Clockwise from top left: US President Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison in a virtual Quad meeting, March 12, 2021 (Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg/Getty)
I joined Pakistan’s PTV World on Wednesday to analyze developments in the Asia-Pacific region, including this week’s meeting of the leaders of “The Quad” — the US, India, Japan, and Australia — the Australia-UK-US agreement on nuclear submarines, and the relationship between the US and China.
The other panellists are the Pakistani Ambassador to Italy, Jauhur Saleem, and Professor Syed Mohammad Ali. The host is Farrukh Pitafi.
The discussion begins at the 8:44 mark:
This is not fixed — that we will have inevitable confrontation, any more than that we will have inevitable cooperation.
The problem is that the rhetoric around much of this. When you divide the world into blocs — as we did in the Cold War and people do still — we trap ourselves in the idea that there must be competition.
…wow…another…”Military Alliance”. I can’t wait. That alliance with South Vietnam worked out so well….only millions of Vietnamese dead…and tens of thousands of Americans killed and maimed. Iraq has worked out so well…and Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, The Congo…Yugoslavia…Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua,…etc. etc. etc. How much of that 3.5 trillion is the MIC and the MIC going to get in cash. Spend it on the military and the medical community…so no one can accuse you of “laundering” money.