The Duran Podcast - Lowering the Nuclear Threshold? - Sergey Karaganov, Alexander Mercouris, and Glenn Diesen

Episode Date: January 28, 2024

Lowering the Nuclear Threshold? - Sergey Karaganov, Alexander Mercouris, and Glenn Diesen

Welcome. My name is Glenn Dyson, and I'm joined today by the excellent Alexander McCurs from the Duran and Professor Sergei Karaganov, who is an honorary chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and also a former advisor of President Yeltsin and President Putin. So, welcome. It's a great privilege. It's a pleasure to see you again. Likewise. So our topic today is an interesting article written by Professor. Karagnov with the title Age of War, in which, well, you outline how the world is changing and the conflicts or war that awaits us. Now, I wanted to start off with an argument on an article that you previously made, which has been considered controversial, because you

argued in favor of lowering the thresholds for Russia's use of nuclear weapons. So I remember when we were in Sochi in October, Putin addressed you directly concerning this argument, and, well, he didn't support changing Russia's nuclear possibilities. However, I found your argument to be very interesting because the premise is based on a real problem, which appears to be that nuclear deterrence no longer seems to function to the same extent it did in the past. I mean, during the Cold War, it would have been unthinkable that either side would have used their own weapons to strike deep inside the territorial, well, Russia or then, or the United States, even through a proxy. It's, you know, now we see people like Anthony Blinken arguing it's not a problem.

to the US to tell Kiev where they should strike with US weapons. And also, I guess, many were shook by seeing the use of American cluster ammunition being used against civilian targets in Belgorod. So it just seems like one red line is breached after another. And to paraphrase what Joe Biden, he said, or to quote, he said that sending F-16s would start World War III. And yes, now he supports sending them. So the red lines doesn't seem to be, don't seem to be respected anymore.

So I certainly agree with the argument that nuclear deterrents has been weakened, which is extremely dangerous. But, you know, what is the solution? Does it solve it to reduce the threshold of using them? So anyways, that's why I thought, yeah, Professor Kargno, if you can unpack this argument about altering Russia's nuclear posture. Yeah, thank you. It's not only about Russia's nuclear posture. The problem is much deeper than the breaking of the crossing of the red lines and of doing something unthinkable in the previous nuclear age. That is, I mean, waging work in, say, major nuclear power.

It would have been asked, I mean, four years ago about that. He said that is impossible. He would have said, unfortunately, he is dead, and he hasn't been listened to quite a few. years. But the station is much more complex and dangerous than simply NATO waging a proxy war, but actually a real war, against Russia, which is outright dangerous and could lead only for three outcomes. One is that Ukraine would be the Iran, which is mostly most probable, but will give sacrifices from Russians and especially from Ukrainians. The second is that collapses.

The second is that a kind of a peace agreement will be reached, whereas South and East of Ukraine will rejoin Russia while kind of a friendly regime, those in the West would call a public regime totally demelt rice and friendly to Russia will be it's full in the rest of Ukraine. The third, if that is not regional, then it could lead to a direct confrontation. So the challenge in this particular for the West is whether to agree to a defeat, to get away with flying banners agreeing that it has lost but with dignity

or face a catastrophe. So, I mean, but this is a difficult Russia is winning this war and will be winning this war, whatever happens. The problem is the cost for the world and for Ukrainians and for Europe. if it comes to who God forbids

for necessity to strike several European countries which would have a first strike doctrine in principle as well as the United States and as I argue I mean it is a viable option

though I beg the Almighty that we wouldn't be necessitated to do that but the problem is even deeper. The use of the tectonic shoots in the world system, the whole system is shifting the whole the whole is changing.

