Judging Freedom - Russia, China, Ukraine & the U.S. What_s Going On_ - Alastair Crooke

Episode Date: May 4, 2023

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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, April 4th, 2023. It's about 11 o'clock in the morning here on the east coast of the United States, five o'clock in the evening in Italy, from which our guest, Alistair Crook, a weekly member of our Judging Freedom family, happily joins us now. Alistair, always a pleasure. Thank you for taking the time to join us. Before we get into what I expect will be a fascinating discussion in which I can pick your brain on the new relationships, geopolitical, economic of two drones over a building in the Kremlin. I don't know if you've seen the images of them, but we'll show them to you now, and then I'll ask you a couple of questions. So this is taken by Western television from outside the wall, and you can see it exploding over the top of that building. You'll see it again coming from the left.

There it is. That building is the Senate. Correct, correct. And then you've seen the same image three times. Now you're going to see it from the other direction, from inside the Kremlin. This is from Russian television. You'll just see the explosion. In a moment, you'll see a close-up of that domed building and the fire on the roof of it.

You can see the fire from here. The close-up is coming in just a second or two. There it is. So I don't know, and our technical people don't know, what is the source of the fire? It is either debris from the drone or fuel from the drone, but it does pose a couple of questions. Before I get to any specific questions. Is there an impression from your point of view in Italy of the seriousness of something like this? Yes, I think generally all Europeans have been quite shocked and frightened by it, but no one is saying anything very much about it. I think I have said before,

I mean there's a great unease I think spreading across European society. People feel a certain sort of dread that times are getting more uncertain, more tumultuous, and they worry that it's going to get worse in the next year and a half in the lead up to your presidential 1924 elections. So there's a great deal of anxiety. One wonders what the source of these drones was. I mean, it would be crazy for the Russians to do this themselves. The Kremlin, of course, is the seat of their power. It's also the official residence and office of President Putin. Could you imagine the reaction in America if two drones had landed, foreign drones, had landed on the roof of the White House? I mean, we'd be ready to start World War III.

I would be. And the Senate building is famous. That oval, you see the oval dome. But that is the Senate office in which Putin does work, in which Stalin worked. And many Russian leaders have worked, had an office, and they work in their whole meetings there. So it's not just a sort of ceremonial room at the you know in a large palace it is actually an office with a long history and meetings do take place in there um and i think so so yes there's a a real sense and i would say i mean it's besides us and besides italians mean, it's created a huge anger in Russia.

I mean, yesterday was, I mean, extraordinary. I mean, a real sense of outrage and, you know, desire for revenge amongst ordinary Russians. In a sense, if anyone thought it was going to divide the Russians, it's had the opposite effect. It's brought them together together just as 9-11 brought Americans together. The attack on such a symbol of the state,

the Russian state, on the president's official residence has been a shock. Yes, it has affected. I think that there's been some efforts going on from the Kremlin because it seems that the rhetoric has been calmed down today.

I mean, I'm talking to you at five o'clock in the afternoon and it seems to be coming down. And the statements coming out from Peshkov and others, the senior spokesperson, head of the Security Council, have been very careful and very controlled and very moderate and saying, yes, we will deal with this, but in our own time and in our own way and so it's been very much sort of trying to keep things lower the temperature uh here here's a clip of president zielinski in english denying that he had anything to do with this we don't attack Putin or Moscow.

We fight on our territory. We are defending our villages and cities. I doubt that the Russian people believe that. I found it curious that these drones were destroyed by some Russian source within a few meters of the roof of the Kremlin building. Now, why weren't they destroyed, you know, a few kilometers away before they posed a danger to the seat of Russian government? Well, we don't know exactly. And what I hear from Moscow is that it was electronically, they were destroyed by electronic means, rather than by the firing of the missile. Perhaps they were concerned about the consequences of firing missiles in Moscow itself, where, if you like, the debris from these missiles might land. So they relied on electronic. Russians are very advanced in that field, but we don't know.

And we don't know what was the source of those, the fire that you saw. It could be the fuel from the drone that ignited on landing or not. The Russians say that just two copper sheetings have had to be replaced on the roof and it's not seriously damaged. I don't know.

