Jeremi Suri: History of American Power | Lex Fridman Podcast #180

00:00:00.000 | The following is a conversation with Jeremy Suri,

00:00:02.920 | a historian at UT Austin,

00:00:05.320 | whose research interests and writing

00:00:07.600 | are on modern American history

00:00:10.000 | with an eye towards presidents

00:00:11.760 | and in general individuals who wielded power.

00:00:15.200 | Quick mention of our sponsors,

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00:00:22.000 | Check them out in the description to support this podcast.

00:00:26.680 | As a side note, let me say that in these conversations,

00:00:30.100 | for better or worse, I seek understanding, not activism.

00:00:34.480 | I'm not left nor right.

00:00:36.720 | I love ideas, not labels.

00:00:39.280 | And most fascinating ideas are full of uncertainty,

00:00:41.960 | tension and trade-offs.

00:00:43.720 | Labels destroy that.

00:00:45.520 | I try ideas out, let them breathe for a time,

00:00:48.420 | try to challenge, explore and analyze.

00:00:51.080 | But mostly I trust the intelligence of you, the listener,

00:00:54.840 | to think and to make up your own mind, together with me.

00:00:58.680 | I will try to have economists and philosophers on

00:01:02.200 | from all points on the multidimensional political spectrum,

00:01:06.000 | including the extremes.

00:01:08.020 | I will try to both have an open mind

00:01:10.160 | and to ask difficult questions when needed.

00:01:12.600 | I'll make mistakes.

00:01:14.200 | Don't shoot this robot at the first sign of failure.

00:01:16.920 | I'm still under development.

00:01:18.600 | Pre-release version 0.1.

00:01:21.400 | This is the Lex Friedman Podcast

00:01:23.480 | and here is my conversation with Jeremy Suri.

00:01:26.600 | You've studied many American presidents throughout history.

00:01:31.000 | So who do you think was the greatest president

00:01:34.480 | in American history?

00:01:35.920 | - The greatest American president was Abraham Lincoln.

00:01:38.780 | And Tolstoy reflected on this himself, actually,

00:01:42.720 | saying that when he was in the Caucasus,

00:01:45.120 | he asked these peasants in the Caucasus

00:01:48.960 | who was the greatest man in the world

00:01:50.320 | that they had heard of.

00:01:51.400 | And they said, Abraham Lincoln.

00:01:53.200 | And why?

00:01:54.680 | Well, because he gave voice

00:01:56.600 | to people who had no voice before.

00:01:58.880 | He turned politics into an art.

00:02:00.680 | This is what Tolstoy recounted,

00:02:02.180 | the peasants in the Caucasus telling him.

00:02:04.740 | Lincoln made politics more than about power.

00:02:07.320 | He made it an art.

00:02:08.440 | He made it a source of liberation.

00:02:10.760 | And those living even far from the United States

00:02:13.240 | could see that model, that inspiration from Lincoln.

00:02:17.880 | He was a man who had two years of education,

00:02:20.680 | yet he mastered the English language

00:02:22.680 | and he used the language to help people

00:02:26.280 | imagine a different kind of world.

00:02:27.760 | You see, leaders and presidents are at their best

00:02:30.500 | when they're doing more

00:02:31.440 | than just manipulating institutions and power,

00:02:34.000 | when they're helping the people imagine a better world.

00:02:36.520 | And he did that as no other president has.

00:02:40.400 | - And you say he gave voice to those who are voiceless.

00:02:43.980 | Who are you talking to about in general?

00:02:46.400 | Is this about African-Americans

00:02:47.680 | or is this about just the populace in general?

00:02:50.880 | - Certainly part of it is about slaves, African-Americans,

00:02:54.640 | and many immigrants, immigrants from all parts of Europe

00:02:58.360 | and other areas that have come to the United States.

00:03:00.760 | But part of it was just for ordinary American citizens.

00:03:03.240 | The Republican Party,

00:03:04.520 | for which Lincoln was the first president,

00:03:06.540 | was a party created to give voice to poor white men,

00:03:11.040 | as well as slaves and others.

00:03:13.620 | And Lincoln was a poor white man himself.

00:03:15.940 | Grew up without slaves and without land,

00:03:17.840 | which meant you had almost nothing.

00:03:20.140 | - What do you think about the trajectory of that man

00:03:22.020 | with only two years of education?

00:03:23.960 | Is there something to be said

00:03:26.060 | about how does one come from nothing

00:03:28.660 | and nurture the ideals that kind of make this country great

00:03:33.660 | into something where you can actually be a leader

00:03:38.820 | of this nation to espouse those ideas,

00:03:41.080 | to give the voice to the voiceless?

