TRIGGERnometry - Why Americans Don’t Understand Vladimir Putin - Konstantin Kisin

Starting point is 00:00:00 Why Americans don't understand Vladimir Putin. Prompted by a wave of missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian towns and cities, which killed 12 and injured dozens last weekend, President Trump expressed his frustrations with Vladimir Putin on Monday, saying, I've always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him. He's gone absolutely crazy.

Starting point is 00:00:28 This is an interesting theory. Before we examine it in detail, it's worth pointing out that numerous US presidents have attempted. to believe it. President George W. Bush famously looked into Putin's eyes and saw a soul, while Bill Clinton insisted that Putin could be relied on to stick to their agreements. US presidents prefer, or at least pretend, to believe this because it prevents them from having to face the reality of who Vladimir Putin has always been, and what that means for America and the West. But far more importantly, I think this belief is also a product of the American psyche,

Starting point is 00:00:59 which makes even the most cynical U.S. politicians susceptible to manipulation by those who, operate within a different moral framework. Regular viewers will know that you will not find a bigger fan of the United States and me. Spending time in the US is always a joy. One cannot help but be inspired by the culture of openness, cooperation and positivity. The story of America is that anything is possible, especially when good people get together to do business, make money and thrive. While most Americans take these cultural traits as given, the reality is that they're rare and in no small part the foundation of America's success. Americans are widely regarded around the world as extremely friendly, welcoming, proactive and constructive. But every coin has two sides. The trade-off of this business-focused,

Starting point is 00:01:46 open-minded, good faith, let's-make-money approach is a consistent failure to contend with the reality that not all cultures and not all people are like this. My Western friends often say that I come across as intense, unsmiling and even angry in interviews and videos. By American standards, they're certainly right, which is why they're always surprised when I tell them the story of showing a Russian family member a school photo of mine. Why have you all got the idiotic American smile, she asked me? The open, welcoming and positive attitude that is the default setting in America is widely regarded in many parts of the world as evidence of gullibility, uns seriousness, and naivete. It is seen, sometimes justifiably, as an attitude that leaves people vulnerable

Starting point is 00:02:29 to deception, not because Americans are stupid, but because they're not because they're their desire to believe in the good of others makes it harder for them to recognize when others are not in fact good. To fully grasp the cultural chasm between Russia and America, you need to understand history. The United States is a nation of people who conquered a continent. It is filled with the descendants of those who left their homelands to seek a better life on the other side of the world. Facing immense hardships, they did not just overcome, they triumphed. In a few centuries, successive ways of newcomers banded together to build a nation out of nothing, through hard work, a go-get-it mentality, and a high-trust collaborative society.

Starting point is 00:03:08 Americans have no genetic memory of being invaded by powerful enemies, of being held down and oppressed by foreign conquerors, of mass persecution, of extermination by their governments, of totalitarianism, of famine, of failure. The American ethos is defined by overcoming the challenges the country has faced in its history. The Great Depression was merely the precursor to the country's explosion into an economic and manufacturing superpower. Pearl Harbor was followed not only by overwhelming victory in World War II,

Starting point is 00:03:38 but by America emerging as the world's dominant nation and the center of Western civilization. Anything is possible. Problems are challenges to be solved, and the future is bright. Now consider the history of Russia. One of the founding experiences of the Russian nation is being occupied by the Mongols. The descendants of Genghis Khan wiped out anyone who resisted and subjugated everyone else. If you're struggling to understand what this meant, imagine your country is invaded by ISIS or Caldrago from Game of Thrones. They butcher, rape and torture their way through every major city. They force everyone else to bend the knee. In Russian, this period is called a Tato-Mongol yoke, a yoke being a device used to join two work animals such as oxen together to pull a load.

Starting point is 00:04:21 This period of time lasted around 240 years, as long as the entire history of the United States. To this day, the Russian language. contains many Mongolian words, especially those related to taxation, weaponry and violence. Another formative period in Russian history is called Smuta, or times of trouble. Ivan the Terrible, infamous for killing his only viable heir in a fit of rage, passed on his crown to a feeble and incapable son Fyodor. When Fyodor died without an air, Russia was thrust into 15 years of chaos, in which a succession of usurpers and false claimants battled over the throne,

Starting point is 00:04:56 combined with famine, disease and a series of foreign invasions, the times of trouble saw at least a third of Russia's population wiped out in just 15 years. One of the key conclusions Russians drew from this is that whatever else he is, a ruler must be strong to maintain order. A weak ruler leads to chaos, and chaos is to be avoided at any cost. How poorly this is understood in the West is ironically and perfectly encapsulated in the different names Russians and English speakers have for Ivan the Terrible. The word Terrible is a telling mistranslation. His moniker in Russian is much more accurately translated as fearsome.

Starting point is 00:05:35 In the century since, Russia has been repeatedly invaded by its western neighbors, including the Swedes, Lithuanians, Poles, Finns and famously Napoleon and Hitler. While these attacks were ultimately repelled, they left deep scars in the Russian psyche. There is little triumphalism about defeating Napoleon, whose invasion saw Moscow burn the ground. And while victory in the Great Patriotic War, the Russian name for World War II, is much celebrated, it came at the cost of around 20 million lives. For contrast, the United States lost just over 400,000 people in the same war. Compare also the revolutions and civil wars which took place in the two countries. The Russian Revolution, which sparked the Russian Civil War,

Starting point is 00:06:15 resulted in the installation of a tyrannical, murderous communist regime, which exterminated its enemies expropriated private property and instituted a decades-long reign of terror, ending an economic collapse and Cold War defeat in 1991. Meanwhile, the American Revolution is a story of a successful fight for independence, while the American Civil War, although bloody and painful, is seen as the price of progress on the path to ultimate unification. While American baby boomers lived through a period of economic expansion, success and triumph, the Russian counterparts, like Putin, who was born in 1952, grew up in the aftermath of a devastating war, Stalin's slave labor camps and economic stagnation.

