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Feb. 25, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
26:10
Prof. Glenn Diesen : Is American Empire Ending?
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Wednesday, sorry, February 26, 2025.
Professor Glenn Deason joins us now.
Professor Deason, it's always a pleasure.
I truly appreciate your insights from the middle of Europe, and I have many questions to ask to you.
This week, the President of France and the Prime Minister of Great Britain are visiting.
What do they want from President Trump?
Well, I guess simply put, they want to derail some of the peace initiatives which are going through.
Now, it's concealed as some kind of support.
So Macron comes, he celebrates the strength of Trump, saying that if anyone can make peace, it's him.
But then, of course, goes on to suggest that if we want peace, then there has to be...
Some American security guarantee.
And also that first has to be...
A ceasefire.
And then we can negotiate.
And then we can find a political settlement while there's troops deployed, Western troops deployed in Ukraine.
Now, this is very problematic because this already sounds like another Minsk agreement.
That is, we stop the war, but we don't actually reach a political settlement right away.
And when the West moves in, they can start to rearm Ukraine.
And once Ukraine is rearmed and it's no longer collapsing, then the whole incentive.
I'm thinking of what my former Fox colleague and now Secretary of Defense Hegseth said about two or three weeks ago, there will be no Minsk 3. I think he knew what he was talking about.
Don't, Macron and Starmer, we'll get to Chancellor and waiting MERS in a minute, but don't President Macron and Prime Minister Starmer understand?
President Putin, understand the Russian mentality, understand that they will not just stop in a standstill and then negotiate.
They will achieve their goals first unless Ukraine just gives up the ghost.
Well, I think they should understand this.
Of course, we haven't had any diplomacy for three years, so there's probably a lot of misunderstanding about the motivations of the Russians.
But I think the main point or the main purpose is to make Trump take some ownership over the war and commit itself to continuing the war.
And towards this end, it's good to begin to get Trump to sign up to these ideas that they have to get involved somehow in the security guarantee.
But no, you are correct.
This was Hegseth Main's point.
There will be no NATO expansion.
Ukraine can't get all its territories back and there won't be any security guarantee.
The security guarantee is just common sense.
If you want a stable, peaceful settlement, then you can't have any incentives for restarting the conflict.
If you have thousands of NATO troops, including American troops, on Ukrainian soil, then any restart of the conflict would then revive the war, but then bring in the NATO countries on its side against Russia.
So there would be two great incentives to continue this war.
And as you correctly pointed out, the Russians would never accept this.
They invaded Ukraine to avoid NATO's incursion into Ukraine.
So simply, now that Russia won, they're going to have a peace settlement in which NATO's going to patrol the borders between the Ukrainians and Russians.
Oh, that's inconceivable.
Exactly. Keep in mind that they consider this to be a NATO proxy war.
Right. It is a NATO proxy war, at least a U.S. proxy war.
Do they, Prime Minister Starmer and President Macron, favor this European or even non-European, I think they're talking about Chinese or some other entity, some other country,
peacekeeping force along the Ukraine-Russian border?
We know the Russians will reject that.
Yeah, no.
But it is a real problem because once this war is over, it's going to be a very long front line.
And, of course, something can start again.
But the problem is they're speaking as if the Europeans and Americans are some neutral third party.
As you correctly said, this has been a proxy war.
It's been recognized by Boris Johnson as well to be a proxy war.
So, of course, it doesn't make any sense to have one of the belligerent parties acting as a peacekeeper.
And here is Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov on this very issue yesterday, cut number 11, Chris.
We cannot consider any options of deploying peacekeepers to Ukraine.
I don't know what Macron said there.
He did not play his role very convincingly in Washington.
But when this topic was raised at a press conference, as I read, President Trump said a decision to deploy peacekeeping forces is possible only with the consent of both parties, apparently meaning us and Ukraine.
No one asks us about this.
This wasn't even raised when I met with Secretary of State Rubio in Riyadh last week.
No, and again, I think this comes a bit out of the blue, but it shouldn't be seen as unexpected.
Indeed, when you hear Macron speak, when he spoke to Trump about what would create peace, as well as with different American journalists, He keeps making the point that we have to have a very powerful NATO presence to make sure that if conflict would start again,
that is if Russia does something wrong, that we would all act immediately and intervene.
Now, the problem is that...
This, again, is the vision that security is simply of NATO surrounding Russia, showing overwhelming force and deterring Russia.
But common sense security has deterrence and reassurance.
And no one ever actually addresses the Russian security concerns.
And again, this is what the Russians have been worried about.
They said this now for decades.
