The Duran Podcast - Russia ends 300 years of west-centric foreign policy: Gordon Hahn, Alexander Mercouris, Glenn Diesen

Episode Date: January 13, 2024

Russia ends 300 years of west-centric foreign policy: Gordon Hahn, Alexander Mercouris, Glenn Diesen

How can we best understand the Ukraine-Russia-West Triangular relationship? I would say it's important not to deny agency to actors such as Ukraine, yet at the same time we cannot deny the tendency of the United States as well to manipulate and using proxies. So to discuss this and other topics, we're joined by the excellent Gordon Hahn, which is a very renowned author and research on Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia and the North Caucasus.

welcome Gordon Thank you for inviting me Glenn and Alexander and yeah welcome Alexander as well so I thought before we addressed the issue of

Ukraine we could start with the topic of jihadism in Chechnya and the wider north coxas because with great frequency at least recently Putin

brings up the claim that the United States supported jihadi movements in Chechnya in the 1990s, in 2000s, to destabilize, weaken, fragment, even break up Russia. And we'll remember after the Bessalon attacks in 2004, in which more than 300 Russians were killed, most of them schoolchildren. Putin was also very vocal about the involvement of NATO powers. Now, the reason this is interesting bringing in the current conflict is that Putin seems to

link this to the conflict in Ukraine in terms of the ten times of the ten, tendency to fight Russia through proxies. So, again, as a leading researcher on the North Caucasus, I thought we can not fact-check, but they discussed the allegations of Putin. So how much of this terrorism is homegrown and how much of it has been supported or financed or instigated by Washington?

Well, first we should mention that, you know, the jihadi terrorism has largely disappeared from the North Caucasus because most of the jihadists fled to Syria and Iraq beginning around 20, 2013, 2014, or even late 2012, I can't remember now. I haven't been doing research on the North Caucasus for a while. I have two books on the subject

so if anybody wants to be more precise. They can refer to the books. I think it was around 2013. They began to head to Syria and Iraq. In terms of U.S. involvement, I was told by someone, I'm going to do Alexander McCurris now. I'm not going to mention the person who told me, but it was someone who

sufficiently well-informed about things involving Washington, D.C. and intelligence. And he told me that there was definitely a CIA present. This is in, I would say, late 90s, maybe early 2000s in the North Caucasus but this person had no idea what they were doing

whether they were just observing or doing or engaging in search activity to support what then was called the Chechen Republic ofich Karia before in 2007 it became the so-called caucuses emirate organization so originally it was the Chechen

Republic ofich Karia which declared independence from Russia's war started in 1995. There were four years in terms of comparing the Ukraine. There were four years of negotiations between Russia and Grosny between 91 and 95 before Russia actually took military action, which would have been a good model for the Ukrainians to use when the Donbos declared independence and maybe tried negotiating first, which they didn't do. anyway, and then at the time, al-Qaeda was the main global jihadi element, and they began to infiltrate into the Chechen Republic of Ichkary.

And eventually in 2002, there was a major, after they were generally routed on the battlefield by Russian forces, they went sort of, they went underground. And at that point, the jihadists reached, the jihadists within the organization reached parity with the, you know, you know, the radical nationalists. And by 2007, the caucus emirate was declared itself a full-fledged jihadi organization. And from then on, you just can go if you can get access to the old sites. They're very much detailed in my two books, especially in the later book, The Caucusis Emirate, were entirely jihadi propaganda organs and recruitment organs, quoting all the

the well-known jihadi ideologists the o' ideologists around the world including bin Laden but many other mocked the sea from Egypt and so on so on so many many from Saudi Arabia

so many of these so it's a completely jihadi organization allied with al-Qaeda and then the Islamic State the only evidence that it's circumstantial evidence If you recall, after 9-11, they began to crack down on this Saudi-tide organization in the United States and presumably in other countries called the Benevolent Society, which was sending money to Afghanistan and to the Chechen Republic of Uchkiria. About 45 percent, I estimated from looking at the documents, 45 percent of the funds that the Benevolent Society collected went to the Chechen Republic of Chkary.

the rest of it, presumably all that went to Afghanistan. So one could hypothesize. I don't know for sure. I'm just making a suggestion that before 9-11, the CIA knew about this operation, but didn't do anything about it. And then after 9-11 decided to crack down, and then during the hearings and the investigation into 9-11,

this information was released at 45% of the money and supplies, things like night vision glass, so forth. We're going for the Chechen Republic of Chkary. And it's an organization that had at least branches in the United States, if not, was not based in the United States. So it was basically a Saudi sort of laundering institution for laundering money and funds to the Middle East, to Afghanistan and Chechen Republic of Qaeda.

another piece of circumstantial evidence is the complete blanket denial throughout Washington, D.C., that there was any connection between al-Qaeda and the Chechen Republic of the U.S.K.S.U.S. Emirates and the Islamic State and the Caucus of Emirates, even though on the Caucus of Zemir website, it was evident, very evident that they were, they had ties to. all these groups. And that there were fighters, some Chechen fighters and Dagestani fighters, once the had the Caucasian, the summit were fighting in places like Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria. And then there was a virtual deluge of fighters to the latter around 2013, as I mentioned earlier. So all these institutions in D.C. I had contact with some of them were very much in the jihadi denial business as far as the caucus is concerned. In fact, if you go back and look at 9-11, you'll notice that one of the reasons why they never investigated the 20th hijacker, and if they had investigated him, they might have uncovered

the entire plot before 9-11, was that the only reason given, I believe, was by the FBI to the CIA for any reason to check on this guy, or the CIA to FBI, to check on this guy, I forget his name, who was training in, I believe, Minnesota to fly planes, was that his connection, the only connection, supposedly to the Caucasus to the Chechen Repar Area was through Hatab. And Hatab was

someone who was an associate of Al-Qaeda, and they claimed, and they denied this. DC and various elements were saying that Hatab had no connections or was not, one of the promoters of this idea was this professor from, I believe the University of Massachusetts named Brian Glenn Williams. And he was making such statements,

he was making statements such as, that the ideologists of, and this is as late as 2012, 2012, 2013. You know, when you could go to one of these caucus emir sites, whether it was the Dagestan, the Chechen, the Kabarino-Balkari, or the English site of the Caucasus Emirate, and there were videos of Osama bin Laden, on videos and lectures of mock to see and on various, various

sheikhs, ideologists, the theology of the global jihadi movement on their sites. They had established a structure and institution the Caucasus of Zemert had, that mirrored to the model of Al-Qaeda and then the Islamic government. This guy, Brian Gould Williams, is going around telling people that the ideology of the Caucasus of Zemert was closer to the American founding fathers than to the global jihad. Then it turned out in 20, when, if you'll recall, there was the Boston Marathon attack back in April 2013. It turned out that the younger Sarnia, I forget his first name now, was actually a student of Brian Glenn, Glenn Williams, who was probably, you know, repeating this sort of view of the Chechens being the Thomas Jefferson's and George Washington's of the future.

And of course, that might have helped radicalize him, not mention their trip to Dagestan. And Chechnya back in prior to their carrying out an attack. Another piece of circumstantial evidence is that if you recall there was this guy, I forget his first name now, but he was Georgian, Chechen Georgian, the ethnic Kish, which is what the ethnic Chechens in Georgia are called. A guy by the name was Batyrashvili, and he participated in the Georgian train and equip program, you know, under NATO.

And then he defected from the Georgian army and went to fight in the North Caucasus. I don't think he was in the North Caucasus is very long. And then, according to his own testimony, his own writings on jihadi sites, He was dispatched by Doku O'Maro, the emir of the Caucasus emir, to go fight in Syria and Iraq. And he eventually became one of the leading actors in the Islamic State. He was eventually killed after that, forget back in 2019 or 2020.

