The Duran Podcast - Fake Diplomacy & Permanent Conflict - John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

Fake Diplomacy & Permanent Conflict - John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

Welcome back. We are here today with Professor John Meersheimer and Alexander Mercuris to discuss what is going on in Ukraine. So thank you both for taking the time. Thank you. Glad to be here, Glenn. It seems that we're going up the escalation ladder now. There's attacks on this Russian civilian ships. There's talk about going after, or more forcefully, against the Shadow Fleet. We're getting more and more directly involved in attacks on Russia.

whilst rejecting serious negotiations. A lot of this assumes escalation control, though, and which is premised on the idea that we're dominant and the Russians will have to back down at some point. But when Russia's winning and it's holding all the cards, how can we explain this decision-making on the European side? Well, I'd just like to say a word about the negotiations, Glenn, between the Russians on one side and let's say the West plus the Ukrainians on the other side

because the West would include the Europeans and the Americans. I find the whole situation, and I'm choosing my words carefully here, categorically bizarre. I mean, it's very clear what the Russian demands are, especially the core demands. and they have not changed forever. And the Russians continually remind us what those demands are. Yet the West, and here we're talking even about the United States, continues to act as if those demands were flexible and that the Russians were not deeply committed to those demands. So you have this whole negotiation process that looks like it makes no sense at all.

I just kind of don't get what's going on here. They send Whitkoff and Kushner to talk to Putin, and he has a five-hour conversation on December 2nd. And then there are these negotiations in Berlin over this past weekend. December 14th and 15th involving the United States, the Europeans, and the Ukrainians, and they come up with a series of positions that are completely at odds with what the Russian demands are. And you say to yourself, after all this time negotiating, if you're not going to accommodate yourself to these non-negotiable Russian demands, what is the point of coming up with a program or a policy position,

that is the polar opposite of the Russian demands. And this just goes on and on. And you sort of say to yourself, what world are these people living in? It's just amazing. Well, I would agree. I mean, I don't think that there are negotiations properly between the Americans and the Russians.

There are meetings between the Americans and the Russians. The Russians restate their demands. The Americans hear them. And then they negotiate. with the Ukrainians and the Europeans. The actual, far more time, the Americans seem to be spending,

far more time talking to the Ukrainians and to the Europeans than they do to the Russians. And as a result, the fact that the Russians are there as the other party seems repeatedly somehow to get lost.

And it doesn't help that The Russians are apparently saying, in fact, they're not the apparently saying. Lavrov has recently said that Trump told Putin in Anchorage that he would make sure that Zelensky did come round to the Russian way of thinking and that he could make sure that that would happen. And now the Americans are apparently telling the Europeans the same thing, that they will get the Russians round to the American. to the European way of thinking,

and that the Russians will be persuaded somehow to accept these Berlin proposals. All this does, I'm sure it so's doubt on everybody's side, and it means that we're just going round and round in circles, ending up with the same positions all over again. A proper negotiation is one where the Americans and the Russians met regularly where there were proper negotiating teams, properly constituted negotiations teams, where there was a properly designated chief negotiator, as used to happen during the Cold War,

as used to happen during the Paris negotiations that ended the American involvement in the conflict in Vietnam, as used to happen during the Sort Treaty negotiations, and the Helsinki, the negotiations that led to the Helsinki agreement, But we've never had anything like that. We've had Whitgolf and now Kushner, who isn't even a member of the administration, going along, having meetings with the Russians, coming back from those meetings, then talking about those meetings for hours with the Europeans and the Ukrainians, and ending up basically agreeing to what the Ukrainians and the Europeans want, which is exactly, as he said, the

diametric opposite of what the Russians say. So unless and until we have these proper negotiations, I think the negotiations aren't going to go anywhere because they cannot go anywhere. It is as simple as that. But the point is, Alexander, it's not simply the lack of professional negotiators on the American side. That is a serious problem for sure. But it's also the fact that there's no common ground here between the two sides. I mean, it's quite clear that the Europeans and the Ukrainians have a completely different set of views than the Russians. They're diametrically opposed views. Then the question is, where do the Americans fit into the equation? Because the Americans are sort of the swing vote here. Sometimes you think they're leaning towards Putin and sometimes

you think they're leaning towards the Europeans and the Ukrainians. But the Americans don't take a clear position on this. They talk to the Russians and they say we're close to an agreement. Then they go talk to the Europeans and the Ukrainians and they abandon all the Russian positions and adopt the Ukrainian and European positions. And again, they say we're close to reaching some sort of agreement and you just sort of say to yourself, this is delusional. The Americans have to choose one side or the other. And if they agree with the Russians, then they're going to be at complete odds with the Europeans and the Ukrainians and vice versa. But substantively, there's just no room for an agreement here. And this is why this is going to be settled on the battlefield.

Which is the point you've been making all along and you're absolutely right. There is actually, if you strip through all the rhetoric or the language or the ocean of words that has appeared actually going back to the moment when Trump was elected there has been no shifting of positions at all the Russians have set up their position the Europeans and the Ukrainians have theirs and there has been no movement on either side towards the other and given the Gulf between them, it's impossible to see how the river could be. Yeah. Well, what's interesting, though, how different, well, if you want to categorize them into

three different groups, that is, because as John also mentioned here, the US keeps going back and forth between the two sides, it can make sense, I guess, if it's some, you know, real estate, well, if you ever bought a house, they go to this, since this is where Trump comes in. if you go to the seller and the buyer, you call back and forth and you try to pressure both to come to the center. But at the end of the day, just makes the U.S. looks very unreliable, because they keep telling the Russians, okay, we have a common understanding, we agree, and then they go talk to the Europeans, and then suddenly they switch completely.