We won't have any NATO in Ukraine.
All of our politicians recognize this.
Angela Merkel, back in the time, argued that this would be considered a declaration of war by Putin.
We have CIA director, well, former now.
William Burns arguing that this would likely trigger a war with the Russians.
So everyone predicted, everyone knew this was going to happen.
But still, this is one of the key problems we have had in the unipolar order.
That is, we do not recognize the security concerns of our adversaries.
And that's what you see in the solutions of Macron as well.
Any piece simply has to be NATO having enough force to overwhelm and deter the Russians.
No one asks about the Russian security concerns.
The recognition of the security concerns of our adversaries, otherwise known as realism, as espoused by your colleague and our colleague, Professor John Mearsheimer.
Do these European politicians, and you can expand this to Chancellor-in-waiting Mertz, if you want to, do they actually fear a Russian invasion of their countries?
Does Keir Starmer think the Russians are going to invade Great Britain?
And does Emmanuel Macron think they're going to bomb Paris?
It's hard to say if they're honest, if they believe this, or if they're...
Either ignorant or deceitful, but it's also the rhetoric which is always very strange because it's like Schrodinger's Russia.
Either they are so hopelessly weak that they have to fight with shovels and backwards have to steal chips from washing machines, or they're this overwhelming force which is just a step away from invading all of Europe.
Of course, it's nonsense, but it all...
It goes back to the same narrative, which is what was the motivations by the Russians?
What were the motivations?
And we can't really admit that it was NATO who provoked the Russian invasion, because we made up our mind that if you admit that NATO provoked it, that means you're legitimizing the Russian invasion, and we can't have that.
So we make up this...
Fake narratives that this is simply a new Hitler waiting to conquer all of Europe.
And when we buy into this narrative where we don't recognize our involvement in starting this conflict, then we end up in a situation where everything happens in a vacuum.
And if you're fighting Hitler, then you can't make any compromises and you have to defeat him on the battlefield.
And I think that's why Hedges and the Americans have been quite wise in pointing out that we shouldn't only put all the blame on Russia, because once we do this, there's no path to peace anymore.
What is the geopolitical significance of the election of chancellor-in-waiting Mertz?
Well, he's in war, isn't he?
Yeah, very much so.
So before, you had Schultz now, and his party had a historical loss, and a lot of the voters went over to the party of Mertz.
But Mert was the one who previously were for sending Tauris missiles, which is the long-range missiles of the Germans, which would likely be operated by Germans as well, to fire deep into Russia.
So he was in favor of this.
He toned it down during the election because the Germans are getting quite worried about going to war against Russia yet again.
So it hasn't been that popular.
But no, he's very, very hawkish on Russia.
And interestingly enough, he's been very Atlanticist in the past, which means he wants to prioritize Europe's relationship with America.
But now that Trump is against all of this and wants to make peace in Ukraine, he's actually speaking openly about we have to learn to live without America.
We have to maybe create a partnership with the French and the British so we can continue this war against the Russians.
I mean, it's quite interesting.
Can NATO exist without America?
No, I think NATO is America.
Well, it's just to look at the weaponry, the capabilities.
It is America plus its allies.
So no, I don't think it can exist without the United States.
So I'm not even sure if Mertz is very serious about creating an alternative structure.
It might just be a warning to the U.S. that if you don't consult us, we might go our own way.
To be honest, I don't have a window into his head, so I'm not sure if he actually thinks there can be a NATO without the United States.
I think it would be weak.
And also, the good role the Americans play is they're a pacifier.
That is, they prevent the Europeans from going after each other.
If the Americans leave, the Europeans will quarrel, and they can't come up with a common position.
Well, the Europeans have no leverage with Trump whatsoever, do they?
No, not at all.
What is Prime Minister Starmer going to offer President Trump tomorrow besides a dinner with the king?
Well, this is the problem, I think.
I think they bought into their own propaganda that Trump is all about himself and all you have to do is flatter his ego and tell him what a great leader he is, that the Russians will fear him if he only puts his foot down and this kind of thing.
And then Trump will take the flattery and throw out his peace negotiations out the window.
But I assume that Trump can tell.
What is going on here?
But again, it goes back to our propaganda in Europe, that is.
Keep in mind that everyone in Europe was shocked when he won because none of our media reported on why the Americans were favoring Trump because of fear that this would legitimize him.
And no one has really explained the logic behind what Trump is doing in Ukraine.
Again, the war has been lost.
We keep thinking here in Europe that he's somehow selling out Ukraine and giving up and surrendering.
But the war has been lost.
