Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I'm Afshin Ratansi and this is our new show, New Order. Broadcasting all around the world, including to nearly one and a half billion on RT India. We on New Order will trace how India and its allies sit at the center of a transformation in world history.
Power is moving, alliances are shifting, and the rules of trade, technology and security are being rewritten. How are India and the wider global south navigating the new alignments? Which partnerships are emerging? And how do these structural changes ripple across the world into the streets, into the villages, the markets, the boardrooms and metropoles alike? New Order is not just about headlines. It's about diplomatic architecture, the networks of power, the flow of money and the levers of influence that determine who gains and who loses in a world of tectonic trans.
Because what we're witnessing is not just turbulence, it's a fundamental reordering. This is New Order. At the end of the show, we'll be joined by New Order's Zahra Khan who will be with us to get questions from you, the viewers and we'll try and answer as many of your questions as we can at the end of each show. With me for our very first episode is the University of Chicago's Professor John Mearsheimer. He's one of the world's most influential thinkers in international relations theory. Recently the co author of the seminal bestseller the Israel lobby and US Foreign Policy addressed Mumbai's Ideas of India Summit 2026. Professor, thanks for coming on this inaugural episode of New Order. And before we get to the geopolitics, so much happening of course in this region and beyond because of the war.
Given that you were at West Point, you were a captain in the US Air Force before you became a scholar.
What did you make of the fact that Iran hit a fifth generation warplane, the F35 with a missile? Given that so many NATO countries are going spend, they're in line for spending hundreds of millions of dollars on these things. We've had Chuck Spinney, the Pentagon procurement whistleblower on in the past about these sorts of purchases. In August, India rejected J.D. vance and Trump overtures to buy them.
What do you make of the F35 being hit by a missile?
[00:02:22] Speaker B: I'm not surprised. The fact is anytime you buy aircraft, no matter how sophisticated they are, and you fly them over an adversary's territory and that advers has at least some surface to air missiles down on the ground or aaa, you know, anti aircraft artillery, you stand a real chance of losing a few, if not many aircraft. We found this out in the Vietnam War, time after time.
And although I think the United States and Israel have greatly degraded Iran's ground based air defenses, there's no way they can completely eliminate them. So somewhere down on the ground there are surface to air missiles and aaa, and this is just a case which we should expect, where the Iranians actually brought down an aircraft. And by the way, this is what makes the United States and the Israelis, despite all their bombastic, reluctant to fly airplanes over Iran itself.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Not what Pete Hegseth, of course, says with his air of invincibility. But let's get to the geopolitics.
Who benefits from this war?
That's a question obviously over the dead bodies of all the men, women and children that are dying, that have been killed. The school in southern Iran, which was shattered by these red hot pieces of titanium from the Tomahawk missiles, benefits from the war.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: I think that there are probably at this point in time, two winners. The clearest winner is Russia.
You want to remember that what President Trump has had to do because of the oil and gas problem is take sanctions off of Russian oil and gas. This is a huge boon for Russia.
Furthermore, because we're now bogged down in this war against Iran, that means we have limited munitions and limited weapons that we can send to Ukraine to help deal with the upcoming Russian offensive once the spring and summer comes.
So if you look at what's happening in terms of Russia's position in the international system, they're clearly benefiting. And one could argue that the Russians have a vested interest in making sure that the war in Iran goes on and on and that the United States remains bogged down in that conflict. China has also been a big winner.
First of all, China's influence in the Middle east will grow with the passage of time as the United States will be seen increasingly as an unreliable ally. And furthermore, China's influence around the world will increase because again, the United States looks like it can't run a rational, legal foreign policy, that it's really out of control, that it's run by the gang that can't shoot straight. So if you're another country in the world and you're thinking about leaning toward China or leaning toward the United States, in almost all cases, you're gonna lean toward China. And you already see evidence of this happening in Europe, unsurprisingly.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: What about India, which of course has good relations with Israel. Modi and Netanyahu, photographed just in the days before Trump launched the campaign, good relations with Iran as well. The north south corridor.
Iran and India very close on.
And India, of course, close to the United States.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: There's no question that India is going to be a loser. The only interesting question at this point in time is how big or a loser it's going to be.
[00:06:17] Speaker A: Could it not hold the summit? Could it not hold the peace summit?
[00:06:20] Speaker B: That's not going to do much good for dealing with inflation, for dealing with the cost of gas, the cost of fertilizers, what this is going to do to the production of food inside of India, what it's going to do to its inflation rate and so forth and so on. This is all bad news for India, and that's clearly reflected in the Indian media, that there's no question that all Indians understand that this war is disastrous for India.
[00:06:49] Speaker A: I mean, Trump did telegraph ahead of time that he was gonna do this.
