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Feb. 4, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
25:02
Prof. Glenn Diesen : How NATO Provoked Russia.
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Tuesday, February 4th, 2025.
Professor Glenn Deason will be with us in just a moment on how NATO provoked Russia.
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Professor Deason, welcome here, my dear friend.
Just to remind our audience, you are a professor at the University of Southeastern in Norway and a friend of the show and a colleague of mine, and I'm happy that you're here and allowing me to pick your brain.
Before we get into the background of NATO and Ukraine and Russia, what is the basis for the American cultural hatred?
Well, this is a huge study.
The British have been preoccupied with it some time as well, especially back in 1836.
There was a lot of articles and pamphlets written about this, why there was so much resentment.
I think a key theme was always that...
Russia initially was not seen to be properly European, but a key reason was the main competition for this Eurasian continent, that is, the United States as a maritime power, much like the British before it, saw that the global dominance or primacy depended on dominating the world from the maritime periphery.
While the Russians, they threatened, again, the British back in the 19th century to essentially overturn the strategic advantage by connecting the Eurasian landmass by land.
This was always the reason why the British and thereafter the Americans wanted to keep the Russians and the Germans divided, because if they would align too closely, they would make up an independent pole of power, which could challenge the British and then the United States,
of course.
In these days, with the rise of Asia, we've seen something spectacular, which is the efforts to push Russia back into Asia, which historically meant to make it economically backwards and isolated.
Now it means pushing it towards China, which creates this very powerful duo, which is Chinese industrial power and technologies with the Russian natural resources, and also increasingly much more industrial power and high-tech as well.
Where are European elites on this?
Do they share the American cultural hatred for Russia?
And after that, I'm going to ask you where you think Donald Trump is on this.
But let's start with the European elites.
I'm sure you have a finger on that pulse.
Well, they see essentially the European project which was developed.
After World War II, but then even more so after the Cold War, this whole project was seen as being a project without Russia.
So again, if one takes a step back, it all looks a bit absurd to try to create a Europe without Russia.
But the whole premise on Russia...
Being part of Europe, that is, it should still do as the EU and other Europeans tells it to do, but it shouldn't have a seat at the table.
All of this was premised on the idea that we should have very asymmetrical interdependence.
That is, Russia should be very dependent on Europeans.
Europeans shouldn't be dependent on Russia.
And instead of diplomacy, we recognize mutual concern.
The main idea was that the Europeans thought of themselves as a teacher.
Russia would be the student.
So diplomacy meant that we would socialize Russia to become more like us.
It's always been through this for a few centuries, actually.
We viewed Russia as the mirror image of ourselves.
We're Western.
They were Eastern.
We were European.
They were Asiatic.
We were civilized.
They were barbarian.
And, of course, now everything has to be divided by liberal democracy versus authoritarianism.
So Russia has always been the main actor, not just to allow the West to have unity through...
Looking at an external threat, but also in its own identity, Russia has always been what we refer to as the other, that is the main opponent, which we mirror our own image.
Is it your view that the American now foreign policy establishment is stuck in the Cold War era of Ronald Reagan characterizing the Soviet Union as an evil empire?
As opposed to the post-Yeltsin, Putin era of modernization, economic prosperity, and a willingness to integrate economically and commercially with the rest of the world.
I think it's very outdated, the view of Russia.
And again, when we create a narrative to explain how things went so wrong, because we do need a narrative, because keep in mind that in the 1990s, the main objective of Russia was just to integrate with the West.
This was the only goal, which is why they were even willing to ignore China and other countries in the East, because they hold them back in their rush towards the West.
So how can we explain what happened?
Well, the narrative is that Putin took over after Yeltsin.
Everything was just nice and dandy.
And then after Putin came in, he essentially began to revive the great power rivalry, trying to restore the Soviet Union.
Everything more or less happening in a vacuum because of his own power, being power-hungry.
But this ignores that it was Yeltsin who stepped down and put in...
