The Duran Podcast - Munich in despair as EU sinks, Russia surges and Trump looms

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

Munich in despair as EU sinks, Russia surges and Trump looms

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the Munich Security Conference, the MSC 24. Interesting people attending this conference. The focus, of course, is on Ukraine. The guest of honor is Zelensky, but everyone was there. Kamala and Ursula and Blinken, Schultz, Schultz. Berbach, Kayakhalis, everyone was there talking about how bad Russia is, how bad Putin is, and Zelensky asking for weapons and money. And I have to say Zelensky did not look good, does not look good.

And I think the Europeans are absolutely panicking. And it's not only Russia that they're panicking about. They're also panicking about Trump as well and all the statements that he made about NATO. And so you have a pretty, a pretty somber mood in Munich. But they're still going to parties. They're still going to after parties and having a good time. But during the conference, you can tell that they don't have that, that excitement and that intoxication, a word you like to use, that they had in 22 just before the conflict in Ukraine started.

Everyone needs, everyone should remember that it was in 20, 2022 when you had the Munich Security Conference and they were talking up the war with Russia and Zeletsky was running around at that point in time he was still wearing a suit. He was running around talking about how Ukraine is going to get nuclear weapons. And that was two weeks before the SMO kicked off. So anyway, what are your thoughts on the MSC? You are completely right. You forgot to mention another person who turned up with the security conference, who was Navalny's wife.

By the way, and I have to say, I mean, you know, without wanting to be, I found her remarkably composed in the circumstances, but that's all I'm going to say. Anyway, there they all were, as you rightly say, they were all together, and you're absolutely right. The mood is completely different from what it was two years ago. I mean, I remember going, you know, watching them all speaking, Kamala, Amarillo, Schultz, Macron, Johnson, of course, he was also there in those days. I mean, I didn't know whether the British salt this time, I'm sure they are.

But anyway, Zelensky as well. But they were all intoxicated. In fact, they were so intoxicated that I was wondering, I mean, quite what it was they were taking, whether perhaps Zelensky was giving a few of his gifts around. I don't want to say more. But, I mean, the whole thing I remember two years ago was, I mean, it was awful. And then a year ago, well, things had not turned out as expected on the economic front, but they were all patting themselves on the back.

Militarily, everything was going well. So they believed Ukraine had won the Herson offensive. It had won the Harkov offensive. All they needed was one more big blow and, you know, the Russians would be knocked over. And there was all. the talk and confidence around the Ukrainian counter-offensive. This time they've been stripped there. They have absolutely nothing. The economic war has failed. They've just received reports that the latest peace summit that Jake Sullivan put together, the first one started in Copenhagen, if you remember in the summer, apparently has had to be called off because no one's coming. None of the global south countries are coming. So they've had to call that off. And of course, on the day it started, this terrible news about Avdhaevka.

And it's uncertain what exactly. They know about how bad the situation in Afda'evka was. But nonetheless, they were upset and distressed about this. But they have no plan. And you said that it was somber. The Financial Times says exactly the same thing, that Zelensky is close to despair, and that's the Financial Times' description,

that he is going around in a mood of absolute despair. Kuléber, he's foreign minister, is also there. They've been trying to find all sorts of people that they can talk to. Zelensky is now starting to understand that the weapons supply, that they need are simply not coming, that he's even come close to acknowledging

the artillery shell production in the West, which is the crucial, the single most important thing, is simply not going to catch up with Russian output. And you could sense that they're all partying because they are still partying. I mean, some of the pictures,

especially people, in Ukraine seeing some of these pictures, all these people smiling, they're expensive suits, they're heavily laden tables, all of them looking very pleased to be with each other, all smiles and all of that, they're still parting. But behind it all, there's this atmosphere of absolute bloom. The economies in Europe are going to pieces. Germany's now failing. Britain is in Britain is in recession. And the Russians are winning the war. Putin is strong and getting stronger.

And of course, there is this huge doubt now about the United States. And Kamala is there, but of course, everybody knows how popular she is in the United States. And they all know that she would be a difficult cell if she were to take over from Biden. They all know about Biden's problems, you know, his fragility. And they see the looming shadow of Donald Trump. So it's extraordinary to see how, you know, we've gone from the party, the big party, the euphoric party in February 2020. Now you could say that we have the hangover. This is the hangover party.

