The Duran Podcast - Russia Won the War - John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

Russia Won the War - John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

Everyone and welcome on today's program. I'm joined by John Meerschheimer and Alexander McCurice to discuss where the proxy war in Ukraine is going. I guess everyone's been following the very dramatic developments on the front lines, but also the negotiations, which are, I guess, less clear. And, yeah, I thought it's a good point to start where the negotiations are going because Russia, of course, has set some very big demands, which are difficult to meet, while the EU and Zelensky seem to reject everything that Russia has demanded.

Well, the US wants to end the war, but it has no leverage over the Russians, and so far it's been willing to put significant pressure on Zelensky and the European. So are these negotiations going anywhere, or are they already dead in the water? Well, I will float my own opinion, which is that these negotiations are not exactly dead in the water, but they're not going to be what ends the war. What ends the war is the situation on the battlefields. That is what is going to end the war, because the Russian proposals, which I don't think the Russians see as unreasonable or maximalist.

I mean, we call them that in the West, but I've just been to Russia, and that was not my impression of how they're seen there. On the contrary, there, they're seen as almost minimal, the least that Russia could demand. Anyway, I don't imagine anybody in the West, the Europeans, the Ukrainians, obviously, or even the Americans ever accepting them. So in terms of the war, I can't really see how these negotiations can produce a positive outcome to end it. But what they might do is if they can be continued in a way that results in some kind of a resumption, if not of a dialogue, but perhaps of communication between Russia and the United States, then over the over the, then over the dialogue. then over time they might lead to something in terms of not an American-Russian rapprochement. I think that is asking too much, but at least a certain level of understanding between these two powers, which we've not had very much of, not just for the last three years, but even further.

So I'd say this still has some purpose to it, but not the purpose that it's presented as or designed to have, which is to end the war. I mean, I just cannot see how the gap between the two sides can possibly be bridged. And I think the one meeting that took place between the two sides in Istanbul on the 16th of May, made that absolutely clear. I agree with Alexander that it's hard to see how this could possibly lead to some sort of meaningful peace settlement. And of course, the West doesn't want a peace settlement right away. What it wants is a ceasefire. And the Russians have made it unequivocally clear.

God knows how many times that that's unacceptable. But we continue to push for it. And it's not going to happen. So the question that that raises in my mind is, what's going on here? I mean, what is the purpose of all this? And I actually think in the West, the, the people who are in favor of continuing this war are using these negotiations to their advantage. And I think in a very important way, Trump has fallen into the trap.

Because what happens here is we constantly call for a ceasefire, which seems intuitively plausible or reasonable to the average person. And then when the Russians don't agree, we blast the Russians for being unreasonable. And of course, we also have to face the fact that there's a war taking place. At the same time, we're attempting to start negotiations. So that allows people in the West to say, the Russians continue to fight when we are interested in trying to shut this war down. We're pushing for a ceasefire. We want to talk.

And look at what the Russians are doing. You know, firing missiles at the Ukrainians and continuing to attack on the Eastern Front. This is unreasonable. So Trump is getting into this situation where he, I think, feels compelled to get tougher and tougher with the Russians. And this, of course, just makes the situation worse. and it prolongs the war. So my point would be that the negotiations, as Alexander says, are going to lead nowhere in terms of getting a peace deal. And indeed, if anything, the fact that these things continue pushes in the other direction

and make sure we'll never get a peace deal because the Russians are made to look unreasonable. And Trump is put in a position where he has to play tough with the Russians, which makes it impossible to get a deal. It's hard to see how these talks are genuine. It seems, as you both suggest, it's more about the narrative control, because you hear the same argument always, especially from the Europeans. That is, Russia doesn't want peace. If they wanted peace, they wouldn't be launching their missile hulls. This is, you know, the Macron argument.

But, you know, at the other side, if Russia wasn't, you know, on the offensive, if he wasn't taking territories, if he wasn't launching this missile strikes, why would the, it's the and the Europeans be willing to make any concessions at all? I mean, the whole idea that if Russia wants peace, then it stops fighting. If this is the case, Selensky and Ukrainians, sorry, Zelensky and Europeans don't need to accept neutrality. They don't have to talk about territorial settlement. Instead, the whole idea is, let's just stop fighting.

But, yeah, as you say, this sounds right, but it would keep the war going. But I think it's working on Trump, though. I guess that's my point. Over the past few days now, again, one shouldn't read too much into the rhetoric, but still calling President Putin crazy and also warning Russia that bad things could happen. And the whole criticism appeared to be premised on Russia's strike in Kiev, which was a very massive attack. But again, leaving out what preceded it, the Ukrainian attack, likely supported by at least

the Europeans on Moscow. Once you leave this out, you know, it sounds like another unprovoked aggression, but why would he lean into such a narrative unless he's also then, as you say, falling into the trap of the Europeans to paint this as, you know, one side is innocent and good, and one's peace, the other side is aggressive. And I'm just wondering if the Russians are losing their patience. Medvede responded to Trump with this argument that, you know, if you think bad things will happen to us, the bad thing will be, you know, nuclear war. Again, they also communicate these days in a bit of fractured sentences. So it's a bit, you know, unclear exactly what they wanted to say. Well, I think the first thing to say about this is that Moscow is a very, very complicated and very big place.

And I'm sure that there's many people in the Russian government who have different views. There are some who say, let's continue this negotiation process because we need to maintain some kind of dialogue with the United States. And that might turn out to our long-term advantage. There are others who say this is a complete waste of time. It is resulting in exactly the dynamic that John and Glenn just outlined, it's actually helping to crystallize opinion in the West against us. And it's not going to lead to a kind of peace settlement on anything remotely like our terms. So I think that there are divergent views. I think Putin is more willing to continue with this process because he's had up to now a reasonably good relationship with Trump.