Many conflicts will emerge and they could eventually lead to a world war either by default by just linking together or by a desperate attempt by one of the powers to start

a really big the question is how to arrange for a dignified rollback of the West, which is inevitable, but the problem is that they're rolling back to a dignified homeful place in the world system. The West could take

the world with it. into an abyss even. But then even just putting away the West problem, we will have new imperialist competition of rising powers. The world is free. Russia by undermining the foundation of the Western dominance, which it had had for 500, have been heading for having for 500 years,

and there was military superiority, has undermined the system, and it freed the world. And so Indonesia, in 10 hours will be, in 10 years, the 15 years will be a great power. Iran will be a great power. I mean, and they will compete. And so we will have a rerun of the Australian system worldwide. And without a safety precaution, without which was returned, we will have what I call an age of wars. So it is not on a question of immediate Russian Western on the territory of Ukraine.

It is about the fate of the world. So it is not only Russia changing its nuclear pulse, which it will change, of course, and I assume it is changing, of course, but not publicly yet. But about whether we could arrive at some kind of an understanding of what will be the safety net for the future world. I could just make a quick few observations. I, of course, lived through the Cold War from the Western side. I mean, I was, you know, in the West, I can remember how in the 1960s and 1970s, I remember that time, very well. The big overriding fear that was shared by Western publics, by Western political leaders, especially after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, was that we could find ourselves in a nuclear war. And it had very important effects on behavior. Firstly, it led to a very important effect on behavior. Firstly, it led to a very

elaborate system of arms control being created between the Soviet Union and the United States. There was the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which tried to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. There was also effects constraints on the behavior of the two superpowers against each other. So I can remember, I can actually remember reading in the newspapers hearing on the BBC, how there were concerns, for example, when the United States, during the Vietnam War, was bombing the Vietnamese port of Haiphon, that that might lead to attacks on Soviet merchant ships. And that this is considered to be incredibly dangerous. I can remember during the 1982 crisis in Syria and Lebanon, there were also concerns that if the United States launched airstrikes on Syria, that might result in Soviet technicians who were present in Syria being killed.

And I can remember the British Defence Secretary, or former Defence Secretary, Dennis Healy, going on British television, saying this was unacceptably dangerous. And of course, there were huge protests whenever there was any danger of nuclear weapons or of nuclear war taking place. I can remember millions of people participating in Britain in those protests. All that fear has gone completely. It is not discussed anymore. people in the West. On the contrary, if you go to Western newspapers, what you constantly read, incessantly read, is that we must call Mr. Putin's bluff any danger coming from increasingly aggressive actions towards Russia, missile strikes on Russian positions deep inside Russia, whatever. Well,

That danger does not exist because the Russians are only bluffing, and we should go ahead and do all of these things. And the pressure to do that is huge, and the counter pressure is all but non-existent. Now, I find that extremely worrying, perhaps because, as I said, I am a child of the Cold War and of the previous nuclear confrontations. And I am not sure myself that the way to deal with this is by adjusting the nuclear threat. But to say that there is a problem and that there is a real danger, I would completely agree with. And coming to a specific point, which you have made Professor Karaganov, I have been following very, very closely the sort of things that people have been saying in the United States and in Britain about negotiations with the Russians to try to find a graceful end to the war in Ukraine. my clear view is that no negotiations like that are going to happen, that there was a policy debate in Washington about it,

and that those who wanted to stop negotiations have in effect won. So that is my concern. I think we are drifting into exactly the situation, which you said, a defeat for the West in Ukraine, no negotiations at all, and at the same time, a very alarming situation where people no longer. fear or even talk about the danger of nuclear war. Well, you're quite right.

I call it strategic parasitism, or peresitism, whatever it sounds. The problem is that over the last 70 years, because nuclear weapons provided us with the relative peace or us in the east and west. People get used to it. They thought about what war is. And we have a generation, especially in the West, people who do not understand what is war. So it's not only that they are afraid of nuclear weapons.

They are not afraid of war anymore. This is, I would say it's not, it is a lack of strategic understanding, to put it lightly, they are living in a very strange world. And the reasons why I opened up this debate was to sober up their populations and elites of the Western countries, but also in my own country, because many people forgot about what war was. However, of course, the fear and remembers the words is much with women here as well as a nation. So the question is just to restore the feeling of self-referioration. And that's why it's not only lowering threshold.