I mean, all of these things have to be pursued. But I would just like to say something about the context, because, I mean, you know, people have said, well, how does this happen and who's responsible? And I think, you know, the answer is very clear from the context. If we put some things together, we can see that Washington has become increasingly, I'm talking about the White House, particularly equivocal about this Ukrainian offensive,

uncertain whether it is going to be effective. And if it's not, what sort of criticism they're going to sustain here, there in America, from left or right, from all sides. So that is one factor. And of course, the Ukrainians hear that. Kiev hears that. Then we have seen something very striking. Kirby comes on and makes a statement and says, well, Bakhmut, I mean, it wasn't a Russian success at all. It was actually very sustained, huge casualties in Bakhmut. We all know that this is not true. But then we have, of course, Blinken following that up directly by saying that, you know, it's actually a win.

It's not a defeat because the Russians haven't succeeded in their objectives. Not that anyone knew exactly what the Russian objectives are. All of this spells out that America is moving towards, if you like, what I call a Pyrrhic victory. That Russia, yes,

it's a victory, but it's a Pyrrhic victory because really it's a defeat. You know, it is mission accomplished. You can only lie so much. Remember that one-liner from Ayn Rand. You can escape reality, but you cannot escape the consequences of escaping reality. The consequences will come back to devour them if they claim

that a defeat was really a victory. The Ukrainians lost 15,000 troops, I mean killed 15,000 in the month of April alone, and the Secretary of State says it's a victory of some sort. Who's going to believe them? Well, team Biden and team Biden are in a bind. I mean, escalation is really almost impossible at this case. It's not viable. I mean, you could escalate, but it's not the risks and the logistics and everything don't work. And just to get out would be a humiliation for the United States and a humiliation for NATO. So they are in this bind. So they're moving towards, I think, this narrative of a Pyrrhic victory, but really mission accomplished for the United States, and then trying to move

on to China as quickly as possible before anyone really sort of takes it up. And at the same time, they've sent a very clear message to the media, which you'll know better than me, which is to say, stay on message. The new message is we're moving to China and this was a very victory. Stay on message. Don't jump ship and move on to this. And so, I mean, if you're a hardliner in Kiev, you can read the writing on the wall. This is your end coming.

If Biden is about to sort of, you know, draw a line under Ukraine and move on to China and there's going to be the full media process that's going to follow it, they're finished. No more parties in smart restaurants in Kiev. No more celebrations, I mean, for the elites, where the nightclubs and the restaurants have been doing great business. All of that might be coming to an end from that point of view.

What do you do? And this is what I expected to happen, a provocation. You want a provocation, something. And I spoke about this a few days ago and say, look, I'm sure now that, you know, there's all this equivocation about, you know, the offensive or not, and whether it's even possible, we'll see a provocation of some sort. I don't know what sort, but now we have one. What is it intended to do? Produce a Russian overreaction, and Russian overreaction which will then inflame passions in the West and in the United States, and they will get what they want, which is a war against

Russia, all of them, not just a proxy war in Ukraine. Fortunately for Zelensky, purely serendipitous, he happens to be overseas during this period when this took place. I'm not implying anything, of course, from that. But nonetheless, Russia says very clearly that in their belief this originated. But they use the word from kiev they don't say which part of the government right they don't know i think well we we we know i don't know if the public knows but we know that there are rogue what some of our people and what the russians call nazi elements uh in the ukraine uh government that don't always take orders and often do things

on their own, reckless things, and this may be one of them. President Putin, to me, seems to be restrained. His predecessor, intermediary, whatever you want to call him, President Medvedev, said it's time to take out President Zelensky. Now you say that that language has been dialed back. That statement by President Medvedev, I think, was made within hours of this event. We're now about 48 hours away from it. Yeah, he's been told fairly clearly by people in Moscow, and he's saying, listen, yeah, you know, that is totally illegal. You'd have to have a resolution passed by the Duma, the parliament, saying that this man is a terrorist before you could even contemplate that.

