Pod Save the World - Tanks for Nothing

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

Tommy and Ben discuss a corruption scandal in Ukraine, the debate over sending tanks to Kyiv, Mike Pence gets in on the classified hoarding game, the worst parts of Mike Pompeo’s trash new book, protests in France, Jacinda Ardern’s legacy, Kenneth Roth’s Harvard saga, and the State Department’s war on fonts. Then, Ben is joined by Olesya Vartanyan, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group to talk about the escalating Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. 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 back to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. I'm looking at Ben's desk. He has a thoroughly dog-eared copy of Mike Pompeo's new book. Sounds like even has been an hour's in this thing. A true classic. Destined to take a place among some of the great works of fiction. Oh, fiction? That's a fiction.

Okay. Like, best in the brightest? No, no. Yeah, yeah. No, no. Actually, that's not true. we'll get to it, but part of what is so gross about the book is that it actually is all true. Yeah. Other than its self-regard.

It's boundless. Today, we got a lot of big news. There's the latest from Ukraine. The debate over tanks, which might have just been resolved. It's hard to tell. The classified document mess seems to be growing. It's engulfing more people. We've got all the news from Mike Papaya's new book, so you don't have to read it.

And I can't stress that enough. Please don't please. Don't read it. There's strikes in France, security in Burkina Faso, Jacinda Ardern, broke our hearts, Israel in human rights, a fight over fonts, and then some fun with Davos. And then, Ben, you did today's interview. What are folks going to hear about? So, yeah, today's interview is with Alessia Vartagnan, who's with the International

Crisis Group. We talk about the situation where essentially Azerbaijan and its proxies are blockading the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, this disputed territory that aren't. Armenia claims that is home to over 100,000 people. She walks through the kind of humanitarian crisis of these people being cut off from basic supplies like food and oil. We talk about the strange backstory of like how this came to be, what the Azerbaijan government is up to.

Also, how this interacts with the war in Ukraine because Russia is not there to provide support to Armenia, which it traditionally has, and how Europe is kind of trying to step into this vortex. So there's so many converging storylines. in this issue. It was worth unpacking a little bit. She gives a great on-the-ground perspective. That's cool. You talked to her in Tbilisi. She's in Tbilisi, and she covers basically those frozen conflicts in both Georgia and in Nogorno-Carbox. I have a very good friend here in L.A. who's originally from Tbilisi. Then she moved from Georgia to Georgia, but Atlanta, which is very

confusing. That's a little confusing for everybody. Very confusing. Great person. Okay, Ben. You might say she's a Georgian. She is a Georgian. Enough about Georgia. Let's start with Ukraine, where a lot has happened in the last week. For some sad news, last Wednesday, a helicopter crash east of Kiev killed 14 people, including Dennis Monastiersky, the interior minister, his first deputy and several other senior ministry officials. Monastirski is the most senior Ukrainian official killed since the conflict started. Investigators are still trying to figure out what happened. Today, Ben, I saw Zelensky announced a big staff shakeup in the wake of some corruption allegations.

I think the four deputy ministers and five regional governors quit or were pushed out, more likely. Bill Burns, CIA director, went to Kiev for meetings with President Zelensky, and then last week the U.S. announced another $2.5 billion armed shipment to Ukraine. And then in terms of news out of Russia, U.S. officials are keeping an eye on a suspected Russian spy ship that's hanging out near Hawaii. Fire them, I'd go for a defect. Yeah. It's not going to get better.

You just find a toll that you can park that ship on. It's the best opportunity you're ever going to have. The question is whether this ship is collecting signals, intelligence, monitoring ship movements or, like, could have one of those little mini submarines that's used to tap under sea cables. Also, Putin said that Russia's GDP declined only 2.5% last year, which is far less than what most experts estimated after sanctions were put in place. I guess there's probably a lot of reasons not to trust this data. But it does seem to match anecdotal accounts from people who have gone.

to Russia since the invasion started and have found things to be relatively normal. So when we pause here before we get to the big policy debate over tanks, curious what you make of these folks getting pushed out of the Ukrainian government based on corruption allegations. And if you were surprised by these reports from Putin, so again, consider the source that their economy has not been impacted that much. As the Washington Post pointed out in their piece on this, sanctions aren't designed to keep Johnny Walker blue off the shelves, right?

They're designed to stop, you know, dual-use electronics from getting into weapons. But I think a lot of people were predicting a Russian economic collapse that so far has not really happened. Yeah. Well, first on the corruption piece of this, I mean, over the years, you've probably heard a lot of people just throughout the word corruption. We're concerned about corruption, the Ukrainian government without ever really unpacking, you know, what that means at all.

And, you know, I think one way to think about this is that for a long time, politics was just a means for people to enrich themselves. And so if you're involved in ministries or you're involved in the military, you are taking a lot off the top of the budget that you're executing and their kickbacks and you're rewarding people with contracts and then the money disappears. This was a very, very corrupt government. And some of that corruption came from like Russian influence and Russia actually being a part of that corruption, but some of it was just kind of endemic to Ukraine. And I think what this demonstrates is, you know, that is not disappeared. And by the way, there's corruption in every government.

Oh, for sure. We've talked about corruption in the U.S. war effort, for instance, in Afghanistan. But in this case, there have been these reports for the last few months kind of bubbling up of, you know, discrepancies between the amount of food and supplies that were meant to go to the front in Ukraine, stuff disappearing. The price of eggs. Yeah. Yeah. Problem here, I guess. Exactly, right.

So there was still clearly some indication that was beginning to kind of. trickle out among the Ukrainian public that there were still some people taken off the top. And so I think this shows a willingness by Zelensky to go after that. That's kind of part of his brand dating back from before the war. But also it's a message to the West. None of this corruption was associated with like Western weapons. But I think he wants to be seen as ever vigilant against corruption because it's an existential danger for sure to the support he's getting if Western governments start to feel like

their own support is getting skimmed off the top. But I think the deputy defense minister is one of the people who resigned because of some sort of corruption allegation. Yeah, I mean, there's no easier criticism for Republicans in the U.S., for example, to say, hey, we shouldn't be giving Ukraine money. It's getting skimmed off the top. It's going to corrupt officials. That's right. Because in addition to weapons, we are giving them all this budgetary support, right, which is for their government.

I think with the Russian stats, I mean, yeah, I trust Putin's economic statistics about as much as, like, China's COVID statistics. Right. But as you said, it's pretty clear. that it's not like the Russian economy is collapsed. You know, the worst predictions, worst in terms of damage to the Russian economy that you heard at the beginning of the sanctions regime have not, like, come to fruition.

Part of that is because some of the impact is kind of delayed. So part of what sanctions are doing are denying Russia, like inputs for their industry and their technology base, so they can't keep making stuff over time, right? Like factories start to break down and they can't get replacement parts. But, like, part of it is, like,

There are people busting sanctions and the Chinese and Indians are buying oil and gas. They're still selling that. Yeah. Like as we talked about last week, there's still trade in other parts of the world. So it's a reminder that even, you know, what are the most aggressive sanctions ever imposed are not like a panacea that's going to cause Russia to come out with their hands up. I mean, it's having an impact. It'll continue to have an impact.

But this is still a functioning economy that can sell a lot of oil and gas and natural resources to willing buyers. Apparently one of the preferred forms of corruption in Saudi Arabia for the royal family is to just take out a loan from a bank and then never pay it back. It's very simple. There you go. Yeah, that's one way to do it. But back to Ukraine and the debate over tanks. So the big policy debate that's happening right now is whether Western countries will send Ukraine battle tanks. Ukraine says they desperately need these tanks to launch an offensive and take heavily fortified Russian positions in the east.

