Guerrilla History - Trying to Unbalance Russia - Sanctions on Russia w/ Jeremy Kuzmarov

Episode Date: June 30, 2023

This episode of Guerrilla History is a continuation of our Sanctions As War miniseries (get the book here).  In this timely episode, we bring on the Jeremy Kuzmarov to discuss the history and unfolding situation regarding sanctions on Russia.  This episode is as timely now as it ever has been. Be sure to get the word out and share this with comrades involved in the anti-sanctions movement. Jeremy Kuzmarov is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine and is author of four books on US foreign policy including The Myth of the Addicted Army (Massachusetts, 2009); Modernizing Repression (Massachusetts, 2012); The Russians are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2018) and Obama’s Unending Wars (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2019).  You can stay up to date with his work by checking out his website at https://jeremykuzmarov.com/ Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory 

You don't remember Dinn-Vin-Bin-Bou? No! The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare. But they put some guerrilla action on. Hello and welcome to guerrilla history. the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history

and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present. I'm one of your usual co-hosts, Henry Hukimaki, joined, as usual, by my two co-hosts, Professor Adnan Hussain, historian and director of the School of Religion at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Hello, Adnan. How are you doing? It's been a while since I've seen you. I'm well, yes. I'm glad to be back together with you all. I'm looking forward to our conversation today. Yeah, absolutely. Really happy to have you.

have you back after this little break. And also joined as usual by Brett O'Shea, host of Revolutionary Left Radio and co-host of the Red Menace podcast. Hello, Brett. How are you doing today? Sorry about that. I was muted. I'm doing very well. Yeah, no problem. Happy to see you as well. We have a great guest today and a really fascinating topic that I know that many of the guests are going to be very interested in, in one of which I, of course, have personal vested interest in. But before I turn to our guests, I want to remind listeners that you can keep up with the show and what we're putting out by going and following us on Twitter at Gorilla underscore Pod. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-L-A underscore pod.

And you can help support the show and allow us to keep doing what we do by going to patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history, with, again, Gorilla being spelled G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. Every contribution, large or small, really goes a long way to making sure that we can continue to do this show. So as I said, we have an excellent guest today. We have Jeremy Kuzmarov, who is managing editor of Covert Action Magazine, author of four books on U.S. foreign policy, including the myth of the addicted army, modernizing repression, the Russians are coming again, and Obama's unending wars. He's been published in many places, and I've read his work at Covert Action for years. And today we're going to be talking about his great chapter

within the Sanctions as War books of, again, listeners, this is a continuation of our Sanctions as War series titled Trying to Unbalance Russia, the Fraudulent Origins and Impact of U.S. sanctions on Russia. Hello, Jeremy. It's great to have you on the show. Really looking forward to the conversation. Yes. Thanks for having me.

It's a pleasure to be with you guys. Of course. So like I said in the introduction, people, I'm sure, all of the listeners are going to be very interested in the case of Russia and sanctions. When we started this Sanctions' War series, it was one of the cases that people were looking forward to the most. But we actually wanted to put this topic off for a little bit because it was right at the beginning of the special military operation. And therefore, things were unfolding very quickly in regards to sanctions. And actually, this chapter was written before the operation began.

And so by waiting a little bit, we were able to kind of gauge how the sanctions were unfolding in the present context. and then gauge that against the past examples that you were providing within this chapter. So while the listeners, I'm sure are looking forward to hearing about the current sanctions regime that has been put in place on Russia, I do think that we have to start with the history and impacts of sanctions regimes on Russia before this. So in other words, the subject of your chapter. So would you be able to just give us a brief run through? of when did these sanctions start?

Why were these sanctions being put in place in the run-up to the current context? And I'm sure that my co-hosts will want to dig in a little bit deeper after what you say. Absolutely. And looking at a long historical pattern as you're doing on your program, we should also note, as I detail in my book, the Russians are coming again. They're basically war on Russia going back to the Russian Revolution. you know the and actually you know the U.S. had very good relation with Russia in the 19th century and it's kind of an unknown part of history that you know Abraham Lincoln had really great

relation with Tsar Alexander and the U.S. had assisted Russia on the Crimean War and then when Britain and France were supporting the Confederacy in the American Civil War because they wanted to you know promote this union weak in the United States Lincoln called on the Russians who sent a vessel kind of warning to the British and French to back off. So, I mean, there is a history and even potential for the presence for positive U.S. Russian relations. But then when you had the Russian Revolution, you know, the U.S. capitalist USA could not accept a rival economic system and they wage war on Russia, you know, supporting the white armies and the Russian Civil War, invading with U.S. soldiers. And then the U.S. for years did wage

economic war on the Soviet Union that tried to undermine its economy. So that's a kind of, you know, historical precedent to what we see in the present day where, yeah, I mean, if you look at the long arch of history, Russia, of course, became capitalists under Boris Yeltsin, and then the country was plundered by Western, you know, corporate interests. And, you know, the Western oil companies were making inroads and starting to take over some of Russia's oil. And I think, you know, the West covered the rich natural resources of Russia. And then you had Putin, who's not a Marxist, but he's more of a nationalist, who tried to reassert more Russian control over its economy.

And he, you know, went after some of these foreign interests and oligarchs, and he prosecuted some for tax invasion. And so he became public enemy number one. You know, the U.S. and West wanted another Boris Yeltsin who would sell off Russia's economy. And Yeltsin also acquiesced as to NATO expansion. And, you know, Putin's up to that and, you know, said their red lines. And he's also, you know, developed, I mean, he's strengthened the Russian Federation. He's strengthened the central government control over areas in Russia.

And he's, you know, promoting the development of the Eurasian Union. And these are things the U.S. government does not like about them. They want to try and dominate, you know, Central Asia control, the oil and, you know, you know, natural resources of Central Asia, which is considered the key to world domination. And Putin, you know, is a stronger Russian leader who's standing up to that and wants to reassert more Russian control and power in the region. So, so those, you know, that's the kind of backdrop. And then, I mean, there was a period of hope, I guess.

When Obama came in, he did promote a reset. You know, Medvedev was the head of Russia at that time. And there was a reset policy in place because, Well, actually, when Putin first came in, the relations with Bush were pretty good. You know, Putin was, I think, anointed his Yelton's successor, but then when he started, you know, becoming asserting more independence and standing up more to U.S. interests, that's when he started to become vilified. But then, you know, Obama came in and he promoted a reset policy.

So there was some hope of better U.S. Russian relations. but then things shifted very quickly in 2012, and that's when the sanctions were first applied. But I detail in that chapter, a lot of it was based on the lobbying of these profiteer, like what I was describing in the 90s, these foreign corporations and hedge funds basically descended on Russia in the 90s

and were benefiting from the privatization process of the looting of Russia's economy, but they basically carried out. And then, you know, Putin tried to rein them in. And so they had a vendetta against Putin. So they were the ones starting to lobby for these sanctions. And the key figure, I guess, if you want, I can go into it now. Do you want me to do with Bill Browder?

He was a key figure behind the sanctions policy and the Magnitsky Act of December 2012, which is a major turning point, I think, in the new Cold War, has led us to the dangerous course we're in today where we're on the verge of potentially World War III. Yeah, I know that one of my co-hosts will definitely have a question, but I can't resist just mentioning since you said that Bush had a relatively good relationship with Putin. This is absolutely true and actually spawned one of my favorite quotes about Putin.

