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Fareed Zakaria GPS

Instead of Seeking Peace, Putin Escalates War; The Power Players in Today's Middle East. Interview With Microsoft Co-Founder Bill Gates; Interview With Economist David Autor. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired July 27, 2025 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:00:44]

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN ANCHOR: This is GPS, the GLOBAL PUBLIC SQUARE. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Today on the program, the clock is ticking for Vladimir Putin. He has just 37 days left to meet Donald Trump's deadline and accept a peace deal. But Russia continues to pummel Ukraine, and talks between the two sides this week lasted just 40 minutes, with no progress made. What's next? I'll ask an expert.

Also, why did Israel bomb the defense ministry in Syria's capital, Damascus? And what does an 11th century offshoot of Islam with less than a million believers worldwide have to do with it? Longtime Middle East hand Robert Worth will help us sort out exactly what is happening in this corner of the Middle East.

And, the first China shock, as described by MIT's David Autor, devastated American manufacturing at the start of this century. Now, Autor explains how the next China shock might hurt the United States even more.

Plus, Bill Gates on what we all ought to understand about A.I.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: But first, here's "My Take."

Ezra Klein begins one of his recent podcasts by telling a joke that's been making the rounds. Basically a conspiracy theorist dies and ascends to heaven. God is there to greet him and explains that part of the celestial welcome is that he will answer any question the man has. Please, I must know the answer to this one, the man says. Who killed JFK? God answers instantly, that's easy, Lee Harvey Oswald. Shocked, the man murmurs, this goes higher than I thought.

This is the dilemma in which Donald Trump finds himself. Whatever he does to deflect and distract from the Jeffrey Epstein morass only deepens the suspicions, including those about the two men's relationship. According to a recent Reuter-Ipsos poll, 69 percent of Americans, including 62 percent of Republicans, believe the government is hiding Epstein's alleged client list.

This is understandable. There are so many unanswered questions about Epstein. How did he become so rich? What is in the mountains of computer files and videos recovered from his homes and properties? Since he had already tried to commit suicide once while in jail, why was he not monitored properly afterwards?

But there is a larger problem for Trump. Since the birther charges against Obama, he has encouraged, ridden and profited from a wave of conspiracy theories that accused the so-called deep state of all kinds of crimes, which were then quickly covered up. Now he presides over that very state and has control of all the secrets. Why will he not reveal them?

Conspiracy theories have a long and rich history in the United States. Americans lived as second class citizens of the British empire, far from the center of authority in London. They imagined all kinds of plots being hatched in London to keep them subordinate and servile. That turned into what the historian Richard Hofstadter in 1964 called the paranoid style in American politics, with periodic eruptions of rabid fear of freemasons, Catholics, Jews, bankers and communists.

Joseph McCarthy defined the modern age of conspiracy theory, charging that the American government had itself been taken over by traitors and spies for foreign powers. The journalist Anna Merlan brought the story up to date in a deeply reported 2019 book, "Republic of Lies," in which she argued that in recent decades, conspiracy theories entered into mainstream politics.

[10:05:09]

Unlike earlier eras where conspiracy theorists were mostly powerless outsiders, now they are central and increasingly normalized figures in American political and cultural life.

Donald Trump is the main character in this story, having come to power and returned to power after aggressively promoting birtherism, election fraud, and many other conspiracies. He's also brought into the mainstream people like Alex Jones and Kash Patel, who have trafficked in even more extreme theories and insinuations. Michael Flynn, Trump's first national security adviser, spread the lie that Hillary Clinton was connected to child sex rings.

The challenge for Trump is that having long fanned the flames of anti- statism and anti-elitism, he now sits in the White House running the state and its elites. His administration has released thousands of files about the murders of JFK, RFK, and Martin Luther King Jr.

There were no smoking guns revealing any major conspiracy, but no one in the administration can quite bring themselves to admit that. It would suggest that prior administrations and elites had not, in fact, been lying to the American people. But to do that is to lose credibility with their base.

Trump is an artful politician who knows how to handle his base, but this time it is proving tough even for him. Perhaps because he clearly had some kind of relationship with Epstein. He has tried to deflect attention by raising other conspiracy theories, chiefly that Barack Obama tried to organize a coup against him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Barack Hussein Obama is the ringleader.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAKARIA: He brought up old allegations about Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, but they all have the feeling of desperation about them. As Charlie Warzel notes in "The Atlantic" just last Sunday, when the questions about Epstein were mounting, President Trump posted on Truth Social 33 times. He demanded that the Washington Commanders football team change its name back to the Redskins. He shared an A.I. generated video of President Obama being handcuffed by the FBI in front of a smiling Trump in the Oval Office.

