The Duran Podcast - Ukraine & Israel On the Path to Defeat - John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

Ukraine & Israel On the Path to Defeat - John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

Hi, everyone, Glenn Deeson here, and I am joined today by Alexander Mercurris and Professor John Mersheimer. So, welcome to the both of you. Glad to be here. Delighted to be here. So all of us have been out traveling different places over the past few weeks, so it's, great we all found a time to meet here online again. And since the last time we spoke, there has been great changes in the world. I see Well, obviously Israel and Lebanon are now at war with Beirut being bombed to the ground. Iran eventually retaliated against Israel in a large-scale bombing,

and Israel is likely planning for a strike on Iran, which of course could engulf the whole region in major war, thus also pulling in the US. But I thought we could start today with Europe, as in Ukraine. We see the situation appears to be deteriorating quite quickly for the Ukrainians. seems to be a military collapse. Zelensky's victory plan seemed to have been shot down by NATO countries,

and NATO countries themselves seems to be recognized that the war is lost, and at least there's changes on the diplomatic front now looking towards a peace agreement, perhaps, and maybe not a good one, but the US also appears to be, at least appears to be withdrawing from the war by handing over some responsibility to the Europeans,

and perhaps they reached end of the escalator, ladder as opposed to attacking Russia directly as an alternative. So as a result, I think, yeah, possibly Zelensky appears to be unraveling and I guess he must either escalate in a radical way or begin to talk to Moscow. So I thought, yeah, we can start there. John, how do you read the situation in Ukraine? Do you think we're heading towards the end of this war or do you see any chances for Ukraine to turn this around.

I'd like to start with Alexander and just get Alexander's sense of what's going on regarding the battlefield because he follows that much more closely than I do and I was traveling and I tried to keep abreast of what's going on in the battlefield but don't have as good as sense as I should. So I'd like to turn it over to Alexander and just let him describe what he thinks is happening on the battlefield these days and sort of where we're headed.

I think the battlefield is evolving in exactly the way that all of us anticipated in the sense that Ukraine is still fighting, it is still standing, it's still able to defend itself, but with every day that passes, its ability to do so is ebbing. So we have now major battles going on in the southern Donbass, where the Russians are in the process of capturing all sorts of important towns. Salidovo, Kuragovo. Russians have entered both of those in the last couple of days. They're about to lay siege to a place called Pakrovsk.

In central Ukraine, in the area where, you know, places like Toresk, Charsovya, other fortified places, again, the Russians are gradually breaking through. And I think most people now accept that the Kusk offensive has miscarried horribly, that the Ukrainian forces there are also being ground down. And one gets the sense every day, there's been a very interesting article, by the way, yesterday, the Daily Telegraph about how even Ukrainian soldiers are now starting to become demoralized. Even the most fierce, determined Ukrainian soldiers are becoming demoralized. I think there's a general sense right across the battle lines that, yes, fighting is still going on, but we're sort of coming to the end of this period of the war, this very long period, of essentially static siege warfare, that the weight of Russian power is now just becoming too strong,

and the Ukrainians just can't hold on in the way that they've been doing for very much longer. I'm going to just quickly add, as you've invited me first, I think everybody now, the Americans, the Europeans, the Ukrainians themselves, recognized that Ukraine is losing the wall. Even the economist a few weeks ago said Ukraine is losing the wall. But I don't share any optimism about a diplomatic solution or a negotiation at various points over the last few weeks. I've wanted to believe that something like that might be about to happen. But I don't really get the sense that anything like that is on the horizon. I think the Americans are not interested in negotiating with Putin and with the Russians. I think that they would prefer the war to continue, even if the Russians eventually win. From their point of view, it's fine.

can walk away, but they've already gained a fair amount from the war. They've severed the relations between Europe and Russia. I do think the Americans are looking for a diplomatic solution. I don't think critically the Ukrainians themselves are looking for one. I found the whole story around Zelensky's victory plan. Very depressing. Notice that there's been no voices that I know of in Ukraine that are asking for any kind of negotiated or diplomatic solution. None. And in Europe, I don't think we're able to get Iraq together at all. So the question is, the Russians are going to win without, I think, the Russians at the moment, yet having worked out any kind of plan themselves about what they're going to do with our victory. I mean, that is the other thing. I don't think they've

worked out what exactly victory means for them, where they're going to lay the boundaries, what they're going to ask of Ukraine, whatever of Ukraine is left. So I think everything is very uncertain at the moment, in every respect bar one, which is that the Russians are winning the war. Yeah, I agree with that for sure. I mean, what one would like here is some sort of meaningful people. peace agreement that puts this conflict to bed once and for all. But I think that's almost impossible to get. I mean, what Putin is demanding, just for purposes of starting the negotiations,

is that Ukraine and the West recognize his annexation or Russia's annexation of those four oblasts, and Ukraine plus Crimea. And furthermore, that the West and Ukraine commit themselves to not putting Ukraine inside of NATO to creating a legitimately neutral Ukraine. And I think the West and Ukraine itself just not going to agree to that. It's not in the cards. So if you're playing Russia's hand, the question is, what do you do then? And my view is if you're the Russians, you grab as much territory as you can. You don't want to go too far west because then you start absorbing huge numbers of Ukrainians, ethnic Ukrainians, which will mean unending trouble. But if you're the Russians, I think if you can take Odessa, you can take Harikiv, you take them,

right? Because if you again, if you're not going to get a meaningful peace agreement, you're not going to get a neutral Ukraine, you want to take as much territory as you can purposes of defense. And furthermore, you want to do everything you can to weaken Ukraine, to make sure, sure that that dysfunctional rump state is really dysfunctional and controls as little territory as possible and is not a legitimate candidate to become a member of NATO. So the problem that the West and the Ukrainians face by delaying this war and not reaching some sort of meaningful agreement, peace agreement with the Russians, is that they give the Russians powerful incentives to take more and more and to do more and more damage to Ukraine. So it's really counterproductive. And then the end result

is what you're going to get is a frozen conflict. And that frozen conflict is going to be bad news because it's going to mean perpetual poisonous relations between Russia and Ukraine and Russia and the West. And given that there are all sorts of potential flashpoints in Eastern Europe, the Arctic, the Baltic Sea, Kaliningrad, Belarus, Moldova, and the Black Sea, this one could turn into a hot war again very easily. So we are really in a mess of a situation. It's just hard to imagine how much trouble we have gotten ourselves into, we meaning the West, because I think we're principally responsible for this disaster. And again, I just don't see any meaningful way out. Can I say I completely agree before passing back to Glenn, can I just say supporting words you just said, John? Putin himself, in Kazan, he gave a press conference