It's very funny, and I have it pulled up so I get it correct. Bush was giving a speech where he said, and I quote, I looked a man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. we had a very good dialogue I was able to get a sense of his soul a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country

so you know I looked him in the eye and I could see his soul and he was a good man so just a very interesting quote and does kind of show what that relationship was like at that point in time anyway which was about because I in my study the Russians are coming again I looked at that history of U.S. Russian relations

and yeah it was good to start with but then when Putin started reasserting his power more and reasserting Russian control of the economy. The media began to vilify him, and the Bush administration started adopting more hostile policy. And ultimately, Bush to second term, you can date the new Cold War to that. I mean, Bush was supporting Georgia and a bellicose action that led to the Georgian conflict. And Bush pulled out of the ABM treaty, I think, in 2004. so he was starting to initiate more hostile policies

because Putin didn't support the Iraq war like Putin was supporting the Afghan war but he didn't go along with the Iraq war and that may have been the first turning point and a signal that he was more independent than Yeltsin and that's when they started turning on him Yeah I just this is so important to have that context but you also have alluded to this figure

Browder, William Browder, as a key figure in the new wave of sanctions in this longer-term history of hostility and economic sanctions on Russia. And he seems like a very interesting figure. And also the fact that it's possible, you know, there's this larger geopolitical shift that's happening that, you know, imposes a structural set of conditions to encourage the United States become more hostile to a more independent Russia. But it's striking to me how much also seems to hinge upon the particular and unique economic interests of a figure like this. And he also is a very strange, seems to be a strange character here with an odd history. Could you tell us a little

bit more about Browder and how and why he became so significant in the push to impose sanctions on Russia. Sure. Yeah, and in my article, I referenced, you know, J.A. Hobson wrote a classic text on imperialism, kind of an analyst of imperialism in British, he was right in the early nights of the English working class.

But that's what you kind of see if you figure like Browder, you see the upper class who's driving these imperialist policies that are leading us to World War III because he was a key driver in sanctions. Yeah, and his background,

is that he was the son of Earl Browd, sorry, the grandson of Earl Browder, who was the head of the American Communist Party, the 1940s. So, you know, that's a great irony. But he apparently rebelled against his family by becoming, you know, a staunch capitalist, because he came from, you know, such a left-wing family. And he made a huge amount of money in the hedge fund industry in Russia, and he was connected with some very corrupt element, this guy, Edmond Safra, who I think is connected,

to intelligence, British and probably the CIA, maybe Israeli intelligence, as well as organized crime. And so Browler swims in this milieu, you know, these like billionaire hedge fund managers who are connected to the CIA as well as organized crime. And they're at the forefront of the privatization process and profiting office in Russia, which was a very corrupt process by which,

Yeltsin, you know, just like sold off Russian state assets for pennies to the dollar and there's a huge amount of cronyism involved. You know, got put in the hands of these select number of individuals with political connections and some of these outside

born in and reassert national control and instead to these interests and that's what they didn't like. And Browler was ultimately charred with massive tax evasion so he has a vendetta against Putin, and then there's a scam, the controversy, because the sanctions policy is

called the Magnitsky Act, that passed in the U.S. Congress, is called the Magnitsky Act, and it's named after Sergei Magnitsky, who was Browder's accountant, although he presented him, I think, a lawyer, but he was actually an accountant. But Browder told the story that his company was scam, that he tried to paint this image, and he wrote this book where he painted this image of corrupt Russian government that basically targeted him and tried to steal his business and steal all his money and that there was some kind of scam

where the Russian government stole $200 million from him and that Magnitsky was the whistleblower and he was trying to expose the scam and they put him in prison because of that and then Magnitsky died in jail so his name was invoked this kind of phony human rights rhetoric was adopted that these sanctions we had to punish Russia

because of the human rights abuse and look this whistleblower died in prison but then there was an investigation by a filmmaker named Andre Necrosov who actually had been part of the anti-Putin movement but then he was investigating this case actually I think he said about making a documentary like to expose corruption in the Russian government

government and criminal justice system, but the more he looked into it, the more it smelled bad, the Browder Magnitsky's part, and that Magnitsky was actually a witness, a Browder. That Browder had actually orchestrated a massive fraud and scam to scam the Russian government of $200 million through a massive tax evasion and tax cheating a scam, and that Magnitsky was, you know, a federal witness. in this case. And he was like in the scam, but he was more of a whistleblower against Browder. And actually Magnitsky's specialty

was helping to offshore money. And, you know, Necrosov's investigation found all kind of corrupt practices by Browder, like setting up offshore companies and false reporting and all kinds of scams he was running. And Magnitsky was helping him to run these scams.

So Magnitsky was not in his innocent person. So we see the fraud of the sanction right away. It's named after this supposed heroic human rights whistleblowers exposing corruption in the U.S. government who actually helped this billionaire scam the Russian government and carry out white-collar crime. And the circumstance in his death are unclear. He had some previous health problems,

and it's possible he died like of a heart attack in prison that he was never murdered. There's another theory was that he was actually murdered by Browder and because Browder is connected with elements of intelligence or an intelligence

rather himself that really had nothing to do with the Russian government or bad prison conditions although prison conditions were not ideal in Rarca as they're not in the United States and many other countries but they seized

on this, you know, he became this kind of symbol of the, you know, corruption and evil of Russia and the human rights abuses in their prison system. And look, this guy died. And so they lobby and push for the Magnitsky Act of sanctions. And Browder was a key, you know, Democratic part, he was donating a lot of money through the Zift brothers and some other firms he was tied with. They were donating big money to Democratic Party politician like Ben Cardin, who was pushing this Magnitsky Act forward. And the Magnitsky Act got passed and was signed

by Obama in December 2012, and that was the beginning of the sanctions. But that's what I'd call it. It's a fraudulent or they're based on a fraudulent pretext. And this is rarely discussed in any media.

Some media on the more critical end will say, oh, the sanctions are not working. But they never addressed that there was no basis for these sanctions in the first place. They were derived from this corrupt criminal Bill Browder and through his lobbying efforts based on, you know, Saffra was his mentor in Edmond Saffra, who was still murdered under suspicious circumstances, but he, I think, you know, taught Browder that you create a scandal to deflect from your own criminal deeds.

You create a phony scandal. and that's what he did, and he turned Magnitsky into a phony whistleblower. So the whole thing is a fraud, and this whole Cold War is very, I believe, clearly a fraud, and the American public has been hoodwinked, and it would be a benefit to the American people as well as Russians and the whole of humanity for there to be positive U.S. Russian relations, and look where we are now on the potential threat of a world war, possible nuclear war, The U.S. has invested billions of dollars in Ukraine, over $100 billion. I was at the war, a rage against the war machine rally, and the best speech was by Jimmy Dore, the comedian,

and he gave like a top ten list of how he could have spent $100 billion. And he's like we could have ended homelessness, you know, giving all the homeless people a place to live, put them back on the street and then give them a place to live again. or we could have cured cancer, but he's like, well, maybe the pharmaceutical companies don't want that, but we could have done that. I mean, there's so many positive things you could do with $100 billion and so many problems in the American society. So, as I say, the American, instead they're spending the money in this horrific war in Ukraine, and they want it to prolong the war indefinitely. so this is just horrible what we've seen so I'm trying to alert more people to stand up against this yeah thanks for that I just wanted to point out that in this whole macabre and sordid tale

I mean it's very interesting to see the way in which as we've seen with other sanctions regimes how many corrupt interests in this kind of crony capitalism are are actually also involved in the imposition of sanctions, which are just another way in some ways for capitalism under imperialism to adapt itself. And this case of this fellow Browder just illustrates that whole shady world of finance, intelligence, organized crime that are so constitutive of the global capitalist system the way it's functioning these days under imperialism. So thanks so much for that for that illustration. Yeah, and I would agree. And from my review of sanctions in the case of Russia and some other cases, sometimes they're simply

freezing people's money and even stealing it. It's just like a blatant self-interest in these sanctions, and people don't often realize that. It's just stealing. Yeah, absolutely. Really quick, before we move on, I have another question here, but a little bit, were cutting in and out on that last answer. Is your internet connection pretty secure at this point, Jeremy? Oh, I hope so. I did get one brief message that it went out for me. It was like, yeah. Okay. It's sounding good now, but maybe just keep an eye. Okay. I've had this in the last few days where it periodically goes up and down, so. Okay. Okay, yeah, so let's go ahead and move on. Of course, I think the Obama administration is a really, like, key era for a shift in relationships

to Russia. There's this attempt to reset the relationship, and then there's the sanctioning regime that comes after. And the important thing that happens, I think, that really important thing during Obama's term, that even, you know, this is, of course, relevant to the history here, but also to the present situation with the war, was the coup d'etat of 2014 in Ukraine. And one of the most astonishing things about the mainstream media depiction of the Russia-Ukraine war and what led up to it was an almost complete blackout of this event and the role that it played in exacerbating tensions between the U.S. and Russia, how U.S. literally backed a coup d'etat. It started basically a civil war in Ukraine. Russia responded in various ways, including backing, you know, various

separatist groups and guerrilla rebels and eastern Ukraine, et cetera. So can you kind of help our listeners understand what happened in 2014? and how it continued to exacerbate tensions and ultimately even perhaps led to the war itself. Yeah, I would definitely agree with your analysis. I think, you know, after 1991, Victoria Newland, you know, admitted it was very high in the State Department that the U.S. had provided something like $5 billion to try and, you know, pry Ukraine away from the Russian orbit. And I think, yeah, you know, in 1991, with the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. government, And, you know, neoconservatives saw this major opportunity to expand the U.S. power in that whole region and kind of deal a hammer blow to Russia.