Putin, which was the prime minister, into the presidency.
And the reason was the entire political platform of Yeltsin had collapsed because his main idea was, you know, we'll democratize market reforms, we'll just do pro-Western on all our policies, and then they will welcome us.
But instead, Russia became weaker and weaker, and we saw an opportunity to create a Europe where Russia didn't have to be a part of it.
And this was seen as being sustainable as long as the Russians were weak.
So, yeah, this whole idea that this just happened out of a vacuum, no.
The entire pro-Western platform, it collapsed because we didn't want Russia in Europe.
Enter NATO, which, of course, was crafted to be a defensive organization against Russian expansion.
After World War II, and of course, the opposite has happened.
It's become offensive, not defensive, and it has expanded over and over and over again, notwithstanding promises made by Western diplomats like former Secretary of State James Baker.
Is there a little bit of, what's the word I'm looking for, confusion, because Trump is not a fan of NATO?
Yeah, well, I guess this is some of the confusion, because NATO essentially allows the Europeans to be...
It's important to stay relevant in the world because We are entering a multipolar world.
For the Americans, it's their strategic interest now to pull out, try to reduce their presence in Europe, the Middle East, focus a bit more Asia, and also in their own neighborhood.
So in the unipolar world, America and Europe were seen to be standing next to each other in some form of collective hegemony.
Meanwhile, in the multipolar world, the Americans are leaving Europe.
That isn't that relevant anymore.
So I think it's a lack of imagination to consider something else.
But there's also, I guess, nostalgia for NATO because many people remember it through the Cold War and it was able to deter the Soviet Union.
But NATO, as you suggested, has changed during the...
Cold War, it was a status quo power.
That is, it just aimed to maintain the status quo.
After the Cold War, it became a revisionist power.
That is by expanding and also by going what NATO calls out-of-area missions, which is...
Using force against countries which hasn't threatened it.
This was actually Kissinger's argument in 1999 when NATO attacked Yugoslavia two weeks after it expanded.
And he said, well, now we can't tell the Russians anymore that our expansionist alliance is only defensive.
And I think this is the main problem.
And again, if you want to have a unipolar system, a hegemonic system...
Then the concept of security has changed because traditionally security derives from being able to mitigate security competition between the great powers.
What good has come from NATO?
Not much anymore, I think.
Well, I think during the Cold War, it was a lack of alternatives.
Ideally, we would have a security system which were able to...
Create indivisible security.
That is, either side wouldn't increase their security at the expense of the other.
We would seek to find ways to elevate the common security.
And we tried to start to do this from the 70s and onwards.
But I think...
The lure of hegemony in the 1990s, given that there were no other rivals.
The idea that, listen, instead of having to look after, concerned about other great power security, what if we just have overwhelming dominance to the point where it doesn't matter whether or not the Russians feel threatened?
And this was very much the sentiment.
If you look through the rhetoric and debates we had in the 1990s, The argument was the U.S. would be so dominant, other countries like Russia could never think of challenging it.
So it didn't really matter if they were alienated.
It didn't matter if they saw us a threat because, well...
There was nothing they could really do.
And as the great George Kennan pointed out, this might be the case now, but time will come when the distribution of power will shift.
The Russians will have alternatives and they will push back in order to enhance their own security.
And then it will come at the expense of ours.
Right. As a segue into NATO, I want to play a clip for you from Rick Grinnell.
He is the president's envoy to...
He is, of course, the former U.S. ambassador to Germany and the former acting director of national intelligence, both in the first Trump administration.
But here he is, I think from Davos, Switzerland, about 10 days ago, commenting on NATO, Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden have not spoken in more than three and a half years.
Now, we think that's outrageous.
The American people think that's outrageous.
You should be able to talk to people.
Talking is a tactic.
You're going to run into a big buzzsaw in America if we have the NATO Secretary General talking about adding Ukraine to NATO.
The American people are the ones that are paying for the defense.
When we have leaders who are going to talk about more war, we need to make sure that those leaders are spending the right amount of money.
