron of multiple conflicts.
So, anyone going in and saying, "Oh, yeah, I'm gonna just intervene, and then I'm gonna be left holding that bag," that is a recipe for an endless intervention, and endless pain.
But there were also moments, I think, when we might have done things differently to leverage our diplomacy.
Anyone who had any responsibility for Syria policy, uh, in recent years, myself included, has to live with the fact that a lot of people died on our watch.
(in Arabic) Murphy: President Obama's halfway measures in Syria didn't work.
They prolonged the suffering, and I fear that we are in for chapter two and chapter three in the Syrian civil war.
Putin and Russia filled a vacuum in Syria that we created by not taking a decision early enough as to whether or not we were going to do anything.
Missed opportunity? Missed opportunity.
And at best, you're preventing the end of a brutal war with almost seven million people displaced, that is changing the face and the politics of Europe, straining Lebanon and Turkey and Jordan beyond repair.
And you have to recognize that the only state now that can end this war is probably Russia.
Haass: Vladimir Putin wants the rest of the world to respect Russia.
One of the best ways to do it is to show a willingness and ability to project power effectively, and that's what he did in the Middle East.
And what worries me about it, is this is a country that doesn't see a lot of downsides in being assertive or aggressive, and sees many upsides.
Moynihan: And the most egregious example of this aggression is happening right now in Russia's European neighbor, Ukraine.
Three years ago, Russia violated the sovereignty of the former Soviet state, bringing war to the European continent.
(gunfire) With over 10,000 casualties so far, the battle for Ukraine rages on.
And for the moment, there's no end in sight.
Moynihan: As the secretary of defense, the one thing, of course, that I'm sure you're thinking about is what does this man want? Communism had an ideology.
Putinism is a bit confused.
Mm-hmm.
What is Putin's goal? If you need to know what Vladimir Putin is thinking, you have only to listen to what he says.
(in Russian) Carter: He says that he resents the way Russia was treated after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
He thinks that the United States has made mistakes, particularly in the Middle East, that he is intent upon correcting.
Uh, that he wants Russia to be dealt with as a great power.
(in Russian) By their understanding, they didn't need to lose the Cold War.
You know, or Gorbachev betrayed their interest, and then the West played its advantage, you know, mercilessly.
Moynihan: After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia felt threatened when its former states, now sovereign countries, began to join NATO, a Cold War-era military alliance that served as a counter-balance to Russian power.
He's worried about NATO enlargement and wants to push back.
(in Russian) Mr.
Putin is very worried that we're going to bring a liberal revolution to his country, that will mean he will no longer enjoy power.
Moynihan: Ukraine never joined NATO, and so it's become the center of a conflict over the limits of Russia's sphere of influence.
(chanting) (chanting) In 2013, Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, a Putin Loyalist, pulled out of negotiations that would've strengthened Ukraine's connection to the EU.
In response, revolution erupted in Maidan Square.
(loud explosion) (shouting) Putin took advantage of the schism, sending ghost battalions of out-of-uniform Russian troops, known as "little green men," into Crimea, a predominantly ethnic Russian region in Southern Ukraine.
Two weeks later, via a referendum that violated internationally recognized rules of sovereignty, Russia officially annexed Crimea.
Crimea was a huge success story.
I mean six days, you come in and do this fake little green men thing, and then you have an instant referendum.
The Russians keep saying, there are no Russian troops there.
Of course, nobody believes that.
I mean, not anybody.
I mean it's absurd.
They're like, basically, rotating 10,000 troops out constantly.
You know, where'd they get Grad missiles? Coal miners don't keep them in their backyard, you know.
(distant explosions) Moynihan: Emboldened by the annexation of Crimea, full-scale war erupted when pro-Russian separatists, backed by Russian troops, fought for control of territory along Ukraine and Russia's shared northeastern border.
The territorial sovereignty of Ukraine was violated by Russian-backed troops.
What do you do in a situation like that? We pursued a full-court press around diplomatic and economic isolation, and the effects on the Russian economy, uh, were profound.
Now, when you move out of that realm, you end up risking an escalatory cycle with Putin, an actor who appears prepared to escalate to almost infinite extent for something that is so close to his neighborhood.
And it seemed that way to you? That the level of escalation they were willing to go to was pretty high.