It would be criminal action for Russia to do that under Russian law. Is there any feeling amongst Europeans that there is validity to Putin's argument that NATO and the West are attempting to surround Russia, threaten it, intimidate it, impair its sovereignty, sort of the Victoria Nuland, well if they invade Crimea will help them argument? Oh, certainly. I mean, in Russia, I mean, the mood has changed so much. They've been so deeply shocked by the hatred coming out of, particularly from Europe, because many of them thought Europe was their friend. And they've been shocked by that.

And so the whole tone has changed. It's no longer seen to be a war against the government or to depose Putin. It's seen as an attempt to end Russia as Russia. The idea of Russia, to see it split up and to see its resources parceled out amongst other states. And they see this as a dismemberment program, not anymore just a sort of conflict whereby they want to, the West wants to damage Russia. I mean, this is firmly believed now. And I think, you know, it's partly true. I mean, this has been the objective for many, not all, but quite a number of participants in this field,

that actually what they want to see is a dismembered and broken up. And certainly some European states have advocated that, Estonia and Poland. So at the same time that President Putin is waging the military action in Ukraine, he is attempting to wage a war on liberal economic theory, bolstering up the Russian economy in his own model, so as to make it a counterpoint to Europe, a counterpoint to the U.S., and an economic partner with China. Do I have that right? I put it in a different way, and it's not as a sort of a challenge to the West, but the point of the polar, multipolar order is not just about multipolarity. It's about sovereignty, sovereignty of its members and autonomy, autonomy that they are free to do what they consider best for their own people in their own way in the state. And so China and Russia have been looking very carefully. How do you increase the state's sovereignty?

And one of the answers to this is to get out of the neoliberal economic system, the predatory system as they see it, that has been closely tied up with European and American colonialism, which has been an extractive process, and to try and return sovereignty to states. And to try in this way, the grand strategy is to help those states in practical terms, too, in building the infrastructure of roads and railway lines and things, to create almost a sort of virtuous circle of sovereignty, taking shape through interconnections and interconnections,

so that these states really do become, in a sense, I mean, you're never completely sovereign, but they do have a sort of feeling of sovereign. So it's not aimed against it. It's just another economic model, a model that has always been there for a long time before. Does Putin want to re-engage commercially with the West once the war is over and the sanctions have been lifted? I shouldn't say if ever, because Joe Biden's not going to be president forever, but at some point, will there be a Russian urge to return to normalcy? You have written extensively about the Russian psyche. I would imagine

the Russian psyche today is very supportive of Putin, very supportive of sovereignty, very supportive of Russian ways of doing things. Yes, I think we are going to move. I mean, both China and Russia and the Middle East and Africa are moving towards a much more closed state idea of the sort of economic ideas of Friedrich List and Fichte from the 19th century, which is that you have an internal self-sufficient economy which is sufficient for your needs and your people's needs and you protect it so that it functions and is an internally circulating one. And then you have a margin of that economy, which is open, and for external trade and for exports and imports. But the main thing is to be as self-sufficient within an internally circulating economy as is possible to be.

I mean, it's no surprise China's been saying that for some time. It's not just Russia. And even I remember Lee Kuan Yew years ago saying exactly the same. You know, we need a new economic model, one that is less emphasis on individualism and more on the welfare of the community as a whole. And so that's the sort of thrust. So if you go to a liquor store in New Jersey, will you be able to buy Russian vodka? You will! You will, for sure. You think that those days will return? Yeah, but I mean not in the complete, you know, liberal, neoliberal, total open market like the Western, the Anglo-American model has wanted.

No restrictions, complete freedom of capital movement, freedom of movement of trade and others. No, we're not going back to that sort of neoliberal model because it has been a disaster for many countries. What is the role of China in all of this? You know, China is, I mean, very much an impetus into this. Actually, it was China who gave the definitive complaint to Putin personally about what happened, why the Soviet Union collapsed. And it's not the same as the Western. And he said, you know, what really happened was you turned to the West. This is in the Yeltsin Gorbachev period. You turned to the West. That was your mistake because it undermined the values of your leadership. It became empty.

