Judging Freedom - Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: US Thinks Russia is Still USSR

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: US Thinks Russia is Still USSRSee 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, February 20th, 2024. Professor Jeffrey Sachs joins us now. Professor Sachs, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you very much for your time and for your analysis. I have a lot to ask you about. You have a fascinating piece out this morning. Will Netanyahu bring Biden down? But before we do, I want to treat modern day, present day Russia as still as if it's still the old USSR. What did you mean by that?

Basically, American foreign policy aims at one thing, and it's very explicit. And that is what the U.S. calls full spectrum dominance, that the United States is the dominant power in every region of the world, and that there is no regional power that challenges the U.S., even on a regional basis. So Russia is a big country. It's 11 time zones. It's a powerful country. It's a nuclear superpower. It is considered by American doctrine, therefore, to be a threat to American hegemony. China is a big country. Therefore, it is declared to be a threat to American hegemony. It's actually quite simple. And it's quite sad because it means that other large countries just happen to be enemies of the United States. The U.S. makes them into enemies. It doesn't know how to deal with them in a respectful way because the U.S. makes them into enemies. It doesn't know how to deal with them in a respectful

way because the U.S. policy is dominance. If your policy is dominance, you're looking for the failure of the other large countries. And that's literally what we're doing. We're trying to make other large countries fail. And it's been the doctrine for many, many years that the two large rivals of American full spectrum dominance are Russia and China. Now, what's interesting for me at a personal level is that 35 years ago, I got involved as the lead foreign economic advisor to Poland, made some good, helpful suggestions. Poland got out of a massive crisis. Then President Gorbachev's economic team said, well, could you help us because we see what's happening in Poland. We'd like a similar kind of help.

Poland's success depended on some support from the United States and Europe on a temporary basis. I said, of course, I'd try to help President Gorbachev in his reforms. Well, the White House said a flat no. Of course, we're not going to support the Soviet Union, even though it was reforming, democratizing under President Gorbachev. As we know, President Gorbachev was then caught in a pooch attempt, lost power. The Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991. Incredibly, weirdly, I was in the room essentially when it happened because I was to meet President Yeltsin, who wanted the kind of help that I had discussed. He walked across the room from a far door, sat down in front of me and some others and said, I would like to tell you the Soviet Union is ended. And then he pointed to the far door to the back and said, in the next room are the leaders of the Soviet military, and they have agreed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

It's rather dramatic. Then we had a discussion that afternoon. I said, surely, President Yeltsin, the U.S. will help you. A new democracy, the end of communism. President Yeltsin saying to us so explicitly and compellingly, we want to be normal. We want to be friends with the United States. We want to be part of the normal world scene. We want to be a democracy. So I said, in December 1991, I will help get you that temporary financial support for stabilization, because that was my line and expertise in those years, and things worked. So I went back to Washington and they said, no. I said, what do you mean? No, this is a historic moment. No. And it was explained to me, no, we're not going to help Russia the same way we helped Poland. I'm a kind of stubborn guy. So I

kept insisting, thinking they would change their mind. Are they missing the whole historical context? But a year went by with the final year of George Bush Sr. Then Clinton was elected. And Clinton's top Russia advisor called me in the period between the election and the inauguration saying he's not going to do it. He's not going to do anything big to help Russia stabilize right now. And that guy ended up not going into the government. He was so disappointed. Clinton did nothing. It remained the same. The deep state was just not interested in doing anything to help Russia.

What I didn't know, because the documents were only revealed years later, is that Wolfowitz and others were already plotting in 1992 the unipolar world. That is full U.S. hegemony, full spectrum dominance in all parts of the world. They couldn't even imagine China becoming a threat in 1992. It wasn't even on the radar screen. But what happened in the 1990s was constant pressure against Russia, against democratizing Russia. It was crazy. I couldn't really, it was so bizarre compared to what we should have done and what I frankly thought we would do because it was so obvious. But instead, Bill Clinton starts expanding NATO, completely contrary to the promises that had been given to Gorbachev in 1990

by James Baker III, by Hans Dietrich Genscher, the foreign minister of Germany, and so on. So NATO starts expanding. Then in 1999, the United States bombs Belgrade, the middle of Europe, for 78 straight days until Serbia breaks apart and Kosovo, because we declare it, comes into being. And then, as an independent entity, that is, it was part of Serbia. And then the United States builds the largest military base in the region, the largest NATO base in the Balkans region, the Bonn Steel base in Kosovo. You can't make this up. Bomb Belgrade, 78 days, then build a NATO base in the place that you have

broken apart from Serbia. Great, great show of friendship. Then George W. Bush comes in. First thing, the Afghan war. Actually, Putin said, can we help you after 9-11? Well, the U.S. was after something else, which was all the wars of choice to take out Russia's allies in the Middle East. So even before that starts, just in 2002, the U.S. unilaterally abandons the anti-ballistic missile treaty. This puts Russia on red alert because the U.S. is going to start stationing anti-ballistic missiles close to the Russian border, contrary to a treaty that we had with Russia that the United States just abandoned. Then the Iraq war, another disaster. Then seven countries added to NATO, Estonia,

Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia in 2004. Then 2008, oh, we're going to take NATO to Ukraine and to Georgia, completing the Brzezinski idea of surrounding Russia in the Black Sea. You know, Putin said, don't do this. Are you kidding? You've got to stop this. So contrary to every single thing the United States has promised, you're just after us on every single dimension. By the way, supporting jihadists in the Caucasus region to pressure Russia in Chechnya. All right, bring us to the coups in Ukraine and bring us- Again, another CIA operation. Then in 24- Bring us to- I hope I'm- Hang on just a second, Jeff. Hang on just a second. Bring us to another CIA operation. Then in 2014, I hope I'm just a second, Jeff.