And I think part of the problem is that the U.S. now present itself as a mediator, but it's one of the main participants in this conflict. I mean, this is a Russia-NATO proxy war, which means a U.S. Russia. And then, of course, you have the second one is the Europeans, which is not more or less just like Zelensky. And I find it strange that Europeans, they want to be part of negotiations, but they don't want to talk to Russia. And I guess this is a good middle ground, because now they negotiate with the Americans, which is their NATO ally, which is also very strange. but I don't even think they want a settlement because what they're pushing is not serious. So it looks more as if they just want to get the Americans committing on their side.

So Trump can go and pressure the Russians and essentially unleash America's fury upon them and pulling thus the Americans deeper into this war. And of course, then you have the Russians, which they haven't changed their position, but it is a very strong position. They want a lot here. Of course, it didn't start like this. it would have been easy to solve four years ago, but here we are. But it is interesting, though, that there are these two positions.

They are mutual exclusive, though, and this is why I think it's so very strange to see the US go back and forth, because for the Russians, they want NATO out, neutral Ukraine. In other words, Ukraine should not be a proxy of NATO. And then you have the European position, which is apparently if I got the the German meeting correctly. They want an 800,000 strong peacetime army backed by European forces,

seemingly no limits on the long-range missiles which are going to be placed in Ukraine. I mean, this is like a Minsk 2 on steroids. What are we doing here? It doesn't make much sense. If I can make a quick point here,

Glenn, I think from the American perspective, one of the major problems has to do with how you think about the causes of the war, because that affects how you think about ending the war. And I think for the three of us and people in our tribe, we believe that in the beginning, the Russians viewed what was happening with regard to NATO expansion as an existential threat. And they therefore ended up coming up with a set of dimension. that are designed to take this threat off the table, period, end of story.

If you believe, as most people do, that this is a case of Vladimir Putin acting as a neo-imperialist, as someone who's interested in conquering Ukraine, integrating it into a greater Russia, then you see the opportunity now for bargaining space, right? Those maximalist demands that he has are not considered to be very important. He's an imperialist. He's got a big chunk of territory. We can cut a deal with him. And NATO expansion is not that important an issue.

It really wasn't an existential threat that caused him to invade Ukraine. it was just the fact that he was an imperialist. And he knows that he can't have everything. So we'll give him a little bit. But that's not what's going on here, right? From the Russian perspective, NATO expansion and what the West is trying to do in terms of creating a Western bulwark on Russia's borders is categorically unacceptable. There's no bargaining space here. Ukraine cannot be in NATO.

Ukraine cannot have a security commitment from the West. Ukraine cannot have NATO troops inside its borders. It cannot have an army that can threaten Russia, which is to say it cannot have an army that has 600,000 or 800,000 soldiers in it. It's just unacceptable because that would be an existential threat. But again, most people in the West do not see this situation. from Russia's perspective. They think that Putin is an imperialist, and there's bargaining space here.

They can get the Russians to reduce their demands. And the fact is, you cannot get the Russians to move on the core demands. It's just that simple. And it's a waste of time trying to cut a bargain to find a middle ground. There is no middle ground here from the Russian perspective. because what the Russians see confronting them is an existential threat. Which, of course, then begs the question, which I think is being increasingly asked in Moscow, whether it was ultimately such a good idea to engage with the Americans to such an extent,

as has been done, and whether that reinforced the views, the misconceptions in Washington, that the Americans could indeed be bargained down. And you're beginning to see the first hints of this in Moscow. A couple of weeks ago, admittedly the latest series of negotiations, I noticed that Putin was starting to receive somewhat more aggressive questions from members of the Russian media. They're very, very deferential to him, usually,

when they meet with him. But they were asking him very pointed questions. why are we talking about things with the Americans at all? And Medvedev, who obviously is, you know, plays the hard cop, and there's probably some element of gameplay with him and Putin about this. But he actually published a piece in which he said negotiations with the Americans are a complete waste of time. They're clearly on the other side, we should focus on winning the wall.

So it was interesting that he said that as starkly as he did. And I think that we've just had another meeting in Moscow at the Russian Defence Ministry. Putin was there. And the tone I sensed was becoming more implacable. And I've noticed that Putin avoided talking about Trump. at all and again didn't mention him by name, which is something he has increasingly been doing. So I think that the Russians are starting to sour on this whole process, and I suspect that Berlin will have made them do so even more. Just so.

That's, I think, something that the Trump administration isn't calculating. I think all this rhetoric about Putin being a dictator, they assume that he doesn't have political pressure on him. But of course, the possibility of having a diplomatic path was the Americans have suggested this has been a reasoning for not going so hard on the battlefield while stepping up the aggression. But as the US flip-flops yet again and now seems to be pivoting towards the European position, then there's this immense pressure on Putin to step up the hostilities. I mean, if you look at what's happening in areas like Odessa, others. I would say the aggression is already increasing. But I liked what John said, though,

because there's always been this two hypotheses that is, on one hand, yes, let's say that Putin is just the imperialist, all of this was Russia, you know, waking up one day, wanting more territory. If this is the case, then it makes sense. You know, you want to be careful with too much compromise because then you might appease, you might emboldened, you'll reward aggression. Meanwhile, you want to send weapons to make sure that the costs, increase versus the benefits. However, as we believe that this was not an imperialist war, this was something that the Russians have been talking about for the past 30 years, that this is an existential threat, something they have to counter. Now suddenly sending

weapons and ending diplomacy is exactly the opposite. This is posing an existential threat to Russia. What we're saying is we're going to fight to the last Ukrainian. We're not going to talk to them. That's what we said back from 2022, but we're going to pour in all the weapons we have until we've defeated Russia. I mean, that's just escalation all the way. And that's why I think it's also the problem here with this peace negotiations. That is the whole idea is, okay, we'll give the Russians a little bit of territory. But then we have to build up this very powerful deterrent.