You don't really need an Indian secret spy network or a Russian one or a Chinese one to figure out that he was going to do this. Or is it the point that no country could actually believe that the United States could make such a strategic mistake?
[00:07:11] Speaker B: I look at it somewhat differently. I think that most people did not appreciate how the war would play out. I think President Trump believed, and the Israelis believed, that we could win a quick and decisive victory, that we could decapitate the Iranian regime, give them some shock and awe for the first few days, and the Iranians would throw up their hands and surrender.
So I think that countries in the Gulf and countries like India and President Trump himself and his closest advisers all thought that we would not end up in a long war where these massive problems that are now beginning to surface would face us.
So what happened was that India did not protest. The Gulf states did not protest when President Trump was talking about going to war and then when he went to war. But the problem is that President Trump did not have a coherent strategy or a viable strategy for winning a quick victory. And once the war turned into a war of attrition, it turns out that it's the Iranians, not the Americans and the Israelis, who hold almost all of the cards.
[00:08:28] Speaker A: Could they be forgiven for underestimating the power of Iran, given that Iran was clearly opposed to the Gaza genocide? And if Iran had really shown solidarity with the Palestinians, it could have blocked the Strait of Homose was during the genocide of our times.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: It could have done that. As we know, the Houthis blocked the Red Sea, and the Iranians could have done that. But the Iranians were in so much trouble, or are in so much trouble economically.
That they did not want to block the Strait of Hormuz.
They thought that that would have serious negative consequences. So they didn't do it. But the fact is that there's no question when you look at oil markets, the world, and you look at the importance of oil flowing out of the Middle east, that Iran had very powerful cards to play once a war of attrition set in and once you began to march up the escalation ladder.
[00:09:27] Speaker A: I mean, the Gulf states would protest that. They did try and persuade Trump against this. Of course, there's lots of misinformation around. But I suppose I've got to ask you personally, 20 years after your bestseller that you co authored the Israel Lobby, did you ever imagine that the Israel Lobby could be so powerful that the former, I mean, the just resigned former counterterror chief in the Trump administration could appear on Tucker Carlson and claim that the whole war was because of Israel and the Israel Lobby in the resignation letter? And even to the extent of saying that Charlie Kirk's assassination investigation was sabotaged by the Israel Lobby.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: Well, I'm not surprised at all that the Israel Lobby is principally responsible for the Iran war. You want to remember that when Steve Walt and I wrote the book on the Israel Lobby, which of course was well before this Iran war, we talked about the war In Iraq, the 2003 war in Iraq, and there is no question that the Israel Lobby played a central role in causing that war. And we argued in the book that absent the presence of the Israel Lobby, there would have been no invasion of Iraq in March of 2003. So I'm not surprised to see what's happening here. What does surprise me and really surprises me is that this is now all out in the open.
And when you think about what Joe Kent said, it's quite remarkable that somebody resigned from the Trump administration and said so boldly and so clearly that Israel and the lobby or principally responsible for dragging the United States into this war. Again, I don't find that fact that that happened surprising. What I find surprising is that Joe Kent said it and so many other people are saying it, people like Tucker Carlson, people like Bernie Sanders, people all over the political spectrum in the United States are agreeing with what Joe Kent said. I find this quite remarkable because what's happened here, that for the first time in my lifetime, the Israel Lobbies operations are out in the open for everyone
[00:11:52] Speaker A: to see, albeit that you were very brave 20 years ago when you wrote that book. You might have to remind us what you were on the receiving end for that and Tucker Carlson claims that he's under investigation by John Ratcliffe's CIA. And clearly Joe Kent, arguably afraid for himself.
[00:12:11] Speaker B: Absolutely. I mean, this is how the lobby works. It is relentless and ruthless. It's smearing people and trying to destroy them if they're at all critical of Israel or the US Israeli relationship. And I think the best example of this these days is Francesca Albanese, who is the principal person inside the United nations dealing with the Palestinian territories. And she has very bravely and correctly described what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians. She's made it very clear that this is a genocide that's taking place in Gaza. And for doing that, of course, the lobby has gone to enormous lengths to destroy her career. But this is hardly surprising. It's just the way the lobby operates.
And it's no surprise that you see what's happening with regard to Joe.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: Kentucky professor, we have to take a break right there. We'll be back on New Order after this.
Welcome back to this first episode of the new series New Order. Professor, we were talking about the threats to people who oppose the Israel lobby in the United States, albeit in a country where polls show now the United States, by a big majority, is aware of the Israel lobby, that term that you much publicized in your seminal work.
What should countries prepare for as regards the aftermath of this war, if indeed there is no nuclear aftermath to this war, how should they prepare? You already said the Gulf countries will have had to recalibrate their relations with the United States.
Countries that have relations with Israel, what should they do?
