Pod Save the World - Russia and China’s new world order

Episode Date: February 9, 2022

Ben and guest host Alex Wagner discuss the latest diplomacy on Ukraine, Russia and China’s pact against the West, the politics of a return to the Iran Deal, right-wing truckers protesting in Canada, Boris Johnson singing I Will Survive, censorship at the Beijing Olympics, and Kim Jong Un’s new look. Then Ben is joined by Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas to talk about her views on Ukraine and what it’s like to be a NATO ally bordering Russia.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. 

Welcome to Potsid the World. I'm Ben Rhodes. And I'm Alex Wagner. Alex Wagner joins us today as our guest host. Thank you so much, Alex, who wears many hats, co-host of Showtime's hit show The Circus. Brand new MSNBC contributor and guest host. Do you want to say a word about that? Yeah, I just, you know, I grew up at the MSNBC family in the MSNBC family and like the prodigal son I've returned. I'm now a, I think the official title is senior political analyst because I've gotten old in my time away. Wait a second. Wait a second. Do you know I'm a political analyst? Does that mean that you are senior to me officially? Yeah. I mean, we've always known it, but now it's just to formalize. We've always known that I'm just a few notches above you, Ben, because of all my experience in the White House and negotiating international agreements. That's why I get the senior title and you don't. And I'm a guest anchor.

So you'll see me in the anchor chair shortly. Wow. Trying to fill other people's big shoes. The roles might be reversed one of these days. You can ask me questions on MSNBC. Oh, I mean, that's why I took this gig to begin with. It's just trying to get more TV time with you. Well, and people can follow you everywhere, circus, MSNBC, the Atlantic from time to time.

Yes, yes. Yes. It's always a good day when you and I share byline. on the homepage. Yes, you're in the marketplace of ideas. Well, today, we have a lot to talk about. We are going to obviously give the latest on the Russia-Ukraine situation. We are going to talk about the prospects of an Iran deal 2.0. We're going to check in on some crazy things happening in Canada and with our friend Boris Johnson in the UK. We have an ISIS leader who was killed since our last podcast. So a lot to cover here. And then I, Alex and I will also be looking back at the

one-year anniversary of the tragic coup in Burma. Then I'll be talking to the prime minister of Estonia, Kaya Kallas, about her perspective as a NATO member bordering Russia and as one of the younger and more dynamic leaders on the European scene. But that leads us back to where we're going to start which is Russia, Ukraine. So, Alex, I'm just going to go through the latest, and then there are a couple of things I thought we could unpack. Please do. First of all, the center of gravity shifted to some extent to French President Emmanuel Macron, who flew to Moscow and met with Putin yesterday at a very large table, if you haven't seen the picture.

Maybe like a custom-made table it's so large. I mean, I don't know if that was a social distancing thing, but it's a very big table. Anyway, it didn't appear to win that well. Macron said that there wouldn't be further escalation, that Putin promised him that there would not be further escalation and that there'd be time to pursue diplomatic resolution. The Kremlin, though, after Macron left, essentially said that he didn't have the status to negotiate the issues at stake because he's not the leader of NATO, making the point that the U.S. has to be the one to negotiate on the terms of Russia's demands that NATO pull back, basically,

to where it was in 1997 and not admit new members. Macron, though, soldiered on. He went on to Ukraine today where he met with President Zelensky. From Ukraine's standpoint, they reiterated what they called red lines, which is that there can't be any infringement on their sovereignty and that they get to determine their own foreign policy, which would suggest that they're not open to a pledge to never join NATO. So it doesn't feel like we're any further to a resolution here. Meanwhile, President Biden met with the new German Chancellor Schultz, Otto Schultz.

I guess the headline coming out of that meeting was Biden vowed that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that's scheduled to come online that takes gas from Russia to Germany won't happen. It'll be stopped one way or another, presumably either by U.S. sanctions or by German action, if Russia does invade Ukraine. A lot of effort to try to project unity. Biden said that he and Germany are in lockstep on this. Schultz reiterated that Russia would pay a high price if it invades Ukraine. But again, Germany has been a bit of an outlier in threatening stronger sanctions.

Mood music generally, not great. The NATO Secretary General said that NATO itself is considering long-term adjustments to its posture, particularly in the East, which seems to run counter to what Russia wants, which is NATO not being present in the east. The EU foreign policy chief said Europe is facing its most serious security threats since the Cold War. And Russia and China had a meeting. Yes.

And this to me is maybe actually the headline of last week, Xi Jinping and Putin met in Beijing around the beginning of the Olympics, issued a pretty sweeping joint statement that was full of kind of hyperbole, very confrontational to the U.S. and the West. an excerpt, Russia and China stand against attempts by external forces to undermine security and stability in their common adjacent regions, intend to counter interference by outside forces in the internal affairs of sovereign countries under any pretext, oppose color revolutions, and will increase cooperation. That's a long way of saying China backs Russia's stance on no more NATO

enlargement, and Russia backs whatever the hell China wants to do on Taiwan, and the U.S. should just accept that the old international order doesn't exist anymore, and Russia and China are going to call the shots. That's kind of how I read the statement. Last thing, we saw more kind of warnings coming out of the administration, including one intelligence assessment that Russia could seize Kiev, the capital of Ukraine in a matter of days, and that 50,000 civilian casualties could suffer in a Russian invasion or 50,000 casualties across the board. So administration continuing to beat the drumbeat. So, Alex, is a lot of the last. podcast. Thanks for having me on. Bye.

Yeah. A lot to impact there. Yeah. I want to start with this last one because we've seen a lot of warnings, you know, warnings about Russian false flag videos that could be used as a pretext for an invasion, warnings about the imminence of an invasion, warning about the number of casualties, President Biden saying even that Americans should leave Ukraine. What do you make of, you know, someone who's covered foreign policy and politics? This is a bit of a new tack to be this transparent about intelligence we have about something. How is that, in your mind, affecting the politics around this and the kind of international diplomacy around this?

Well, I mean, I think for certain, when you're that explicit about potential casualties and when you're that explicit about how sort of threatened the old world order is, I think it was referred to in the Washington Post as potentially Cold War II. It certainly gets the message across to an American audience and to an international audience, but I tend to think it's also strategic, right? Like nobody wants to go to war in Ukraine. And it's as much speaking to Putin as it is to anyone else, which is to say, this is going to be really, really bad. Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, it's one tactic take. I think it's very much a hallmark of the Biden administration, which has been radically

transparent about all kinds of negotiations. Sometimes that's worked out for them. Sometimes it hasn't. You know, all the negotiation on the hill around Bill Back better, all the sort of, I'm the president who's going to roll up his sleeves and get in the mud pit, I'm the person that's going to tell, I'm going to be honest with you. That was Biden's whole kind of tagline. That's flowing through to foreign policy. But again, I think it has a strategic goal as well, which is let's convince Putin this is going to be so painful that compromise is where is the