So one could think conspiratorily, I'm not saying it's not possible. It's not possible. I'm just thinking that this guy maybe was dispatched under. this program to do precisely this, though it seems unlikely. Then we have the, you know, the Hidjah, the flood of the Caucasus's fighters in 2013, 2014, but to Syria and Iraq, and he was sort of the leader of that whole group, though they were broken up into different factions and some fighting with Al-Qaeda loyal groups, some fighting with ISIS loyal groups.

And eventually the Caucasus emirate became declared itself, dissolved itself, and became a vilayat, a governor of the Islamic State, and since then they really haven't been all that active. So that's basically I think that when, you know, perhaps Putin has access to

Russian intelligence tells him something else, but as far as I know, I've never seen any evidence that would show that the United States was actively backing them. The one other final point is that I've never seen a denial. Never seen a denial by any

one from the Bush administration, the Obama administration about this. So that perhaps is indicative of something, but other than that, you know, I have nothing more to say really on that. I agree. I mean, I think that Putin is, like so many people do, he's probably almost certainly greatly underestimating the level of agency of the people in the Northern Caucasus themselves. I'm fairly confident there were a lot of people in the Northern Caucasus at that time, first during the Chechen nationalist phase and then subsequently during the jihadi phase, who were acting. They were acting because people in the CIA were telling them to.

They acted because that was consistent with their own beliefs. But I can remember, and this is, I mean, I was living in Britain at the time. I was actually in Moscow at the time of the Bislan affair. and then I came from Moscow to London. And the thing that always struck me, this is in the 1990s as well, when we were supposed to be having good relations with the Russians, there's always this very strong sympathy,

a very strongly expressed sympathy in Britain, in the United States, first with the Chechen nationalists, then obviously it continued later when it became a jihadist, movement and absolutely, as you correctly say, strong denial that it was in fact a jihadi movement. Constant pressure badgering on the Russians, negotiate with these people, which is an effect way of saying, you know, give them their independence or withdraw from the Northern Caucasus

in the way that they want. And, you know, I can completely understand why, if you're in Moscow, and we mustn't overestimate the skill of Russian intelligence and all these people. But they're seeing all this constant sympathy, this language that's being expressed, Washington, in London. And they're saying to themselves, these people fundamentally are supporting these people, these jihadi fighters in the Caucasus. And of course, if you're talking about London, well, there was a time when there was. quite a little community of people here from Chetchnya who came to London were, you know, very active politically. They, you know, have speaker meetings. They would be involved in all of these things. The Russians in those days were trying to extradite them. Extradition requests were

consistently rejected by the London authorities and the London courts, it must be said. And again, one can very easily understand why this all began to create a certain impression amongst the Russians. This isn't just sympathy for these people. This is active involvement in what they were trying to do. Yeah, I can remember Zakhaev, Ahmed Zakaiyev, who was based in London, and he was the foreign minister of the Chechen Republic of Hitchkary and then found refuge in London. and he always used to organize these demonstrations with that actress, I forget her name, the British actress.

Vanessa Redgrave. Yes. And there were denials. At some point, the question arose whether there was a denial that he had any connection to the Caucasus Emirate, that yes, okay, he was part of the Chechen Republic of Echkarya, which was a nationalist organization. Of course, that was not entirely true. It was at some key point, partially a jihadist organization.

But Sakai did have a record of being opposed to the jihadists, but then the question arose, well, does he have any ties to the present organization, the caucuses emirate? And it turned out that on his own website, he was publishing reports directly from the caucuses emirate websites. It actually, you know, when an attack occurred, for example, supporting the result of the attack.

So normally that would be seen, you know, in that period of time as being support for jihadi terrorism. But of course they were denying, still denying the jihadi essence of the Cox of Zemir. Then there was a suspicious development in my own career. Again, this is only a hypothesis. But I constantly ran up against, you know, any kind of, you know, I read a criticism against my views on the Caucasus, Emmerge and so forth. And at some point, a scholar from Russia

named Sergei Mark Adonov received a period of fellowship at the center for CSIS, where Brazinski at the time was, Zbigny of the Brizinski time, was now, I think, already honorary and senior fellow emeritus of some sort. And they organized a conference on the North Caucasus. And I was suddenly invited to Washington, D.C., to discuss this. And I was absolutely shocked.

And then I figured out why, because, well, it was a Russian who organized the conference. And every, there were about different speakers talking about different aspects of the North Caucasus. And I discussed the jihadi element in the North Caucasus. and then they published a report and everything I said was discounted or ignored in the report. So I contacted the head of the Russia-Eurasia program at the time where Mark Adonov had his fellowship. The director of time was Andy Cutchins and said, you know, what's going on here? Everything I said is ignored. And he asked me for some proof of some things that were rejected in the report.

and I sent them. One of them was that there were direct ties of support, moral support for Basaya, the Chechen, the Chechen Republic which carried up one of the leaders at the time and a major terrorist, the one who carried out the 2004

incident in South, in North Ossetia that Gleng has mentioned. And And they, the report basically, he said, okay, fine, I convinced him that there were ties. I sent to him seven obituaries in Arabic written about Basayev after he had been killed. So it's demonstrating that the Arabic language obituaries published by Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda, and people like them. So he said, okay, Gordon, let's have you do a report.

You'll come to D.C. I'll pay you some money for the report and you'll give a talk. And I said, okay, fine. So I wrote a counter report. And on the eve, literally EVE, before I flew to Washington, D.C., he calls me up and says, well, there's going to be a colonel there to be an American colonel from the Central Command based in Florida who had written a book. I forget his name now. He also wrote a book on the caucuses. on the North Caucasus and the jihadist there. It wasn't a bad book, actually. And he was going to be a commentator.

I said, okay, fine, because I knew what I was saying was absolutely precise. And I had no problem having somebody commentated. I had no fears. So went there, and he commentated. And the essence of his commentary was, I agree with everything that Gordon says, and I disagree with everything with Gordon says. A jihadist has to have a reason to wake up in the morning.

You know why I explained the reason why they wake up in the morning and carry out jihadist attacks is written on their websites because they use those websites to recruit people in order to do those things. You know, so there's no mystery here. It's quite obvious what's going on. So that was the essence. And then shortly after the events in Ukraine, I was suddenly got a letter in the mail saying that my own fellowship, temporary non-resident fellowship at CSIS, which began after. with the original conference or sure, thereafter, I can't remember now, had been terminated.

And this was right after the Olympics, right? The day of the Maidan revolt was on, I think it was the first or last day, I believe, of the Olympics in Beijing, right? And it began to enter my head that maybe what was going on here is that suddenly in Washington, particularly someone like Brzezinski who had been on the board of an organization

called Free Chechnya and so forth. Maybe the idea was that suddenly they decided to ignore their own jihadi denial for the period of the Olympics. So the Gordon Hahn would be writing about all his jihadism, right? Right. And this would be scaring people off from the Olympics, right? And we could use this to discuss Russian imperialism in the North Caucasus and so forth. And then as soon as the Olympics ended, they got rid of me because I was no longer useful.

