US war plans for Yemen leaked to journalist in Signal group chat

CGTN Europe

CGTN Europe spoke to Inderjeet Parmar, Professor Of International Politics at City St George’s, university of London

Transcript

00:00Let's talk now to Inderjeet Palma, who's Professor of International Politics at

00:04City St. George's University of London. Welcome to the program, good to see you.

00:08So probably fair to say there's been uproar in the United States over this.

00:12What do you think the ramifications will be there?

00:16Well I think obviously it'll be playing to party politics in the usual way, so

00:21the Democrats will basically be given a big gift. But there is a discontent also

00:26among the Republican in the Senate and in the House as well, and this is a major

00:31security breach. So there's got to be an inquiry and there may well be

00:37discipline and possibly even dismissals involved in this, if they take it

00:42seriously. But yeah, I don't know if it's unprecedented, but certainly

00:47I can't remember the last time anybody was included on a commercial app, which

00:52is secure, but it's not an official US government app for their

00:56businesses. So it will cause a lot of furore, as it has done in the United States.

01:02Well let's talk about just one of the aspects that emerged from these messages.

01:05Europe got a mention in pretty negative terms, as we were just hearing from our

01:08correspondent Kate there. What do you think this could end up meaning for the

01:12EU-US relationship?

01:16Well it's not going to do it very much good, given the character of the

01:19language used, but to some extent this is the kind of language that has been

01:23going on from Donald Trump directly, and these are his effective proxies who are

01:29loyal to make America great again, America first-ism. And they've been

01:33attacking Europe and NATO for the last, well since 2016 or 2017, and they have

01:39acted in various ways as well. So it's not going to improve relations, and in

01:44many ways they are not seeking to build bridges, they're seeking to recalibrate

01:50the entire relationship with Europe and the European Union, with NATO and

01:55NATO's role in Europe as well. And I think this suggests a kind of very

02:00transactional attitude towards allies. That is to say that US power is

02:07being now weaponized, and every factor of US power is seeking to maximize itself

02:15regardless whether they're a strategic foe or they are a valued historic ally,

02:21military or otherwise, and that includes Europe and European Union. But I don't

02:26believe that this is an attempt to break the relationship between the US and

02:31Europe and the European Union. They are very heavily interdependent as well, so

02:36that 40% of trade which passes through those waterways down around Yemen, which

02:42goes to Europe, Europe and the United States of course are economically

02:47interdependent in many ways too. So the fact that the US is willing to act

02:52for so-called freedom of navigation suggests that they remain wedded to a

02:57global role and global primacy, but what they want is other regional powers to

03:04pay the bill, not just to let the US do it alone or with picking up the bulk of

03:11the bill. So it's a transactional attitudes, attitude towards the way in

03:17which US tries to maintain its global primacy. I think that's the big

03:23picture. Professor, great to talk to you on the program today. Thank you so much

03:26for being with us. That's Professor Interjeet Palmar from the University of

03:28London.

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