Judging Freedom - Pepe Escobar: How Russia Will Defend Itself

Episode Date: July 2, 2024

Pepe Escobar: How Russia Will Defend ItselfSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, July 2nd, 2024. You saw the announcement. We just achieved 400,000 subscriptions. We've only been around for two and a half years. Thank you for watching. Thank you for subscribing. If you haven't subscribed yet, please do. Pepe Escobar, the great Pepe Escobar, will be with us in just a moment

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Pepe, my dear friend, welcome back to the show. Much appreciated, of course, your time and your insight. What is the, as we speak, what is the Russian military preparing for? We should ask this question to Gerasimov. If we have the chance. I would love to interview Gerasimov. It's impossible, Judge. He doesn't give interviews.

Right, right. You know, once in a while, he talks in Russia to somebody he trusts. There are not many in Russian media. So it's Putin and Gerasimov. These are the only two that really know. They know when they look at the chessboard in Novorossiya, of course, it's the same old story. One village a week, sometimes two villages a week.

So this could go on forever. They know that they could have a window of the next few months to accelerate businesses. Nobody in Moscow knows for sure if they will. And of course, when they look at the political situation, they see a new toxic trio ahead in Europe. That batshit crazy Estonian, whose dad was very comfortable in the last days of the former Soviet Union. The Dutch Gouda, the new NATO Secretary General, and the NATO summit is next week, by the way, in D.C. And, of course, Ursula, also have underlying 2.0. So obviously,

Russophobia and European dementia will continue. And of course, when they look at what's going on in Washington, it's fascinating because they're puzzled. They are analyzing all possible scenarios. For instance, when Tucker Carlson has a post, is reproduced all over the spectrum in Russia, when Tucker is saying, Biden is done. Well, not necessary. You know better than I do. And we have that lady who just posed for the cover of Vogue in August, Dr. Jill, which is maybe the acting president of the United States at the moment, saying that nothing is going to change.

So it's impossible to predict what the Russian general staff is going to do in this window of the next few months. But they are on a position of sitting back, relaxed, and enjoying the total debacle around them. What is the situation with Estonia? And why did you

refer to the head of the country as you did? Because she is an extreme Russophobe, extreme. And of course, she lies as well. She's saying that her family was persecuted during the Soviet Union, not at all. You just look at what happened to her. And photos have been leaked. And the biography of her dad has been leaked as well. Very, very, very, very comfortable. So

it was very easy to appoint her because she falls into this ideal configuration of NATO according to Washington, where you have essentially DC, London, Warsaw and the Baltic Chihuahuas, the leaders of the new NATO and not France and Germany, which are the natural leaders of the European Union. So it's very easy to appoint her. And this was behind closed doors, by the way. I remember we talked a few weeks ago that there would be a private dinner in Brussels where Ursula von der Leyen would be reconducted. That's exactly what happened.

And they also decided on Callas as head of the EU foreign policy. It's a woman that has zero background on international relations, doesn't know anything about diplomacy, doesn't know anything about political science. And of course, aligned with von der Leyen. She's a sort of, let's say, a crypto protege of underlying in the European Commission. So, Chris, put her picture up again, please. Is this the person of whom you're speaking? Yes, Kaja Kalas, absolutely. So she's the head of Estonia and she is a fierce member of the EU and she's now the head of foreign policy for the EU.

She will be the head of foreign policy for the EU. So if you thought that Joseph Garden Jungle Borrell was... Okay, no adjectives. I don't even need them. Wait for counts. Wow. Even worse because in terms of Borrell had, let's say, a vague knowledge of international relations on a European level.

He didn't know anything, for instance, about Africa, Latin America, or Eurasia. Kallus, she doesn't even know what's going on inside Europe. Can you imagine the rest of the world? So these are the people who believe in the EU foreign policy ahead. The Russians are taking it in a very blasé way. They were expecting something like this. Are the Russian people still furious over what happened on the Sevastopol beach two Sundays ago or has that anger begun to subside? No, Judge, they are still furious. And there is a raging debate in the corridors in Moscow among analysts, among military analysts, among businessmen of okay is this the finally

the ultimate red line and what's gonna happen well a hint bolusov the new minister of defense said in fact he ordered the general staff to take measures, concrete measures, about the loitering US drones in the Black Sea. So something pretty rash will happen sooner or-eds that we see in Russian newspapers. And, of course, if you look at Soloviev's show at night in Russia, which is watched by the whole Russia, in fact, most of the analysts talking to Slovakia, they are pretty, pretty, you know, okay, let's go for it. We don't care what the Americans say. We don't care what the Americans will do.