I think that there's no question, let's put it this way, that it exceeded ours.
You said you would have - given weapons to the Ukrainians.
- Yes.
I believe that if a democratic people want to defend themselves, you should help them.
It would have been an important signal to Putin, I believe, that we were not consigning Ukraine to the Russian sphere of influence.
It would have raised the cost of that intervention, because maybe the Ukrainians would have been able to defend themselves better.
And, um, I think it would have been the right message.
(in foreign language) Moynihan: The war has been raging for years with no end in sight.
Ben Ferguson went to talk to Ukrainian troops on the front lines of the conflict.
Ferguson: We've driven beyond the closest town to the front line, and now we're entering the industrial area, the problem zone, as it's called.
Like a sort of graveyard of civilization, before the conflict hit this region.
Right now we're going to a frontline position that's known as the "Shug.
" It's just a matter of meters away from the separatists.
This is essentially where the De facto border between Ukraine and Russia now lies.
(in foreign language) Translator: "Company.
" Eh, "platoon.
" (indistinct chatter) Ferguson: What is that? This Russian "tangk.
" It's pronounced.
Officially, your enemy is referred to as either the terrorists or the separatists.
You're very clear that you're in a fight against the Russians.
(in foreign language) What do you think the Russians' motivations are for all of this? Moynihan: But while Putin is using conventional means of warfare, he's also waging an information war.
I mean, I think we have to think of what's coming out of Russia as being far more serious than, uh, than we have.
Russia can do a lot more in the digital age than it could before, and instrumentalize, uh, propaganda and fake news and hacking fairly cheaply.
(in foreign language) Ferguson: This is all Russian television? (in foreign language) Have you got one? You've got a text message as well? (in foreign language) Does this seem like a new type of unconventional war that we haven't seen in the past? Well it is in the sense that, uh, the objective is simply to weaken one's opponent and not to take any overt responsibility for having done that.
And using all of the techniques of social media and this new information space that we live in to sow doubt, you know, about the trustworthiness of your own leaders and institutions.
It's an information war on steroids.
Putin has made it an art form to misinform, to lie, uh, to deceive, to spread false information.
And then you're playing catch up because you're responding to it.
You're trying to rebut it.
And when you get caught in that trap, it's very, very hard to get out of it.
Ferguson: So, apparently this is quite routine here.
As night falls, the observers who are monitoring what's going on in this war go home for the evening, and that's when the rockets start to get launched.
(explosion) (in foreign language) Ferguson: What's it like, when you're in a building and your home is directly hit by artillery fire? (in foreign language) (woman laughing) Man: Aw, fuck.
She swear.
Yes, yes, yes.
Ferguson: What is this conflict about? (woman speaking) (woman shouting) (distant explosion) (distant explosion) You-- Just let me-- Let me intervene.
Ferguson: Why do you they think the opposite to what you think? Who do you think is winning this war? Who does she think is winning this war right now? (distant explosion) Moynihan: The bloody civil war has left nearly 10,000 dead, one million displaced, and an additional three million in need of humanitarian aid.
Do you suspect you'll see any larger international moves, military, cyber, or otherwise, in the next few years from Vladimir Putin? Uh, it can never be excluded.
Uh, I mean, one of the things that we have been so-- we, in the West-- have been shocked by is the willingness to do things that we always considered impossible.
I mean, annexing territory after World War II, through military means, or something-- What? You know, interfering in elections in the West.
I mean, why invade if you can simply change the government? Moynihan: In those places where it cannot directly project military power, the Putin regime has employed other means to destabilize its enemies.
Newsman: Tonight, new indications that Vladimir Putin may be trying to influence another election.
Right now they are in full-fledged offensive mode in terms of trying to undermine democratically elected candidates that they think hurt their interests.
So, they're projecting power in very, very creative ways that are not military.
Russia's great fear is a united Europe, and that's why they put such effort into fragmenting Europe.
It's the kind of flouting of international law, the kind of striking out, the kind of reassertion of Russian power through the digital form, rather than the military hardware form, has given new life to a brand of politics that Europeans thought they'd put behind them.
(in French) (crowd cheers) so help me God.
so help me God.
Moynihan: And the Kremlin's reach extends beyond the European continent.