That's a hypothesis I have. Well, a very plausible one. I just want because, you know, we're Glenn, we'll be going over to Ukraine in the moment. But the fact is, in that period, especially after 2001, after the events of 9-11, you know, we were hostile to jihadism everywhere, except in one place, which was the Northern Caucasus. We were very, continued to be very sympathetic. I remember at the time of the Bislan affair. There's actually people in Britain making excuses for it. And one has to ask why, why this constant hostility, this axiomatic assumption that somebody

who's fighting the Russians, whatever they are and whatever they do, we have to be somehow sympathetic to them. And if you're working a Russian, if you're a Russian official, if you're, you know, at Putin and Petrushchev and someone like that, I can completely understand why you're saying to yourself, there is a continuum. These people fundamentally don't like us. They are against us. Even if, you know, we are, you know, we perhaps accept that they weren't as involved in the Northern Caucasus as, you know, we think they were. The fact is at the end of the day, they were sympathetic to it. They were sympathetic to it. They were sympathetic. A violent terrorist organization launching attacks deep inside our country, aiming to break up our country, and fundamentally, viscerally, that is what they want to see happen. Right. And there was blowback, right? There was blowback because the very jihadi movement that we were saying wasn't a jihadi movement actually influenced the Sarnaya brothers, who then blew up our Boston Marathon. But and this sort of thing, this extremism denial when it comes to anybody, extremist group that's fighting Russia, you know, has a long history. You know, some people might go back to, you know, the Austrians and the Poles supporting, in fact, some people argue helping the formation of you, of Ukrainian national identity and even even language and certainly nationalism going back to the late 19th century. But we see a parallel state today in Ukraine, right?

The same thing. We're denying if there are neo-fascists in Ukraine, that they're ultra-nationalists in Ukraine. They don't exist. If they do, well, they're the smaller number, and they're justified because of the history of Russian imperialism in Ukraine and so forth. And so it's the same exact argument to justify another extremism. And one wonders whether someday this Ukrainian, you know, when this Ukrainian thing eventually turns very, very bad, which it's beginning to already. I mean, a worst-case scenario could be, you know, a quagmire

with various elements that have already found refuge in the West, greatly embittered by the destruction of Ukraine and the lack of the abandonment of Ukraine by the West, turning guns around and engaging in terrorism in Europe in order to pressure governments to support some kind of Ukraine underground or Ukrainian partisan army that's fighting some remnants that are fighting the Russian army if the Russia is forced to go to the Nipar or who knows how far. So it's an old pattern, it's a very sad pattern.

People don't seem to learn over the centuries, do they? I did want to switch a bit more towards Ukraine because, while in Chechnya, it's more unclear, obscure what has been going on. In Ukraine, it's been more overt. I remember George Friedman, the former head of, what is called Stratfor. Yeah, he called this the most overt coup in modern history, which I thought was an appropriate description. But of course, this goes back way before.

I'm thinking back even during the Rose Revolution of 2004. At that point, at that point, it was, yeah, the new president of Ukraine called then the Rose Revolution, what he called the European Union, at least the godfathers of the Rose Revolution, because of their assistance within this to bring him to bring Yushenko to power, that is. And again, we saw then over the next years, you know, very eagerly trying to make this split with Russia permanent by by orienting the economy, popular

pinning culture more to the West. And of course, you know, we lost Ukraine then in 2010 as they had a democratic election. And I remember back in those days, newsweek, called Yushenko the most unpopular leader in the world. You had like 2.7% approval rating.

So it's quite an achievement. Anyways, so then they had the Yushenko. Then they elected Yanukovych. It was, you know, democratically elected, acknowledged by the OSCE, a free and fair election. And then, you know, we saw these reports coming from NATO where they were quite upset because they said, oh, this is very problematic. Now, you know, less than 20% of Ukrainians want to join NATO.

You know, the neutrality is in their law. You know, how are we going to develop our relationship? This is, you know, how are we going to help them to, you know, want to join us? And of course, I think that's when... We came to the 2013, when the EU pitched this association agreement in which, yeah, they were largely, you know, pressured, you know, choose us or the West or the Russians. And then, of course, when they made the wrong decisions, very openly, again, very overtly beginning to instigate protests and riots in the streets. I remember then, you know, the Polish Prime Minister Tusk, he was suggesting, you know, we should fund all of these movements, these people rising up. We should give the millions of euros.

This has to be financed. EU leaders coming to keep to stand on stage, calling for the downfall of the government and replace it. I mean, they're very open, very much in the open. And then even when the Ukrainians and Russians offer this trilateral agreement, you know, let's not force Ukraine to choose between East and West, you know, the EU shut down the Ukrainians right away. It's like, no, no, no, we have one deal.

You choose. The former prime minister of Sweden he called this a civilizational choice. It's west of Russia. So it's, you know, again, it couldn't possibly be more overt. And then, you know, we haven't even come to,

you know, Newland and they're not just their cookies, but, you know, they were caught actually on tape on the phone, which was leaked, of course, but in which Xi and Piat, the American ambassador, openly discussed, I think it was two weeks before they had to be able to topple You know, I should put more pressure on them.

Who should go in the new government? Who should be held out of the new government? You know, how are we going to make this whole thing legitimate? How can we use the EU and everything on tape? Like this, it seems very open and shut case. And yet, if we come to today, it's almost addressed as if it was a conspiracy theory, something that never happened. And even on my dam, you had, as, yeah, you just suggested,

The right wing or even fascist groups were quite dominant. You had the leader of that group, the fascist group, C-14, even makes the statement that, yes, we were a minority on Maidan, but the majority of influence came from us because we were there fighting the government. But even they were quite open. The leader of the C-14 openly saying, listen, the West isn't trying to help us. They want to use us. They see us an instrument against Russia.

you know, but we're happy to be this because, you know, we love killing. This is for us the argument. So it's just, it just baffles me sometimes that you can have all this in the open, all this very overt influence. And still, if it's put out there, one can very quickly be accused of not giving an agency to the Ukrainians, of course. That was my question to you as well. Like, what, we shouldn't fail to include this, but agency of which Ukrainians,

Again, in the east and west, very, very different people. So how do you see the run-up to Maidan, both the local elements as well as foreign influence? Well, I see basically it's, I agree with your overall account completely. I think it's a result, right? It's all fairly fairly obvious to anyone who want to look at this objectively, right? It's a result of the West, after the cold, we're trying to maximize its power, not being satisfied with being the main guy on the block, the big boy on the block. No, they have to control everyone. They have to subsume all the other forces and elements under their near full control or full control.

And that's the purpose of expanding NATO, of expanding the European Union. A European Union is basically sort of a foot in the door. And on average, you know, a country gets the association membership, the association agreement signed. Eight years later, they're a member of NATO. So they're European, they become a European Union Association Agreement plan member. And they're on the road to EU membership. Eight years later, they're members of NATO. So Russia sees this.

They see what's going on. They see Russia, NATO expansion going on. And this is a, it's, you know, we talk about, look at this from the realist perspective, right? John Weirschimer, who's probably the most erudite and articulate and well-known now spokesman of the realist position, which explains a great deal of this, right? from the Russian perspective, it's not in the self-interest of this great power to have perhaps world history's most powerful military block all along its western border. It's just not in its interest. It doesn't matter if the name of that country is Russia, China, Paraguay, United States. So that's one element. But the other element, I think, that needs to be added into that is the

historical cultural element. You know, it will be one thing if, uh, Russia had a history of ideal relationships with the West and the West never tried to intervene or influence Russia or invade Russia or elements from the West invade Russia and so forth. That would be fine. But in fact, the Western Russian relationship is probably, one could argue it's the most troubled relationship on the planet, historically. I haven't done a comparative study of that, but one could make that argument, but it would probably be interesting. thing for someone as Glenn would be a good person to do this kind of a study. So we look at the way the Russians look at their history, and it's a fairly accurate interpretation of what they've experienced through several centuries of interaction with

the West. It's been at best intermittent, and one could call it repeated and almost continuous pattern of the West trying to either influence, interfere in Russian politics, intervene in Russian politics through intel operations, military operations, who go back to the Polish, the smuta, backed by the Vatican and carried out by the Poles in the early 17th century to place a pretender on the Russian throne, creating chaos in Russia and millions of deaths and famine and so forth and so forth and then followed by two Polish invasions, a Swedish invasion. And then we talk about Napoleon and Hitler.