Does this put pressure on President Putin and Gerasimov to do something dramatic and obvious? It does, but they won't do anything dramatic, obvious, impulsive, irrational, or tending towards irrationality. No way. These are very measured characters, extremely strategic. I'll give a short example related to what's going to happen tomorrow. Please. Which is extremely important, Judge.

Tomorrow is the beginning of the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Astana, in Kazakhstan. This is huge. I assume there will be less than zero coverage in American mainstream media. So, okay, the basics. Shanghai Corporation Organization has nine members. Iran was admitted last year. And Belarus will be admitted officially this year.

So it's going to be SCO 10. We have BRICS 10 already. There are three key members in both BRICS 10 already. There are three key members in both BRICS and SCO. Russia, China, and India. So it's not by accident that Lukashenko, months ago, and then several top Russian officials these past few weeks, and even people who are not even members of the SCO start saying, well, sooner or later, the BRICS and the SCO will merge.

This is a serious possibility, I would say, in the medium to long term. Let's say before the end of this decade, for sure. BRICS, as Sergei Lavrov, Russian foreign minister, already told us a few days ago, we're not going to get new members this year. So in the summit in Kazan next October, there won't be new BRICS members. But there's this enormous list of countries who want to become part of BRICS or who already started their formal applications to join BRICS. Over 40. Many of them Central Asians and Southeast Asians, where I am now.

Well, this is going to happen, let's say, within the next two years or so. But in the process of accommodating the new members, Russia and China are thinking long term about, OK, which are the really strategic partners for the first round of BRICS suspension, assuming we have it, let's say, next year. And we have very important Central Asian and West Asian candidates, example, Kazakhstan and Turkey. Turkey already saying we're dying to get in. And here in Southeast Asia, there are at least five, just to give an idea. Vietnam is on the list.

Indonesia is on the list. And Thailand, where I am, and Malaysia in these next few weeks said, of course, we want to be part of BRICS as well. So everybody wants to be part of BRICS. So this gets into the most important security geopolitical development nowadays, which transcends what's going on in Ukraine, which is a new geopolitical geoeconomic security partnership including in this case a convergence of rick's 10 and seo 10. let me stop you for a minute because both times

that you just described rick's seo and the potential merger of them, you use security as well as geopolitical. Yes. Would there be some defensive agreements? Attack one, attack all, attack one, we'll support you. How does that work? No, it would be along the same lines of BRICS, which is something that Lavrov himself is always reiterating. They like the idea of BRICS as being a flexible club with no statutes, with no secretariat general, an open discussion club. And the SCO is more or less the same thing.

Although they have a secretary general, it's a much more formal organization compared to BRICS. But in the event, in the next, let's say, two or three years, four years, where they start converging, because they start converging because they are sinking along the same lines. And the top two of these two multilateral organizations are Russia and China. The top three would include India. But India depends on how Russia is going to manage the India-Chinese problems.

And the middleman in this case is Russia, always. Okay. The big thing... Yes, go ahead, please. Please. No, no, no. Finish on SC ahead, please. Please. No, no, no. Finish on SCO, please. Then I want to get back to President Putin because we have a clip of him yesterday that I want to play for you and want you to want you to analyze. Is the West aware of what you just described? Because there has been zero in mainstream media here about SCO meeting. Yes, yes. No, they have no idea, Church.

And to give you an idea, years ago, when I was living in Asia, most of these past two decades, in fact, whenever I wrote a column at my previous home, Asia Times, based in Hong Kong, about SEO, everybody says, what is this? They had no clue. And especially in the US, people had no idea what the SEO even was. Now they have to because Iran became a full member last year. So there is at least some attention in some, let's say, academic or think tank quarters in the US. But they still don't understand what the SEO means. They say, ah, it's the Asian NATO. No, it's not the Asian NATO. It started as a security organization and it's evolving as a geoeconomic organization. When you go to an SEO meeting, they are basically discussing trade and commerce,

also security, and also, okay, what we can do against terrorism imported from other latitudes coming here to Asia. But the key focus is geoeconomics. Let's get back to Russia, what did the American Secretary of Defense and the Russian Defense Minister talk about on the phone last week? I know you weren't there. Their first conversation in a year, and this in spite of the fact that Tony Blinken won't talk to Sergei Lavrov. Well, Lloyd Austin, at least he ordered his minions to make the call. This call came from the West, not the other way around. So obviously he felt the need to reassure the Russians that, no, we, Pentagon, we're not thinking of doing anything funny around your borders or even inside the Russian Federation. Do you think they talked about what happened at Sevastopol?

In fact, discussing this in Moscow, no, nobody does. Because it's implied and the Americans know that the Russians know. And the Russians stole the Americans in their faces, even in Moscow and via Nebensia at the UN Security Council. No, we know everything. We know who organizes shooting of launching of attack MS, you know, whatever you say. Doesn't change anything. They are the Russians are, let's say they were very much interested in what Lloyd Austin was telling them. Of course, we don't know because this is classified information.