And I suspect there's others within the Russian leadership who take a more hardline view. And that, by the way, is what one would expect of a country as complex and as sophisticated as Russia is, which finds itself at war. It is not, you know, an autocracy, despite what people think. And there are different views. And I'm sure that in private, they are expressed. And every so often we get these, you know, differences.

They find their echo in public discussions. Now, as for what has happened, I'm going to make my own view. And I've said this, we've been saying this, on our various programs, the ones that we do on the Duran. I think that Donald Trump probably felt that he had no alternative if he was going to bring this war to an end, then to involve himself in negotiations.

But doing so, always risked that he would fall into the trap, that he has indeed fallen into. And we were talking about this, Alex Christopher and myself in programs, way back in the summer. And I think we touched on this, on some of the programs that the three of us have also done together. I think what happened was that Trump,

who is not very familiar with the details of this conflict or its history, was probably persuaded that it would be easier to sort out than it really is. And I think he was told, look, go for a ceasefire,

both sides are exhausted. They're both suffering very, very heavy losses. They will leap to a ceasefire. You can kick the question of NATO into the long grass. You can offer the Russians sanctions relief. They will seize onto that. And the Ukrainians, well, you've got enormous leverage over them anyway. They will just accept the fact that they can't recover the territories that they have lost.

And I think that Trump plunge. into this whole negotiation with that expectation. And what he has found is that the Russians are not interested in the kind of outcome that those advisors who were telling Trump this, people like General Kellogg, for example, told Trump that they would be. They want much, much more, because as John has said many times, as you, Glenn have also said many times, for the Russians, this is an existential conflict. They consider it utterly and very important to themselves. They will not settle for a freeze of the conflict, which would simply be a return in effect to a kind of Minsk-type situation, which could only result in their long-term

disadvantage. I think Trump at some level now has come to understand this, but I don't think he has a clear idea of how to get himself out of this trap. I think he thought that the negotiations, direct negotiations, which he backed without a ceasefire, might be a way through. Again, I think he underestimated the enormous gulf that exists between the Ukrainians and the Russians. And I think, again, he assumed that the Russians would be more flexible on what they want than they actually are or themselves believe that they can be. So I think this is why Trump is in the position that he is in. And I don't know a very, very simple way out of this. And yes, he is coming under pressure to take a harder line. I don't think he particularly wants to go there. He's made various threats.

in the past. Back in January, he was threatening the Russians with massive sanctions. And then he eased off, and then he's had me talk conversations with Putin. And we seem to get to a situation where things look like they're going better between Trump and the Russians. And now we're back to the situation where it looks as if they're getting worse again. So I do think Trump has any very clear idea of what to do because he's found himself in a situation that he never expected. You know, Alexander, I find it surprising that Trump didn't understand early on what was necessary to shut down this war. I mean, he had a conversation with Putin early on, and Whitkoff had a series of conversations, and the Russians surely must have made it clear what the terms of a deal had to be from their point of view.

you don't need a triple-digit IQ to figure this out. The Russians have said time after time what they demands from a deal. And I don't understand why we don't understand that, why we think that we can bargain with them, that there's a lot of bargaining space here. We can get them to concede here and there, and we'll make concessions here and there and so forth and so on. This is just not the way it's going to work.

The Russians have insisted from the beginning that there are a handful of bedrock demands that simply have to be met. But if you listen to Whitkoff and you listen to Trump and others speak, it's like we just don't get this. And I find that very hard to understand. Another point I would make here is I don't understand why Trump and company don't understand that Ukraine is going to lose. lose, and it's going to lose reasonably soon. If you look at what's going on in the war, it's pretty clear that the Ukrainians are in really big trouble. And even the mainstream media, you know, places like the Financial Times, Rusi, and so forth and so on, are saying this. All you have to do is look at the various articles about the state of the war in the mainstream media. And

it's very clear that the Ukrainians are on the rope. And furthermore, Trump is not going to give him a new of weaponry. He's not going to go back to Congress. Doesn't that tell you that this country that's on the ropes is doomed, whether it happens, you know, in November or August or January of next year, doesn't really matter that much. It's kind of all over with. So why don't you understand that and act accordingly? I just, I kind of don't understand what's going on here from Trump's point of view. And then the final point I would make is that if you look at what the Russians are doing, the Russians do engage in these negotiations. They surely understand that it's fruitless. They surely understand that dealing with Trump is almost impossible because he says

one thing, one day, another thing, another day, so forth and so on. But the much more important point is that the Russians just continue to wage the war as if no negotiations were taking place. And if you look at what's happening on the front lines, number one, and if you look at the pounding that Ukraine is taking behind the front lines and then deep in Ukrainian territory, it's kind of frightening what's happening to Ukraine. Its infrastructure is being torn apart, its ability to supply frontline forces is greatly reduced. If you look at the numbers up on the front line, it's quite clear that the Russians enjoy a huge advantage. And nevertheless, Putin just perseveres, as he should, as you would expect him to do.

