The Duran Podcast - Putin, state of the nation and the Global Majority

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

Putin, state of the nation and the Global Majority

All right, Alexander. Let's talk about Putin's State of the Nation address, and it was a long one. I think it was the longest address that he has ever made, two hours and like 20 minutes, focused mostly on domestic issues. But he also talked a lot about foreign affairs and policy and multipolar world and all of the things, which I'm sure we're going to actually talk about more in this video. But let's talk about what Putin said and how the collective West is reacting to what Putin has said at the State of the Nation address. Let's just begin briefly with one thing. Maybe not so briefly, but anyway, discuss the first, the domestic points that he made, because they were interesting, actually and they were important. And the big takeaway I came away from it is that he's now confident

that the situation in the Russian economy is stable, that he's got a strong, firm footing, and he's therefore able to plan ahead. And when I say he, Putin, I mean, obviously the entirety of the Russian government. So we were looking at very, very long-term plans, reaching all the way up to 2030, emphasis, obviously, in the economy on re-industrialization. In fact, we've had some economic figures for what's been going on in January, and it looks as if industrial manufacturing production, the increase there, is continuing. I mean, we've not seen any significant fallback in the economy, which many people thought it would.

there would be. But overwhelmingly the emphasis was on social issues specifically education and support for families.

And the last is really very important. It devoted a huge section to this. And when I say he was talking about families, I mean, there was a whole list of things that tax supports and financial supports for families for young families, for mothers sometimes specifically,

to try to help families of more children to improve the birth rate and the general demographic situation in Russia. And a point he did make, and it's what he made two important points, which again people are overlooking, is that there was actually an increase in the birth rate in Russia some years ago, in the sort of middle period of Putin's time. And there's actually quite a large cohort of young people now going through school and university and about to hit the labour market. So that provides a base for increasing the birth rate again. That's one thing. but of course he was also devoting an awful lot of time to their needs, needs to increase and improve the educational system, the science base, and all those kind of things.

Now, a leader who talks in this way, who's able to allocate assign funds, who's confident that he can engage in this kind of long-term planning, is confident that the economic situation in Russia is stable and that Russia has once and for all got through the problems of the sanctions war. In fact, my sense was that he was actually liberated, that he's now able to do things in terms of economic and social plan, which, because of concerns about, you know, market reactions and all that kind of thing. From the West, he wasn't able to do.

up to now. And it's important to say that, you know, for Russians, this would have been the most interesting part of his speech, because people who are thinking of raising a family, people who are thinking of going to university, think people who are looking at the kind of career options that Russia can offer, they're going to be following this, they're going to be looking at the tax breaks and the financial supports, and they're going to be making those decisions. But obviously, for us, most people around the world, it was the big political, strategic questions that are the most interesting. And again, the overwhelming sense I got from this speech is confidence.

He's confident that Russia is winning the war in Ukraine. I think that is clear. He's confident, increasingly confident, about the growing strength of the Russian armed forces. He talked about that at length, and we are learning that not only is the military, the ground forces, the army, that's getting stronger, but the nuclear forces are.

The Poseidon nuclear submarine torpedo, drone, that's about to enter service now. The nuclear-powered cruise missile, which is unlimited range, is about to enter service as well. So he's confident about the strategic forces. He's confident about the general situation there. He's very confident about Russia's international position. He feels that all of the boxes have been tick, the allies, the friends of Russia's Russia, China, India, all of those.

They're standing strong with Russia. He's not worried about that. So he's now talking. He's now looking forward. And the single most interesting point he made for me was that he said that, look, we will negotiate with the West at some point. But from now on, what we want is a restructuring of the West. the entire security architecture, not just in Europe, but Eurasia. The whole Eurasian continent, and that, of course, is something that the West will not tolerate.

But what he's basically saying is in any future negotiations, arms control on strategic issues, China and probably India and probably Iran will have to participate as well. So it's no longer the West versus Russia. It is the West versus the rest. It's the whole global majority, expression he now also used, remember we discussed it yesterday, is the global majority is now starting to assert itself. And there has to be a complete change in the way in which discussions on strategic questions take place from now. Now, that is something the West is not prepared for, to use an expression we've used previously.

They will choke on it. They will choke on the settlement, whatever settlement is going to be on Ukraine, but they will choke on even more on this question. Because, of course, if we do get agreements about the general security situation across the whole of Eurasia, then that would be conclusive end to the unipolar moment, and it would mean that we would have conclusively ended. A new world in which there's lots of different poles are not just one, and where the West is no longer preeminent.