And Ukraine was seen as a major, you know, a strategic prize. So that was a project, you know, for several decades. You know, they ultimately wanted to expand NATO to Ukraine, to encircle Russia and to have a platform to attack and undermine any nationalistic government like the Putin government. So, yeah, strategically is very important. And the U.S. supported color revolution. Going back to the early 2000s, the U.S. was supporting these color revolutions, basically, you know, uprising against, like,

the person they targeted with Victory Anakovich was a pro-Russian leader, and he was targeting these color revolutions. And, like, in 2000, I believe it was 2005, if I'm not mistaken, the orange revolution, he brought in this guy, Yushenko, even more pro-West. and so that was the prelude to what occurred in 2014 and, you know, Victoria Newland was there handing out cookies to the protesters and they presented them as these pro-democracy

fighting against corruption as corrupt, you know, pro-Russian government that they tried to kind of use Cold War characters. But, I mean, Yanukovych, I mean, you know, there were some legitimate grievances against his government but he was also doing a lot to benefit the Ukrainian economy and people. He was standing up to the IMF and refuting to accept the loan that would force austerity on the country. He was promoting development in the eastern provinces, which is where he was very popular and connection with Russia, economic connections.

So he has a strong basis of war, and he had been legally elected. He was doing some positive things in the country. and that's why I did interview that filmmaker Andre Neckrossov who made the film about Browder and he told me that he was actually in the Maidan Square but that they during the protest but that they didn't have enough support for impeachment because there was actually a scheduled election about a year later so you know they could have focused on an election and if they had enough support they could have defeated the Anakovich although probably Yadokovych would won the election and they knew that

so they had to use dirty methods and what Neckrissau said is yeah they didn't have enough signatures for impeachment so they used violence and they stayed the sniper attack they used Georgia and a professor at the University of Olua who's done very good research on this

Kachinovsky and he showed that these were false flag operation they used a sniper that they brought in one was an American Brian Boyang who was likely to the CIA,

a black flag operation where they shot at the protesters to make it look like the Anakovich government was behind the shooting and was very oppressive and this became,

you know, turned this into human rights crusade and great martyrs, but it was really all set up by outsiders. And of course, there are far right elements

in the Maidan Square. A lot of them were promoting posters, putting a poster of Stefan Bandera who had lied with Nazis during World War II, and there was a lineage with the organization of Ukrainian nationalists who were the far-right, basically a pro-Nazi organization.

So these were not, these choir boys that they were presented in the media in the West. These were, you know, many were far-right elements taking over to this protest movement, and that's who the U.S. government was supporting. You know, the CIA was helping to support this, the U.S. government openly, but Newland handing out the cookie,

he was openly citing this insurrection, which is what caused the disaster, ultimately, for Ukraine. Yanukovych ultimately had to flee. Some of his ministers and supporters of his government were murdered. Others were forced to flee the country in terror. You had the massacre, the Trade Union building in Odessa. They burned the building and killed at least 50 people. And you had oppression and massacres going on in some cities

where there were protests against the new government and then ultimately had the rebellion in the eastern provinces when the new government was trying to impose not only austerity but also the U.S. favorite was a guy at Seneuk but he only had about 1% support of the population and he was like a staunch neoliberal wanting to impose the dictates of the IMF that Yanukovych had repudiated

and the U.S. ultimately promoted Petro Porchenko who was like a mafia connected a billionaire who made his money in chocolate but was also a very corrupt like gangster type leader and he became known of the butcher they called him for the nickname form you know the butcher of eastern Ukraine basically I mean you know they attacked I mean first they were trying to impose these language laws in eastern Ukraine were mostly Russian speakers and then when they were you know standing up for themselves the Ukrainian army he attacked them using neo-Nazi militias and started bombing and shelling them in 2014.

That's been going on for years and years. And eventually, the Russian became more involved. And, I mean, that was from the people of Eastern Ukraine. That was viewed in a genuine humanitarian intervention. You know, we have all this rhetoric here in the U.S. We've heard for years about how the U.S. was to go in and save these people when really they're going in to loot their resources. But in this case, it was a genuine humanitarian.

itarian intervention in the sense that the people are being attacked for years had to live on underground shelters kids couldn't go to school they had to live in that terror and so a majority of the population from my understanding has welcomed the Russians

as liberators from this terror and that's why this Ukrainian counteroffensive support the Russians more than Ukrainians at least any interesting with me yeah and just as kind of an aside, you mentioned Poroshenko and he was, you know, the chocolate man. It's also worth

mentioning just, it may be interesting to some listeners who know that he was, he made his fortune in chocolate as well as these kind of shady dealings, but he also owned and ran one of the largest TV channels in Ukraine, one of the biggest media channels, five canal, pronunciation, probably terrible. But anyway, it was opened and run initially to be critical of Yanukovych. Like that was the explicit goal of that channel. And it was being run by Poroshenko, who eventually became president. And so it's interesting to think about how the media ownership and how some of these media moguls, these a multi-billion dollar media moguls, also can leverage that and to political careers for themselves.

And I just bring that up because today, the day that we're recording, it was announced that Silvio Berlusconi just died in Italy. And of course, we can see these, you know, media ownership, media mogul parallels using that to propel themselves into political office in many ways, among other shady dealings. So just as an aside, I want to, I know Brett has another question. ahead with that breath or should I ask about the impacts of the sanctions before the current situation here? I was just going to ask about the 2019 RAND Corporation paper and the insights it gives us regarding U.S. intentions. So yeah, in your wonderful little essay, you mentioned

the 2019 RAND Corporation paper. RAN corporation, of course, is a thing tank associated with the Pentagon. And in that paper, it was pretty revealing as to the U.S.'s basic orientation towards Russia and their basic strategy, what they were trying to do. I think the paper was something about overextending and unbalancing Russia. Can you tell us a little bit about that and then what that says about U.S. interests from the 2019 going forward? Sure, yeah. And, you know, they're very open about what they're doing. Their goal is regime changed. They're openly promoting this Iran report. A regime changed or leftist government like Cuba. There's a memo for Cuba, you know, from 1960 by somebody very high in the State Department who said overtly, you know, that

there's no effective political opposition to the Castro government, so we've got to destroy their economy, and maybe, actually, they'll rebel because they'll be on the verge of starvation. And I think that's basically what they want to do in Russia. They want to keep expanding these sanctions so that they can wage an economic war on the country and ultimately create economic hardships and that the people will revolt against Putin. But as we can discuss, yeah, it's not really working. And I think, yeah,

provoking a war in Ukraine is really part of their strategy. They want to bog them down into a quagmire in Ukraine and they've all their resources toward the military. That was the strategy adopted in Afghanistan in the 80s where we know that, you know, as Big New Brasinski, the national security advisor, Jimmy Carter, was very open about how they saw, support the Mujahideen, the extremist, Islamic fundamentalist elements to sabotage the