That is, NATO has to be in Ukraine somehow build up a powerful army. So this will never happen again. But of course, this neglects what the Russian views is, which is that the territorial deal. dispute is merely a symptom is a consequence of our reluctance to address the restoration of Ukraine's neutrality. So we're living in two different worlds, though, which makes it very difficult to have a conversation. Of course, if we are diplomats, that might change things. But the other thing is, Glenn, if you're the Russians, and you do view this threat from the West and from

Ukraine as an existential threat. And yet the West and the Ukraine, and the Ukraine, you're the Ukrainians won't concede that you have legitimate security concerns, and they're actually going to increase the pressure on you as much as they can. You, the Russians, then have a powerful incentive to prepare for a long war. And even when this turns into a frozen conflict, you will understand that that frozen conflict will be a nasty security competition between you, Russia, and the and Ukraine. So the incentives here for the Russians to play hardball and grab more territory and do everything they can to weaken Ukraine is just increasing with the passage of time, which is just going to poison relations further with Europe and with Ukraine for the long term.

I mean, the more you think about the escalation that has taken place in this conflict going back to March, April of 2022, you think about the Istanbul. agreements and how minimal the Russian demands were then compared to where they are today. And then you marry that to our conversation here about where this train is headed. And you just say to yourself, boy, the potential for really serious trouble over a long period of time is very great here. Indeed, John. And in fact, just confirming all the points you've just made.

we've had this meeting at the Russian Defence Ministry Board and it's difficult to get all of the texts of all the speeches because you have to go to various places on various Russian official websites to find them but they were exactly about the point that you were making that there is not going to be a peace settlement long term in Europe that the rhetoric from Europe is all about war

that there is going to be a long protracted conflict, that the present set of European leaders are not going to be prepared to negotiate. And far and away, the biggest discussion, the major part of that meeting was not even about the existing war at all. It is about the enormous military buildup that must now take place

to confront the threats from the West that are going to happen in the future. and the need to build up the Russian armed forces even further, to develop them even further, because that is the only way to secure security for the long term. And going back to, again, the very point that you made, how, if that is what you are thinking, if that is what you, the Russians, are thinking,

can you accept any possible situation? in which Ukraine, in that kind of context, remains tied to the West, with security guarantees, provided by the United States, ratified by the Senate, with forward NATO troops, forward based on the territory of Ukraine itself, with missiles in Ukraine, all of the things that were discussed in Berlin. to the Russians, all of this in a situation where they believe they are now in a long drawn-out confrontation with the West.

To them, all of this looks aggressive towards them and threatening their own security. So this is inevitably going to make them harden their positions even further. it was clearly set out over the course of this meeting in Moscow. And I have to say, when I was reading it through last night, it made my heart sing. Yeah. When I said that we live in different worlds, you also see it in terms of the justifications you're using, though, because when you listen to the European leaders now, they actually very clearly state, Kayakhalas, she makes it clear than anyone, but it's also repeated by Rute and the rest of the gang.

which is that, well, a peace agreement should really just include security guarantees for Ukraine. Russia doesn't need any security concerns, or doesn't have any security guarantees, because it doesn't have any legitimate security concerns. And how to explain this, because, well, obviously, Ukraine is the victim here. Russia is the aggressor, and we're trying to help the victim. So obviously, the security guarantees have to go to the victim, so the aggressor doesn't violate the victim again. So this is kind of the whole Paul Peace Agreement is therefore framed around the very normative position.

That is we have to protect the little guy. And it's very strange. First of all, Russia would reject this entire framing. Of course, they see NATO as having started this war. But also, this was, you know, they see it from more, I guess, material. This is an existential threat. We just forced to remove this threat. we won the war

and now we're telling you if you don't back down and give us what we want then we'll take more territory we'll find a piece for our own and it will be a very ugly piece so take this diplomatic path now

and so again we're not even living in the same worlds anymore because for the Europeans this is immoral so it's better just to reject it it seems it's a very absurd thing to watch and and even in the Europeans They don't even recognize the logic anymore, the legitimacy of thinking in the ways that the Russians are speaking now.

So essentially political realism is dead in Europe, I think. Yeah, people have no ability to put themselves in the shoes of the Russians and see it from Russia's point of view. I find this quite remarkable. You know, this whole subject of whether NATO expansion was an existential threat to the Russians or not. or not. I have a number of good friends who are very sophisticated strategists who simply don't believe that NATO expansion into Ukraine was an existential threat to Russia. And my point to them is it doesn't matter what you think, right? What matters is what the Russians think. And the Russians have made it unequivocally clear that it is an existential threat from their perspective. I can understand that.

Okay, you can't understand that. But you have to put yourself a near- shoes. And if you don't do that and you act as if what you think matters and what they think doesn't matter, you're going to get yourself into a well of a lot of trouble. And this is really what's happened here. It's quite remarkable. But I want to ask you two guys a question. It seems to me that this whole business with stealing Russian assets in Euroclear is just going to make a bad situation worse. What are your thoughts on that? there's no question about this. The Russians are making that point all the time. And of course, they're going to retaliate against Western assets in Russia, which apparently include

$17 billion of assets that are actually managed by Euroclear, that they are in Russia itself. So, I mean, this is going to make a situation far, far worse. It is historically seizing assets of a sovereign in this kind of way is historically been seen as an act of war. In fact, I read an article not that long ago in the Financial Times, which warned against doing this for precisely that reason, because it blurs the distinction between war and peace. But I think that one of the reasons why some people in Europe are pressing so hard to do this is precisely that.

