Lex Fridman: uncertainty

Transcript context

…Yeah. Well, in your scenario, where China already dominates Asia and we dominate the Western hemisphere, I think you start talking about where the most likely places that the United States and China go head-to-head or fight through proxies. I think it is the Gulf or the Middle East and the scenario that you posit. I mean, one question I have… I don’t know about you, but for me, unlike with the Soviet Union, and I know I was born there, but even outside of that, the cultural gap, the loss in translation, the communication gap between China and the United States seems to be much greater than that of what was the former Soviet Union and the United States. I see two cultures intermingling and communicating as one of the ways to deescalate future conflict. It’s an interesting question. I mean, at sort of an abstract theoretical level, my argument is that great powers act according to realist dictates and they understand those realistic dictates and that could lead to cooperation or it can lead to war. It depends. I would say just in the case of the Soviets, a lot of people… I would say just in the case of the Soviets, a lot of people describe the Cold War as an ideological competition above all else, it was communism versus liberal democracy or communism versus liberal capitalism, whatever. I actually don’t believe that. I believe the Soviets were realist to the core. I believe Stalin was a realist par excellence, and that ideology did not matter much in Stalin’s foreign policy. And I believe if you look at Soviet foreign policy after World War II, throughout the Cold War, they were realists to the core. And I think in those days, the Americans were realists, a lot of liberal ideology floating around out there, but the Americans were realists. And I think one of the reasons you avoided a shooting match between the United States and the Soviet Union from ’47 to ’89 was because both sides, I think understood basic balance of power logic. US China competition is somewhat different. First of all, the Chinese are realists to the core. I’ve spent a lot of time in China. I basically have rock and roll. I’m basically a rock and roll star in China. The Chinese-…

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