Yeah. So get into some detail as to all of these agreements that they're signing with Ukraine, all of these weapons substitutions, I guess you can call it, drones instead of artillery, all of these hopes that they're trying to sell the public on in order to keep project Ukraine afloat. You have a security agreement, Germany and Ukraine, you have a security agreement, France in Ukraine. You have UK and Ukraine in these security agreements. You have all this talk about Denmark, giving over all of its ammunition to Ukraine. You have the UK talking about just the other day.

The UK is talking about these new special AI swarm drones. They're going to create millions of these things. And this is a replacement for artillery. I mean, they say it in the articles. This will replace artillery. A million drones in a coalition being made. A million drones by the UK. which is hopefully going to be produced. A million drones that Zelensky is going to make with home kits in the apartments of people in Kiev. And they're trying to sell this whole narrative of we're going to replace artillery with drones. And then you have the Europeans who are talking about Denmark's talking about we have the weapons, we have air defense, we have ammunition.

Hey, we're going to give all our ammunition to Ukraine. We can do it, Europe. If we just give up over, if we give over everything we have, we can keep Ukraine afloat. I mean, you have all of these these deals and security arrangements and narratives about weapons production and new weapons technology. What is going on here? Well, it's a bizarre combination of fantasy because everything that you've just discussed is fantasy. It's a bizarre combination of fantasy. And at the same time, some underlying acknowledgement of the fundamental realities. So all of these security agreements

that they're assigning with Ukraine, which are not worth the paper they're written on, as they know perfectly well, are also an admission that come the NATO summit meeting in the summer. Ukraine is not going to move further forward with its NATO membership bid. I mean, I mean, it's If it was, there would be no need for these security agreements. So, you see, on the one hand, they all realize Ukraine isn't going to join NATO, so they come up with these security agreements to tell the Ukrainians, well, despite all of that, we're still behind you. Security agreements mean nothing, because they're not going to result in any more weapons

or military support from the countries that have signed these agreements. for Ukraine. I mean, it's orders of Britain, Germany and France are saying they're going to come to Ukraine's defence because manifestly they're not. They're not declaring war on Russia. So these are just paper agreements. But they still have to go through the motions. They can't just say to Ukraine, well, you know, sorry, you can't join NATO. The Americans are against it. We're not prepared to have you in NATO at this time. They're just not prepared to say that. They know that Ukraine is not going to join NATO. So they come up with this thing instead. And everybody knows. The Ukrainians know, the Europeans know that this is worthless. These are worthless scraps of paper. But we've got

the point now where the imagery has become more important than the substance. And so that is what we have to Now, let's talk about drones. Year ago, March of last year, the Europeans promised that they would supply Ukraine with a million shells. They never did. They never came close to it. They've only supplied Ukraine, apparently, with half a million shells, half that amount. They now understand that there is no possibility, no prospect of the European Union ever delivering on shelves. This is impossible. The Americans might start to increase shell production next year. They haven't really managed it up to now,

but they're putting in extra capacity. They're trying to reorganise their factories. They're trying to do something of that kind. But even the Americans are going to come nowhere close to matching existing. Russian shell production. And of course, existing Russian shell production is still rising. It's probably going to rise by more than, you know, the Americans can hope to achieve next year,

even if the Americans are lucky. So they've given up completely on shell production. There's no question any longer of supplying Ukraine with more tanks because that's not going to happen. I mean, that's going to change anything. Everybody realizes. that experiment was a complete failure. Denmark is going to provide Ukraine with all its artillery and all its shells.

But realistically, how much artillery and how many shells does tiny Denmark have? And this is, again, a symbolic move. More important by far is that actually Denmark, Mark apparently has postponed delivery of its F-16 fighters to Ukraine by six months. So they're trying to make up with the fact that that delivery of those fighters is being delayed again. Apparently, there's only 12 Ukrainian pilots who've been trained up to the basic level to fly these jets. Soon there will be more. Eventually, there will be more.