The FBI and Congress continue to investigate allegations that the Russian government attempted to sway the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.
Power: Putin has given every indication that the tools that he deployed this last round are ones that he is only perfecting so as to be able to make more inroads the next round.
Russia is fake news, this is Condoleezza Rice: Right now, Vladimir Putin must be enjoying the spectacle of the United States of America all spun up about what happened in their elections, because the thing he most wanted to do was to sow a sense of discord and our lack of confidence in our own elections.
I just want to be very clear about this.
You and the Russian government did-- never tried to influence the outcome of the US presidential election? (in Russian) No.
(audience laughs) We're talking about a foreign government, that using technical intrusion and lots of other methods, tried to shape the way we think, we vote, we act.
That is a big deal.
Moynihan: Even back in 2015, when Shane Smith sat down with Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, he was forthright about why Russia needed to project its power on the world stage.
The NATO leaders-- the United States basically-- uh, want to create temptation in the minds of non-members of NATO, including former Soviet republics very close to us economically, culturally, family-wise, and to tear them away from Russia.
In Ukraine, the parts of the country where ethnic Russians are in majority would prevent Ukraine from moving into NATO and becoming entirely a Western, uh, attribution.
Uh, it's a zero-sum game.
Moynihan: NATO has ramped up its exercises along the border regions in former Soviet states like Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, in ways not seen since the end of the Cold War.
The only language that Vladimir understands is strength.
He doesn't understand any other language at all.
So Russia should be under absolutely no doubt at all that the West will defend its position, and its values, and that includes making sure that our NATO obligations remain, that our commitment to the Eastern Europeans is absolute, and we will defend those.
Haass: There's a lack of institutions right now in Russia.
There's no checks and balances.
Vladimir Putin enjoys more autonomy and more freedom of decision-making than any-- probably than any Russian or Soviet leader since Josef Stalin.
If tomorrow, Vladimir Putin wants to green-light some type of a Russian military action against a NATO country, I'm not persuaded there's anyone in Russia who can or will stop him.
(in Russian) Urah! Soldiers: Urah! Urah! Moynihan: As the superpowers that have defined world order for the last 70 years are besieged with challenges on almost every front, there's a new country stepping up to dominate the world stage: China.
Blair: You've got new powers arising, not least and most obviously, the rise of China, which is also enormous in its implications.
Fukuyama: This is a serious country.
This is a country that can master modernity, is going to be economically more powerful than the United States.
And part of the reason they're powerful is they're very clever.
I mean, unlike Putin, they're not in your face all the time, you know, just pushing and, you know, challenging.
They're very patient.
They're going to put themselves in a position where they can really dictate a lot of the terms of international commerce, international norms, and that's what we ought to be worried about in the long run.
Moynihan: Since coming to power in 2012, China's president, Xi Jinping, has taken an improbable leadership role on issues like free trade and climate change, and making China a more visible player in international institutions and security alignments.
(speaking Chinese) What was your relationship with the Chinese like within the UN? Over my time at the UN, I saw China change.
I saw President Xi make a commitment of 8000 Chinese troops to peacekeeping missions.
So you see a much more engaged China, a much more confident China, suddenly look and say, "Hey, wait a minute.
We're the number two donor in the entire United Nations, behind the United States, to peacekeeping.
" That gives us certain rights, and the more that we're embedded within the system and playing this game, the more that we will write the rules.
Carter: Part of China says, "You know what, we've had a good thing going, because of a system of rules and a system of peace.
" But the tendency to be watchful of, and to counter, is the part of China that says, "Our destiny is to dominate.
" Moynihan: One of the regions where China is asserting its dominance is the South China Sea, home to five trillion dollars in annual shipping commerce and 11 billion barrels of untapped oil.
Haass: The South China Sea is a strategic body of water, more than a half-dozen countries have claims to it, about the seas, who owns what and so forth.
We, the United States, our view is this is open seas, open air.
We don't want to see it become a source of contention, and we want it to stay open.
It is of enormous concern because freedom of navigation is critical for commerce, for security.
Moynihan: For the past 35 years, the US has run routine freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea to enforce international territorial law.
But now China is posing a direct challenge to America's presence in the region.
Since his election, President Xi has been increasingly vocal about China's maritime claims in what has long been regarded as international waters.