And one of the things we're not perhaps saying is that it's quite obvious to me that there are some people in Europe who do not want to see a negotiated settlement of the conflict. And they're saying to themselves, if seizing these assets makes the settlement of that conflict, of this conflict diplomatically more difficult than well and good. Let's do it. Let's do it for that very reason, because either we believe that the Russians are going to run out of steam because their losses are so great and their economy is going to crack, or because we want to keep the Americans in,

or because we want to avoid the quarrels that might break out amongst each other in Europe, or for whatever reason, but they want the war to continue. And so much of what we have been discussing about the positions, the Europeans are taking, both on this issue of the assets and on all of the other points, is that ultimately they must be aware that the Russians are not going to accept these things, which, given that they're putting them forward all the time, must mean that they don't want a negotiated peace. well this is why it's also strange the whole idea that the only pathway the Europeans now have

for this for this whole financial issue to resolve itself is if the Russians will at the end of this war voluntarily give up on all of this money and the premise here is that well the Russians will have to pay for reparation because they did a lot of damage in Ukraine so now they should pay for it. I mean, this is the language they speak of. Even was it yesterday, the Danish Prime Minister said, well, we should circumvent Belgium's opposition if they do not fall in line because this is the right thing to do. So everything is about what is right and what is moral and what is good. So there's no rules anymore that they will follow. But I also, yeah, very much agree with Alexander. I think this will simply lock in the war because any peace

would demand that Russia has its money returned. But if the Europeans can't actually return this money, then, of course, we're locked in this war forever. And I do think that Europe sees this war as being deeply problematic. That is, once they lose the war in Ukraine, I think the Americans will start to pack up, they will find, you know, go to more regions which are higher prioritized, and the Europeans will then begin to be more split among themselves.

among the public and elites. So I think, yeah, there's no one who's in the rush to get this war to an end, I think. Yeah, I was going to say, Glenn, just on the Europeans themselves, watching how the different European countries think about stealing the Russian assets, you see quite significant differences among the various players in Europe. and there are, by my count, either six or seven countries that are adamantly opposed to stealing the Russian assets. And one would think that over time, this could cause really serious problems inside of Europe. So you have the situation where these shenanigans may not only be further poisoning relations between the Russians and the Europeans,

but may be fracturing Europe itself and even helping to poison relations across the Atlantic because the Americans have been making it clear that they don't go along with this idea of stealing Russian assets. So it seems to me that this is really playing with fire. Well, absolutely. It is excessive. It is an attempt to keep Europe united is now starting to create fractures.

because the other reason they're doing this is because Ukraine needs money. I mean, Ukraine is burning through money incredibly fast. Its tax revenues have collapsed. Its budget is widening constantly because the expenses of the war are increasing. As the war is lost, but you have to maintain a bigger and bigger army to try to fight the bigger army than the Russians. Of course, the costs are exploding. So there is this huge hole in the budget.

it has to be filled. European governments are a great stress already financially. So this is attractive. It stops any prospect of peace and at the same time it gets around the immediate funding problem at least for a while. But of course doing that is creating stresses because you have small countries like Cyprus and Malta, which are financial. centers, small financial centers, but financial centers nonetheless, they are very worried about this because they worry

what the international impact of this would be. Euroclear itself is very worried and it's basically said they don't think this is legal and they've apparently been told by Fitch that they could be downgraded if this happens

and that's making them nervous. Belgium is becoming nervous as well the former Austro-Hungarian Empire is uniting in opposition to this Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, I believe, Hungary, of course. So they're all uniting against this two for various reasons of their own. So this attempt to keep the show on the road is now actually creating frictions and starting to create. divisions and you're really seeing that they're now changing mid-flow their own rules. They're now starting to resort to emergency powers to change the system on how freezes and

sanctions are extended. Remember, Hungary, when it agreed to this freeze in the first place, did it on the basis that every six months, this issue would have to come up again for discussion and would have to be rolled over and Hungary would have that veto every six months. Now that veto has been taken away using emergency powers. So the tensions are going to grow. And Italy is unhappy.

Italy has always had difficult and prickly relations with France. That's a historic problem, which, if you know European history, has always been there. The French government supports it. That almost makes sure that the Italian government is nervous about it. So you can see that the tensions are starting to increase. But that doesn't seem to prevent the key big players, Germany, France, Scandinavians, they want to keep going. And the British, of course, are encouraging.

them in that too. So you could see the tensions and the fractures starting to grow. But let me run another question by you, Glenn and you, Alexander. What do you think of the argument that in the final analysis, this doesn't matter at all whether you give Ukraine more money because it's not going to affect what happens on the battlefield. What Ukraine needs is more soldiers and much more weaponry. And giving Ukraine this additional money may help keep the government to float and social services afloat and so forth and so on, and, you know, pay soldiers.

But in fact, the Ukrainians are going to continue to lose on the battlefield. This does nothing to reverse the situation that is evolving on the battlefield. Do you agree with that? Well, no, I agree with it. But I think the collapse in Ukraine is happening simultaneously on three levels. One, of course, is the economic. If they can't get the money, then they will run into bankruptcy. But also on the battlefield, I think that's the second one.

They are losing. You can't just, you know, they're not printing weapons in the EU. They have to find a way of actually building these weapons as well. They have to train the, the, the, the Ukrainian forces as well to use this weapon. And, you know, the Americans have to produce this weapon. So often it ends up with this problem that the Americans don't necessarily have the weapons to sell and the Europeans can't pay for them and the Ukrainians don't have men to man them.

So I think it's a big problem, especially if you see in the Saperitia region now, I mean, if you steal some Russian assets, how is this going to fix things on the battlefield? The whole manpower issue as well has manifested. itself in massive social problems now in Ukraine. That is the more aggressive recruitment strategies. You see the mass desertions. A lot of this is killing off morale among the troops as well. So I just, I don't think, I don't see this as a silver bullet.

I think it can help to keep some of the finances in order for a while more. But the military aspect is important. But also the third one, which is I think a political collapse might ensue as well. already see possibly induced by the United States. Again, I don't have the evidence for it, but given that the U.S. has significant influence of the anti-corruption agencies of Ukraine, I find it interesting timing that Yermak and others suddenly had to go down

that is the people closest around Zelensky. So I see a bit of a meltdown in the political leadership, the military, social, cohesion, and also the economy. I guess that would be four levels, but no, I don't think this is going to solve much. I think it's more of a need to do something, and of course, trying to freeze to keep the war going. It's not going to solve anything, because what you say, John, is absolutely right. This whole conflict is going to be decided on the battlefields, and on the battlefields, Ukraine is losing and is going to go on losing. I don't think there is any doubt now.

or really there shouldn't be. But Glenn has, I think, put his finger on an important point. As I think often happens in a war, everything is going wrong at the same time. The war on the battlefronts is losing, is being lost. The economy is crumbling. The financial structures in Kiev are crumbling too. There's pressure from the Americans, because the Americans, however, confusedly see the need to have some kind of end before the collapse comes.