and he said that the only peace, the only negotiated piece that is an acceptable one, from a Russian point of view, is a permanent full peace, a piece that not only gives the Russians all that they want, but which will last. Well, he specifically ruled out a peace which would be a kind of armistice, which would then result in each side preparing for the next conflict. So that speaks exactly for what you said, leaving whatever Ukraine is left too weak

to be any sort of opponent at the moment. What I haven't heard was seen from the Russians, is any idea of any of the detail that they might be sketching out as the war progresses. And I don't think they've been thinking about this very much. But it's exactly your point. They will not accept what they would worry would be a temporary peace. And I don't see anybody on the Western side or on the Ukrainian side who's going to be prepared to accept an agreement.

agreement, a peace agreement, that will satisfy the Russians in that respect. Glenn, if I can just jump in quickly to follow Alexander before we go to you. I also think, Alexander, that the evidence is overwhelming that Putin feels he trusted the West in the past, and they took advantage of him. And he is not going to do that again. He does not trust the West as far as he can throw it. And that includes Donald Trump as well as Kamala Harris. He's going to drive a hard bargain.

And by the way, we're not talking about the Middle East yet. I think this is the conclusion the Iranians have come to. Iranians try to work out deals with the Americans, and they understand that the United States is unequivocally hostile. And you have to play hardball with the Americans. It's the only way to deal with the Americans and going back to the Russian case. I think Putin understands full well. You do not want to make any concessions, right, unless you get a meaningful peace agreement.

And absent a meaningful peace agreement, you want to play hardball. You want to be ruthless with the West because that's the only language they understand. I agree with the trust issue. But I think, of course, it goes much further back. I think they feel fooled now ever since the days of God, about. show the idea that they would have an inclusive Europe. This was seen as a breach of trust that instead we expanded NATO and of course many more issues all the way up to 2014. But it's important remembering even then that the Europeans negotiated with the Ukrainians, this idea of

unity government in Ukraine, which was then toppled. So again, they see the West as a breaking agreement after agreement. And of course, yes. seven years of Minsk broken, the Istanbul, which negotiations, which I think now the evidence is overwhelming that this was also broken. And it's hard to understand why. It's not difficult to understand why they would be distrustful, because in the West we speak quite openly about what we want from a peace. We say, well, we can temporarily freeze the positions there, and then Ukraine can try to take them back in the future. So this is not a good proposition for the for the Russians.

But I did think a bit about what Alexander said, you know, this temporary optimism. And I also became optimistic for a while simply because it seemed rational that this is the time to negotiate, because this is a war of attrition. There is two sides bleeding each other dry,

which for NATO, given that this is our proxy war, is a good position to be in. That is, borders don't change, and each side are bleeding each other. However, once Ukraine now, is losing. This is once a collapse is pending

this is when things go bad. That is huge casualty rates occur on the Ukrainian side, the loss of strategic territory. All of this makes this a very bad war for NATO. So this seems to be we have an incentive

it would seem to bring an end to this war. And also, you know, if we're not going to bring an end to the war, the alternative would be to escalate but we obviously did not jump on Zelensky's victory plan in terms of NATO attacking Russia directly or immediately joining NATO or even applauding or encouraging Zelensky's comments on acquiring nuclear weapons. So it just doesn't seem, instead we seem to be pushing this unrealistic ideas such as territory. for NATO membership or freezing the conflict, things which would never be acceptable to Russia.

So I have a hard time understanding this. Are we simply waiting, getting on hope, something wonderful might unexpectedly pop up? Or is this that we had such a strong maximalist position that we weren't going to talk to Putin and we were going to defeat them on the battlefield? It's hard to shift this very maximalist position. I just have a hard time understanding how, I mean, you can see where this is going, obviously not from reading the media, but you can see where this conflict is going, and it's not in our interest. So it just seemed like the rational actor would now pursue a diplomatic solution. If I can make a quick point, Glenn, in response to what you just said, I think from an American point of view, it's easy to just let this conflict go on and become a frozen conflict.

in part because Americans are not dying, number one. And number two, I think the Americans believe they can cast the buck to the Europeans. I think if you look at what's happening now, the Americans think the Europeans should do the heavy lifting vis-a-vis Ukraine. And therefore, the Europeans will pay the bills and support Ukraine. and the United States doesn't have to do as much as it once did. So if you have that calculus in your head,

why push to have a peace agreement? Just continue to bleed the Russians white, which of course is what the Americans think is happening. I think that sounds, it's right. The puzzle for me always is Europe. And, you know, Glenn was talking about rationality. I've long given up trying to,

explain European policy especially in any rational way. I mean, it has never been rational with respect to Ukraine as far as I can see at any point. I mean, one would have thought, if we look at this from a German perspective, for example, given how important economic relations between Germany and Russia had become, given how important for all Europeans preserving peace in Europe would be that they would always have known that given how the Russians feel about Ukraine and the importance and security terms for them of Ukraine, the Europeans themselves would understand that you tread in a place like Ukraine lightly. But they didn't. And they haven't. And they continue to support Ukraine. And I don't really see that with,

the sort of ascendant forces in Europe. There is any willingness for a change. I think there's something else, actually, which is attitudes to Putin himself. The Europeans, the European leaderships, certainly in Britain, and I'm sure this is true in much else of Europe, have now developed a kind of emotional feeling about Putin,

an actual personal loathing of him that is clouding all judgment and they find it impossible to sit down and to negotiate with him anymore whether that will change whoever, you know, when he eventually leaves the scene and someone takes his place, I don't know. But I've heard about this from people

within the British government. they really cannot, I mean, they really hate him. I mean, I don't know to what extent they understand him, but there is this general sense that you simply do not negotiate with this man. And this is creating enormous problems.

Just a couple points. It's, I think, very important to understand that the Europeans understood from the get-go that NATO expansion into Ukraine would be disastrous. If you go back to the April 2008, NATO summit, where the initial decision was made to bring Ukraine into NATO, both Sarkozy and Merkel, who were the heads of France and Germany, respectively, at the time, or adamantly opposed to doing this. It's very important to understand that.

