Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 12/2/21 Gilbert Doctorow on the Growing Tension at the Russia-Ukrainian Border

Episode Date: December 7, 2021

Scott was joined by Gilbert Doctorow on Antiwar Radio Sunday to talk about Russia and Ukraine. The recent Russian build-up of forces on its border with Ukraine’s Donbas Region has been highly publicized in American media, but the greater context has been all but eliminated from the public discourse. Doctorow provides that context in this interview. He explains how Russian actions are better understood as reactions to American weapons flowing into Ukraine, something the Kremlin considers to be a de facto NATO expansion. Doctorow also explains the dangerous next steps we can expect if this escalation is allowed to continue.  Discussed on the show: Nyet Means Nyet Cable (Wikileaks) “Rules of war need rewriting for the age of AI weapons” (Financial Times) “Remember Pearl Harbor, Mr. President?” (The American Conservative) Gilbert Doctorow is an independent political analyst and was the European Coordinator of The American Committee for East-West Accord. He writes regularly for Consortium News. His latest book is Does the United States Have a Future? This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: The War State and Why The Vietnam War?, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; EasyShip; Free Range Feeder; Thc Hemp Spot; Green Mill Supercritical; Bug-A-Salt; Lorenzotti Coffee and Listen and Think Audio. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjYu5tZiG. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, check it out December 8th in New York City. The Soho Forum is hosting a debate on the resolution. While vaccine mandates are an infringement on freedom, some are justified due to their big payoff in Livesaved. For the affirmative will be George Mason Law Professor Ila Soman, and for the negative, our friend Angela McArdle, chair of the Libertarian Party of Los Angeles County, and declared candidate for national chair of the Libertarian Party. The live debate will be at the Sheen Center, and of course, yes, they do have the vaccine restrictions at the Sheen Center, but they do not at Gene Epstein's apartment. They're going to have a live viewing party at Jean's House so people who oppose the mandates can watch the debate about the mandates. And so find out everything you need to know all about it at the Soho Forum.org. That's this December the 8th in New York.

For Pacifica Radio, December the 4th. 2021. I'm Scott Horton. This is Anti-War Radio. All right, y'all welcome the show. It is Anti-War Radio. I'm your host, Scott Horton, I'm editorial director of anti-war.com. An author of the book, Enough Already. Time to and the War on Terrorism. You can find my full interview archive and sign up for the podcast feed at Scott Horton.org

and at YouTube.com slash Scott Horton Show. Introducing today's guest, it's Gilbert Doctoro. He is a historian and Russia analyst, an author of memoirs of a Russianist, and also does Russia have a future. Welcome back to the show, Gilbert. How are you doing?

I'm doing well. Thanks for inviting me. I really appreciate you joining us on the show here. And so everybody, Gilbert, lives in Brussels. So I know you can see them from your front porch. And I know that you keep a very keen eye on Russian media as well as American media on all things American Cold War. I guess they're involved, too, at least on the receiving end.

But tensions are heating up very far away there, east of what we used to call, Eastern Europe over there in Belarus and Ukraine. And the New York Times version, of course, is that the Russians are preparing to invade and conquer at least part of Ukraine and that America has to do something about it. Of course, President Biden has said that our commitment to Ukraine is ironclad, although I don't know exactly what that means. I hope that you'll tell me that it's unnecessary because the Russians aren't coming anyway, but why don't you tell me what is going on over there? Well, there is a lot of talk on both sides, clearly. The Russians have denied vehemently that they have any intentions to invade Ukraine. At the same time, it's undeniable

if they have moved a lot of men and equipment to the Ukrainian border area. And so in one respect, American warnings about the possibility of Russian military action have some basis in fact. For their part, the Russians point out that the Ukrainian army and its equipment have moved close to the Donbos area, which is the area of conflict, the two seceding provinces of Ukraine, which have a substantial Russian-speaking. population and which have claimed an independent position from Kiev. Now, the Russians speak of one half of the Ukrainian army now being deployed just outside this area of contention in the southeastern part of Ukraine, which receives support from Russia. So the situation on the ground is complex.