Afghan revolution and to induce the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, you know, and they were supporting them before the Russians invaded because they were trying to encourage that invasion so that they can get the Russians to have their Vietnam War and bankrupt the Russian economy, and I think that's a strategy being pursued in Ukraine. And I can't remember all the details now on the Iran report, but they're pretty open about a lot of what they're planning and sheeming to undermine Russia's economy

and the end goal and undermine Russia is to try and incite a revolt against the Putin government, but they're under a naive illusion that, you know, I think that their favor in Canada is electing Navalny as such limited support

within Russia. In the polls I've seen, he had like one or three percent in support of the population, and his policies are many of them who are countered the interest of the Russian people. Oh, yeah, really quick, just a follow-up comment before I hand it back over to Henry. It's just something that I've noticed recently on YouTube, of all places, is that I've seen over the last year, especially since the war in Russia, began a sort of preponderance of relatively new or at least low-level YouTubers that have shot up

really high in the algorithm in the ranking system, kings and generals, the Caspian report, good times, bad times. And what they all did in Peter Zahan as a geopolitical analyst who does this as well is they're constantly talking about the imminent balkanization of Russia, that Russia is in China. They also do this with China. Russia and China are on the verge of collapse any second. And they have these whole videos, hour-long videos about balkanization and what the new Russia is going to look like after it balkanizes. And it seems like that is part or feeds in exactly what you're saying is this general interest. I mean, kings and generals have been already tied, I think, to the CIA. So, these YouTubers are not just random people giving their thoughts. There's definitely connections and funding going on here. But they're getting out this narrative that Russia and China are on the

brink of Balkanization and I think it's very clear that the U.S. would love regime change in general Balkanization, anything that brings the end of the Russian state. And so I just would encourage people to keep an eye out for that and be incredibly skeptical when you

see stuff like that pop up on your social media feed or your YouTube algorithm free feed etc yeah and I would add that that's the policy Valny is advocated for where the Putin government has tried to strengthen the central government in Moscow as control over various regions but that's what the CIA won that they're openly encouraging separatist force you know they've done this for generation that's often been their strategy in many countries including like in Latin American countries to promote separatism like you know when you have a socialist government, like in Bolivia or Cuba or Venezuela,

they'll support secessionist movements to weaken those countries and try and break them up. And China, they've been doing this, you know, they support the Tibetan revolt and the Uighur, and that's why they're playing up the alleged Uyghur genocide because the CIA in the past to support the East Turkmenistan, Islamic rebellion that was occurring at Xinjiang province, So that is their strategy, and they would love to have that for Russia as well. But, yeah, again, they're promoting disinformation and giving a false impression that this is actually occurring. I mean, I think the Putin government, and that also, you know, if you want to understand the Putin government, you know, it's easy to demonize them or call them authoritarian. but I mean if they were outside powers promoting Texas secession or California secession

the federal government would be very in Washington and be firm against that and would expand its power to prevent that weakening of the country so Putin is doing the same and that's a popular policy among Russians who understand the implication if Russia is balkanized it'll just allow that that's yeah the Rand report I mean, that's ultimately what they want, a weak Russia, Balkanized country, so the U.S. could take control over its natural resources and dominate the entire Central Asian region. That's their major foreign policy goal.

Yeah, just to pick up on that excellent point that you both have made about that Rand report and the geopolitical vision that it seems to be promoting is how far back that goes, you know, with neocon kind of thinking, you know, since the start of the global war on terrorism, so called, you know, we know from those other kinds of reports from Jinsa and other the, I'm forgetting the projects for the New American Century. They talked in similar terms, very similar terms about Iraq as it's an authoritarian state that, you know, doesn't have a natural central kind of state structure because you've got the Shia, the Kurds, the Sudanese, and that, you know, it really envisioned the possibility of a breakup of Iraq. And it's the same kind of rhetoric that looks at these anti-imperialist or independent, you know, non-NATO, non-Western countries as artificial constructs, which of course in history in some ways they may be, but, you know, looks at them as illegitimate states in the configuration that they currently have

and envisions that vulcanization or breakup. It's just that in the case of the Iraq War, they thought that they could actually impose this or create a new set of conditions, you know, through direct military action. And what we see is with the failure of that whole project and the cost of it and so on is that they've moved to trying to accomplish

similar sorts of goals and similar sorts of discourse through using economic sanctions and other methods of weakening, apart from direct military. intervention because that has proven to be geopolitically and domestically impossible to, you know, really, you know, achieve. And so it's so interesting to see the metamorphosizing, but with the same kind of discourse and structures that we're seeing here in Russia, anti-China kinds of discussion. So I really, I would just add one point that, you know,

was Joe Biden who wrote a plan for dividing Iraq into like three separate entities. And It was called it out, it was like a colon, basically right out of a colonial playbook. And, you know, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, that's a major reason who's seen as a threat because he was seen as a strong leader and he was going to assert control over Kuwait. And they were worried that he would have more and more influence in the Middle East. And that would undercut U.S. imperial ambitions in the Middle East, just like Qaddafi and some other... And access to control over the oil resources, not that, you know, those resources. were necessary for the United States energy needs, but as a way of a lever against East Asia and

particularly China economies growing that do depend on oil from the Gulf. So that's exactly right. So the same sort of structure is in play here about the geopolitical conditions to control these resources that require fragmenting and weakening these anti-imperialist or independent-minded states. in the global south or in the east. Yeah. So I have a two-part question that will start to transition us into the current context. But before I hit with that question, I just have a couple of things that I'd like to say about the last few things that have been said.

So on the topic of balkanizing Russia, and I hate the term balkanization because it, you know, puts a very negative connotation on the region of the Balkans, which is a very beautiful region, with, you know, very lovely people. And, you know, we use this term as this, like, very demonic term. But in any case, it's a term that we understand and therefore, you know, instead of saying breaking Russia into constituent parts, we'll just use this term. So anyway, this is something that not only is on YouTube, it's on Twitter all the time. We have all of these, you know, relatively big following accounts that didn't have a big

following before the operation, but they're very, very staunchly pro. Ukrainian accounts that have almost genocidal anti-Russian tweets pretty frequently and you can fill in the blanks but there's many many examples of people who would fit this mold that are openly calling for the Balkanization or some of them even go as far to say decolonizing of Russia. I had seen one recently where it was somebody that had about 150,000 followers ranking all of the constituent ethnic republics of Russia in terms of the likelihood of success of independence movements and them

and towards the top of their list was the republic that I live in, Tatarstan. And like from some perspectives, like, sure, you could make a case for it. The ethnic group here is in the majority. Like the ethnic Russians are a distinct minority within this republic. Like, it is majority to tar.

It's a very industrialized region. It's fairly well off. It's got a very diverse economy. Like, sure, most of the money comes in from oil, but they also have a big agricultural sector here. It's very developed. So, you know, if you wanted to have a place that was going to declare independence, this would be, like, top of your list.

You have a very strong ethnic identity where they're the majority in a very developed area where they'd be able to at least try to operate independently and in, this is an autonomous republic and was during the Soviet period as well. But there's no feeling of, you know, wanting to be caught. Like, they completely discount the feelings of the people here in terms of do they want to become independent or not. It's just, oh, there's an ethnic minority that's actually the majority in this republic and they're fairly well off.

They must want to be not part of Russia anymore. That's not the feeling that you get. I was just out today, and for listeners who are listening later, today is Russia Day, which we can talk about what Russia Day actually means, and in many ways it's a celebration of the fall of the USSR, so not really a celebration that we would want to be celebrating. But in any case, I was out today. And you see all of the celebrations in the street. You know, you see young ethnic Tatars wearing, you know, the Russian tric color.