(in Chinese) Moynihan: China claims it owns nearly all the South China Sea, all of the islands, reefs, natural resources, and navigable waters, within what's called the "nine-dash line.
" They're declaring control of territories that are not rightfully China's.
There are international processes for dealing with that, and China should respect those international processes.
Moynihan: But far from respecting international access to the region, China has been actively building tiny atolls and islands around the South China Sea, enlarging them with dredged sand and turning them into De facto military bases.
Isobel Yeung went to see China's muscle-flexing in the region firsthand.
It's notoriously difficult to see the Chinese artificial islands that they've been busy reclaiming in the South China Sea.
Obviously no one who isn't a Chinese citizen is allowed on those actual islands.
It's just coming into sight over here.
We're six nautical miles away from the biggest land reclamation project in the South China Sea.
You can see the extent to which the Chinese have been building down there.
It's absolutely massive.
Just a couple of years ago, it was a single coral reef popping out of the ocean, it's now several hundred acres.
A massive airstrip.
You've got an airport (in English) Yeung: There's a navy vessel? China's navy vessel? (in Chinese) (in Chinese) (in English) (pilot speaking English) Yeung: We need to get out? (Yeung speaking Chinese) So according to the international law of the sea, we're well within our rights to fly over these waters.
However, the Chinese have very clearly stated that anything within 12 nautical miles of these beaches or islands all belong to them.
Moynihan: Wu Shicun is one of the architects of China's policy in the South China Sea.
Yeung: So this map from 1935, is that sufficient enough to prove China's historical claims? I think so.
I think so.
But why is it, do you think, that a lot of international community rejects these claims and rejects these maps? I don't think that all international community rejects-- Some international community.
Why do you think-- Mainly the United States.
The United States should recognize that China has indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea Islands.
Yeung: There is hugely increased military exercises and activity coming from China in the South China Sea, and that is undeniable.
(in Chinese) But China has sent the first land-to-air missiles that have landed on the South China Sea.
They've also deported several fighter jets to land on huge new runways built in the South China Sea.
Moynihan: The Chinese are flexing muscle not just to showcase military might.
They need the South China Sea to support their rapidly expanding population.
Yeung: This feels like a pretty standard, rather hectic fishing market here in Sanya City.
But in fact, Hainan Island is where the Chinese government are basing themselves in order to project power across the South China Sea.
And these fishermen are finding themselves on the front lines of one of the hottest territorial disputes in the world right now.
(in Chinese) Moynihan: Now, this isn't just tough talk.
Hundreds of thousands of Chinese fisherman have formed a maritime militia that monitors the South China Sea and chases off boats from other countries, including those from longstanding US allies like the Philippines.
(indistinct) Yeung: Thank you.
What's it like fishing in the South China Sea? (in foreign language) Why? (fisherman two speaking) And what will that mean to you? (man laughing) Moynihan: Outmatched by China's huge military, the Philippines is struggling to hold onto their land through a series of alternative strategies.
They're ensuring that even the tiniest of atolls are occupied by at least a handful of troops, because if China were to forcibly remove them, it would be an act of war.
On some islands, the Filipino government even pays civilians to live there.
(laughing, shouting) Is it dangerous for you guys to live here? (in Tagalog) Moynihan: The US has stepped up its patrolling of the South China Sea, but China's aggressive tactics threaten to upset a delicate balance in the region.
The entire Asian region, I think has the potential to get hot.
We've got the Chinese and the South China Sea, and exclusion zones that we're challenging, and, you know, somebody is going to make a mistake.
That's what happened to us in 2001.
We were flying in international airspace.
A Chinese pilot was hot-dogging, hit our plane, brought it down, kept our crew for seven days.
Something like that is going to happen.
Probably most of 21st century history is going to be determined in Asia, and no single factor will be more important than the rise of China.
And there's a whole school of thought that is incredibly pessimistic that a rising power and the great power of the day are on an inevitable collision course.
It's important to get the US-Chinese relationship right, because if China gets a free hand, many countries in the region will start deferring much more to China, they'll discount the United States, potentially develop weapons systems of their own, and then, what has been the most stable part of the world, will not remain the most stable part of the world for long.