It's just reminding people that they are going into an abyss. and the world is now, as I understand, is much more dangerous at any time and will be more and more dangerous it would not change the course that any time since 45 but the Cuban missile crisis which was even in 46, 47

I am a historian of war and extradial strategy there was no real possibility of war and even there was no real possibility of war and even there was no real possibility of a nuclear war and the first strike strategy of the United States and NATO was a fake. I know that for sure because when Americans understood that the Russians got a reliable possibility of delivering a couple of workers on that territory, they just stopped They were thinking about it.

They were planning. They were bluffing, but there was not an issue. But now they forgot about it. And what is really dangerous in this world is that Secretary Blinken and then his president went on record saying that the climate change is equal or even more dangerous than nuclear war. I mean, that means that it is. people are met. And they, and I call on, quote, unquote, I mean, deep state or oligarchic in the West, whoever they are, to change these people and to sober up their elites and

European elites, as unfortunately, I know I was a part of them and I knew them well, have lost their strategic class. Well, I mean, there are no strategic thinkers in Europe except for two Ukraine. In the United States, it probably will remain, but we see what the heads of the American States are coming us. So the question is how to reinstall the nuclear fuse before it is too late. And it is not about, that's why in my future work, I will say that Russia has not only a necessity, but even an obligation to lower the nuclear. threshold to save the world from people who get caught and say. And I will soon argue for necessity, for example, to start trial tests of nuclear weapons,

even up to repeating, I mean, something like the King of Bombs, which was blown in the North. I mean, so just to remind people what hell is. But I think that we'll stop before that. And this is one of the steps on the latter of escalation, which I have been arguing for. But we hope that people will get sober. There are signs, though, that at least in the United States, people are getting a bit more sober. Now, they are, if, until we were early. summer this year, they have been saying that Russian will never use.

Europeans continue to do that because they have lost things and self-preservation. Since summer, Americans stopped saying they were saying that there is a possibility of using how to avoid that. Lately, they have been telling that, in a very serious ways that United States would lose a war if it starts. And even started to plan how to persuade Russian military not to obey to the orders of political leaders if the orders are to use nuclear weapons. Hopefully, hopefully, the sobering up will continue. But I am not sure whether it will not be too late. But again, it is not only United States and Europe, which is, I mean, the whole world is becoming different.

And there will be new, what I call, neol imperial rival, before the new balance of this. And unfortunately, I do not see any other way, but to restore the new refuse. And I think it's not only in order to win the war against Western Ukraine, it will be. one, whatever the cost, hopefully, our West. What do you say to the... Either they will be destroyed, or they will have a rerun of the Afghan scenario, or they will retreat with flying banners,

in a dignified manner. But already half a million Ukrainians have been killed. and I think over a million or more died indirectly. Tens and tens of thousands of Russian troops were killed, and it will continue. So I would love to stop that before. And the West has lost this war, and it should retreat, and I advise them and call on them to retreat with dignity. Can I just say I agree with our assessment? I would say that in terms of the events of the last year,

2023, the shock to the collective psyche of the West, or at least Western governments, of the defeat of Ukraine's summer offensive cannot be overestimated. I think there was a very, very widespread assumption that it would at least achieve some big effects. And the fact, I mean, I read articles about this, that, you know, the United States, Britain, Germany, through everything at Ukraine that they reasonably could or thought they could, that it all failed. They're still struggling to come to terms with that. But can I suggest an alternative to the one that you've been outlining, which is what about rather than lowering thresholds, which, again, as a child of the Cold War, I am very nervous about,

What about working towards strengthening the institutional and diplomatic framework outside the West? I agree. I think it is going to be very, very difficult for a while to involve the West in direct negotiations. But Russia has been very effective, it seems to me, in building strong relationships with many countries. I mean, you mentioned Indonesia and Indonesia becoming, great power. Well, Russia actually has good relations with Indonesia. Indonesia has problems with other countries around it, but the Russians are always there. Mr. Lavrov is making quite an impact, even as we're speaking, in New York, where he has been at the Security Council. We see bricks coming together in interesting ways, and a topic where Professor Deeson is far more informed than me.

we also see processes of Eurasian integration now starting to take shape. Might it not be a more effective way to sort of say to the Americans than the Europeans, well, look, you're going down this incredibly dangerous path. It's catastrophic for you if you continue. But in the meantime, you're becoming isolated. I agree with you. Of course, I agree with you. It would have been better to do it by building a new system.