[00:14:06] Speaker B: Let's focus on India.
My argument has long been that India should keep a good distance from the United States. You don't want to get too close to the United States because you don't want to give the United States too much leverage over you. You remember when President Trump took office last January? This is January 2025.
India and the United States had very good relations, and President Modi was one of the first leaders to visit President Trump.
And it looked like they were going to have an excellent relationship moving forward. But then that relationship deteriorated and President Trump played hardball with India, and the Indians, of course, were outraged by this.
The message that I would give to the Indians after that experience is don't get too close to the United States. Don't allow the United States to be in a position to cause you great pain. So that's the first point I'd make. The second point I'd make is if you think the United States is doing something that is foolish and is going to damage your interest. You should speak loudly and clearly against American policy. This is the big mistake that the Europeans make. The United States does certain things that European leaders think are remarkably foolish. But do the European leaders speak up? No, they remain silent and they basically go along with the United States. This is not in their national interest.
So I think any country, and this certainly applies to India, that is dissatisfied with American policy should make that clear while at the same time not getting too close to the United States so that the United States can't cause too much pain.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: But can you understand that advisors to Global south powers who still favor closeness with the United States will be saying, look at that UN Security Council resolution that only condemned Iran and not the United States and Israel. Look at the way the United States is talking about, I don't know, overthrowing the government of Cuba again and working with Ethiopia against Eritrea. Look at this full spectrum power on show while they have simultaneous wars in Europe and in West Asia. You have to be close to the United States, far from a dying empire. Even if they are a dying empire, they're still strong and they're still the most powerful military in the world.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: There's no question about that. The United States is a remarkably powerful country and this is why so many people kowtow to President Trump or appease President Trump. I fully understand that. But the point is that you want to go to great lengths to minimize the leverage that the United States has over you. You want to look for alternative ways of doing business.
[00:16:59] Speaker A: But sorry, professor, but as soon as you do that, you run into sanctions and all the rest of it.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: Not necessarily.
I think the Indians have actually done a pretty good job in recent months of having decent relations with the United States but not getting too close to the United.
I think Modi is fully aware of the danger of getting too close to the United States. But a lot of countries in the Global south can move closer to China or remain neutral in terms of the US China relationship. For example, if I was a country like Indonesia, I would advise Indonesia not to get too close to the United States and to remain on very friendly terms with China.
There's no question that Indonesia has to worry about China, but it also has to worry about the United States because the United States is basically a rogue elephant. And if you get too close to that rogue elephant, it may trample you. None of this is to deny your point that the United States can cause you pain if it's unhappy with you.
[00:18:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Quick reminder to Indonesian government ministers, a million killed in the U. S backed war in Indonesia, after all, the site of the Bandung conference. And speaking of which, does that mean that this war, assuming it doesn't go nuclear, might be good for the multipolar BRICS vision, despite it seeming like a failure at the moment, no BRICS summit was convened. The UAE and Iran, both members of brics, the newest members of brics, and both at war, kind of.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: I think there's no question that this war will work to the benefit of the Global south or to the BRICS countries.
As we were talking about before when we pointed out which countries have benefited the most from this war. It's clearly Russia and China and they're both members of brics. But at the same time, I think a lot of the BRICS countries are going to be badly hurt by this war.
India is one of them, Indonesia may be another.
But the end result of that is it will cause those countries to rethink their relationship with the United States and make sure that they don't get too close to the United States. And I would expect that even criticize the United States moving forward because they understand that when the United States, despite all its powers, does something foolish, it has huge negative consequences for them.
[00:19:38] Speaker A: At the time of recording this interview, of course, Trump did put out on Truth Social a minor criticism of Israel.
I don't know whether I can really say minor, but perhaps in the context of such a cataclysmic situation, it is minor. Criticizing Israel for bombing the South PAS gas field, the joint gas field owned by Qatar and Iran.
How far can the United States go in criticizing Israel before Israel further exploits its messianic ideas of existential crisis? I mean, should we think that they will use nuclear weapons? Because how does Israel get out of this war?
[00:20:20] Speaker B: Well, let's just talk about criticizing Israel first. Up until now, it's been almost impossible for the United States to put real pressure on Israel not to do certain things.
But you want to understand that when Israel attacked the South Paris natural gas installations, it was precipitating a march up the escalation ladder that could have catastrophic consequences for the United States and for the world economy.
The last thing that the United States wants is a war between Iran on one side, the United States, the Gulf states, and Israel on the other side, where both sides are destroying oil and gas installations in the Middle East. This would be catastrophic for the world economy.
So what happened is that President Trump landed on the Israelis like a ton of bricks. There's no question about that. He told him that what happened was unacceptable. And that cannot happen again.