So far, France has sent the A. AMX-10 RC light tank, not their heavier models, though. The UK has led the way on this by announcing they will send heavy tanks. They're going to send 14 Challenger 2 tanks, which is the main British Army tank. But the key holdouts have been Germany in the United States. Germany produces the Leopard 2 tank. Not to geek out on tanks for a second year, Ben. It's considered like top of the line, best in the world, and I believe was designed

specifically to counter Soviet aggression and operate in like Ukraine-like terrain. They're heavy, they're better armored. They can take a beating while doing damage. and they go really fast, 50 miles an hour. I mean, that's the leopard for you. Yeah, right. Imagine a tank rolling by you at 50 miles an hour. That's pretty terrific.

I would be scared shitless. Yeah. But the German versions use diesel fuel, which is easy to supply, and this will become important. Germany has also sold leopard tanks to a bunch of countries, including Finland and Poland, who want to give them to Ukraine, but they need to get Germany's permission to do so. And Germany says they won't send leopard do tanks unless the U.S. sends heavy tanks to. Now, the most modern U.S. tank is the M182 Abrams tank. It weighs 70 tons.

It is powered by a 1,500 horsepower gas turbine engine, basically a jet engine. It goes over 40 miles an hour. But the Pentagon so far has said, no, we don't think we should send those because the aprams require a lot of training. They use specialized jet fuel, which is hard to get. They can break easily. They require highly trained teams to repair them. So, long story short. By the way, all this caveats that the U.S. military side about the Abrams tank makes you wonder.

why we spend so much money in Abrams tanks. But anyway, I digress. I'll stop there. I mean, I guess they're probably like really lethal, but I was reading about how the contracts where we've sold them to other countries, like Iraq or Saudi Arabia, come with five or seven year training and maintenance periods because it's just so hard to use. So long story short, Ben, like getting these things into battle is very complicated, far more so than the German tanks, which are mostly sitting around Europe. So as we were writing this up today, there were breaking news reports that suggest the U.S. and Germany. might have both decided to send tanks, so this could all be resolved later this week. But I was just curious what you think about Germany's posture here.

I get that they don't want to be seen as sort of out in front on any weapons shipment, especially given their sort of history and World War II and being an aggressor. But they'd have cover from the UK, if they provided tanks. They'd have cover from Finland and Poland. The U.S. is already providing more weapons than anyone else. I get like general reticence around escalation, but tying it to this U.S. decision over the Abrams tank seems a little like illogical and maybe, I don't know, almost antagonistic towards the U.S. for no good reason. Yeah. So to try to unpack this, first of all, it does feel like there's kind of inexorable momentum towards giving the Ukrainian these tanks. It just kind of, this is taking the same kind of, it's been a little bit more public, but it's following the same tenor of the debate around the heavy artillery system.

systems and the long range, you know, archaweiser, yeah, everything. Where, you know, we agonize about this and debate about it. And then finally, there's this kind of growing chorus, and then we decide, okay, we'll give it to them, right? And so it feels like that's where this is going, where at least the leopard tanks from Finland and Poland will probably be delivered. And the U.S. will probably agree to some process to provide Abrams tanks. But bear in mind, that could be like a year, you know, very long time.

It could be a while before they get in the battlefield. Because we've reached a phase of the war where tanks would make a huge. huge difference of the Ukrainians on the ground, and there's kind of a rationale for them that's been built up by what's happening and what's going to happen in the war. In terms of Germany's reticence, first of all, I think it ties into this broader concern about escalation. So just first on the Germany piece, it is logical, and I would argue not a bad thing, that a country that almost destroyed the entire world in a world war that it started less than 100 years ago, wants to think pretty hard about providing tanks that will go to some of the exact places,

you know, on the eastern front of World War II. We put it that way. That they killed, you know, until, you know, so like I get the frustration that people have with Germany, but like, I, that's a good attitude to have. It's a brand new defense minister. Well, yeah. And it's just a sign that like Germany is going through this kind of huge transformation that is being welcomed by like the kind of security types in the transatlantic community. They're all cheering.

More militant Germany, which is crazy. Like it's like, oh, thank God. The Germans are finally arming up again. Like German armament has been a problem in the past, you know. So the fact that they want to be deliberate about it is a good thing. And by the way, like the thing that feels weirded us, but like the fact that they kind of want to make it look like the U.S. pressured them into doing it. it feels like whether that is conscious or subconscious, it feels like this kind of,

we'll do it if America does it, they kind of want the appearance that everybody dragged them into doing this, you know? Maybe this is me trying to put them on the couch, but that's kind of what it feels like. Like they'll probably get there, but they want it to look like they didn't rush to do it. They want to look like that the big Americans

and our neighbors in Poland and Finland like kind of got us there and okay, we'll do this. And that ties into like the kind of where we are generally with these tanks. I mean, I see the logic, okay, this is next, and you've got to get them these weapons. But like, there's a logic of escalation in a war. And the easier it is for us to escalate, it does kind of contribute to what could be an acceleration of escalation. You know, like being deliberate about when you're escalating a weapons delivery is, I think, a responsible and rational thing to do when the consequences of total escalation, again, could be nuclear war, could be Russia-Natal war.

So like, I'm glad that this is an agonizing process. I guess is what I'm saying, even though I see the basis and the importance of giving Ukraine this type of assistance. And do you see the New York Times reported that the U.S. is warming to helping Ukraine target Crimea? That doesn't mean fully retake Crimea, but there is a concern among military experts that it's really putting Ukraine on the back foot militarily to have sort of a safe haven in Crimea for Russian troops, logistics, rearming, etc. But in terms the escalation ladder, like that's a biggie. It's worrisome on the escalation side. You know, I'm not the military expert in that regard. It does seem to me like just denying Russia that Blanbridge would be the most important thing to make sure that at a minimum, they don't achieve anything more than what they had before February 22nd last year.

And maybe next week we should dig into the fact that NATO enlargement doesn't seem to be a done deal as Turkey is making more and more soundings that they might block Sweden's entry into NATO. Yeah, we should come back to that one. That seems like a pretty. Yeah, it seems like a pretty big deal. Yeah, you know, a real concern, but it's something that we're talking about. Speaking of growing pains in the ass, Ben, the classified document story is popping up everywhere for Joe Biden, for everybody else. Over the weekend, the Department of Justice spent 13 hours searching Joe Biden's house in Delaware.

They reportedly found documents dating back to his time as VP, his time in the Senate, classified documents, I should say. Although I was talking to Favre about this yesterday, like most of this stuff starts getting declassified after 25 years. Like, what documents from the Senate? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? Yeah. Those could be pretty old.

No, chestnuts, sir. Yes. Church committee stuff. And today, we learned that a lawyer for former vice president, Mike Pence, thought about a dozen classified documents at Pence's house in Indiana last week. And then they turned them over to the FBI. So, Ben, obviously, we covered this in-depth. last week about kind of how to deal with it and what everyone should do. But like, what the hell is happening here? Like, I realize that elected officials get a lot of paper, but why are you keeping it?

I'm genuinely shocked that everyone was this sloppy. And I say this knowing that, like, the classification system is entirely trust-based. You know? You and I could have walked out of the West Wing any given day with the most sensitive documents. You've got a backpack and you've got some documents. You could find. I would never do that. No, I didn't do that. Because I was scared shitless. But, like, what is going on here? I mean, it reminds me of the Dave Chappelle thing. Like, I've never left a job and took work home with me from the job. You know, like, I just, I don't get it.

Like, why do you want to have these documents in your house? Like, they're not, do you go back and read them? Is it like pleasure reading? And you're not even saying the classified documents. Like, what is with all the record keeping? I don't know, maybe you're writing a book? All the documents, period. I mean, that's the only thing I can think of is if you're writing a book.

but most of these people seem to go write their books. If they need to read stuff, they can go to a facility to read it. So, yeah, like you, I'm just a bit surprised and baffled by this enthusiasm for having, like, reams of documents in one's residence. I mean, to what end? Yeah. I guess Indiana's, you know. It did feel like a grasping at relevance by Mike Pence.