The problem is that the old system is collapsing. The UN is not working. I mean, also all institutions are being eroded. I mean, the balance are changing. And we have a gap for about 15 to 20 years. The original base of the global majority plus West, including West, hopefully, will be built. This is an opening, but it is also a gap. And this gap has to be filled. I hope that, I mean, 10, 15 years from now, we shall have a new institutional framework,

which of the global majority, including the plus of the West, Europe will be out. United States will be still there. The great powers will form and the power will form a new kind of an arrangement. UN plus or even a new UN, maybe based on that, Shanghai organization or Briggs Plus because

UN totally has unfortunately has totally degraded. There of course there are some institutions within the system which are still useful but it is we see the total degradation of the system. And of course non-proliferation treaty is not working

and that's why unfortunately philosophically totally agree with your premise I do not see the possibility or building something viable and stable unless we leap through this period without a major nuclear war.

I wanted to ask... Hopefully, even without any nuclear war. So that's why I'm saying that, I mean, if it comes to use of nuclear weapons against some European countries, our collective Europe, which has already, again, like in Napoleonic and Hitler Times, is attacking Russia, we could punish them, but that would be terrible because I am partly European, and I do not want Europeans to die and European Europe to collapse totally. But we have And of course we are talking with the Chinese, we're talking with Edians, we'll talk with, I mean, on the ways of building up new system and on the ways of strengthening nuclear deterrence and even on the new theory of nuclear deterrence.

Because it's useless at this junction to talk, unfortunately, to talk with our American or European partners. They, by the way, they are forbidden to talk to us. It is dangerous. If they come to Russia and talk seriously with Russians, they will be called to the police. I know quite a few or else, a few cases like that. I mean, it's not, things are difficult here too, but not as bad. Russians are traveling and returning back without being asked what they had been doing before. But that is a side question.

The question is this gap. And to fill this gap, I have, I think, and also to solve the Ukrainian problem or Russian Western problem in Europe, which is, by the way, of course, now in the center. However, it is not the center. The question is the major shift in the world, which has started, of course, before, to obey. It started already in the 60s and in the 50s and the 60s, but then all of a sudden it was stopped by a collapse of the Soviet Union for its own reasons. But now it goes on with more and more speed. So this period should be directed by cold-blooded hands. And if people do not have cold-blooded brains,

you have to reinstall some kind of brains into their heads, even with the help of a stick. Hopefully, only showing the stick, not using it. Well, as the turns seems to decline very quickly, I was curious what do you see the likely pathway to direct war between NATO and Russia, because I remember back in December of 2021 before Russia and NATO, the former director of Russia analysis at CIA, George Beeb, he gave this interview where he indicated that Russia could go to war because the risk or the threat of doing nothing became greater than the threat of actually doing something. Because the summer of his argument was the United States was modernizing the ports in Ukraine to fit their warships. They were entrenching themselves in Ukraine. And if Russia doesn't do anything now in a couple of years, it would be impossible.

to change this projection. And it reminds me also what William Burns, now director of CIA, argued that if they continue to push into Ukraine, Russia would invade, even though it wouldn't want to do so. Anyways, my point is that it seems like a similar situation appears to develop now, because we see the United States and NATO seemingly can attack inside Russian borders with impunity. And again, if Russia responds directly to NATO, then there would be a possible NATO-Russia war.