Kash Patel, for his part, recently claimed on the Joe Rogan podcast that he has now found a secret vault in the FBI full of dark secrets no one had ever seen. Forget about Epstein, they seemed to be saying. It turns out there are hundreds more conspiracy theories to dangle in front of the MAGA faithful.

Trump's ferocious response to the Epstein affair will likely only deepen the public's distrust towards institutions and politicians, create more online radicalization, and further hollow out our polarized political ecosystem. But he is playing with fires that may, for the first time, if not consume him, then burn him badly.

And let's get started.

Moscow and Kyiv met for ceasefire talks in Istanbul this week. The meeting lasted a mere 40 minutes and failed to make any progress towards peace. Indeed, just hours after the talks broke up, both sides were launching strikes. Meanwhile, Trump's 50-day deadline for Putin to make peace continues to tick down. But Moscow seems unfazed as Russian forces continue to pummel Ukraine.

Joining me to discuss is Alina Polyakova, president of the Center for European Policy Analysis.

Alina, it seems that Russia has really adopted a new and much more aggressive strategy. Can you describe what it is?

ALINA POLYAKOVA, PRESIDENT AND CEO, CENTER FOR EUROPEAN POLICY ANALYSIS: Well, that's absolutely right, Fareed. We have seen a massive uptick in Russian air attacks on Ukraine, going far beyond what we've seen previously, meaning deeper and deeper into western Ukraine, southern Ukraine, territories that until now were considered relatively safe. We've seen the largest drone combined missile attacks launched by the Russians in the last week. Over the last three years, these are the largest attacks we've ever seen.

And then on the land war, on the frontline directly, we're also seeing Russia commit significantly more forces as part of its so-called summer offensive that it's aggressively executing on, as we speak.

ZAKARIA: They're also doing things toward NATO allies, right? You described it as a shadow war against NATO. Describe what you -- what you're watching.

[10:10:04]

POLYAKOVA: So I think what's not well-understood is that at the same time as Russia launched its war on Ukraine, the full scale invasion three and a half years ago, it also basically unleashed its intelligence agencies to do whatever they please across the NATO domain. And what that means is that we've seen a massive uptick in Russian shadow war against NATO. What I mean by that is attacks on critical infrastructure, assassination attempts, cyberattacks, you name it.

And just in the last two years, there's been more than a dozen attacks and sabotage efforts on undersea cable infrastructure in the Baltic Sea alone. This is a very small piece of maritime domain, and that has disrupted everything from phone lines to internet availability across Europe, and has definitely affected military exercises, interoperability and things of that nature. And this is something that I don't think is well understood that this war for Russia is really not just about its military invasion of Ukraine, it is already a shadow war against NATO.

ZAKARIA: So it's begun in recent months, has ramped up this shadow war, as you say, you've talked about undersea cables. It's massively expanded the air war against Ukraine. All this is happening at a time that Donald Trump has been warning Putin to stop. Why are they not taking Donald Trump seriously?

POLYAKOVA: Well, certainly I wouldn't let the Kremlin deceive us to think that they're not taking what the American president says seriously. They pretend to have kind of a cool view towards Washington, but they very much care, and they're very much watching closely. But I think what the Kremlin is learning is that, you know, the president changes his mind a lot. Everybody knows that.

So there's now there's a 50-day period where the Russians are supposed to achieve peace. They're making zero efforts to do so. If anything, they're doing the exact opposite. And they have probably seen that at least on the economic sanctions that are supposed to take effect after the 50-day deadline expires. Just like with tariffs, you know, sometimes the president is very aggressive, sometimes not.

So I think they're trying to achieve whatever they possibly can militarily now until that 50-day deadline is going to come to an end. I think the other thing to consider is the U.S. opening up sales of military equipment now to NATO allies and allowing our NATO allies to then transfer that equipment to Ukraine. And I do think this is a significant policy change here in Washington.

ZAKARIA: Yes, that -- it is military pressure that seems to affect Putin much more than economic pressure. Why do you think -- I mean, the Russian economy seems to have kind of stabilized itself by cutting itself off from the, you know, the rest of the world or a lot of the world finding furtive and other ways to get stuff that it needs? What's -- you know, give us a sense of the story because the Russian economy is more stable under this -- these very extensive sanctions than most people predicted.

