‘Stopping Putin in Ukraine Will Send a Message to Xi Jinping’

An interview with former National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien.

By
21

Hello and happy Thursday!

The Kitchens are on vacation this week and we’re having a wonderful time. The picture below is from the dueling grounds at Weehawken, New Jersey—where Alexander Hamilton was shot by Aaron Burr.

As we continue our travels I thought it’d be nice to provide a condensed and edited transcript of my recent interview with former Trump national security advisor, Robert O’Brien. We spoke last week on the Dispatch podcast (listen here) and we cover a lot of different topics of interest—including China, Ukraine, and the January 6 riots at the Capitol. 

Before diving in, a few listeners have said I should have pushed O’Brien harder on his January 6 comments. Perhaps. I’m certainly not a hard-nosed journalist like many of my fellow Dispatchers. But if I’m honest, I also have to admit that I was a little sympathetic to his cause. The reality is that the political rally and the other events that day were not under the purview of the national security adviser. Those were political decisions being made by political operatives and by the president. 

Keep reading with a free account
Create a free Dispatch account to keep reading Get Started ALREADY HAVE AN ACCOUNT? SIGN IN
21
By
Comments (21)
Join The Dispatch to participate in the comments.
 
  1. Avatar photo
    Anne W (Raw5254)

    I’ve really come to appreciate your work, and look forward (sometimes with trepidation) to your articles. The Dispatch has grown a lot, and they’re doing a fantastic job of finding the right people to make them one of the leading news sources out there.

    Collapse
  2. Avatar photo
    Jake

    Great conversation. I find it hard to believe though that this is the first time since the 30s there's been a classic neighbor conquest for land and resources. Maybe he meant in western world?

    Collapse
  3. Avatar photo
    George.Skinner

    This was an interesting interview. I was struck by a number of times where he'd tear off on some fairly hagiographic or partisan talking point, then concede a more nuanced or realistic perspective when pressed by Klon. My take-away was that he's a serious guy who knows what he's talking about, but maybe a bit too deferential to partisan considerations to be the guy I'd like to have keeping Trump from doing something stupid and reckless.

    One thing in particular that bugged me was the tirade about hypersonic weapons. He's correct that they're difficult to defend against, but seriously - the idea that America would have to escalate to use of nuclear weapons in response to a Russian or Chinese conventional attack with hypersonic weapons? It seems to ignore a fairly formidable conventional US capabilities, including stealth technologies that are probably just as hard to defend against for the Russians and Chinese.

    Collapse
  4. Avatar photo
    Norman Shatkin

    "He didn't give dates."

    You didn't, either, and I'm assuming it's because you don't remember it, either. The only thing I can recall that might vaguely qualify would be when Trump had the square across from the White House cleared so he could hold up his Bible. That's hardly an antifa attack. That was a demonstration that was peaceful until the cops began clearing it.

    Seriously -- an antifa attack on the White House is a big deal, IF IT HAPPENED. I've heard of antifa attacks in several cities, some very violent and reprehensible, but not about this one, and given that his denunciation of January 6 is quite tepid makes me wonder if he isn't playing the "what about" game to take some heat of his boss, who actually orchestrated January 6.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      Slp

      Wasn't the reference to the demonstration the day before or certainly only days before the square was cleared? My memory is that those protesters started a fire in a (..n historic) church and that they were so threatening that rumors had it that Trump was evacuated to the basement. Of course most of the mainstream Media made fun of him for doing that. The day they called in the helicopter and cleared the square was peaceful protests but I think the day before wasn't.

      Collapse
  5. Avatar photo
    TJ

    Thanks for the transcript Klon! I usually prefer the transcript

    Collapse
  6. Avatar photo
    SD

    The discussion of China was interesting. My husband works with a lot of Chinese nationals and Chinese-born who are now US citizens. Their care at making sure we are not in office space but instead in someone's home or a loud restaurant when talking about what would be innocuous things to me - like how their relatives practice their religion in China - is striking.

    But I honestly have no idea what he is talking about when he says that BLM/antifa caused more damage than January 6 rioters. Does anyone know what he is talking about? I helped with some cleanup after BLM protests in my city, and most of it was crimes of opportunity - like hitting closed phone and liquor stores when the police were otherwise engaged. Is this the sort of thing he is talking about? Maybe, technically, there was more monetary damage, but that pales in comparison to the threats and symbolism of a violent mob invading the Capitol. And the damage during BLM protests, at least where I live, was often not done by people involved with the protests at all, but, again, by petty criminals.

    I don't know anything about negotiating with Russia. If getting MIGs to Ukraine could have been as simple as paying off Putin, why aren't we paying him off now to end his aggression?

    Collapse
  7. Kelson924

    I didn’t really have a problem with the questioning about right wing extremism or January 6th. He was a major national security player and so I want to hear from him. Mr. Kitchen asked the questions, if Mr. O’Brien is going to spin and message there is not much you can do about it. You could try and fact check him but honestly I don’t know what that does. He makes clear he is a toady for President Trump and the audience should take him with a healthy serving of salt.