You know, like, you know, like, you know. That's so funny. Hey, wait. I got documents too. Because he didn't need to do this. Like, the DOJ didn't. call him and say, hey, we need to search your house. So it's like, he's looking around. He's pretty irrelevant. He's trying to maybe run for president. He sees Trump and Bidener and this.

He's like, oh, search me too. I have classified documents too. I want to be listed in the stories with the classified lawyers and find a lighter. The best joke I've seen was someone tweeted, Jimmy Carter tearfully confesses that he has classified documents in his heart. That's a real throwback. Ben, here's an idea. I heard someone float yesterday who kind of worked in this world. What if Biden declassified and released all the documents that have been found at his place, or at least declassified them to the greatest extent possible with redactions if there are still security concerns. Do you think that helps or like, is that assuming the game is on the level too much? So I think that's like a pretty excellent idea.

I mean, assuming that they are declassifiable, right? I mean, the challenge with this theory is it presupposes that there's nothing that is so sensitive that you wouldn't even want people to know that that kind of document was out in the open, you know? But I do think as a judge, matter, transparency kind of can defang these issues. If they're just trivial documents. It's like old secret level stuff. Part of what I've wondered if some, if these are just memos that maybe didn't have the look of like a, you and I like have been in these skiffs and for many years like there are documents that are intelligence reports. You know, they've cool covers with pictures on them from the intelligence community and they've got top secret with all kinds

of acronyms at the top. Then they're just like memos that are written by your staff that look like a word document that might be classified, you know? And if Biden just had some memos, you know, that's pretty relevant information. He wasn't like swiping intelligence. Nobody thinks he's swiping anything. It seems like a packing error. But they wasn't taking like super secret classified intelligence reports, just had a few memos. Yeah, like declassified that. Why not? I mean, And if transparency can help address, like, whatever questions people have, be transparent. And I think that was the theme of what we said last week. Yeah, I mean, I think I've assumed there were memos, too.

And just for listeners, like, you know, if Joe Biden was going to meet with the vice premier of Pakistan, he would get some memo about what they wanted to get out of it and the issues at bay. And, like, odds are 99.9% of the time that's going to be slapped secret. Yeah. Whether the information in there is really derived from classified sources or not. Also, you know, technically speaking, if you're in a meeting in the situation room or something that's classified at a top secret and you're taking notes, you're supposed to label those notes top secret and sort of like slap a T.S classification on them. It's, it's an Overse. Yeah. No, that's right. Like he could go on like a trip and someone could write like a summary of the trip, you know. And again, it just looks like an eight page word document. That could be secret. Whereas somebody's intelligence community, I mean, like, do you remember that one? I won't name it because maybe we're not supposed to name individual documents. but there was one regular product from a component in the intelligence community that was incredibly well produced.

It looked like a magazine. The did? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was talking about the did all the time. Yeah, there was really cool photos of, like, initials and stuff. Yeah, yeah. It was awesome. But, like, that's what I mean by, like, you can tell, you know, you can tell the difference between, you know, the kind of rudinized office work versus, like, this is being produced for you by the intelligence community.

Yeah, there's a lot to criticize about all of this, you know, I get why people are frustrated at the distraction that's causing that it's taking, you know, you know, sort of a club away from Democrats that we might have used to beat Donald Trump with. The one thing that is driving me crazy, though, is I keep hearing reporters criticize Biden, both for letting this drip out piecemeal, but then also criticizing him for waiting so long to disclose what happened. There's a contradiction there, guys, you know? And also, like, do you think that DOJ just loves if you run out and announce their, you know, investigation? No, they do not. Yes.

The piecemeal thing is the inevitability of any legal exercise. The question is at what point have you reached a sufficient place to say this is everything? And hopefully when they get to that point, they can do that in a convincing way. My God, I hope so. This is not at all related, but I think you and I both were shocked to read that a former top FBI official named Charles McGonicle was arrested on charges that he took $225,000 from a foreign agent while still in the FBI. This guy was in charge of FBI counterintelligence in New York before retiring in 2018. He allegedly was paid to help a Russian olig Alig Deripaska evade U.S. sanctions, I think, to get off a U.S. sanctions list. The BBC said Deripaska was once the richest man in Russia.

He ran a bunch of energy companies. Another ex-Russian diplomat was indicted alongside him. McGonicle is also facing separate charges that he took money from someone who was an employee of a foreign intelligence service. this seems like a big a little bit of bigger risk for national security than uh joe biden's grush yeah and i mean i was a little surprised that this like popped yesterday and it wasn't like a bigger deal i mean this guy was like the head of counterintelligence like for the fbi's most important office and olig der pasca is not like it just you know some some jv oligarch like this guy is a top guy uh and so the question i had is you know there were these vague allusions to

couple of things where he'd done favors for this guy. But anybody who is willing to do that was clearly potentially doing more than that. You got to assume that was this guy busting cells? Was this guy like leaking to the Russians investigations? Was he, you know, all manner of them. Just think about every spy movie you've ever seen with a double agent. And, you know, I wonder, in the pin I think we should just put in this is, is this kind of weird one-off where this guy retired and needed some money and so made a deal and made a

terrible mistake or was this like what this guy was up to for a while and there's a thread that we're going to be pulling that reveals that this guy blew a whole bunch of stuff you know never mind that by the way like not to return to like resistance days here but this was a maniford guy this oligarch was like a paul manifold associate so you know one doesn't need to like stretch the imagination to wonder about certain investigations dating back to 2016. So again, like just watch it. I mean, I'm just curious if, you know, whether maybe this was a one-off and guy just needs some cash, but I am curious about whether there's more to this. Me too. Me too. Speaking of guys who just need some cash, uh, last week we talked about how sad and pathetic it was that failed former

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had to blurb his own book. This week, we have the pleasure of hearing all kinds of leaks and news reports based on what's in the book itself. So I figured we could just tick through a few of them if listeners won't mind. So of former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton Pompeo writes, he should quote be in jail for spilling classified information. Pompeo also says he hopes to one day testify at Bolton's trial on criminal charges and says Trump called Bolton quote a scumbag loser. Broken clock. You know right once in the book, though, Ben, Pompeo walks through every. Every single step of the assassination of former Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani.

Wait, is that a little contradictory to the criticism of Bolton? Well, that's what I'm going to ask you. That does seem sort of sensitive. He talks about how intelligence assets tracked Soleimani through various war zones. Yeah, that would seem more sensitive than anything that was in John Bolton's book. I mean, not that internal consistencies are mattered to Mike Pompeo. No, no, apparently not. Pompeo craps all over former UN ambassador, Nikki Haley.

hates her guts. He says that Haley plotted with Jared Kushner and Ivanka to replace Mike Pence's VP. Pompeo also says the job of human ambassadors, quote, far less important than people think. And he criticized her for leaving before the term was over, saying she abandoned Trump like she abandoned the great people of South Carolina when she reside as governor. It's just like gossiping. Well, I mean, he's in a brutal battle to get in that lane to reach 1%. I mean, I was saying you on the way in like this Haley Pompeo rivalry is totally comical to me because it's like two people who clearly look in the mirror and think of themselves as future president when in fact they're just like two people like competing for the absolute dregs of the republican primary electorate.

You know in the Olympics when there's like two or three runners out front and there's like eight, ninth and tenth place? Like that's Pompeo just sprinting. Here's a really gross thing that we should dig into. So Pompeo tries to smear Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who was assassinated by the Saudi government inside a consulate in Istanbul. Pompeo writes, he didn't deserve to die, but we need to be clear about who he was and too many in the media were not. If you ever say he didn't deserve to die, but you might not want to finish that sentence.

