Jiang Xueqin (clip): Great Power Conflicts Escalate Out of Control

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]you argue that we're already in World War II and but it's it's fought differently than the first two world wars. Uh however, one of the big risks here uh is that the the current conflicts now between the great powers can continue along the existing trajectory. I mean the delusion of escalation control that's something that worries me a lot. that is that some the Europeans think for example they can continue to uh to attack Russian cities and the Russians won't retaliate uh they can you know take block Russian ships they won't do anything you know might be able to put a um to to cut off China's access to to energy and you know they necessarily won't do anything and of course the US can have an economic crisis tomorrow and begin you know things can easily spiral out of control. It just seems to me that uh yeah, the path we're currently on it seems very temporary. Uh do you do you see a I guess a a clear uh I guess a yeah path forward in terms of the great powers beginning to escalate against each other because uh it doesn't seem sustainable in any way what's happening now.

[00:01:17]>> Right. So um I I think the calculus is this. The calculus is that if you do nothing, you might have a situation like the 1848 revolutions when all the monarchies in Europe in 1848 were at the precipice of being overthrown by popular rebellions. Okay? And if you do something, you might end up in World War I where millions of people just died in the trenches and it seemed as though the world was about to end. So, if you're the elite in Europe and America, you would much prefer the World War I option as opposed to the 1848 option. And and and that and that's a stark choice facing the global elite right now. You either uh do nothing and then your populations revolt against you because you're incompetent, you're greedy, you're corrupt, or you send them to die off in the trenches of Ukraine to die to send them to die in the mountains of Iranian in order to reduce the political tension at home. Um and and I I know this is very blunt and I know this is very stark but um at the end of the day um the elite have d have dug themselves a huge hole.

[00:02:25]>> Yeah. Uh well a key a key actor here though is uh Israel. Uh they we we see again the ambitions being quite clear.

[00:02:35]Uh but at the same time there's they seem to have a lot of profound problems.

[00:02:40]They have very deep divisions in society. Something that seems to border to well close to a civil war. You have this greater Israel initiative which puts them at odds with their uh well all of their neighbors almost. Um their main protector is the United States which is in relative decline. You have the mergence of new great powers in the region which are less empathetic to the to Israel. And uh even the United States is losing you see again a quite a fascinating trend which is that the the uh the standing of Israel how Americans perceive it it's in freef fall I haven't seen this in my lifetime at least the way the Americans are now turning a bit on Israel at least the population the as you said the elites or political establishment they still you know continue as not nothing has happened but what you see Israel ending up here?

[00:03:37]>> So, unfortunately, Israel has become a death cult. Uh it's very esqueological.

[00:03:42]Um it's and it's only minority people, right? You have these religious extremists who've taken control over uh the Israel government. Um and they believe that um what's happened in the Middle East will lead to the coming of Messiah. So as long as they stick together and as long as they push history forward, they want to accelerate the process, then God will um will will save them. So I mean the calculus, it's very diabol diabolical. It's very cynical. But what they believe is this, the world is headed towards collapse. Uh the world is headed towards decline. And so there's going to be chaos throughout the world. And if Israel is able to accelerate this chaos, push this chaos forward, then what's going to happen is that first of all, Israel is is gonna be better positioned than everyone else to take advantage of this chaos because Israel has initiative. But also, it's going to force all Jews around the world to unite behind the idea of Israel because um the world will right rightfully see uh Israel as a chaos agent. But that's good for Israel because uh if the Jewish people are united, if all the nation of Israel is united behind a common cause, then God will stand behind Israel and defeat the entire world. And unfortunately that is very much a calculus of these religious fanatics in Israel today.

[00:05:04]>> Yeah. I um actually I wanted to ask I forgot I wanted to ask another question about Europe as well because uh one of the things that looks very concerning at the moment is the possibility of a direct Russia Europe war which would be I guess a significant component of a of a world war simply because the Europeans uh I think they bet everything on on this war that is to use the Ukrainians to defeat Russia. But now uh they kind of um yeah this incrementalism they got pulled in deeper and deeper and now the situation they're in is uh now that Ukraine is faltering they they have to escalate essentially have to get more involved uh send more long range missiles they have to do more you know intercept Russian ships uh talking about putting a naval blockade on the Russians all of these things to compensate for things going uh well poorly on the battlefield and this is happening at the same time that the Americans are signaling that you know this is for you to fight. So again if you want to fight the Russians you fight with Ukrainians and Europeans. If you want to fight Iranians use the Arabs. If you want to fight the Chinese you know use uh some of the frontline states in East Asia.

[00:06:16]But uh but so you have the Europeans escalating the Americans seemingly walking away not being prepared to defend the Europeans. And while this is all happening, the Russians, the main pressure they're under is they have to restore their deterrence because they let the Europeans and well NATO overall just walk all over them and uh give in every time. So if if I would make a prediction, it looks as if the Russians are preparing to strike back to retaliate a bit like the Iranians restore their deterrence and uh the Americans very likely will then leave this to the Europeans. uh but um but the Europeans doesn't really have do not have that much fighting power it seems.

[00:06:57]So where do you see this going? Right.

[00:07:01]So you look at the national defense strategy of the United States which is published uh uh in January uh of this year. Um it lays out a vision for the the world and right now the Americans are actually implementing this vision.

[00:07:14]The vision is this. America retreats into fortress North America. go to North America, right? And and that's why Trump has been aggressive towards Canada, Greenland, uh Mexico, uh Colombia, Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba, right?

[00:07:30]Because it's all part of greater North America. And then what's going to happen is that uh the American economy is going to focus more on uh manufacturing and resource extraction. Okay. Um so so the Pentagon has reached out to Ford and General Motors in Detroit and said that they would like uh these companies to manufacture more munitions and drones and these companies are perfectly happy to do that because it's it's more profitable to make weapons than it is to make cars. Okay. So so that that that's a vision for greater North America and in order to create markets for American weapons what you do is you create divide and rule throughout the world. Right? So imagine a situation where Russia is fighting Europe in Europe in in Europe.