(in Chinese) Moynihan: China's drive to dominate the region poses a challenge for those attempting to contain what many believe to be the most immediate threat to world peace today: North Korea.
(patriotic music playing) Sherman: As a security threat, North Korea, as President Obama said to incoming President Trump, the greatest security challenge he would face.
I think people, for way too long, assumed that North Korea would never get to a place of being a serious threat.
We are at that place now.
Condoleezza Rice: The one thing that keeps me up at night is North Korea.
I tried desperately to try to find an agreement with the North Koreans where we could get on the ground so we knew what was going on and maybe slow down his programs.
We had the six-party talks with China, led with Japan and Russia and South Korea and the United States, and that was with Kim Jong-il, who lived in a parallel universe.
But his son, Kim Jong-un, is a hundred times that in terms of unpredictability and recklessness, and he sits on top of a program that has made a lot of progress in the last seven, eight years.
And so, an American president is not going to be able to live with a reckless, potentially unhinged North Korean leader with a nuclear weapon capable of reaching the West Coast of the United States, or at least Hawaii or Alaska.
And so, we are coming to some very difficult decisions about what to do about North Korea and that keeps me up at night.
(singing military march song) Moynihan: It's hard to think of a time when there weren't tensions between Pyongyang and Seoul, or North Korea and the rest of the world.
The Kim family dictatorship has ruled North Korea for almost 70 years, a Stalinist dictatorship that consistently ranks dead last in both economic and political freedom indices.
The North Koreans, they have a parable about a porcupine, a porcupine that puts itself in a ball and puts all these spines out so that no one will bother it.
And because the North Koreans, as you can see from North Korean propaganda, despise-- and their new generations are taught to despise-- the Americans, the Japanese and the South Koreans.
Victor Cha: Young children are taught mathematics in terms of two American dead soldiers plus two American dead soldiers equals four American dead soldiers.
They don't know that Americans landed a man on the moon.
There are many things about their history that is warped when it comes to how they understand the West.
Moynihan: It's difficult to know what's actually happening in the world's most isolated country, but the most valuable information comes from those who've lived there.
Do Myung-hak defected from North Korea in 2013.
I understand that you're working with many North Korean defectors who've come in recently.
What are they saying about the state of things now under Kim Jong-un? (in Korean) Would you describe the majority of the population in North Korea as happy? Moynihan: After World War II, the Korean Peninsula was divided along the 38th parallel: the North backed by the Soviet Union, the South by the United States.
In 1950, the communist north invaded South Korea.
The brutal war went on for three years and cost 2.
5 million lives, 35,000 of them American soldiers.
The war concluded with an uneasy armistice in 1953, but the two Koreas are technically still at war.
There are currently 28,000 American troops stationed in the country, where the US military has had an official command since 1957.
Alvi: So we are very close to the North Korean border right now.
We're at Camp Casey.
These are multiple launch rocket systems that can shoot rockets at a range of 300 kilometers.
They are gearing up for impending conflict, and when you're here it feels like it could happen at any time.
Moynihan: The annual joint military exercises between South Korea and its American allies sends the North Koreans into frenzies so predictable that it gives new meaning to the words "March Madness.
" Newsman: An artillery barrage, heavily camouflaged commandos parachute in, storm the compound, take positions around columns as the building burns.
These are North Korean special forces conducting an attack drill.
Their target, a mock-up of South Korea's Blue House, their version of the White House.
Moynihan: But this year, the situation is more fraught, with rhetoric from both the Trump administration and Pyongyang heating up.
(in English) We will defeat any attack and meet any use of conventional or nuclear weapons with an overwhelming and effective American response.
Moynihan: And while threats of raining hellfire on the US Capitol come off as cartoonish, in South Korea, Kim Jong-un's threats aren't taken lightly.
Here, the military prepares for any possibility, from a ground invasion to the threat of chemical weapons.
We have to protect our people, and that takes strength, and it takes investment, and so with North Korea, we build missile defenses, we have strong air and naval forces, and we're prepared, if war comes to the Korean Peninsula, to destroy the North Korean military and end the North Korean regime.
And that would be the certain outcome of a war that would, however, be quite bloody for everyone.
And that's a plan that's on the table? It's been on-- it's absolutely on the table.
So, we're in a mock North Korean town right now, and there's Army guys all around us doing different exercises.