And again, we can agree or disagree with the use of. of the tri-color, or, you know, this celebration in particular in what it commemorates. But there's negligible feelings of wanting to become independent from Russia. I haven't heard any sentiments to this regard. And then also since somebody, I think it was you, Jeremy mentioned Navalny, you know, again, like a non-entity in Russia. When there's polls that come out in terms of how many people would support him is the, the face of the opposition. It's like 1% to 3% depending on what poll you're in, but this is not the narrative you get in the West where it's always the opposition leader, Alexei Navalny,

as opposed to some member of opposition to the government, Alexei Navalny. He is always presented as the opposition. Nobody cares here, you know, like he's never mentioned. He's never brought up. So, you know, just worth mentioning. But I do want to turn to my question now, which I think will be a good transition point. We haven't talked about the impacts of sanctions in the lead up to the current operation yet. And in many ways, I think that the fact that these sanctions were being put in place on Russia before the current situation actually helped Russia prepare very well for what's going on now. You could make a very strong argument that if these previous sanction acts that have been put on Russia hadn't been put

on Russia before, the current sanctions regimes that were put on Russia would cripple it significantly more than it has. And you know, the United States and its Western allies are continually trying to find ways that they can implement more and more sanctions on different parts of the economy to cripple Russia more to stoke these feelings of the populace. here that, you know, they need to rebel from within. It's not happening because Russia actually prepared very effectively for this because of the experience of these previous sanctions. So the two-part question for you, Jeremy, is can you talk about the impacts of these previous sanctions? And what did Russia do under the Putin government to prepare themselves for

future sanctions? What did they do to allow themselves to become more in the term that has been used and is not quite accurate, sanctions proof. How did that, you know, what did they do to make that possible so that in this current situation, the most, you know, tightly regulated sanctions imaginable haven't had the desired impact on Russia. Yeah, and I think in many ways Russia conserves a model for other countries is how to adapt to these sanctions. And for my research, what they did was, you know, they adopted a kind of multi-prong approach. which one was import substitution, you know, and really support for local industry. I think they, you know, really invested in trying to develop local industry and local technologies

to offset, you know, potential cuts, you know, foreign trade, the inability to access certain products. They invest in being able to develop those products, and including, I think, in the oil industry, they invests in new technologies so they had more upgraded refinery capabilities and they were less dependent on foreign company and the kind of a technological

skill that they can provide and I think other thing was that they cultivated a relation with China and they built a strong economic alliance with China that made them less dependent on trade with the West as well as the development of the Eurasian Union and promotion of trade with neighboring country like Kazakhstan and Jordan

and drawing these countries closer together economically. And I think that was a strategy I pursued in Latin America, you know, by Venezuela when they set up regional trading alliances. So I think that's very important. And that could be a formula for other countries. Again, investment in local technologies, establishment of tariffs, investment in local industry, and cultivating economic relations.

with neighbors and forging new trading acts and alliances, I think, is crucial. All right, well, now that we have, you know, a lot of the history covered and we understand the basic situation, how it evolved over different administrations, et cetera. Let's go ahead and move into the current situation because I think it will also cast a lot of light backwards on a lot of the history that's led up to it

and make sense of it. I guess the way into this conversation would be just to ask you because you know when you hear Western media like what caused this war you know especially in the early days it was like Putin's a madman he's just crazy you know there's no reason to do this and you know a lot of people actually really fell for that and just assumed that this is a rogue you know crazy person and of course the Russia gay propaganda from the democratic and liberal side of American politics for the last several years has has primed liberals who you know in a different time period might be more suspicious of war and taking part in war, convince them Russia bad. And so they were ready to go into lockstep with the Biden administration when it came to funding this proxy war against Russia. So with all of that in mind, just your opinion, what would you say were the main causes of this actual hot conflict between Russia and Ukraine? Well, I think the main causes, yeah, and there is a tendency to psychologically conflicts. I think that's perhaps a strategy of the CIA. and propagandists to make it seem like they're the deranged leader, you know, Gaddafi or Castro, Putin, or Saddam Hussein. And so, you know, the media doesn't really analyze the, you know,

geopolitical dimensions of the conflict. And Americans, you know, are unfortunately used to watching Hollywood movies and thinking of things as good and evil. And maybe they want a cartoon version of World Affairs. And that's a simple way to understand thing. and that's the way to mobilize people to support these imperialistic wars of aggression. And in this case, I think, you know, I was describing earlier. I mean, the war really started in 2014, and the United States was, you know, heavily involved in that coup d'etat in 2014,

and in the Ukrainian attack on its own population, which was, you know, caused massive human rights abuses. And, I mean, the Ukrainian army at that, a lot of Ukraine didn't want to. fight their own people. That's why they were cultivating these extremists. They were bringing a lot of mercenaries and even white supremacists. I mean, this was reported in Newsweek that it was like, you know, coming home for all these world white supremacives that they could join with the Azov and fight the Russians in eastern Ukraine. And I mean, you know, people were living, have been living under horrible conditions in eastern Ukraine. Their plight was totally ignored in Western media.

And they're reminded of, you know, years ago, Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman published an important book called, I think, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, and they identified, you know, worthy versus unworthy victims. And, you know, the worthy victims would be the victim of any U.S. enemy government or like the U.S. was actually trying to use for a political agenda and the unworthy victims were people that the U.S. was attacked or the U.S. allies and the eastern Ukraine is an unworthy victim, so there was no stories.

I mean, I was in Russia in 2018, so I was watching the new, you know, the documentaries that, you know, interviewed people who were living under the bombs and they were cursing for Shinko as the presidents at that time. And they were defectors from the Ukrainian army admitting to torture. And they were, you know, World War II veterans saying they, you know, thought that what they experienced in World War II was over, but they're seeing ugly things again. None of this was reported in U.S. or Western media. So the American public was just cut off at this from the reality. And so they could believe the CIA propaganda about Putin started as an unprudence.

I think the CIA propaganda lines, this was an unprovoked war by Russia, and that is simply false. And, you know, Russia really came to the defense of the people of eastern Ukraine who were under attack. And, I mean, there were many provocations against Russia, including the issue of NATO expansion. I mean, I think, like, you know, Zolovsky, when he came in, was, you know, even saying, that you would allow NATO expansion or this was back on the table and that's obviously a huge threat from the Russian point of view

but I mean the U.S. was also providing huge amount of weaponry including Jablin anti-tank missiles to the Ukrainian army they were attacking Russians in eastern Ukraine so obviously Russia is going to respond at some point which they ultimately

did so the narrative in the U.S. media and West is wrong about unprovoked invasion and so I think the origins here are clear that it started in 2014

this was a U.S. project to lure the Russians in to give them another Vietnam's hope I think that's why they keep pouring in more and more weapons and they're refusing to negotiate because they don't want to negotiate because their strategy is

outlined I think in that Iran report and telegraph some other places as they want to keep the Russians fighting because they want to bog them down and ultimately weaken their economy so they can then add to the regime change designs which I think are illusory. Yeah, that's helpful to have those origins, you know, reframed and specifically exposed. But I wanted to ask also about the current round of sanctions and their expected impact, perhaps you can give us a little bit more insight about what their impact has been. And I want to frame the point about the fact that at the outset, I don't think the United States wanted directly to be involved in military engagement with Russia, obviously,

as a proxy sort of war that they're sponsoring and supporting. But they expected that supplying lethal aid, along with the economic sanctions would have this massive effect on Russia and weakening its state. We've talked already about the Rand report, you know, that kind of outlines what the geopolitical strategy and various options, you know, were and that were being considered by U.S. foreign policy makers. But it seems that perhaps they dramatically overestimated the effectiveness of this new round of sanctions. And so perhaps you could tell us a little bit more about what was imposed at the outset of, you know, after Russia's forces entered into Ukraine and, you know, what has happened as a consequence of, you know, of this attempt to universalize the sanctions regime on Russia? Well, yeah, I think they've extended the sanctions repeatedly.

And, you know, after 2014, they kept, I mean, as we've gone over, I mean, started their completely fraudulent pretext with the browser law being this false story about Sergey Magnitsky. And then when you, you know, then there was the coup and then Ukraine attacked Eastern Ukraine. But of course, it was spun that, you know, Eastern Ukraine and Russia were the bad guys. So more sanctions, you know, they were using. the war as a justification to keep ratcheting up more sanctions. And then there was the issue of Crimea. You know, Russia was accused of aggression in Crimea when, you know, Crimea had historically

been part of Russia. You know, Crimeans vote is overwhelming to rejoin Russia and have said they're happier in Russia because Russia is investing more in their economy. And, you know, they built this bridge. And, of course, you know, that's the home of this major naval base of Russia. So after the coup... Well, that was threatened. But that was used to ratchet up sanction.