door he should pick, if you will. I don't know, though. I mean, I think nobody's enjoying this more than Vladimir Putin, right? Like, I just feel like he's feasting on it. There's a reason that table was so big. It's delicious to him. I mean, everybody's talking about NATO. Everyone's talking about Ukraine. Everyone's talking about the power of Russia. That's what he wants. Yeah, it's an interesting question because on the one hand, I admire elements of the strategy

in the sense that it doesn't allow Russia to control the information environment. Like, actually, in the strange way, the U.S. has been controlling the information environment, putting all this stuff out. And, you know, it gives you a pretext to try to get the Europeans on board with things like sanctions. before the war happens because you're talking about it before and not just after. On the other hand, you know, it does make Putin just a center of global attention, which is something he loves to be. I guess the question I have for you, though, is that someone who watches politics, does it matter

at all that they've been this explicit that something might happen if it happens? Like if there's an invasion, are people more prepared for this and therefore won't be as big as surprise? Or and maybe people understand that the Biden administration did everything they could, or does it make it look like, you know, you've been warning about something and you couldn't stop it? I mean, I know politics is a secondary concern to Ukraine, but what do you think this does in the event of an invasion? Well, I mean, I'm going to be incredibly cynical. I just think the American audience is really numb to the idea of casualties overseas. and casualties incurred in a military conflict.

I mean, right? Like, that's kind of been our posture for, I mean, since I've been an adult, there have been, you know, and I think what's more resonant is the idea that this is Cold War II, that this is bigger than just, I mean, not that 50,000 casualties is anything short of horrifying. But this is a reordering of the world. This is a new existential threat to America. That has resonance, because basically to get the American. audience engaged and concerned, you just, it's like a terrible series of blockbuster movies. The pyrotechnics have to be bigger. The on-screen crashes have to be bigger. The sound has to be louder. And that's where we've gotten in terms of military engagement for people to truly

care, for it to become a political issue for better or for worse. I think so basically, so if there's no U.S. troops involved in a conflict, the degree of interest from the American people, even if this is a large conflagration in Europe may be more minimal than people might think. I mean, I think it's, listen, I'm not co-signing that anyone with our residents, but yeah, I mean, I think that's where, I mean, from my work in journalism and my, you know, understanding of an American audiences' appetite and interest in foreign policy and, you know, the American military or the military in general, unless it is something that really directly affects. them and feels like something that they are palpably afraid of or excited by. It just doesn't

hit with the same resonance. I mean, I think, you know, the peril for the Biden administration is what you mentioned before. Could this be used as a political cudgel because they've telegraphed so much of what could happen? And if they're unable to prevent those things from unfolding, I mean, you know, you can bet that it will be withdrawal from Afghanistan part two. And the Republican party will say, look at, look at this. Look at amateur hour here. Look at, look at this. mess. Even if the American audience doesn't particularly care about what's happening, there are political ramifications that can be co-opted back home by a party that has shown no signs of having any inhibitions to, you know, scrape at the bottom of the lowest barrel.

Yeah. And you've seen Macron out there with Putin, Schultz, the German Chancellor, is due to go to Moscow in a few days himself. Boris Johnson, who will We'll get to in a second. Went to Ukraine, not to Russia. Biden's obviously had his calls with Putin. What's your impression of this slate of leaders, Alex? Any main takeaways from the French diplomacy here? It's like the West Side Story reboot, you know?

And you're like, oh, it's not the classics. Maybe they'll be kind of as good as the originals. But I'm not, I don't know. I got to say, Ben, it's, look, they've been thrown into the deep end pretty. I mean, and you've mentioned this on this podcast before. This is not a great time for any of them, right? Like Macron has a re-election. Schultz is brand new, you know, energy is a big deal in Germany when it comes to Russia.

Biden is where he is, you know, domestically. My heart goes out to them. But I see something happening here that reminds me of what happens at home vis-a-vis Putin and the far right wing, which is do outlandish things and change what is normal, right? That's the playbook that's being run here in the U.S. in Canada, right? And in Russia. I mean, everybody is working from the same set of new standards now. We're discussing whether you like we're talking about the contours of Ukrainians of Renity. We're talking about, you know, a settled idea of NATO expansion. We're talking, you know, everything's on the table because Putin has amassed 130,000 troops on the border and is like, come on, go ahead and cross me. And like, that reminds me of, I mean, it's the brinkmanship politics are so reminiscent of everything Trump did of what's happening in Canada with the truckers. It's like basically go in, it's of January 6th, go in there with the craziest, most ridiculous, awful, outlandish, over the top strategy and reset the goalposts so that they

then have to talk to you about whether or not January 6 was legitimate political discourse. So that they then have to talk to you about like just how, you know, where Ukraine is, where NATO is, what unwinding we may do on that front. I mean, these were not conversations that anybody thought we were going to be having five years ago, but we are. I think that's really smart. I mean, because there is something to this idea that what Putin does in geopolitics is kind of what the far right does in politics generally as a disruptor and as someone busting norms and making people adjust. And in the same way that, you know, political leaders in this country have struggled to respond to the emergence of the far Trumpian right, you know, you,

You got Biden trying to take a pretty firm line with Putin. You've got Macron trying to be the guy who's trying to negotiate anything he can negotiate, even if Russia isn't interested in negotiating. You know, you've got Schultz just kind of almost trying to like wish the thing wasn't happening. You know, everybody's trying something different. And it's hard when you're dealing with somebody in Vladimir Putin who's just not playing by any recognized rules, right? Yeah. I continue to think, like, people should be watching in terms of timeline of this.

you know, the end of the Olympics is also around the time that Russia said that they'd be ending this military exercise in Belarus, which is the pretext for them to have a whole bunch of troops here. They could always just keep them there anyway. But it still feels to me like, you know, like about a week from now. We at least might know more,

but the only person who knows is Vladimir Putin. But does she did Ping know? He knows, right? So this is interesting to me because in the past, You know, China actually didn't support the annexation of Crimea publicly, for instance, because the predicate of territory being annexed and lost is not something that China wants to endorse. There's parts of, you know, what they think are parts of China, i.e. Taiwan, that, you know,

the principle of sovereignty is sacrosanct to them. But this was a different statement in which Xi really seemed to wrap himself around Putin and give him a lot of diplomatic cover. there's references to increased energy cooperation, which could be one way Russia tries to prevent the impact of sanctions. I have to think that if there's anyone in the world who Vladimir Putin has shared his intentions with outside of his inner circle in Russia, it would be Xi Jinping, because Russia will need China a lot, not just diplomatically, but perhaps, again, to help weather sanctions. And if he's going to do something, it wouldn't surprise me if he felt the need to give Xi a heads up. Because the other thing is, it wouldn't be a great look for Xi if Putin went to