It doesn't take a genius to understand that this attitude in Russia is justified. And when the Cold War ended, and you had an already beleaguered Russia, economic depression, loss of identity, trying to find a new place and new identity, a new place in the world, a new identity for itself. on the background of this world history's largest military block begins to expand to its borders so I would say that this was the background

cause and in this case Ukraine is simply a tool Ukraine is a tool for maximizing American and Western power of course the Russians for the Russians Ukraine is also a tool it's a tool as a buffer to keep the

from lining up along its western border. And so this is basically the problem. And then both sides began to look for allies inside Ukraine to manipulate Ukraine. And so the West had some advantages, although it had a problem in that it was more distant, and it didn't have all the economic and social networks that exist between Russian, Ukraine or Ukraine as a result of them being in a single-state. called the Soviet Union for seven centuries and even ties going far. For the back, they had an additional element.

There was a small but, you know, substantial democratic pro-democracy, pro-Western element in Ukraine, especially in Western Ukraine, that could be used and that could be expanded upon. So they began this democracy promotion revolution promotion operations. And there should be no doubt that this is precisely. what democracy promotion is. You can, I cite in one of my books from the Marine Corps Journal, an article written

in which it explicitly states the goal of democracy promotion operations is to create a crisis instability and a crisis in states that again be used by the West to put people in power they support. Openly stated.

No problem. The other advantage that the West had is that there was the there were these connections going back to the post-World War II period between intelligence agencies and diasporas in the West and ethno-nationalists and neo-fascists in post-Soviet Ukraine. And they could use that element to expand the idea of Russia's relationship with Ukraine always having been imperial that Russia is to be blamed. be blamed for all of the Ukraine's problems, whether it's the Ukrainian ruin or the Golodomor or anything else. And then the other element that we used was the oligarchs.

We simply turned our backs on the problem of corruption, even while we said we were promoting democracy. We did very little to combat corruption. and relations were developed between different oligarchs and different funding organizations, different political candidates in the United States. We have the classic case, which everyone know about, most people know about. At this point is the case of Biden Hunter working with Burisma, right, a gas company formed by Kolomoisky and run by a guy named Lachewski, who both people were at one point wanted by the United States.

both mired in corruption and even criminality. So this was ignored. On the other hand, Russia, of course, tried to use whatever levers it had to maintain its influence over Ukraine. Ukraine would not become a frontline in a frontline in the emerging new Cold War with Russia. So they used corrupt oliverks as well. There's no doubt about that. They also use their gas supplies to help influence providing cheap gas to Ukraine to keep Ukraine close. But one thing that they could not do is they could not rely on the nationals and neo-fascists by definition because of the former Soviet experience, the anti-Russian derusophobic element of the nationals.

And so that led to some extent that was a disadvantage. that was sort of the United States' own comparative advantage, right? They could use that element. And that element became crucial on the Maidan, right? So you took about Professor Yvonne Kachanolsky of Ottawa University. He's the leader in this area. I've written a little about it myself, the fact that these ultra-nationalists and neo-fascist groups organized the shooting on Maidan

in the 19th and 20th of February, February, which led to basically a violent uprising in the overthrowing of Yanukovych, where these elements stationed themselves in the hotel Ukraine and other spots and fired on the demonstrators

and the police outraging the demonstrators who then ran Yanukovych out of office. This is a terrorist act. It's a false flag, terrorist attack run by Nashville. I have not seen any evidence. Some people make the claim that the CIA was directly involved in this. I have never seen any evidence to support that. It's possible, no doubt about it.

But I've seen no evidence to support that. I think my interpretation in my own book, Ukraine Over the Edge, was that we did what that article in the Marine Journal, Marine Corps Journal stated. We created a political crisis that we used the NED, USAID, the oligarcha, Ombuds, and Soros, and all these people funded. of pro-market, pro-economic, pro-small business, pro-democracy, pro-women's rights, networks across Ukraine to expand the support for the West, farther beyond Western Ukraine. And that network was clicked on on February 20th after the shootings when, I forget his name Naim, the first name, the ethnic Afghan who lives in Ukraine, said a message on Facebook. Facebook, telling everybody to go to the Maidan to the Square, Central Square, and protest the abandonment of the association agreement.

One small note on the association agreement, and that led to the Maidon protest. One small note on the association agreement that demonstrates the way in which EU expansion leads to NATO membership is that there was a military clause. Most people, I haven't seen it noted anywhere else. There was a military clause in the European Association Agreement with Ukraine. Ukraine, that stated that Ukraine would develop its ties to the military infrastructure of Europe and the West as part of the agreement. And one more point on the Maidan that I wanted to get to in reference to what Glenn was talking about is that you look at the U.S. The Helsinki Final Act, it states, I forget in which article it's in my book on Ukraine Over the Edge.

that parties to the OSCE and the Helsinki-Fani Act are not to interfere in the internal politics of member states. Now, Ukraine was a member state. So is Russia. So is the United States. So are all the European states. So what were they doing on the Maidan promoting protests? Whether the protests against corruption is legitimate or not, and, you know, if they're corrupt, and everybody has to be corrupt,

Everybody has a right to protest against corruption. But that is interference in the domestic politics of a member state. Since the Budapest memorandum, many in the West tried to decide as an example of Russia violating agreements leading up to the crisis. Russia had by invading and supporting the separatists in the East had violated the Budapest memorandum. Well, guess what? The Budapest memorandum is based on the Helsinki Final Act. So it was the West that violated the Helsinki Final Act before Russia violated the Budapest Memorandum. So all this goes to simply say that both sides used Ukraine as a means.

The West did it in a far more aggressive, far more agnicious form, especially given that the driver of NATO expansion, EU expansion is really the United States, which is located thousands of miles away from Ukraine. Whereas Ukraine is on Russia's border and is it legitimate national security interest for Russia, given the history that I discussed and so forth and so on. It's not a surprise that we ended up in the situation that we're in now. And we just seem to be doubling down, right? Seemed to be doubling down. We talk about inevitable NATO membership of Ukraine after this war is over and so forth and so on.

So it's really a geostrategic disaster catastrophe that threats world peace. I just asking very quickly on the Budapest memorandum, as it was mentioned, because this always comes up that, you know, Russia breached it because the Budapest memorandum of 1994 very explicitly said, you know, that the borders of Ukraine should not be changed, and, you know, the Russians, British, Americans all signed under. So, of course, this is very reasonable. Changing these borders, as they did with Crimea, is what was a violation of this.

However, there also has to be pointed out that, the international law since, you know, the effort of establishing unipolarity has been interpreted more and more, you know, according to this rules-based international order, which in the kind of the US and his allies can take the freedom to, it shouldn't be restrained by international law because it has a higher obligation to liberal democratic values. So, for example, with the Budapest memorandum, you know, you had three identical memorandums to Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, you know, for giving up their nuclear weapons. And, you know, this had the, in the clause in this memorandum, you had, you know, one hand, they said, respect the independence and

sovereignty of the existing borders of Ukraine, but also a very specific paragraph where it says, you know, refrain from economic coercion, designed to subordinate, you know, their own interest to the interest of the Ukraine. And also, yeah, don't undermine their security or sovereignty in any way through economic pressure or other means. So this was also very, very explicit. But again, by toppling the government very much, of course, a violation of this, but even this was also breached when sanctions were threatened against Ukraine with the explicit purpose of undermining the government to support opposition.

