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Jan. 12, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
21:48
Prof. Glenn Diesen : Why the US Misunderstands Russia.
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, January 13th, 2025.
We have a new guest for you coming up in just a moment, Professor Glenn Deason of the University of Southeastern Norway on just why does the United States misunderstand Russia?
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Professor Deason, welcome here, my friend.
The audience already recognizes you because we have so many mutual friends and colleagues, and it's a pleasure to have you on the show.
What is the Kremlin's understanding of America's neocon?
Well, first, thanks for having me on, Judge.
I'm a huge fan.
Well, I think they see themselves as being betrayed, I guess.
And this is also something a lot of American leaders recognized in the 1990s, be it George Kennan, William Perry, Jack Matlock.
They all recognized that we effectively...
Didn't reach a mutually acceptable post-Cold War settlement.
We tend to have a lot of conflicts, and they all derive from this one problem, which is the failure to establish this post-Cold War settlement.
And all of the conflicts we have, the competition in the common neighborhood, the territorial conquests now, a lot of these are the symptoms of this problem.
But I think often, not just in the United States, but in Europe as well, we tend to interpret all of the The symptoms or the consequences of this problem as being the main source of the conflict.
And I'm going to guess that your opinion is that this got substantially worse in the Biden administration, in large measure because Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin weren't speaking to each other, Tony Blinken and Sergei Lavrov weren't speaking to each other.
I don't know if their underlings were speaking, but the principal...
Actors in American and Russian foreign policy were not speaking, and it seems to have been the decision of the Americans not to talk.
Yeah, suspending diplomacy obviously has exacerbated a lot of the conflicts, but of course Ukraine was also a very unique country because, again, we have this gradual expansion now towards...
Towards Russian borders.
And it's always been a problem because it's worth remembering that after the Cold War, we actually had some agreements for a pan-European security deal.
That is, we signed agreements in 1990 and 1994.
But as Russia got weaker, this is when we really decided to expand NATO instead and create a Europe without the Russians.
Now, this always created conflicts as we went along, given that Yeah, NATO would expand its or enhance its security at the expense of the Russians, but also force those deeply divided societies in between to choose between us or them.
But my point is Ukraine was always very special.
This is why, you know, the current CIA director, William Burns, warned back in 2008 that attempting to pull Ukraine into NATO would trigger likely a civil war, given that the country was so divided, but also Russian invasion.
He added that this is not something the Russians wanted to do, but it would be as if the Russians were setting up the weapon systems in Mexico.
It would just be an existential threat.
Right, right.
You're talking about then-US ambassador to Moscow, William Burns, famous telegram or cable, whatever it was.
Nyet means yet, no means no.
Why do you think that Joe Biden...
I think it's just been a slow-rolling disaster, to be honest.
But I think it might have also been the assumption that the Russians would not...
I guess dare to push back.
And I think this is also an area where we haven't really appreciated the fact that the Russians sees this as being an existential threat, which is why...
They would go all the way.
And this is also something Obama recognized to some extent back in 2016, not only that the Russians would have the advantage of logistics when you have a conflict on this border, but it would also be more important to the Russians.
This would be seen as a fight for their survival.
So it's really hard to say how.
Why they would go down this path.
But it's also, I think, the dependence on...
If you can preserve the unipolar moment, it's often an advantage to divide the world into dependent allies and weakened adversaries.
And I think this is simply the same path we've been following for so many years.
Why do the neocons hate Russia?
I think it's just a continuation to be honest of the Cold War.
We tend to see Russian actions and Russia as an extension.
Of course, this is not the case.
Even if we look at the historical competition for control over Eurasia, be it the British in the 19th century or America now, Russia doesn't neither have the capability nor the intention to dominate the way it did in the past.
Furthermore, we also don't have this ideological rivalry of communism versus capitalism.
If anything, the Russians are attempting to stabilize the country and seek unity by rooting it in more traditional values.
So, elevating the role of the church, again, not ideas which should be that alien to us in the West.
But I think it was convenient because after the Cold War, when we decided to go for a hegemonic system, we redivided the continent and we reinvented the dividing line.
So, we recast all relations or all tensions as this struggle between liberal democracy and authoritarianism.
And I think that Russia just plays this role.
Well, it ensures the solidarity within the West.
And, of course, Russia is always a big power which could, I guess, undermine some of the West's collective hegemony.