Beijing and then within a couple weeks leaving, you know, invaded a country without giving them a heads up. I don't know. That's my guess of it. I mean, were you as chilled as other people appear to be by that joint statement, which was, you know, you outlined some of the contours of it. But like, it didn't sit well with me that China and Russia are going to be, you know, like it really felt like the dark forces are amassing, you know, that everyone's gathering on Mount Batty to plot demise of the world. It did. I mean, look, I wasn't, I can't say I was surprised. I think people should recognize it. This went beyond past Russian Chinese statements. It really did feel like them laying down a marker that, okay, we're now the alternative world order here. And we really don't

care what you guys think. And we're going to cooperate across the board. And that cooperation is going to be mainly based on this idea that they're kind of spheres of influence, right? So it's China telling us stay out of Asia, Russia telling us, you know, stay out of Europe or at least stay out of the former Soviet Union. And that's the world we're in. So not a surprise, but seeing it kind of on paper at such a tense moment, yeah, that's kind of the new world we're in here. And that means a lot less maneuvering for us. Although I will say Xi Jinping, not as much of fan of Botox as Vladimir Putin, apparently. No, no. Or he's just getting, he has a better dermatologist. Maybe, it may be. He's got great hair also unlike Putin. So the one, okay, making this transition,

a weird thing about Iran diplomacy, which I was once a part of, is that Russia and China are actually a part of the ongoing negotiations to get a new nuclear deal and are supportive of it. So it goes to remind you how strange geopolitics can be. The update on this is that talks have resumed. today in Vienna between the Iranians and the P5 plus one, that's the United States and our European allies and Russia and China. The U.S. still not in direct talks with Iran, but some indications by Iran that that may happen this round. A lot of mood music that something could happen in the next couple weeks in terms of a deal, including the United States under Secretary of State Tony Blinken's leadership signed several waivers that allowed for sanctions to be relieved on some of Iran's

civilian nuclear activities. This is something that was a part of the last deal and is seen as, I think, kind of a confidence-building measure to demonstrate that we're serious by wanting to get a new deal. Joe Biden also talked to the Israeli prime minister for the first time in a while and Lufthali Bennett. In that call, Biden also indicated that he'd be traveling to Israel later this year. That'll be interesting, Alex, in an election year. But the Israeli government continues to put out statements against the Iran deal. They're not nearly as hyperbolic or histrionic as Bibi Nanyahu's statements used to be. And frankly, we've had this kind of chorus of Israeli security experts say that pulling out of the deal was bad for Israel.

Nonetheless, we saw, you know, some of the usual suspects laying down their markers, APEC putting out statements opposing a return to a deal, the hawkish, if you want to call on that, chairman of the farm relations for the Democrats, Bob Menendez, who posed the deal the first time around, also warning against this. Alex, the way I wanted to put this question to you is, we all know what the Iran deal is. We've litigated exhaustively the terms of it. We've seen what it was like with the deal. We've seen what it's like without. You'll recall a massive political fight in 2015 when this deal was reached for lasting months, right?

You'll recall it as well. I, yeah, years later, I saw it as really former Mossad operatives, like, you know, spying on me because of it. But anyway, what do you think that? I mean, they're like a dime a dozen, then. Yeah, I mean, who among us has not had that? Who among us? But what do you think, how do you think that the political debate and fall out and focus on this will be this time around, you know, the sequel of the Iran deal versus last time? Do you think it'll be as intense or just kind of, eh, we've already seen this movie?

No, I don't think it'll be as intense. I mean, part of it was so motivated by, it was such a vindictive maneuver when it was made, you know, like when it was reversed. And it was so much part of a broader portfolio just destroying everything that Obama did, right? Really, in principle, that was it. I mean, of course, yes. There were detractors.

But really, I mean, Trump's goal was to just destroy everything Obama had built. And so it became, there was an emotional, there was kind of an emotional center at the heart of all that maneuvering, I think. Now it's kind of like, I'm sort of in a little bit of disbelief that we're even negotiating, given the fact that this is clearly a political football that gets moved around from administration to administration. And if you're looking at, you know, Joe Biden's candidacy in 2024, are you sure he's going to be around to make good on the terms of the deal? But simply because it's been, you know, it's been agreed upon and then reversed and we're now back at the negotiating table, it sort of has a, you know, if it's Tuesday, it must be dot, dot quality to it. I mean, I think, look, I don't want to say only negative things about our country and our audience's appetite for, you know, the specifics of very important negotiations. but I think this one is one where there's going to be certain corners that rejoice in a deal being made. And actually, hopefully, the fact that it won't, I don't think, be hugely impactful increases its chances of survival, right?

The less it's a shiny object, the greater, you know, it's like Obamacare. It's like you just keep it around long enough. People get used to it and it stops having the bank. Like nobody's talking about repealing Obamacare at this point, right? Well, that's, you know, I think that would be the advice I'd give on the argument to make for them, which is that in the same way that once people tried to repeal Obamacare, it looked better. Yeah. Tearing up the JCPUA, the Iran deal made it look a lot better. Their argument should just be, hey, look, it was working.

Trump teared it up and look what happened. The Iranians almost got a nuclear weapon and we almost into war a couple times. Let's just go back to this thing and move on, right? And no reason to drag it out, you know. Yeah. Just keep it quiet. Just do it. Keep it quiet.

and like, let's just pretend everybody thinks it's still not in place. Don't tell the GOP. Yes. Well, it would be, you know, it would be a success that could, you know, excite progressives, which is something that Joe Biden hasn't had on foreign policy in a while because Afghanistan, of course, was a complicated piece of business. Another success that he announced this week was the killing of ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Kareishi.

I think I got that. I think you did. It rolled off your tongues. very malefluous. You know, this is a character I first learned about back in 2014 because he was kind of the leader of the effort to commit genocide against the Yazidis. That's the kind of guy this is a minority inside of Iraq. He was killed in a U.S. counterterrorism raid on Wednesday in northwest Syria, which is a region of Syria we don't usually operate in. The most substantial raid we've done in the country since the 2019 operation that killed the last ISIS leader, I think the much greater

known founder of ISIS, really Baghdadi. Koreshi blew himself up with a suicide vest, presumably, as U.S. forces approached, which killed a number of women and children with him, according to U.S. officials. Alex, what do we make of this? Does this, you know, this an event that once would have been, I think, a big story. Yeah. Felt like it kind of came and went in a day or two. do you think people are still following the ISIS fight still understand there's a threat from ISIS?

Like, what was your reaction? Well, I mean, I guess I don't really understand the magnitude of the threat from ISIS, right? On one hand, it's ISIS, right? We know just our lizard brain tells us that is not a good organization. And, you know, the cutting off of its head is, in theory, a good thing for national security. But it sounds, at least, you know, one of the things about ISIS, which always seems so infallible, was the idea. that it's like a hydra. You cut off one head, another one grows. And so you'll never actually be able to dismantle the entire operation because of the cellular organization. And I guess I wonder,

you know, in your understanding of this, Ben, like, ISIS doesn't, isn't a caliphate. It's a caliphate in name only, right? It has no holdings as such. And I remember at the beginning of, you know, the dawn of Al-Qaeda and then certainly with ISIS, everyone talked about the new model of terrorism being one where there was no titular leadership. There was no real leadership. Everything was, you know, a grassroots organization and could therefore never be dismantled. Has ISIS's defeat in a way disproven that theory that that's the new model of terrorism? Do you still need a leader to actually be successful?