We need to be able to avoid war.
And that means a credible threat from NATO.
NATO needs to be absolutely prepared.
But we need to have diplomats that are avoiding that war.
And so I think the American people are frustrated, is the real summary.
What do you think?
Well, deterrence is always an important component of any security strategy, but usually it was recognized that deterrence has to be balanced by reassurance, because deterrence suggests that we're only trying to prevent the adversary from making aggressive moves.
But when countries assess threats, they look at intentions as well as capabilities.
So I think it's problematic to see...
That security has to come from only bringing enough power into the game so the adversary will capitulate.
And yeah, I think this is an ugly thing which developed into the political culture.
Just as a bit of a side note, it's worth knowing that Jack Matlock, he's the former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union.
When he participated in negotiations of ending the Cold War later on, he made the argument that...
Because Cold War was declared over in 1989 by negotiations.
But when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, he argued that dangerous revisionism took place in Washington, in which the assumption was that the Cold War didn't end.
As Bush said, we won.
And that was so important, because after this, the whole idea was, we'll have peace.
By defeating enemies, not through diplomacy and mutual security.
So whenever I hear this talk of, you know, we just have to be prepared to go to war with the Russians, I mean, that's how we ended up here.
Well, is the American foreign policy establishment still hung up on Ukraine joining NATO?
Or has that changed radically from and after the presidential election that brought Donald Trump back to power?
Oh, I don't think Trump wants Ukraine into NATO at all.
I think he recognizes that this is a mistake.
First of all, I don't think it's even possible.
Given that Russia would never accept it, as I often point out, it's comparable to trying to get Mexico into a Chinese or Russian military alliance.
It won't happen.
Also, what is remarkable about Trump is what made the Russians really turn their head around when he came.
He actually articulated that it was always understood that the NATO expansion up to Russia's border was a big no-no.
As your former, well, current CIA director, William Burns, pointed out once, that this was the reddest of all red line.
Ukraine could not happen.
So the fact that Trump recognized this, I think they saw this as a huge opportunity, because if you can identify why the war was provoked to begin with, then at least we could begin to resolve it.
How reckless and thoughtless...
Was it for the United States to have fomented that coup in Ukraine in 2014?
It was incredibly reckless.
And again, this is why it was so silly, because for the Ukrainians then, the majority of Ukrainians, we refer to it now as democratic revolutions, but the majority of the Ukrainians didn't support the coup.
Only about 20% actually wanted to join NATO.
And it's also what happened after the coup, which is, well, New York Times actually had a report on it back in February of 2024.
And they pointed out that...
On the day after the coup, on the first day, We saw that the new government, which was put into place, had a new intelligence chief.
Again, this was installed by the United States.
The first thing he did on the first day was to call the CIA and MI6 to start cooperation, a covert war against Russia.
Again, not in response to Russian aggression.
On the first day, this is before Russia even took back Crimea, this involved CIA bases.
Washington remarked that Ukraine became the most important intelligence partner against Russia.
The theft of drones and communication systems in Russia.
They even had raids into Russia, killing Russian soldiers.
As the New York Times reported, and I think it was an interview with a European diplomat, that this was seen by Russia as being a key reason why it would have to intervene at some point.
What happened in 2014, to just brush it off as being a democratic revolution and not a provocation, I think it's absurd.
Also, the de-Russification of Ukraine's population against its will, this was so provocative, as provocative as it could be.
I think really going back to 2014 is important in order to understand why the Russians invaded in 2022.
Extraordinary and gifted summary you just gave us of the events in 2014.
You don't see that in the New York Times or the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal because the CIA doesn't want that narrative out there.
Let me bring us up to the present day.
Do we know, Professor Deason, if Joe Biden's pipeline Of military supplies is continuing to flow under Donald Trump?
It's unclear.
I've seen a few reports which suggest that there's been a huge disruption, that weapons aren't arriving.
I've seen some reports about cancellation of those doing the logistics and supplying the weapons.
