The minute Damascus fell, ISIS began to look for any opportunity it could take to reconstitute, grow, spread, and ultimately recreate a platform from which to threaten the United States and Americans around the world.

Hello and welcome to GZERO World.

I'm Ian Bremmer and we have a special show for you today taped in front of a live audience, 92nd Street Y here in New York City.

I'm bringing you my conversation with the man at the heart of America's foreign policy agenda for the last four years, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

The world looks very different than it did when Biden took office.

The COVID pandemic was raging.

The US was reeling from the January 6th capital attack.

Ukraine was a limited conflict.

The Middle East was fading from global attention.

Fast forward four years and it is very different.

The Biden administration has seen some historic wins.

The US led the West's response to Russia's all out invasion of Ukraine, uniting NATO in ways that we have not seen since the Cold War.

It also spearheaded a global push to limit China's access to advanced semiconductors, signaling a new era of strategic competition.

It's also seen losses.

The US withdrawal from Afghanistan was a chaotic and costly disaster.

The Middle East has erupted into a brutal war that has killed tens of thousands and created a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and well beyond.

US-China tensions remain sky high and throughout the Biden administration, Sullivan has been at the center of all of it.

Now we are on the cusp of another major shift as President-elect Donald Trump gets ready to return to the White House in just over four weeks, but a month, a long time in global politics, especially these days.

What can the Biden administration meaningfully accomplish in his final days as president?

Biden's team is scrambling for last minute victory.

Sullivan himself just returned from the Middle East, pushing again for a ceasefire following the sudden collapse of the Assad regime in Syria.

But is a peace deal even possible this late in the game?

More importantly, how much will US foreign policy change or stay the same under the next administration?

What are the biggest threats facing America in 2025 and how different will the world look another four years from now?

I'll tackle those big questions and many more in a wide-ranging sit down with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

Don't worry, I've also got your Puppet Regime.

Hey, man, what are you doing here so late?

Just finishing up this robot Santa asked for.

But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

Funding for GZERO World is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

Every day, all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint.

And scale their supply chains.

With a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at Prologis.com.

And by... Cox Enterprises is proud to support GZERO.

Cox is working to create an impact in areas like sustainable agriculture, clean tech, health care, and more.

Cox, a family of businesses.

Additional funding provided by Jerry and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York.

And.

So a very warm welcome to my friend, Jake Sullivan.

Jake, welcome.

Thank you for having me.

It's really good to be here.

Thank you for being here.

You just got back from the Middle East.

Yes.

We're to talk about the whole world, but maybe start there.

I'm wondering, like in terms of biggest surprises, is it how much the Israelis have established, reestablished escalation dominance?

Is it Iran and the axis of resistance looking like a big deal and then imploding?

Is it what just happened with Assad and the rollout in Syria?

Where would you stack the this is the thing that we probably least expected?

Yes.

[audience laughter] I mean, every one of those pieces has been maybe not surprising directionally in the sense that, you know, one could see the ways in which Israel, frankly, backed by the United States in terms of much of what it has accomplished, was taking the fight to its enemies.

One could see the weakening and the fracturing of the axis of resistance and the weakening of Iran.

And one could see the pressure on Assad, particularly because his two main patrons, Iran and Russia, were distracted and weakened.

But the speed, the scope and the scale of the remaking of the Middle East in this short amount of time, I think you'd find very few people who could have predicted all of that and that we would be sitting here in December of 2024 with the picture looking the way that it looks.

Does the picture today look.

At least modestly more stable than it did a year ago, or does it look worse?

You know, I've been I've been reflecting on this question because the thing about foreign policy and geopolitics is that when good things happen, often bad things follow.

When bad things happen, often good things follow and nothing is ever fixed in time.

There's always something around the corner.

So is there a huge opportunity right now?

Absolutely.

In that sense, the possibility of a more stable, integrated Middle East where our friends are stronger, our enemies are weaker.

That is real.

And in fact, Iran is at its weakest point in modern - Decades.

- modern memory.

On the other hand, there are huge risk factors and you can see them maybe most in living color in Syria, where the Syrian people have the chance to build a better future in a post Assad world, but where there are very evil people who are looking to take advantage of this current moment, starting with ISIS, but other terrorist and jihadist groups as well.

So I think we're at a moment of profound opportunity, but also a moment of profound risk.

And that means that we have to handle this situation with clarity and effectiveness.