And of course, the Americans are coming up with all sorts of alarming ideas about prioritising Asia again, and the Europeans haven't liked this new strategy document at all. So when you find yourself in that kind of situation, and I've seen this, especially in my previous life, many times, what you tend to find is that people who find themselves in that situation, situation. They're dealing with all sorts of problems, interactible problems, all at one and the same time.

They tend to focus on the one problem amongst them that they feel that they can at least solve to some degree in order to keep things going and to get through the day. And this has a lot of the feeling of that. It's a sort of improvisation. desperate improvisation. Find the money, get the money from the Russians, send it to the Ukrainians. We solve the immediate problem of Ukraine running out of money. We make it more difficult for the Americans and the Russians to cut a deal. And, well, as for all of the other things, well, we just don't think about them or don't talk about them so much because we can think, we have all, you know, we think and talk and worry about this specific thing, which at least is something we can do. Yeah, but I think that's an excellent point, but this has been a theme throughout the war, though.

That is, whenever Ukraine does something crazy, like the invasion of Kursk, it's often criticized for being a PR stunt. Well, it is a PR stunt, but that has a purpose. It helps to boost morale among the soldiers. it increases the support from the West. And once this happens, it can be good for recruitment. It can, you know, there will be less desertions, fewer surrendering. I mean, all of this has, you know, it's an upward spiral. Now that things are falling apart, I think everything, yes, Alexander suggests, begins to fall apart at once.

So I don't see, no, I said taking the money, being some silver bullet here. If anything, I think the people are in Europe. who are now feeling the same as the Americans that the war has been lost. You know, we participated in the killing of tens of thousands of Russians. Perhaps this is the time to get out. I think they can maybe even see this as a venue of opposing some of the more aggressive ideas of von der Leyen and Kallas by pointing to the illegality of this thing. So, no, I think a lot of things is falling apart.

Hello? Yeah. Sorry, any thoughts? Well, I... For a second, yeah. Yes. No, what I was going to say is, I mean, I think we are now very definitely heading into the end game, because that was the other thing that came out of that meeting in Moscow.

As I said, the Russians believe that they're not only going to win, but they are on the brink of victory, of a military victory. I mean, Putin himself spoke about Ukraine being now in progressive collapse. I mean, he actually used words very close to that effect. So that inevitably means that the Russians are going to harden their positions for that reason alone, given that they sense that they're going to win, there's going to be pressures in Moscow saying, we can't bargain away our victory. We've spent far too much blood and treasure getting ourselves to this point.

I mean, they have sunk costs to think about as well. So we've spent far too much of that. So that's going to make us more determined to stick to our positions because we don't have to give ground on them. And it'd be difficult to justify at this point. And at the same time, because we are in the end game, on our side, we are becoming more desperate and more frantic. And we are coming up with all kinds of strange ideas, the ideas that were floating around in Berlin, the original 28 points, which by the way, the Russians weren't going to accept either. I mean, the 28 points that Witgolf and Kushner took with them to Moscow, the Russians said, look, this is something. something we can talk about, Putin said, so that we can talk about, but there are large parts of this that are unacceptable to us. So we come up with all of these strange ideas, the 28 points,

the Berlin proposals, the asset seizures, the attacks on the oil tankers that Glenn was talking about earlier in the program, the attempts to nitpric by harassing the Russian, the fleets that trade in oil and things of that kind. All of this, all of these things tend to happen when the end approaches and people become more desperate and more reckless and start to think of doing ever more extreme things in order to turn things around. The head of MI6, by the way, gave a speech in London the other day in which you spoke about going back to the practices

of the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War, in other words, sabotage attacks and all kinds of James Bond type of activities. And again, I have to say, I thought that was unbelievably reckless and ill-judged.

And it gives you a sense of how worried beneath the surface people now are starting to become. But you know, Alexander, you talk about the end game or the end coming. And the question is, first of all, what does the end look like? How much Ukrainian territory do the Russians end up taking? Do they end up taking Odessa, Kharkiv, and a handful of other oblasts?

And then the second question is, what does the West do? I mean, we've been watching the West act in all sorts of desperate ways. It's investing so much political capital in this war. It's so deeply committed at this point. Is the West, especially the Europeans, are they just going to allow Ukraine to lose? And if not, what are they going to do to rescue the situation? And I'm just curious what you two think on those issues. I mean, I think that the Russians are going to take a lot more territory if they can.

I think they'll take Odessa and Harkiv if they can. And that will increase the humiliation of defeat for the West. And I don't know what the West can really do in response. What are the cards that the West has to play? are they going to, you know, escalate to the nuclear level? I don't think so. But just sort of where do you to see this one going? Can I just make one thing very clear?

When I said the end game, I mean the end game being effective, organized resistance of the kind that we have seen from Ukraine up to now. I mean, what comes after is going to be very ugly, and it's going to be very, very difficult, and it will go on for decades, probably. A very, very tense, cold peace, if it is even properly speaking, a piece at all. One thing, which I am sure some people are looking at,

is trying to maintain some level of Ukrainian resistance. And this is where the MI6 person and her talk about the Special Operations Executive comes wrong. As I'm so you both know, was the sabotage operation that the British government, Churchill ran during the Second World War, trying to stir up resistance in German occupied Europe. So planting saboteurs, helping resistance groups, engaging in all that sort of thing. And it's not difficult to guess where the British would see the focus of that being. It would, again, obviously be Ukraine, trying to create some kind of resistance movement in Ukraine. But unfortunately,

there could be lots of other things. I still don't believe myself that the Europeans by themselves are going to send their troops to fight the Russians in Ukraine. I don't believe that the Americans are prepared to do that either for rather different reasons. So I don't think that is going to happen. I think that what we will have instead is a very cold peace, a kind of Korean peace. The Russians occupy huge stretches of former Ukrainian territory, the Europeans and the Western powers refusing to accept that, and probably all sorts of dirty wars and unconventional things being conducted by one side against the other all the time on a much. get greater scale probably than what we saw during the Cold War.