Of course, it's also fascinating that he cut or suspended, at least temporarily, what is foreign aid, which, for example, USAID and other NGOs, because these are also very important in keeping the conflict going.
What is fascinating is in Ukraine, for example, they reported that they lost between 80% and 90% of funding for the media there, which is financed then by...
How do you see the war ending?
Zelensky refuses to speak to Putin.
Putin doesn't recognize Zelensky as a legitimate authority, which in my view under the law is a correct view for President Putin to take.
How will the war end?
Who will sign something that the Russians and the international community will accept?
Well, I spoke a few days with the representative of the Russian Federation and the United Nations, and he was kind of pointing out that ideally it would be a negotiation between Russia and the United States because it is primarily a conflict between NATO and Russia,
a proxy war in Ukraine.
He made a point that the Europeans, they were mainly spoilers.
They didn't want to be a peace agreement.
Also, they're kind of irrelevant now.
If you want to talk to NATO, you talk to the US.
And in terms of Zelensky, I think you're spot on.
The Russians, they see Zelensky as being illegitimate.
They're concerned that once he goes away, the Ukrainians themselves will say whatever he signed, it doesn't really count because he was illegitimate.
His presidential term expired and he didn't want to go away.
Furthermore, Zelensky has...
The demands is putting, like 200,000 troops along the borders is simply not going to happen.
Again, this is why the Russians invaded to begin with.
They didn't want NATO troops along their borders in Ukraine.
And now the peace solution, as the Russians are winning, should be to have 200,000 Western troops along its borders.
It's just a big non-starter for them.
Does the Kremlin consider the war effectively over and won?
Well, it is to a large extent over.
And I think Putin made his point as well, that if the U.S. wouldn't finance Zelensky more, then the war would come to a very quick end.
But I think this is also, you mentioned dishonest media, and I think this is where the media also got it wrong, because maybe deliberate or not deliberate.
But the main thing is the war has been a war of attrition.
Because keep in mind that after the UK and the US sabotaged the peace agreement in 2022, they cut off all diplomacy.
No more negotiations.
Zelensky even put a decree.
He wasn't allowed to negotiate.
And this was communicating.
This will be solved on the battlefield.
And NATO would supply all the weapons in need.
So this is a war of attrition.
And in a war of attrition, the main objective is to bleed the adversary.
Once they're bled out, then you can take any territory you want, but you don't waste a lot of manpower and equipment and taking well-fortified lines.
So when the journalists are saying, well, look, the conflict is stagnant, the front lines aren't moving, they're going by all the wrong metrics.
You have to look at the attrition rates, that is, who's losing more soldiers and equipment.
And in this aspect, the Russians are not just dominating, but the attrition rate is becoming increasingly favorable by the day.
Ukrainians are losing manpower.
They don't have the equipment.
They don't have many more good fortifications.
They're being surrounded every day.
New groups of people.
They're having huge desertion.
They can't recruit more people.
Morale problems.
It's just across the board.
Things are going very quickly from bad to worse.
So I think the Russians see this war as coming to an end now.
And I think this is...
The right consideration, which is why I'm hoping there will be some negotiation, because how the war ends, what Russia decides to take of territory, very much depends on what deal NATO is willing to offer it.
So I always make the point that, for example, Russia doesn't need to take Odessa, but they will take Odessa if they think it will fall in the hands of NATO.
If it's going to fall in the hands of a neutral Ukraine, they don't have to take these territories.
You know, also the loss of human lives, of course.
So I think it's very important to get negotiations.
Professor Deason, thank you very much, my dear friend.
Very, very fascinating and interesting.
I hope you'll come back again and join us soon.
Thank you.
Always great to be with you, Judge.
Sure. Thank you.
All the best.
Coming up later today, slight changes in our schedule at 1.15 Eastern, Colonel Douglas McGregor at 2 o'clock.
Matt Ho at 4 o'clock, Professor John Mearsheimer, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
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