Just stop this. Just let it finish in your own head. Like, I mean, so here's the context, Ben. I think that's just, it's important and complicated. Koshughi's, his career evolved over time. You know, he was close to the Saudi royal family for many years. He was an advisor to the former head of Saudi intelligence worked with him in Washington and London, I believe. And for a lot of his career, I think, was seen as more of a spokesman for the royal family than a muck-raking journalist. That is true. That all changed when Muhammad bin Salman came to power. Kishuchi also reported on and spent time with Osama bin Laden when he was fighting against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. And he was sympathetic to bin Laden's cause back then, which, you know, by the way,

so was the United States because we were funding the Mujahideen. And when bin Laden died, He said he mourned his death because he was brave in those days in Afghanistan and then became this like horrible person. He also spent time with the Muslim Brotherhood. But it just, it's so clear to me that Pompea was trying to suggest that that complexity and evolution in this guy's life makes his execution less bad. I mean, it's just, it's disgusting. I mean, I assumed when I read it that what he was mainly referring to was the Muslim Brotherhood piece. because you might recall that after Khashoggi was killed, this was the line of the Saudi government. Oh, yeah.

They were trying to launder through their various or many contexts in Washington that actually you have to understand Keshoggi as this kind of Muslim Brotherhood or Islamist associated guy, which again was always an overstatement, you know, just to deal with the facts. Kishogi was not some Muslim brotherhood guy. By the way, even if he was, he shouldn't have been chopped up in an embassy. I think he hung out with the M.B. The Muslim brother of the most when he was in college in Indiana. And the M.B. is not, like, to be clear, is not al-Qaeda. This is a political Islamist movement, you know. But putting all this aside, okay, it is very clear.

First of all, that Jamal Khashoggi was for a time of journalist. And part of his initial falling out was he tried to start a television station. It was going to actually report the news and it got shut down by the Saudi government. But then by any measure, those last years under MBS, he was. he was reporting on and expressing opinions about the Democratic backsliding, not that there was ever democracy, but the backsliding in human rights in Saudi Arabia. He was calling out things that Mohamed Salman was doing that were being whitewashed by all of MBS's reputation launderers in Washington. And he was doing so at great personal risk. He knew the risk of speaking out against

people like MBS, and he did it anyway. And he ended up getting chopped up in a contest. And this is where I want to come to Mike Pompeo's comments. Mike Pompeo, for all of his self-conception as this tough guy and for his book about not giving an inch, when is that guy ever had to stand up to anybody powerful? When is that guy ever had to put himself at risk in a way that Jamal Khashoggi did? So spare me your commentary on Jamal Khashoggi's activism. This is a guy who had more courage in like his middle finger than he did in all of Mike Pompeo. Mike Pompeo like has no standing to even be talking about the courage of someone like Jamal Khashoggi and the fact that he thinks, you know, he's doing this in part so that people like me will get mad like this, right?

I mean, this is a classic case of trolling, but guess what? We should get mad because these people are trying to just whittle away at the crime that they were accomplished to. Yeah. Because he essentially was the guy who, the first guy to fly to Riyadh to kiss the ring of MBS after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi was Mike Pompeo. He reveled in doing it. That tells you a lot more about Mike Pompeo than it does about Jamal Khashoggi. Oh, I would bet so much money that Mike Pompeo is going to get some paid speaking gig at the next big Saudi conference in Riyadh. You know what I mean? He'll get some contract to advise the military.

He also talks about how Trump told him to shut the hell up about China and stop criticizing them, which he did. So it seems like he gave quite a few inches. Yeah. Well, you also like lavish his praise on Trump in this book. I mean, so he's plenty of inches to give. You said you've been reading the foreign coverage of all, like, sort of other weird things that spilled out and got reported in other countries. Anything notable? Not particularly.

I mean, I mean, just like the degree to which, like, Pompeo, you know, he had some weird story about trying to, like, break into a room in Turkey where Mike Pence was meeting with Erdogan. Maybe he's just like, but I mean, this guy's like, you know, he wants attention so desperately. We're giving it to him. We're giving him ample negative attention, as we always do on this podcast, though. Because at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. Mike Pompeo is a guy that is never going to sniff the presidency in his life. So it's not like this is even Ron DeSantis, who's a little more skillful at trolling. No, Mike's just a bully and a jerk.

Yeah. And no one likes them. Then there have been massive strikes in France across the country. They've disrupted schools in rail transportation in particular. Here's why. The French government is trying to reform the country's pension system. including by raising the retirement age from 62 to 64. French labor unions are united in opposition to this idea,

and over a million people took to the street to protest, I think last Thursday. It's like Black Thursday, they called it. More strikes are planned through the end of the month. President Macron failed to pass a previous, far more sweeping, pension reform system. And this vote is more narrowly tailored to try to get it through Parliament. But he doesn't have a majority in Parliament anymore, so he's going to have to rely on votes from conservatives, while the far left, the Greens,

socialists, as well as the far right, national rally party, led by our friend Marine Le Pen, opposed the bill. Polling indicates that about two-thirds of the country is against these reforms.

France has a long history of massive strikes blocking efforts just like this. Jacques Chirac had a reform effort blocked by debilitating strikes in the 90s. Macron was met with protests in 2019 and 2020. Our little tumbling friend, President Sarkozy,

did push the retirement age from 60 to 62 back when he was president. So Macron might get his changes through parliament. We'll see if they can kind of like gut it out. But the successor failure of this effort is being viewed as a proxy for his ability to get anything done going forward. Macron's left-wing rival, Jean-Luc Melanchon, seems eager to have this fight. Then I am far from an expert on France's fiscal situation. But ramming through an unpopular pension reform bill, when you're also trying to combat growing populist movements on your left and your right is confusing me politically. Well, what is happening?

It's kind of the neoliberal holy grail of French politics, you know? Is there a public-private partnership? McCrone even timed it to the Davos conference maybe. Oh my God, you did. No, I don't think you did, but coincident. You can't help but do it. You can't help but do it, right? I mean, I totally agree with you.

Like, even if you don't understand this, even if you look at it as an American, you're like, wait, 62 feels like a pretty good retirement age. the French don't like raising their retirement age. The French don't like to think of their lives about work in the same way that Americans probably do our detriment do. And let's just think of this as the equivalence of making major changes in social security or Medicare. That's all you need to know.

Like, don't do that. And by the way, if you need to raise more revenue, go try to tax some rich people first. That's what his critics are saying. That's what the critics are saying. You won't do it. That's when they had me. I was like, I don't know, I got to be the economist.

I'm sure it's for this, you know, right? But then those guys are like, well, he could raise the taxes just a little bit on these rich people. I'm like, okay, these people seem like they know what they're talking about. What's the worst thing happened? Like Gerard Depardue moves to Russia again? That's a problem. That's already happened. You already lost Gerard de Pardue.

I mean, I do think the thing to watch here is the backlash to this, and it's happening and will continue something that galvanizes the left or the right. Because actually, this is one where you've got to be rooting for the backlash to not be an opportunity for Le Pen. Right. Who's smartly like, oh, yeah, we're against doing this too. It's not what it means to be French. Hopefully the left can consolidate around a populist economic argument that is better than the kind of populist identity-based argument that Le Pen is going to be making. And yeah, look, Macron has put all the chips on this and he may get it through, but in the backlash that follows him getting it through, again, I hope that the critique from the left is the one that has more potency.

God, me too. Speaking of France, let's turn to Burkina Faso. For those who don't know, Burkina Faso, it's a relatively small landlock country in Western Africa. between Mali, Niger and Ghana. So according to Al Jazeera, apparently a government spokesman in Burkina Faso told State TV that they will end a 2018 agreement with France that allowed about 400 French troops to operate in the country

to fight extremist groups linked with al-Qaeda and ISIS. This could happen as soon as a month from now, though the French authorities say they're still basically seeking clarification on the news. Last September, the army staged a coup in Burkina Faso, French troops also got kicked out of Mali last year where there was also a coup. Both countries are now seen as growing closer and closer to Russia. Molly has hired the very evil Russian Wagner mercenary group that we've talked about many times in the Ukraine context to help them with their anti-Alqaeda efforts.