And Merkel has subsequently said that she was opposed to bringing Ukraine into NATO because she understood that Putin would interpret it as a declaration of war. This is a really remarkable statement. If you believe that and went along with it, you sort of say to yourself, what was she thinking? This brings me to my second point. I believe that the reason the Europeans don't act independently, and in your mind, Alexander, look irrational, is because they're so deeply concerned about alienating the Americans and having the Americans leave Europe.

I think the Europeans, more than anything else, want to keep the United States in Europe because they believe that the United States serves as a pacifier. NATO is a wonderful instrument for keeping the peace in Europe. And in an era when China is rising and the Americans are talking about pivoting to Asia, the Europeans worry themselves sick about the Americans pivoting away from Europe. So if the Americans want something, the Europeans almost always kow to them. And I think this explains what happened in April,

and I certainly think it's what's happening today. So the Europeans are actually pursuing these policies, and have been for quite a while now, that are clearly not in their interest. My final point has to do with the hatred of Putin. Of course, this is a long-standing phenomenon in the United States. The Russophobia here is just off the charts, and at the center of that Russophobia is hatred of Putin,

you know, equating him, with Adolf Hitler and so forth and so on. I think there are a variety of reasons for it. If you want to know what's going on in Europe today, I think it's largely the fact that Putin has beaten him. The fact is that the Europeans got into a fight with the Russians, and Putin, of course, is the chief man in charge in Russia, and he's beaten the Europeans.

And I think when that happens, people get furious. And I think that's the reaction you see in Europe. I think it's much more complicated in the United States. In the United States, it has a lot to do with what happened in 2016, where many people, especially in the Democratic Party, blame Putin for Trump's election and Hillary Clinton's defeat. But I don't think that applies in Europe. Americans, I think, definitely look more pragmatic,

because when they realize the war is lost, at least they can walk away. I think the Europeans overcommitted themselves. And I appreciate what you said as well, the irony that there was Europeans who saw this one coming and the warrants against it. But once they got into it, I think now it's too late to pull out. And now it's effectively all or nothing. Because if we win, then again, the Europe will be revived. And if we lose, this is the enduring irrelevance of Europe.

And I also think it's the concern about the United States also leaving Ukraine. And if you combine this also with how the US has acted economically, for example, the Inflation Reduction Act in which they are seen as cannibalizing European industries. I think it's a bit of a shock to the Europeans because for centuries now we've been the subject in international affairs. And I think we're slowly realizing that we are the object now, that we're not moving the chess pieces, but we have become the chess pieces.

And I think many would like to ensure we don't continue that direction, which is often why I get this bit like childlike view of what alliances are like, especially in this country in Norway. They think an alliance means your interests are identical, that you're almost like friends. And it's quite strange. And I remember in the 90s, George Kennan used the word political imagination, as he condemned why the West wasn't able to come up with a post-Cold War security architecture

that wasn't reduced into which alliance do countries join, that we couldn't come up with a new system. And I think that's also the main problem of Europe. We can't really imagine anything else than being led by the United States. Because, well, in all fairness, I think it's been good in many ways for the Europeans to have the U.S. as a pacifier. But I think that's why you see the rest of the world. How do they react to the growing multipolarity? They're all pursuing multivector foreign policy.

Connect to all centers of power. This gives them, you know, more economic prosperity or opportunities, which also translates into an autonomous, independent foreign policy. meanwhile the Europeans are doing the exact opposite. They're just withdrawing under the umbrella of the United States. And again, less prosperous, more irrelevant. And they're doing all of this at the same time, putting all their egg in the same basket, at the same time as the recognizing Trump might win, and also we think he's the next Hitler.

So nothing smells like rationality here, though. It's, yeah, so today in the Spiegel, they're called Elon Musk, the enemy of public enemy number two because he wants to destroy liberal democracy since he supports Trump. So we see all of this at one time. We think America will be taken over by Hitler and still we don't diversify our ties.

It's just, nothing really makes sense here. But listen to the rhetoric and I think, yeah, it's clear why. No, this is completely true. I mean, I say this, speaking about Britain, there were two major shocks in Britain that happened over the last few years. One was the negotiation of the Minsk Agreement, in which the British suddenly discovered that the Germans and the Russians and the French, we're all getting together and agreeing a peace agreement over a conflict in Europe, and Britain was neither involved nor informed. And for the British,

at a psychological level. This is an absolutely shocking thing. And a lot of the explanation for the British hysteria and ferocious support for Ukraine, I think stems from this, the fact that they were not involved, for the first time, I think, in recent history,

in a key negotiation, setting out in peace in Europe. And here you see, the sense of British rivalry towards Germany and France, especially Germany. Scratch below the surface. Remember Britain was a member of the European Union

at that time. We're allies with NATO. But scratched below the surface and you could see that there's still this intensely rivalous attitude between European capitals. So that was one shock. The other shock was Donald Trump's election

and the rhetoric that accompanied in which he seemed to be casting doubt on NATO. And that wasn't just him, that wasn't just the British, rather. It was just everybody in Europe were collectively horrified about this. Because those rivalries are there. Those uncertainties about Europe's place are there. And in many cases, being connected to the United States also enables the Europeans to feel that they are somehow part of American power,

Western power, part of what outsiders have now started to refer to as the collective West. So we saw, over a relatively short time, and a peace agreement reached in which some Europeans were talking to the Russians and not others, were the others feeling excluded and nervous and worried, and the American ally,

the American peace controller, in effect, finally giving hints that it might even be considering walking away. I think speaking from London, it is impossible to overestimate, overstate the importance of these two shocks. If I can just jump in here and build on Alexander's point about the rivalries among European countries,

especially the more powerful countries like Britain and Germany, and we could throw France in as well, of course. I think that's absolutely true. But that's why the American pacifier is so important. If you really begin to think about it, as long as you have a pacifier, which really, comes in the form not only of the American presence, but NATO, then you can talk about Europe as if it were a single state. There's all this talk in international discourse about Europe as if it were

this single entity. But what you're saying, Alexander, is right below the surface are all these cleavages. And if you took away the pacifier, you took away the United States, those differences would break out into the open and then dealing with Ukraine would be a much more complicated issue. Keeping the peace in Europe would be a much more complicated issue. And I believe that the American, should me, that the European elites to a person understand this completely. And that's the main reason they're so dedicated to doing what the Americans want, even though it's now becoming clear that that is not necessarily in the interest of Europe in general, and those particular states by themselves.