Because it sounds like while Kariashi is certainly, I think, a big deal for the Biden administration, it did not, I think, really register, you know, broadly. It's not like he's going to be able to run on that for re-election, though his seizure and killing was dramatic or his death was dramatic. But I kind of just wonder meaningfully from, you know, national security standpoint. Does it like, what's the model? What do we learn from this? I think, look, Baghdadi, the first, you know, ISIS leader was killed.

He was associated with the establishment of the caliphate in those successes. He kind of became an iconic figure. he's the guy who declared the caliphate when they controlled all this territory in Iraq and Syria. So he was both an operational leader and more of a symbolic leader than this guy was, right? So I don't think that this is comparable to taking out someone like that who is seen as the, you know, kind of at the vanguard of what ISIS was doing. And the reality is right now ISIS poses a threat largely in the region, in Syria and in Iraq. And their ability to project power has been diminished by this relentless campaign they've been under. Look, a leader matters, right? It's the person who knows, you know, where all the trains are running. To me, the benefit might also be that they went to his compound, so they got a bunch information, presumably, hard drives phones that might tell you a lot about the current state of ISIS. So it doesn't have the same impact as it once would have because ISIS is not what it once was. But it's an indication that this is still something we're doing. But yeah, I was struck by the

fact that, you know, in a healthy way, America may be moving beyond this kind of hyper fixation on the war on terrorism that something like this happens. Well, and that the war on terror is changing, too, right? Yeah, like that, that I'm just looking forward to what they find from Karashi's house. Didn't they find a bunch of like far side cartoons at Osama bin Laden's residence? Yeah, and there was, I mean, you know, I have to go back and check. There were rumors of porn. Yeah.

You know. What are you going to check? Do you have copies of what they're? to what do you mean by that? I did, I did, I once did. I once did up these copies. I got. I once did have these copies, but, you know,

like my memory's hazy. Okay, so we're going to, you know, turning to a different flavor of extremism. We've obviously dealt with like a far right anti-vax, Q&N and the rest of it here in the U.S. You've covered this a lot on the circus, getting out and kind of going into these communities. We're going to talk about Canada.

Alex, which we don't talk about enough. I love Canada on this show. I have a lot of friends in Canada. I know how you feel about Canada. We can come back to that. Now, if you have been watching the corner of your eye, you've noticed that there's been a massive demonstration strike from Canadian truckers centered in Ottawa, the capital. The mayor of Ottawa had to declare a state of emergency in response to more than a week of truckers protests that also involved them. honking horns and keeping people up all night, you know, obviously disrupting traffic, people urinating on statues, some racist signs. You know, this started as an opposition to a vaccine mandate for truckers coming from Canada, the United States, and it kind of morphed into a bunch

other stuff and opposition to Justin Trudeau and the kind of, you know, pandemic fatigue that we've seen here. The latest development is that the road linking, the busiest link, frankly, between Canada and the United States, the ambassador bridge to Detroit, which the auto industry depends on for a lot of traffic. Truckers are blocking that, so now this is potentially having even greater economic effects. It's already obviously hurt the economy in Ottawa. Justin Trudeau has drawn a line. You won't negotiate with the truckers. He said they're trying to blockade our economy, our democracy, and our fellow citizens' daily lives, and this has to stop. Alex, do these Canadian trekkers remind you of MAGA people that you've seen in the United States,

talked to in the United States? Are you reassessing whether Canada is on the list of places that you might move to if America descends into an authoritarian dystopia? What is going on in Canada? This is the right-wing's version of intersectionality, I think, right? We don't want, we don't want that. vaccine mandates were racists. I'm sure some of these, I don't know where the urinating on the statues comes from, but this is like, you know, basically their version of that. Yeah, absolutely.

This reminds me of, you know, I spoke with members of militia in Georgia about two weeks before the election who basically outlined on camera their plans to stop the election if Joe Biden won it, stop it in some way with arms. And we saw the harvest of that. on January 6th. And the truckers absolutely remind me of that. First of all, you know, there's a generalized rage, right? And you see that borne out in their list of demands, which have just gone up the like, you know, flagpole from basically repeal the vaccine mandate to all COVID protections need to be reversed. They just completely outlandish demands. A willful disconnect with the world of facts, figures, and reality,

but also a camaraderie and a certain perverted joy in all of this. Like, I remember after I talked to these guys, and we had a remarkably very upfront, candid conversation, they walked away and saying, we're going to scare this shit out of everybody who watches that. And there's a really nefarious joy that they glean or they gain from really making people scared,

making people uncomfortable, fucking shit up, basically. And that's what the truckers are doing for. I mean, they love that this is all unfolding in a kind of resident. A lot of these are kind of residential neighborhoods. You know, there are civil servants that live in this area that are whose lives have been upended by this constant noise and traffic and chaos. And that's part of the whole thing, right? that there are people installing hot tubs.

There's like a sort of rowdy carnival-like atmosphere, which is something you see at every Trump rally, right? Hot tubs and bouncy houses? Bouncy houses, yeah, yeah. I mean, it reminds me so much. Like, if you ever go to a Trump rally, and I'm not suggesting you should, but if you do, you'll be struck by,

and I wrote about this for the Atlantic, it has this kind of old-timey revival quality. Like, so much of this is based in a real feeling of disconnection. and loneliness and the crumbling of institutions like the church. Like people have found belonging and purpose and unity. And even if that unity and belonging and purpose is rooted in something inherently dark and destructive, it's still uniting them. And they are happy to be together.

And that's why the bond is so unbreakable with Trump space and Trump or, you know, the right-wing truckers in Canada. They are, the purpose is not just about COVID. It's not just about, you know, getting. and Trudeau's being thorns in his side and getting COVID mandates relaxed. It's about being together in this movement and having this time in the sun and enjoying it. And I see absolute cross-pollination between that movement there and what's happening in the United States. And it would not surprise me at all to see an exactly similar thing happen here in the U.S.

Just like, you know, the anti-mask protests. I was in Australia this summer. don't go there. Sorry, I love Australia. And there were anti-mask protests in the street. And all the Australians I knew said, this is because of you fucking Americans. People watch each other do these crazy stunts. And the more attention they get, the more it's like, oh, let's do that here. That would be a good thing to do. It's been interesting, yeah, because there's been expressions of solidarity from like the usual suspects you'd expect here on the right. A Canadian friend even sent me a picture like someone was towing a, you know, a plane was towing like a, like a, you know,

letters in the air in Florida, of course, you know, the capital of MAGA saying, you know, Canadian truckers rule. One of the interesting things is the Canadian right isn't as consolidated around this insanity as the American right. And kind of coincident to these protests, the leader of the conservatives, Aaron O'Toole stepped down because essentially he'd lost a vote of no confidence in his party. He was like a more moderate face of that party. And he was, he kind of said on the way out, you know, it was kind of like implicit statements of like, we should not be crazy, you know. But this may, you know, this may split the Canadian right, or maybe it'll consolidate things around crazy. And, you know, you're right, they're going to,

they're going to be feeding off of the support they get from the U.S. Another place where there's a crazy populist right-wing leader in the United Kingdom. So, Alex, we're going to start. We're going to get, this gets a little darker, but I thought on a lighter, note, a couple of Boris Johnson updates. There was a report that he told his new director of communications that I will survive. And he told him this by singing lines from the glory gainer song as he was appointed to the post. He's, of course... You say that, like, you say that with an inflection at the end of your voice, as if that's surprise. Is it something about the Prime Minister of England singing 70s disco songs to his new communications director odd to you, Ben? Well, the question

Did Obama not do that to... Well, he had a better singing voice, but the question I have for you is, would you rather attend a Boris Johnson hosted garden party at number 10 at the height of lockdown, or would you rather be in a room where Boris Johnson was singing to you, I Will Survive? Oh, my God. No question the private concert with Brian Bojo. I actually did the show a favor and Googled some of the lyrics to I Will Survive.