There's reports that Burkina Faso might actually do the same. I also saw Ben a report that 60 women and girls who have been abducted by extremists at Burkina Faso were freed at the end of last week. That is obviously great news. But the timing did make me wonder if the two are related in some way. I don't know. That's just like complete speculation. I have no idea.

Stepping back, what do you make of these countries turning from a U.S. ally like France to Russia and the Wagner group? Like, do you think that should worry the U.S. and U.S. policymakers in some way? Or is this the kind of thing that happens in places far away from us that we should not necessarily concern ourselves with? Like, what do you think? I mean, I think with the humility that this is like so. opaque to us. I can't claim to know what's happening in Burkina Faso's interior. I think the concern you'd have from afar, from kind of a U.S.-centric perspective, which I acknowledge is not

necessarily the perspective of everybody, is if like the French have filled this kind of vacuum as being a quasi-security provider against what is a very real, like, you know, violent extremist movement across borders there. And if you remove the French, from that equation, does that allow for the rise of evermore violent extremist organizations and militias? You'd be worried about that. And you'd also be worried that the Wagner group coming in, you know, is basically going to turn these governments into kind of these quasi-cartels, you know, associated with mercenaries and Russians. And it becomes this ugly Wild West kind of place. Yeah, but there's also, yeah, and there's rumors that the Chinese are going to come in, too,

build military bases and there's a dystopia from like a western security analyst of like, you know, everything you don't like in one place, right? We don't know that, though. And like what I do know is that you would hope that some more solid political institutions can emerge so that the Wagner group or anybody else isn't de facto or the French for that matter, aren't de facto controlling these places. And that's the real vacuum that needs to get filled. And you would hope that, again, we talked about the Nigerian election that kind of other events

in and around West Africa can institution build, because that's what these places really need. Yeah, it's unfortunate that we keep talking about these countries in terms of coups. Yeah, yeah. That's the political reality. Okay, this story is going to make a lot of our audience sad, Ben, which is that New Zealand Prime Minister, Jassinda Ardern, shocked the world last week when she announced that she will resign and leave office by February 7th or leave the prime ministership. Her reason was simple and very human.

She said she's burnt out after five and a half years on the job. in, by the way, five and a half rough years with COVID, the Christ Church massacre. She had a baby while in office and only took six weeks of maternity leave and was still attacked for it. Having just gone through this, I can't imagine doing six weeks of paternity leave or maternity leave and then going back to being prime minister. She was first elected in 2017. She was reelected overwhelmingly in 2020, mostly based on her excellent response to COVID.

But her parties polling has dropped precipitously due to concerns about inflation and crime and there would have been a tough election in October. Regardless, I mean, she's become a global icon among progressives who were inspired in particular by her response to the Christchurch massacre, the speech she gave, the quick action on guns. It stands in stark contrast to the reality we live in here in California where there's been, you know, two mass shootings in the last two days. And also, she was a contrast to Donald Trump. Again, I think that the Trump contrast is hard not to make here where, you know, she says, hey, I'm burn out. I want to let someone else do the job who could do it better than me. And then you've got Trump, Bolsonaro, B.B. Netanyahu, like, desperately

clinging to power to the point of inciting violence and corruption and, you know, overturning Israel's democracy. But, you know, any thoughts from you on her legacy and not so quiet quitting? I think, first of all, like, she was this big star, or remains a big star. both for what she did in New Zealand and also kind of a trend that she was at the vanguard of, which is we've talked a bit on this podcast about at a time of retro ethno-nationalism and strong man leadership in so many places,

the one positive trend that's really been out there is this election of younger, often 30-something women from like the social democratic tradition. So, you know, she was one of the first, but you've seen in Europe a whole number of people who fit that profile, elected prime minister of their country. And actually there was this kind of great, you know, unintentionally great moment when she was with Santa Marin and they both got asked a question, you know, kind of massagenist question about.

But so anyway, one is she does represent that trend globally. I think she also like, you know, these are meaningful steps that she took, like the COVID response, the gun violence, the online questions. She was one of the first leaders to really go at because the member of Facebook and YouTube. Yeah, right. You know, the Christ Church shooting was aired on social media. And she really took steps internationally to create like multilateral pressure on tech companies to take down hate speech and excitement to at least not broadcast horrific crimes like that when they're happening. So she was also affecting really global debates and obviously on the right side of things like climate change.

So across these like host of issues, she was kind of, again, at the vanguard of the progressive approach to guns to, online violence and hate speech to an empathetic and effective COVID response. These are real achievements that she had. It's not just like hype around her. No, no, at all. I think the last thing I'd say is that I talked about this before, so I'll do a briefer version, but I met her once with, I was with Obama when he was traveling there right after she'd become prime minister back in the spring of 2018, she was still

pregnant. And I just remember thinking when we met with her that, like of all these people I've met over the years, like, she was the most normal human that I met, who was like a world leader. Like, she talked to Obama about work-life balance and, you know, how to think about having a kid and while being prime minister. And you could tell that it was important to her to remain a normal person. And the same reason that she was an effective leader is because she was normal. Like, she's empathetic. She was kind. She was willing to admit error. And so that kind of person was more likely to say, you know what? I'm burned out. It's time to step aside. Like, let someone else do

this. You know, I've seen speculation about whether all the threats that have come her way, because she's this kind of dark figure in the anti-vax world. I'm sure that contributed to it to some extent. Being politics sucks these things. How could it not, right? It sucks. So again, like, what's interesting about her is that, like, normal people, you know, both have attributes. Like, I was struck when she said kindness was the one thing that she would want to lift up from her brand of leadership. That would lead them to want to also have some normalcy in their lives. And, and so, So her stepping down is kind of part of the same reason she was a good leader. Man, I got to tell you, it's so weird to see people criticize this and be like, oh, she was just scared she was going to lose.

Let's absolutely support people who pass the baton to the next generation and not the gerontocracy nonsense we have here in the United States. New Zealand Labor MP Chris Hipkins will replace her. So I'm sure we'll be talking about him slightly less often. I'm sure we'll be talking about just. I'm sure maybe you'll end up being Churchill. But I'm sure she'll have it. She'll do plenty of other stuff. Of course.

She's younger than me, I think. So like I'd like to think she's going to do all kinds of stuff. Come to LA. Come on the show. Okay, a few more things. So we've talked a lot about BB Netanyahu and new Israeli government lately and how conservative and horrible it is. We won't go deep on that today.

The latest news was the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that a guy who had been convicted of tax fraud was not fit to serve as a government minister. Netanyahu is all upset about it because this is key to his coalition and staying in power. but he reluctantly fired him, avoiding a constitutional crisis for now. But the question we keep asking on this show, Ben, is will U.S. policy towards Israel change at all to reflect this ultra-right-wing, ultra-nationalist anti-democratic trajectory? Here are two examples that make me fear that the answer is no. The first, I can't remember if we talked about this on the show before, but there's a guy named Ken Roth, who's the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, great organization that talks about human rights abuses. He was offered and then refused a fellowship at Harvard's Car Center for Human Rights Policy

because his organization did what they say they do, which is criticize human rights abuses in Israel and everywhere else in the world. The good news is that Harvard backtracked again on rescinding the offer after lots of public pressure. So he, Ken Roth may go and do a fellowship there, but it shouldn't have taken that much work. Second, a woman named Sarah Margon, whose president of Biden's nominee to serve as assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor just withdrew her nomination for that job because Republicans accused her of supporting the boycott sanctions and divestment or BDS

movement against Israel because she tweeted something in support of Airbnb when they pulled out of the West Bank. For the record, she is Jewish and she is not and has not ever been a BDS supporter. But Bob Menendez, the Democratic chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, didn't bring the nomination for a vote. and it doesn't seem like the administration fought particularly hard for her. So the United States now has this vacancy in this role that's supposed to be fighting for human rights around the world, and it will remain vacant because the person nominated seemed to once obliquely criticize Israel's treatment of the Palestinians in a tweet about Airbnb.