Can I quickly say? I'd heard from various people about the British shock over the Minsk Agreement. But we've done, Glenn Deeson and I have done programs with the British diplomat, Ian Proud, who was serving in the British Foreign Office at that time. And he has confirmed this publicly, that the British were deeply horrified by the Minsk Agreement. And again, ultimately, when you ask yourself why, it is these perennial ancestral fears, Germany and France, Germany and France working together, Germany and Russia working together. Who knows?

All of these things, they're always there. They're always just below the surface. they always have the possibility to rise to the top. And certainly, and the British government is the one I know best, that is the reason why the British, whose power is a much diminished thing anyway, why the British are so nervous about, you know, the Americans leaving Europe.

I remember at one point, an article appeared in the British newspaper, I think it was shortly after Trump was elected, that it felt like the Americans were behaving to the British, like the Roman Emperor did, who told the British towns that they must from this point on look after their own defence just before, you know, just before the sort of the dark ages came. It was this attitude to the Americans that we need them just as the ancient Britons needed the Romans, because without the Americans, everything would fall apart. I think some of this goes back to the Napoleonic continental system, this fear that Europe would start to organize independently and cut themselves off from the British. But you see similar concerns from continental Europe, because, as I mentioned before,

when as John said when you know the United States very openly announcing it's pivoting to Asia with now less resources and again focus on priority on the east you would think then the main impulse

in Europe would be well then we have to start to sort out our own neighborhood and connect with others so again as I said before diversify so learn to work with the Chinese the Russians but instead we see exactly the opposite We see this impulse to, now we have to increase our own value to the Americans, so they won't leave us.

So let's do as we're told. But I guess the irony is that Europe, even though it's not one entity, it becomes a lot weaker. And what makes it at least seem as if it can act as an entity is through the European Union. But what made the EU successful was the ability to deliver benefits to member states, that is collective bargaining power, which, you know, manifested itself with favorable trade agreements and political influence. But now you see the benefits are slowly disappearing and the costs are growing. So they're imposing themselves limiting economic opportunities by some member states,

especially by cutting off from Russia, they punishing countries like Hungary or Slovakia for trying to get along with the Russians. And so as this cost-benefit of the EU declines, I think the ability of the Europeans to act as a, yeah, cohesive one entity, I think it will only decline further and further. But yeah, I'm not sure if you have any, you too have any optimistic views on the future of Europe as an entity. I would just say very quickly, to build on what you were saying, Glenn, I think a big issue moving forward is going to be European trade with China. the European economies, especially the German economy, are in trouble.

And there's not a lot of economic intercourse between Russia and Europe, as there once was. And there's not much hope that that situation will change. So if you're a European, you have a deep-seated interest in having a lot of economic intercourse with China. And the Americans don't want that. Certainly when it comes to dealing with trade that involved. involves sophisticated or cutting-edge technology. So the Americans are going to lean really hard on the Europeans not to trade that much with China.

And at the same time, the Europeans are going to have very powerful incentives to trade with China. Because in my opinion, in no way is China a threat to Europe? I mean, from a security point of view, it just doesn't matter. So the Europeans have a vested interest in maximizing their trade with the Chinese so that they can do everything they can to increase prosperity or write the ship economically in countries, in their own countries. But the Americans won't like that. So it would be very interesting to see how that plays out over time. Can I just say, if I was in any position to

advise European leaders, the advice I would give them is yes, you have, it's important for you to keep the Americans here in Europe to some extent. But it is even more important to secure European peace. You need peace in Europe. You don't want the scenario that John outlined at the start of the program, in which we have a frozen conflict, a permanent frozen conflict. Russia is in control of all of useful Ukraine, Black Sea Coast, all of those places.

We have a huge area encompassing Moldova, where the elections have just happened, and it's likely they're already going to be contested. We don't want to worry about what's going on in places like Kaliningrad and all of that. So we need to secure peace in Europe, and that means a good treaty with Russia. As a Bismarck, wasn't Bismarck who said, the secret of politics is a good treaty with Russia.

Do that. Get that sorted. And once you've got a good treaty with Russia, Russia, peace in Europe, then you can work things out with the Americans as well. Because I'm not convinced the Americans want to leave Europe for one thing. I mean, why would they want to leave Europe? And I think that you could get a much more stable, far more satisfactory situation in Europe, one which would be beneficial, both to the Americans and to the Europeans, if you did all of that. And then if you have peace on your eastern borders with the Russians, then you can start addressing the many problems in your economies which exist, which you're not really looking into

because you aren't looking into those properly. And who knows? Just, just possibly, in that case, the Russians might over time start saying to themselves as well, however attractive economically and in other respects, our relations with China are. At the end of the day, we are a European country ourselves in terms of our culture. If you go to St. Petersburg or Moscow today, they are very European cities. Maybe we should start thinking more about our relations with Europe and the West, again, over a long time, than this concept of building up with China instead. Now that will be a rational policy for the Europeans.

I'm not saying that it would achieve all of the things that I've said. But I think it would a rational policy. The trouble is they show no sign of having any interest in it. For whatever reason, they are

determined at the moment to keep the conflict with Russia ongoing even as it is destroying them. It's doing far more damage to them than it is to the Russians. And the Americans are doing fine. Just a very brief comment.

I think as you spoke, I very much agree. But I also thought this goes back to the problem of rationality and pragmatism because it's not something we do very well in Europe. And I think part of the reason is I think we've gone too deep down this rabbit hole because not only 10 years of a proxy war with the Russians, but if you go even beyond this for more than 30 years, we almost created the whole ideology of liberal peace based on the idea.

It would be a good idea to redivide Europe and militarize these dividing lines and just gradually move them towards the Russian border as the recipe for stability and peace. I mean, in retrospect, it wasn't a great plan, I would say. But after, you know, we built up a whole political class over the past 30 years, an ideology that justified a Europe, which includes everyone, except the largest country in Europe,

it's very hard to walk this back and have an honest discussion among ourselves about the mistakes we've done. And also this whole relationship, I guess, with the US through the Cold War, where, you know, security for influence. The Americans will complain the Europeans aren't paying enough. Europeans are complaining that they don't have enough autonomy, you know, in terms of European independence. So we always pull a little bit back and forth. But now that Americans are saying, listen, we have to. to go to Asia anyways and we're going to have, we have more demands on you in terms of not dealing with the Chinese, but we have less to offer.

