Judging Freedom - Prof. Glenn Diesen : Is the West Still in Control?

Episode Date: June 10, 2026

Prof. Glenn Diesen : Is the West Still in Control?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

or otherwise known as aggression with no complaints from the American people. Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government. To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected. What if sometimes to love your country you had to alter or abolish the government? What if Jefferson was right? What if that government is best, which governs least? What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish fighting for freedom than to live as a slave?

What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now? Hi, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, June 10th, 2026. Professor Glenn Deeson will be with us in just a moment. Does the West know that power is. moving to the east. But first this. Today's headlines aren't just bleak.

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That's 800, 511, 4620, or go to Learjudgment.com. Professor Deason, welcome here, my dear friend. It's great to see you back and to be able to chat with you. How do you account for President Putin's timidity in attacking Ukraine? Well, I think that, well, as you and I have spoken in the past, the mood in Moscow has begun to shift in a very big way. But my impression, though, is that Putin still is, well, remains to be one of the more restrained people in Moscow. I know this is not something many people in the West often recognize. And the reason simply is because all along they've had this dilemma

whether or not they should restrain themselves to avoid more destruction in Ukraine and also to risk a war with NATO, or if they should do what the Iranians have done, prioritize a powerful deterrent by striking back hard. Putin has always been the one who's, more restrained, who has more ambitions of getting along better with the West. This was also before the war. This is something people recognized throughout the 2000s. Many people consider him to be too liberal. Again, I think we reached a very critical point

where it's becoming very difficult for Putin to restrain himself. So I think you're going to see big escalations going forward. But here you have the Ukrainian attack on a college focused on a Girls dormitory, which killed, we didn't get a straight number. It's either 21 or 25. Girls, 1917, 18-year-old girls was a tremendous cultural uproar in Russia. What did he do? He attacked a munitions plant on the outskirts of Kiev.

A plant the Kremlin has known about for five years. Why didn't he decapitate, I don't mean literally, why didn't he destroy the buildings that the Ukraine government leadership, command and control occupy? No, it's a good question. And I think this is the direction they will be heading now. But even if you see ever since hit the dormitory and killed all those young girls, again, we can say it's Ukraine, but I think we all know it's weapons from the West.

The West helps with the targeting. And of course, once all these girls were killed, it didn't have much of an impact in the Western media because there's always a fear that it's considered to be pro-Russian to recognize their losses. Indeed, the few mentions it had in the media, it was usually had in front, you know, Putin accuses or put in claims as if they're, you know, mudding the waters. But no, I think you're, but you already didn't see Russia beginning gradually to step up now. That is, they're using the Oresniks now. They are attacking Kiev, which they didn't do in the past.

You know, this is the mother of all Russian cities, the way they see it. I mean, the Ukrainians, Russians, Belorussians, they all have essentially the same civilizational cradle from Kievan Rus in Kiev. So, you know, I think there's some restraints on attacking Kiev in this way, but I think a lot of this is going away. And this is a thing I often warn people in the West, because when we see this kind of attacks on Russian refinery, now we're going to mass produce long. range missiles to destroy as much as we can as deep as possible within Russia.

You know, there's always this celebration. Now Russia will burn it will be defeated. But you have to keep in mind, one of the reasons why Russia has been able to remain restrained for this time is because this were considered to be pinpricks. They could be, that pain could be absorbed and they didn't have to go up that escalation ladder with NATO. Well, now that it's becoming more than pinpricks, there's no possibility of being restrained anymore. So now the Russians, I think, will escalate in a massive way. Again, there is no capitulation.

You know, that's not an option. So there's only escalation moving forward. Well, there must be pressure on Putin from within the Kremlin, from his own inner group to end this war quickly. There must be pressure to the extent that they can apply it from the vast Russian middle class. Yes, well, there's from the middle class, there's also from the military, but also the political class. Again, the recent speech by Putin, he sounded like he was still referring to the U.S. as partners, you know, who's still using this more friendly language, but when you hear others speak, for example, Sergei Lavrov, it's a very different language, essentially making the point that, you know, this is Trump's war. He said it very clearly.

You know, Mark Rubio, he confirmed this because Mark Rubio said, we're not merely mediators, we're on the side of Ukraine. Well, of course, the US is on side of Ukraine. It's the US that has been, since the coup in 2014, been having its intelligence agencies there, has been supplying the weapons during the war planning and arming Ukraine to the teeth and sabotaging the paths, the diplomatic path.

But the thought was that perhaps Trump, would put an end to this war, as he had said. But as Lavrov said, this is Trump's war now. And this is something you don't hear from Putin. So I think this is more of a – you show that – you can see that there's a growing dissent within the Kremlin. And often there's some articles popping up in Europe saying, oh, there's growing opposition now to Putin who are unhappy with this handling of the war.