However, if Russia fails, then to respond, then it may signal that it red lines doesn't matter and it can be trampled. So I'm just, this is a problematic dilemma, it would seem. Again, I'm not advocating any retaliation against NATO country. I'm just, it seems like this would be a possible pathway to a war. I'm just, how do you assess it? As I say, I do not think that there is a possibility of a major Russian-Native conventional war. I'm afraid that if NATO gets involved or Russia get tired of defeating NATO in Ukraine, nuclear weapons would be used and NATO would be devastated. Several European countries will suffer.

Germany will pay its deaths to the humanity, first of all. But some others will also suffer. and I'm a Russian and I remember the words of Dostoevsky about their children. So I do not want that. But in order to save the world from their insane people or insane countries, sometimes we'll have to do that. I, again, I am persuading my God.

government and people around the world. We're having a lot of debates on that, that our Western partners should stop. I have been mourning for 25 years in 19, in 1997 since the founding act that it could come to war. Then I was telling everybody that the WUBE war. Then I was telling my own countrymen that that we should start a deliver and ultimate war started war.

Unfortunately, we procrastinated for too long. I think it should have been started earlier. And the ultimate issue, maybe we would have avoided that tragedy. President Putin said, also he admitted that we procrastinated for too long. But now the question is absolutely simple. We shall win one way or another. The problem is the cost. and the cost for Ukrainians, which are devastated, the cost for Europeans, and the political costs.

But I hope that it will stop before. But again, I'm returning to my basic point. It is not only European issue. You see that, I mean, the erupts of conflicts are everywhere. I mean, Gaza, a conflict there, a terrible attack of... terrorists, but then something close to a genocide of Israel is creating, is recreating an unstable war in Middle East, because Israel is losing one of the reasons, one of the repercussions is Israel is losing its legitimacy in the world. But it's only one point. I mean,

You see that everything is changing, and then Pakistan starts to attack Iran and vice versa, and things will go on indefinitely. And there is always small firearms already in the Latin American. Five or six wars are going already on Africa, and nobody pays attention to that. Let Africans die because the Western press is not interested. But people are dying. And we are not going to lose period by reinstalling nuclear fuse. I assume that there will be more nuclear powers.

I think that the more stable system, which have something like 3 to 12-13 of power. Eventually, and then these powers will start to build an economic power. balance a new balance and more fair system. But again, the question is, and I assume that will happen. Our policy, of course, what we call, will adjourn. And we have just put on that, is aimed in that, and this report has been widely supported by our government. But before that, to arrive in this world, we have to first to reinstall the fuse. Otherwise, we are doomed.

And that is my real concern. Again, of course, I'm really unhappy that people are dying. But as a let me call myself, quote a strategic thinker and that historian, I know where we are going for sure. I do think a war over Ukraine for 25 years. Now I'm saying that if we do not stop their slight towards a third world war and I see only one means of that at this

juncture unfortunately that is by reinstalling nuclear fuels hopefully without using nuclear weapons but I will continue to call on my government and we are being together with our colleagues on new concept of returns and new strategy of terms, because all the terms have several functions. As President has mentioned, most of the non-functioning anymore, and we have to rethink even that.

But we have to eventually to come to a conclusion that not, that deter that the world to be built will be the world without war. because the big wars, essentially, in the world, multiple powers, is forbiddingly,

forbiddenly desperate. But we have to live in this 10 to 20 years. Well, can I just say just a few points to follow up? I mean, you may be interested in, no, I don't know whether this has reached Moscow yet, but I think the plan in the West about Ukraine is that when the Russians win, which I think most people now understand that they will, you're going to try to ferment an insurgency there. This is the new apparently plan that people are talking about.

I think it's a disastrous plan, by the way. It's a terrible plan for Ukraine, and I think it's also a terrible plan for Europe. But I'm not going to spend time discussing it. As I said, I think it is a terrible plan at multiple levels. But again, I wonder whether diplomatic approaches don't sometimes achieve the very kind of outcomes that you're talking about. I mean, we've seen this big rapprochement between Russia and North Korea.