They're preparing for real-life scenarios here.
(simulated gunfire) What they're replicating here on this site is a counter weapons of mass destruction missions.
(continues) (simulated gunfire) Any friends around here? North Korea is testing missiles constantly, and it's very disconcerting for the Americans that their missile technology is improving so much, and that they might be able to make them nuclear.
Haass: One of the things we want to prevent in the world is the spread and use of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.
What we didn't do in Syria undermined that goal.
I mean think about it.
Chemical weapons were used in Syria, we didn't respond.
Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons after the end of the Cold War.
Ukraine gets invaded by by Russia, the world doesn't help it.
Saddam Hussein doesn't have weapons of mass destruction, he gets he gets invaded.
Muammar Gaddhafi gives up his weapons of mass destruction, he gets invaded and kicked out of power.
North Korea, meanwhile, has nuclear weapons, it hasn't been invaded.
So the world is taking note.
Our own policy, things we've done and haven't done, have actually weakened one of the priorities of American foreign policy, which is to stop the spread and use of nuclear, or any other, weapons of mass destruction.
So we're worse off in that sense now than we were 20 years ago? I believe we are worse off because I think we have revalued Yeah in some ways, enhanced the value of nuclear weapons.
So, LD, how long have you been based here? I've been here since July of '15, so going on two years.
We're ready to go no matter what.
So what we don't do is relax.
- Right.
- Because that's when we're gonna get surprised.
In our minds, we're always a day away from going to war.
We were told about North Korea's antiquated military.
It could be Soviet-era.
What North Korea brings to the fight is much more substantial than what we faced in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Even if it is old stuff, it's a lot of stuff.
A bullet's a bullet.
It doesn't matter when that bullet was made.
If it comes out of the gun and hits you, it's a problem.
Moynihan: For the past 60 years, the US Air Force has been patrolling the skies above the Korean Peninsula, watching and waiting.
Major Walsh: We're going a hundred miles an hour already.
(indistinct) Fox one-two, airborne, passing 1,000, climbing 5,000.
(Walsh continues) (Alvi speaks) (Walsh continues) (Alvi speaking) (Walsh speaking) Victor Cha: You're talking about a warning time that's measured in seconds, not even in minutes.
When you're talking about North Korean artillery falling on the capital city of Seoul, a city of 20 million people, there would be massive chaos.
People would be-- Mass casualties, too? Mass casualties, mass chaos.
You'd see people seeking to evacuate the city.
North Korea could target facilities of the United States, and population centers in Japan, with their short-range ballistic missiles.
There's no denying who would win a war on the Korean peninsula-- the United States and allies would win this war.
The question has always been, at what cost? Alvi: We are in the subway station in Seoul, and what they did here was build them so that every subway station can double as a bomb shelter, or a bunker.
The population is told to run underground, run to places like this, where they will be protected.
(in Korean) Gas masks.
Is this one for a chemical attack? These ones here? Alvi: God forbid there's a chemical weapons attack, or nuclear attack.
Can these subways also protect the people from attacks like that? Moynihan: To protect the country's 50 million people from a North Korean attack, the American anti-ballistic missile system known as THAAD was recently deployed to South Korea.
But amongst a younger generation of South Koreans, America's presence in the region is controversial.
This bus is full of protesters who are very angry about the THAAD anti-missile system which the Americans are installing in Sanju, which is three hours south of Seoul.
So we're going to travel with them and talk to them to find out how they feel about American involvement in this country, and also talk about North Korea.
(in Korean) From your perspective, what is the main problem with the THAAD program? (cheering) Alvi: We are in a farming community where the THAAD anti-missile system is set to be installed in a few months and people are up in arms about it.
The community doesn't want it here.
People have traveled from all over to protest the presence of THAAD and the American military in this country.
They want them out.
(in Korean) Moynihan: The debate about how to reign in North Korea continues to rage in the international community.
China is North Korea's largest trading partner and the only nation that has any real leverage over Kim Jong-un.
But China has been reluctant to exercise its clout.
So the Chinese government has a vested interest in the-- In the division of the Korean Peninsula, where they have a buffer state not dominated by the West on their border, rather than a unified Korea.