    Honestly I find Mr. Kitchen’s sympathy for him more concerning. I agree he couldn’t really resign, but he is out of office now, he doesn’t have to keep messaging for President Trump he does so because he chooses to. I think he makes some good points about China and national security community process that we should take to heart. But he is highly compromised when it comes to his approach to right wing extremism and January 6th, returning back to antifa mongering even when asked specifically about right wing extremism. We need to take his blind spot here seriously and view his comments on this area with credulity.

    Collapse
  8. Avatar photo
    Norman Shatkin

    A few points:

    1. Will somebody tell me when antifa tried to attack the White House? Or did I misunderstand him? The thing about moving bricks and logistics. What is he talking about?

    2. His condemnation of Jan. 6 seems awfully hollow to me. The country has NEVER come closer to having its government overthrown since the Civil War, and he acts as if it's not too much worse than an antifa attack on the White House that I never heard of. I suspect the reason why he reacts this way is his boss was orchestrating the attack, so for him to describe it with the true horror it deserves, he'd have to explain why he didn't resign on January 7.

    3. Invading Taiwan from China would require an amphibious operation which our satellites would pick up days before it could be launched. (I've also read that China doesn't HAVE amphibious capabilities at this time -- does anyone have any info on that?) Moving the tens if not hundreds of thousands of soldiers such an invasion would require means leaving them vulnerable to attacks from the air for which the Air Force, forewarned by the buildup, would be able to effectively cripple.

    What IS plausible is that China might take a page from Putin's playbook and launch long-range missile attacks on Taiwan, demanding its surrender. Taking out those launchers would require direct attacks on Chinese soil, which would risk WWIII. If Putin manages to achieve his aims by blasting Ukraine into submission with artillery, that's the worry, not an invasion.

    4. The fall of Taiwan to China would be a disaster but the idea that it would turn the Pacific into a Chinese lake is the fantasy of someone who's played too much Risk. Sure, there would be a lot of things that went sideways, but Midway and Wake...come on. In WWII, the Japanese invaded and took over what they called Formosa. It did not play an important role in the rest of the war. To the extent that China attacks Taiwan, we should defend it, but for the same reasons we have supported Ukraine.

    5. All of that said, his words about the absolute necessity for supporting Ukraine are spot on, and the reasons he gives are the right reasons. Putin's strategy is to keep blasting Ukraine until they can't take it any longer, and until the West gets tired of the strains this places on western economies, and Zelensky is forced to negotiate a virtual surrender.

    Xi WILL notice that, and his plan off attack on Taiwan will follow accordingly. The ability of the Ukrainians to hold out is not something we can measure, other than giving it as much aid as possible. The ability is the west to hold out with gas prices rising and cold winters ahead is very much a part of the war that we CAN fight, and we must. Putin is counting on political forces in the west to get their governments to sell out Ukraine in response to pressure from voters who value cheap gasoline over being on the short end of a geopolitical disaster.

    Collapse
    1. Token Liberal

      Nice job of agreeing with the big points (Taiwan, Ukraine) while pointing out the problems: antifa? Chinese in Hawaii? Oh, and missing out on who caused Jan 6-- great intelligence work there!

      Collapse
  9. Steven Vandzura

    Thanx Klon, I try to read all your articles because of how informative they are.

    Collapse
  10. Avatar photo
    Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

    Maybe I'm just being persnickety but I'm a little puzzled by the seeming equivalence implied between Antifi or the left-wing threat and and right-wing extremism in the US(ignoring for the moment his reluctance to characterize it ideologically as such). Especially puzzling his prefacing the subject with, "At the outset we had the BLM movement and a lot of Antifa..." when it was pretty clear that right-wing movements were in process well before that.

    The Center for Strategic and International Studies in "The Rise of Far-Right Extremism in the United States"(2018) notes that;

    "... from September 12, 2001 through December 31, 2016, attacks by domestic or “homegrown” violent extremists in the United States resulted in 225 fatalities, according to the ECDB. Of these, 106 were killed by far right violent extremists in 62 separate incidents, and 119 were victims of radical Islamist violent extremists in 23 separate incidents."

    "Although violent left-wing groups and individuals also present a threat, far-right-networks appear to be better armed and larger. "

    https://www.csis.org/analysis/rise-far-right-extremism-united-states

    The GAO reports in COUNTERING VIOLENT EXTREMISM Actions Needed to Define Strategy and Assess Progress of Federal Efforts in 2017 that;

    "The ECDB is a database that includes information on publicly known violent crimes committed in the United States by radical Islamist violent extremists, the violent far right, and far left violent extremists from 1990 through 2015. For 2016, attacks resulting in homicides by ideological violent extremists in the United States were provided to us by email updates from ECDB researchers. The ECDB includes information on the incidents themselves, as well as their perpetrators, related organizations, and victims. There were no attacks since 1990 by persons associated with extreme leftist ideologies that resulted in fatalities to non-perpetrators."

    https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-17-300.pdf

    This is not to imply that violent Antifa factions do not exist and do not engage in violence but in terms of organization, size and lethality domestic LE and intelligence seem far more concerned with the right-wing extremism.

    Collapse
Load More