Now, North Korea acquired nuclear weapons because it felt threatened by the United States. I mean, that was the only reason. We now know that North Korea decided to acquire nuclear weapons. It had no other reason for doing so. In the 1990s, it didn't have nuclear weapons, and it didn't have a nuclear weapons program. There's worries about Iran. If Iran ever does go down the route of acquiring nuclear weapons, it will be because, again, they are worried about the United States, which is now talking openly, by the way, of missile strikes on Iran,

and they see nuclear weapons as providing them with some degree of protection. But what we are seeing is that countries that are vulnerable, like North Korea, like Iran, are able now to move forward, and they're able to. go again to the other side, to Russia, to the BRIC states, they're able to reopen trading systems, they're able to establish alternative security arrangements, which does provide a degree of deterrence, which hadn't existed before, and does perhaps construct to some extent or accelerate the construction of this security architecture, bringing in other powers, other rising powers, that you've been saying.

So isn't that perhaps, again, the more effective way of going about this thing, restraining the West by building relations with countries like Iran, building relations with countries like North Korea,

closing off options for the Americans or people in the West to attack these countries in a cost in a way that they think will not be affecting, will not be damaging to themselves?

The term of history or the title of history is going in the direction which Russia likes the problem is of course losing people and we think that eventually will arrive

which you are talking about and where we have of course multiple re powers a much more fair system and much more fair political and we'll have multiple currency systems. Actually, I'm really regret that I'm so old

because the world which I envision a third new World War looks very promising multi-cultural, multicultural, I mean, much freer but we have to come to this world

and also understanding that this much more much freer world will also have a lot of problems. which also should be taken care of. Now we have several revolutions in the military sphere, which already are visible. So we have to stop their new arms, several new arms races.

I mean, now we have the new multiplicity of very cheap missiles. I mean, these all kind of flying objects could make our way. make our life health and they are they are god-send weapon, forbid me for being so nasty, to terrorists. We have to prevent the use of biological weapons, which are very obvious already. and people are talking about X, factor, etc., but we all know that. I mean, biological weapons are being prepared. And in order to deterred biological, we also have to reinstall deterrence.

And that is, but that would need a new culture. And it would need a change of a mentality, of the peoples in the new world. People in Indonesia or in Pakistan or in the Arab world do not yet understand, for example, their threat of biological weapons, which is almost as bad as nuclear ones if we permit them to develop.

But these are many, many factors which I described in my article on the age of wars. So we have to reinstall fuses And for that It is obligation I think is obligation of my country Nobody else could do that

At the juncture But to And I To Lower the threshold To go up the level of escalation Hopefully of course Stopping

Short of use of nuclear weapons but if people do not do not come to census we are in the elderly we will have wars all over and nuclear weapons will be used here or there

and biological weapons could be used by the way biological weapons which are not very much debated are weapons of the poor. They are cheap, and their dissemination is cheap with all kind of these drones. So there are many, many other problems which we are facing, which we do not want to talk about and to think about. And at this juncture, unfortunately, I do not see any of the reliable instrument

but reinstalling with your own diploma. I'm sorry to say that, and I had all kind of moral problems of thinking about that for several years before I restarted the debate in nuclear weapons and on nuclear deterrence, because I knew that their action would be harsh, and I invited fire myself, which I'm happy to do, because I think I have helped not only on my country, but I am good to help the humanity, to get over this period relatively peacefully. Well, we appear to be running out of time, which is a great shame, because your article also encompasses a lot of other interesting points.

You addressed perhaps the need of reforming capitalism, due to the continuous growth being measured in every more consumption. You discussed digital technologies of dumbing down rather than inform the traditional habitats, people being divorced from it, which reminded me a bit about Durkheim studies of the Industrial Revolution in France. So it was a lot of interesting topics. Perhaps we get to cover this on some other point in time.

We have to have a compromise on all these issues. And actually, these are whatever 13 or 14 topics which I put down on the table, which I put down on the table were only in a mutation to a larger discussion. But I hope that will come down. to a thorough and thoughtful discussion on that. I think we would welcome that. Thank you very much.

I'd be very interesting. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.