00:03:43.620 | - Yes, I think you actually hit the nail on the head.

00:03:46.340 | I think what he represented was the opportunity,

00:03:50.620 | and that was the word that mattered for him,

00:03:52.140 | opportunity that came from the ability to raise yourself up,

00:03:57.080 | to work hard and to be compensated for your hard work.

00:04:00.380 | And this is at the core of the Republican Party

00:04:02.340 | of the 19th century, which is the core of capitalism.

00:04:05.900 | It's not about getting rich.

00:04:07.200 | It's about getting compensated for your work.

00:04:09.380 | It's about being incentivized to do better work.

00:04:11.780 | And Lincoln was constantly striving.

00:04:13.460 | One of his closest associates, Herndon,

00:04:16.620 | said he was the little engine of ambition that couldn't stop.

00:04:19.980 | He just kept going, taught himself to read,

00:04:23.060 | taught himself to be a lawyer.

00:04:24.220 | He went through many failed businesses

00:04:25.620 | before he even reached that point,

00:04:27.180 | many failed love affairs, but he kept trying.

00:04:30.540 | He kept working, and what American society offered him

00:04:33.420 | and what he wanted American society to offer everyone else

00:04:36.020 | was the opportunity to keep trying to fail

00:04:38.740 | and then get up and try again.

00:04:40.680 | - What do you think was the nature of that ambition?

00:04:42.660 | Was there a hunger for power?

00:04:44.220 | - I think Lincoln had a hunger for success.

00:04:46.740 | I think he had a hunger to get out

00:04:50.300 | of the poor station he was in.

00:04:52.380 | He had a hunger to be someone

00:04:54.060 | who had control over his life.

00:04:56.020 | Freedom for him did not mean the right

00:04:58.620 | to do anything you wanna do,

00:05:00.500 | but it meant the right to be secure

00:05:02.460 | from being dependent upon someone else.

00:05:05.120 | So independence.

00:05:06.660 | He writes in his letters when he's very young

00:05:08.860 | that he hated being dependent on his father.

00:05:11.680 | He grew up without a mother.

00:05:13.460 | His father was a struggling farmer,

00:05:15.260 | and he would write in his letters

00:05:16.660 | that his father treated him like a slave on the farm.

00:05:19.220 | Some think his hatred of slavery came from that experience.

00:05:22.620 | He didn't ever wanna have to work for someone again.

00:05:25.220 | He wanted to be free and independent,

00:05:26.860 | and he wanted, again, every American,

00:05:28.240 | this is the kind of Jeffersonian dream,

00:05:30.480 | to be the owner of themself and the owner of their future.

00:05:34.020 | - Yeah, that's a really nice definition of freedom.

00:05:36.100 | We often think kind of this very abstract notion

00:05:39.140 | of being able to do anything you want,

00:05:41.460 | but really it's ultimately breaking yourself free

00:05:43.900 | from the constraints, like the very tight dependence

00:05:48.900 | on whether it's the institutions or on your family

00:05:53.900 | or the expectations or the community or whatever,

00:05:57.500 | being able to be, to realize yourself

00:06:01.340 | within the constraints of your own abilities.

00:06:03.740 | It's still not true freedom.

00:06:05.700 | It's true freedom is probably sort of

00:06:08.100 | almost like designing a video game character

00:06:09.860 | or something like that.

00:06:11.020 | - I agree.

00:06:11.860 | I think that's exactly right.

00:06:13.940 | I think freedom is not that I can have any outcome I want.

00:06:18.940 | I can't control outcomes.

00:06:20.300 | The most powerful, freest person in the world

00:06:21.900 | cannot control outcomes,

00:06:23.460 | but it means that at least I get to make choices.

00:06:25.300 | Someone else doesn't make those choices for me.

00:06:27.660 | - Is there something to be said about Lincoln

00:06:30.780 | and on the political game front of it,

00:06:35.780 | which is he's accomplished some of them?

00:06:38.460 | I don't know, but it seems like

00:06:40.380 | there was some tricky politics going on.

00:06:42.680 | We tend to not think of it in those terms

00:06:44.480 | because of the dark aspects of slavery.

00:06:48.600 | We tend to think about it in sort of ethical and human terms,

00:06:51.780 | but in their time, it was probably as much a game of politics

00:06:56.780 | not just these broad questions of human nature, right?