This is the tragedy though that the longer this goes on, the more difficult it is going to be to solve. I mean, keep in mind that if you go all the way back to the beginning, well, late 2013, beginning of 2014, there was a talk about the unity government in Ukraine and no one laid claim to Crimea or anything else, of course. They don't accept it in the NATO countries. They toppled Yanukovych instead. Now, they lost Crimea. You have a problem. It keeps escalating. Now, even if you go up to the deal which was reached about restoring Ukraine's neutrality in March or in April of 2022, as you suggested before, this showed what the Russians were willing to limit themselves to

just address the source of the conflict that is the neutral status of Ukraine. But as the war then began, not just to drag on after 2022, but the West began to pile in all these weapons expressing the intent to seek the strategic defeat of Russia, for many reasons, the Russians then went on to annex this territories. This could have been to strengthen civilian administration of occupied territories to make sure that they're not handed over to Ukraine after the war. It could be the lack of trust that any post-war settlement would actually be upheld by, you know, the NATO signs under paper, okay, we're not going to expand.

And then de facto, they will nonetheless. So the territorial conquest is a permanent safety net for the Russians, that these strategic territories won't fall in the hands of NATO. Also, I think they're also very resource-filled, which is something obviously Trump speaks of, But I think this is a big appeal for NATO. If you strip Ukraine of all the historical Russian territories from Odessa to Karakov, you know, this is the Black Sea coastline, which NATO can use against Russia. It would be the word agriculture, the minerals, oil, gas, lithium, everything that would seem very attractive to the West to get their hands on.

So essentially reduce the market value of Ukraine as much as possible. I think that that would be the logic. So I think that's always so difficult now to find an agreement because Russia now has these four territories and next. But still, even now in defeat, you hear the defined speech of Zelensky. It's not enough to force the Russians to an agreement. We have to make sure this can never happen again, which is kind of how we spoke in the beginning of 2022.

too, but also the Europeans talk about building army, future war with Russia. We have to sacrifice our sons and daughters in the war. In the past future, likely you'll have a government which is not led by Trump or Vance, in which they might seek to revert back to the old Biden ideas. So, you know, keeping in mind that Ukraine used to have a neutrality in his constitution and NATO promised not to expand an inch to the west, sorry, to the east, I think territorial conquest is a good, well, not good, but a guarantee for the Russians that deals can't simply be broken. And so I think especially now with the attacks on the Russian civilian vessels in the Black Sea, that they will set their sights on Odessa.

And I think this is why it will only be more difficult from here on. I think Russia will strip Ukraine of at least four more regions. That would be Karkov, Nipro, Nikolaev, and Odessa, and they will just wreck the rest of the place in terms of infrastructure and industrial plants, anything there is. And then, of course, the conflict will be much, much more difficult to resolve as well. And much, much more animosity. So, no, I think we're just going to have a very dark and ugly piece.

So that's not a very happy note, but that's the direction we're going. I mean, this is the problem I think all the time. There's no reverse gear. I don't know why it's so difficult for our politicians to just accept, well, this, you know, we did a gamble here. It didn't play out. You know, let's find a plan B. Like the Americans are. It's not working.

They realize it. You know, you try to squeeze out some mineral deals from the Ukrainians. you hand over the mess to the Europeans and look for an exit. I think this makes sense. You address the situation as it is and make the best out of it. But I don't know. It's very hard for me to read the Europeans at the moment. But one of the problems that you face here is that the Trump administration has more

than three years left in office. And President Trump's handling a foreign policy during this first. year or the first 11 months has been inept in the extreme. If you look at the Venezuela case, it looks almost as bad as the Ukraine case. It's just kind of hard to figure out what's going on there. If you go to the Middle East, this plan that they've come up for solving the Gaza problem is not a serious plan. It's just not going to work. It's not even close. and you want to remember that they bombed Iran, the Israelis and the Americans, in June, they declared a great victory. But if it was such a great victory, why are they now talking about attacking Iran again?

So the Iran problem's still on the menu. And then you talk about the Houthis. Remember President Trump declared war against the Houthis. He was going to finish off the Houthis in ways that Joe Biden. couldn't do. And after one month, he quit and said those Houthis are a tough bunch of hombres. So in effect, the Houthis beat the Americans in that fight. So we're in real trouble in the Middle East. And I didn't even talk about Syria and Lebanon. And then there's Venezuela and then there's Ukraine. And the American administration looks like the gang that can't shoot

and it's hard to be optimistic about what the future holds for the Trump administration in terms of managing foreign policy. There's just no reason to be optimistic. Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner are going to be two of the key players moving forward. And these guys are amateurs. This is amateur hour. And you have to ask yourself, where does this all lead? I mean, we're at a point in his history where we need sound American leadership. We have all these problems on the world stage that are extremely difficult to solve. I mean, we all know that shutting down the Ukraine war would have been difficult even if the three of us were in the White House starting on January 20th of this year. We would have had a devil of a time shutting that war down. But Trump and company

have done an abysmal job. And the same is true in the Middle East and other places. So I think moving forward, you cannot count on American leadership to help us get out of these many difficult situations that we're in. I completely agree. And I think this is where I think the Russians made their mistake because I think the Russians are perfectly aware

of these really, the very dark and bleak scenario. that we're talking about. The Russians want, I've no doubt about this, they want ultimately, their optimal outcome would be a situation where the situation in Ukraine could be satisfactorily resolved and they could reestablish

at least a working relationship with Europe and a effective relationship with the United States. And I think the Russians, when Trump came in, said to themselves, the only way that we can achieve that outcome is through negotiations with the Americans. And that is why the Russians gave the Americans so much time. Why, in fact, Putin has been prepared to speak to Trump

as it six times, seven times, why we've had all of these discussions with Whitgolf, all of these meetings, because the Russians thought, and I think they were right about this, that the way to solve this problem was through a substantive proper dialogue between the United States and Russia. And the Americans and the Russians finding a way through together. It was the only way this could be done.