Yeah. That is a depressing snapshot of the reality of speech around this set of issues. Yeah. Yeah. And the Ken Roth thing, first of all, they are connected. And Ken Roth literally led perhaps the most prominent human rights organization in the world, or at least during the conversation, for many years. It's like 93. Yeah. And I mean, literally Human Rights Watch documents human rights abuses everywhere. They applied the same standard that they do to documenting human rights abuses in Israel as they did everywhere else. And that led them to have a report. It's not like Kent Roth like literally wrote the report himself, but. a report that said that some of the things that Israel doing amounted to apartheid, right? Which, by the way, Israeli human rights groups have also said. Yeah. And this is the crux of a lot of the criticism Ken Roth got.

But the point is it like, how is he not qualified to have a fellowship at a human right, like related to doing the rights center? One of the most qualified people on the planet. And he's not some fire breathing extremists. So the fact that this was even an issue is speaks to the, yeah, the speech policing and censorship in American politics and media and whatever you want to call it. Paging, Barry Weiss and all the free speech warriors who were worried about campus speech. I'd love to hear you weigh in on this one.

So this leads to Sarah Margin, because part of what Sarah dealt with is that she worked for Human Rights Watch. Do you know her? So full disclosure, she's actually quite a good friend of mine. Okay, I've never met her. So she's a very good friend of mine. But Sarah worked for Human Rights Watch. She was the director of the Washington Office of Human Rights Watch after Tom Malnowski. left that job to be the same thing.

No, no, no, no, the job that she was nominated for first, right? Right, right, of course. Then he got elected. And then he got elected Congress. Now, Sarah Margon is perhaps the most qualified person imaginable for that job. She's had exactly the career that you'd want for someone to be in that job. You know, long advocacy at human rights watch, long history in the Senate where she worked for Russ Feingold.

By the way, it used to be that if you were like a Senate staff or, like that, that confirmation wasn't that complicated through the committee that you used to work on. Sarah used to work with the Farm Relations Committee. What happened? So Rish, the ranking member on the Farm Relations Committee, singles her out for Israel. He's citing this like these like pretty generic tweets. I mean, it's about Airbnb pulling out the West Wing. It's not like massive dunks on on Israel, like a Jewish woman like tweeting about Airbnb, but also kind of like dragging up this human rights watch stuff. And Bob Menendez, to be clear, this nomination could not have been blocked without Bob Menendez, because Rich put a hold on it. Menendez's chair could have just

brought it to a vote anyway. But he said he was adhering to a principle of comedy, one of the Senate words, which basically means that if the ranking member doesn't agree, then you won't bring up the nominee. And I guess the Biden administration, you know, didn't really lean on him to do that. point being to end where you began, Tommy, what is this all about? Well, it's basically sending a message that it's two years in the administration and we don't even have an assistant secretary of state for democracy. Bob Menendez rails about democracy all the time, but he's like succumbing to the blockade of the most qualified nominee for that job that anybody in Washington knows Sarah Morgan's the most qualified person for that job. And we are sending a message that the politics of whether or not we're going to

call balls and strikes around Israel and the Palestinians, as we would anywhere else, that's too complicated for us. That's too difficult for us. So therefore, we're willing to literally have this job be vacant rather than have like a political fight with like one senator to get the right person in the job. Yeah. It's it shouldn't be this hard to have an assistant secretary say for democracy, just as it shouldn't be that hard for Ken Roth to get a fellowship at Harvard. The boundaries for what you're allowed to say when it comes Israel are so constrained. It's like you, you can, You can either support literally everything they do or you can be Opelique or could have go, let me read you the tweet.

I found it. Quote, thanks Airbnb for showing some good leadership here. Other companies should follow suit. That got her tanked. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For an assistant secretary job on a committee run by Democrats? Well, because because, by the way, because she didn't think that, like, people should be doing Airbnb's in settlements.

It is actually U.S. policy to oppose settlements. They're illegal. International laws is illegal. saying like boycott and divest from Israel. But like, anyway, don't get me started. It's mind-boggling stupid, but people should be aware of the stupidity because they'd rather you not be. Like Bob Menendez and Rish's and whoever else is of the world who run these campaigns.

Yeah, free speech warriors is the opportunity for you here. Two more dumb things before we get to Ben's interview. So our friend, Tony Blinken, Secretary of State, is going to war against serfs. The Times Due Roman font is out at the State Department. Calibri is in. Ben Wong, usually opposed to preemptive wars. Tony's, his cause here seems righteous. Apparently, Calibri is easier for people with disabilities to read. It was recommended by the secretary's obviously diversity and inclusion.

So, like, serif, serif, I don't know what to say. The dumb little twists that come off of a letter, those things are hard for sort of automatic reading software to read on a screen, I guess. Learned something every day. I would also just add that Times through Romans sucks and it's ugly. Really? I'm a Times to Rory. Okay.

That's what I want to ask. you. So, look, I don't know if Tony will be greeted as a font liberator, but do you have, so a former foreign service officer said they were anticipating an internal revolt. That's a quote. What's your favorite font? This is written in Calibri, as you can see. Oh, yeah. That is the most, that is probably one of the best bureaucratic quotes of her in my life. I love it. I mean, you could look at it this way that like Tony personally is ensured that the entire history of the State Department from now on will bear his hallmark. That's right. It'll be in his font. Oh, that's really good. I wonder if, like, you know, a Trumpy Republican gets in there, they'll change the font. Maybe fonts will become part of,

like, it'll be a, it'll be the woke font. The woke font, like this Blinken, like, it's like Blinken's, like, Tony Blinken has got, he's unleashed woke fonts on the State Department. I hate this politics. I like Calibri. Is that, I never knew was Calibri or whatever. I don't either. It's pretty solid. I do that or like, book, antiquequa was one I go to. Oh, that's a little eccentric, man. Okay. Finally, Ben, I know a lot of jet setters and CEOs are mad that the annual World Economic Forum in Davos is coming to a close, or maybe it's ended already. I don't even know. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to read you some selections from news reports from or about Davos. And I want you to tell me which, if any, are fake or real. We did not rehearse. I didn't even know we're doing this. This is a surprise. Okay. Are you ready? Yeah.

Okay. Senator Kierston Cinema was spotted double fisting. wine at Anthony Scaramucci's annual wine tasting party. That has to be real. That's true. The Saudi foreign minister, the foreign minister of Iraq, the Jordanian minister of finance, the UN Yemen envoy, and Dutch defense minister had a discussion about, quote, stability in the Middle East and North Africa region. That's particularly kind of gross, given the Yemen piece of it, so it must be true.

That was also true. The pedal was titled, The Middle East Meeting Point or Battleground. Seems like you might want someone from Yemen there. Like, it also seems like you could have had a panel like that every year for the last 30 years, which suggests that why you should stop having that panel. Yeah, that's not solving the problem. That panel is not solved. That panel's on one side of the problem.

The day before announcing 10,000 layoffs, Microsoft hosted an event where 50 people watched a private performance by Sting. The theme was sustainability. So I'm beginning to guess the trend of this game, and I'm going to say it's true. That's true. Former New York Times editor Jill Abranson told Sem before that Davos was a corrupt circle jerk. quote. That's definitely true. I read that.

Now, I have a comment, which is it, like, semaphore seemed to be trying to have it both ways by, like, reporting on some of these absurdities about Davos, but being very of Davos itself. Oh, they were very much in the circle jerk. They were involved in the circle jerk. They were definitely, like, one of the first ones to sit down. They were doing a panels at the NBZ. We'd say that to Ben Smith, our friends. At least 150 private jets flew to Davos and its corporate sponsors included Shell and Chevron, but they claimed the event is carbon neutral.