00:07:01.780 | It was a game.

00:07:03.300 | So is there something to be said about being a skillful

00:07:05.580 | player in the game of politics that you'd take from Lincoln?

00:07:08.340 | - Absolutely, and Lincoln never read Karl von Clausewitz,

00:07:12.300 | the great 19th century German thinker on strategy

00:07:14.860 | and politics, but he embodied the same wisdom,

00:07:17.220 | which is that everything is politics.

00:07:18.820 | If you wanna get anything done,

00:07:20.540 | and this includes even relationships,

00:07:22.940 | there's a politics to it.

00:07:24.860 | What does that mean?

00:07:25.680 | It means that you have to persuade, coerce,

00:07:29.260 | encourage people to do things they wouldn't otherwise do.

00:07:32.300 | And Lincoln was a master at that.

00:07:34.620 | He was a master at that for two reasons.

00:07:36.060 | He had learned through his hard life to read people,

00:07:38.700 | to anticipate them, to spend a lot of time listening.

00:07:41.260 | One thing I often tell people is the best leaders

00:07:45.220 | are the listeners, not the talkers.

00:07:47.540 | And then second, Lincoln was very thoughtful

00:07:50.580 | and planned every move out.

00:07:52.460 | He was thinking three or four moves,

00:07:54.180 | maybe five moves down the chessboard,

00:07:56.500 | while others were move number one or two.

00:07:59.140 | - That's fascinating to think about him

00:08:01.300 | just listening, just studying.

00:08:05.140 | They look at great fighters in this way,

00:08:06.740 | like the first few rounds of boxing and mixed martial arts,

00:08:10.320 | you're studying the movement of your opponent

00:08:12.620 | in order to sort of define the holes.

00:08:16.580 | That's a really interesting frame to think about it.

00:08:18.620 | Is there, in terms of relationships,

00:08:22.640 | where do you think as president or as a politician

00:08:28.460 | is the most impact to be had?

00:08:30.060 | I've been reading a lot about Hitler recently.

00:08:33.140 | And one of the things that I'm more and more

00:08:35.140 | starting to wonder, what the hell did he do alone

00:08:40.020 | in a room one-on-one with people?

00:08:42.560 | Because it seems like that's where

00:08:44.820 | he was exceptionally effective.

00:08:46.860 | When I think about certain leaders,

00:08:49.080 | I'm not sure Stalin was this way, I apologize.

00:08:53.220 | Been very obsessed with this period of human history.

00:08:56.060 | It just seems like certain leaders

00:08:59.500 | are extremely effective one-on-one.

00:09:01.980 | A lot of people think of Hitler in Lincoln

00:09:04.980 | as a speech maker, as a great charismatic speech maker.

00:09:08.660 | But it seems like to me that some of these guys

00:09:11.620 | were really effective inside a room.

00:09:14.620 | And what do you think, what's more important?

00:09:17.380 | Your effectiveness to make a hell of a good speech?

00:09:22.380 | Sort of being in a room with many people?

00:09:25.660 | Or is it all boiled down to one-on-one?

00:09:28.280 | - Well, I think in a sense, it's both.

00:09:31.180 | One needs to do both.

00:09:32.300 | And most politicians, most leaders are better

00:09:34.700 | at one or the other.

00:09:35.620 | It's the rare leader who can do both.

00:09:37.940 | I will say that if you are going to be a figure

00:09:41.740 | who's a president or the leader of a complex organization,

00:09:45.620 | not a startup, but a complex organization

00:09:47.520 | where you have many different constituencies

00:09:49.500 | and many different interests,

00:09:51.580 | you have to do the one-on-one really well.

00:09:53.580 | Because a lot of what's going to happen

00:09:55.540 | is you're going to be meeting with people

00:09:56.920 | who represent different groups, right?

00:09:58.720 | The leader of the labor unions,

00:10:00.420 | the leader of your investing board, et cetera.

00:10:03.340 | And you have to be able to persuade them.

00:10:05.140 | And it's the intangibles that often matter most.

00:10:07.820 | Lincoln's skill, and it's the same that FDR had,

00:10:10.220 | is the ability to tell a story.

00:10:13.220 | I think Hitler was a little different,

00:10:14.820 | but what I've read of Stalin is he was a storyteller too.

00:10:18.100 | - One-on-one storyteller?

00:10:19.100 | - Yeah, that's my understanding is that he,

00:10:21.980 | and what Lincoln did,

00:10:23.140 | I don't want to compare Lincoln to Stalin,

00:10:24.540 | but Lincoln did is he was not confrontational.

