Sarah Paine: belief

Transcript context

…So I think Europe's institutions are still bad because the rate of economic growth in Europe is quite bad. Whereas you think they might be better than I think they are, because they're good at diplomacy. I suspect that this crisis now, because it's existential with Putin, will force them to clean up these institutions. It will take them time. Maybe I'll be dead wrong… or maybe I'll be wrong, dead. Who knows how that all works? But I suspect, because usually an existential threat is clarifying. You can see Ukraine trying desperately to clean up its institutions. It has a lot further to go than Europe does. I suspect that Europeans are going to clean up some of this. It'll take them time, but they have to, because the piggy bank here is no longer willing to fund their defense. So there’s merit. The Europeans need to pick up the tab on their defense, and they should have done it earlier. Without a doubt, there's merit to that. But the way we're doing it, we're going to cut ourselves out of the action. You want to put the screws on, but you also want to keep yourself part of it. We're overdoing it on some fronts. Also, you're doing it in such an insulting way. I'll give you some Machiavelli on this one. He's the founding father of political science. He talked about motivating people with fear, love, and hate. He's talking about it in The Prince. He says, "Forget about love because you can't make people like you. You can do everything and people still don't like you." He's a big man in saying, "Make them fear you because you can really motivate people," but he says, "Don't make them hate you. If they hate you, they will fight you." If you're running around serially spitting in your allies' face, they are going to hate you and it won't work out well. It's a bad strategy. Don't do it. The clickbait of insulting someone who comes to your house, that's very temporary, but the hatred of it, and also other people viewing it and going, "This is what qualifies as American diplomacy?" Those memories are long-term. It's unwise. Are you game for some audience questions?…

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