The other thing they fear happening, if they were to get rough with North Korea, is North Korea collapsing, and they don't want that either, because that means refugees potentially pouring across their border.
And that is the reason, I believe, that the Chinese have consistently failed to use their influence, including right up to today.
President Xi clearly understands and, I think, agrees that the situation has intensified and has reached a certain level of threat that action has to be taken.
Newsman: Tonight, the Trump administration is calling his missile test a, quote, "very serious threat" and not ruling out a military response, promising it's prepared to use, quote, "the full range of capabilities.
" Translator: Given the grave situation, China urges all parties to remain calm and restrain from any provocative rhetoric or actions that can lead to escalation.
The use of force will not solve any differences, but can lead to disastrous consequences.
Is war coming? (in Korean) This is the moment now to use every bit of leverage you have with the Chinese to get them to step up to the plate and start playing hardball with the North Koreans.
What I say to China is that "China, you're part of this answer, and you need to step up and not let North Korea have leverage over you because you fear collapse, but rather, you need to be as assertive as we know you can be to try to find a solution to this problem.
" The single most important relationship, bilateral relationship of the 21st century, is that of the US and China.
You know, the Korean question, and what to do about the regime in North Korea, in the sense of being able to handle difficult issues together, of clarity over what the US really wants and what China is entitled to expect.
And, you know, the Korean question, and what to do about the regime in North Korea is a vital part of that.
North Korea is not a land of good solutions.
It's all a question-- All the solutions are bad.
And so, really, you're trying to find the least bad outcome.
This administration sees this, currently, as the number one security challenge for the United States, which is good, because the reason we're in the position we are today, is because it has been the fifth, the sixth, the 10th, the 12th issue for the United States, and therefore, North Korea has had plenty of room to run.
Um, and so the fact that it has pushed itself onto the front burner, gives one confidence that others, like China, will take us more seriously when we say that they need to put pressure on, and that even the North Koreans may take us more seriously.
It seems that these hotspots are a series of countries calling America's bluff, right? And in South China Sea, they're being provocative, thumbing their nose at us.
North Koreans are doing the same thing.
They don't really seem to care very much about America's response these days, do they? In less than a quarter-century, the United States is going from an unprecedented position of being astride the world with no challenges, and suddenly, we're being challenged just about everywhere.
More players are willing to take a chance against us.
So I think there's now a certain loss of respect for the United States, a certain loss of fear.
Donald Trump: From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land.
From this day forward, it's going to be only America first.
America first.
(cheering) Haass: Even before Donald Trump was elected, we saw that history was beginning to move again.
I wrote this book, A World in Disarray, without knowing who was going to be the next president.
What I knew was, whoever was the next president, he or she was going to inherit a world in which a lot of the old arrangements were no longer adequate, and I think Donald Trump is both a reflection of that, but now he's also an engine of it.
And all these things have added up to a greater uncertainty that the United States, going forward, is going to play the sort of stabilizing leading role that it's played for the last 75 years.
We're seeing the breakdown of the system and the order that we've all taken for granted.
You've seen the threat of terrorism show us that the protection that was once afforded by American military power, couldn't even be afforded to the United States itself.
And then you have powers like China and Russia that are determined to challenge the system.
The real question is, can we find a way to keep an open, connected America, in an open, connected world? Or are we going to be pulled down and dragged down by this zero-sum worldview? There are forces that are destabilizing, trending in a bad direction, that give people good cause to be alarmed.
We're seeing the most dramatic shifts in economic and political power, really, since the Second World War.
America has lost me.
(applause) You don't actually have a New World Order, you just have a degree of disorder.
(shouting) Newsman: Reports of a gas or some kind of chemical attack in Syria, killing dozens.
Newswoman: The United States has taken direct military action against the Syrian regime.
The single biggest threat for the West at the moment is we don't understand that the 21st century will be a battle about values, whose values govern the world.
(chanting, shouting) Haass: There's nothing inevitable about war or conflict or a world that unravels.
The good news is we have the opportunity to prevent all sorts of worst possible cases from becoming reality.
But the lesson I take, is what happens in the world will affect the quality of life here-- our security, our prosperity.
So the idea that if America's first, the world is second, that's a false set of choices.
We've got to get away from this idea that what we do out there comes at the expense of what we need to do here.
We can do both.
We need to do both.