00:10:30.340 | He was happy to have an argument

00:10:32.300 | if an argument were to be had,

00:10:33.540 | but actually what he would try to do

00:10:35.700 | is move you through telling a story

00:10:38.780 | that got you to think about your position

00:10:40.580 | in a different way, to basically disarm you.

00:10:43.220 | And Franklin Roosevelt did the same thing.

00:10:44.820 | Ronald Reagan did the same thing.

00:10:46.240 | Storytelling is a very important skill.

00:10:49.500 | - It's almost heartbreaking that we don't get to have,

00:10:52.420 | or maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong on this,

00:10:55.700 | but it feels like we don't have a lot of information

00:10:58.220 | on how all of these folks were in private,

00:11:00.780 | one-on-one conversations.

00:11:02.940 | Even if we get stories about it,

00:11:06.820 | it's like, again, sorry to bring up Hitler,

00:11:09.960 | but people have talked about his piercing gaze

00:11:14.960 | when they're one-on-one.

00:11:16.740 | There's a feeling like he's just looking through you.

00:11:19.520 | I wonder, it makes me wonder,

00:11:21.140 | was Lincoln somebody who was a little bit more passive,

00:11:24.140 | the ego doesn't shine.

00:11:27.820 | It's not an overwhelming thing,

00:11:29.260 | or is it more like, again,

00:11:32.380 | don't wanna bring up controversial figures,

00:11:34.100 | but Donald Trump, where it's more menacing, right?

00:11:37.700 | There's a more physically menacing thing

00:11:39.780 | where it's almost like a bullying kind of dynamic.

00:11:44.060 | So I wonder, I wish we knew.

00:11:48.180 | 'Cause from a psychological perspective,

00:11:50.580 | I wonder if there's a thread

00:11:52.060 | that connects most great leaders.

00:11:53.660 | - It's a great question.

00:11:55.180 | So I think the best writer on this is Max Weber, right?

00:11:58.180 | And he talks about the power of charisma,

00:12:00.620 | that the term charisma comes from Weber, right?

00:12:02.900 | And Weber's use of it actually to talk about prophets.

00:12:06.020 | And I think he has a point, right?

00:12:07.940 | Leaders who are effective in the way you describe

00:12:10.820 | are leaders who feel prophetic,

00:12:12.860 | or Weber says they have a kind of magic about them.

00:12:15.940 | And I think that can come from different sources.

00:12:17.960 | I think that can come from the way someone

00:12:20.700 | carries themselves.

00:12:21.580 | It can come from the way they use words.

00:12:24.080 | So maybe there are different kinds of magic

00:12:26.540 | that someone develops.

00:12:28.000 | But I think there are two things

00:12:29.260 | that seem to be absolutely necessary.

00:12:31.460 | First is you have to be someone who sizes up the person

00:12:33.780 | on the other side of the table.

00:12:35.100 | You cannot be the person who just comes in

00:12:36.800 | and reads your brief.

00:12:38.780 | And then second, I think it's interactive.

00:12:41.300 | And there is a quickness of thought.

00:12:44.300 | So you brought up Donald Trump.

00:12:45.860 | I don't think Donald Trump is a deep thinker at all,

00:12:47.860 | but he's quick.

00:12:48.700 | And I think that quickness is part of it.

00:12:51.820 | It's different from delivering a lecture

00:12:53.820 | where it's the depth of your thought.

00:12:55.100 | Can you, for 45 minutes, analyze something?

00:12:57.780 | Many people can't do that,

00:12:59.340 | but they still might be very effective

00:13:01.300 | if they're able to quickly react,

00:13:03.500 | size up the person on the other side of the table,

00:13:05.760 | and react in a way that moves that person

00:13:07.860 | in the way they wanna move them.

00:13:09.940 | - Yeah, and there's also just a couple to the quickness

00:13:13.740 | is a kind of instinct about human nature.

00:13:16.980 | - Yes.

00:13:17.820 | - Sort of asking the question,

00:13:19.020 | what does this person worry about?

00:13:22.300 | What are the biggest problems?

00:13:24.060 | Somebody, what is it, Stephen Schwarzman, I think,

00:13:27.220 | said to me, this businessman,

00:13:29.780 | I think he said, "What I've always tried to do

00:13:33.060 | "is try to figure out, ask enough questions

00:13:36.920 | "to figure out what is the biggest problem

00:13:38.840 | "in this person's life."