Both sides have called attention to the actions of the other. And the United States' position has been, as you mentioned at the outset, to charge the Russians with potentially irresponsible behavior, to threaten the Russians with dire sanctions if they should dare to pursue an intervention in Ukraine. The question is, what is the United States trying to achieve by these warnings? From the Russian perspective, they are trying to give the government in Kiev encouragement to do something irresponsible. And within the, that is to attack the rebel provinces, in the expectation that if something goes awry and if the Russian reaction to this Ukrainian military,

move turns out to be overwhelmingly strong, then the United States will provide what Joe Biden has said, this ironclad guarantee, and back them up with US and NATO forces. Let's go back a little bit in history, not very far. Just go back to 2008. Then you had this very same Joe Biden, who was now the US president and was then vice president. The man was very busy on the periphery of Russia. He was very busy traveling to Georgia, traveling to Kiev, giving instructions to the governments there on how to behave and giving them encouragement that the United States would back them up in eventual membership in NATO. There is reason to believe that Joe Biden and people around him gave Sakashvili, the then-president of Georgia, they believe that

if he moved to recapture rebel provinces that were where Russian peacekeepers were located, the United States would stand by them. The United States then put military forces in the eastern Mediterranean and potentially moving into the Black Sea in support of this military help. We came very close to a war that is a U.S. Russian confrontation, direct confrontation, in 2008. In point of fact, the United States did nothing. In point of fact, Turkey refused to admit American naval vessels through the Straits and into the Black Sea in the belief that this would encourage a direct military strike against

the Russian-backed forces in the edge of the military. of Georgia. So back in 2008, the ironclad guarantees that the same Mr. Biden and people around him gave to the Georgian government turned out to be worthless. And the net result was a devastating defeat for Georgia. It could be that Mr. Biden has given such similar encouragement to Kiev, in the hope that they will do something against the Russians, whether it succeeds or not, is almost irrelevant. The end result from the U.S. side is that whether the coin is heads or tails, the U.S. wins.

If the Russians smash Kiev, move forces into Ukraine, then the United States can rally world opinion and NATO in very harsh economic, diplomatic measures against Russia, which was fine with the United States. The loser in that event would be Kiev, but then who cares? The Kiev does not have by itself any value for the United States. Kiev and Ukraine are just a platform for American containment forces directed against Russia. So there's where we are. The United States is baiting Russia by calling out intentions to invade that Russia denies that it has. Look here, you and I both know that what you need is some Libertarian Institute things,

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Well, now, is there a sense on the Russian side that we know the game that the Americans are playing and always play, and they're not going to take the bait? Well, it was very difficult to understand the Russian position until two days ago. The whole question of Russian attention to Ukraine, which has grown immensely in the last few weeks, centered around the potential for Ukrainian strike against the rebel provinces of Donbass, but it also centered around an issue that Vladimir Putin raised a couple of months ago and repeated a number of times in the period since, namely that the United States has been moving equipment, the very advanced equipment, into Ukraine, has been conducting military exercises in Ukraine, and de facto has been seeking to achieve on Ukrainian territory

what it would achieve if Ukraine were admitted to NATO. Going back several years, the America's partners in NATO, particularly Germany, resisted American insistence on very quick association in NATO by Ukraine. So the American attempt to send forces that could be used, useful in containing Russia onto Ukraine via NATO membership was frustrated. The Russians were saying, going back, as I say to a couple of months, that the U.S. has been de facto using Ukrainian territory, as it would have done de jure if Ukraine became a member of NATO, which it cannot at present become.

