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

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.