And the situation just continues to deteriorate. Meanwhile, back in Washington and back in the European capitals, people are actually. and talking like what's happening up on the front lines and inside of Ukraine is not happening, when in fact it is happening. I kind of just don't get it. I just scratch my head every day and say, what are these people thinking? Well, I think you've touched on, can I just quickly, very quickly say, I think that's a very important point, and I think that may answer some of the questions,

because some of the points you've raised in that I don't think until very recently, until the last few weeks, the consensus view in Europe and even in the United States and even within Donald Trump's own team was to understand how bad Ukraine's position is and also how strong Russia's is. I think that this has been a fundamental problem right the way through, going all the way back to the start of this. conflict in February 22. I think there's been a consistent underestimation of the Russian position. Russia is assumed to be significantly weaker than it really is, significantly weaker economically, significantly weaker in terms of the international support. It can draw upon weaker, of course, on the battlefields as well. And I think that this has clouded, judgments to a very dangerous

degree. I interrupted and I shouldn't do that and I apologize especially to Glenn. I just, well I think maybe I might have an answer. Part of the reason obviously is that the Russians demands, that they are huge and they're so difficult

for, not just for Zelensky, but for the Europeans to accept this. It also represents a very humiliating peace. It's also, I think, quite rightly seen as possibly being destabilizing by changing so much territory as a result of a war. And again, the European cities is the end of the post-Cold War era. This would mean the end of the collective hegemony.

This would put NATO in a very weakened position. Some fear NATO could fall apart. Europe could fragment. I mean, and also I agree, of course, with what you said, Alexandra's world, that this huge propaganda. We've been telling ourselves the Russians are fighting with shovels and pillaging, washing machines, stealing toilets and yeah, that they're so weak. So it's very difficult to turn this propaganda around. I mean, some places here, for example, some people still saying that Ukraine is winning.

I was only this week in one of the newspapers called a propagandist because I said that Ukraine is taking higher casualties than Russia. So there's a complete denial. And But I think that the main problem of all is of Trump and the others who are negotiating with the Russians. They fail to appreciate why the Russians concerns, why the Russian demands are so incredibly high. Why they want neutrality, the territory, and those foreign soldiers, is because the main fear of the Russians, which dominates their thinking, is the fear that the war will simply restart. They spent more than three years now, not just defeating hundreds of thousands strong Ukrainian army,

but they also defeated NATO, you know, bled out all of their weapon depot. I mean, this was not an easy task, and they suffered greatly. They've lost tens of thousands of men. So the fear, of course, is that this would be, as we've spoken, about another Minsk agreement, that we're simply going to ask for a do-over. So give us some time. The Europeans are saying very openly, we need to ramp up our industrial production, provide more weapons, more drones, and then send it all to Ukraine. And, you know, European leaders are saying open.

We might have to accept temporary loss of territories, but we can get them back later. So we were talking about another Minsk agreement. So again, a do-over. We lost the war. So let's fight again another day. The Russians aren't going to do this. after more than three years, they defeated Ukraine and collective West. They want a permanent end to this.

And if you want a permanent end, you need that neutrality. You need those territories, make sure that, you know, this can't be used against Russia in the future. You don't want any NATO troops there. And ideally, you want to reduce the size of the Ukrainian army as well. So this can never happen again. So, yeah, so I think this is the main issue always now with Russia. They don't trust the West. And, you know, I can have.

understand this because we're quite openly plotting a do-over of this war. So why would they trust it? But the problem here, Glenn, is that these comments about the state of the war are, and I'm choosing my words carefully here, are positively delusional. There was a piece in Roussi, which is a pro-war, pro-Western journal. It's not like this is a sort of pro-Russian journal. But Russey had a piece in February of this year where they said there are 580,000, 580,000 operational Russian troops in Ukraine. And it said at the same time, the size of the security forces in Ukraine, the Ukrainian security forces, is about 800,000.

And then it said, nevertheless, of that 800,000, less than 25% are combat troops, are involved in the fight. The rest are just security forces that are policing territory in Ukraine. They're not doing the fighting. So let's assume that that number is 20%. Okay, 20% of that 800,000 are actually operational combat force. forces, that 20% of 800,000 is 160,000. That means you basically have 160,000 people who are involved in the fight, up against 580,000 Russians. Just think about that, 160,000 versus 580,000. That's basically about a 4 to 1 advantage in the Russians favor. Now, let's assume that I'm

inflating the Russian number a bit and not giving the Ukrainians quite enough credit. Then the overall number is three to one. The overall number is three to one. Holy macro, that is a huge advantage. Then the Rusi piece goes on to say that at certain points along the front, the Russians enjoy a six to one advantage, and at other points they enjoy a two to one advantage. And furthermore, there are all sorts of pieces that have appeared recently that say there are gaps in the front line that the Ukrainians are not defending at all. Because you want to understand that when you talk about force ratios, you have to talk about two different ratios. One is the ratio of forces on one side to the other side. But then the other ratio is what's called the force to space

ratio. In other words, do you have enough forces to cover the entire front line? And it's quite clear that with those roughly 160,000 troops that the Ukrainians have, that they can't cover the entire front line. And they're using drones, according to some of these articles, to fill those gaps in the front line. And then where they don't have drones and where they do have troops, again, the Rousy piece says that they're outnumbered sometimes six to one, sometimes two to one. Now, all these people talk about mobilizing Ukrainian troops to improve those ratios. It's quite clear from almost everything you read that the mobilization schemes inside of Ukraine are not working. If anybody is mobilizing more and more troops, it's the Russians who are actually doing a great job of mobilizing

troops on a monthly and a yearly basis. It's the Ukrainians who are in deep trouble. So you have this situation where when you look at the raw numbers, as reported by Russey, right, in February of this year, the Ukrainians are in what I would call a hopeless situation. And there's no way of improving it. And indeed, this gets back to the point I made a few minutes ago. The Biden pipeline is going to And at some point, Trump is not going to create a new pipeline. And what that tells you is that the Ukrainians are even in more trouble. To take this a step further, we haven't even talked about what, you know, these smart bombs, these glide bombs that the Ukrainians are being hit with on a daily basis are doing to infrastructure and to troops. and the Ukrainians have no glide bombs of their own. And in terms of the drone war, it's quite clear that in terms of quantity and quality, it shifted in the Russians' favor.