Yeah, the West will never accept this type of situation. Never, never accept it. It's not in its current state. Correct. Its current state will not accept this. So you never know in a year or in five years what could happen. But not in a year and probably not in five years, if I have to say. I mean, so long as we have the present generation of leaders.

And I don't just mean, you know, the people we're all talking about Ursula and Shultz and Sunak and Biden and all those. but I mean, any conceivable set of leaders that we can think of, especially in Europe, by the way, they will not agree to this. I mean, this is a shocking idea to them that they should be talking strategic issues, security issues for Europe, ultimately, with, say, India or Iran. I mean, they won't be able to compute that. In 10 years, it might be different. Yeah, just the term global majority.

is probably freaking them out. So the question has to be asked. Would the West prefer to just go into conflict with Russia and with the global majority instead of transitioning to this new system? Because that seems to be where we're heading. Yes. I mean, can I just say, we go back to Macron's statements from a couple of days. where I know everyone, including leaders of the West, are dismissing what Macron said.

But my own personal belief is that Macron has shifted the conversation to a war footing. It's no longer taboo. It's no longer off the table to talk about perhaps NATO in direct conflict with Russia. And we do have now, as the time of this recording, we do have countries, which are now starting to say, well, you know, maybe we can put boots on the ground in Ukraine. Maybe we can fight Russia. I'm not saying it's the United States or Germany that's saying this, but Finland is saying this. The Netherlands is saying this. Canada kind of brought this up. Estonia is saying we have nothing to be afraid of with Russia. So I think things are coming to a point where the West is going to have to

decide. Do we accept this new shift in the architecture of the world, or do we decide to go into conflict with the global majority? Well, for the moment, we know what. the decision is going to be. I think they are going to go into conflict with the global majority and they're going to be increasingly isolated because again, this is where we come back to Putin's confidence. Remember, he's in contact with all the leaders, all the important leaders with MBS, with Modi and Jaisunka in India, with Xi Jinping and Wang Yi, with the Iranians, with Raizi and Harmony, with Erdogan. He just spoke to Erdogan, he had a conversation.

So he knows, he's more connected with these other leaders around the world. And Lula, of course, he's regular touch with Ruhl. He's more connection with the sentiments across the worlds than Western leaders are. So they are drifting into confrontation with. the global majority. Now, about sending troops to Ukraine and engaging the Russians there, that can only happen feasibly if the United States joins. I mean, all this talk about France and Britain and the Netherlands and Estonia and Finland. I mean, the Russian army would just steamroll over them. I mean, there's no question that they have no means to take on the Russians

by themselves. So that is simply not a viable option. The question is, will the United States agree to involve itself in a direct military confrontation with Russia in Ukraine? And here I think the answer is it's increasingly unlikely. Public sentiment in the United States is strongly shifting against even providing support for Ukraine, let alone participating directly in a war against Russia. So I think again that all of these statements that have come from countries, all the countries that you mentioned,

it's partly nervousness, fear that the Americans eventually are the most likely ones to say to the Russians and to the global South, well, we're a big superpower. We have the oceans that protect us. We have a much stronger economy than the Europeans do. ultimately what Putin is proposing I'm not saying they're going to say it now but ultimately what Putin is proposing is something we can work with and that there is this feeling in Europe that they're going away

the more I've looked at this whole issue of what Macron did and the way in which that whole thing happened the more clear I am that it's really about the United States more even than the situation in Ukraine, more even than the conflict with Russia. They are now freaking out that the project, the collective West project, little own project Ukraine, is starting to come to an end.

And they realize they sense their own weakness. The United States depends on the elections. Well, yes. If you get this Biden White House or configuration like what we have now with or without Biden, then I think the chances, what you just said, I think the chance is that the U.S. will escalate, go up dramatically. Oh, yes, I agree with that. If it's a Trump White House, then I think will definitely drift away. The U.S. will drift away from escalation with – with the global majority.

Yes. But I think it really depends on the elections. I absolutely agree. The one thing I would, however, say is this. If the Biden White House is reelected, which is not impossible, by the way, and they do escalate in the kind of way that Macron is signaling, which is entirely possible also, I would expect opposition and hostility in the United States at that point to grow.

It would be a situation analogous to what we saw in the late 19th, where a president, Lyndon Johnson, was elected massively in 1964, you know, at one and the same time promising to keep the United States out of the war in Vietnam and at the same time insisting that he would take a very strong position against the, you know, the North Vietnamese, the communists in North Vietnam. That eventually led to the United States escalates. by sending boots on the ground. That in turn led to American soldiers returning to the United States in body bags. And there was a simply enormous political crisis.