And somehow the assumption is, well, they simply want Russia to pull out and capitulate. No, there's no one who thinks it's possible because if they would simply pack up and go home, NATO would move in, and that's an existential threat. So that's an impossibility. When people are growing more fed up with Putin's approach to the war, what they're suggesting is that it's time to take off the gloves and will go rapidly up that escalation ladder. And also, why is the fear of war with NATO when NATO is already, attacking Russia. I mean, when you see all these drones flying through the Gulf of Finland striking St. Petersburg, and then, of course, the big chairs in the European media that, oh, we humiliated

Putin on his opening of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. There's no way these drones flew through, you know, from Ukraine, through Poland, through Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and then through the Gulf of Finland to strike St. Petersburg. They know this, drones are being either directed or being launched from NATO territory. So again, the question is, what is the fear of retaliating when they're already under attack? And this is the growing sentiment that inaction now is more dangerous than action. Because in Europe now, they just assume that Moscow is bluffing. They would never dare to retaliate.

And this is kind of the cost of not upholding your deterrent. So I think this is where we're going. Well, do the EU elites still fear Putin? Or is Russia phobia just the genetic with these people? Well, the hatred is, I would say, getting completely out of control. It's the kind of things which is permissible to say now, I mean, you know, you couldn't talk like this in the past. And so, no, there is some, the hatred towards Russia is definitely contributing to this.

But I think as many people in Russia are now concluding, it's also part of Russia's fault because NATO has a tendency of going with this incrementalism or this salami tactics. We always see this. I mean, whether it's NATO expansion, it's a little bit. you know the first time in the 90s we said in 99 well it's only three countries that's not a threat and then but of course it continues we did the same as missile defense if you remember condoleza rise in 2006 just saying well it's only 10 intercepted missiles that can't undermine russia's nuclear deterrent but you know the 10 becomes into hundreds and that will be growing 2000s and it's been

the same with this war it began with you know can we send the some some basic tanks can we send artillery high mars can We said F-16s, can we do long-range missiles? Well, only if they're limited to Ukrainian territory. But then, yeah, we should also allow Ukraine to bring the war to Russia. And now, of course, we're doing long-range strikes with our contractors, our intelligence, and NATO is now at war with Russia. I think we crossed the line of a proxy war to direct war a long time ago.

So, no, so I think, yeah, there's no way anymore for, well, essentially, this argument is winning now, that this is the main danger. The Russians emboldened the Europeans by never retaliating. And now the Europeans think that there's no reason to be afraid of Putin. If he talks about nuclear weapon, we shouldn't even respect this because this is, they call this nuclear blackmail. And if we respect this, that means we're just empowering him. So we have to, you know, this is the social constructivist, pretend as if, you know, care about the nuclear weapons and then they can't be used. So, yeah.

Is Putin almost like President Trump in Iran desperately looking for an off-ramp? Or do the Russians in planning to continue their march? westward until the last Ukrainian soldier waves a white flag. No, well, I think, well, it depends what we put in the word, desperate. You know, ever since the NATO countries toppled the government in Ukraine in 2014, they've been pushing foreign neutrality. This was first to be achieved with the Minsk Agreement for seven years. But also when they realized that the West was just stringing them along,

building up a powerful Ukrainian army. That's when they went in in 2022. And, well, again, they always wanted a quick end to this war. This is why Zelensky confirmed on the first day of the Russian invasion that they were already contacted by Moscow to discuss putting an end to the war on the first day on the conditions of Ukraine restoring its neutrality. And on the third day, that's the conditions they agreed on. They said, okay, we're going to start negotiations

based on essentially Russia withdrawing its troops in return for Ukraine restoring its neutrality. And this was also the foundation of the Istanbul Agreement, which then the US and UK sabotaged. So they have been very much looking for an off-ramp to get off this escalation ladder for a very long time. But how? They can't concede on their core demands because, as I said before, NATO is all about incrementalism. If you put an end, if you accept a ceasefire today, we already know what the Europeans will do. They already said it. They're going to start to place their troops in Ukraine.

They're going to pump more weapons in, long-range missiles, drones. So this is considered to be an existential threat, which is why the Russians have very little negotiation room. Indeed, this is why the war continues to drag on, because it's not just the Russians, the Ukrainians, also for good reasons consider this to be an existentialism. The only one is not an existential threat for is the one who started a war, which is NATO. I always make this point. If you go back to 2014, there was only a small minority of Ukrainians who wanted NATO membership, and the Western powers knew that it would likely trigger a war, but they did it anyways.