So I think when you add all these things up, you just sort of say to yourself, what are these people smoking who are saying that, you know, Ukraine has created a stalemate, and if we just back them, we can shift the situation in the Ukrainians' favor. It's just hard to believe. We have been arguing these points for years. We've been making these points about, you know, the ultimate imbalance that exists in this war is such that for the Russians to win,

what they have to do is manage their resources efficiently. And that is essentially what they're now, what they have now achieved. I mean, it hasn't been true, throughout these three years, but it is true now. There's been three years of denial about this in the West. I mean, I've been reading, you know, we've all read these articles about how the Ukrainians, you know, how much more nimble and effective and successful they are,

how the Russians are incompetent, how they don't know how to conduct, combined arms, all of these things that we've been reading all these years. And I think that inevitably and disastrously, it is that this constant hammering of this story has meant that it's taken a very, very long time. It's become very, very difficult for some people today to accept the truth. And certainly leaders in Europe are struggling to accept the truth. And I think leaders in the United States are as well. Now, in Europe there is another factor. is a difficult one to explain perhaps to Americans. But I think there does exist within many European

minds still a belief that if the United States decides to exert itself, it decides to use its power, they never say exactly in what way, but in some form that somehow its power is so much greater than Russia's, that it can somehow change the whole situation on the battlefronts. And you do find that in the European media quite a lot. So they reduce it to a question of political will in the United States as opposed to Russian capabilities. The United States has immense power, but it cannot be strong in the way that these people would want it to be in every place at all times. But it is very difficult to argue this with some people. And here I should say, I've tried. Yeah, I would note just very quickly that despite the great power of the United States,

we lost in Afghanistan. Despite the great power of the United States, we could not defeat the Houthis. And when I was young, despite the great power of the United States, we lost in Vietnam. And we made a huge commitment to try to win, but we lost. And I think the basic problem here, Alexander, is that many people in the West do not understand the limits of military power. They think that because the United States has a big stick, all it has to do is demonstrate the will to use that stick and get its way. Sometimes that works, but a lot of time it doesn't work.

as anybody who studied international politics figures out pretty quickly. But you have a lot of people in the West who just don't seem to get that. The end result is disastrous. I think the reason why it's also important to hold on to this narrative that the Ukraine can win is because otherwise, what is the point of this? If you try to bring up the topic of weapons aren't really the solution, which of course goes against the weapons are the path-to-peace slogan, of NATO, then we'll want us to ask the question, what are we doing?

Why are we still sending weapons if we can't win? Then the alternative is, well, we're sending weapons so Ukraine can lose slower, so it can have more deaths and more destruction of its infrastructure and more territorial losses. And also ending up then with a worse peace agreement. So I think it's a bit locked in because once you give up on Ukraine is winning, all logic dictates that we have to find a peace with Russia now. And I don't think anyone in Europe can accept this because we've been telling ourselves now for so many years that Putin is Hitler and once they've taken Ukraine, they will go on and take Poland because they want the Soviet Union

back or something along those lines. So I think now they're kind of leaning into a strategy. Now we have to send more weapons. But the key objective is to exhaust the Russians, weaken them. But I think towards this end, they're actually alienating the Ukrainians as well, because if the only objective now is to weaken and exhaust the Russians and using Ukrainians towards this end without offering Ukraine anything, except more death and losing slower, what are the Ukrainians going to say? And we already know what they're going to say. The former presidential candidate, Julia Tumashenko,

she was supported by the West, by the way, when she ran against Yanukovych, she's pro-Western and still she reacted with disgust when she heard the German intelligence chiefs say well we need five more years so we can buy ourselves some time we can exhaust the Russians

just effectively throw more Ukrainians at this and we'll weaken the Russians a bit we'll buy ourselves some time so they kind of see that they are mere instruments of NATO and you know Zelensky's former advisor Alexei Arasdowicz has been saying the same thing.

They won't let us have a peace. Ukrainians aren't worth anything. We are free soldiers for the Western power. But that's why I think they have to stick to this idea. We can win. Otherwise, what else is there? Then it's just a very cynical exploitation of Ukrainians. So I think the delusion is absolutely necessary.

Well, alternatively, one could negotiate. But I don't think the Europeans have any political willingness to do so. But the problem is, Glenn, when the West continues to ramp up the pressure on the Russians, you incentivize the Russians to take even more territory and be more ruthless in their dealings with Ukraine. And so I think what's happening here is that Putin understands that the West is out to destroy Russia. That's basically what you're saying. The West wants to wear the Russians down to where they have to make major concessions and they're greatly weakened. If you're playing Putin's hand,

you're not going to let that happen. And the best way to not let that happen is to really clobber Ukraine and make sure that that remnant state that's left over is as dysfunctional as can be. And that you also want to prepare yourself in long term. You can see the Russians preparing themselves for future conflicts with Europe because they understand the Europeans and the West more generally are just not going to quit. They're going to continue to do everything they can for the foreseeable future to damage Russia. I believe this is going to end up having catastrophic consequences. I agree. Just a few things to say. Firstly, going back to your point, John, about people not looking at the military history and the military realities. I think if we're talking about

about Europe, it's very difficult again for Americans perhaps to appreciate what profoundly civilian societies we have become now. There's very, very little, very, very few people in positions of political authority who have any background in military matters at all. You do find people in the United States still who have connections with the military, who are in government. government, who are in Congress, who help make decisions, who do those things. They may not be, by the way, always people I agree with, or, you know, very often I find them completely wrong about many things. But they do have that sense of understanding of war and what it is and perhaps some sense of

its limits. In Europe, we just don't have that. The Labour Cabinet, which I know in London, there is no one with any kind of military background, nor is there in Germany where the government is completely civilian, nor I believe is it even in France, where perhaps they have more of a military tradition than they do in Germany nowadays. So I think that plays a certain role. They just don't have that feel. When you talk about the limits of military power, they just don't have the feel for it. They assume that the United States is so powerful, Russia is so much less powerful, that they struggle to think beyond that.