Starting point is 00:06:58 By the time they were in their prime, their country collapsed all around them, creating chaos, instability and a sense of loss, humiliation and exploitation. These historical experiences inevitably produce people who see the world through such different lenses that it might as well be a different world. Centuries of pain, poverty, famine, war, brutality, suspicion and humiliation. do not produce happy, smiling, positive go-getters. Which brings us back to the claim that the normally reasonable, rational, and pragmatic Vladimir Putin, with whom we can do business, has suddenly become a different person and gone crazy.

Starting point is 00:07:32 This claim is convenient for a number of reasons. First, it absolves those who have been claiming he is reasonable, rational and pragmatic, while his troops have been butchering civilians, stealing Ukrainian children, and torturing prisoners of war in captivity. Second, it justifies the foreign policy of turning a blind eye to the reality of Putin's Russia and the man himself. On social media, Americans often accuse me of being a Putin hater for stating basic facts about his career history and the regime he's set up in Russia.

Starting point is 00:08:02 These facts are worth restating here. Vladimir Putin is a former officer of the KGB, the Soviet Union's main intelligence and security agency. The agency was the successor to the Czechat and the NKVD, which were the tools used by Stalin and other Soviet leaders to murder and imprison dissidents, domestic critics and foreign defectors. He joined the agency long after its crimes under Stalin had been exposed. Vladimir Putin has never been elected in a free and fair election. He was effectively handed the presidency in 1999 by his predecessor Boris Yeltsin in exchange for protection

Starting point is 00:08:35 and has held on to power for 26 years ending Russia's brief experiment with democracy. Every single one of his political opponents like Mikhail Khorovsky, Boris, Nemtsov, Alexei Navalny and Gary Kasparov is dead, imprisoned or in exile. In 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea in Ukraine, Putin lied repeatedly that the soldiers without insignia who'd taken over that peninsula were not his, saying with a cunning grin that you can go to a store and buy any kind of uniform. He later handed out medals to the very Russian soldiers who were involved in that operation. Since the war in Ukraine started, Putin's clean house with both liberal and nationalist critics, who have been imprisoned like Igor Gekon Strzokov or assassinated like Yvgeny Progogs.

Starting point is 00:09:20 My point is, to anyone who understands the reality of Putin's regime, the idea that he's gone crazy is, well, crazy. Vladimir Putin is in power and retains power precisely because he's always been someone who's prepared to lie, manipulate and kill to achieve his objectives. That is literally what the KGB trained him to do. In his post-christizing Putin, Trump went on to add that I've always said that he wants all of Ukraine not just a piece of it, and maybe that's proving to be right. Finally, it seems our American friends are beginning to understand who they're dealing with. In his long telegram, George Kennan famously wrote that Russia was impervious to the logic of reason and highly sensitive to the logic of force.

Starting point is 00:10:03 This is why I had high and so far false hopes for Trump's ability to end the war. I assumed he would understand the obvious that bringing Putin to the negotiating table would require a carrot and a stick. So far, dangling only the care of ending the killing and sending a starry-eyed historically and geographically illiterate lawyer to be bamboozled for hours in the Kremlin has, predictably, produced nothing. The only way Trump will get serious negotiations going is to threaten Putin was ramping up not only sanctions, but high-grade extensive military aid to Ukraine. As long as that option is not on the table, Putin will keep calling America's bluff. If you enjoy these videos, you should know that they're available on my substack at constantincinnkisson.com

Starting point is 00:10:49 days, weeks, sometimes months ahead of time. Head on over to constantinckisand.com now to subscribe. The world is changing fast and it's not enough to just know what the news is. You have to know how it's being reported because the truth often depends on where you're standing. That's why I use ground news. It's the only website and app that gathers and compares news from over 50,000 sources around the world. It doesn't just show you the headlines. It also breaks down the political bias and who owns the media outlet you're reading or watching. When you know where the money is coming from, you start to understand how power and influence shape the stories we see.

Starting point is 00:11:26 Their blind spot feed is my favorite feature. It shows you which stories are being ignored by either the left or the right, so you can actually spot media bias as it's happening and stay ahead of the narrative. They surface around 20 of these a day and some of them are pretty eye-opening. This story on the UK developing a predictive tool to determine if someone will become a killer barely showed up in left-leaning outlets. It's a major story when you think about how far governments might go with AI and surveillance. And on the other side, this story about how more than 60% of CEOs expect a recession in the next six months currently has no coverage in right-leaning media at all.

Starting point is 00:12:02 That's a pretty big blind spot when you're trying to understand where the economy might be headed. If you're someone who values nuance over noise, ground news is essential. It's no wonder they have over 10,000 five-star reviews. Right now, Trigonometry viewers can subscribe and get 40% of their vantage plan. That's the same one I use. Click the link in the description and visit ground. dot news slash trigonometry. Start thinking for yourself and subscribe at ground.

Starting point is 00:12:26 com.

TRIGGERnometry - Why Americans Don’t Understand Vladimir Putin - Konstantin Kisin

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.