And what's so interesting is it's a... It's a survival, it's a survival song, obviously. It's a rebuke. I feel bad for the communications director because the chorus of it is, go on now, go walk out the door, just turn around now, because you're not welcome anymore. This is the new comms director. Yeah.

It just, he's a real, he marks us to the beat of his own drum, Bojo. I'm just going to guess, too, that there's not a lot of shelf life for a comms director for Boris Johnson these days. It's like being Kanye West's press secretary. Yeah, you're going to be blamed and thrown under the bus for something. Now, one of those things is where it takes a little bit of a darker turn. In recent days, there was a scary event with Kier Starmor, the labor leader and friend of the pod, David Lammy, who were kind of surrounded by an angry mob who were shouting at them, calling them traitors, calling them, you know, pedophile protectors. Now, the backstory is that Boris Johnson made a shot at Starrmer in Parliament recently, accusing him of failing to. You know, pedophile protectors. Now, the back story is that Boris Johnson made a shot at Starrmer in Parliament recently, accusing him of failing to. to prosecute a former prominent British television personality, Jimmy Seville, forgive me if I'm pronouncing that wrong. But this guy had become famous in the 60s, but was later revealed to be a child abuser. And prosecutors had decided not to prosecute him because of insufficient evidence.

Starrmer was a prosecutor, but did make that decision. You know, the accusation, including from some in the conservative party, some in Boris Johnson's party, is that, you know, by stirring up this kind of rage at Starmer, he put him potentially risk, and people saw that on television. One MP, and Boris Johnson's own party tweeted, PM, apologize, please let's stop this drift towards a Trumpian-style politics from becoming the norm. We are better than this. That was conservative, Tobias Elwood. Alex, do you see Boris, he's reaching for different ways to survive, singing,

ugly charges of protecting pedophiles? I believe it's known as the kitchen sink strategy. Exactly. I was going to say, how do you see this working out for Boris? I don't know, man. I mean, if history is any guide, I think he survives. I mean, I just truly don't know. I think politics in this day and age rewards insanity.

Everybody's become 5 to 17% more crazy around the world, everywhere, right? Canada, the nice place is like a hotbed of insurrection. like the Prime Minister of England, you and I grew up in the 80s and 90s, Ben. Yeah. The prime, what is happening? Like, Borris, first of all, I still am not over the fact that Boris Johnson is the prime minister. And I just think we cling to this idea of sort of institutional gentility that people are going to play by the rules because the rules are the thing that got them into office. You know, the system got them there.

The system is what they're tasked with managing. And yet, we seem to only want people who. who break things, you know? And I would say that to some degree on both sides of the aisle. There's just this desire for, you know, someone who is not, is going to tear the shackles off. And, you know, Johnson's incredibly idiosyncratic. He's completely unafraid. And I think, you know, politicians who are completely unafraid and willing to do anything are formidable adversaries, I guess, in a way. I don't know. What do you think? I think, I mean, he's completely unafraid and willing to do you think. I think, I mean, he's

clearly taking a big hit. I think that the, you know, I'm going to take a page of what you said earlier, because I mentioned the same thing in a recent Atlantic piece about the need for joy in the fight against Trumpism here. The same thing applies to Trudeau and Starmor, right? Like Boris Johnson at least used to make things look fun. Now he took a little too far with the partying. I think Starmers got a great line of critique here that Boris Johnson cares more about himself than you, right? That's a good line to use against someone. But I do think that it can't just be kind of grim-faced anger. And I'm not saying that's what Starmor or Trudeau are doing, but we get offended and that's our reaction. You know, with Johnson, you can go out and with humor. You make fun of the guy. Like, you know,

have some fun in the fight against this brand of populism, right? Create the same kind of community that they're feeling around the effort to defeat them, right? I think that's what's going to be necessary for some like Starmor to go to, to not just prosecute the case. against Boris, but to build a governing majority for next time, you know? Yeah, humor is distinctly missing. And I think I understand why because some of the stuff is so serious. It's really hard to be funny about it. But, you know, probably the biggest punch that was ever landed on Donald Trump was when Barack Obama talked about him starring in the new season of Orange is a New Black or whatever it was that he said at the

White House Correspondents dinner. Humor is an incredibly potent weapon in all these fights. Well, we'll, no good way to transition to just a tragic. Speaking of something that's not at all, honey. Tommy's really good at these transitions, and I'm, so I've been trying. But on this one, you know, when you, just be you. I'm just going to be me. You're the host. You're much more expert at hosting.

This is your show, brother. Look, you and I, you know, have been friends for a long time. And one thing that we've long talked about is Burma. You come from a Burmese background on your mom's side. written about it extensively. I worked on it. You actually interviewed me back in the day from Burma. And we've obviously watched, this is basically just past the one-year anniversary of the coup that brought the Burmese military back into power and saw Aung San Suu Kyi and basically elected government scattered, thrown in prison. It's been a rough year for the people

of Burma, people of Myanmar. Yes, the military is in power, but everything is going wrong. And chiefly, the Burmese people are suffering. Thousands of people have either been killed or disappeared or imprisoned. But also, you know, the economy is collapsing. People aren't working. Schools are literally closed. The currency is plunged.

The economy is 30% smaller than it was before the coup. their blackouts. The economists had a good summary of basically all the ways in which this has been horrible for the people of Burma. And though, they've shown much more resistance than I think the coup leaders thought there would be. There's a kind of unity, government, and exile. There's some armed opposition in parts of the country. What is your sense, Alex? As someone who cares about this personally, who's looked at it professionally, how should we be thinking about the future and in the timeline at which this nightmare might end and and and how how are you thinking about this as someone you know in the past the diaspora was important to supporting

on xanxan chi and her political part of the nlde um what are your reflections on a year out from the coup oh i mean it's it's just burma is so shrouded and heartbreak in my you know in my mind for all obvious reasons um i think this situation I mean, it's so bad what's happening there, right? I've been incredibly heartened to see how, you know, students and activists have responded so courageously, so gravely, against really all odds. But I think the whole, you know, the clarity of the late 90s was pretty profound. There was Al-San Suu Kyi, this woman who had won the Nobel Prize, the Peace Prize, in 91, from under house arrest, couldn't accept the prize.