And since, you know, this similar memorandum was given to, was signed with Belarus, In 2013, the U.S. placed sanctions on Belarus, and the U.S. embassy in Minsk, they were accused of breaching the Budapest memorandum. And their response was, well, it's not really binding. That was the argument of Budapest memorandum. And secondly, not only is it not binding, but it's not really intended to undermine the sovereignty of Belarus. It was just to protect human rights. So because it's motivated by altruism, you know, we don't want to undermine any sovereignty or dictator policy or interfere.

We're just standing up for a democracy. In other words, we have the right to excuse ourselves from this memorandum. And this is a wider problem, I think, in the relationship between the West and Russia. We kind of began to abandon international law, which based on mutual restraint. And we have now this rules-based international order where, you know, the restraints are only meant for Russia and our adversaries, while, you know, under the sovereign equality, we have the right to breach all these agreements in international law because, you know, we can refer to democracy, human rights as this higher or other objectives. So it just, my main point is the United States and its allies as well, breached this Budapest memorandum many times. and then, you know, and then we only discover this document, it seems, once the Russians breached it as well.

And, you know, I've made this argument before to many people in debates, and they say, you know, pretty much, you know, two wrongs don't make a right. You know, they're still breaching, which is, yeah, correct. But on the other hand, international law is about mutual restraints. You know, each side commit to limiting what they can do in turn to get reciprocity. If you remove the reciprocity, why would Russia be restrained if we already, said we're not going to be restrained by any agreements anymore. It's just, it's very strange. Sorry, I interrupted you, Alexander.

No, no, I think that's a very important point. And we're interested to hear what Gordon has to say. No, go ahead, Alex. Then I'll, then I'll... No, I mean, very, very, very briefly. I mean, this practice of discovering legality when it suits you and ignoring it in every other respect is absolutely one of the fundamental problems in international relations because, of course, what it is doing is it is creating a completely chaotic international environment. You can't just isolate one part of a legal treaty, one part of a document. So one applies when it suits us, another doesn't apply, when it doesn't, when it also suits us. All international legal documents, all treaty,

work together as part of a continuum. This is also something, by the way, which is fundamental, not just to international law, but to any type of law. And of course, if an agreement, and a treaty is an agreement at the end of the day, if a agreement is violated in one of its fundamental particulars, then that agreement becomes unenforceable and is a nullity.

And that's a very well understood concept, again, in domestic law, and it applies to international law also. So this practice of replacing international law with a unilaterally determined, arbitrarily applied rules-based international order is at the heart of many of these problems, including the underlying problem that you were talking about, Gordon, the point about NATO, relentless NATO expansion. By the way, I can remember reading articles that you wrote long before this crisis in Ukraine began, warning people, that NATO expansion is going to result in a major smash. I can remember it very well. And I just wanted, just on this topic of, you know, applying legality when it suits you. I can remember, again, people were saying, you know, when Crimea, whether it's reference. in Crimea and Crimea seceded from Russia.

And again, you can argue many things about how their referendum in Crimea was conducted, what role the Russians had. But there was a specific point made by many people. I remember in the West, at the time, in Britain especially, saying that the Ukrainian constitution prohibits secession. It prohibited Crimea in secession. This, just a few weeks after. The same people were supporting the overthrow president Yanukovych,

which was also, of course, a completely unconstitutional act. So they support the Ukrainian constitution in one respect. Don't worry about it too much. The other. I think this new pattern of illegality or non-legality in the West, it's ironic in the first place because, you know, one of the criticisms of the West always of, Russia from the west of Russia has always been that Russia doesn't have a strong legal culture.

You know, rules are made, are written to be broken. The rule of law state that we kept harping on for 30 years. And now routinely we see our, we see the West, simply using law as a way to gain leverage. Using the law as a way to gain leverage. And it's peculiar. I think it really is a result of this sort of, self-righteous attitude that everything

that we do is altruistic. Therefore, if we bend the rules here a little bit there, that's okay because we're really, we're achieving we're seeking a good end. And so if we use some not so good means,

you know, whether it's a coup or a war or something like this, well, in the end, what we're trying to achieve is something good. Therefore, we have a right to do it, especially since we have not only that we are trying to do something good, but that we are actually better, right?

Our culture is better. We're more sophisticated people, more gentler people, we're kinder people. Therefore, we seek good ends. The Russian culture is inferior. They're always seeking bad ends, and we have to confront them. And when that becomes the overriding,

structure within which you operate, well, then the law just becomes a hindrance. So when necessary, you just discard it. That's all. After the coup, though, and between, I guess, 2014 and 2022, do you see any struggle then between what Ukrainians want, if you will, and what, well, and what, well, I guess what Washington wanted for Ukraine? because, well, from my perspective, at least what I've picked up on a lot was a lot of the interests in Ukraine to settle relations with Russia and Donbass to normalize relations. There seemed to be a strong impulse in this direction.

So, for example, as many refer to the election in 2019, you know, largely a peace platform to, you know, implement Minsk agreement. I thought it's quite surprising that both Poroshenko and Zelensky, for that matter, presented themselves as peace candidates. They were going to, you know, they weren't going to be a nationalist. They were going to reach out. They were going to solve these problems. And then they were confronted by American trained and funded nationalists who effectively, you know, made them have to or force them to change their tune.

also the former general prosecutor of Ukraine. He also complained, well, he obviously was fired by Biden after this investigation into Burisma, but he also had this argument in which he said that it wasn't just about firing him once he wanted to investigate Burisma, where Biden's son obviously got a job. But he argued that the Americans were essentially. dictating all government employees within all areas, who should get what job, and that everything had to be approved by the Americans, which, you know, he kind of referred to as colonial status.

And, you know, at some points, they went beyond this. When they were hiring, you know, the new finance minister after the coup, you know, they even put in an American. I forgot her name now. Gerisco, Gerrissko. Yeah, Garesko, yeah, yeah. She had been an American employee in the American embassy in Kiev. And then after the coup, instead of representing American interest in Ukraine,

they gave her Ukrainian citizenship. And now she's the finance minister representing Ukraine. There's many other examples of American citizens or some Georgian, Lithuanian citizens educated in the U.S. who are given citizenship and to take on top jobs. And the rest of them, apparently, according to Schokkin, all other employees had to be approved by the Americans. So it seems very much like they weren't allowing Ukraine effectively to resolve its differences with Russia and continue this hardline policies. Well, they certainly were trying to prevent them from, they were trying to, if anything, trying to exacerbate those differences. And that's why they turned a blind eye and in some cases supported the alternative.

alter nationals and neo-fascists. And the Minsk Agreement is a, you know, it was a classic example. If you're talking about the United States, not the West in general, the United States that sat by and did nothing. There was no encouragement. There was no attempt to get involved in the Minsk Agreement to the contrary. Did everything to undermine it. Europe was involved in the Minsk Agreement, but now they've

acknowledge that they should simply use it to buy time. So, and this is all because the major, they have their eye on the ball. All the time they have the eye on the ball. And the eye of the, the ball is NATO expansion. That is the key goal. And so anything that bothers NATO expansion to Ukraine and probably again at some point to Georgia is a hindrance and has to be dealt with. Where do we go from here? We have a war going on. You've been following the war very closely. You've been also following the political situation in Kiev very closely. I should, by the way, encourage everybody to go to your site, which is, I think, an absolutely indispensable read for anybody who wants to know what is actually going on in Ukraine. The analysis and the reporting is outstanding. And I just wanted you also briefly to mention there's been a court case. You mentioned Ivan Katchez.