We didn't know exactly what Vladimir Putin was talking about. a bit vague. He said that Russia had drawn red lines, which the U.S. and NATO should not cross in Ukraine. Presumably, it was what I just was describing. Right. And we've already known that just, you know, to interject here real quick, that it's in the WikiLeaks that Lavrov told our current director of the CIA, William Sullivan, back when almost certain still in the Bush years, might have been early Obama years when he was at the State Department, the WikiLeaks cable is titled, Niet means Niet.

And Lavrov is being very polite, but saying, listen, this whole bring Ukraine into NATO thing is a dead letter. And I hope you understand that we're serious about that. And he's being very diplomatic, but he's being very serious about it. And then Vladimir Putin himself had told an Italian diplomat that you know we can be in Kiev in two weeks. And that's not the kind of thing that you're supposed to take lightly.

And he's not the kind of guy who just bluffs very often. And by the way, let me bring in one more factoid here for the discussion for you to address, which is that at the worst part of the war, I don't know, the very worst part of it, but I think right around there in the first half of 2015, if I remember correctly, Gilbert, the Donbass region, that is Donetska and Lujansk, these two eastern, I guess counties or provinces there in far eastern Ukraine, they held a plebiscite and voted to join the Russian Federation. And Putin told them no. And he's obviously sent deniable forces there, right? Special operations forces, but not full infantry divisions to help them resist Kiev

this whole time. But he's not invaded and he refused their request to join, you know, join their federation. So I wonder if you think that's changed at all or this really is all just the Russians trying to hold their fire in the face of American provocation? Well, my peers among the commentators and experts on Russia have in the last few weeks speculated daily on what kind of military action Moscow could take against Kiev decapitation. Would they divide the territory of Ukraine into with the territory east of the Jemper River? it's in the middle of Ukraine and has a Kiev situated on the Dnieper, going to a Russia-friendly

government and the rump remainder of Ukraine west of the Gneeper, which is where the rabid nationalists are, in fact, is the part of Ukraine that was under the influence of Austria before World War I. Anyway, that being left to the west because it wouldn't really count for much. These speculations have been very interesting, and they've been multiplying day by day. However, what I want you to point out is in November 30th, and in the course of a virtual presentation to the world business community called Russia Calling, Vladimir Putin clarified in an unmistakable way what Russia wants to do to protect itself against U.S. designs in Ukraine. As I said, the U.S. by stealth, according to Russian intelligence, has been working to achieve what the U.S. would by right achieve if Ukraine. a member of NATO. Well, what is it that Fatima Putin wants to do? It's not anything that my

colleagues have been talking about. It is not about taking territory. As you pointed out correctly, in 2015, Putin did not accept the notion of Russian admitting these two rebel provinces into the Russian Federation. And he did so in the full knowledge that whatever the the vote was at the time, the population on the ground was not dependable in its loyalty to Russia, as Russia understands it. And he did not want to be drawn into the civil war of Ukraine and to face extremely painful sanctions from the West over this without serving any purpose, because it would not add to the wealth and to the strength of Russia. It would sap Russia's strength by exposing it to a civil war, ongoing civil war within Ukraine.

So what is Vladimir Putin telling us now that Russia's interest in an American presence in Ukraine focuses on one issue only, and that is the threat of the United States installing missile systems, which presently has done, some similar to what it has done in Romania and Poland, that are dual purpose, which would be described upon delivery as being defensive, but in effect at the switch of a computer, can be instantly turned into offensive weapons. The Ukraine and the far reaches of Ukraine, approaching the Russian border, reduce dramatically the distance between potential American missiles and Moscow by several hundred kilometers. And so Russia pays particular attention to what the United States could or would like to do

by way of installing supposedly defensive missiles in Ukraine, which actually would have the effect of reducing us. He said in his speech two days ago would reduce the flight time to the warning time of incoming missiles of strategic importance directed against the Russian capital to five to seven minutes. Now, that is totally unacceptable for the Russians. It is a vital threat to their existential threat. And Putin stated explicitly how Russia intends to react if the United States does this by stealth or otherwise.