But even then, nobody really believes that the F-16s are. going to change anything. So they can't give up on Project Ukraine. So they come up with this story about drones and, you know, fleets of drones, swarms of drones that are going to drive the Russians back. The drones are a substitute for artillery. There's been article after article about this. And then, of course, in the middle of it all, even at a time when, you know, they've been talking about Ukraine's superiority in drone warfare, of D'EFCA collapses, that already dense that whole narrative about how drones can substitute for artillery and for shells. And of course, the reality is that in drone production, the Russians are already ahead.

By some reports, they're already building two million drones, many more than the European Union is already saying it's going to supply. And they're not building drones in cottage, you know, factories, small factories. They're building drones on an industrial scale. And we've been through all this before with the European Union, with shells, with air defense missiles, with all of these things. They'll say that they'll supply Ukraine's needs. except they weren't able to deliver with drones they weren't able to deliver with air defense missiles their attempt to deliver with fighter jets has proved what is turning

into a debacle so now of course it's drones it's just the next twist to the story perhaps they believe it themselves after all you know people like Luke Harding the journalists tell them that it's true. That's the kind of person they listen to. It's not going to make any difference. Yeah, I wonder what the goals are for the Europeans in all of this. I mean, you know, we've been saying for a while now that actually about a year ago, there was talk from Borell about the need for Europe to move into a war economy. And we've talked about this. We've done many live shows about this war economy idea that Europe has talked about in the past. And we've said that it's a no-go, obviously Europe, the nation states of the European Union. They're not

prepared to move into a type of war economy. But you are seeing slowly, slowly, it is creeping up to the European Union, not so much to become war economies, but to base their economies on some type of war military production. And it seems like there are a lot of countries in Europe that have just accepted the fact that they've been deindustrialized as far as producing consumer goods or other getting involved in industries that they once dominated, for example, automobiles, that this is not going to drive the economic growth going forward.

perhaps it's time for us to just make weapons. Weapons is going to be the silver bullet, the magic pill that's going to power our economies in the future. But even that is a failed plan. But, you know, for example, Ursula. Ursula has announced that she's going to go for a second term as European commissioner. And what's her big promise that she's going to appoint defense commissioner? I mean, all they're talking about now is weapons production and making weapons. and signing deals with MIC companies.

And it just seems like Europe is being pushed or driven to become some sort of a war industry region. We're just going to make weapons, and that's going to solve our economic woes. Yes, you see, this is, again, another example of magical thinking and amateurism in decision-making. Because the one thing that if you're going to, if you're going to transition to a total war economy, mobilize your industrial assets,

build up vast numbers of weapons, well, as you correctly said, no one in Europe is really thinking about that. And to be frank, none of the people who are in charge of Europe would know how to do that. But if you want to actually launch big military industrial projects in Europe, the simple fact is that no country, no country that has a strong military industry has been able to achieve that without having a big industrial base. the reason the Russians are able to pour out shells, tanks, all of those sort of things, is because according to what everybody has been saying for the last 30 years, Russia has not de-industrialized. They still have huge numbers of engineers. They still produce more engineers per year from their universities than the United States does.

They still have huge numbers of scientific and laboratories and design institutes and things of that kind. They still make huge, vast amounts of steel. They are organized in order to be able to do production. The United States, in its history, I mean, when in the 1940s, it had to move rapidly to produce weapons, which it so successfully did during the Second World War, it did so, because it had a massive industrial base behind it. So did Germany during the Second World War. So did Britain. These were industrial countries, and it is easy to convert factories and to sustain big military industries if you already have a strong industrial base to do this. Because you can then, you have steel, you have people who make the explosives, you have make people who do the electronics, you have the engineers who know how to put it all together, you have the engineers who you need to map.

the factories. Remember, I mean, managing factories of this kind effectively, a whole military industrial complex, effectively, the best people to do that, as has been repeatedly shown, are engineers with that kind of experience. The European Union, which is deindustrializing, is not going to be able to do this because it doesn't have the unified, industrial base in order to achieve it. Yes, there's still quite a lot of industry in the European Union, but it is under intense pressure. And trying to convert what's left to military production is not going to make your problems better. You might get a bit, a few more tanks at enormous cost, but you will weaken further still your industrial base.

because you're going to be diverting what engineers and scientists you have for making the kind of manufacturing products that Europe still makes, which enable Europe to export. So it will weaken your industrial base further, and it will move your overall global trade in manufacturers further into deficit, it's unsustainable. It cannot be done. The people who are talking in this way, not for the first time, don't know what they're talking about.