It became nihilist. He called it nihilist. And what is quite interesting is that in this long conversation between the two of them, Putin said, you are right. Actually, you have done the right way of developing... I just want to stop you for a second because I'm hearing in my brain Margaret Thatcher saying of Mikhail Gorbachev, I can work with this man.

You remember that statement as if she said it yesterday. I'm sure you might have been there when she said it. Yes. Yeah. Yes. sure you might have been there when she said it yes yeah yes well i mean you know there is still i mean very much a north atlantic westernized culture in some petersburg centered in petersburg but you know this is oversold because it was already in the 19th century that there was a strong slavic reaction against that and people were saying look stop speaking French

and dressing with French clothes why can't you speak a little bit in Russian to the aristocracy and say stop effect you know adopting these defeat European habits and customs and start being Russian again and of course that happened I mean many people did of course course, it stayed on in St. Petersburg. And to a certain extent, Putin was one of these Europhiles, too, but then changed and then realized that there was no choice and that this was an existential issue for Russia to move and accept it. And so it was actually these impulse behind this sort of grand schema for changing the economy of the rest of the world. It's not to be imposed. It's because many states do want to recuperate,

to reappropriate some sovereignty. I want to go back to where we were a few moments ago when you were explaining to us about Secretary Putin, or Putin, forgive me, Secretary Plinken and others materially misleading the public and claiming that the fall of Bakhmut to the Russians was somehow a pyrrhic victory for the Ukrainians. You recall, of course, because we played this for you, the testimony of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who after he saw the documents, the top secret documents that had been released, revealing to the world the thinking of a senior military that Ukraine is losing and that the Russian military has almost entirely

degraded Ukraine's air defenses, made statements to the contrary under oath to the Congress. Ukraine's doing fine. We're going to be behind them. We're looking forward to the spring offensive. Okay. That's the background. A month later, General Christopher Cavoli, four stars, American commander-in-chief of all American forces in Europe, Air Force, Navy, and Army, made a radically different statement to a House committee, the American House of Representatives committee on the military. Here's what he had to say. I'd like to underline your comment about the specificity of the degradation of the Russian forces. Much of the Russian military has not been affected negatively by this conflict. Much of the Russian military has not been affected

negatively by this conflict. One of those forces is their undersea forces. It's hard to talk in public, as you well know, sir, about undersea warfare and our efforts in that regard. But I can say that the Russians are more active than we've seen them in years. And this is, as you pointed out, despite all of the efforts that they're undertaking inside Ukraine. The Russian military has not been degraded. Now, one of our snarky ex-CIA colleagues said, oh, I guess General Cavoli is getting ready to retire since he's now liberated to speak the truth. But this is hardly the administration line, Alistair. It's not at all. I mean, we live in this extraordinary world now. I mean,

you know, it is becoming more and more Kafkaesque. I mean, it's just, you know, you cannot say, if you say anything, I mean, your own colleague was criticized, I think, by a Republican senator or congressman from Texas because they said he was giving out Russian speaking notes. And Tucker Carlson replied, well, you know, what you're suggesting is that I'm working for a foreign power against the United States and that is just unacceptable. And I think that's what, you know, we all feel. You know, I was brought up in the old tradition that you are

supposed to bring bad news to your political leadership, not regale them with the best you can think of that will lift their spirits. You have to go and say, look, excuse me, Prime Minister, you're wrong. It's going badly wrong for you, and you need to understand that. But I don't think that's done now. The culture went differently some years ago in the intelligence system. I think you're right. I think General Cavoli, although he equivocated a little bit later on in that testimony, but for the most part has been the exception to the rule. He should be commended. Say again?

He should be commended. Oh, absolutely. He should be commended, but he won't be not by this administration we know that Alistair it's always a pleasure thank you so much for joining us thank you always for your deep thoughts which are so much appreciated by

our audience not the least of which is I well thank you very much it's always a pleasure to be with you of course wow if you like what you saw like and subscribe we're approaching 150 000 regular youtube subscribers we want to break that threshold soon more as we get it judge napolitano for judging freedom