In terms of provocations, if they could detect a hint that there will be some sort of provocation from the American side. Apparently not. This has not leaked in Russia, at least. Here's President Putin yesterday about the decisions Moscow needs to make regarding short and intermediate range missiles. Cut number one. We declared in 2019 that we would neither manufacture nor deploy these missiles until the United States does so in certain parts of the world. It is understood today that the United States not only manufactures these missile systems, but has also transported them to Europe for drills, specifically to Denmark. Recently, it was announced that they have arrived in the Philippines.

It remains unclear if they've removed these missiles. We need to respond to this situation and determine our next action steps. be discussing the Russian Federation's next moves concerning a one-sided halt on deploying land-based intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles. Can you tell us what he was talking about and what he's concerned about? This might imply, George, of course, we cannot have definitive conclusions that the Russians will re-evaluate their official policy in terms of deploying medium-range missiles inside the Russian Federation and, of course, pointed to NATO. An extra information. Finland will be open to 15 U.S. bases inside Finnish territory very, very soon. 15? 15. 15.

One, five. That's a lot. And this is right beside Russia. This is nearly at the doorstep of Russia. If that happens, and if the Americans start operating these 15 bases, in fact, in the very near future, that changes completely the equation, not only in the Baltics, but all over. So the Russians are aware that there's going to be an escalation in Finland, considering that Mark Rutte, the new head of NATO, he's less, let's say, epileptic compared to Stoltenberg and less prone to bombastic declarations,

but is as much a hawk as Stoltenberg is. So this is going to be really, really hardcore from now on as well. So they only expect escalation. They don't have the timeframe yet. They know that it's going to start soon, probably within the next months or so. Look at that border. That's probably 800 miles. Even less. In the case there are a lot of Finnish border towns where

most people, in fact they are Russophones, or before there was back and forth. Now these borders are more or less closed, in fact. And a lot of people used to travel to Russia via Finland. That's not possible anymore. So the Russians only expect escalation from now on. So we come back to this window of something that is seriously discussed by, let's say, the hawkish elements in Russia, in media, academia, think tanks, on TV, etc. Look, we have a window of opportunity within the next three or four months to decapitation strike, go for the head of the snake, demilitarize Ukraine completely on the battleground, etc.

All the different options. Otherwise, after the American elections, if obviously they are planning that ahead, if we don't have a Trump presidency, then it's going to be mega, mega, mega escalation. And then that's going to be mega, mega, mega escalation. And then that's it. The opportunity to finish or not freeze, as Putin said, to conclude the war on Russia's terms, it's the next few months. Because after that, all bets are off. They cannot predict what's going to happen in the U.S. in November.

Wow. So I was going to ask you, but you're anticipating me, how much longer you think the Ukraine war will go? Is it Putin's goal to resolve it before the American elections? No, it's obviously he didn't put it this way. People close to the Kremlin or people who have good access to the Kremlin are speculating at the moment that the window of opportunity is this summer all the way to maybe end of September, beginning of October. serious, serious problems with the Russian General Staff strategy, because it is the snail strategy. It is very, very slow motion. This could take forever if it goes on like this. This means they will have to rearrange their strategy completely, which is something that none of us think it's feasible in the next few weeks or so. So it's a very complex scenario, but I think the most important element is something that our friend Alastair Crook talked about brilliantly, by the way. We had this conversation in Rome, Alastair and I, a few weeks ago. It's the reorganization of the Eurasian

security map in terms of indivisibility of security by Eurasians imposed on Eurasia. And this is what we decide. And you, the West and NATO, you have to adapt to it. This is what's on Putin's mind at the moment and on Gerasimov's mind as well. The problem is they need to win a war in the battlefield. Correct. Completely. Yes. Pepe, thank you so much.

Great, great analysis, my dear friend. Much appreciated. Thank you. Safe travels with all your traveling, and I hope you can join us again next week. Yes, and then let's talk about Asia next week, George. All right? I want to talk to you about China and Southeast Asia. Absolutely.

Thank you. Thank you very much. All the best, my dear friend. All the best. Thank you. Just checking up on the schedule later today. What a delight to be able to interview someone with the breadth of his experience and that ever charming personality. Freeman, who's new to the show, former high-ranking State Department official, former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, the translator from English to Chinese and Chinese to English for Richard Nixon

and Mao Tse-Tung 40 years ago. At 11 o'clock, Scott Ritter. At 2 o'clock, Matt Ho. At 3 o'clock, Karen Kwiatkowski. Justin Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.