Now, the other thing, which I wanted to say, and this is now changing topics totally, and it goes back to people getting this completely wrong, the Europeans who say, let us keep the war going for five more years, sacrificing lots and lots of Ukrainians, to weaken the Russians. It is not just a cynical and immoral thing to say. It is wrong. The reality of the last three years is that Russia has become militarily much stronger. There's a much more powerful military power today than it was three years ago. We in Europe, on the contrary, have become much weaker, the British Army. is without self-repelled howitzers, Germany is short of tanks, Italy has no more air defense

interceptors, the military balance, the longer the war continues in Europe, is shifting further and further in favor of the Russians. The trouble is people never talk about these things, and this is another problem, and it's perhaps one that Glenn has written about very, very well, which is that when you absolutely go out of your way to forbid any real debate about these things, say that people who say that, you know, Russia might actually have a point to some of the things that it's doing. You might not fully agree with them, but they might have a point. Or that the Russians are not actually losing the war.

They're actually winning the war, or that their economy is rather more sophisticated than people imagined it to be, and more resilient in consequence. get your head soren off, you get, you know, Twitter mobs unleashed on you, you get pushed off the mainstream media, if you've ever been on mainstream media, you have all of that. And in that kind of situation, these points that we are making on these programs don't get aired and they don't get discussed and bad points go unchallenged. And I think that's paid a massive role in bringing us to the point which we are into day. Yeah. Sometimes I think we don't live in a fact-based world. I think we live in a world where

people create their own reality. And when you're dealing with people in that kind of world, it's almost impossible to have a rational legal debate because backs don't seem to matter. And I think that's where we are. And as you say, Alexander, it has had catastrophic consequences. We can test that hypothesis, though, that facts don't matter, because if you go back to 2014 after the coup, you saw quite a lot of commentaries in the United States. It was quite common to refer to it as a coup. It was quite common for many, of course, John leading some of the charge, arguing that the Western countries had sparked or started this crisis by toppling the government.

There was this recognition that, yeah, we're not innocent in this, but these arguments today, if you would try to make them in Europe, what was what we were allowed to say only a decade ago, they're not allowed to be said anymore. Across Europe, you see, you know, prime ministers, presidents, foreign ministers, statements they made back in 2014 and 15. If they would say these things today, they would be lynched. This is unacceptable. So I do think that the narrative control, which has been imposed,

is a huge problem because, well, again, this is what was the argument of Walter Lippmann. If you tell all the public, you convince them that this is a struggle of good versus evil. If you don't accept any dissent, a workable peace can't be achieved, simply because you can't make a compromise with evil and you end up with only war. But I thought after all of Trump's threats, I thought it was interesting that former president Dimitro Medvedev came out and more or less talked about

the only bad thing that's going to happen is possible World War III. It does appear to me that not just in rhetoric, but overall that the Russians are starting to lose a bit patience and then especially with the Europeans. And as on the other side,

Ukraine and NATO loses the war, the proxy war, in Ukraine, there's a growing desperation. So the Europeans now seem much more reckless. The German Chancellor threatening now to start, you know, launching terrorist missiles into Russia. The Russians are losing their patience completely. Are we seeing a pathway or possibility for war here? Because, I mean, direct war, because this is starting to look like is getting a bit out of control.

Very tricky issue. I mean, you want to think about. what's going to happen once it's really clear that Ukraine is going to lose. This is going to be a devastating defeat for the West because we have been continually upping the ante over the past year or so as the war has gone south. So our reputation, the West's reputation, is really at stake here. It will be a devastating blow when it becomes. clear that Russia has won this war. And the question is, what will we then do? And my view is that you're

going to have poisonous relations between Russia and the West for as far as the eye can see. You're going to have a frozen conflict and superimposed on top of that frozen conflict are a number of flashpoints. I've talked about this before. I think the Arctic, the Baltic Sea, Kalinigrad, Belarus, Moldova and the Black Sea are potential flashpoints. In addition to the fact you're going to have a cold peace between Ukraine and Russia on front line inside of Ukraine. And add to that the poisonous relations between the West and the Russians. And the West is going to go to great lengths to undermine Russia. And the Russians will go to great lengths to cause trouble in the West.

to cause trouble in the transatlantic alliance, to cause trouble in the rump state that is Ukraine. And this is what the world, I think, is going to look like. I hope I'm wrong, but I think this is what you're going to see in greater Europe. And I don't think that, you know, that the West will go to war to prevent Russia from winning in Ukraine. I don't think that's going to happen.