You know, a lot of this, the foundation of the relationship is, is challenged. But instead, we're not talking about any of these things. We're just doing this Cold War slogans about, you know, Moscow wanting to invade Europe and let's, you know, for God's sake, let's just keep solidarity. Otherwise, we will all speak Russian next year. So it's not a good time for rationality and pragmatism, I guess is where I'm going. I really like your rhetoric about building up a political class and an ideology over the past 30 years that makes it very difficult to have intelligent discourse.

You should write an article on that because it's a very important subject. There's no question that the West has consciously gone to great lengths to cultivate an elite that has one simple view of the world and allows for no dissent. And that has gotten us into a well of a lot of trouble and makes it very difficult for us to think straight today. It's really what happened. All of this discussion makes me think. that if there had been no decision in April 2008 to expand NATO into Ukraine, the situation in Europe today and the situation regarding European-Russian relations would look fundamentally different. And we would basically have a peaceful Europe. It wouldn't

be perfect harmony or anything like that because you never get such a thing. But relations among the the states in Europe and relations between Russia and the states in Europe would be fundamentally different. This was a catastrophic mistake this April 2008 decision. And again, Sarkozy and Merkel understood that. The Europeans understood this. There was no great demand inside Ukraine to become part of NATO. It was pushed by the Americans. It was pushed by George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice. principally responsible for this catastrophic decision. And here we are talking about where we're going moving forward.

And our basic view is that there is no real solution to this, that is at least plausible from the point of view of implementation. This is a tragic situation, just hard to believe. And again, Glenn, I think a lot of it has to do with your point about the fact that we have developed this political class and this ideology. that you can't argue against and even get out of the batters box, much less to get the first base to use American rhetoric on this. It's just amazing.

I completely agree about the 2008 decision. I think it was the most disastrous decision made at any point in European affairs since the end of the Second World War. It was completely ill-conceived. And I'm afraid it was very typical of Merkel, because on the one hand, she was always someone who knew, she was extremely intelligent, very sophisticated political leader. But she was never someone who would categorically and take a position when she felt that that would be at all controversial. rock the boat, especially with the Americans. And I think she failed.

I think she failed Europe and she failed Germany at a critical moment. And we are where we are. Just to add one further thing to what you just said about the tragedy of it, the Russians are also tied into this tragedy. Because, yes, they're going to have the euphoria and the success of a victory in a war. But from their point of view, it is going to be a war that will bear bitter fruit because they're now in a conflict with Europe, which they didn't absolutely didn't want to be. They invested massively in a good relationship with Europe, psychologically and materially. They will now have tension, permanent tension, on their Western border, which again they very much wanted to avoid.

they will also have to think about what they're going to do with Ukraine. And that is going to be a very, very tricky problem to navigate. And to repeat again, I'm not sure that they're even thinking about that yet. I don't think that if there is a plan in Moscow about what to do with Ukraine, I don't know what it is. So it's going to be a victory which I'm not saying they're going to come to regret. But it's a victory that they would much, been far better off if they hadn't had the war, which led to it, and which you'll put them in a worse position than they would be in if this conflict had never happened.

Go ahead, go ahead. No, I just want to say, I think that's an excellent point, that, you know, if we could all go back to 2014 before the coup, you know, Europe, Russia, and especially Ukraine. I think everyone would have been, yeah, much, much better off as the, you know, in 2020, it was the former British ambassador to Russia actually who made this point. He said, you know, this was such a bad idea. You know, in his words, if you want a war with Russia, this is the best way to do it, try to get Ukraine into NATO.

And they also made the point that it made no sense whatsoever, given that the vast majority of Ukrainians didn't even want to be a part of NATO. So it was just foolish and, yeah, just the worst possible policy, which is, again, brings in why we would have gone down this road. Yes, and it was sergeant for interrupting. No, no, not at all. No, I just wanted to build on what Alexander said and make two quick points. One is don't want to underestimate the costs that the Russians are going to have to pay for all those towns and cities that they're now destroying, which are going to become part of Russia.

It's going to be enormously expensive to rebuild those parts of Ukraine that are incorporated into Russia. The second point I would make is, and I'm going to be accused, not by you, but by others of being an apologist for Putin and saying this. The fact is that Putin went to enormous lengths, in my opinion, to avoid a war. I think understood exactly what you're saying, Alexander. from the get-go. He did not want to pick a fight with the West. As you both know, in 2021, on December 17, 2021, to be exact, he sent the letter to both Stoltenberg and Biden trying to get negotiations going so they could shut down any potential conflict. And then once the war breaks out on February 24, 2022, immediately thereafter, Putin reaches out to the Ukrainians to start negotiations to shut

the war down. I think he fully understands that a war would be disastrous for Russia, and it's important to have good relations between Russia and the West to include Europe and the United States. But again, I think the United States is principally to blame on this. The United States is pushing very hard to humiliate the Russians and not negotiate with them. I think in many ways the Biden administration is as bad, if not worse than the Bush administration. This is the George W. Bush administration. It was behind the April 2008 decision. Once Biden moves into the White House in January of 2021, he is pushing very hard. to bring Ukraine into NATO. The idea that this issue is off the table and the Americans have really

kind of lost interest in that controversial issue is nonsense. If you look at what happened over the course of 2021, and it's no accident that roughly a year and one month after Joe Biden moves into the White House, the war starts because Biden is playing hardball with the Russians. He thinks he can shove, he thinks he can shove NATO expansion down their throat. And of course, that has not proved to be the case. And by the way, once the war starts, and it looks like the Ukrainians and the Russians are going to reach an agreement, the Americans and the British move in and tells Zelensky to walk away.

Why? Because we think we can defeat the Russians. Again, you just see that the United States has played the key role in generating and perpetually. with terrible war. I agree with that. I completely agree. Yeah, there's a very heartbreaking

interview actually in the beginning in the late March of 2022 where actually Selensky is interviewed by the economists where actually makes this point that a lot of Western countries would like to make this into a long war as opposed to making a peace. And then he warns that

yeah, they want to do this to exhaust the Russians even if it means the demise of Ukraine. And seeing that they went down this path anyways, it's just horrific. Anyways, we still have a little bit of time, about 20 minutes. So I was looking for a smooth segue. I don't have one. So I was just wanting to ask the both of you about the Middle East.