Hang on just a second. Bring us to Ukraine and bring us to the present mindset that persists in wanting to use Ukraine as a battering ram. So 2014, we overthrow the government in Ukraine that wants neutrality, that is against NATO, we bring in a post-coup government chosen by the United States on tape by Victoria Nuland and Jeffrey Piat that is going to campaign for NATO enlargement. Recently, many of Zelensky's advisors have explained, yes, NATO enlargement meant war with Russia, but that's okay because the U.S. said, we'll take on Russia. We'll have that war over NATO enlargement. Putin tried to negotiate the opposite of what we claim. He tried that with the Minsk II agreement, which the U.S. completely brushed off. He tried that with proposals for a new U.S.-Russia security arrangement

that he tabled on December 15, 2021. The White House blew it off. He tried it with Zelensky in March 2022, just weeks after the start of the special military operation. The United States stopped those negotiations, telling Ukraine, fight on. We'll arm you. We'll give you the HIMARS. We'll give you the money. We'll be with you as long as it takes because you should weaken Russia. The words of our Secretary of Defense in public, you should weaken Russia. So what we see is a consistent statecraft, a consistent grand strategy that dates back, by the way, not just to 1991, obviously to 1945 and earlier. Remember, the Soviet Union was the U.S. ally in World War II. And then, of course, it was conceived to be the greatest U.S. threat.

Our statecraft is based on trying to contain other countries that could challenge American hegemony. It gets us into lots of wars and it gets the countries that are the sites of these proxy wars with Russia into complete disaster. Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria. These are all kinds of proxy wars. They all have a U.S. approach to weaken Russia as part of them, not the only cause, but as part of them. But they destroy the countries involved, which is what's happening with Ukraine. Is there a Ukraine government effectively remaining should the United States Congress authorize the president to send 60 billion in military supplies and cash over there? Or is it on life support? Is there no effective government to receive and employ that equipment? Ukraine is under martial law. This is the starting point. The elected term

of Zelensky ends in some days, actually, the end of February, I believe. He will sign another 90-day martial law decree, apparently, which will, still as president, which will extend to May, then anything can happen. It's a non-constitutional arrangement after that because there's supposed to be elections. You can't just have martial law, martial law, martial law, martial law. And in any event, that's, what are we talking about? You can see day by day Ukrainians all over western Ukraine absolutely distraught over the hundreds of thousands dead and seriously wounded, and now people just yanked off the streets and sent to the front lines to their deaths. And this is happening. Why is it, do you think, that American elites and European elites don't recognize this?

If you look at the way President Zelensky was treated and greeted at the Munich conference last week, you would think he was a latter-day Winston Churchill and not a martial law, law-breaking dictator who's grinding his country into ashes? The U.S. is supporting still a war against Russia. That's the main purpose. The U.S. senators who vote for this could care less about Ukraine. They don't know anything about Ukraine, but they know that if Ukrainians are killing Russians, that's got to be a good thing. That's their level of intelligence. That's their level of mindset and sophistication. They're crude. They're strung along by the CIA and the military industrial complex who pays a lot of their campaign contributions. They're strung along by the military factories in their districts. Biden says, give aid to Ukraine.

It keeps jobs going as if the best jobs we could do in our country is to spend $61 billion of U.S. government money that it doesn't have to buy military equipment that's going to lead to further tens or hundreds of thousands of deaths, as opposed to using the $61 billion for something else or for nothing to stop this massive mountain of debt from rising. It's just mind boggling. But when you listen to our senators, they're not even, they don't even hide this. They're not sophisticated at all. When you listen to Mitt Romney or Blumenthal of Connecticut, it's just crude as can be. The best money, the best that money can buy. Americans aren't dying. It's the Ukrainians who are dying. Russia's being weakened. We're showing how tough we are to China.

The whole thing is absolutely bizarre. The Europeans, this is another matter. I know many European leaders who privately tell me the opposite of what they say in public, but it's really pathetic. And it's an interesting question how the U.S. government has such a hold on so many countries of Europe. I've been told rather shocking things by European leaders, but one of the interesting things is that in Tucker Carlson's interview with Putin, Carlson asks President Putin, why did the Germans go along with this? And Putin says, you know, I can't figure that out. Okay, that's pretty good for me. I can't figure it out either. Absolutely. It's the weakest

government that I've ever seen in Germany. They're in a deep, deep economic crisis, really a long-term deep economic crisis, because the source of their economy is industry that's based on low-cost energy from Russia, which they cut off and which the United States cut off by blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline, and there's Schultz just not saying a word. And by the way, one interesting fact, all the European leaders are completely unpopular with their publics right now. Schultz's approval rating is something like 23%. Don't quote me to the decimal place, but there are regular polls of world leaders, and the European leaders are absolutely not supported by their public. So they're mouthing things that make no sense for Europe, make no sense for their societies. They repeat the empty tropes of the United States.