Oh, definitely true. I bet they all bought those like offsets, you know, you can buy where you're just like, yeah. The event is also sponsored by three of the biggest meat manufacturers in the United States. No way. Is that true? Yes. Yes. And then finally, Kremlin critic Bill Browder complained that he didn't attend because they tried to charge him $250,000. to participate.

Yeah, that's true, and I read that, and it made me everything about it was gross, because, like, I didn't know that people had to pay $250,000 to go to Davos, apparently. But I also, like, Bill Browderson did some really good work here. I'm being careful now I say this, but he's also quite wealthy. Oh, yeah, quite wealthy. So I didn't really know how to think about it. Yeah. I mean, it's not like being, like a dissident, you know, or something.

Yeah. Yeah. Or then I'm like, huh. Huh, yeah. What did you pay before? Yeah, exactly. Like 50 grand? I still wouldn't go.

Yeah, I'm just to feel about this. Well, okay, what we learned today, Ben, is that Davos is impossible to parody, so I didn't try. Yeah, yeah. I didn't even try. Okay, we're going to take a quick break, and when we come back, you will hear Ben's interview about Azerbaijan and Armenia, so stick around for that. Okay, I'm very pleased to be joined by Olatya Vartagnan, who is the senior analyst for the South Caucasus region for the International Crisis Group based in Tbilisi. She researchers and produces reports on security issues in Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. Alessia, welcome to the show.

Oh, I'm so happy to be with you. So I want to begin by just giving some context for what's going on between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh, this disputed region that has basically been cut off. It's a region that has kind of been supported by, claimed by Armenia, even though it's within the geography of Azerbaijan. It's kind of encircled by Azerbaijan. Wars have been fought over this obviously in the past. And what we've been seeing in recent weeks is a kind of peculiar effort to blockade the road

from Armenia to Nagorno Karabakh, that brings in all manner of supplies to the people of Nagorno Karabakh. So basically food and other basic staples, kind of run on this road. What we've seen happening is like environmental activists or basically people at least posing as having concerns about the ecology and environmental sustainability, blockading this road so that nothing is getting in. And I think that, you know, suspicion with good reason, from a lot of observers here is that the government or military of Azerbaijan is at least tacitly, if not overtly, backing this blockade to kind of squeeze people in Nagorno-Karbach. Can you just start by explaining what is going on, what do you see happening,

and how are the circumstances for people in Nagorno-Karback? So it has been going on for over 40 days. People celebrated the new year without any kind of fruits and vegetables. They're having serious shortage of products like a food, like very elementary things. Medical supplies as well. And the local government, the local afforded, they already started distributing coupons and started distributing all the food that they had in their storages in case of the war. And this is a really serious problem because over 100,000 people,

they live now without having no ability to live. Nagorno-Karabakh. No one from Armenia or outside world can travel there either. And the longer it goes, the more difficult it becomes for the locals. They don't have any kind of petrol left in the region anymore. They starting having problems with a gas supply because of some of the problems that were created at the only pipeline that delivers gas to Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia. And because of that, and with the wintertime and with the mountainous region, where it's really cold. So they are actually having no problems with electricity as well, just because people start using, you know, switching on heaters.

When I speak to the people there, and I do have friends there, and I know people who have been living there during the first war in the 90s, during the second war, and what they are telling me is that it's just becoming more and more difficult every day. And the worst thing is I just don't know when it's going to finish. And especially, I think it's more difficult for the younger generation, those who didn't see the first war and similar blockades that took place during that time. And I can hear more and more people saying that, look, it's just not going to work anymore. You know, when they opened the road, we will probably consider living. Just leaving. I mean, why do you?

do they, the people in Nagorno-Karabakh, what do they think is happening? Like, why do they think this is happening now? You know, with conflict has been around for over 30 years. And with societies, ethnic Azerbaijani's and ethnic Armenians, who used to live together for centuries, they separated with during the first war. And during, with second war that took place two years ago, which was the first time, basically, you know, when they started seeing each other just because the front lines came very close to the Armenian settlements now. And, you know, for many of these people, with conflict, has been something that has been determined in their life.

So when you speak to ethnic Armenian, no matter what can be, you know, the goal, positive, negative, you know, they usually see with intention of killing them or driving them out of their houses. So when I speak to the local Armenians, what they are telling me is that it's all done to make us live our homes. When I speak to Azerbaijanis, those who are located more in the capital, they are saying that there are some political reasons for that. They usually bring in some legal arguments for what's happening, but it's clear that for them, it's more like about politics and less about the people.

And what I'm really very sorry about and this often what you can see in the context of this conflict is that it's very much about like some bigger notions and kind of bigger things like they are against us and that's it. Yeah. So you've got these people that are trapped in Nagorno-Karvok because these bigger, questions of, you know, us versus them and what is Armenia, what is Azerbaijan, and what are all these foreign powers seeing? But if you're in Nagorno-Karabak, you just feel like people are trying to get you out of your homes. Yeah. And I think what you just said, it's more for the ordinary

people. Because, I mean, when you speak to the politician, when you speak to officials, diplomats, they clearly can find different kind of argumentation, you know, they can look into what has been happening recently, you know, like they speak to... different officials, decision makers. So they may have different arguments. But for those, I mean, if you're asking me about those who are, who live in the region, yeah, if you ask them just kind of with blank question, why is happening, the response will be just because they are against us. They want us to leave. Yeah. So what do you understand about who is imposing this blockade and why is it happening now? I think there is no question about Azerbaijan-Govani government. I think there is no

question about Azerbaijani government organizing with so-called rally. There are many signs of this, and I also had a chance to speak to some people in Baku, and I understand

that it's very well organized in a smart way as well, because when you pose the thing about ecology, then you can actually above many arguments coming from the West, right? I mean, and also it's a peaceful protest, so I mean, it's

If, for example, some horses used to get them out of the, to clean the road, then it's a absolutely different story, right? So it's clear that it's coming from the Azerbaijani government, although I should say that they absolutely deny it. They say that it is not true. And we are just protesters, you know, like they do care about ecology and all of that. You know, what's the problem is that there's a bitjohnie. government, since they deny their involvement, they have never presented a clear demand,

something that they pose and then the locals consider and probably go for some negotiations, talks, they go both for compromise and then we start seeing the solution. The problem here is that nothing like this is happening in this very context. I was in Armenia and Europe. I was in Armenia and Yerevan last week. It's clear that the Armenian officials have no idea, you know, what needs to be done. I spoke to the de facto officials, I mean officials in Tepanakir, who are trapped in Yarevan now, but they have a contact with those in the center. It's clear to me that they also have no idea what's happening. And when I speak to the foreign diplomats who tend to have a bad access to the Azerbaijana for it is, they still have questions about like what is we think that Zabajabakhine.

Azerbaijan wants to happen. And because of that, we have many speculations, you know. And my must always speculation, they go back to some of the problems that Armenian-Azabajan, they have been having in recent months around the negotiation process. But, I mean, unless you hear something that you need to do, it's difficult for you to go for any kind of actions, right? Yeah. And so it may be that Azerbaijan has been the slightly stronger party militarily recently. Oh, much stronger. Exactly. And because there's this moment where they have that advantage and maybe the world is looking at Ukraine,

Russia obviously traditionally supported Armenia and usually provides peacekeeping forces. Given the absence of that Russian patron for Armenia, this might just be a time for them to squeeze Nogorno-Karabakh. I mean, that's what it looks like from the outside. Look, I mean, we at crisis group, we produce. with top 10 conflicts to watch in the beginning of each year. And this year, we made Nagorno-Karabakhaba 2nd. Yeah.