00:13:40.940 | Try to get a sense of what is the biggest problem

00:13:42.820 | in their life,

00:13:43.640 | because that's actually what they care about most.

00:13:45.820 | And most people don't care enough to find out.

00:13:48.620 | And so he kind of wants to sneak up on that

00:13:52.220 | and find that, and then use that to then build closeness

00:13:57.220 | in order to then, probably, he doesn't put it in those words

00:14:00.700 | but to manipulate the person into whatever,

00:14:03.060 | to do whatever the heck they want.

00:14:04.500 | And I think part of it is that,

00:14:09.140 | and part of the effect that Donald Trump has

00:14:11.660 | is how quick he's able to figure that out.

00:14:14.300 | You've written a book about how the role

00:14:17.460 | and power of the presidency has changed.

00:14:19.900 | So how has it changed since Lincoln's time,

00:14:24.660 | the evolution of the presidency as a concept,

00:14:28.580 | which seems like a fascinating lens

00:14:30.620 | through which to look at American history.

00:14:33.340 | As a president, we seem to only be talking

00:14:36.780 | about the presidents, maybe a general here and there,

00:14:40.060 | but it's mostly the story of America

00:14:42.540 | is often told through presidents.

00:14:45.220 | - That's right, that's right.

00:14:46.740 | And one of the points I've tried to make

00:14:48.580 | in my writing about this and various other activities

00:14:52.260 | is we use this word president

00:14:54.100 | as if it's something timeless.

00:14:55.660 | But the office has changed incredibly.

00:14:58.500 | Just from Lincoln's time to the present,

00:15:00.500 | which is 150 years, he wouldn't recognize the office today.

00:15:05.260 | And George Washington would not have recognized it

00:15:07.420 | in Lincoln, just as I think a CEO today

00:15:10.820 | would be unrecognizable to a Rockefeller

00:15:13.800 | or a Carnegie of 150 years ago.

00:15:16.700 | So what are some of the ways in which the office has changed?

00:15:18.940 | I'll just point to three, there are a lot.

00:15:21.340 | One, presidents now can communicate

00:15:23.940 | with the public directly.

00:15:25.620 | I mean, we've reached the point now

00:15:26.620 | where a president can have direct,

00:15:28.060 | almost one-on-one communication.

00:15:30.060 | President can use Twitter, if he so chooses,

00:15:32.300 | to circumvent all media.

00:15:34.360 | That was unthinkable.

00:15:36.220 | Lincoln, in order to get his message across,

00:15:38.400 | often wrote letters to newspapers

00:15:40.860 | and waited for the newspaper, for Horace Greeley

00:15:42.660 | in the New York Tribune to publish his letter.

00:15:44.820 | That's how he communicated with the public.

00:15:46.220 | There weren't even many speaking opportunities.

00:15:48.220 | So that's a big change, right?

00:15:49.820 | We feel the president in our life much more.

00:15:52.220 | That's why we talk about him much more.

00:15:55.240 | That also creates more of a burden.

00:15:56.300 | This is the second point.

00:15:57.180 | Presidents are under a microscope.

00:15:59.460 | Presidents are under a microscope.

00:16:00.740 | You have to be very careful what you do and what you say,

00:16:02.900 | and you're judged by a lot of the elements of your behavior

00:16:06.580 | that are not policy relevant.

00:16:07.860 | In fact, the things we judge most

00:16:09.300 | and make most of our decisions on about individuals

00:16:11.940 | are often that.

00:16:13.020 | And then third, the power the president has.

00:16:17.620 | It's inhuman, actually.

00:16:19.180 | And this is one of my critiques

00:16:20.500 | of how the office has changed.

00:16:21.540 | This one person has power on a scale

00:16:24.260 | that's, I think, dangerous in a democracy,

00:16:27.280 | and certainly something the founders 220 years ago

00:16:31.940 | would have had trouble conceiving.

00:16:34.420 | Presidents now have the ability to deliver force

00:16:36.580 | across the world to literally assassinate people

00:16:39.540 | with a remarkable accuracy.

00:16:41.620 | And that's an enormous power that presidents have.

00:16:44.620 | - So your sense, this is not to get conspiratorial,

00:16:48.220 | but do you think a president currently has the power

00:16:53.220 | to initiate the assassination of somebody,

00:16:58.620 | of a political enemy, or a terrorist leader,

00:17:03.540 | or that kind of thing, to frame that person

00:17:07.060 | in a way where assassination is something that he alone

00:17:10.620 | or she alone could decide to do?