But I think that you're going to have this intensely hostile relationship with these various flashpoints where the potential for war is going to be ever present. I would not be surprised if you had a war over the Arctic involving NATO countries on one side and the Russians and maybe even the Chinese on the other side. I mean, the potential for trouble is just very great here. So that's sort of how I see it going. Well, I would say a few things. Firstly, I mean, if we're talking about World War III, it can only happen if the United States becomes involved in some way. If the United States says that it is not going to become drawn into a military confrontation with Russia. And that seems to be so far a position that, as far as I can tell, is holding in the United States, then World War III as such cannot happen.

if we're talking about Europe, there was a great debate which was launched by Macron last year, and it has continued in one form or another ever since, about sending European troops to Ukraine. When he first floated it last year, it was about reinforcing the Ukrainians and releasing Ukrainian troops so that they could fight on the front lines. Then he talked about sending them as peacemakers, then it was going to be as a reinsurance force, than the British wanted to join in. And there were basically no takers. I mean, across the rest of Europe, this has not gone down well at all.

And I read in the Financial Times a comment from a European official who said that this idea is now dead. So there is no enthusiasm, even at official levels, to take on the Russians. And if you're talking about the mood of the wider population, There's even less enthusiasm amongst them to take on the Russians. They may be very misinformed about many things about the war,

but they do not want to go into a situation of war with the Russians. So going back to Glenn's question, I don't think we are going to end up in an outright World War III scenario. But the very bitter, angry, cold war scenario, which is worse than a Cold War that John set out, I'm afraid I can absolutely see. I mean, not a Cold War in the way that the Cold War played out, the Cold War that we remember,

but more like a Korean-type situation where you have two absolutely hostile blocks, which are not just hostile, but loathe each other, and which have no real points of consensus or agreement or even contact with each other, other throughout the Cold War, there were always people from, you know, governments in the West, going to Moscow, Khrushchev, Brezhnev were coming to the West, visiting Berlin, London, whatever, Paris, wherever. I don't think we will see anything like that in the kind of scenario

that quite plausibly could work out with constant flashpoints, like one that we're seeing play out now in the Baltic, where the Russians believe that, and I was in St. Petersburg, last week, and I heard people talking about this, but the Russians believe that Western Navy's, European navies, are intent on seizing Russian tankers or tankers of third countries that trade with Russia on the high seas, and they're talking up, talking of setting up naval convoys and protecting their merchant ships from interception by Western navies in that kind of way. So that kind of constant, ugly confrontation, I'm afraid I can absolutely see it. To a certain extent, it is already happening now.

And it's potentially going to get much worse. And unless there is some major diplomatic effort made to reverse it, which would have to come from us, by the way. It would have to come from the Europeans or the Americans, unless there is some major diplomatic effort to reverse it. The reason it would have to come from us is because we are the continuously escalatory party. I can very easily see the kind of scenario that John has described actually taking shape. And that would be a disaster for Europe.

And one which, as a European, I look upon with extremely, stream foreboding and that's, well, I'm being more careful in the choice of words. I could use stronger words. I guess my final question, a topic then is the direction of Trump, because I think everyone more or less recognizes that Zelensky, the Europeans and the Russians, they more or less locked themselves into a set position. Of course, Ukraine could be a bit of a wild card if there's a lot of opposition being currently building up against Zelensky, you know, society is not stable, but overall the big wild card here appears to be the United States with Trump. That is, on one hand, Trump keeps reassuring everyone that this is not America's war and, you know, we will walk away

from this. On the other hand, he's also having increasingly aggressive rhetoric towards the Russian. So it seems he can swing both ways on this. My instinct tells me that the rhetoric is just his negotiation tactics. And again, when the weapons are gone, as John said, I find it less likely that he will go to Congress, ask for more weapons. And, yeah, that this is something that would split his base, I guess, too much. But, yeah, I'm not sure if you see it the same way, or we'll just Trump let this war be lost and, yeah, say, you know, I did my best.

I got our money back on the minerals deal. And this is not our war. It's not our problem. And just, you know, see where the pieces fall. Well, I have a question for you, Glenn. What can Trump do? I mean, what can he do once the Ukrainians lose or once it's manifestly apparent? even to the hardliners in the West that Ukraine is doomed.

What can Trump do? I don't think anything. Even Marco Rubio, which is a bit of a hawk, was asking, why don't you join in on more, with the Europeans joining more sanctions? More or less, you know, what for? What other sanctions can we do it this time? They're not going to work. They're going to harm our interest.

And again, there's no purpose. and then after that is not possible to speak with the Russians anymore. So even the sanctions part, I think they're getting not really interested in. And of course, the weapons, there are not that many weapons left. And if they have weapons, they're rather sending to Middle East, and ideally for the pivot to Asia. So again, if Russia assesses the threats, you know, usually look at the intentions and the capabilities.

Their capabilities aren't there. And also the intentions are also a strong indicator that America doesn't want to go down this route. So, no, I'm leaning towards America pulling away. We have no arrows in the quiver. I mean, that's really what's going on here. What is Trump going to do? It's just hard to see. I mean, is you going to go back to being Joe Biden number two?

Joe Biden, number one, failed. Joe Biden number two is not going to work either. I'm going to suggest what Trump is probably going to try to do. He's going to try to do everything he possibly can to make sure that when the debacle happens, people don't blame him for it. That is probably going to be his priority over the next two, three years. I mean, what he's constantly talking about. He harps on the fact that this isn't his war. It's Joe Biden's war. It's nothing to do with him. So if it all goes terrible, then don't blame me. I tried to end it. I couldn't do it. Because,

because Zelensky is unreasonable, and Putin is crazy. But I did everything I possibly could, and it didn't work out. But it wasn't my fault. I didn't start it. If I had been there, it wouldn't have started in the first place. I still think people will blame him, by the way, whatever he says. I mean, he'll be the person there, and I don't think he can shuffle it, shuffle away from it. But I'm afraid the way the cards have fallen.