Shanovsky's work. There's been a cool case about the Maidan events. But where do we go from here? We've got a war. The war that was this offensive in the summer. That didn't go terribly well. You've discussed the developments within the Russian military. You've also been a very astute and critical observer for many years of the political situation in Moscow and how it's playing out there. What's going to happen to Ukraine? And this is an enormous question, and it just may be a start for this. What's going to happen to relations between Russia and the West? I mean, what are the Russians going to decide about their relationship with the West?

Because they're an important player. They're an important decision maker also. Well, I'm very pessimistic about U.S.-Russia relations, unless there's a major change in an attitude in the United States. states and that can probably only come about by some major shock whether it's the defeat of ukraine in this war some other defeat the problem with uh maybe perhaps related to gaza or some domestic crisis that cripples the country and gets people to start waking up you know the two things are are very connected if we go back to what we were discussing previously uh the the demise of uh

illegal and non-legal and anti-legal character of behavior of the Western behavior, it's driven domestically, right? We see the United States that the Biden regime or administration and NATO Obama before him were undermining the rule of law, investigating journalists, using the FBI and the Justice Department to discriminate against Republicans and so forth and so on. The impeachments of Trump, the ignoring of Biden's crime, the cover-up by the media of all these things. There's a decline in all the Western institutions. Now we're seeing what's going on in Poland, where there seem to be imitating what's going on in the West, going after the political opposition.

Same thing in Germany. There's discussion of going after what is the IDF. Alexander talked about yesterday on his program. So there's a decline in the legal culture and the constitutional and democratic political culture in the West. So we take Ukraine, right? Here's Ukraine. They're losing the war. My guess is what's going to happen is there's going to be a very, very gradual acceleration of intensification of the offensive of the active defense, which is now is, what's the new term you're using now?

Alexander, which I think is... Aggressive attrition. Aggressive attrition. I think that's going to be, gradually become more successful in that you... More and more territory will be taken each month, many more square kilometers,

a few square kilometers more each month through the winter and then the spring. And the big question is, what happens in the interim? Will Russia decide to turn that gradual success into a major offensive or some major, say, small offensive, say, in Kupianz, or somewhere into Tsumi and Jernigo. That's the other question. And will they do that in the summer or will they do that in the winter?

They're not going to be able to do it in the spring because of the Rasputtica. So in terms of a winter offensive, you know, we're beginning to another month or so will be already begin to be running out of time. But I think either way, there's going to be major gains by Russia this year. And I would be personally surprised if this war is going on at any intensive level a year from now. That either there either has to be a coup in Kiev, which leads to, unless Zelensky somehow changes his mind, which can't be excluded, but highly unlikely. some kind of a coup in Kiev

that is, if we think back to the recent revelation of the video, audio tape of Poroshenko talking with Akhmato, former president Petro Poroshenko, talking with the oligarch Renata Akmetto, telephone call that was a bugged and there was a tape released on the internet. He claims that the military is behind him, and one of the reasons he explains to Agmetto

why we have to undertake this coup is that the Russia will not negotiate with Zelensky. So that indicates that those who might engage in a coup are thinking about coming to power in order to put an end to this war, or at least to create a frozen conflict that later they might try to restart again at some point when the circumstances are different.

So given the military, the correlation of forces on the battlefield, I can't see how a year from now, unless something changes drastically in NATO-sized, do something, Ukraine and Kiev is able to fight. And so before then, I think there'll be a coup of Zelensky does not decide to begin some kind of talks. And he's got a major problem because he adopted that law, which forbids anyone from negotiating with Putin. So the first thing he has to do is tip his hand, right? Or he's got to violate that law. He's either got to begin secretly negotiating

with Putin, or he's got to have that law repealed, which will then let everyone, know that he's planning to negotiate with Putin. Of course, he conceivably could do that all in a day or two, but getting something pushed through the Rada very quickly like that, I think, is going to be extremely difficult, given the arguments that he's making when he travels abroad about Russia preparing to attack the Baltics in Western Europe, and soon they'll be in London and Washington, D.C. So I'm exaggerating, of course. He's totally talking about the Baltics and Moldova, I think, is what he mentioned recently. So I think the situation, Ukraine is, and that's kind of a good scenario.

I leave out the worst. The worst part of that scenario is that there's some kind of a coup or breakdown in Kiev, and the army dissolves. There are partisan groups. They retreat to the western part of Ukraine beyond the NEPA at some point. Partisan groups might remain in the eastern fight for a while. And there's really no one to negotiate with. Russia has no one to negotiate with because the country's in chaos and there's no major force.

Then Russia's got a big problem on its stance because they've got to deal with this quagmire. They've got to deal with putting down an insurgency. That insurgency might be backed by NATO. Probably will be backed by NATO. And that's my worst case scenario. And I fear that that's actually, it's too possible for us to be able to sleep well at night. It's extremely dangerous. optional. So my preference would be, quite honestly, that Zelensky would change his mind or that a

military coup will be successful, be able to hold things together, and then they'll go negotiate and negotiate with the Russians. So assume they come to some kind of agreement. No NATO membership for Ukraine, a rump Ukraine. Maybe if Idessa remains part of Ukraine, they still have access to the sea, which is going to help rebuild the economy. I think the, I think the Russians would settle for that if it happens soon enough and they aren't pushed further, they would be willing to leave Odessa in Ukraine, maybe create some kind of joint oversight of UDESA and the port, something like that. Maybe that's possible.

In terms of U.S. Russian relations, Western Russian relations, I mean, I'm extremely pessimistic. I can't even see that even if an agreement was made between Russia and Ukraine, that the West will cease trying to expand NATO. They'll try to repeat the same scenario unless something changes in the West itself, in Washington, D.C. in particular, because it's just simply too ingrained in our political culture and now in our strategic culture that we promote democracy, revolutionism, color revolutions. this is our destiny. It's rooted. It goes back to Thomas Jefferson years after the revolution, believing that the French Revolution was going to spread democracy all over the world. And initially he supported that until he saw what the French were doing. Hopefully, if he were alive today or if he's watching from his grave,

he would what we're doing and he would condemn that. Certainly George Washington would. So I can't see. I can't see any levers other than arms control, things like that, sort of the Cold War, the late Cold War model of arms control. I can't see any way in which it's going to be even opening up travel again between Europe and Russia

I have my doubts for at least a couple of years after any kind of agreement that will be signed, assuming an agreement is signed. I'm very pessimistic. I don't see it. Putin has stated over and over again now recently and the elite routinely demonstrates they don't trust anyone in the West anymore.

So I think it would need a major Western Mayaculpa. That is a Western leader, a Russian, American leader, maybe a German leader, but preferably an American leader, making a trip to Moscow and in perhaps somewhat veiled language, language that all the Russians would be able to read stating that we've been carrying out a very bad policy since the end of the Cold War. And that policy is going to end. And we're going to seek cooperation with Russia. That is the only way I can see anything changing unless by some miracle there's some, there's not going to be any democratic pro-Western revolution in Russia

because Democrats have been, pro-democracy forces have been defeated by their own stupidity, the own divisiveness, their alliance with the West, undermining their own patriotic credentials. You know, the soft authoritarianism of Putin, which could be much harsher if he chose to. All that has basically erased any hope of any kind of pro-Western forces coming to power. And there's certainly not going to be any kind of coup against Putin. The only possible opening is that, you know, Putin is getting older. And the entire regime really is based on Putin's charisma.

Putin has among the Russians, even among Russians who, you know, are lukewarm as to some of his policies, especially domestic policies. There are very few people who are lukewarm about his foreign policy. It's very unlikely that there's going to be any kind of a coup against the Putin regime, Putinism, for any foreseeable future. Putinism is here to stay. It's a long pattern in Russian history. If you look through Russian history, there's a pattern of Russian foreign policy and domestic developments going through cycles, right, where you have a traditional Russian regime that establishes itself or reestablishes itself.