Now, I would think that if this happened, this conflict continues to escalate and both sides begin or continue to attack oil and gas installations, that the United States will get tough on Israel like it has never been tough on Israel in the past.
So what I'm saying to you is I think we need a catastrophic situation in terms of the world economy, or we need to be on the verge of a catastrophic situation involving the world economy for the United States to really get rough with Israel. And I think we're not that far away from that point.
[00:22:10] Speaker A: We could do a whole.
[00:22:11] Speaker B: We could do it.
[00:22:12] Speaker A: We could do a whole New Order show on the end of the Israel lobby. Maybe we should do that. But running out of time. So just. I better ask you about Western Europe, which people are forgetting about nowadays because it's in such a financial mess. Very quickly, as Russia wins the NATO proxy war on it through Ukraine.
What happens in the debt throws of the coalition of the willing and the like in Western Europe as the prices spiral, even if the war comes to an end in the next few weeks, spiral up because of the way the prices are fixed in already for fertilizers and helium and petrochemical products?
[00:22:50] Speaker B: Well, if you marry a defeat in the war in Ukraine to what's happening to the European economies, you see very quickly that this is going to represent a devastating defeat for the European elites. And by the way, it's also going to be a devastating defeat for NATO. NATO effectively went to war against Russia. And in a situation where the Russians win the war against Ukraine, which they are going to do, you see that this is going to have hugely negative consequences for NATO and for the European governing elites. So they are in really deep trouble. The last thing the European governing elites needed was this crisis in the Gulf.
The Iran war on top of the Ukraine war is a double whammy for the European leadership.
[00:23:47] Speaker A: Professor John Mearsheimer.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: Thank you. You're welcome.
[00:23:54] Speaker A: And now I'm joined by New Order's Zahra Khan with some of your questions.
[00:23:59] Speaker C: The audience has sent in tons of questions, but we only have time for a few. The first one is Noori Vit, who, by the way, is very excited to see the new show, but they're asking. The international media has been committing credibility suicide for years, demonizing China, Russia, Iran. Will the majority of humanity finally get a say on the world stage? And if so, when?
[00:24:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, demonizing India arguably as well, let alone Latin American countries.
Amazings are that people have sent in so many questions, and this is the first episode of New Order. Can I just say at the beginning, but as regards whether finally the rest of the the world gets to say, I suppose, as Professor John Mersheimer was implying, it just depends on whether Israel used the tactical nuclear weapons or not. If not, there is hope, I think, for everyone in this world, despite the thousands killed, wounded or displaced.
[00:24:53] Speaker C: It's a great thing that you said. Enthusiasm is absolutely being shown because our audience has more questions like Mohammad Agla, who has asked what are the similarities and differences between the Vietnam and Afghanistan wars and how will this Iran war differ from from both?
[00:25:08] Speaker A: I think military theorists are already saying there are great similarities because this is about asymmetric warfare, goes back all the way to the Algerian war of independence against France. The reason Vietnam defeated the United States, the reason Afghanistan defeated the United States was the asymmetry of the conflict. And should ground troops be involved, US Ground troops be involved on the coast of Iran? The United States will certainly be defeated. There are hundreds of thousands of Iranian troops, conscripted troops, and clearly there is no way the United States can defend their positions on the coast of the Islamic Republic in any way. They will lose and they will die. And I think there will be plenty, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who Professor Mearsheimer was implying was against it. The deep state is against it. They'll be arguing do not turn it into Vietnam or Afghanistan.
[00:26:04] Speaker C: I think on ground troop is like a big question that everybody has on their mind. But Neil from the UK Wants to ask how, how do we stay focused and positive when the Western leadership is so divorced from its populations and about how there's hideous criminality of international law and the world is just sitting by.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: Well, at least this is established, that international law has been a sham since Yugoslavia, arguably.
And as for, I mean, is it even the west, even the idea of the West, I think, is a debatable point. Those nations, that NATO hegemonic empire is dying and the nail in the coffin arguably will be this war on Iran. As again, our guest, the greatest, one of the greatest theorists of international relations was implying this is a new world order that is beginning and Trump is helping to inaugurate it. The question is whether Zionism and Israel can put a spanner in the works by ruining it for everyone.
We're talking about the lives of millions, billions actually in the balance because of food shortages, energy shortages right around the world, and whether it's Israel really uses those nuclear weapons that finally Trump himself appears to have conceded. Israel has Israel has weapons of mass destruction.
[00:27:24] Speaker C: Thank you, Afshin, for your answers. And I'll be back next week with more questions from our audience.
[00:27:28] Speaker A: And that's it from me, Afshin Ratansi, with our new show, New Order. Hope you enjoyed it. Make sure to follow us on social media where you can watch all our shows. We'll be bringing you a brand new show every Sunday. On each show, we'll continue to investigate shifting global power in this New Order.