00:17:12.360 | - I think it happens all the time,

00:17:13.500 | and it's not to be conspiratorial.

00:17:14.660 | This is how we've fought terrorism,

00:17:16.960 | by targeting individuals.

00:17:19.360 | Now, you might say these were not elected leaders of state,

00:17:21.660 | but these were individuals with a large following.

00:17:23.380 | I mean, the killing of Osama bin Laden

00:17:25.660 | was an assassination operation.

00:17:28.500 | And we've taken out very successfully

00:17:31.980 | many leaders of terrorist organizations,

00:17:33.980 | and we do it every day.

00:17:35.620 | - You're saying that back in Lincoln's time

00:17:37.620 | or George Washington's time,

00:17:39.100 | there was more of a balance of power?

00:17:40.780 | Like a president could not initiate

00:17:42.520 | this kind of assassination?

00:17:43.860 | - Correct, I think presidents did not have

00:17:46.120 | the same kind of military or economic power.

00:17:49.280 | We could talk about how a president

00:17:50.460 | can influence a market, right,

00:17:52.060 | by saying something about where money is gonna go,

00:17:56.700 | or singling out a company,

00:17:58.820 | or critiquing a company in one way or another.

00:18:01.220 | They didn't have that kind of power.

00:18:02.380 | Now, much of the power that a Lincoln or a Washington had

00:18:06.020 | was the power to mobilize people

00:18:08.220 | to then make their own decisions.

00:18:09.700 | At the start of the Civil War,

00:18:11.540 | Lincoln doesn't even have the power

00:18:12.720 | to bring people into the army.

00:18:13.900 | He has to go to the governors

00:18:15.620 | and ask the governors to provide soldiers.

00:18:18.260 | So the governor of Wisconsin,

00:18:19.660 | the governor of Massachusetts.

00:18:20.780 | Could you imagine that today?

00:18:22.260 | (Lex laughing)

00:18:24.780 | - So, but yeah, so they used speeches and words

00:18:27.620 | to mobilize versus direct action

00:18:30.480 | in closed-door environments,

00:18:32.500 | initiating wars, for example.

00:18:34.640 | - Correct.

00:18:37.140 | - It's difficult to think about,

00:18:39.140 | if we look at Barack Obama, for example,

00:18:41.280 | if you're listening to this,

00:18:44.720 | and you're on the left or the right,

00:18:47.940 | please do not make this political.

00:18:49.220 | In fact, if you're a political person,

00:18:51.520 | and you're getting angry at the mention

00:18:53.300 | of the word Obama or Donald Trump,

00:18:55.140 | please turn off this podcast and unsubscribe.

00:18:57.940 | We're not gonna get very far.

00:18:59.580 | I hope we maintain a political discussion

00:19:02.180 | about even the modern presidents

00:19:05.060 | that viewed through the lens of history.

00:19:07.460 | I think there's a lot to be learned

00:19:09.300 | about the office and about human nature.

00:19:12.200 | Some people criticize Barack Obama

00:19:15.060 | for sort of expanding the military industrial complex,

00:19:19.520 | engaging in more and more wars,

00:19:22.220 | as opposed to sort of the initial rhetoric

00:19:25.620 | was such that we would pull back

00:19:27.660 | from sort of be more skeptical

00:19:30.700 | in our decisions to wage wars.

00:19:33.140 | So from the lens of the power of the presidency,

00:19:36.900 | as the modern presidency,

00:19:38.540 | the fact that we continue the war in Afghanistan

00:19:41.940 | at different engagements in military conflicts,

00:19:45.640 | do you think Barack Obama could have stopped that?

00:19:51.740 | Do you put the responsibility on that expansion on him

00:19:56.700 | because of the implied power that the presidency has?

00:19:59.700 | Or is this power just sits there,

00:20:02.020 | and if the president chooses to take it, they do,

00:20:04.580 | and if they don't, they don't,

00:20:06.860 | almost like you don't want to take on the responsibility

00:20:10.100 | because of the burden of that responsibility?

00:20:12.980 | - So a lot of my research is about this exact question,

00:20:16.380 | not just with Obama.

00:20:17.680 | And my conclusion,

00:20:19.020 | and I think the research is pretty clear on this,

00:20:20.640 | is that structure has a lot more effect on us

00:20:23.580 | than we like to admit,

00:20:24.940 | which is to say that the circumstances,

00:20:26.780 | the institutions around us,

00:20:28.220 | drive our behavior more than we like to think.