That means, you know, something based on orthodoxy, authoritarianism of one sort of another, soft, hard, or Soviet totalitarian version. And then the West begins, then they begin some sort of liberalization, westernization. They do what the West wants them to do. But at the same time, contrary to what Martin Malia wrote, when the Russians actually begin to behave the way we in the West would like them to do

in terms of domestic governance, it's then that the United States or the West or somewhere in the West begins to try to make inroads into Russia. This creates a conflict. Russia reacts, gets rid of the Western threat, reestablishes the traditional order, and you go through the cycle again, and it repeats and repeats and repeats. Really ever since the Smuta, right? You had Boris Godinov, who was basically, who was a sort of a mini Peter the Great.

He sent people abroad to study, the sciences. He wanted to open a Western-style university. He encouraged people, not like Peter the Great Demand, he encouraged people to shave off their beards. And it was moving. It's sort of in a kind of western direction. And suddenly, the polls begin to organize this hybrid intervention into Russia to put the false Dimitri on the throne.

false Dmitri, the alleged murdered son of Ivan the Terrible appears in Poland, gets support. Move into the creative force under false Dmitri's leadership. He's backed by the Vatican. He's supposed to catholicize himself. He's supposed to catholicize Russia. He leads a force up through the very territory that we've seen now some of the war going on today, up through from Poland, into Russia, Ukraine, and then up north towards Moscow. leads to chaos,

Polish invasions, a Swedish invasion, civil war, bandit groups all over Russia. This, by the way, could be the future of Ukraine. I shouldn't laugh. It's sad enough. They establish, they throw out the Poles.

They reestablish order. They establish the Romano dynasty. The tradition is restored. Gradually they begin a slow westernization. then comes and engages in a major westernization. 18th century westernization continues. And what happens?

The West backs a coup against Paul, the first, in the early 1800s. Alexander comes to power, promotes a constitutional project. By 1808, they were already drawing up a constitution that in 1810 was going to be promulgated and a Duma was to be set to begin a session. there were going to be limited popular elections to the Duma, various estates, the top two estates, we're going to be able to vote. And what happens? Napoleon.

Three times during Alexander I, the first reign, the preparation for a constitution was interrupted by the Napoleonic Wars. Then you have World War I, the Germans. after the Russian Revolution, the Kerenzky provisional government comes to power. There's a good chance that that government would have become a more or less stable Republican government. What happens?

The Germans continue fomenting revolutions, supporting Lenin and the Bolsheviks and Trotsky, the Bolsheviks see power, end of that democratic experiment. Perestroika, Yeltsin, NATO expansion. And the process repeats, repeats, repeats.

Yeah. I'm wondering if some of this cycle is being currently broken, though, because obviously from the 19th century, it also surprised me how many time that liberalization process was disrupted. But under Peter the Great, the subjective of westernizing Russia, making more European. This was seen as the other side of the coin of modernizing. So if you're going to modernize the country, you have to change. That's what they have this cultural revolution. You have to change the culture.

You have to become more European, shed your past. But this is something that always happened in Russia. If you want to develop the economy, become more competitive and modern, you have to become more Western. And it always had this dilemma. Because if it fails to become more Western, you will have like the Crimean or or when it will be too underdeveloped and it will risk being defeated by, you know, then the French and British. So, but what seems to have happened now is this idea that modernization equates to westernization. This seems to have been broken to some extent.

Indeed, when you see that the Russians, when they want to modernize now, be it their industries, their technologies, the financial system, transportation court or banking, and whatever it is, it to large extent, means to decouple a bit more from the West because they see, what you alluded to, this excessive dependence on the West,

something that makes them vulnerable to this intrusive intervention. So, you know, if you see, what do they want to do now? How do they want to modernize? Well, technological partnership with the Chinese, develop, you know, cooperative industries with the Indians.

They're having now, you know, the common payments with the Iranians. This is more about this Eurasian project, which is very different from the past. And that's what I'm also wondering if Putin disappears. You know, when he was supposed to step down last time, you know, you had Dimitro Medvedev who came in. He was, you know, very pro-West. He was going to be much more liberal. But look at him today. Medvedev is one of the largest hawks.

I think only this week he implied that Russia should attack Ukraine with nuclear weapons. I mean, he says pretty much there's no future at all with the West anymore. We have to cut ourselves loose from this cancer pretty much. So it's very, the language is very, very strong. And I can see that Putin's better ability to bring together the whole society and political system. Yeah, charisma a large extent. But this might be problematic. but I'm not sure what a pro-Western policy would look like

because we would not welcome them into the West. We would not give up on expanding NATO towards their borders. So even if we resurrected Yeltsin from the dead, what would he do? I don't think we conceptualize properly what Russia, pro-Western Russia would look like. It seems to be to sit in the corner, in perpetual weakness and do as it's told.

I just, we write so many papers about anti-Western Russia that I would like to find out what pro-Russian, sorry, pro-Western Russia would look like though. Right. Well, why wouldn't a pro-Western Russia look like, say, Germany, a powerful European state, right? That's a lie that that's friendly with the United States. I don't see what or even a French model where Russia is a little bit more independent,

a little bit more of a maverick and recalcitrant in following, say, an American line. The fact that if Russia were part of, say, by some miracle, a member of NATO or the European Union, like immediately the American presence in the West, and that's what I think in part drives NATO expansion would be reduced. Right. Europe would become truly an equal partner in the Western project. And I think that's the problem. But going back to what you were talking about the beginning, about the turn to Eurasian to Asia. So that's precisely what's going to break the cycle now is that for Russia now it looks like, and at least it looks for me, to me, like for decades. The West is no longer its other. It's no longer, remember I mentioned earlier, the idea that Russia and the West have this, perhaps this most problematic relationship on the international scene, right? And this has been, you know, it's been a complex relationship. The West, Russia wanting to be like the West in some ways, then undergoing a security problem with the West, moving away, but still wanting to be part of Europe, seeing the European lifestyle, seeing the European,

science, seeing European power as admirable. The Europeans trying to entice Russia into its alliance games throughout European history, trying to entice Russia to imitate its culture and its science and its political systems and economic systems and so forth and so on. And Russia always being drawn in because Russia wants to be like it. Russia always has identified itself, measured itself, motivated itself, driven itself to revive itself in relation to Europe. Now Putin based is turning away from that. He said that we are no longer to define ourselves, look at ourselves to the European prison. We are going to, at a minimum, we'll be equidistant from Europe and Asia, but for now, given the situation, we are going to put all of our, all our eggs in one basket,

and that is Eurasia and Eurasia, and even beyond, with bricks into the entire international order. It's not just Eurasia and Eurasia. And the West can sit there and cause us problems, and we'll do our best to beat them off. Maybe at some time in the distant future, things will change in the West, and then we can discuss how we're going to improve our relations. That's the situation. So the other related, this tight bilateral relationship of Europe as Russia's other is ending, and therefore the cycle is probably going to be broken,

because that's really what fed the cycle, right, without this constant back and forth between. being European, not being European, being threatened by the Europeans not being threatened. And now that's basically gone. Now there's just a threat. There's very little, the desire may beat that we want to have a European living standard, but you can find that living standard in other places in the world. Now you don't just find it in Europe.