They didn't know what they were talking about on energy policy. They don't know what they're talking about in terms of military, industrial manufacturing. If it was so easy, they would have already done it. Two years since the crisis began, they can't do it. And when the Americans say that they need to increase defense spending, which these people are doing, make no mistake, that defense spending will not, in the end, reward European industry because European industry is incapable of producing the kind of output that these people, that, you know, this defense industry calls for. It will benefit the still existing defense industries of the United States. That's where the weapons will have to be bought from. One more topic on the Munich Security Conference.

Trump. They're freaking out about Trump and everything he said about NATO. And I forgot the publication that put it out as far as what's going on in Munich. but it basically said that the people in attendance in Munich, their real concern, is not even so much Ukraine and Zelensky. It's how do you deal with Trump? How do you deal with Trump? In connection to Ukraine, in connection to NATO, in connection to the international rules-based order and the security architecture of the collective West, how do you deal with Trump? Well, again, what does this demonstrate?

It demonstrates a point that we've been making in program after program after program. These are not real politicians. They're apparatchiki. They are people who basically are there as administrators of the empire. Because what they're scared of now is that the emperor is going to cut them off. He's going to say, well, look, I mean, you know, we, we are more important things to do. You are, you know, you've got to look after ourselves. It's like what the Roman Emperor said to the Britons in 400 AD.

You know, you know, look to your own defences. I've got more important things to worry about in other places. So, I mean, this is what's panicking them. If these people were real politicians, really concerned about the true interests of their countries, they wouldn't be worried about Trump. They would be working about, you know, they would be saying to themselves, look, the Americans, they've got many things on there, they're burdened with many things, they're burdened with the situation in the Middle East, they're in long-term competition with China. Obviously, it's becoming more difficult for them

to sustain the defence burden in Europe. So we've got to work for that, and we've got to come up with economic and political and diplomatic and military strategies that will recognise the fact that sooner or later the Americans are leaving. And of course, perhaps you can increase defence spending a little. But the most important thing you should do

is take care of your own societies, open up a diplomatic outreach, talk to the Russians. But of course these people won't do that. They will not talk to the Russians. So they're left thrashing around. So the Americans are leaving. What can we do? Because we are going to be like the puppets

whose strings have been cut by the puppet master. I mean, it is pathetic. Putin, by the way, talked about this. in his interview with Pavel Zarubin, you know, the one that we talked about the other day, he said that what Trump is saying, whatever you think of Trump, whatever you think about whether or not he's going to do it,

about which Putin was skeptical, by the way, what Trump is saying makes, has logic behind it. What the Europeans are saying has no logic behind it. That was what, I mean, Putin said it almost exactly those words, because if you follow, it through, you could argue based on the claims that the Europeans are making is we should spend no more, nothing on defence at all. If there's no, you know, if there is no connection between our willingness to defend ourselves and the American obligation to come to our rescue, the Americans

are obliged to come to our rescue under Article 5, irrespective and regardless of what we do, then why do the Europeans need to spend weapons? But just that? all because the Americans supposedly must come to their rescue. It's an absurd proposition. It is ludicrous. It is, again, the outlook of people who are not real politicians, don't think in a really political way, aren't concerned about the interests of their countries, have sacrificed the sovereignty of their countries, and instead, as I said, of looking for alternatives, not break with Americans, work with the Americans, but also understand that the Americans can't always be there. They spend their time wailing and gnashing their teeth and saying the Americans are abandoning us.

It's pathetic. It is pathetic. Absolutely. All right. We will lend it there. The durand. Dot local.com. We are on Rumble odyssey, Fitzhute, Telegram, Rock Finn, and Twitter X and go to the Duran shop.

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