Well, just on a quick note, I've been thinking about that mineral deal. And I think that Zelensky and the Europeans play this wrong, because I think the main idea was, you know, get the Americans locked in in this mineral deal, then the US will have a strategic interest, we'll see its interest being more aligned with the Ukraine, and this would be what would commit Trump to getting re-engaged in this war. However, I think it's quite opposite.

I think now Trump effectively has a way out. he can claim victory Biden started this the European lost the war I got our money back so now we can get out I mean this makes it much easier to walk away I think but again

I might be too cynical I tend to side more with Alexander than you Glenn on that one I think Trump is going to have this one dumped in his lab but I want to make one additional point you know we focused laser-like on

Ukraine here. But you want to remember that Trump has a handful of different problems that he has to deal with. Iran is one and Gaza is the other. And if he cuts a deal on Iran, which allows Iran to keep its nuclear enrichment capability, which appears to be the case, it's the only way he can cut a deal on Iran, and he seems to indicate that he's going to get a deal on Iran, he's going to take a tremendous amount of heat for that. And that's going to limit his maneuver room in Gaza. I actually believe the reason that he is allowing the genocide to go on, and he's not playing hardball with the Israelis, at least in public, on the genocide, is in large part because he's interested in getting a deal on Iran. And he understands he can't take the Israelis on over both

Iran and over Gaza. And then if you sort of broaden the agenda to bring in the Russians, if he makes concessions on Iran and he gets hammered for that, that will limit what he can do on Ukraine. It will give the Hawks more power against him on Ukraine. For him to cut a deal with Putin on Ukraine, or to go really soft on Ukraine, or to go really soft on Ukraine. at the same time he cuts a deal on Iran will be very difficult for him. He'll pay a significant price. And then on top of all this, you want to remember that things have been quiet in East Asia for a long time, which is certainly all for the good, and I don't want that to change.

But one could imagine a conflict breaking out in East Asia, where Trump has to deal not only with Ukraine, Iran, and Gaza, but has to deal with East. Asia as well. And then you throw in things like the tariffs and so forth and so on. This is a guy who has a lot of balls in the air. And I think what happens with regard to Ukraine depends to some extent, maybe a large extent, on what's happening with those other balls as well. And I think we don't want to lose sight of the fact that he has to be a master juggler to pull all this off. And if anything, he's proved that he's the anti-master juggler in his first few months in office. Yeah. I would agree with that, actually, completely. I think that he's not got a very strong position to broker any kind of deal with Putin. And I think that I think he knows it.

I think that if he does try and move in that direction, there's already supposedly 81 senators backing a massive sanctions package. I don't know how real that is, but I think it's a message to Trump. In effect, it's a message to Trump, whether intentionally or otherwise, don't do a deal with Putin, which we don't like. I think that's what these people are saying to him. And I think that's going to inevitably affect what he can do with Ukraine. I think I have to say this. I mean, it's all very dark again what we're saying.

about the situation. It's difficult to be otherwise. There's so many opportunities to bring this thing to a conclusion, at least a, maybe not a satisfactory conclusion, but at least a workable conclusion, have been thrown away. And the level of failure that we've faced today as a result of that inability to seize opportunities that existed in the past, the Minsk Agreement, for example, being one of them, to resolve this conflict, I think that we're going to be writing about this, and people are going to be talking and debating about this for years and decades and forever. And I'm going to say this, I think that this is not going to be good for Russia at all,

if it finds itself in this kind of Korean-type frozen confrontation in Europe. And it's going to be an absolute disaster for Europe. And I think we're going to see all sorts of other parts of the world move forward. And we are going to be stuck in Europe, facing off against each other in this way. And without any obvious way out. So we really have screwed up. And we can blame the Americans all we like. But this is a European problem, ultimately.

Ukraine is in Europe. We should have been the ones to deal with it. And if the Americans have some bad ideas at various times about, you know, backing various people in Ukraine and not moving forward with the Minsk Agreement, we should have told them no. You know, this is our continent. We have to have peace. We need peace with the Russians.

And whatever your plans or strategies might be, we can't afford. We can't risk playing along with them. And we didn't. Well, I would remind you, Alexander, Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy at the famous Bucharest NATO Summit in 2008, did recognize that bringing Ukraine into NATO was a foolish idea and did oppose the Americans initially, but the problem is they didn't stick to their guns. But I want to make one other point just to sort of reinforce what you said, Alexander. You said that you thought that Trump recognized that he didn't have many options,

that the situation was going to hell in a handbasket in Ukraine. And I think you're right. And I would say that I have watched Trump's rhetoric over the past few days really huge. up and watched him say quite terrible things about Putin. You know, to call Putin crazy does not make much sense and to threaten that he's going to do this and that doesn't make much sense. And so I say to myself, why is he doing this? I think he's doing it because he's deeply frustrated and he understands he has no cards to play, that Putin is in the driver's seat here.

And my experience over many years of dealing with adversaries is that when they have no cards to play, they usually up the rhetoric and start screaming at you and calling your names and so forth and so on. So I think one could make an argument that what you see going on with Trump over the past few days with regard to his rhetoric is really desperation. Yeah, I agree. Well, that was always my concern with Trump, because, Because again, he was riding a pretty amazing wave. This is one of the greatest comeback stories in American history.

That election was really spectacular. But he oversold his presidency of it. He was going to reshape the world in America's favor. And as we saw now with the economic war against China, it's not working out. So you kind of need an out. How are you going to sell this to the public? And of course, the Iran thing, he ripped apart the deal. Now they're going to get a much better deal.