Of course, one might spend more time on this. But where do you think we're going from here on? As I mentioned earlier on, Iran had its retaliatory strike. They're a big one against Israel. In Israel, many people are talking now. For example, Naftali Bennett said that they have now a great opportunity, given that Hezbollah and Hamas is weakened, and they have a justification to attack Israel.

So it's almost talking about a big war which pulls in the United States almost as an opportunity. Do you think the Americans will be able to calm down, Israelis as they don't seem to be too interested in this or do you see a big war coming? Let me just give you my general view of what's going on. I think the Israelis by and large are as delusional as Zelensky is. You don't see much evidence in the Western media because it's almost impossible to say anything critical of Israel in the Western media. They always have to be portrayed as the good guy and the Arabs are always portrayed as the bad guys as well as

draining. But if you look at what's going on, the Israelis are in deep, deep trouble, and because the United States is joined at the hip with the Israelis, we're in deep, deep trouble. And I think the way to think about this is that there are three conflicts, the conflict in Gaza or the genocide in Gaza, which is really all about the Israelis and the Palestinians. The second big conflict is with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and then the third big conflict is with Iran. With regard to Gaza and what's going on there, the fact is that the Israelis have not defeated Hamas.

They've not gotten the hostages back, and their ultimate goal, which is to cleanse Gaza, has not succeeded. And in the end, they've ended up, ended up perpetuating or executing a genocide, which is going to be a moral stain on Israel, and the United States, which is complicit in this genocide, for a long time to come. But the key point here is that Hamas has not been defeated and is not going to be defeated. With regard to Hezbollah, they're not going to defeat Hezbollah either. What they're trying to do is prevent Hezbollah from fire,

rockets and missiles into northern Israel. The first strategy they pursued to achieve that goal was decapitation. They thought that decapitating the leadership of Hezbollah would solve the problem. They killed Nasrallah and a number of other high-level leaders inside of Lebanon. Did that work? No. And what they decided to do was execute a punishment strategy, kill large numbers of civilians. They've already killed 2,000 civilians. Did that work? No. Then what did they do?

They pursued a third strategy. Invade southern Lebanon. Is that working? No. They're suffering serious casualties and making remarkably little progress. The bottom line, however, is that Hasbalah continues to fire rockets and missiles into northern Israel, and Israel has no way to shut this down. That brings us to the third conflict.

which is Iran. As we all know, this all started on April 1st when the Israelis hit the Iranian embassy in Damascus. The Iranians retaliated on April 14th, and then the Israelis retaliated on April 19th. And then on July 31st, the Israelis killed Ishmael Hanea in Tehran. And on October 1st, the Iranians retaliated. What does this tell you? This tells you that the Iranians are playing hardball. When they were hit on April 1st, their embassy was hit in Damascus.

They retaliated on April 14. way, the Israeli retaliation on April 19th was very small and scale. So the Israelis, I mean, the Iranians did not feel they had to retaliate again. But then the July 31st assassination took place inside of Tehran and the Iranians retaliated on October 1st. Now, the Israelis say they're going to retaliate again, which we're all waiting for that to happen. But you want to be very clear on this, the Iranians have said they will counter-retaliate. Again, the Iranians are playing hardball here. So what's happening is that the Israelis and the Iranians are going up the escalation ladder, and there's no evidence that Israel has escalation dominance. And when you look at what the

ultimate outcome of this may be, which is a nuclear Iran, the story does not look like a happy one for the Israelis. They do not have escalation dominance. They're not going to beat Iran in any meaningful way. And as I said, they're not going to beat Hezbollah in any meaningful way. And as I said, they're not going to beat Hamas in any meaningful way. And if you look at what's going on inside Israeli society, there are wicked centrifugal forces. It's clear their military is tired, worn out. Moral problems are extensive. And they're having problems getting all soldiers to come on duty when they're called up. So this is a country that is in real trouble moving forward,

even though you don't see much evidence of that in the Western media. John, you put it brilliantly. I have little to add. I think a lot of the excitement that there has been over the assassination, the Israeli killing of the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, and possible Israeli attacks on killings of leaders in Iran, all morally very dubious in itself, by the way, killing leaders of the other side. But anyway, put that aside.

The point is, whatever you succeed by that, succeed by doing that, it is completely ephemeral. It doesn't resolve your underlying problem. Israel is involved in a war of attrition against Hamas. It's now taken on another war of attrition against Hezbollah, which is more powerful than Hamas. It's now talking about getting into a third war of attrition, this time with Iran, which is a powerful state, of 88 million people with large armed forces and an ability to strike at Israel. Israel is not solving its problems.

multiplying them. And it's incomprehensible that the many intelligent people that there are in Israel don't seem to see that properly. And that the Western governments who must at some level be conscious of this further disaster that's unraveling in the Middle East aren't apparently able to do anything to stop it. The United States cannot stop it. The European Union. Europeans used to once upon the time act as voices of restraint on Israel, not anymore. They're cheering it on. They're cheering it on as it does all of these things, which are putting it into even deeper trouble than it is in already.

Incredible to me. And of course, the moral cost, the moral cost that is being paid every day is well, I have no words that I can use. I mean, it is just off the scale. Well, I wonder if some of this is just an excessive focus on the hard power calculation because this constant idea that if you weaken rivals, then you'll end up

in a favorable position. It seems to ignore the human element that it hardens the position. I mean, look at the Palestinians, yes. The Hamas had been bombed, Gaza's been flattened, but on the other hand, the Palestinians will likely not accept to live under

Israeli administration anymore. And same as the Lebanese, yes, they might have weakened some of Hezbollah's network, but in Lebanon they will resent Israel now for decades to come. Look at Yemen, they're more likely now to open up to striking maritime traffic in the future. of course these threats against Iran, they must be, if they get out of this without a major war, or even with a major war, they're still going to escalate or build up a more powerful,

more powerful army. And if they are bombed, then heavily, then they might even pursue nuclear weapons. So it's similar to the Russian issue. That is, yeah, well, let's have a plan, we'll kill a lot of Russians, weaken them strategically. Yes, but again, what is the human element? But now their main objective was to integrate with the West, to have this greater Europe. Now the Russians will be resentful for decades to come for what they saw as being, I guess, correctly, a proxy war against Russia. They're now leaning heavily towards the east, China especially, more than they would have otherwise.