You know, Crimean officials were targeted. Eastern Ukrainian officials were targeted. And then, you know, there's been, many of them have been fraudulent pre-tech. They continue to use, like they use, for instance, these poisonings. You know, the Russia was accused of carrying out poisoning like Skirpaw. And that was actually never proven that they were behind them. the evidence seems to indicate that it was impossible. Russians could have carried that out,

and that may have very likely British intelligence and some kind of set up or bag operation to set up the Russians. And then there was the Malaysian airline flight. I did an investigation of piece on that. I was drawing mainly on, you know, just published material in English. As obvious, the Russians were not involved. They were immediately accused of shooting down this Malaysian airline flight. When it was clear from the trajectory of the missile,

and the type of weapon reused that it had to have come from the Ukrainian and the Ukrainian Air Force. In fact, it appeared to have been an air-to-air missile, I believe, and that could have only been the Ukrainian Air Force, and all the forensic evidence went into the Ukrainians,

but they used the blame Russia and they used that as a pretext for more sanctions. So the pattern I would suggest with Browder, where it's based on the fraud, it continues, like there are all these fraudulent incidents or presented a fraudulent way to just continuing

ratcheting up these sanctions and then yeah they've grown obviously to elevated levels once the special military operation commence because that's their strategy and you know they're presenting Putin as the madman

and blaming I mean you had the Bucca as another what appears to be either a false flag or it was obviously distorted what happened to the Western media because the Serious investigations of Bucca showed that a lot of the people killed there, died after the Russians had left. The bodies and how they were laid out made clear that.

But that was used, I think, to ratchet more sanctioned further demonization. So these repeated false incidents or incidents that are presented falsely in Western median by Western governments used to continuously expand these. sanctions and again the goal is to try and undermine the government and so this affection because the economy would be sputtering doing so poorly and the Russian would turn against their government but I read in the New York Times a few weeks ago that you know the Russian experience economic growth last year so yes the Russian economy has suffered it's you know not as you know grown as much as it might have.

But on the other hand, it's still a growing economy. And, you know, you live in Russia so you know better than me, but I have talked to people who've been in Russia and they say reports I've read that the Russian economy is doing fine right now and that life is not necessarily that different than before, you know, within Moscow and Russia. So Russia is surviving.

You know, they've been impacted. Some people have suffered. There have been shortages in some areas. but because of the adaptive policies I described before, overall Russia is surviving in a way, maybe flourishing economically. So the strategy right now is not really working as outlined the RAD report. And I mean, this war could drag on very long, but I don't think it'll reach an end that the neocons desire.

And this may be backfiring far more than like in the 80s on the West. You know, more and more people realize that Russia is vital to the world economy and Russian oil was needed to support for Ukraine. Yeah, just to hop in briefly. Since you mentioned, you mentioned a few things again. Again, I have personal connection to this. And so therefore, almost everything that's been said, I have something to relate about it. You mentioned that, you know, Russia is more or less fine. Economically speaking, fine is not the word I would use.

used. There definitely has been impacts, even on like a day-to-day basis, much less on a, you know, macroeconomic scale. But if you look at the projections that were given for what the Russian economy and what Russian daily life would be like that were given at the beginning when the first rounds of sanctions were being put in place on Russia versus what actually has unfolded, comparatively things have been completely fine. But again, that's comparatively. So, you know, we have had currency fluctuations. It shot up. The rubble was devalued by half, albeit for a short period of time. Then it actually strengthened to even stronger than it was before the operation started, but now it's dropped down to, again,

being slightly weaker than it was before the operation started. So we've had some pretty dramatic fluctuations. We have seen inflation in the stores, even on food commodities. Not as much is again what was being projected, because if you look at the example of 2014, and this is something that you pointed out in your chapter, Jeremy, is that some food prices in 2014 did double in price overnight as a result of sanctions that were put in place after Crimea rejoining Russia. That is not what we have seen. We've seen a lot of Western products become no longer available, or the ones that are still here, are at dramatic. increased prices. And we have seen increased prices on everyday food commodities, cabbage,

tomatoes, potatoes, but it's been single-digit percentages, you know, maybe 10% increase in prices, not the 100% increase in prices that they had seen in the previous era when sanctions were put in place. We do have products that are a bit harder to get. But, you know, now we have a proliferation of both Russian products, domestic products, that have replaced them as well. is a dramatic increase in the availability of Chinese alternatives to Western products, even in food and personal hygiene-related things. When these Western companies pull out, we now, in our grocery stores, we find Chinese products that have replaced them almost one-to-one.

And the prices are, you know, comparable, if not even a bit cheaper in some cases. So to say things are fine, not totally, I wouldn't say it's totally, you know, represent of reality, but comparatively to what was being projected and the listeners, if you were following the news at all at the beginning of the operation, you will have seen many of these projections about how Russia would be bankrupt within six months, how the people wouldn't be able to buy a sack of potatoes by the end of the week, how their savings would be up in flames by the end of the month, all of these projections and none of them have come to pass. So I just wanted to lay that out a little bit from, again, personal experience living in and not in

Moscow or St. Petersburg, I'm in another major city, Kazan has 1.3 million people. It's the 25th biggest city in all of Europe, and it would be like the sixth or seventh biggest city in the United States. People don't realize how big of a city this is. But it's not Moscow or St. Petersburg, but this is the impact that we've seen. There is an impact, but it has been way less than what we would have expected. And then just also briefly, I, I, I also have a personal connection to the issue of Crimea, as the listeners probably are aware, I'm married into a Crimean-Tatar family. My wife is Crimean Tatar. And, you know, this is another example of no matter what Russia does, they find a way to increase the amount of sanctions.

In 2014, the people of Crimea overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly, over 90% voted that they wanted to be part of Russia. Now, some Western governments say that these were fraudulent elections, but there actually were independent election observers that were there. And they said, you know, okay, while there were people there that were monitoring the elections that looked kind of scary, the overwhelming majority of the people actually did vote what they wanted and they weren't like being monitored in the voting booths. This was a fairly, I don't want to say fairly accurate, but it was at least somewhat representative of the feelings there. And then the conditions, as you mentioned, Jeremy, at the time, after that election, you know, Ukraine cut off the water and electricity supplies to Crimea.

My wife, when she was doing her homework, was doing it by candlelight, and, you know, they were collecting water whenever they had water being made available to them, you know, in public water, you know, collection facilities. Uh, or dispensers. facilities, I guess. So, you know, they were collecting water for these purposes and doing homework by candlelight. This isn't 2014. Like, we have kids doing homework by candlelight in supposedly a developed area. And the investment that's taken place since 2014 has dwarfed what was being put into Crimea previously, where, you know, if you ask Crimeans, they would tell you Ukraine was getting a lot of money from tourists coming to Crimea and were investing very little

and outside of the bare minimum of what they needed in terms of infrastructure to support that tourist industry there. But in terms of just everyday type investments, it was negligible. Since then, they've seen dramatic increases, dramatic increases in investment. And, you know, living conditions there have dramatically improved since 2014. So this is something that those people wanted. This is something that we've seen some, you know, positive impacts in the area. this is cause for sanctions. Whereas think about what the response from the U.S. would be if Xinjiang, for example, another example that we brought up, decided that they were to declare independence or, you know, try to go somewhere else away from China. Would the U.S.

be, you know, standing by the water being cut off to them and then sanctioning any country that was trying to improve the conditions there? Of course not. That's not what would happen. It's because it's Russia. And we've seen that. We've seen that just because it's Russia. when they take an action, if it's an action that the U.S., that either benefits Russia or the U.S. just doesn't like, more sanctions. And in 2014, the impacts were pretty severe. Anyway, that's a kind of a side that doesn't really lead to anything. So I apologize for that.

But guys... It's actually that's really insightful. Yeah, it's good to hear from your perspective and somebody who's living there. So that's great. Yeah. Guys, feel free to go in. Otherwise, I'll just keep ranting. Well, I think just the upshot of all of that is kind of what motivated my question is that it was clear that the geostrategic calculation from the United States in promoting and pushing for this conflict was reliant upon anticipated success of the sanctions.