POLYAKOVA: That's absolutely right. What we have actually seen is really surprising economic resilience in Russia. And one reason for that is they have a very good central banker who has done an excellent job, frankly, adapting to the sanctions. And they have also found illegal means of getting Russian oil and gas outside the country, circumventing sanctions of all kinds, including E.U. sanctions.

Many listeners and viewers may have heard about the Russian shadow fleet. These are these illegal, unlicensed, uninsured oil tankers that are operating all over Europe now delivering illegal Russian gas to European countries and elsewhere. And, you know, Russia has not been fully cut off from the global economy either. President Trump talked about something called secondary sanctions.

You know, what those are is, of course, U.S. imposing sanctions on countries that do business with Russia, which we really haven't used because they're really difficult to enforce. The bigger picture here is, is that, as you said, Fareed, you know, Putin's calculus isn't going to change unless there is a massive maximum pressure campaign, both militarily, economically and politically, to isolate him, to make him more difficult for the Russian war economy to get what it needs.

We have a lot of tools as the United States together with allies to really turn up the heat on the Kremlin, and we just haven't done that yet.

ZAKARIA: Alina, pleasure to have you on. Thank you.

POLYAKOVA: Thank you, Fareed. Great to see you.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, why is it that Donald Trump and one of his favorite foreign leaders, Benjamin Netanyahu, are at total loggerheads over a crucial issue in the Middle East today?

[10:15:01]

The fate of Syria. I'll speak to "Atlantic" writer Robert Worth to unravel the puzzle.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: Israeli warplanes struck Damascus last week, targeting Syria's defense ministry. The attack came in response to growing sectarian violence in southern Syria, where hundreds have been killed in clashes between the country's Druze minority and forces loyal to Syria's new president, former militant Islamist, Ahmed al-Sharaa. The violence highlights a growing divide between the U.S. and Israel over what a post-Assad Syria should look like.

[10:20:06]

I'm joined by the "Atlantic" writer Robert Worth, who has covered Syria extensively.

Welcome, Robert. Tell me first, what does Syria look like today? You've been covering it for so many years. What is the -- what is the state of play right now?

ROBERT WORTH, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Well, Syria is really a devastated country, and that's the first thing you see when you arrive there. You know, it went through more than a decade of ruinous civil war. And even before that, it was a country that was a dictatorship that was under sanctions that was economically just, you know, pulverized.

And so what you have now is a country that much of the country is still in a kind of giddy shock after the fall of the Assad dictatorship last December. Many of the Sunni majority feel liberated because, after all, the Assads were from the Alawite minority and the Sunnis were largely the victims of his oppression.

But you also have a country that remains, as I said, pulverized. And you have a state of extreme uneasiness among the country's minority communities. The Druze, the Christians, the Alawites and others.

ZAKARIA: So let's get to this big disagreement. I mean, there's an Axios article in which a White House official speaks of Bibi Netanyahu in an incredibly intemperate way. It talks about how Netanyahu just wants to bomb everything that moves. So explain to us first, what is the American position on the new Syria?

WORTH: The American position is fundamentally this. After Assad fell, Trump made clear that he thought Syria was a basket case. Syria was a dangerous place. He wanted to stay out. But that changed dramatically in May because Trump went to the Gulf, and there he met with the leaders of the Gulf states and with Erdogan, the president of Turkey. And all those countries have a very clear position.

They want Syria to have a strong central government. They do not want it to be divided up. They do not want the minorities in that country to pose a threat because those countries, the Gulf countries and Turkey, have their own minorities. They do not want an example set of restive, threatening minorities. So they pitched this to Trump and said, look, we want to embrace Sharaa, the new president of Syria, and Trump accepted this.

He also met the new Syrian president who came to Riyadh to meet him. And Trump seems to have been very impressed. He said afterwards, he's a -- he's an attractive guy. He's a tough guy, he said he's got a strong past, which was sort of an oblique way of acknowledging that he used to be the leader of al Qaeda in Syria.

ZAKARIA: Now, the Israeli position is very different and seems to stem from a growing sense of Israeli strength and a desire to, you know, take no chances when preserving its security

WORTH: Absolutely. I think the Israelis have always had this sense that they are more secure when their Arab neighbors are weak and divided. And I think you see that reflected in their current view. They were, on the one hand, very pleased to be rid of Bashar al-Assad, who was an ally of Iran, Israel's greatest enemy. By vanquishing Assad, al-Sharaa and his forces really kicked Iran out of Syria.