It never happened because Trump and his people just didn't know how to do it. They not only didn't know how to do it, they never made any effort to find out. They never sought wider advice. They never consulted. They just went ahead. They sent Whitgolf to Moscow. Whitgolf had his conversations with Putin. And I'm afraid it's gone wrong from that moment since.

Yeah. Let me say this just very quickly at the risk of being sanctioned by the European Union. I think the Russians are the only adults in the room. Well, I was thinking, though, we often make the point that Europe's not one common or united actor. And I think a lot of the actions of the EU is exactly done. It doesn't make much sense in terms of the rational, at least, sense in terms of foreign policy. But a lot of its main, you know, organized around the idea that they have to maintain their solidity. But I think the United States have a similar challenge in terms of which can help to explain some of his erratic behavior.

That is, when Trump got elected on America first, that's a very vague term. It can kind of mean a little bit of everything. And I think that this strategic ambiguity helped to cement a lot of different views in terms of how the U.S. should address the challenge of declining. relative power. Now, I think once in power and Trump has to translate this into actual policy, I mean, if you look at America first, only the, forget about economics and all this, if you just look at the foreign policy and how it addresses wars, what exactly is America first? You know, for some it would mean no more wars. For some, it would mean, okay, we have to restore hegemony. Others would go for the low-hanging fruit. That is, you know, okay, no more

forever wars, but let's do quick fixes, like a quick bombing of Iran or knockout the Houthis or something like this. For other, it means perhaps outsourcing the war against Russia to the Europeans. Let them fight it and pay us. For others, it's let's end the war on Russia and

get them on our side of the border in terms of bringing closer to us and away from China. So it can mean many different things to different people. So when you see the negotiators of Trump, be it rubio or Keith Kellogg or Whitkoff, I mean, they look like America First means something very different to a lot of them, though.

Well, I think there's no question that people like Keith Kellogg and Marco Rubio are not part of the MAGA base or the America First movement. They're basically neo-conservatives. They're basically people who want to maintain the foreign policy that we saw under. the Biden administration and with Biden's predecessors. I mean, Trump represented himself as someone who's going to fundamentally change the way we do business. No more forever wars, no more privileging the interests of other countries, shifting the burden in Europe onto the shoulders of the European states and so forth and so on.

But of course, Kellogg and Rubio and all sorts of people in the United States. I mean, if you go to the Senate and look at people like Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell, they have a worldview that's very similar to the worldview of most European leaders. It's Trump and a handful of his deputies, people like Vance, and I think maybe Whitkoff, who have a very different view of how we should do business. But if you look at how Trump is actually behaved, a lot of what he has done has got him into trouble with the Magabas. Venezuela, for example, all sorts of people who supported him are saying,

what is he doing, picking a fight with Venezuela. We were supposed to avoid these kinds of wars. This looks like a forever war. What is he doing in the Middle East attacking Iran and threatening to attack Iran again? And very important with regard to Israel, as both of you, surely know there has been a fundamental shift inside the Republican Party in terms of attitudes towards America's relationship with Israel. All sorts of young Republicans are saying this is an America first policy that we demand, not an Israel first policy, which is what we're seeing

with Donald Trump. He's too beholden to the Israelis and so forth and so on. So Trump is facing a lot of threats from below politically because of the way he's executed foreign policy, which is to say that in a lot of ways he looks like a neo-conservative. He looks like he's acting in ways that are consistent with the way Joe Biden acted. I agree. I mean, I would just add something else, which is the great challenge the United States is going to face. I'm I'm always uncomfortable when people talk about the decline of the United States, because the United States, as far as I'm concerned, remains a very great power indeed and will remain so. Its problem is that its historic partner, which is Europe, is in extreme decline.

I mean, if you spend any time here in Europe, if you see European policy, this and policy makers, and listen to, them. You see the symptoms of this all around. And the inability of European, of the Europeans themselves to find a way through this problem that affects Europe itself. I mean, they won't even talk to the Russians. At least the Americans are talking to the Russians. The Europeans won't even do that. So the United States has been able to be the great don't. power because supplementing its own very great power, it's had this alliance with the nations of Europe. They are now in deep crisis and that crisis is going to get deeper.

And the relationship between the United States and Europe has, in my opinion up to now, strengthen the United States, now it is going to act as a drag on it. And that needs a very, very strong-minded, clear-headed administration in Washington to navigate through. When this new review document said that you need to stabilize the relationship in Europe,

and you need to stabilize the relationship with Russia. That makes complete sense. But of course, they don't know how to do this. They don't have any ideas or any capabilities or any of the necessary competence to do that and to do that successfully and well. And that, I think, is the real crisis. The crisis in Ukraine, in a sense,

is a product, a symptom of this deeper crisis, which is a crisis in Europe. I would also note, just on the United States, there's no question that the United States has grown in significant ways in an absolute sense since the end of the Cold War. It's not like the American economy has been declining and we're in deep trouble at home and so forth and so on. What's happened is that China has risen more rapidly than the United States. So in terms of relative power, we're at a disadvantage today compared to where we were in, let's say, 1992. And the same is actually true with Russia, if you think about it, because during the 1990s,