It can't be won.
Every day, more people are dying.
More territory is lost.
We're moving closer to nuclear war.
We're pushing Russia closer to China.
This makes no sense anymore.
But we don't discuss the rationale behind this more realist policy.
As Hegseth said as well, the need to move away from this very dangerous idealism.
But instead, we speak about him as a cartoon, someone who's just looking to boost his own ego.
They might simply have bought into their own propaganda, I think.
What is the reaction in Moscow to Trump's outreach to Putin?
It must be one of delight and joy and even adulation.
They haven't seen this in a generation.
It is quite shocking.
I mean, keep in mind, all this happened over the past two, three weeks.
So I think they've been taken a bit back.
Some are very optimistic, obviously, because they never heard this rhetoric before.
Indeed, when Trump came out and said that NATO provoked the war, they never heard anyone actually recognize the Russian security concerns before.
And then they take NATO expansionism off the table.
It's just...
Again, they haven't seen this before.
And to call Putin a dictator.
Forgive me.
To call Zelensky a dictator.
The Russians despise Zelensky.
They must have been ecstatic that the American president called Zelensky a dictator.
They already argue, I think, quite correctly, he's no longer the head of state.
No, they don't consider him legitimate anymore.
So this is a...
Yeah, a key issue that the Russians bring up.
But I do have to point out that there's also some suspicions because they have had, through the years, they've had all these efforts to reset relations.
We remember Hillary Clinton with this reset button in which they're going to improve relations, and already they were planning the regime change in Kiev.
So it's all this concern that...
Yeah, that this will be another Minsk, that they're simply being taken for a ride.
So it's this bit of a mix, I think, between great optimism and a bit concerned that they might get roped into something.
Because the way they see it, the Ukrainian army is on the verge of collapse.
And now suddenly the Americans are opening their arms, suggesting that we can make a new peace.
And they're afraid that Putin is going to give up, make two great concessions.
At the risk of getting too into the weeds, I want to ask you this.
If Trump is truly in favor of peace, why is he willing to trade an agreement to own a share of the assets of Ukrainian mineral rights in return for what?
In return for continued military support of Ukraine?
Well, this is a bit unclear what the deal will have, but it doesn't seem like the United States has promised anything.
They've been clear that they're not going to give any security guarantees.
So at the time being, it might just look like it's free money, and it's also good for Trump.
His narrative was that Biden gave away all this American money in order to fuel a war, which led to all these deaths and took us on the verge of nuclear war and now, of course, pushing Russia away.
So he's going to do the opposite.
He's going to get all the money back and still make the peace.
So he hasn't actually promised anything away.
I think the Ukrainians are in a very desperate situation, though, because...
Yeah, they've had this quarrel now with Trump, and the way they see it, if the United States is handed over a significant part of Ukraine's resources, then America has an economic incentive to even take back some of these territories,
because where most of these rare earth minerals and other resources are, they're heavily concentrated in the East, in Donbass.
Actually, most of them are under Russian control, so I guess they're hoping that America will want to...
Well, that's not going to happen.
At least it's not going to happen under Trump.
This issue was raised by President Trump in the presence of President Macron.
I don't know if you've seen this.
It's an interesting clip.
Donald Trump famously doesn't like to be touched.
President Macron reaches over and grabs his arm, and then you'll see...
President Trump makes some faces and some hand gestures to show that, well, I'm not going to interrupt my guest, but I think he's crazy.
Cut number seven.
Just so you understand, Europe is loaning the money to Ukraine.
They get their money back.
No, in fact, to be frank, we paid.
We paid 60 percent of the total effort.
And it was through, like the U.S. Loans, guarantees, grants, and we provided real money, to be clear.
We have 230 billion frozen assets in Europe, Russian assets, but this is not as a collateral of a loan, because this is not our belonging.
So they are frozen.
If at the end of the day, in the negotiation we will have with Russia, they're ready to give it to us, super.
It will be loan at the end of the day, and Russia would have paid for that.
This is my wish.
If you believe that, it's okay with me.
I'm surprised they didn't say this is an American phrase, Professor Deason, with which you may or may not be familiar.
If you believe that, there's a bridge in Brooklyn I have for sale, going back to a movie in which various people sold the same bridge and none of them had the rights to sell it, of course.
I'm going to read what he said because his...
English was a little garbled there.
This is President Macron.
We have 230 billion frozen assets in Europe, Russian assets, but this is not collateral of a loan because this is not our belonging.
So they are frozen.
If at the end of the day in the negotiation we will have with Russia, they're ready to give it to us, super!