And the interesting thing is this comes in the middle of a presidential transition in the United States, which makes it harder for you.

It makes it harder because I'm thinking specifically Syria, for example.

Yeah, I mean, it makes it harder.

Because, you know, and this is something that my successor, Mike Waltz, has actually said, other countries, other actors, particularly our enemies and adversaries look at transitions as moments of opportunity Because you have this seam between an outgoing administration and incoming administration.

And so the imperative on us, both the outgoing Biden administration, the incoming Trump administration has to be to lash up more tightly than is typical, to spend more time together than is typical, and to try to ensure we are sending a common, clear message to both friends and adversaries in the Middle East.

And we have endeavored to do that over the last few weeks.

Obviously, we disagree on a lot of things under the sun, including perhaps on certain aspects of long-term strategy in the Middle East or elsewhere.

But where we agree is on many of the fundamentals here, and especially on the point that we should not let anyone take advantage of the United States during this time of transition.

At this moment, on big ticket items, when we need some degree of smoothness and continuity in the handoff from one administration to the next, I think both the outgoing and incoming administrations see the bigger picture.

Now, Israel's been very engaged with the United States and constructively on Lebanon, Hezbollah, very engaged with the United States and constructively on Iran, very engaged with the United States, I would argue, somewhat less constructively on Gaza.

The challenge posed by an entrenched terrorist enemy with hundreds of miles of tunnels beneath a densely populated area, determined to keep fighting month after month, is a real challenge.

So we believe Israel has a responsibility as a democracy, as a country committed to the basic principle of the value of innocent life, and as a member of the international community that has obligations under international humanitarian law, that it do the utmost to protect and minimize harm to civilians, and that it do the utmost to facilitate humanitarian assistance so that people don't starve or lack for water or medicine or sanitation.

And we believe too many civilians have died in Gaza over the course of this conflict.

And at too many moments, you know, we felt we've had to step up privately and publicly and push on the humanitarian front to get more trucks, more aid, more life-saving assistance into the people of Gaza.

There's nothing inconsistent with that, in my view.

And standing up strongly and resolutely for the security of the state of Israel and for Israel's right, indeed its duty, to get after the terrorists who attacked it and caused the greatest massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust, and who say they want to do that again and again if given the opportunity.

So one more bit of the Middle East before we move on.

There's a lot to cover, and that is Syria.

We've got significant questions on the ground as to how to ensure that this new regime that's taken over can ensure a level of stability and inclusion for everyone on the ground and not allow the Turks, not allow others to take advantage.

How can we manage this?

Well, first of all, we have to recognize that the minute Damascus fell, ISIS began to look for any opportunity it could take to reconstitute, grow, spread, and ultimately recreate a platform from which to threaten the United States and Americans around the world.

And so within hours of Assad falling and HTS rolling into Damascus, the President ordered the U.S. military to take military action against ISIS personnel and ISIS facilities in the central Syrian desert, the Badiyah, and we're going to have to continue to do that.

So point one is we need the capacity to go after ISIS in the east, and that's something that we have advised the incoming administration.

The second major issue is how to ensure that we are standing up for and standing with our best and closest partners in that ISIS fight.

That's the Syrian Democratic Forces, Kurdish-led forces, but also with a lot of Arabs fighting alongside them.

We need to stand up for them and ensure that they are secure enough in their position that they can continue to be the good partners they've been, including with respect to the administration of these very large prisons and prison camps where you have thousands of ISIS fighters and tens of thousands of family members, wives and children of ISIS fighters, who, if they were all to get out, would represent a really quite considerable threat to the region and ultimately to the United States.

So we need to stand with the Kurds, and President Biden intends to do that.

But there is a real and extant risk right now that Syria could become not quite Afghanistan, but I mean not just a civil war, but could actually become a primary hotbed of radical Islamic terrorism.

There is a real and extant risk of that, and I don't think we should sugarcoat that fact, but let's keep in mind that it's my job as National Security Advisor to frequently see the risk in a given situation.

I would be remiss if I didn't say there isn't also a real opportunity.

Assad was a butcher, a brutal, even murderous dictator of his own people.

Assad, you could say, you know, you could kind of take the measure of that man by his friends, Iran, Russia, Hezbollah.

Him being gone is not a bad thing.

We should shed no tears about that.