However, the Israelis are extremely uneasy about Sharaa, this former jihadist. They do not trust him. And so what they have been doing is acting very -- in a very tough way, very unilaterally, ever since December, bombing weapons caches, bombing anything that might pose a threat.

ZAKARIA: This feels to me, Robert, like a situation where you're seeing a new geopolitical dynamic play out, which is a very powerful Israel that has a kind of take no prisoners approach and is going to do whatever it wants to protect its security, whether it's in Iran, whether it's in Syria, whether it's with Hezbollah, and a growing sense of unease among some of the Arab states and Turkey about this.

And you're seeing this division between the interests of Israel and the interests of the moderate Arab states, you know, not for the first time, but in a kind of new way.

WORTH: I think that's absolutely right. There's a dramatic sense that, as you said, Israel feels more empowered. Israel is willing to take greater risks and incur greater loss of life. But Turkey, which is the most influential power in the new Syria because for years when Sharaa was cooped up in just in the far northwest corner over the past decade, Idlib is the name of the province, its patron, the patron of Sharaa and of that rebel corner of Syria was the Turks.

The Turks provided everything, intelligence, communications, everything that was needed. And I think especially now that Iran is very much on the back foot, Turkey feels this is our moment. We can become the most important player in this region.

ZAKARIA: And what is your take on al-Sharaa himself?

[10:25:00]

WORTH: You know, Sharaa is a fascinating figure, and I think many people feel that they still haven't quite got him figured out. His moderation is not entirely new. When he was the leader of this province of Idlib that I mentioned over the past decade, he moderated gradually. He, you know, that province was a very dangerous place even for many Syrians. And he took things down a notch. He insisted that everybody fall under his authority.

He began to make sort of the semblance of a national army there. He became a much more pragmatic figure and has continued to be so. And in fact, since he came to power in Syria in December, it's been striking to see, you know, the ideology of most jihadist groups is profoundly anti-Israel. And he has made clear signs that he's willing to talk to Israel.

ZAKARIA: Robert Worth, always a pleasure to talk to you. You're so smart about all this. Thank you.

WORTH: Thank you for having me. ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, the president made a big splash on A.I. this

week. He is very bullish on it. Is Bill Gates? I'll ask him that when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:30:35]

ZAKARIA: On Wednesday, the White House announced its plan to make America the world leader in artificial intelligence. The main way it will seek to do that, it appears, is to scale back on regulation of A.I. I recently had a chance to sit down with Bill Gates to talk about how he sees the present and future of A.I.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Bill Gates, pleasure to have you on. We've been trying to track on this show the progress of A.I. And the place we are now at is everybody talks about AGI, general intelligence. What's the difference between artificial intelligence and what people are now predicting, which is artificial general intelligence?

BILL GATES, CO-FOUNDER, MICROSOFT: You know, the -- people use very different definitions. And you can, say when is A.I. so good that something like a telesales job or a telesupport job that just --- I mean, the A.I. do that work, that it's way cheaper and more accurate than humans are? So that's, you know, really looking at the labor substitution piece.

Or you can look at the most creative things that humans do, like come up with a new drug that helps with tuberculosis. And, you know, look at -- OK, is A.I. just helping humans get this done or is it eventually replacing humans? You know, like people talk about writing code. Simple coding tasks, A.I. today can replace human work. The most complex coding tasks it's not able to do yet.

And people in the field disagree is that, and within the next year or two, or is it more like 10 years away? But A.I. -- you know, A.I. is improving at a rate that surprises me. Things like this deep research capability. You know, a few times a day I take some complex question and just for fun, I see in the A.I. does an awfully good job gathering all the materials and bringing it, summarizing what I need to know.

ZAKARIA: Satya Nadella says 30 percent of Microsoft's code is now being done by A.I. That seems inevitably to mean, one, you'll hire fewer coders. You'll need fewer of all -- I mean, what does, you know, a paralegal do at a law firm? They do discovery, which is essentially pattern recognition, which is very easy for A.I. to do.

Similarly, entry level people at accounting firm, right? All that is going to mean white-collar work, college educated graduates are going to have a more challenging job environment.

GATES: Well, when you -- when you improve productivity there are -- you can make more. And so, it shouldn't mean, you know, if you get less productive that's bad, and if you get more productive that's good. It means you can free up these people to have smaller class size or have longer vacations or, you know, to help do more.

So, it's -- it's not a bad thing. The question is, is it come so fast that you don't have time to adjust to it? And in parallel, you know, the blue-collar work when the robotic arms start to be decent, which they're not today, that starts to affect even larger classes of labor.