It will be loaned at the end of the day and Russia would have to pay for that and then Trump.
I guess we now know why at least the French want to be involved in these negotiations.
They think that Putin is somehow going to allow them to steal the Russian money in French banks.
Why would he ever go along with that?
No, and I think that the Russians are willing to make some concessions to the Americans about not the Europeans.
And there's an interesting comment which was made by the former Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, who argued that the non-Western countries who put sanctions on Russia, they will forgive them.
The Americans, they will be pragmatic and work with because they're relevant, but the Europeans who have been so hawkish and aggressive and now they're not that relevant, they would get punished.
And I think that any treatment the Americans get, the assumption that this will also apply to the Europeans, I think is very, very wrong.
Keep in mind, by the way, we talked about...
Zelensky giving away all this Ukrainian resources to Trump.
Putin has also reached out, actually, and suggested that the United States and Russia can cooperate on energy extraction in Russia, not just the territories which it acquired in Ukraine, which is the majority of the resources, but also in the larger Russia,
which is...
Which is a huge, huge deal.
So I think the Americans will get a good deal because they are getting all the energy projects now in Russia, all the economic cooperation.
Meanwhile, the Europeans, they ran their industries into the ground.
They cut themselves off the resources, and now they're not going to get any of the market share back in Russia either.
One of the first things that Foreign Minister Lavrov said when he was meeting with Secretary Rubio and others, In Riyadh was to remind the American side that American businesses have lost $330 billion in revenue due to the Biden-Trump.
I have to call it Biden-Trump because they're still in place.
Sanctions and I don't think there are any embargoes.
They're all sanctions.
Sorry, I'll just comment on Macron, though, because he also pointed out that we haven't taken or acquired or stolen the actual funds from the Russian Central Bank because that's against international law.
We've only taken the proceeds from these resources.
The interest that that money is generated.
Well, that's also theft.
That interest is not theirs.
It belongs to the people whose money is in the bank account.
Of course.
This is why it's so absurd that he would think that this is okay in international law to steal the proceeds from their sovereign funds.
But again, this is a bubble which has been created because here the narrative is, well, they should give it away because the war was illegal, so they have to now pay for it.
But this doesn't make any sense.
One can argue, of course, the invasion of Iraq was also illegal.
Is the rest of the world going to seize American assets, steal them, and do what they want?
I mean, this is a complete collapse of trust in the European financial system.
It's an exercise in self-harm.
But we're not able to criticize it here, because if you criticize it, then, well, you know, you're seen as being pro-Russian, and this is not allowed.
We painted ourselves in a corner.
Professor Deason, is the American empire shrinking?
Well, I think it appears so.
I think there is a case that can be made for imperial overstretch.
That is, an empire tends to be expensive, both in terms of money and legitimacy.
And I think it's been draining away for a while.
And we see...
Yeah, the infrastructure, of course, weakened.
The debt is now unsustainable.
I think a financial crisis is definitely coming, growing economic inequality, which leads to social tension, political polarization.
More importantly, I think, under the unipolar era, I think the empire was put on steroids if you're going to have global primacy dominate every corner of the world.
So what we now see is this unipolar world coming to an end.
And with the emergence now of multipolarity, the U.S. has to make priorities.
It can't be everywhere.
So this is why it's seeking to pivot a bit out of Europe and towards Asia.
This is why it's seeking to strengthen its position in the Western Hemisphere as a new market.
So I think it's scaling back.
And again, I think it's probably a positive development.
It's just worth pointing out that America was traditionally an offshore balancer, which meant it avoided a physical presence in Europe and the Eurasian continent.
And if it did enter war, it did it at the end when other actors had exhausted their resources.
And simply to impose a new balance of power so there wouldn't be one dominant state, and then pull out.
Because if the U.S. would stay there in Europe or Asia, it would be costly, and other powers would then begin to collectively balance the U.S. instead of each other.
And I think this is what's happened, and I think the U.S. extended itself, which is why there's now systemic incentives to pull back a bit.
Professor Deeson, a pleasure, my dear friend.
Thank you for being eyes and ears for us in the middle of Europe.
Much appreciated.
I hope you'll come back and visit with us again soon.
Oh, anytime, Judge.
Thank you.
All the best.
Coming up later today, actually pretty quickly, at 2 o'clock this afternoon, Phil Giraldi.
At 3 o'clock this afternoon, my longtime friend and hero in the Congress.
Representative Thomas Massey at 4 o'clock midnight in Moscow.
Pepe Escobar at 4.30.
The always worth waiting for, Colonel Douglas McGregor.
Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
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