So, yes, I agree. If the Biden White House is reelected, they are much more likely to do this. If they're not, then it will be a different turn in the road. But if they are reelected, they will do this. But in the end, assuming we all survive and we avoid World War III, which is, you know, at that point, we will be closer to World War III than we have ever been. At that point, then, as I said, it will go faster downhill. That is my own view. Yeah. I wonder if the McConnell resignation as the majority, the Republican Senate leader, not the majority, Republican Senate leader. I wonder if his resignation from that position signals a shift in

in the balance of power in in the Republican Party. The rhinos, the neocons are understanding that the populist America first wing is now in charge of the Republican Party. And We're going to now see the neocons shift over to the Democrat side of things. And we're now going to have in the U.S. this power struggle between populism, America First, which will be expressed entirely in the Republican Party, give or take a couple of people here and there, like a Robney or a Lindsey Graham. But for the most part, the Republican Party will be the populist America first, facing off against the globalist, neo-con, neolib,

Democrat side of things. And that, in essence, that struggle, in essence, will define what happens with the situation on a geopolitical level, and especially with Russia, China, breaks, etc. I absolutely think that. I mean, in fact, this is the thing, This is where sometimes, you know, one is overtaken by events

because there was this meeting between Biden and Mike Johnson in the White House with McConnell turning up and basically supporting Biden, trying to get Johnson to agree to put the bill for Ukraine aid to the House. And Johnson said, no, I'm not doing it. And I said at the time, that did a program about it, I said, well, I think this is going to really annoyed Republicans. What McConnell has just done is going to annoy a large number of Republicans.

And only a third of Republican senators in the Senate voted for this appropriations bill. And here we see McConnell siding with a small rump of the Republican Party in the Senate, with Democrat president. And that looks to me like it's going to annoy a lot of Republicans. And I wondered whether he would stay on a Senate leader for the Republicans. And then just the next day, we got the announcement that he was going. And I think this is exactly what's happened. I think he's understood that he's losing control of,

he's actually lost control of the Republican Party. He's lost control of the Republican Party in the House. He's lost control of the Republican Party in the country. And even in the Senate, his position has essentially collapsed. And there was a very interesting study of which senators supported McConnell and which voted against him. and it showed that, you know, it also divides entirely, almost completely on age lines. So the older Republican senators, those who were, who joined the Senate, some of them going all the way back to the Cold War, the late period of the Cold War, they were the ones who went with McConnell, all the younger ones, all the more dynamic ones, all the ones that are rising now, they voted against this,

appropriations bill, and they rejected Macong's leadership. And I think you're absolutely correct. The Republican Party is now evolving rapidly into the American nationalist party. They say we're not interested in empire. We're not interested in sending armies and fleets around the world. They will oppose a military deployment in Ukraine, and they will oppose any venture that, you know, is launched in Ukraine. And in doing so, they overwhelmingly, reflect the feeling and mood within their electoral base, which I suspect is growing and is starting to draw in blue-collar Americans who historically have voted Democrat. So there is this divide in the United States, and it is crystallizing that Democrats, the sort of middle class,

upper middle class, wealthier people, backed also with immigrant votes, the interventionists, the people who want to pursue the projects of the 1990s globalization, all of that, plus the Republican Party now increasingly speaking for the working class base, saying, you know, enough enough, we're not going to waste any more time and energy on all of this, and we want to and we want this to stop. Now, going back to the point about intervention in Ukraine and going back to Putin's State of the Nation address,

of course he addressed that. He said that if they do decide to intervene directly in Ukraine, it will be a military disaster for them. Others have tried it. Others have tried to take on the Russian army in this part of the world. And he actually, made an implicit comparison with what happened in the Second World War. And it was fairly clear.