I mean, in many ways, it seems that it was recognized that the military situation was not going to be ultimately. that favorable for Ukraine, they could try and support, you know, as much as possible, you know, with all of this military spending and sending of arms. And, you know, they've been for the last eight years training troops under a NATO standard, you know, in Ukraine and so on. But ultimately, it wasn't the goal, right, to have a big military success apart from weakening Russia through the sanctions. A lot was resting on the effectiveness of those sanctions. And while you just pointed out, Henry, that they've done damage in various ways. It doesn't seem like the character of the consequences and effects are that different from the bounding effects on the, you know,

economy in the West, certainly in Europe, where energy prices have soared. And, you know, even with inflation, the food prices as well, there's articles coming out right now about how food prices are still skyrocketing across Europe. That's right. Well, and I mean, I think just generally food prices have gone up, you know? So the whole world is really suffering in some ways the consequences of this, you know, proxy war and the geostrategic calculations and miscalculations of NATO and the West. So I think that's something that is really quite astonishing to see and was not anticipated. And perhaps if they had read, you know, Jeremy's article before they would have seen how there were adaptations already taking place because of such

a long history of sanctions, you know, since, you know, the Magnitsky Act, etc., as we've been discussing. But I think also the wider global situation has changed quite a lot. I mean, one is, you know, there hasn't been the development of a non-oil energy economy, you know, to the extent globally that, you know, sanctioning Russia could be that effective when still oil is so important. That energy transition hasn't, you know, taken place. And then secondly, you know, the whole history of these sanctions and what we've covered in the sanctions as war series of the U.S. imperial imposition of sanctions targeting various countries has obviously not been lost on other countries in the global south.

they have adapted to having trade relations, certain kinds of cooperation in order to, you know, be able to survive the way in which the, you know, kind of imperialist bullies have imposed upon the world system. And of course, we've just put out the de-dollarization conversation with Richard Wolfe. It's had this rebounding effect geopolitically and economically that is lessening the impact, particularly in terms of achieving the goals of sanctions and sanctions regimes. And even when they've been effective, our whole series has pointed out that they don't have the political effect, even if they've been able to impose economic deprivation in a serious way. That just hurts the people, but it hasn't necessarily led to the political goals. So on all levels,

it seems that, you know, there's been massive miscalculations and consequences of this, of this Ukraine Russia war in the U.S. and global sanctions on Russia. Yet they don't seem to be learning any lessons from it. The sanctions continue to roll in. And in many cases, and Jeremy, perhaps you'll have some thoughts on this. In many cases, Europe is kind of being, and of course, there are exceptions. There's many countries in Europe, particularly like Poland and the Baltic states, that are even more rabidly russophobic than the United States is. And you only need to. to just, you know, click on any of the media from Poland or the Baltic states and use Google translate to see the headlines and understand, oh, okay, we're talking about like a whole

other realm of Russophobia here in these states. But by and large, of course, Europe feels more kindred spirits with the United States than it does with Russia. However, many of these European states have understood that they were going to be feeling the brunt of the blowback from these sanctions that were being imposed on Russia more so than the United States would be. And only because of U.S. coercion, were they willing to go along with many of these sanctions? And even in more recent days, we're starting to see some European countries and European politicians. And in many cases, it's opposition politicians across Europe saying, by continuing to go along with these American-led sanctions packages,

we're actually exacting a toll on our own citizens as blowback as a result of these sanctions. But because of that pressure being put on these countries by the United States, they're still acquiescing and going along with these continued sanctions packages that are being placed on. I mean, there was just another one put on, I think, last week at the time of recording. So, yeah, I find it interesting that some of these countries you are seeing increasing pushback against the need to acquiesce the U.S. demands to continue to sanction with the understanding that those people themselves are going to be suffering as a result of imposing further sanctions on Russia.

But yet the pressure from the United States compels those countries to continue to do so anyway. Yeah, if you want me to comment, I can add a few points. One would be that in some way the U.S. may be accepted. accelerating the trend of multi-polar world order that they're so, I mean, the whole neoconservative project is to have a unipolar American world order, but as is being pointed out, they're miscalculating, although they've gotten so overboard, they've antagonized so many countries, they generated so much hatred for themselves that they're ultimately stabbing themselves in the foot, you know, just like other regime throughout history, that overreach, whether

whether the Hitler regime or others. And, I mean, they are fanatics. They should be called out as such, the neo-conservative, their fanatics. Some belong on the docks of Nuremberg, like Nazis, from my point of view, for what they've done in Iraq, Libya, now with Ukraine, I think, is horrible. But, you know, they're ultimately undermining themselves

and the project for the American century because countries are adapting to the sanctions they're coming together against the United States and look what China doing in the Middle East with Iran and Saudi Arabia the peace agreement they broker I mean they're stepping up you know they're starting to play a role

on the world stage the economic arrangement with China and Russia means developing into real powerhouse and a lot of countries are seeing much more benefit been lying with China, Russia, and they're starting to defy the United States, and we're seeing that with Saudi Arabia, it looks like, and I think we'll increasingly see that with Europe, that their population will turn against government that are just coutowing from the U.S. and government that are selling out their own people, and I think you have that, you know,

you have movements in Germany, I know there were a lot of protests this winter in Germany, and you know Germany's close to Russia and it's really in Germany's interest to have good trade relation with Russia they depend on the Russian energy now they have to pay much more for American natural gas and what we're seeing is basically a piracy

I mean your question about they don't learn anything because I mean really they're pirates I mean they're just out for their own gain in the corporate interests of hijack control of the government and that's what Hobson you know showed for your British Empire the same

American Empire. It's driven by these pirates at the top of the economy, and they rigged the government or they induced the government to do their bidding. And, you know, they're, I mean, the natural gas, you know, because of the bomb of the Nord Stream pipeline, you have liquefied natural gas produced in Texas and so the southern states who can sell their products to Europe, who needs it, but Europe is to pay so much more. So the Europeans, you know, are starting to, and And it's actually amazing that they put up with this for so long, and they would just go along with the United States, and the population would be so acquiescent.

And they had all these left party, like Green Party became totally supportive, like imperialistic and anti-Russia policy, and that's kind of sad to see. And that's the way they, I think, kept the population under control by co-opting the left-wing parties. That's usually a source of dissent against imperialistic or a foreign policy that's leading to war. So those would be my comments,

you're related to the broader point you guys are making. Well, another quick question for you, Jeremy, since we're talking about relationships between countries, and that last question was about the relationship between these European countries and the United States versus Russia. You mentioned China, and I find this to be a particularly interesting case,

because as you mentioned, we are seeing closer and closer integration of Russia and China to one another. And we talked about this a little bit in the later part of the conversation of our recent episode about the sanctions on the DPRK in China with Tim Beale. It just came out a couple weeks ago. So listeners, if you haven't listened to that, go back and listen to it. But we just talked a little bit about how Russia and China were deepening their integration with one another, their interaction and their cooperation with one another in various spheres.

But in some ways, and as somebody who follows this quite closely in the Russian media, at least, in terms of the coverage of the developing Russia and Chinese relationship, while there are continued pushes to deeper integration, China, and in many ways this is following with their foreign policy of the last couple of decades of this very, very deliberate slow changes and, you know, trying to balance things so that they come out, they come out on top, but they don't put their full weight behind one side or another. They kind of let things progress along and then only commit towards the end of a certain trend. And so in the case of Russia-China relations, there is many ways in which Russia-China relations could be deepened very quickly that are being posed by Russia all the time and are being touted in the media. almost every day. And I can tell you from, you know, following the media here, it's talked about almost every day like, oh, Russian China are discussing doing this. They're discussing doing that.

They're looking into doing this. And some of those things have come to pass and other ones have been tabled for, you know, months, if that years down the line. In many ways, it smells like China is trying to position themselves so that they're not completely upsetting the United States by deepening their integration and cooperation with Russia. But it almost seems foolish in a way because while China has deep ties in the U.S. as well, of course, it is a huge market for China and Chinese made products, as well as, you know, there's many other ways in which China is reliant on the U.S. being in the global system and being in relations with one another, but by trying to balance.

deepening the integration and cooperation and relations with Russia and not totally angering the U.S., they only have to look as far as the rhetoric that comes from the U.S. related to China, regardless of what they do vis-a-vis Russia. It's totally jingoistic from both political parties, particularly the Republicans, the Democrats, if anything, seem to be harsher against Russia, but the Republicans right now are absolutely rabid when it comes to China. But both political parties really are incredibly jingoistic and bellicose and their rhetoric against China. And that is, of course, only going to proceed until some major change takes place.