You know, her story was so, it was like Star Wars, right? Like there was the good side and the bad side. And the world was able to kind of focus on Burma because I think those lines were so clear. She was such a compelling hero. And the evil of the military hunter was so tangible in a way. It was so easily read the situation. And then Aung San Sici comes to power effectively.

And is someone that effectively sanctions the genocide of the Rohingya minority. and the Muslim minority in the western part of southwestern part of Burma. And to try to placate the military, to try to show the military that she wasn't an existential threat to them. Well, and also. That bet didn't work out. Yeah, but also because there's a strong strain of Buddhist nationalism that is like rampant throughout Burma that I read about in my book. Do go check it out. It's available in paperback.

Future face. Check it out. Future face. And, you know, and something darker was revealed about something more. complicated was revealed about the soul of Aung San Suu Kyi. And indeed, the soul of Burma, right? Like, I was so ashamed. And so now we have a reversal of fortunes again, but we don't have the clarity of a heroin and an evildoer. We don't know, I mean, certainly, Suu Kyi's, you know, government effectively was better, I think. I mean, unless you're a Rohingya or you're

a Muslim in the country. Yeah, it was better. There was, right? But like, it wasn't, I mean, they were still genocidal or looking the other way or diminishing genocide, right, at best. And that, not just being inconvenient for the storytelling of Burma, also makes, you know, the outrage over the coup like a little bit less. And not for me, but for other people, I think urgent because the people that were toppled were doing bad shit too. Well, I was going to ask you a question, though, which is that the hopeful sign, if you follow the opposition that has emerged, you've seen Burmese politicians, you know, Buddhist Burmese really unite with the ethnic minority groups in the country, right? And for people don't follow this, you know, there are a lot of ethnic groups in Myanmar, some of whom have been fighting against the government against the military there for decades. And who are trained and have weapons in many cases.

Which is important when you're fighting the Burmese military. Yes. But I will say that that national unity government has also made positive statements about the Rohingya. Like there seems to be a recognition that, hey, if we want democracy, we have to actually all come together across different ethnic groups and religious groups. That may just be that they're forced to do that by circumstance. But that does feel like if there's something positive that's come out of this, it's the forging of an identity among the opposition that is not just about one human being on. and that might be on a more diverse and inclusive view of a stronger coalition because it's not the worship of one, but, you know, the protection of all. Yeah, I'm hopeful, except that oftentimes

when the sort of more enlightened forces come to the fore, the infighting and the squabbling can be pretty intense, but perhaps because the stakes are so high and because everything's so hard one in Burma, the urgency will be there to really unite in a concerted effort. I mean, I am having a hard time saying something positive, but I completely agree with you, Ben. The, you know, it is heartwarming. Heartwarming is to, it's too mealy-mouthed a term, but it's invigorating to see that happening with those groups. I just, the junta is, you know, General Lang, they're so bad. They're so absolutely fucking evil. And they have so much firepower. and they will shoot children in the streets.

And when you're faced with that, any kind of, you know, grassroots citizen-led, activist-led organizing is up against a very steep challenge. My heart is with them, obviously, but, you know, it's been a long, it's the 20th and 21st centuries have been long ones. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, hopefully, you know, it gets better as it goes. I mean, the one thing I would say is that governments should not normalize this coup

regime, you know, not just the U.S. and Europe, but so far, you know, ASEAN, the Southeast Asian neighbors who are very important to Myanmar. They've been strong in some ways. They have not allowed Minang-Lang, the junta leader, to come to their summits. I think they could go farther and just kind of icing out Myanmar altogether as long as this government's there. The reality is, not only is this a terrible government for the people of Myanmar, but it's not exactly a stable place. In fact, you've seen a surge and, you know, spike in the drug trade and obviously the refugee flows. So when things are going poorly in Myanmar, it actually is bad for the neighbors. So they have, you know. Yeah, well, it's all roads lead back to Xi Jinping.

Yes. To the beginning of our conversation. Well, let's end there. I mean, you flagged this story in Axios, kind of summing up that hasn't been the easiest beat to cover the Olympics that have started. A Dutch reporter had a live shot that was mysteriously ended by a plainclothes security guy who had a badge that read public safety volunteer, which was a nice way of looking at it. We've heard other international journalists say they were followed, harassed. In recent years, it's been harder for journalists to get visas. Alex, you're a journalist. Who went to China? Who went to China? What happens when a country that is, you know, one of the two richest and most powerful

countries in the world and has over a billion people, it becomes literally impossible to do journalism there. And it's like a great strategic importance to all of our lives. And to our lives, to markets, to entertainment. I mean, you know, and how do you cover events like the Olympics that are basically propaganda vehicles for the regime if you can't, you know. Right. That's the thing.

If they're like this over the Olympics, like what was it, a live shot of like a bobsledding? Like what were they going to see that they shouldn't have seen? It's a terrible indicator, especially when you compare it to Beijing's posture in 2008 when they had the Summer Olympics. When it was, I don't know if you remember that, Ben, but it was like, welcome to China. It was like a big tourism ad for China. And it was like, this is the land of, you know, golden eternity and, you know, prosperity. you know, great history. And, you know, it was like the great wall, the terracotta soldiers came to life and were extending their arms welcoming you to, you know, to relish, to roll around in the history

of China. And now it's like, you know, the cameramen are getting clocked in the face. And, you know, it's just, it's symbolic of the way the world's going, I think, a little bit, right? Like, the Chinese don't feel like they need to prove anything to the West. The Chinese feel like they have the winning hand that they can run the tables and like fuck you and the fourth estate. And it is a terrifying indicator of, you know, the freedoms that they intend on, I don't even think preserving is the word. It's a terrifying indicator of their attitude towards freedom in general, right? This is what they're doing to journalists in the West at the Olympics. I mean, what do we think the future looks like for those inside China and,

for the Uyghurs and for the Taiwanese. I mean, what do we, what do we think, but terrible thoughts? It's, it's, and in such a short time. Yeah. I mean, I think it also means that media companies, we've, you know, corporations, everything has to be rethinking their operations in, in China, because it's, this stuff is going to get worse, not better, right? And so, you know, the capacity to put up with this because you want in the market or

because you want to broadcast something or what have you, you know, like, it's just going to get harder and not easier. And like so much media, whether it's streaming media, whether it's the entertainment industrial complex is contingent, is predicated, is dying for the Chinese market. So it just complicates that effort even more. Yeah. I am not in China yet. My sales are mostly in America.

Well, one place you could go is North Korea where, you know, just to end here, Kim Jong-un, was recently, after kind of being out of sight a lot recently, appeared in some propaganda videos, having lost a lot of weight. He's riding a white horse kind of into the sunset or through a forest. One shows him in a clip on the beach on the horse, looking at the sunset. It's very romantic. It reminded me of a sandals-like, all-inclusive getaway resort in Florida. Only it was Kim Jong-un.