00:20:30.600 | So Barack Obama, I'm quite certain,

00:20:32.620 | came into the office of the presidency

00:20:34.020 | committed to actually reducing

00:20:36.260 | the use of military force overseas

00:20:37.880 | and reducing presidential war-making power.

00:20:40.780 | As a trained lawyer,

00:20:41.940 | he had a moral position on this actually,

00:20:44.380 | and he tried, and he did withdraw American forces from Iraq

00:20:47.700 | and was of course criticized by many people for doing that.

00:20:50.660 | But at the same time,

00:20:51.540 | he had some real problems in the world to deal with,

00:20:53.820 | terrorism being one of them.

00:20:55.540 | And the tools he has are very much biased

00:20:59.060 | towards the use of military force.

00:21:01.020 | It's much harder as president

00:21:02.380 | to go and get Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping

00:21:04.920 | to agree with you.

00:21:06.360 | It's much easier to send these wonderful toys we have

00:21:09.760 | and these incredible soldiers we have over there.

00:21:12.760 | And when you have Congress, which is always against you,

00:21:15.800 | it's also easier to use the military

00:21:17.640 | because you send them there.

00:21:18.900 | And even if members of Congress

00:21:20.280 | from your own party or the other are angry at you,

00:21:22.980 | they'll still fund the soldiers.

00:21:24.200 | No member of Congress wants to vote

00:21:25.860 | to starve our soldiers overseas.

00:21:27.940 | So they'll stop your budget,

00:21:28.960 | they'll even threaten not to pay the debt,

00:21:31.200 | but they'll still fund your soldiers.

00:21:33.000 | And so you are pushed by the circumstances you're in

00:21:36.920 | to do this, and it's very hard to resist.

00:21:39.840 | So that's, I think the criticism of Obama,

00:21:42.320 | the fair one would be that he didn't resist the pressures

00:21:45.040 | that were there, but he did not make those pressures.

00:21:47.760 | - So is there something about

00:21:49.400 | putting the responsibility on the president

00:21:52.640 | to form the structure around him locally

00:21:57.000 | such that he can make the policy

00:21:59.640 | that matches the rhetoric?

00:22:01.540 | So what I'm talking to is hiring.

00:22:04.760 | So basically just everybody you work with,

00:22:08.800 | you have power as a president to fire and hire

00:22:12.120 | or to basically schedule meetings

00:22:14.760 | in such a way that can control your decision-making.

00:22:19.920 | So I imagine it's very difficult

00:22:21.720 | to get out of Afghanistan or Iraq

00:22:25.360 | when most of your scheduled meetings are with generals

00:22:30.200 | or something like that.

00:22:31.200 | But if you reorganize the schedule

00:22:33.680 | and you reorganize who you have late night talks with,

00:22:37.720 | you potentially have a huge ripple effect on the policy.

00:22:41.840 | - I think that's right.

00:22:42.680 | I think who has access to the president

00:22:44.560 | is absolutely crucial.

00:22:45.840 | And presidents have to be more strategic about that.

00:22:48.060 | They tend to be reacting to crises

00:22:50.440 | 'cause every day is a crisis.

00:22:52.160 | And if you're reacting to a crisis,

00:22:53.220 | you're not controlling access

00:22:54.320 | because the crisis is driving you.

00:22:56.260 | So that's one element of it.

00:22:57.600 | But I also think,

00:22:58.440 | and this is the moment we're in right now,

00:23:00.160 | presidents have to invest in reforming the system,

00:23:04.120 | the system of decision-making.

00:23:05.780 | Should we have a National Security Council

00:23:07.740 | that looks the way it does?

00:23:09.280 | Should our military be structured the way it is?

00:23:11.600 | The founding fathers wanted a military that was divided.

00:23:14.640 | They did not want a unified Department of Defense.

00:23:17.000 | That was only created after World War II.

00:23:19.160 | Should we have as large a military as we have?

00:23:20.800 | Should we be in as many places?

00:23:23.060 | There are some fundamental structural reforms

00:23:25.320 | we have to undertake.

00:23:26.720 | And part of that is who you appoint,

00:23:28.180 | but part of that is also how you change the institutions.

00:23:30.640 | The genius of the American system

00:23:32.320 | is that it's a dynamic system.

00:23:34.220 | It can be adjusted.

00:23:35.480 | It has been adjusted over time.

00:23:37.200 | That's the heroic story.

00:23:39.600 | The frustrating story is it often takes us a long time

00:23:43.600 | to make those adjustments

00:23:44.680 | until we go into such bad circumstances

00:23:47.040 | that we have no choice.