And then the clear reason for this is that we see that, on the one hand, with security architecture in the South Caucasus and Russia's neighborhood, is falling apart. So, to put it in a very bland, where it is not afraid of the Russian military presence on the ground anymore, to the point that what we saw, for example, two years ago, Armenia has never restored, I mean, rebuilt its army after losing devastating war in 2020. And in addition to that, the peace process that has already been really very difficult,

it seems to start falling apart. So the longer it goes, the more we see good reasons to go for the war. And then with this is happening again, and this is what you mentioned as well, Azerbaijan is not just militarily stronger. Azerbaijan has been becoming even stronger during the last couple of years. Yeah. So you've got Russia kind of more absent, distracted, obviously, which has made Armenia more vulnerable. I noticed yesterday the European Union is announcing that they're sending a civilian force,

not a military peacekeeping force, to kind of monitor the situation along that road and in the region. And that Tony Blinken, the secretary of state, called President of the president of of Azerbaijan to urge him to, you know, obviously cut things out. But do you think that's enough? I mean, do you think that the U.S. and Europe are just kind of scrambling here to do whatever they can to avoid a war? Or do you think there's a broader plan that can be put in place to help reduce these tensions? So what the European Union did yesterday, it was on Monday, what they announced, it's a miracle. I would say like, you know, a year ago, no one in Brussels. would even consider deploying their civilian mission to the country that is part of the Russian-led

military alliance and which is Armenia. Their civilian mission is going to monitor all the borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan, not Nagorno-Karabakh, which is really important to note. So Nagorno-Karabakh is still going to be monitored by the Russian peacekeepers, and they are the ones responsible for the territories where Armenians continue living, and also with the road that is currently blocked. And what the European Union did is... So the European Union won't be looking even at that road?

No, they do not have an access. They only have a mandate to monitor the situation along the borders. And most probably they will be doing that only on the Armenian side, which is really very important. They still have some time to discuss the things and details with Azerbaijan, because it's really very important to have Azerbaijan on board for cooperation for the mission. It's both important for the security of the European monitors

because you know that area, people do shoot to each other. The main reason why the European Union went for the deployment is because the borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan, they have been the most, the deadliest placed in the last couple of years, not Nagorno-Karabakh itself, you know?

Yeah. So, what the European Union did is they received an invitation from Armenia, first of all. It's really very important that Armenia did it. Again, a Russian lie. And traditional seems like a diverting incitation to a different place. And then they were very, very fast for European Union. It's really very quick what they did. And hopefully that mission is going to minimize a chance for new escalation. But I mean, it will still take time. there will be still a risk for new escalations, new incidents.

We will be having a crisis group report about this very problem with the border and why it's so important, you know, between Armenia and Zyipajan and why the European Union is doing the right thing and what else they should be doing. It's a good sign for the EU to be involved like that. And I mean, just, again, stepping back for people. And I was going to ask you one more question, too, but you've got, you know, Russia has backed Armenia. Turkey is obviously backed Azerbaijan.

The U.S. has been in this awkward position, given our military relationships and some interest with Azerbaijan, but are, you know, a lot of the politics here are supportive of Armenia. All of these pictures have been scrambled a bit because of Ukraine. And the Ukrainians need Turkish support militarily. It all gets very tangled up. And what I wanted to ask you was, you know, you've looked at this frozen conflict, or not really frozen, this conflict around disputed territory. I know you've also looked at South Ossetia and

Abkhazia and Georgia, which are Russian occupied, essentially de facto claimed territories of Georgia with the kind of frozen borderline. We obviously also have a situation in Transnistria that's similar. Do you feel, as someone who's kind of worked on this for years, is there a risk that there could be flare-ups in several of these places? Like, how should we be thinking about how things are changing or not, or impacted or not, in all of these disputed territories of the former Soviet Union because of the war in Ukraine? So, look, I mean, some changes are definitely taking place. And like, for example, in Abkhazia and Saudi Syria, Russia withdrew most of its troops and sent them to Ukraine. So effectively, the places are now on-pefeyas. And, like, for example,

deeper there and the security of Russia, right? But that does not really mean that Georgia, similar to Azerbaijan, for example, takes the same tactics and starts attacking them. It's clear that the Georgian leadership, they got sort of vaccine, you know, against the wars. And they say that the moment they can feel that Russia is weak enough for them to go for the negotiations with the de facto 40s in both entities, they will certainly do that. And so far, the Georgian afforded is, they have been making a force to cooperate to avoid any kind of incidents. And for a good reason, you know, Georgia is a very small country. We saw what happened in 2008, and it took Russians very little to roll in their tanks, you know, and I still can remember

all of that happening in West Country and them driving the tanks on the main highways. And in Georgia, it's so easy to provoke major crisis by doing very small things. So the Georgian and the 480, they have been very, very careful not to provoke anything. And with recent months, when I speak to the officials and not just the officials on the Georgian side, but also in the entities and also the Russian representatives, what they have been telling me is that since the Ukraine war, Russia has taken an absolutely different approach. So they have been cooperating with Georgians in order to avoid any kind of incidents that could drag them in another war. Because again, they want to focus only on Ukraine, you know.

So in a way, the Russian strategy, and I would say that it's not only in Georgia, but also for Armenia and Nagorno-Karab for the moment, is that they want to be only in. Ukraine. You know, they kind of, they focus all there, they use all their diplomatic and military resort there. And the longer they can go like this, you know, till there is some, what they say, like some turning point or something changing in their favor in Ukraine, I think they will definitely want to continue it. So for them with Abkhizia and Saudi Syria, with relative stability of recent months, is a good thing. And then it's also, on the other hand, it's a good think for the Georgian authorities because they feel that if something happens, it will take Russia very little to destabilize the country even more. And again, in Armenian, Azerbaijan, it's taking a

different shape because Azerbaijan feels abaldened and then feels that it's military ready to go for, you know, taking over more territory, strategic heights and all of that. But they again explode in exactly the same thing that Russia doesn't want to get in any open confrontation, with the neighbors while it's fighting Ukraine. Got it. Okay. That makes sense. So basically a much more near-term issue in Nazarajan and Armenia, as we see. But we don't know what will be happening in the longer term, right? I mean, the main question I can tell you, I mean, the moment Russia invaded Ukraine,

everyone started asking the same question in the whole region in the South Caucasus, who is next, you know, what will be happening after that. And for countries like Armenia, which is part of military alliance with Russia, economic alliance, you know, it's a last, last thing. You know, no matter whether Russia loses or wins, they are going to be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. For them, it's a problem because strong Russia is also something that you don't want to deal with. Yeah, yeah, weak Russia and a strong problem is a problem.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Well, thanks so much for joining us and helping us through this. And we will point people to that upcoming international crisis group report. People should continue to follow your work and crisis groups work. Thanks so much and have a good rest of your night. Thank you. All right.

That's it for today. Thank you to Olesia for doing the show. Ben, two things I didn't have time to include. Do you know that January 27th, so a couple days from now, is the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, which ended the Vietnam War? Wow. Kind of a moment. That's it. Huge moment.

Yeah. And then do you see Rishi soon? got fined for posting an Instagram where he was driving in a car without a seatbelt on. I did see that. And by the way, like, who does that, you know? Put it. If I get in the car with Hannah and she doesn't put her seatbelt on, I like yelled. I would have, you know what?

I would have expected that from Boris Johnson. That's a very Boris Johnson move. Seatbelt rules don't apply to me. Woke seat belts. Woke belts. He could get fined $620. Ah, it's going to really put a hit in his wallet. That's, yeah.

One of the richest kind of the play. There's a ton of UK news, which we'll have to get to next week about Bojo. But great, chow. Talk to you guys soon. Yeah, see you. Pod Save the World is a crooked media production. Our executive producers are Ben Rhodes and Michael Martinez. Our producer is Haley News.

Our associate producer is Ashley Mizzou. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seiglin and Charlotte Landis are our sound engineers. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, and Milo Kim, who upload our episodes and videos to YouTube.com slash Pod Save the World. And thanks to Saw Rubin for production support.