Yeah. And North Korea and presumably not accessible to you or I for that resort. Pyongyang's not usually known for its all-inclusive resorts. Not yet. Yeah. If Trump had just had a couple more years, maybe we would have gotten there, a Trump hotel. If there is one, the first one will be a Trump hotel. I mean, I can see a partnership, brand partnership.

There's a lot of, they're aligned. Mar-a-Lago Pyongyangyang. Yeah. It works for me. I think I can see it. But I do want to let you know that in the 2010 to 2013, somewhere in there, my screensaver, my desktop was Putin on a white horse. Do you remember that photo?

He was shirtless. Oh, yeah, that's a good one. That's a classic. Yeah. That's there. We're all, we're all singing from the same hymn book. If you are a despotic leader and you want to, you know, gin up your positives, get on a horse. I don't know.

Get on a horse. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, to me, it's a lot outdated, but, you know, maybe it still resonates out there. I don't know. It's romantic. Well, Alex, thank you for doing this. So people can follow you and all these, what's coming up? Circus, MSNBC. Well, I'll be on MSNBC a lot next week and the following week. I will be, we begin shooting the circus at the end of the month. The season premiere is on March 6th. You can always find me on Twitter at Alex Wagner. And if you're on the North Fork of Long Island and feel like pan roasting some sausages with me for dinner tonight, come on over.

I would love that. I would love that. I'm a few hours away, but, you know, I'll see what I can do. Planes are fast, Ben. Supersonic travel these days. All right. Well, thanks so much, Alex, for doing this. We really appreciate it.

Thank you, my friend. It was always. It was always. It's always good to talk with you. And it was great to talk with you. Well, I will see you somewhere. MSNBC or sausages on the North Shore, one of these places. God willing.

Okay, I am very pleased to welcome to the podcast of the Prime Minister of Estonia, Kayakhalis. Prime Minister, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. So I want to start before we get to Russia, just to give people some context of Estonian politics, because your journey is kind of interesting and speaks to some of the challenges and putting coalitions together in your part of the world. We met when you had already received the most votes in a national election,

but you were not able to form a coalition that time, and it took the collapse of that government for you to finally take your position. Can you just explain a bit how you went from that first election to actually becoming prime minister? Well, yes, I worked as an attorney at law for most of my working life. And when I went to politics, the first time I got a personal mandate. But the second time after I had been already a member of European Parliament, I was running a party.

I was leader of the party. And my party won the elections. I got the most votes as a person, as a single electee. And then I tried to form a government. but all the other parties, well, they teamed against me or teamed up against me, so I didn't get to form a government at that time. And so after two years when the government collapsed, then I got this chance to put the government together.

But of course, that was the most difficult time, meaning that the first day I took office. I already had a government meeting. that I had to decide on restrictions because of COVID. And after that, we have one crisis after the other. COVID hasn't left us, but we have energy crisis, which means electricity prices, energy prices going really up and are disturbing or bringing up some huge issues for the people.

And we have the security crisis that we see unfolding around Ukraine and definitely very directly influencing or affecting us as well. Yeah, no, and for listeners, part of what was disruptive the first time was a far right party joining the coalition of the center, so it was good that you were able to weather that. So shifting to the current security crisis, before we get into the issues, I'm just curious, what is the mood in Estonia among the people? How worried are people? How closely are they following things?

how much do they feel like their own security is implicated and not just the people of Ukraine? Well, we don't see any direct threat at our borders, any military threat we don't see. And people are somewhat, I would say, tranquil about this, not really nervous about this. What is happening there? but we are following very closely because it definitely has effect on us, on our economy, on our, you know, security and also on the possible asylum seekers that might come and everything. So the bigger picture is really, really not that good. And our people don't really see the direct threat, but at the same time, we see what Russia is doing around Ukraine and we look at it with the great worry. So we try to help Ukraine in every way we can politically, but also with different means.

We try to support them with their defense. because if you look at the map, then Ukraine is in the middle of Europe. And it's not only a fight about Ukraine, but it's also a fight about the values. Why Russia is doing this or why Russia has been doing this for some time, if we think back, you know, Crimea, if we think back on Donbass. And when they started this was because of Maidan. And why? Because it's not about, you know, the military.

military power, but it's about Ukraine going to the democratic way so that they have actually, you know, democratic elections and they, you know, sort of fall to the Western values. And this is a threat, a direct threat to Russia when they see that it's a threat to how they operate or Kremlin, I would say, operate. There are two things that they are worried about. you know, what is different. One is that in a democratic country, you know, you have elections from time to time. If I make mistakes as a prime minister and every leader of a country makes mistakes or something that the public doesn't really like, so I will not be elected the next time.

And this is, you know, I'm held accountable on the elections. But he doesn't have that threat, because, you know, in the autocratic regimes, you are there and then you are there. And the other thing, what they are worried about is the state being there for the people. So, I mean, every decision what we make is like, how does it make life better for the people? And the state serves the people. Whereas in autocratic regimes, it serves the leader or, you know, the autocratic. and people around him. And this is something that he wants to prevent.

And so all the countries that go to the direction of a democratic, you know, way of life, it's a threat that they see. And causing this disruption will prevent them joining European Union, will prevent them joining NATO. We'll also prevent them doing the reforms that they need to do in order to get the corruption and another, you know, get the country clear and good on the reforms path, I would say. Yeah, no, that definitely brings true. You mentioned NATO and obviously part of the debate around this, part of the Russian demands around this have been no future NATO enlargement, no membership for Ukraine, but also NATO kind of pulling.

back its posture to 1997 to kind of pre-enlargement, pre-Estonia joining the alliance. And I was wondering for listeners mainly in the U.S., could you explain how important has NATO membership been to Estonia? And what would it mean for Estonia if, you know, essentially the demand was met to kind to pull back to a previous NATO force posture or to restrict any military exercises in and NATO countries on the east? Well, yes, we have been, we were independent country since 1918 and we lost our independence because of Russia and the Soviet aggression in 1940.

So this is the history. So we were 50 years under the rule of Soviet Union. And so when we regained our independence in 1991, the basic principle of our foreign policy was that we are never alone again. And what does it mean? It means that we are active participants in all the organizations that actually are a guarantee to our independence. and are being us sovereign state. So we moved fast really in this regard because we lost the independence in 1940s

because we thought that we are, you know, off okay on our own, being a neutral country. But being just a very small country with 1.3 million inhabitants plus in the geographical position that we are, we basically have two choices, whether to be with the West or to be with Russia. If we think that we are alone, you know, we don't need anybody,

then our aggressive neighbor takes over. We have seen this in the past. So our principle was that never alone again, that meant that we applied for the European Union membership, but also in the NATO membership. In NATO, our defense here is based on two pillars. One is our own defense, that we invest more than 2% of GDP 2, 2.4%, to be precise,

and collective defense of NATO. And what it really means, it means that Article 5 of NATO, which says that attack on one is attack on all, that if Russia attempts something towards us, it also means that he attacks the US, for example, being allies in NATO. And that is a big deterrence for our aggressive neighbor, but also a big part of our security. As I've used this example several times, but I think it's a good example that, you know, if you have a school bully and you are a small country like we are, then it helps if you have big friends so that, you know, the school bully, you know,

knows that if I pick up a fight with them, because I'm stronger than they are, but am I really up to picking a fight with those big guys? And if not, then I'm taking up maybe other ways. Yeah. And so essentially, the idea of, you know, the U.S. agreeing with Russia that in some fashion, and, you know, troops will be removed and NATO won't have any posture in this eastern countries, won't even have military exercises on your soil. To you guys, that's kind of an existential question. I think sometimes people hear these concepts and don't understand why that might be problematic to some members of the NATO alliance. Yeah, yeah, true.