00:23:48.800 | - So in the battle of power

00:23:51.760 | of the office of the president

00:23:53.460 | versus the United States military,

00:23:56.540 | the Department of Defense,

00:23:58.700 | do you have a sense that the president

00:23:59.980 | has more power ultimately?

00:24:01.940 | So to decrease the size of the Department of Defense,

00:24:06.060 | to withdraw from any wars,

00:24:08.620 | or increase the amount of wars,

00:24:11.180 | is the president,

00:24:12.540 | you're kind of implying the president

00:24:14.480 | has a lot of power here in this scale.

00:24:16.700 | - Yes, the president has a lot of power,

00:24:18.280 | and we are fortunate,

00:24:19.300 | and it was just proven in the last few years

00:24:21.580 | that our military,

00:24:22.560 | uniquely among many countries with large militaries,

00:24:26.140 | is very deferential to the president

00:24:27.920 | and very restricted in its ability

00:24:29.540 | to challenge the president.

00:24:31.380 | So that's a strength of our system.

00:24:33.820 | But the way you reform the military

00:24:35.940 | is not with individual decisions.

00:24:37.660 | It's by having a strategic plan

00:24:40.380 | that re-examines what role it plays.

00:24:43.100 | So it's not just about

00:24:44.060 | whether we're in Afghanistan or not.

00:24:45.620 | The question we have to ask is

00:24:47.500 | when we look at our toolbox

00:24:48.860 | of what we can do in our foreign policy,

00:24:51.540 | are there other tools we should build up,

00:24:54.900 | and therefore some tools in the military we should reduce?

00:24:58.020 | That's the broader strategic question.

00:25:00.300 | - Let me ask you the most absurd question of all

00:25:03.180 | that you did not sign up for,

00:25:04.580 | but it's especially,

00:25:06.020 | I've been hanging out with a guy named Joe Rogan recently.

00:25:08.340 | - Sure. - So it's very important

00:25:10.620 | for me and him to figure this out.

00:25:13.560 | If a president,

00:25:14.940 | 'cause you said,

00:25:15.780 | you implied the president's very powerful,

00:25:17.620 | if a president shows up

00:25:19.580 | and the US government is in fact in possession of aliens,

00:25:22.820 | alien spacecraft,

00:25:24.020 | do you think the president will be told?

00:25:28.700 | A more responsible adult historian question version of that

00:25:32.820 | is there some things

00:25:36.060 | that the machine of government

00:25:37.660 | keeps secret from the president?

00:25:40.540 | Or is the president ultimately at the very center?

00:25:42.680 | So if you like map out the set of information and power,

00:25:46.480 | you have like CIA,

00:25:47.820 | you have all these organizations

00:25:49.180 | that do the machinery of government,

00:25:53.780 | not just like the passing of bills,

00:25:55.820 | but like gaining information,

00:25:59.820 | Homeland Security,

00:26:01.700 | actually like engaging in wars,

00:26:04.500 | all those kinds of things.

00:26:06.820 | How central is the president?

00:26:09.140 | Would the president know some of the shady things

00:26:11.440 | that are going on?

00:26:14.100 | Aliens or some kind of cybersecurity stuff

00:26:18.760 | against Russia and China,

00:26:20.180 | all those kinds of things.

00:26:21.400 | Is the president really made aware?

00:26:23.460 | And if so, how nervous does that make you?

00:26:26.460 | - So presidents like leaders of any complex organizations

00:26:30.880 | don't know everything that goes on.

00:26:32.880 | They have to ask the right questions.

00:26:34.160 | This is Machiavelli.

00:26:35.600 | Most important thing a leader has to do

00:26:38.680 | is ask the right questions.

00:26:40.100 | You don't have to know the answers.

00:26:41.840 | That's why you hire smart people,

00:26:43.680 | but you have to ask the right questions.

00:26:45.400 | So if the president asks the US government,

00:26:48.440 | those who are responsible for the aliens

00:26:50.320 | or responsible for the cyber warfare against Russia,

00:26:53.640 | they will answer honestly, they will have to,

00:26:56.160 | but they will not volunteer that information in all cases.

00:27:00.000 | So the best way a president can operate

00:27:01.560 | is to have people around him or her

00:27:04.760 | who are not the traditional policy makers.

00:27:06.640 | This is where I think academic experts are important,

00:27:09.520 | suggesting questions to ask,

Jeremi Suri: History of American Power | Lex Fridman Podcast #180

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