I was in Iran three weeks ago. And, you know, met military commanders, diplomats, visited the nuclear facilities. I can say one thing with 100% certainty. None of the things being asked for in terms of dismantling the civilian nuclear program, limiting ballistic missile range, you know, abandoning the partnership in what they refer to as the resistance. None of these things are going to happen. It's just so how are you going to see?

Yeah, John said, how are you going to sell this to the public? He's going to have to more or less go back to the JCPOA. And this is going to be, it's not great for a leader who was riding this high and wrote the art of the deal. And now, of course, with the Russians as well, realizing that you don't have much leverage. And at the end of the day, you have to give the Russians what they want. So he's in a very hard spot. And when people are humiliated and desperate and frustrated, they often do reckless things.

And given that Trump is a bit often impulsive, I think as a wildcard, it can be a source of concern. You know, we were talking about the fact that people in the West don't appreciate the limits of military power. I think Donald Trump's great problem is he doesn't understand the limits of his own capabilities. Most of us as we get older, understand that life is much more complicated than we thought it was when we were young. And we're more doubtful about what used to be our instant solutions to every problem. But Donald Trump is one of these people who thinks he's a genius and he can handle any problem. He has no sense that there are limits to his critical faculties. And when I watch him, I often think of a story that I once heard about Henry Kissinger.

I don't know whether it's true. Somebody said that he kept the sign behind his desk that said, God lets men succeed so that he can destroy them. And listening to Glenn talk about Putin, about Trump and his great comeback and how he was in the driver's seat and so. forth and so on. I kept thinking of that claim or that that that that saying that that that that saying that kissinger purportedly had on his wall you know, God lets men succeed. He succeed greatly. I mean, he defied the odds. He came back.

He won a mandate and he was president again. But one could make a good argument that if you look at the policies he's pursuing and how he is pursuing them. he is in the end going to destroy himself politically. I wouldn't be too surprised. I think that's quite likely. Well, there is, I think the other problem with the problem with Trump is that he does have a significant amount of knowledge about America itself, not perhaps the America of the universities or the academies, the institutes, the scientists, the political system. But America, you know, the American hinterland, people there.

And I think about the world outside America, he knows very, very little. And I don't get the sense that he's actually been very interested in it until fairly recently. And in that, I have to say, I remember people when I was a child saying exactly that about Lyndon Johnson, that Lyndon Johnson had a very great understanding of America itself, but not of the world beyond. And, well, there it is. It's playing out in the same way again. Lyndon Johnson destroyed himself as president.

It could quite easily turn out that Donald Trump will do the same to himself also. That's, I think, all I can say. Any final thoughts before we wrap this up? Well, it is a grim picture. I mean, we still have time, in theory, if we used it sensibly to come to some kind of understanding with the Russians. I mean, even if we can't accept, you know, their terms, I mean, we could come to some understanding about how to contain the damage after they win their war, because they are going to win their war, and that's the reality of it. but I don't think they want to be catapulted into an indefinite confrontation with us

and we could go back to the world of confidence building measures and all that kind of thing the rhetoric again in Europe speaks so completely against it that I don't I'm afraid think it's going to happen yeah just to add one dimension to that Alexander Putin is not forever and at some point he's going to to disappear from the scene and he's going to be replaced by someone who I would imagine is not

as balanced and is even handed in his approach to waging this war and dealing with the West as Putin has been. I mean, there's a tendency in the West to portray Putin as the second coming of Adolf Hitler and say all sorts of terrible things about him. But if you actually look at how he's waged the war, number one, and two, if you look at it, his efforts to have good diplomatic relations, both with the West, both with the Europeans and the United States, it just doesn't get much better from a Western point of view. And I would not be surprised if his replacement, whenever that time comes, is much more hawkish than he is and much more hostile to the West, and therefore makes the likelihood of some serious

conflict breaking out greater, not less. Well, can I just say to that? I was attending last week a legal forum in St. Petersburg, and obviously there was politics and things like that discussed there, because that's why I was there after all, ultimately. But the people who I was in contact with were lawyers, not military people, not the sort of people you would look to, you would look to find hardliners amongst. And yet they were all pretty hardline, I have to say. There were a significantly more hard line in my sense than Putin himself was. In fact, I heard criticisms of the fact that the Russian government had been too accommodating

with the West on various topics, not just Ukraine. And I saw that they were getting heavy applause whenever they were being made, sometimes in open discussions. And that I think goes exactly to your point. We have this assumption that hardline leaders, and we assume Putin as a hardline leader in Russia, are always replaced by softer, more liberal figures. And we imagine that's the way it's going to play out.

I don't get the sense that's going to be the case at all this time. Well, this is a continuous thing with Putin, though, and the assumption about him in the West. This has been the case now for at least 20 years, the idea that the alternative is a more liberal pro-Western, yeah, president. But again, when criticism is mounted against Putin either from the public or from the military, it's often that it's too soft. And yeah, this is a common theme.

So, you know, I remember I wrote an article about it back in 2015 or 16. We actually used the title, something along the line, why Putin is the last pro-Western alternative of Russia. You know, didn't go down that well. But it is very much correct, though. And I think one should, yes, both of you suggested, be a bit concerned about what comes next. And perhaps it's in our interest as well to finish this war before Putin steps down,

as opposed to hoping that, for example, his assassination is going to lead anywhere positive. And always thank you both for participating. It's fascinating as always. So thank you again. Yeah, it was wonderful to be with you too again, and I look forward to doing it again. Be well. You too, John.

Thank you.