Is this simply how we measure power? And of course, reputation issue is quite important as well, as you both brought up as well. Israel has lost a lot of reputation, even allies in Europe and protest in the United States, it's going to be harder or easier in the future perhaps to take a more critical position on Israel as opposed to now. It just seems, yeah, we're measuring not necessarily the right variables. I would say to you, Glenn, it's not so much the human element, it's the political element. And I agree with you that what the Israelis privilege is military force, they believe in big stick diplomacy. Their basic view is they can solve all problems by taking their powerful military and beating the hell out of their adversaries.

They long talked about their escalation dominance and so forth and so on. And the fact is that these problems are essentially political problems. Remember Klausvitz's famous dictum, war is an extension. of politics by other means. But Klausvitz is saying is that it's really all about politics. And the Israelis have no interest in political solutions to any of these problems. They think that the big stick will solve all their difficulties. And this is delusional.

And the reason it is delusional today, especially, is because their military advantage, The advantage that they once had over their adversaries has gone away. It used to be when I was young that the Israelis fought conventional wars against the Egyptians and the Syrians, and it was tank-to-tank battles and the Sinai and, you know, tank battles on the Golan Heights and so forth and so on, and air-to-air engagements. And the Israelis always won handily. What's changed today is their adversaries don't have big armies. what they have are lots of missiles.

And the Israelis have no way of dealing with all those missiles. If you think about the threat that has block poses, it's rockets and missiles. If you think about Iran, it's ballistic missiles. The threat is the Israelis have no meaningful defenses on their own against those Iranian missiles. And as you were saying, those missiles are only going to get more sophisticated

with the passage of time. Think about the Houthis. The Houthis now occasionally launch a missile at Israel or a cruise or a drone at Israel. With the passage of time, the Houthis are going to get more and more ballistic missiles, and they're going to be another adversary. So you're going to have Hibati, you're going to have Hezbollah, you're going to have the Iranians, and you're going to have the Houthis. And they're all going to have lots of rockets, lots of missiles, lots of drones.

And with the sophisticated technologies that are now proliferating, they can figure out what the target set looks like and how to hit the target quite easily. And the Israelis can build more and more iron dome missiles. They're blue in the face. But the fact is those iron dome missiles are not going to be very effective. It's shooting down the incoming offensive missiles. Because when you look at the offense defense balance when it comes to ballistic missiles versus defensive missiles, the offense wins almost every time.

And the cost exchange ratio definitely favors the offensive. I just add to that that in all the previous wars, which Israel won, Israel won so completely and comprehensively, the point about those wars is that they were short. I think the longest one was the October 73 war. Was it three weeks? The one thing Israel cannot afford and should avoid at all costs, one would have thought, is a prolonged war of attrition. And that is what it is now waging. It is

waging a war of attrition in Gaza. It is waging a war of attrition against Hezbollah in Lebanon. And it wants to get into a war of attrition with Iran, in which absolutely correctly, exactly as John said, Iran has the long-term advantage. Not only does Iran have more missiles than Israel can, at a bigger industrial base. And the size of the country means that it can absorb damage, which Israel, a much smaller country, cannot do. So Israel should not want to get itself into any sort of war of that kind with Iran. Already its economy is under great strain.

Already there are all the problems that John spoke about with soldiers people not wanting to join the army and sent off to fight. Already there are signs of exhaustion on the part of sections of the Israeli military. Expanding the war, which is what Israel is doing. Whenever it comes up against problems, as it did in Gaza, its instinct seems to be to expand the war somewhere else, to go off to Hezbollah in Lebanon. And if that doesn't work, go after Iran as well, or the Houthis too.

It is utterly misconceived from any rational point of view. Just to take this a step further, we have it brought in the Russians, the Chinese, and the North Korean. But as a result of the brilliant foreign policy of the United States and what we described as Israel's foolish policy, What's happened here is that the Iranians, the Russians, the Chinese, and the North Koreans have been pushed together into this tight block where they're helping each other out as much as they possibly can. So when we talk about Israel going up against Iran, we talk about Israel and the United States going up against Iran, what's clearly happening here is that the Russians are now helping the Iranians in all sorts of ways. Furthermore, to broaden the scope, this is causing all sorts of problems for American and even Israeli diplomacy in the greater Middle East, because the Saudis, the Iranians, the Gulf states are all so antagonistic towards Israel at this point in time that is providing opportunities for China and Russia to improve their diplomatic position in the region at the expense of the United States. So, you know, when you go beyond the actual Iran versus Israel and the United States conflict and look at the bigger picture, it looks even worse.

Well, again, I think that's another commonality between Israel and Europe is that I guess both had the luxury of not accepting any settlements during the era of unipolarity that is, I guess, in Israel for decades now, that they never had to settle. with any of the neighbors, and as John pointed out as well, in the past at least they had this huge military advantage, which is now going away. But

what do you do, if you see that the huge power the United States is setting its eyes on Asia, you know, if you were Israel, you would probably advise them to, you know, make some deals with your neighbors now, make some deals with the Palestinians because their position will strengthen

over time and their antagonism will also grow while your main Backer is shifting a strategic focus. And again, this is also what the Europeans should be saying to themselves. We never had a mutually acceptable post-Cold War settlement. And instead, the goal was the solution was simply to push NATO on their border. And what can you do about it? And I guess as John also mentioned that all of this Russia, China, Iran, all working

closer together. I just posted today on Twitter this video of Joe Biden in 19. 1997 at the Atlantic Council where he mocks the Russians, where he says, well, you know, the Russians wanted to, they warn that we shouldn't expand NATO because then they will have to, they don't, they will then have to ally with China perhaps. And he laughs. You know, there's no other alternatives than us. They have to look to the West and, you know, even tells the crowd. Well, yeah, if it doesn't work with China, of course, they can always look towards Iran instead. And the whole crowd laughs. Again, back in 97, it's, we are, yeah, at this moment, now, though. It just seems like it's a time to adjust to the new international distribution of power, that is, make deals with countries which will be more powerful than you tomorrow. You know, just I want to build on one point that Alexander made before. He said that it's always been Israeli policy to fight short wars, that they could not afford long wars or wars of attrition. Of course, he's absolutely right. They want a six-day war every time