And here we revert to what he said in the state of the nation addressed a couple of years ago when he was rolling out before the Russian and global public, the latest weapon systems, state-of-the-art systems that Russia had developed and was about to produce in a serial manner and to implement in its armed forces around the world. Among these new armaments are hypersonic missiles which are capable of, of being positioned on surface vessels, frigates, or commercial freighters, in the size of ordinary shipping containers, or which can be carried on newly designed and newly constructed Russian submarines.

The explicit threat that Putin made when he described these new systems is that Russia could turn the oceans into from a source of safety which the United States had enjoyed since it became a nation state in the 18th century to turn that the oceans around the United States from a source of safety to a source of dire threat. The Russians could station these various vessels at a distance of 200 miles as out in international waters and could reach Washington or any other strategic point for attack within five to seven minutes.

Well, there you have it. We have a revisiting of the Cuban missile crisis when just such a threat brought the world, a threat of Russian installation and missile. close to the U.S. mainland brought the world close to a nuclear armageddon. This threat in the speech that he made, as Putin made two days ago, has only been partially reported by our major media. And it's quite striking the Financial Times in an article yesterday describing this event, the Russia calling, and Putin's mention of new weapon systems

did not connect this with the situation in Ukraine. Not at all. It's just a unforgivable. It's like Pravda. It really is the Western media in the way they approach this subject. Someone's joking the other day on the internet about how the headlines will read, Russian jets, buzz, American ships, in the Black Sea right off their coast, you know, but that's just the way they frame it always. And to such a degree that the truth is completely lost. So, you know, the problem here is, Gilbert, you're so soft-spoken, but you are talking about a serious ratcheting up of the threat of a nuclear war where, and look, I think everyone listening to this show knows that my bias is on all of these things, that America is the

world empire. America's been expanding not just in the Middle East and in Eastern Asia, but throughout Eastern Europe, and as you're describing right up to Russia's borders and threatening to put these, you know, first of all, defensive, quote-unquote missiles, ringing Russia is an offensive threat itself. It's, you know, bringing armor to a fist fight, increasing the ability to shoot down a retaliatory strike from Russia is, in a sense, an offensive capability anyway. But then, as you're saying, and very importantly, the missile launchers are dual use, and you can fit a Tomahawk missile in one of those or another nuclear-capable cruise missile in those same missile launchers.

And so here the Americans truly are, it seems, just ratcheting up all of these tensions unnecessarily. But I know that if you and I somehow could get some bureaucrat drunk at a bar in Georgetown outside Washington, D.C., they would say to us that this guy Putin is really dangerous, Gilbert. why we have to do this. Don't you know what a psychopathy is, what an aggressive threat he is? We have to contain him like he's Joe Stalin or at least Cruz Jeff or Andropov or something. So what do you say to that? Well, I say that it's really sad or almost tragic thing is that the best we could hope for

is this discussion in a bar off of Capitol Hill. there is no forum with there's no forum in the states for public discussion of these existential threats which we are creating with our own two hands and what you have is this this issue with Russia doesn't exist by itself by further extension by unbelievable eubris the United States has managed to bring Russia and China into what is very close to a full alliance. It is incredible to imagine, but that is what we have done. And these issues are kept separate, by the way. They even kept separate by people who should know better, by people who are, Scott, not very different in their thinking about the fundamentals

from yourself and me. what the United States is doing by its containment policy directed both against Russia and China should be a matter of discussion with all the experts on both countries in the United States. Russia is absolutely, has no supporters in the states. No one will come and talk about it because we know everything we need to know. China is more discussable, more disputable, because until very recently, you've had a lot of friends of China among the American elites, business elites, and other elites. America always, going back 20, 30 years, had a big soft spot in its heart for China. It had no soft spot ever for Russia.