I mean, if we have, even around the, you know, the European Union table, Sometimes I think that, you know, discussions about defense, they are like the theoretical discussions for some of the allies. Whereas for us, it is an existential issue that we are dealing every day. So it's not the theoretical thing. I mean, if you would ask me as a prime minister, would I want to invest to defense or the education system? Of course, I would rather invest the education system. But again, being in the geographical position where we are, we just don't have other choice because we want to be independent country.

And as coming to the military exercises, if, again, you look at the map, we are a small country. If the agreement is that there are no military exercises close to NATO's border, we are practically the border, which means the whole country. And then we can't practice how we could act in case somebody is attacking us. And, you know, what has to be kept in mind also, the attitude towards agreements on the Western side versus the Russian side is totally different. Russia wants to get the agreement with the West because that's already something that

that's the achievement. because Russia knows that in the West, one of the principles is that, you know, agreements have to be followed, Bhaktas and Sevanda, which means that the West NATO will follow, you know, we agreed and we don't do this. This is our promise. But Russia is not keeping their side of the promises or the agreements. So they just want us to keep the side of the promises, which is detrimental to our defense. there was Anthony Blinken's very good speech in Berlin, where he also pointed out this agreement regarding the nuclear arsenal of Ukraine, that are they happy that they gave this up?

Are people in Crimea and Donbass happy now that they gave this up by this agreement? Because Russia is not keeping their side of it. Yeah. Well, looking forward, I guess there are more than two scenarios, but to simplify it, there's a scenario of a Russian invasion, and then there's a scenario of some de-escalation. In this scenario where there is a Russian, a pretty significant Russian military intervention, what are you worried about in terms of Estonian security? In other words, do you worry about a situation, let's say there's sanctions in response? Cyber attacks, propaganda campaigns, influence operations, interference in Estonian politics, you know, short of a military conflict.

Because I think sometimes people think, oh, there's a war, and then there's places where there is no conflict. But Estonia could find itself in this in-between space. migrants, you mentioned, refugees from Ukraine. What are you concerned about in the possibility of a conflict? You're very correct that even if we don't have a big conflict, we might have a series of small conflicts. And I think the small conflicts are much easier to organize, but they are just as bad, if I may say, you know, cyber attacks. If, you know, cyber attacks. If, you know, electricity grid is attacked, or, you know, we are still connected to Russia with electricity grid. So, I mean, always when you have the connections, it also might hurt you the other side.

There's a good book by Mark Leonard, called The Age of Unpeace, actually talking about these things, that, you know, in the global world, we are more. connected than ever, but it really matters to whom you are connected to, because the other side of the connection might also hurt you. So if you are not connected to friends, make sure that, I mean, be aware that the other side might use this connection in a different way. So, of course, the military conflict we are very worried about. If, you know, they are really attacking Ukraine, Kiev, have, if they're making them moves, what we have seen before regarding Crimea, Donbass, you know, it's very hard to go back. I mean, because when something is taken, then already, you know, the discussions will be that let them not move forward. But nobody really

discusses that, well, well, wait, shouldn't Crimea be giving back and Donbass and all. these things. So this is clearly they're moving one step further, which means closer to us as well. But the other side of it is the implications to our, or to the whole Europe, actually. One is, you know, the war being really close. And again, if you look at the map, Ukraine is in the center of Europe, really. So it has an effect. And the other side is, of course, economical effect that we are afraid of, plus all the multiple conflicts we see or so even during summertime.

And when it gets warmer, we probably see it again, a hybrid attack on the Belarusian European border, pushing the migrants over the border, which is overwhelming the systems of, of police and border guard in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Also something like that could happen also our Russian border. We don't see it right now, but it's also a possibility. Cyber attacks, definitely something that we should be afraid of looking into.

So we are trying to. to make also preparations as much as we can for such cases. And what do you see as the, what would be the best case scenario? You know, what's the optimistic scenario? Is it this some path of de-escalation through the European negotiations that President Macron and others are having? Do you see a way out of this that is, that has Vladimir Putin taking the pathway of, of not further militarily intervening in Ukraine?

Well, I wouldn't, first of all, I wouldn't say that they are negotiations because I think negotiating is already a trap because you have to offer something. You know, there were, I think this is exactly the case of the Russian negotiation tactics that first they demand the maximum, maximum. they don't neeliskly ask but demand something that has never been theirs. And then second is that they present ultimatums. And third is that, you know, they are already there that people in the West are offering them something. And then even if they don't attack, you know, do the military attack in Ukraine,

they have already received something that they didn't have before, you know, be it, you know, military exercises or something that they didn't have. have before. So we should be very, very careful. I think we should have this strategic patience talking to Russia. I think it's good, you know, having the dialogue, but not really negotiating. Because, you know, negotiations always mean, I mean, you know, giving in something. Although there's also, I mean, years ago, I read a book by Chris Voss. It was never split the difference regarding the negotiation tactics of the FBI hostage crisis. So he said there that in the business, you usually negotiate like take two and I take two.

It's win-win. But you can't have such negotiation tactics when there are hostages. To kill two, I take two, we are fine. So I think we should have this same attitude towards Russia. that has, as, you know, this Christmas. Yeah, it might get through. Well, look, thanks so much for talking to this. Before you go, I wouldn't ask you one question to just lighten things at the end.

You're the kind of leader, I think, that a lot of our audience kind of roots for in the global political debates. What do you, we've talked about Ukraine and you've dealt with COVID. What's been your favorite part about being prime minister? What do you like about your job on a day-to-day basis? Yeah. Well, what I like about the job is that I get to work with some of the smartest people in Estonia. And by the end of this prime ministership, I will be very smart because they draft me all kinds of memos about all the questions that I want to know. Also, you know, the memos are really, really good.

but yeah so so I think this is this is something that is definitely positive yeah no I know the feeling being in government you just they're experts everywhere on any given topic you know you can just it's a very unique situation well we're we're thankful you could join us and and I know you're very busy best of luck with everything you're doing and and we'll be thinking about the people of Estonia going forward all the best thanks to Kayakhalis for giving us that perspective from Estonia and for being a sitting prime minister on POTSAT of the World. That's always exciting. Thanks Alex Wagner for guest hosting today. We continue to be thinking about Tommy, but grateful that Alex could step in today and feel that role so well.

And thank you, of course, for listening. We'll see you next week. Pod Save the World is a crooked media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our producer is Haley Mew. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Eleglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Yale-Fried, and Phoebe Bradford, who film and share our episodes as videos each week.