they have one of those fights, and that's no longer the case. But there's another dimension to this. It has been longstanding Israeli policy to make sure that they could basically fight these wars on their own and that they were not dependent on any other country. Yes, you might be dependent on another country for buying weapons or acquiring weapons and so forth and so on. But you fought the wars by yourself. If you look at what's going on today, the Israelis are heavily dependent. on the Americans, right? When it came to what happened on April 14th, when the Iranians attacked and the Israelis, plus the Americans, plus the French, plus the British, plus the Saudis, plus the Jordanians

played a key role in parrying those Iranian missiles. And today, in anticipation of an Iranian attack, the Americans have deployed a THAAD battery in Israel. This is really quite remarkable. We have put a hundred soldiers on the ground in Israel. We are deeply involved in that fight. The Israelis can't defend against an Iranian attack by themselves. And we even have assets, naval assets, in the Eastern Mediterranean,

that appear to be aimed at Hezbollah. So we're not sure that the Israelis can handle Hasbalah by themselves. So the Israelis have ruined. really gotten themselves into a lot of trouble. And again, we cannot underestimate how this situation gets worse with the passage of time for Israel, because the Iranians are going to develop more and better hypersonic missiles. They may even acquire nuclear weapons. You can rest assured the Iranians will help Hezbollah build up an even better inventory. The Houthis will be armed. so the future strategic situation for Israel looks quite weak moving forward.

Can I just add to that that the United States, its strong interest, I would have thought, and the strong interest that the United States has in Israel should lead in the same direction, both for its own sake and for Israel's sake, it should try to reign in Israel and get them to talk. and agreed to peace exactly as Glenn Deeson said with their neighbours and with the Palestinians because the present course that we are looking at is a course to strategic and moral bankruptcy. It is going to fail and it's pulling the United States in and the United States should not want that. But, well, we see every couple of weeks we hear about how the administration isn't happy with something that Israel is doing, how they're telling how the Biden and Netanyahu apparently raise their voices at each other when they're speaking on the telephone. And what is the result?

Well, the US always gives Israel more weapons. It always supports Israel of the Security Council. It gives Israel all the protection that it needs. In other words, it is helping Israel along this course, which is going to lead Israel and ultimately the United States itself to disaster. So once again, American policy, the United States has the power, I think, and the option to avert this catastrophe. But it is not using it. at least it is not using it in a rational constructive way. I think, Alexander, that's absolutely right.

But I would note that I think that most American leaders, since Jimmy Carter, have understood that Israel's policies, especially regarding the Palestinian, Palestinians are badly mistaken and that it made sense to give the Palestinians a state of the own to try to solve these problems in the Middle East diplomatically. And then once you solve the Palestinian problem, you could get more Abraham Accords and Israel could lead a more peaceful life in this region. But it's very important to understand that those leaders have been thwarted at every turn by Israel's strongest supporters in the United States. This is what Steve Walt and I call

the Israel Lobby in the book that we wrote in 2007. And I've long argued that Israel's supporters or the Israel lobby, they view themselves as Israel's greatest allies. Thank goodness they exist. Otherwise Israel would be in deep trouble. I think building on what you said, that they are dead wrong. And the lobby has been helping Israel,

which is in this hole, to dig deeper and deeper. and make it impossible for us, the United States, the leaders of this country, to figure out some sort of clever way to rectify this situation and create an environment where Israel stands a reasonable chance of living in peace with its neighbors. But you just can't do that, the United States. The lobby insists that we support Netanyahu no matter what. and Netanyahu is pursuing remarkably foolish policies. All sorts of people understand this, including many American Jews. Just very important to understand that. Many American Jews think that what Israel is doing is foolish.

But Israel's staunches supporters don't see it that way. They think we should support Netanyahu no matter what. And I just say to myself, where do they think this is going to end up? Where does this lead? I do not see a happy ending to this story anymore. than I see a happy ending to the Ukraine story. I was just going to, well, I would hate to draw another parallel, but this is what I was thinking as well with Ukraine.

The people who promote themselves as pro-Ukrainian, who say we have to support Ukraine, who are they really? These are the people who pushed for expanding an alliance, which they didn't want, sabotage the Minsk Agreement, which would have saved them, cancelled, sabotage the Istanbul talks,

which would have saved them, and instead just continue to, yeah, let's continue fighting this war even though the Ukrainian nation is dying and they can't possibly win. All of this is always being done by the people who argue that they're pro-Ukraine. And so I'm just saying some parallels. But we are running a little bit out of time here, though. Do any of you have any final comments as I didn't watch? I think I've said pretty much all I wanted to say.

I mean, the point is, the one thing I would say is this. We are both conflicts. We are heading towards disaster. That doesn't mean that alternatives to the present course do not exist if we were to seize them. But we show in the West no interest in or desire to seize them or even recognition sometimes that those alternative courses exist. obviously the Middle East situation is still developing. It's not reached that point which the Ukrainian crisis is. But I fully expect that a couple of months, maybe a year time,

we'll be having similar conversations about the crisis for Israel that we're now talking about in terms of the crisis for Ukraine. And again, I suspect that debate in the West will be as sterile about the conflict in the Middle East at that point. as it is about the Ukrainian conflict now. I would just add that I think, Alexander, the tap root of the problem that you described is Glenn's point that we developed

the political class and an ideology that is so firmly entrenched that it's very difficult to make a dent in it, much less to seriously penetrate it. And you would hope that some point, these people have a learning curve, which allows them to realize that the policies that we've been pursuing, especially in Ukraine, have just been disastrous. And we have to switch gears and figure out a different way to do business because it's in everybody's interest,

especially the Ukrainians. I mean, we never want to lose sight of the fact that the Ukrainians have suffered horrific casualties. It's just amazing. how many people have died and have been wounded. And if you look at what's happened to the country itself that's been effectively dismembered in good part. This is a tragedy of great proportions. And we just really should go to great lengths to see if we can figure out some way

to rectify this situation as much as possible. But at the moment, that doesn't appear to be possible. I agree. the way that I agree by the way about the point about the political class and I also think it'd be an interesting study and a book to write and Glenn if you do it I'll be absolutely interested in reading it. I was going to say I'll take John up on that challenge and I'll send you the article as it's done so anyways John Mearsheimer Alexander McCurice thank you both so much for your time thank you my pleasure Glenn and Alex

always fun to talk to you, even though the subject is categorically depressing. It's a great pleasure to speak to you, John.