So that's gone. And then add in the fact that you mentioned is that the authoritarian regimes right now are showing that if they, you know, if they play their cards right, they can actually modernize without undertaking some of the risky measures such as democratization and so forth and so one that can destabilize the society. Maybe later on they might democratize when they feel they've got, you know, according to democratization theory, right? If you've got a large percent of the population that's middle class or above, then, you know,

there's a reason that a democratic regime might be able to be able to. support itself, but the problem is getting there, that's making the so-called the use the key word, the transition, right? Making the transition. I'm not saying that this has to happen. I'm not trying to make the value judgment on democracy throughout

authoritarianism. From my point of view, different countries have different cultures, you know, within certain parameters. I mean, there are certainly being able to be on the pale, like Hitler's Germany and old pot and so forth. But, you know, a certain

country wants to have a semi-authoritarian, a soft authoritarian regime, that's their business. That should be the American, and moreover, the American attitude always has been our way, the Democratic, Republican way, free markets is more effective. That's why we win. So we should be glad. We should be glad if all those are the other idiots want to be authoritarian. I'm not saying there is, from my point of view, I'm expressing the American point of view. If those clowns want to be authoritarian, be ineffective, fine. we'll continue to be the world's leader. We can put it on the internet,

our ideas about democracy, say it's more effective, why don't you try it? We'll help you maybe a little bit. Well, we're not going to go in there and start fomenting opposition groups and opposition movements. But I think often we... I think sometimes we create this binary... I think the Russians would be happy with that kind of an approach.

Sorry for interrupting. I was just going to come up. It sounds like often we see this binary approach where you say you know, liberals are very efficient while authoritarian, you know, we put them in the box of Mao or Stalin, but I think often, at least the Chinese, they're looking more, they want

to develop as Singapore. So not very democratic at all, but again, economic powerhouse. I want to ask you, Alexander. I wasn't trying to put poo-poo the authoritarian. I'm saying, you know, if they can be effective at doing it, and that's their way,

and they have a more communal culture versus a pluralistic culture, a more culture that wants consensus and doesn't want conflict contention, fine. That's their culture. Let them do it. And if they're successful, great. Let's compete and let's trade. And let's be friendly. What's this messianic passion about spreading democracy and forcing it on people and causing revolutions and instability around the world? I just don't get it. I just don't get it. I'm an American, right? I just don't understand. But I meant, I explained it before. It's part of our culture, unfortunately. We've got to get off it. We've got to forget it. We've got to forget

about that. Alexander, do you see any hope of or how would you envision any future between Russia and West and including England because I thought it was interesting what

yeah, Gordon, Han was pointing out because I framed this as well as a three, you know, because Russia has been very Western centric for 300 years I mean, as it mirrored itself in the West either as a friend or a foe, but since Peter the Great, one in the northern war against the Swedes it's to be 300 years of its foreign policy in the mirror of the

west so but now effectively what they're saying is you know we we don't want to be pro-west or anti-west we just we want you know the west to matter less we don't want to focus too much on this you know our focus should go other directions but if this is the direction the russians are going and also in europe at least we don't seem to have want to have any related we don't even want to talk to the Russians anymore. What kind of future do we have? Yeah. I mean, I just, I mean, there's been most interesting discussion. This is what I'm simply going to say is this. What both of you are saying that we might be seeing the end of this cycle of the Russians trying to be Europeans, finding that the West, the Europeans are essentially hostile to them at some

level and at some point reverting to a more Russian style system, that that cycle might be ending is something that the Europeans themselves haven't understood at all. It is going to come as a profound shock to them. Still, when you read commentaries, political commentaries, political speeches in Europe especially, I think in the United States also, but even more perhaps in Europe, there is still always that underlying assumption that sooner or later, one day the Russians will come back. They'll come back to us because, as before, there is ultimately no alternative to us. We are the more superior civilization, the gentler, the kindler, the more sophisticated one, or the ones that Gordon was saying. and we are the only path towards modernisation.

If it suddenly dawns on people on the West in Europe, that that isn't going to happen, that Russia is going its own way, that it's part of a global system that is much more complicated and very different from the very Eurocentric and Euro-Atlantic system that we've always known. As I said, I think the United States can adjust to that. I think the Europeans, some of the Eurocentric,

Europeans are going to find that incredibly difficult. But over time, as time moves on, as the Europeans themselves begin to adjust to this situation, and we're talking about, you know, an event that is going to be very prolonged, it might actually end up providing the basis for a better and more stable relationship. because if we no longer have this sense of superiority to the Russians, this sense that, you know, they're basically, you know, the peasants in the East that have to learn from us and they have to reorganise their society in the way that we want, if we start to see them in a completely different way as part of a global system

in which they play an important part, and they themselves are a modern, advanced country in many respects, And we lose that sense of superiority over them. Then finally, at long last, we might be able to accept them and accept them as what they are and find means of living with them peacefully because that's been the problem. We've never found a long-term way of coexisting with the Russians in a stable and peaceful way. Either we've had brief moments of...

relative friendship, but this has always been based on assumptions of Western superiority, or we've had long periods of stretches of cold wars and tensions, and sometimes we've had absolute armed conflicts like the one we're having now. Yes, it's, you wonder why, I mean, John Meersheimer, I know, he's written about, you know, the tragedy of great power politics, and probably it's something that, is rooted in something even deeper. It's a tragedy.

Get two full of philosophical, but it's the tragedy of human existence, right? I mean, there's ambition, lust for money, power, and so forth and so on the individual level, that tends to drive this on the national level. And when you get to the status of a great power, suddenly you often find that you can't stop. If you're the lone superpower, you can't stop.

And you need to maximize power to the Hilt. And the result is often tragedy, a tragedy. And I think that maybe that's the problem. The question is, why is it always with Russia? And then you get into more of a geopolitical explanation, right? That is geography and so forth and so on. But you would think that human common sense would be able to overcome this simple geographic problem, right? Which is compounded by the moral problem. So it's a very difficult thing.

I'm just going to finish with this. And this will be my last point, which is the fundamental problem with Europeans is that we want to be, we want Russia to be European ultimately, because, you know, this is this vast country, it's this huge territory. We understand at some level that Russia as part of Europe extends Europe, makes Europe stronger. At the same time, we don't want Russia in Europe. We don't want the Russians to be there in Europe because there's too many often. They're too big. The country is too vast.

And it's too different in too many ways. So we've always had this very strange relationship with the Russians. So on the one hand, we want them to be with us. On the other hand, we want to keep them away as distant as possible. push them as far from the core regions of Europe as we can. And what we're going to discover is that the Russians are actually going to sort of distance themselves. And that will be fine. They won't want to be with us.

And, you know, ultimately that might actually, one can't just about see how, you know, 10, 20, 30 years time, that might actually make things easier for this region. relationship between the Russians and us. I agree. If both sides begin to shed their other complex, right, abandon this obsession with the other, maybe, and spread out, you know, around the rest of the world and begin to develop relations, maybe, in fact, we can come back and meet each other in a more calm state, with better intentions.

Yeah, well, a strong parallel can be drawn there, because that was the issue with Peter the Great when he wanted to completely cleanse, you know, Russia of its eastern Moscow, it passed to become more European. You know, how did the Europeans respond? Oh, wonderful. You got this. Russians want to become European eyes, but they're still not properly European. So we still don't want them in, but we want them to want to come in, but we don't want to let them in. That's kind of Yeltsin era as well.

Like they were willing to ignore the relations with the former Soviet republics, China, everyone just to get to the West as soon as possible. This was a great time. because if they want to come to the West, we can set conditions. You know, they're knocking on the door, but we don't really want to open the door. But now, I guess, we really pushed Russians into Asia. It just happens to be at the one point in history where power is shifting from the West to the East. So, yeah, I think both some benefits, but also some negative outcomes, at least for Europe's relevance in the world, I think will decline as a result of this.

Any final comments before we wrap this up? It's been a wonderful program. Gordon, let's have you back, please. That would be great. I would be glad to do. It was a lot of fun. I don't get to talk with my colleagues very often, so it's a great pleasure. And great to meet both of you guys. Thank you.