Here's Jake Sullivan, still the President's National Security Advisor, just three days ago.
If we had sanctioned Russia's oil 18 months ago, at a time when oil prices were high, gas prices were high, it would have meant a spike at the pump in a way that would have put pain on working people in the United States.
Today... Oil prices are much lower.
The oil market globally is very well supplied.
And so we have an opportunity to hit Putin in his pocketbook without hitting the American people in theirs.
What we're giving the incoming team, the incoming administration, is real leverage in a negotiation.
Why on earth would they want to hit Putin in his pocketbook?
Wouldn't a prosperous Russia be a more Peaceful, amicable Russia in their own minds.
Well, I saw also Jake Sullivan recently argue that the Biden administration had elevated the security for America because it had weakened Russia, weakened Iran, weakened China.
Now, I would contest most of this, but it also shows a very strange conception of what it means to enhance your security.
It's always this serious sum, just weakening adversaries, as opposed to pursuing some way of enhancing mutual security.
But I agree.
I think the idea...
That weakening or destabilizing Russia, which is the largest nuclear power in the world, that this is an objective in its own, I think, is mistaken or a wrong one to do.
But also the idea that if Russia has economic trouble, it would somehow leave Ukraine.
Again, Russia, I think, prepared itself for having a much greater cost in doing this.
But again, this is the way they see it, a struggle for...
So they're not going to pull back just because they have some economic problems.
But I do think this is the heart of the conflict, because what we learned at the beginning of 2022 is a key objective for the US and NATO was to weaken Russia.
This is a strategic objective of this war.
Here's Jake Sullivan yesterday saying just what you said.
I think it's hogwash, but here he is.
This is the closing argument, if you will.
Well, I'd start by saying our alliances are stronger than we found them four years ago.
They're stronger than they've been in decades.
NATO is more powerful, purposeful and bigger.
Our alliances in the Asia-Pacific are at all-time highs.
And our adversaries and competitors are weaker across the board.
Russia's weaker.
Iran's weaker.
China is weaker.
All the while, we kept America out of war.
So I think the American people are safer, and the country is better off than we were four years ago.
And we're handing all that off to the next team, as well as having the engines of American power humming our economy, our technology, our defense industrial base, our supply chains.
So the United States is in a stronger, more secure position, and our competitors and adversaries are weaker and under pressure.
I think that's the main...
Professor Deason, is Iran an adversary to the United States?
Well, it's an adversary of Israel, at least.
But also, it wouldn't have to be.
And I guess this is a key criticism I would have of Sullivan, which is that...
Enhancing security means often to mitigate the security competition.
This is something that Kissinger pointed out in 2014 with the Russians, by the way, is if we recognize them to be a great power, you should look for areas where you can reduce security competition.
Instead, it's this obsession with attempting to defeat your adversaries, and I think this is the main destructive part.
When he says NATO is more powerful, he really doesn't know what he's talking about.
If Donald Trump pulls the United States out of NATO, or if the right wing in Germany pulls Germany out of NATO, NATO really collapses as a military entity, right?
Yes, and I think this is something you hear more from, especially countries like Hungary and Slovakia.
They joined NATO because they wanted collective defense, but now they see the alliance becoming a tool against Russia.
So I think a lot of the Europeans, after a while, they might see NATO as being something that undermines their security, actually something that makes them excessively dependent, something that continues.
It continues to fuel the conflicts with Russia.
In short, it becomes an institution or a security organization whose main purpose is to deal with the crisis.
I don't agree with the argument that NATO is getting stronger.
Yes, we added Finland and Sweden, but they're going to see that their security will likely not increase as a result of their NATO membership.
On the contrary, it will get much worse.
So it remains to be seen.
I think also Trump has less interest in NATO.
Again, I would challenge some of the measurements.
None of this is true.
NATO is not more powerful.
Russia is not weaker.
China is not weaker.
Iran is not weaker.
This is all profoundly misleading, is it not?
Yes, it is.
And not only in the military aspect, because we see that the Russians have modernized greatly, but also the whole idea of sanctioning Russia or China for that sake.
It harks back at this 1990s with the unipolar idea that if you cut them off, they would either be isolated, so they can either bow to Western interests or become irrelevant.
But this is a multipolar order.