And it presents this opportunity for the Syrian people to actually build a better future, an inclusive future that is consistent with what I think not just all of the various communities of Syria want, but which these guys who've rolled into Damascus are actually saying.

I want to move to China.

When you first became National Security Advisor, conventional wisdom on China is huge powerhouse going to become the largest economy in the world in relatively short order.

That is not what we are looking at today.

Their economy is in the worst shape since the '90s, maybe the '70s.

I'm not sure that if you pushed the top echelon of leadership in China on the question, one, is America in secular decline, and two, is China inexorably going to become the leading power in the world economically, technologically, diplomatically, and so forth, they wouldn't say yes and yes still to this day.

I think they're totally wrong, and a bet against America is a very bad bet, and the engines of American power are humming right now.

And I think the trajectory of China, this inexorable juggernaut, the objective evidence does not point in that direction.

I don't think it has actually fundamentally yet shifted entirely their mindset of statecraft about the world.

The basic logic of the East is rising, the West is declining, I think remains present to this day.

So it's a tactical move.

And so, exactly.

So I think what we're seeing instead is just we have storms, we have to weather them, we need to manage this, but fundamentally, the long-term strategic outlook, I do not perceive, has altered in a significant way.

And I believe that basically that means that U.S. policy should not move dramatically because of these developments with respect to the Chinese economy.

And it has to be built on two basic premises.

One is what I just said, which is China does seek to become the world's leading power.

I do not believe that is in the interest of the United States.

And the second is, no matter what the trajectory, the United States and China are going to have to learn to live alongside one another as major powers in the world for the foreseeable future.

And we need terms upon which we can do that, even as we compete vigorously in all of these different domains.

And I think we are handing off a relationship with China, where America is in a very strong competitive position, but also where we have the ability to engage in diplomatically with China in ways that help ensure the competition does not veer into conflict.

The hand that we were dealt was one thing.

The hand that we are passing off when it comes to U.S.-China, I believe we have significantly enhanced America's position.

So how much can, how much should the United States be trying to treat China as a country that should want to have a more stable environment geopolitically?

Well, what I say to my Chinese interlocutors is that part of their public messaging and in their private messaging to us is we don't want a new Cold War and we don't like what they call block confrontation.

This is their assertive position.

And so the point I make to them is, Putin does want a new Cold War, does want block confrontation and North Korea is happy to go along with that.

China has a choice to make.

And it can either continue to tighten those links militarily, diplomatically and otherwise and end up in a circumstance where it is really part of an axis or it could do what I think is much more natural from the point of view of China's perspective, interests and opportunity, which is to be a huge competitor to the United States, let's make no bones about that.

And we are going to compete vigorously for shaping the future.

And I believe that if we fall well behind in that competition, it will be to our tremendous detriment.

But on climate, on macroeconomic stability, on questions related to ensuring that the risks associated with things like artificial intelligence do not spin out of control, even on issues like the Iranian nuclear program, we ought to be able to find a way where our interests and China's interests sufficiently align that having a constructive agenda to go alongside the intense competition serves the American people and serves the people of the world for that matter.

So let's move to Russia.

On the Russia front, clearly, I mean, we've had three years where the Ukrainians weren't much interested in talking about negotiations.

Now they appear to be much more.

Some of that is Trump.

I mean, if you're Trump, is it useful for you to be leaning into Ukraine just to get more space to say that we can get a negotiation, that a good way to start it?

Well, I think one of the most critical things that the United States, the current administration, the next administration need to show is a willingness to stand behind Ukraine and ensure that they have what they need to defend themselves, because that is going to be the leverage necessary to get a good outcome at the table.

Is it fair to say that the United States was counting more on economic sanctions early on than they should have and less on military support for Ukraine than they should have and those positions have balanced out?

I think it is fair to say that the predictions about the impact of the sanctions on the Russian economy have not borne out, certainly not on the timeline that was anticipated back in 2022.

I think it's equally fair to say that Russia's economy is in real trouble right now and that trouble is going to mount in 2025.

How will it manifest?

So first you have significant and growing inflation.

You have interest rates above 20 percent, which is putting a huge dent in the ability to invest.

You have Russia having to stretch further and further to recruit soldiers, paying more and more to do so, spending more and more of its budget, spending down its sovereign wealth fund so that it's depleting its cash reserves.

And all of that has a compounding effect over time.

But I think the conventional wisdom from a few months ago, which is Russia's got it made in the shade economically, they're going to be okay, they can do this indefinitely, I don't think the economic signals we're seeing right now bear that out.