[00:08:12]Japan is fighting China in East Asia.

[00:08:15]Iran is fighting the GCC in Israel in the Middle East. Well, now the entire world now depends on American resources and American uh weapons in order to sustain the these wars and this would um be of tremendous benefit to America. So America right now is trying to create the conditions where the world is in complete chaos and America can just sit back in North America and profit right and that's why I think that when Trump goes to um China in two days it's going to be extremely consiliatory where you know he makes a lot of generous offers to China and China reciprocates and so now and so it seems as though there's now peace between China and the United States but then what happens that Trump goes immediately to Japan and encourages Japan to militarize against the Chinese threat. Right? So he so so what's what's happened is that before the conflict was between United States and Russia in Europe and then the the United States basically subcontract this conflict to the Europeans, right? And now be before the conflict was between China and United States in East Asia. What the Americans are going to do is subcontract this conflict to the Japanese and the South Koreans against China. So it's all part of this, you know, diabolical cynical strategy of Americans to maintain their empire.

[00:09:33]But a lot of this is premised on the ability to keep the the wars um essentially on the slow burner not not to get too intense and I think that's one of the again it goes back to this delusion I mentioned about the escalation control because the war with Russia I guess the the benefit is that the NATO countries uh to a large extent allow them to manage the pace of this that is this slow grinding war and I think often the assumption in in Europe is you know if if the Europeans would enter this war directly. It's well first they send a few soldiers to the rear you know somewhere along you know western parts of Ukraine to do other tasks which would free up Ukrainians to go die on the front. But if this is not enough you know they could always have some special forces uh somewhere close to the front managing weapons more and then you know they could have a little bit on the front line just to tip the balance you know uh just to make sure the front lines begin to freeze and do not uh move significantly. But the thing is uh I can't imagine the way the Russians have been fighting the Ukrainians that they would treat the Europeans the same way.

[00:10:38]The idea that you know in Europe they would simply be able to restrict the war to Ukrainian and Russian territory. It just seems as if this would escalate in a huge way very very quickly. I >> I completely agree with you. I completely agree with you like like this plan of Americans uh is cynical and it's also going to end up um being counteractive. it's going to destroy their allies and it may turn may turn the entire world against America. But um the reality is that America is desperate to maintain its empire and it's and it's willing to burn down the entire world in order to maintain its empire. Um so that's a situation we we are in. I also point out that if you look at the battle um battle lines in Ukraine, I believe European special forces are already in the battle. Um so last year it seemed as though the um uh the Russians had a major breakthrough and it seemed as though the Ukrainian front lines have been were exhausted. They basically broke down and now there's a certain like like new energy uh to the Ukraine front lines and they're winning back territory. Um so I I I have to believe that European special forces are already on the ground in some capacity in Ukraine and uh because of mission creep we we should expect an escalation. Look, look, and also the Ukrainians are are striking at Russian oil refineries, and this is going to compel the Russians to hit the Ukrainians much harder. The Russians have been extremely um methodical in their attacks against Ukrainians. They've not targeted Ukrainian power plants. Uh they've not targeted critical civilian infrastructure. And now they will because they they appreciate that that this war um will now be will now be between Europe and Russia and it'll be fight to the bitter end.

[00:12:24]So when um well the Europeans become the new Ukrainians, that is to fight to the last European, do you see the United States sitting this one out or do you u or or would they >> the entire the entire US strategy is to uh is for Europe to fight uh the Russians to to European as you say and they'll sit this out because they have abely no interest. All they want to do is cause as much conflict as in the world as possible and then continue to sell weapons and resources to Europe and they will finance it and and thus force the world to absorb uh US debt. It's very clear what's happening. Even the Europeans know what's happening. But but unfortunately the entire European leadership has been vaselized by the Americans and the European leadership is very much afraid of their own population. These are bureaucrats who just want to maintain power. So uh it's going to basically take a revolt for policy to change in Europe.

[00:13:24]>> Just the last qu question on this topic though is given that the Russians and Iranians now I think they now so Russians and Chinese they they they kind of see that the the the US push for peace in Ukraine. It seems bit deceptive now. It's it wasn't a push for peace. It was outsourcing the war to the Europeans and a key target in Iran and seems to be the Chinese. How do you think to what extent do you think they will come in now and uh make sure that the Iranians are able to essentially push back against the Americans that is to absorb the pain and uh yeah strike back right so um unfortunately the Chinese tend to have a very short-term utilitarian um approach to geopolitics and so what what what we need to what we need to recognize is that the Chinese have strong economic relations with everyone in the Middle East, including Israel, including the GCC, including Iran. So, they don't want to be put in a situation where they side with Iran and then they are forced in a conflict with the GCC. They the Chinese don't do things like that. uh they believe very much in balance and harmony and um so uh the Chinese have been applying a lot of pressure on Iranians to reopen the Hummus and to basically end this war as much as possible. Now it's going to be unfair because it's Americans and it's really with the aggressor but unfortunately you can't reason with bullies, you can't reason with thugs. So the Chinese are stuck trying to reason with the Iranians. And so um the Chinese basically want this war to end as soon as possible and for global trade to resume as peacefully as possible. Um and unfort but unfortunately the Chinese um are not taking a long-term geopolitical approach to the situ situation in the Middle East. They don't really acknowledge the fact that Americans are hellbent on maintaining their empire and in the long term it's not really in the benefit of China to side with the Americans but in the short term um and really only the Chinese care about the short term uh the Chinese are stuck working with the Americans.