It's a little hard to figure out why, although European leaders have said things to me that we just can't disagree with the United States. Why? It's really hard to know. You could say it's the nuclear umbrella. You could say they're really afraid of Russia, which is preposterous because the last thing Russia is going to do is invade a NATO country and enter a nuclear war. The whole thing is absolutely without any thinking because we're not told the truth of the whole conflict. The truth of the conflict is the United States has been out to weaken Russia, even divide Russia, even what some in Washington call decolonize Russia, break it apart, create ethnic crises in Russia, which divide Russia, bring down Putin. Remember, Biden said early in this whole thing, that man cannot remain in power. Can you imagine a way to talk like that of an American president with regard to a counterpart major power that happens to have 6,000 nuclear warheads? Come on. And we don't like it here. They don't like it in Europe, the public. All of these politicians are deeply unpopular. That's because this is an agenda, really, that is a deep state agenda. I'm

sorry to say it. It's just crazy. Well, there is one politician who's very popular with his people, President Putin, whose approval ratings are in the low to mid 80s. Joe Biden couldn't even dream of approval ratings like that. He talks to the people. He has long press conferences. He discusses these issues. Our side doesn't discuss the issue. The best that our media could come up with is a long interview because the attention span of the American mass media is 30 seconds. So instead of printing pages saying, here's what Putin said, now let's analyze the issues. Maybe this is right, maybe this isn't right. They could not even bring themselves to do that. They had to attack Tucker Carlson or say it was a long rambling speech or other nonsense rather than adult conversation.

And the real adult conversation that is desperately needed is between the president of the United States and the president of Russia. Come on. It's been since February 2022. They haven't had a chat. Where do you see this going? I mean, Ukraine government is on life support. I don't think the Republicans in the House are going to go along with what happened in the Senate, but who knows? These people concoct all kinds of deals. Something may happen at the southern border that induces them to spring free with that money. But the material itself, they don't have the troops to operate it, and it's not going to get there for months and months and months. Yeah, there's nothing that's going to change the realities on the battlefield. And anything Congress votes, I called it Biden's plan to kill more Ukrainians.

There's nothing in this but more suffering. And OK, and if the CIA or someone else says, yeah, more suffering, but it'll kill some more Russians. Is that really what we're in for? Is that really our strategy in this country? Is that really what U.S. national security is about? Of course not. So what should happen, what should happen is President Biden should pick up the phone today. I often say use my Zoom account if you want.

Just call and start a discussion. The whole NATO enlargement business, the whole surround Russia in the Black Sea business, the whole unilateral withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, the placement of Aegis anti-ballistic missiles near Russia. These are real issues. Talk about them like real issues. Stop the propaganda in the United States and talk about real issues so we have real security in this country and we can have an end to the wars. It's actually possible. It's been possible all along. It was possible back in the early 1990s. It was possible in the early 2000s. It was possible before we helped overthrow Yanukovych in 2014. It was possible in 2016 with the Minsk II agreements. It was possible

in 2021 with a new US-Russia security arrangement. It was possible in 2023. It was possible in 2021 with a new U.S.-Russia security arrangement. It was possible in 2023. It's possible today. It requires some honesty from the U.S. government to stand up and say, you know what? We're not going to expand NATO. We're going to have normal, mutually respectful security relations with Russia so we have peace. Russia is not going to invade any NATO country, that's for sure. That's going to be part of our agreement. And we're going to have a Ukraine, which is peaceful. We're going to have a settlement, but we're going to stop this anti-Russia NATO surrounding the Black Sea region and all the rest that they have tried for decades that has led to this current utter debacle. Professor Sachs, I don't know how I can thank you for this

extraordinary, extraordinary lecture, particularly with the personal touches. You and I have been friends for a while. I did not know of your presence in the room with president yeltsin we have so much more can you imagine that by the way pardon me can you imagine it can you imagine it was one of the most stunning moments of my life yes you hear that out of the president of russia directly in front of me by the way with all your intellectual honesty and your international reputation if anybody deserves to have been there at that moment, it's you. We're going to have to stop because we have another show coming up. I had all these questions about Netanyahu, but we'll do them again if we can find you.

I know you're traveling later this week. Yeah, let's try that. We'll save them until next week. But a brilliant and gifted lecture understanding the perverse American mindset toward Russia. Professor Sachs, thank you very much. Great to be with you. Thanks. See you soon. Of course.

Of course. A great man and a great lecture. Hey, we are approaching 300,000 subscriptions. Please remember to like and subscribe and stick with us. We have Matt Ho coming up this afternoon, Karen Kwiatkowski, and at 4.30 Eastern, Scott Ritter, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. you