So it is rather sad that we among ourselves, we so-called dissidents, American policy, on on Russia are unable to find talking partners among our colleagues who are experts in the States on China because the issues are the same. The U.S. scenario or the rollout of containment against China is following precisely one-to-one the U.S. scenarios on creating a new Cold War against Russia. Now, Gilbert, you may be familiar with Colonel Douglas McGregor, kind of a crusty old conservative anti-war colonel. And his position on Russia is that we should be friends with them. And his position on China is that they're an economic competitor at worst.

And America doesn't really have any enemies in the world. And we could have a much more non-interventionist foreign policy. And this is the guy who wrote the war plan for fighting Russia in Eastern Europe. no joke that's his job and still he's saying that in fact he wrote before i think we won't have a nuclear war there because the russians won't use nukes in ukraine no matter what i mean it could escalate to general war with us but they won't use nukes in ukraine because the prevailing wins but still could be a hell of a fight there that america's absolutely not prepared for and he has a new piece in the american conservative magazine where he says essentially joe biden and his people

they don't understand deterrence. So they're being aggressive in the Pacific. And I don't want to change the subject to China here, but they're mentioned as well. But, and they're being aggressive in Ukraine. And it's all about deterrence, but it's really not deterrence. It's more like a provocation. And he says, you know, we could have a Pearl Harbor type situation where they strike first, but because, again, we maneuver them into firing the first shot and making them feel like they have no choice.

well if you speak about firing this could kill us all and by all i mean all well we have we have a 70 years experience dealing with the russians and the russians have in general been very cautious even today what we see by and large is russia reaction uh not russia provocation the chinese question is a different matter. We really don't know whether the Chinese

are going to be as calm and as laid back as the Russians have been. Certainly the Chinese are much less willing to take a strike and turn the other cheek than the Russians have done.

If you want to look for the Pearl Harbor moment, I'd say it's much more likely to come out of the confrontation with China than out of a confrontation with Russia. Well, as you say, though, if they start installing these supposedly defensive missiles in Ukraine and treating them like a full NATO ally, then they just might decide to go in there and destroy those missiles and take whatever consequences come from that. And that could be the start of a real war. Well, judging by by Putin's latest remarks, again, the insight here is that the Russians do not intend a strike

against Kiev, decapitation, whatever. The Russians intend instead to wave flags at Washington at 200 miles off and say, look, guys, you want it, you're going to get it. Right. And then, yeah, I guess it remains to be seen whether that's effective. And again, not to change the subject of China, but that's what's happening in the White House, right? Is the hawks are telling Biden, if we back down at all in Ukraine, the Chinese will invade Taiwan. You can't show weakness

because of the domino theories and the spiral policy and all this stuff they studied at the John F. Kennedy School of supposedly understanding this stuff. Well, by our own action, these two questions are totally linked, which is why I say

that any public discussion should a response, respectable forum be opened at a place, let's dare to say it, the Kennedy School at Harvard, if they ever were to open their doors to something resembling a roundtable, I don't dare say debate, because we were afraid of debates and losing them. But if they were to open their doors to discussion of the existential threats facing the United States today, they would have to discuss two two countries at once, because they're virtual allies, Russia and China. And the remark that you made a minute ago about the Chinese taking advantage of a Russian showdown in Ukraine is entirely plausible.

I think that the moment of truth will come when the Russians and the Chinese agree publicly or quietly, however, that an attack on one is attack on both. And this will be very late. It'll be very late for the United States to take any remedial action. All right, you guys. That is Gilbert Dr. O, Russia analyst, and author of memoirs of a Russianist. Thank you so much for your time again on the show, Gilbert. Thanks for having me. All right, you guys, and that has been anti-war radio for this morning.

Thanks very much for listening. I'm your host, Scott Horton. You can find my full interview archive, more than 5,600 of them now, going back to 2003 at scotwharton.org, and you can follow me on Twitter at Scott Horton's show. I'm here every Sunday morning from 8.30 to 9 on KPFK, 90.7FN in L.A. See you next week.