And again, this is not about helping Ukraine or asserting its sovereignty. This is about putting Ukraine into the NATO orbit as a dagger aimed against Russia. And that's the purpose it continues to serve. Well, do the EU elites recognize the movement of geopolitical power from the west to the east, from NATO and the US to Bricks? Well, I think they look at the numbers. They realize the rise of China, the massive significance. They recognize that Bricks is emerging.

about the consequence of this, I don't think they appreciate because, again, the West as a political entity, the political West, not as a civilization, but what we've seen after World War II, a unified political West, it's been a historical anomaly that it's been dependent on a very unique distribution of power. what the Europeans elites don't seem to appreciate is that we're not going to stay united forever because of some kind of shared values. During the bipolar era, that is the Cold War, we had two centers of power, two competing ideologies. It was very easy to uphold internal cohesion. In the unipolar moment that is after the Cold War, the US aspired to pursue an international order based on US hegemony. The Europeans wanted this to be a Western collective hegemony,

so, you know, standing on two legs, the US and the EU. So again, we had some common ideas, some power interests. But in the multipolar world, what the Europeans elite don't seem to appreciate is that our interests will become more and more divergent. That is, they seem to want to return back into some kind of a World War II or Cold War scenario, where the political West, okay, we're confronted by Russia now. Now we're going to go back to the Cold War format where the liberal democratic West will balance the authoritarian east in which you put Russia, China, all of them in the same bracket. But that's a very weird way of looking at the international distribution of power, because we're moving not into a bipolar world, but a multipolar world. And in a multipolar world, the Russians themselves don't want to be tied too closely only to one power, which is more powerful than it.

That is if the Russians put all their eggs in the Chinese basket, they will develop excessive dependence. So they want to diversify their ties. So there's a natural incentive for them, for example, to reach out to the United States and ties with all the major powers, which is why they jumped on this possibility or what looked like the possibility when Trump came to power. Anyways, what the Europeans don't seem to appreciate is at some point the Americans will have to make decisions. They can't be everywhere at the same time anymore. It's not the unipolar moment. and they will have to make priorities.

They will probably focus on the Western Hemisphere in East Asia, but Europe is a huge strategic mistake for the Americans. Europe is weak and is getting weaker, and putting its forces in Europe will only deprive the US of increasingly scarce resources, and it will alienate the Russians and push them closer to the Chinese, something which is not in the US interest. So I don't think they appreciate where this is all going.

Again, they seem to want to relive the Cold War. The assumption is if we just provoke the Russians to do something rash, like bombing Latvia or Germany, then somehow America will come riding in and will go back to the Cold War, where we unify again against an authoritarian ease. It's a very weird way of looking at the world. But, again, we've had a political leadership, which will have grown up in the unipolar moment. highly ideological and yeah not very interested in opposing perspectives. Sounds like you're describing the EU leaders to a T.

Your friend and colleague, our friend and colleague, Professor John Mearsheimer, predicts that Russia will win this war hands down. Do you agree? Well, yeah, no, I think this is definitely the direction where where we're going in. And I know at the moment there's a huge media focus, well media will push, if you will. Essentially in Europe they're going back to the whole narrative that Ukraine's winning. Ukraine is winning. They're regaining the initiative. The Russians are on their back foot. But this doesn't really make much sense. If they're winning, why are we, you know, throwing money

in which we don't have anymore? Why are our political leaders talking about, you know, millions of Ukrainian refugees in order to desperately fill the trenches in Ukraine. I mean, nothing is going right. You know, I guess the battle success of the Ukrainians have largely been this deep strikes into Russia. But again, this is not really Ukrainian strikes. This is, again, NATO weapons and, yeah, many times launched by NATO from NATO territories as well. So it's essentially what we've done all along in this war. Whenever Ukraine goes to deep trouble, we escalate in a big way.

And this time we essentially enter the war directly and making ourselves legitimate targets of the Russian army. So no, there's nothing indicating that Ukraine can win this. And we should even ask whether or not that's something we would want. Because what we do know is that Russia considers this to be an existential threat. Now, irrespective of whether or not we agree with this, I mean, I don't think that's relevant. They consider this to be an existential threat. There can't be any doubt about this. If they would start to lose from NATO's growing involvement in this war, then they would have to escalate.

And I always make this point. Nuclear bombs will reign upon European cities long before NATO gets to march through Crimea. This is an existential war for the world's largest nuclear power. So we should ask ourselves, what does actually victory look like? How much pain do we want to bring to Russia? But these are questions, which we're not allowed to even ask in Europe, because they're considered to be pro-Russian questions, and you're essentially purged from polite society if you bring it up.

Wow. Professor Deason, a great conversation. Thank you, my dear friend. All the best. Good luck with the exam grading, and we'll look forward to seeing you next week. Thank you, Judge. Sure, bye-bye. coming up at 3 o'clock of you're watching us live in 37 minutes the great Phil Giraldi. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.