And that change could take form in myriad ways. You can imagine many of them. So it's interesting to think about how Russia, and China could deepen their relations with one another if there was the political will to just go ahead and do so in China, as opposed to this policy that they have of trying to kind of appease the Americans enough, despite the fact that the American political parties are incredibly anti-China. So the question is, Jeremy, and I know that this was a really long preamble to it, so I do apologize. But how

can the deepening relations between Russia and China essentially allow these two countries to further quote unquote sanctions proof? And again, it's not a very good term, but it's one that's been used to sanction proof themselves, as well as what are the prospects for future relations between these countries, given that the United States is totally against any deepening of relations between them. Well, I would say, yeah, that they should be kind of interested in the history of their governments and promote regime chain, like, you know, for China, like what I was saying, with Tibet. And, yeah, I have an article coming up in a few weeks that was a review that looked at CIA, you know, these CIA pilots who were captured in China because they were voting a destabilization

during the early coldly in the 1950s. And, I mean, that's been going on for for a long time in China, just like in Russia, where the CIA and the U.S. has tried to destabilize, we were discussing at the beginning of the program, destabilize and weaken their country so that they can better exploit the entire region. And so they should be cognizant of that history, not other illusions that the United States benevolent power or will have their interest in any way, that that really, you know, in the process of trying to overthrow those governments. At the same time, you know, they should look at the history of the Cold War with a sign of Soviet split, how the U.S. strategy was to promote fissure to the China-Russia relationship.

And, I mean, I think they should recognize that as a very important relationship if they want to achieve their goal of, you know, multipolar world order, independent vibrant economies and not be susceptible to Western imperial interference, which will, you know, cause severe problem and hardship. And disasters for their population, they really should place the utmost priority on establishing very firm relations and developing a plan that the West cannot sabotage that alliance. So I would agree with what you're saying.

and my advice would be that this is a very important in a way that will be mutually beneficial and strengthen themselves and protect themselves from the efforts that will inevitably happen and try and cause a rupture in that alliance and the dirty tricks that the Western Empire will play. Well, I think that's a really helpful note on which to conclude, I think, our analysis.

I mean, we've moved from just looking at the history of those sanctions against Russia to seeing how this is functioning in a broader global sort of way. So I just really want to thank you, Jeremy, for this excellent contribution about the history of sanctions on Russia and for this fulsome discussion about its implications and in the unfolding situation. And, you know, you talked in your article about the history up to the point at which most people started paying attention to it with the Russia-Ukraine war, but we've really filled in a lot of the ways in which the sanctions against Russia, you know, have followed a pathway as a consequence of that previous history and looked

forward to the future geopolitically and geostrategically. And I think what we can conclude is that, you know, certain, you know, these sanctions in this case just really haven't had the kinds of effect. And this may and should be an opportunity for, you know, a policymakers to recognize and learn from this history, but given the interests that are involved, that you also kind of cover in this excellent article about the sort of nefarious, you know, kind of surveillance, you know, kind of agencies, the security state, the military that are invested in this, that, you know, there are certain interests that stand to profit from U.S. imposition of sanctions in a variety of ways that we won't expect to kind of change in the

policy when it's captured by those kinds of interests. I mean, you know, they may have had all these terrible effects on the global economy, on, you know, people's access to energy and food, you know, because of soaring prices around the world. But there are a lot of military, you know, providers that have profited greatly from, from, you know, these U.S. sanctions, and so we'll have to kind of be aware, and your essay really helps us see those forces, both structurally and also the particular interests that are, that are at stake, that are keeping these policies that are devastating for the world going. So I want to thank you again for this excellent article and your wider, you know, work on, on these topics and subjects. Thanks. I appreciate that.

Yeah, I'd like to echo Adnan's sentiments and highly recommend that the listeners check out this chapter within the book Sanctions as War. Of course, we recommend picking up the book Sanctions as war, which is now available from Haymarket at a price that is affordable as opposed to when we started this series, when it was only available. I believe it was Brill originally and it was very, very expensive. Oh, yeah. But now it's very affordable. Everybody should pick it up. I'm going to pick some extra copies that you mentioned that because now it's not one because it was. so expensive, yeah. Oh, yeah. It was, I think, $175, if I remember correct? Yeah, now I can

recommend to my family members. Yeah, now it's down to 25 bucks, I think. So, and Haymarket has sales pretty frequently. So definitely, it is time to get a copy of listeners, if you haven't already. Read Jeremy's chapter trying to unbalance Russia, the fraudulent origins and impact of U.S. sanctions on Russia. So thanks again, Jeremy. How can the listeners find you and your work. Where can you direct them to? Yeah, I have a website. It's Jeremy Kuzm, W-W-B-G-E-W-B-E-W-N-M-A-R-O-V-E-M-A-R-V-O-V-K. And there's covert action magazine. Yeah, I usually publish quite a lot of articles. Yeah, I try one or two week recently for the past few months. So you can find my articles and other articles on, you know,

www. covert C-O-V-E-R-T-A-C-T-I-O-N magazine, M-A-G-A-Z-I-N-E dot com. And we're also, yeah, looking for new articles, you know, new writers and contributors. So if you have an article idea or like to contribute an article to COVID Action magazine, like what kind of topics discussed on this podcast, that would be terrific. You can email me at J. Kuzmurov, K-Z-M-A-R-V-2 at Gmail. com. Excellent. Definitely recommend the listeners to check it out. Like I said, I've been reading your work at Covert Action for several years. So yeah, it's highly recommended. And of course, also the chapter that we mentioned and sanctions this war. So thanks again, Jeremy. Adnan,

how can the listeners find you in your other podcast? Well, listeners can follow me on Twitter at Adnan-A-Hus-A-I-N. If you're interested, you can look at our catalog for the M-A-J-L-I-S podcast, which is available on all the usual platforms. And if listeners are interested in online courses and things of that sort, I have developed a course on the Crusading Society that you can register for, and it's been recorded. It's medieval history with an eye towards how it relates to Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, white supremacy and colonialism, the roots of those, sort of more modern processes in the medieval Mediterranean world. And I hope to do more of those kinds of things in the future. So you can find

out about them if you go to www.adnanussein.org. Yeah, excellent. Highly recommend the listeners do that. Listeners, as you may have noticed, Brett had to leave the conversation a little bit ago, but you can find all of his work by going to Revolutionary LeftRadio.com. Again, Revolutionary Left Radio.com, you can find Brett and all of his work here at Gorilla History, the Revolutionary Left Radio, and the Red Menace podcast. So definitely do that. As for me, listeners, you can find me on Twitter at Huck, 1995, H-U-C-K-1995. just to pitch that pre-orders for our new translation of Domenico Lassardo-Stalin history and critique of a black legend are going to be made imminently. Pre-orders will be opened imminently at Peaceland and Bread.

Sorry, from Iskra Books, which is an imprint of Peaceland and Bread. You'll be able to pre-order that at peacelandbred.org forward slash books. or just type in ISCRA books into Google. I'm sure you'll find it. Or just follow me on Twitter and I'll be sure to keep you posted. Publication date, full publication date is slated for July 1st. So by the time you hear this, it'll be very, very soon. So stay tuned for that.

Just a reminder, the PDF will be made available for free. And the print editions, which are going to look really cool, are going to be provided at very low cost. So I definitely do, stay tuned for that. As for guerrilla history, you can follow us at Gorilla underscore Pod, G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A-U-L-A-U-L-A-U-R-A-U-L-A-U-N-Square, and you can help support the show and help us continue doing what we do by going to Patreon.com forward-slash-Garilla history. Again, Gorilla being spelled, G-U-E-R-R-I-L-L-A history. And until next time, listeners, Solidarity. I'm going to be able to be.

Thank you.