Russia was an economic basket case. Putin came to power at the turn of the century, and he's basically rescued Russia. He's pulled them back from the dead. And the end result is that America's relative power position today vis-à-vis Russia and China is not as good as it was in, let's say, 1992. But if you move forward, the great advantage that the United States has, and people should not lose sight of that, is that we are in immigrant culture, and we can import people as our population shows signs of declining. I mean, the American birth rate has declined significantly in recent years. But the solution to that is just to bring in immigrants. And there are no shortage of people who want to come to the United States. But the countries in Europe, and this is true

in Japan, where I just was, and it's true in China, these are not immigrant cultures. These are countries that are suffering a significant decline in population and really don't have the option of importing people like the United States does. So the United States, moving forward, will import people, despite Trump's emphasis on preventing that from happening now. We will eventually reverse gears and we will import large numbers of people as we have historically done. And the end result is, I believe, over time, and here I'm talking about projecting out 50 years or so, I believe the United States will widen the gap between it and Russia, it in China, it in the European countries, and it in Japan, simply because the two building blocks of power are population size

and wealth. And the United States will remain a wealthy country for sure, and its population, I believe, will increase in size over time, while almost everybody else's population will decrease. Yeah. But you still have to deal with the problem of Europe. And in the next 20, 30 years, this is going to be a very, very intractable one. And Europe has done massive damage to itself many times of the last centuries. As we've discussed in many programs, it was the presence of the Americans,

brought peace. It's a fact that isn't understood. It just bring peace in terms of keeping the Russians at bay. The presence of the Americans meant that the Europeans were prevented from quarreling with each other. Now, as Europe goes into decline, is descending. And as I said, the symptoms of that are everywhere. The American peace in Europe is coming to an end. all sorts of bad things quite potentially can happen. That is America's biggest foreign policy challenge over the next 20, 30 years. And if I can just add one point to what you said, Alexander, which is a point we've made previously,

but just to add on to what you said, the Ukraine war has actually exacerbated the problem in Europe. This is what's amazing about this whole. situation. Instead of taking stock of where they are today, these European leaders continue to go down a path that makes the

present situation increasingly worse and does virtually nothing to improve it. Exactly. Well, I just want to say, I agree that, well, I think that the decline in relative power is the most important thing if you look at the distribution, but

I think the main challenge for the Europeans is the lack of appreciation of how the world is changing and also the relationship with the US because, as you suggested, in World War II, Europe were, you know, where were the frontline states were also quite important in the world after centuries of dominance. So the US invested a lot in Europe in terms of security guarantees, in terms of a very generous trade agreements, all of this. But it made sense then in the bipolar world. And I think also in the unipolar world, it made sense to have a key partner to maintain this global primacy.

Again, Europe was powerful. It was a good, I guess, a beachhead. But in the multipolar world, with all this new centers of power, and the US, of course, also struggling a bit to compete with China, the US have to start cutting costs. They can't have Europe as an expensive cost on its budget, especially when he wants to go other places. So why pay for a weak Europe, which will bog down

Americans in Europe when they have to go to Asia. And all this does, why? What's the purpose to contain Russia, which isn't the main threat anymore? It's not the Cold War. And it's just pushing Russia to China. So none of this makes any sense. And I think the Americans don't necessarily want to decouple from Europe, just radically transform the relationship instead of being a cost. I think it wants to make the Europeans more independent and an income. So buy our energy, buy our weapons. If you have any profits, please invest them in America, but we're going to have to

pull out to some extent. So I think the relationship has to change because the world has changed, but the Europeans, I think they believe that, well, the unipolar world order is over. I guess we'll go back to the Cold War idea that will just hunker down with the Americans and just wait out

the Russians because they're weak. But there's no, the dynamic, the Cold War is not there anymore. So I just think, yeah, there's no serious talk about how to adjust to this new realities. Anyways, any final thoughts before we wrap up? Well, just to repeat the point that's been made many times, that the outcome of this war is going to be a military victory by the Russians.

I mean, the crisis will continue beyond it. It might even get worse. but these negotiations which we can spend a huge amount of time discussing and maybe we need to because in a way they enlighten us also about the realities of European politics and American politics and that's important in itself

but the negotiations are not going to be the pathway to any kind of resolution of this if we're talking about the end of the fighting that will happen because the Russians win. That's the only way this can end. Just to go one level deeper than Alexander, it was that April 2008 decision

to bring Ukraine into NATO that led to this disaster. And I think as historians someday look back at this case, they will identify that decision. is one of the most faithful decisions in world history. It's really quite remarkable what has flowed from that decision. Because if you listen to Alexander talk, and of course all of us talk over the course of the show, we expect this conflict to go on and on and on, even after the shooting stops.

And then we sort of go back to the taproot of all this, that April 2008 decision. and the refusal of people to understand the Russian position. It's really quite remarkable. I keep thinking of the famous Bill Burns memo where he told Condoleezza Rice exactly what the Russians thought about bringing Ukraine into NATO. And if you listen to what Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy were saying in April 2008,

it's just hard to believe that we ended up going down this road. And the disastrous consequences that have followed are just so terrible. But anyway, depressing. Well, that's the worst part. If we didn't know, this all caught us by surprise, it would have been one thing. But again, as you suggested, the Americans knew the French and German ambassadors, they told the Americans in 2008 it's going to be probably civil war or conflict with Russia. Angela Merkel called said that pulling it in Ukraine into NATO would be interpreted by Moscow's

declaration of war. So we knew all of this and we tried it anyways. It went exactly as we thought it would and there's no reverse gear. It's just go deeper into this this delusion that no no no, it's just Russians being Russians, they just want territory. You know, this is it. They're expansionist, imperialists. I mean, it's, oh, it's extraordinary. I'm curious how historians will treat this matter. Unkindly, with that much sympathy. That's the one thing I can say, definitely. Yes, not our finest moments.

Well, thank you both for taking time. Thank you. My pleasure.