So, this is a profound set of changes. You know, I'm working with Microsoft, OpenAI on these things. You know, my lens is let's make sure it gets out in low-income countries to help with their health and education and agriculture.

ZAKARIA: So finally, what advice would you give to young people who are thinking about how do you enter the world of A.I.? What should the skills they develop be?

GATES: You know, if you get to very profound levels, you almost get to philosophical questions. In this transition period, the ability to use these tools is both fun and empowering.

[10:35:01]

You know, I used to have an advantage that I have very smart people I can call up when I get confused about physics. But now, I actually use Deep Research, and then I'll send that answer to my, you know, smart friends and say, hey, did it -- did it get it right? And most time they're like, oh, yes, you didn't need me.

And so, you can really learn so much. And the idea of the tutors that people like Khan Academy are building and how we'll get that out all over the world. And so, embracing this and, you know, tracking it will be very, very important.

That doesn't guarantee that we're not going to have a lot of dislocation. But I really haven't changed my be curious, read, and use the latest tools -- recommendations for young people.

ZAKARIA: Be curious, read, and use the latest tools. In this case, A.I.

GATES: Absolutely.

ZAKARIA: Bill Gates, pleasure to have you on.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:40:40]

ZAKARIA: The U.S. economy at the turn of this century was defined in large part by a single phenomenon, according to the economist David Autor, the China shock. As China transitioned from Maoism to something approaching market capitalism, the country exploded with new factories and manufacturing jobs, and China became the world's leading manufacturer. The U.S. economy was upended as nearly a quarter of all American manufacturing jobs were wiped out. I talked recently with Autor. He is one of the economists who identified the China shock phenomenon. I asked him to help us understand the second China shock, which he says will be worse than the first.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID AUTOR, ECONOMICS PROFESSOR, MIT: China is moving into the frontier sectors, not commodities like tube socks and children's toys, but, you know, electric vehicles, batteries, solar cells, robotics, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, fusion power, telecommunications, aviation. These are the sectors where profits come from, where technological leadership, standard setting and even political and military power come from.

And the U.S., by focusing on the last war, is distracting itself from the really formidable challenge we find ourselves facing now from Chinas incredible, innovative capacity and very, very intensive investment.

ZAKARIA: And when you look at the charts that you've put out, they're really quite striking. You know, electric batteries, there, they're at 76 percent. The United States is at six percent. Advanced optical communication, they're at 45 percent, we're at eight percent. Advanced magnets and supercomputers, they're at 29 percent, we're at 15 percent. High performing computers, 36 percent to 17 percent.

And much of this is a combination, is it not, of very serious government investment in research and development, in technology? And also, a fairly ferociously competitive private sector, which they, for example, in electric vehicles, they allow to hundreds of car companies to compete. And so, you ended up winnowing down to the very, very best.

AUTOR: That's well put. That's right. So, what China does by way of industrial policy is it identifies sectors. Most of the sectors it's leading in now I identified ten years ago as in China 2025. Like America 2025 and identified leading sectors. And then it doesn't choose champions. What it does is it makes lots of investments and creates competition among, you know, ruthlessly efficient Chinese competitors. And lots of them fail.

The vast majority of them fail, but the ones that survive are really kind of -- it's the survival of the fittest. And those companies like BYD, like DJI, the drone company, like Huawei, the electronics manufacturer, they are world class competitors and none of them is more than 30 years old and yet they lead the world in these industries. And I don't think the U.S. or Europe is well prepared for the type of competition we're going to face.

If BYD were bringing electric cars into America right now, if it didn't face 100 percent tariffs, those cars would substantially undercut the price of Tesla's and yet have many more features and in many ways be more desirable. ZAKARIA: You say something very important in your piece as your sort of number one prescription for what the United States should do which -- I was very struck by because, you know, frankly, I agree with it, which is the U.S. has to understand is that it cannot deal with this problem alone, that the United States has a network of allies of countries with which it can collectively create an ecosystem in which you can nurture this next frontier of manufacturing innovation.

But you need the Europeans, you need the Dutch, you need the Japanese, you need the Singaporeans. And that by tariffing all of them, we are actually, you know, almost destroying any hope of a coherent alternative to the Chinese juggernaut.

AUTOR: Oh, yes. Yes. We're first shooting our allies before we even starting the battle with China. It's crazy.

Yes, the U.S. doesn't -- we need to realize we are small relative to China in many, many ways. You know, we have 13 million manufacturing workers. China has well in excess of 100 million.