And of course, his recitation about all of these new nuclear systems that the Russians are bringing into service, the Peresvet supersonic cruise missile, the Prasidon nuclear nuclear nuclear-powered submarine drone, the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile. That was all, you know, a pretty open hint that, you know, don't even think about going to war with Russia in any shape or form. It will be a complete disaster for you. And I think the Pentagon certainly will understand all of that. And bear in mind that the Pentagon also has other priorities. They probably don't want the U.S. Army getting bogged down in Ukraine when, from their perspective, the major challenge anyways, John. Yeah, you know, Putin made all those warnings

for the SMO as well. In a different way, he warned the collective West over and over again for many years, stop pushing the NATO expansion, follow the Minsk agreements. Let's agree on a new security architecture for Europe and the collective West ignored everything that he said. So here we are again. Now he's making more warnings, higher stakes. And he's saying, don't go to war with Russia. Stop this escalation. We've got the military case. capabilities to smash you guys. We got the nuclear capabilities to smash you guys. But, you know, it really all depends on what's going to happen in November, 24, the U.S. That's how I see it. I mean, to me, this is going to be the key event. And if it's, if it's the same guys in power that we have now, then, then yeah, we should all, the whole world should prepare. But if we get a new administration, I'm I'm not saying it's a guarantee with a new administration either, but if you get a new administration, maybe, maybe we can find a way out of this mess. The world can find a way out of this mess.

Well, I think so. Europe's going to be damaged. Either way, Europe's screwed. Yeah. And I think the key thing to say here is that in the United States, there is still a degree of agency. In Europe, there isn't. And the thing to understand about the Europeans is that they are incredibly vulnerable because the political leaders in Europe are, to say it straightforwardly, they are the puppets on the string.

Their terror is that if the puppet master goes away, they will flop. They will fall. So that's why they are taking this very aggressive line, even though there's. arguments now between them. There's arguments between Schultz and Macron. And Schultz, I think quite intentionally, by the way, blurted out that the British and the Americans, especially the British, are already operating in Ukraine, that they're helping Ukraine with the guidance of the guidance systems of the storm shadow missiles. And the British, by the way, just some same parenthesis, are absolutely furious about that. They think that Schultz,

gave away an important secret, even if that's a secret, everybody, everybody knows. But anyway, that's, the Europeans are very, very worried. I think America is different. I think the politics there are more complicated than that, because they still have the ability to choose. The Europeans don't. They've maneuvered themselves into a situation. that where very much like the Soviet Union's

East European satellites, you remember going back to the 1980s when Gorbachev appeared on the sea and started talking about Perestroika and Glasnost and all of that, all of the communist leaders in Eastern Europe, the satellite, vassal leaders of the Soviet Union, they were petrified by it

because they said, you know, what's going to happen to us now? if the Soviets walk away, we're finished. And that's how it turned out. And they made pretty clear their hostility to everything that was going on in the Soviet Union and in Russia at that time. And they were looking at all this political change that was happening in Russia. And they were horrified by it. And it's the same mentality, I think, with the Europeans as well.

So they're going to push the Americans to recommit. Europeans have been scrounging around for shells. They can't find shells. They're out of shells. They're out of weapons. They're out of men. They know they sense deep down that they can't take on the Russian army. So they hope the Americans will come to their rescue.

And it isn't just Republicans who want to go down this road. There are all sorts of other people in the United States who would probably not be happy about a long-term commitment to Ukraine, people in the military, for example. So it's very uncertain. It's very uncertain what's going to happen. But going again back to Putin, what he's telling the Americans, what he's telling the West, is, look, whatever you do, I am ready. I'm ready.

I've got my army. My army is strong. It's getting stronger. My soldiers are getting better trade. He actually talked about that. He said, my officers have acquired enormous experience through fighting, and they know how to fight in ways that you don't. I've got all of these nuclear weapons. My industries are working at incredible speed,

and they're producing weapons at a rate you can't match. And I've got allies. I've got friends around the world. Most of the world agrees with me. If you are stupid enough to do this thing, I, we are ready for you. Yes, the global majority. All right, we will end it there, the durand.local.com. Yep.

I think we're going to hear that expression, the global majority, very, very often now. And can I say that, of course, we haven't discussed the diplomacy of this. but if this thing escalates in the way that we've just been discussing, then of course there will be diplomatic action from the rest of the world as well. They will not want to see the United States escalate in this way. Or if they do, if it happens, they will take steps to take advantage of it themselves. America distracted, bogged down in a war in Europe. China will make its moves in the Pacific.

Iran in the Middle East. It's an act of folly for the West to do. But, you know, obsessive, reckless people do bizarre and stupid things. Well, Putin identified where we are today in the world, which is no longer left and right. There is no left. There is no right. That's over.

What we have now is globalism versus nation state populism, I guess. You could define it as, I mean, this is where we are. And it's expressed and it's being expressed in the United States. It's being expressed inside the Republican Party. It's being expressed in the U.S. It's being expressed in the relationship between the U.S. and the EU. and it's being expressed on the global stage with the collective West versus Bricks and the global majority. So, yeah, it's...