And I would make one more point that I think is really important for people to take into account.

We tend, I think, as democracies to think, oh, we're not doing so great and those dictators are so strategic and they're doing so well.

If I had told you three years ago that Joe Biden was going to announce a special military operation to take Ottawa in a week, and three years later he was in the wheat fields of Manitoba losing thousands of soldiers a month with inflation over 10% and interest rates in America over 20%, 600,000 Americans either dead or wounded and were inching out little Canadian town by little Canadian town.

You wouldn't sit here saying, wow, America's really winning that war in a big way.

That's great for America.

You would never say that.

But somehow we're saying, oh, the Russians, they're doing great.

They are not doing great.

Now we have an opportunity.

But that opportunity should rest on the proposition that Ukraine is in the driver's seat and is not going to have an outcome imposed upon it.

>> Okay, before we close, let me give you a completely random one.

South Korea.

>> Yeah.

>> What the hell, Jake?

I mean, you know, good ally, solid ally.

We got the Japan-South Korea relationship stable and everything.

And then he just kind of completely lost the plot in very short order.

Did you see that coming?

>> I cannot say that I saw the declaration of martial law, you know, on a night come and then have it reversed 24 hours later and everything.

I said no.

>> It was like six hours.

>> Did not see that coming.

>> Yeah.

>> But we had January 6th.

>> Yeah.

>> So I think it's important for us to recognize that dramatic events happen even in highly advanced consolidated democracies.

But the institutions in South Korea are holding.

It's a good reminder, though, that surprising things happen.

You know, if you had asked a lot of people around the world, was January 6th going to happen, they would have said no, I was very surprised by that.

We're going to have more of these surprises in the future.

I mean, one thing that we have to keep in mind is we are in a new era.

It is the post-Cold War era is over.

There's a competition underway for what comes next.

It is challenging.

It is at times turbulent.

And from my perspective, what the United States has to do is try to strengthen its fundamental hand so it can deal with whatever comes next and there will be surprises.

So yeah, we have a lot going for us without for a moment trying to whistle past huge, a huge plastic moment of turbulence and transition that's going to be with us for quite some time.

We've just got to be prepared to say we have what it takes alongside our friends to navigate this moment in a way that will serve our people well.

>> Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in thanking National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan [ Applause ] (electronic beeping) Now let's move from national security to Santa's workshop.

Turns out not even the North Pole is immune from Trump's tariff plan.

It's time for "Puppet Regime."

Roll that tape.

- Hey man, what are you doing here so late?

- Just finishing up this robot Santa asked for.

- Weird, I didn't see that on any of the kids' lists.

- Yeah, it was a last minute addition.

Came straight from Santa himself.

- Weird.

Well, did you hear the news?

Christmas came early for us.

- What do you mean?

- Trump, dude, Trump.

He's gonna put tariffs on us here in the North Pole.

- Is that good for us?

- What are you, stupid?

Of course it is.

Trump's gonna force the old man to pay us a fair wage if we wanna keep exporting cheap crap to America.

We might even get bathroom breaks.

- Really?

I haven't peed since Easter.

- Me neither.

So we gotta make our demands.

Here comes the old man now.

- Ho, ho, ho.

Are we on time with that last order?

- Yeah, we're on time with this old man.

You gotta pay us.

- Yeah, and we want health insurance too, or else.

- We know Trump's putting tariffs on you to stop your exploitation.

It ends now.

- Ho, ho, ho.

It sure does end now.

And you're right.

Those tariffs are going to make a big difference around here.

You are fired.

- What?

You can't fire us.

- Yeah, who's gonna make toys for all the brats of America now?

- Ho, ho, who?

Who?

He's standing right in front of you.

That's who.

And I made you make him yourself.

Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ♪ Puppet Regime - That's our show this week.

Come back next week.

And if you like what you've seen, or even if you didn't, but you want to have your own personal national security advisor, we can make that happen for you.

Just check us out at gzeromedia.com.

(bell dings) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Funding for GZERO World is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- Every day, all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint and scale their supply chains.

With a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com.

- And by Cox Enterprises is proud to support GZERO.

Cox is working to create an impact in areas like sustainable agriculture, clean tech, healthcare, and more.

Cox, a family of businesses.

Additional funding provided by Jerry and Mary Joyce Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York.

And (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]