[10:45:00]

The only way we are collectively large is if we work in concert with Europe, with the U.K., with Japan, with Korea, with Singapore, with the Philippines. And those countries want to work with us. They perceive the same threats that we do both economically and militarily. And in Asia, you know, very much militarily.

And traditionally, they have looked to us for leadership and we have worked with them. But the Trump administration has really taken upon itself to alienate and antagonize those countries, not just even by threatening tariffs, but then putting tariffs on and then taking them off again and then stipulating some reason that doesn't seem logical. And so, it creates enormous uncertainty, and it makes them want to look for more stable allies.

It's an irony that China, the world's largest communist country, is now seen as the pillar of trade stability in the world and the greatest promoter of free market trade worldwide.

ZAKARIA: David Autor, pleasure to have you on.

AUTOR: Thank you so much. It's a delight to speak with you, Fareed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, President Trump's ambitious Golden Dome defense system aims to deploy American weapons into space for the first time in history. Is that a good idea? I'll tell you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:50:54]

ZAKARIA: And now for the last look. As President Donald Trump signed his landmark big, beautiful bill this month, one intriguing item was buried in there, funding for flashy new missile defense system called Golden Dome. In the Oval Office in May, he indicated it would shield America with a success rate very close to 100 percent, and could be built by the end of his term.

The truth is, this is a weapons system that experts say is unlikely to work and could easily backfire in a significant way. The inspiration has come from Israel's Iron Dome, part of a multi-pronged defense system that is largely successful at intercepting short range rockets and longer-range missiles.

But Israel is roughly the size of New Jersey, meaning America's Golden Dome would have to operate on a truly massive scale. It has to protect a country about 450 times the size of Israel, and defend against the advanced weapons of nuclear powers like China and Russia.

Let's start with how it is supposed to work. Although official details remain vague, experts say it would feature a network of missile armed satellites in orbit to detect, track and destroy enemy missiles. Targets would include ballistic missiles, which can carry nuclear warheads and travel above the Earth's atmosphere, and hypersonics, which can change direction at very high speeds.

The idea of destroying missiles has often been likened to hitting a bullet with a bullet. And for decades, the U.S. has spent tens of billions trying to do this against long range missiles, with very little to show for it. The main existing defenses stationed in Alaska and California were deployed by President George W. Bush to guard against limited threats like Iran and North Korea.

But tests have shown they fail roughly half the time. That is obviously not good enough when it only takes one nuclear warhead to get through and cause incalculable damage. If there's little faith in the current system, why would we suddenly believe a far bigger system would work.

To defend against larger threats, America would need a vast fleet of space-based interceptors for maximum coverage. A recent study from the American Physical Society estimated that the U.S. would need between 16,000 and 36,000 space-based interceptors to destroy a swarm of just 10 North Korean missiles. And then there's the extravagant cost.

Trump says the price tag is around $175 billion. But Republican Senator Tim Sheehy recently admitted that it will likely cost in the trillions if and when Golden Dome is completed. That is a staggering sum for a concept with a shaky track record.

The crucial point, Golden Dome would be the first large scale deployment of weapons into space by any nation. Though the U.S. frames Golden Dome as a defensive system, other countries could easily regard it as threatening. The interceptors could be used as offensive weapons to hit Russian or Chinese satellites.

The nuclear arms expert Tong Zhao notes to the "Wall Street Journal" that other powers could fear that, quote, "a better protected United States might be emboldened to pursue more aggressive military actions," unquote. All of this could trigger an arms race by America's adversaries at a time when they are already working to develop advanced weapons like hypersonics and anti-satellite lasers.

In 1983, President Reagan launched his own missile defense dream with the utopian goal of making nuclear weapons obsolete. It included proposals for things like space-based lasers, and was dubbed by some as Star Wars.

[10:55:06]

And in response, the USSR attempted to advance its own weapons development, which it could not do. After the Cold War, however, the U.S. program itself was eventually largely scaled down.

For decades peace between great powers has rested on the idea of nuclear deterrence. That the threat of mutually assured destruction would keep global conflict from breaking out. As the military historian Lawrence Freedman warns, the Golden Dome is likely to be only the latest expensive and futile attempt to escape the grim logic of the nuclear age.

It is unlikely to achieve anything close to the 100 percent success rate needed for a nuclear shield, and the costs would be immense. Wasted taxpayer dollars and, most worryingly, a move to militarize space which could turn that final frontier into a no holds barred war zone.

Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week.

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