You're absolutely right. Yeah. You're absolutely right about this. You know, the framework of left and right, which is the one I was brought up with, has completely disappeared. It really doesn't apply any longer. if you're looking at Putin's economic and social program, especially the social program, you know, back in the 1960s, this is one that people would have left, exactly. It's a left week.

With the important difference, of course, that it's carefully funded. But it is very carefully funded. But then people. And focuses on traditional values as well. But, you know, a social democratic government. in the 60s in Germany or Sweden or Britain could quite easily have done all of this. This would have been a signature program. But of course, his emphasis on patriotism on traditional values, that again tends to push him more to the

conservative and right-wing side. And yet today, these two things are seen as fully consistent with each other. So it's, it's, everything is scrambled and mixed up in ways that, for me, is bewildering. And I said they're mixed up. They're not really mixed up. This is the new political paradigm. It is, um, it is political movements based on sovereign states, based on nations, based on governments that work for their people.

They may have different approaches, different. different views about how to work things. But that's the major divide today. It's nationalists versus globalists, people who believe in global balance and people who believe in the hegemonic policies of the West. And also a fundamental division on the identity issues. I use the expression carefully. But the traditional social issues, the traditional values that Putin is talking about,

versus the new ideas that we see emerging in the West. It's a completely different. What's wrong? The final. Yeah, but a final question. What is wrong with the idea of traditional values, healthcare, education, safety and security, strong borders, and patriotism. What's wrong with this kind of mix between left and right, mixing this stuff in together, but taking the best of both sides and bundling them up,

because that's kind of how I see it. I'm not saying this is perfect. I'm not saying this is a perfect system, and I'm not saying this is a system that fits for every country or for every person, for that matter. But, you know, if I look at what Putin said yesterday, both domestic and foreign policy, it seems like it's trying to get the best of both the left and the right into one type of configuration. I mean, is there something wrong with that? There's nothing wrong with it, nothing at all. As far as I'm concerned, as speaking now as an old guard, old style, former European

Soviet Democrats. Can't you be patriotic and have universal health care? I mean, absolutely. If you go back in time, for example, and were to ask Clement Attlee, who was the great post-war British prime minister, who, you know, carried out a program in Britain, which bears some resemblances to what Putin is talking about, he was famously conservative on social and family issues. In fact, he once joked that he was conservative about everything except social democracy. So there you go. There is absolutely nothing for me that is wrong with this. And I think that is going to be the view of not just many, but perhaps most people in the West once they begin to see this.

and certainly the overwhelming view of the vast majority of people around the world. I think Putin said as much, didn't he? He said that most of the Western world. It's an agreement with us as well. Most of the world, yeah. He said something along those lines. He said he did, exactly he did.

But as I said, I mean, if you go back, as I said to people like Clement Attlee, Tagia Erlander, people like that, the Swedish prime minister of the 50s and 60s, who was the great architect of the social democratic model in Sweden, they would have had no problem with any of this. They would have said, this is us.

I mean, he was, Erlander was also conservative on these questions. I mean, he wouldn't have thought of himself as conservative because bear in mind, I mean, these issues were not really discussed in the same way nowadays. But, I mean, he would have also believed the supporting families and doing all of that was a good thing. If he did do all of those things. And in Erlander's case, he was a nationalist, he was an nationalist, he was an economic nationalist. He believed in a strong defence. He built up the Swedish armed forces to a

very high level. He developed Sweden's arms industries to make sure, we're publicly owned largely, or many of them, to make sure that Sweden wasn't dependent on third countries, specifically the US, in terms of its defence positions. I mean, Erlander and Putin could meet and talk about things, and you would find difficulty in spotting the difference. Of course, today, all of these ideas were told by people in the West are wrong, unacceptable, that they're regressive and backward reactionary

and that they're part of the far right and all that kind of thing. But if you look back to, you know, the Europe that I actually remember, they were mainstream. What about a final question? What about this compared to like a traditional liberal in the USA, say a JFK? Yeah, a JFK would have had no problem with this either.

In fact, JFK, again, much closer. This is going to horrify a lot of people. But in his own policies, again, much closer to this than he is to what you see today in the Democratic Party. A lot of the things that people are talking about in the Democratic Party today, you know, the identity issues, the gender issues, he wouldn't have understood them at all. Not only would he not have understood them. He wouldn't have liked them. Remember, he was a Catholic. All right. We will end it there. The durand. Dotlocals.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, but shoot, telegram, rock fin, and Twitter X, and go to the Duran shop, 15% off all merch. Take care.