So we see that one of the main objectives of, for example, Russia now, It would be to diversify away from not just the U.S., but the West, that is, the technologies it uses, the industries they rely on, the supply chains, the transportation corridors,
the banks, the currency, the commodity exchanges, insurance systems, so across the entire board.
And who is the main partner for this?
Well, this is China, because they are pursuing exactly the same objectives.
So I think over a while we might see that what we measure as success, all of the sanctions, How strong is BRICS today and how much stronger is it likely to become?
I think BRICS would continue to increase in relevance because, yes, it's the Chinese and the Russians who are pushing the hardest because they...
Are the ones who are deemed to be strategic adversaries of not just the US, but of NATO as well.
But there's a need to see why there's such a huge demand.
That's because even the friends of the United States, be it India, they don't want to need the permission of Washington if they want to trade with China.
Even Turkey, which is a NATO member, they don't want to be dependent on Washington either if they want to do business with the Russians.
Weaponizing all economic dependencies, which is driving most of the countries to look for an alternative economic infrastructure.
That is, what currencies can they use?
What transportation corridors?
The banks?
I think when the West sees the funds of Russia, the sovereign funds, this is something that spooked large parts of the world.
And this is why the trust in the financial system of the West, as well as Our entire supply chain is now deeply harmed.
And I think in that vacuum, this is where you see BRICS really moving forward and creating an alternative.
Is lasting peace between the United States and Russia feasible, given the neocon mentality in the American foreign policy establishment, no matter who occupies the White House?
Well, I think it's going to be very difficult, but it is possible at least.
But we really have to go back to the source, as I mentioned, the source of the conflicts we have, which is this lack of a mutually acceptable post-Cold War settlement.
Now, obviously...
This whole idea that the source of stability in Europe would be for NATO, a military alliance, to gradually expand towards Russian borders and move its military infrastructure along.
This was always a very foolish idea.
So I think it is possible.
Again, this is why I'm somewhat cautiously optimistic about Trump, because at least he's recognized that it was NATO expansion that contributed to this war, even though he blames it solely on Biden, which isn't necessary.
But at least if we recognize this foundation, then there's a possibility to return to some of the mistakes that were done in the 1990s.
Perhaps we can begin to negotiate a new European security structure, not as a benefit or a favor to the Russians, but simply based on the recognition that it's a security competition which creates the conflicts between the East and West.
But again, I'm cautiously optimistic.
At least Trump seems to recognize this.
So, yeah, we'll see.
Here he is last week blaming foreign policy woes on Biden's push in Ukraine.
Cut number five.
A big part of the problem was Russia for many, many years, long before Putin said you could never have NATO.
Every once in a while, the non-neocon, somebody around him, gets through.
You heard what he just said there, and of course we all know what he did last week when he ran Jeff Sachs' very, very harsh criticism of Prime Minister Netanyahu, and he posted it on his own Truth Social.
I don't know why he did that, but it obviously sent a message.
Yeah. No, I spoke to Professor Sachs about this as well, and we tried to look into what we could read into this.
But overall, I think this is very important because this punches a hole in this.
The idea that the Russian invasion was unprovoked.
Now, this is a very dangerous narrative, and it laid the foundation of the other narratives we had in the West as well.
Now, if you believe that it was unprovoked, then suddenly a lot of the things we've done start to make sense.
That is, then we have to send a lot of weapons to increase the cost and reduce the benefits.
Any efforts of compromising or even negotiating with the Russians will be seen as a reward to this, again, unprovoked invasion.
This is how we end up with people like Stoltenberg.
Who argued that weapons are the path to peace and we're treating diplomacy as if it would be treasonous.
Now, once you recognize that this was provoked, it doesn't mean you have to justify it or support the invasion of Russia.
But once you recognize provoked, then at least there's possibilities of looking for solutions to...
To find some sort of a compromise.
So I think what Trump has done by simply recognizing NATO's contribution in terms of triggering this war, I think is immensely important.
And it gives us some optimism for finding some peaceful settlements.
Professor Deason, thank you very much, my dear friend.
It's been a pleasure to pick your brain that time went by like that.
I hope we can do it again soon.
That would be great.
Thank you, Judge.
All the best to you.
Coming up later today at 10 o'clock this morning, Ray McGovern at 11.30, Larry Johnson at 1 this afternoon, Scott Ritter at 3 this afternoon, Matthew Ho.
Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
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