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Sept. 18, 2025 - Health Ranger - Mike Adams
01:00:39
Glenn Diesen warns Europe and NATO it's time to ADJUST TO REALITY
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Again, I warned all the way Russia has an immense military power.
They would likely win such a war because they have the benefit of the proximity.
The idea that they could isolate Russia in the world, this was also a fantasy.
It's easy to be tough on Russia when we're using Ukrainians and throwing them into the grave.
If you want to compete in this high-tech era, you need access to cheap energy, as you did in all industrial revolutions.
Recognize reality and see the opportunities instead of trying to fight it.
And if we had had free speech in Europe still, we have the ability to dissent and talk, but I don't think we do.
Welcome to today's interview here on Brighton.com.
I'm Mike Adams, the founder of Brighton.
And today we have a very special guest.
It's the first time that he's joined us on this show.
But I have to uh confess I've been a fan of his work for uh several years now.
Uh frankly since 2022, with the start of the conflict in Ukraine.
His name is uh Glenn Deesson, and he's a professor of political economics.
He joins us today to discuss the political economic situation, which is very complex in Europe, and much more.
So welcome, Professor Deesson.
It's an honor to have you on today, sir.
Well, no, it's my pleasure.
Thank you so much for inviting me on.
Well, thank you for joining us.
Um, I think that many of our audience members may already be familiar with you and your work, but for those who are not, can you give us a brief background of uh who you are and what what you like to focus on?
Well, um uh as I said, I'm a professor of political economy.
My main interest initially was on the uh the construction of uh a new Europe after the Cold War, so the competing conceptions, what kind of Europe uh the Western Europeans wanted versus Russia.
And when all of this broke apart, that is the European security architecture fell apart in 2014 with the toppling of the government in Ukraine to uh to bring it into the NATO orbit, uh I started shifting focus more towards um what Russia would do economically.
So I wrote a book therefore in 2015 on the topic, uh the book was called Russia's Geoeconomic Strategy for Greater Eurasia.
So the argument it would diversify all its economic connectivity from the West towards the East, so primarily China, uh looking then at the technologies, industries, uh transportation corridors, uh, banks, payment uh systems, currencies, and uh yeah, everything in this regard.
And this happened around the same time as the Chinese were also seeking to develop a more alternative economic architecture.
So this couldn't happen at a worse time for the for the European studies.
And um, no, this was my focus, and uh again, I warned all the way, uh not just from 2014, but since 2004, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, that efforts to split um uh to cause divisions between Ukraine and Russia by pulling Ukraine into the Western orbit would uh likely result in war.
I warned against this all the way to 2014.
After 2014, I kept arguing that we need a political settlement, otherwise uh there will be war and uh Ukraine will be destroyed, and uh yeah, so which took us up to 2022, and I then wrote a book on the war, what uh yeah, how why it has happened and also how it would likely play out, and it has played out uh as I suggested.
And uh this is why it's quite depressing to see what's being what's happening now, which is the complete destruction of Ukraine.
The Russians aren't getting their uh offer of restoring Ukraine's neutrality, so they're instead stripping Ukraine of the regions which were historically Russian and making a basket case out of the rest.
So um uh yes, this is uh I don't like to be correct, but uh on this I was you you saw this coming, and it looks like your academic focus and your authorship research uh actually positioned you perfectly to understand what's happening today.
And look, I want to give out your your X account and your YouTube channel also.
So on X, your handle here is Glenn with two Ns, underscore Deeson, D I E S E N. For the for the Americans, it's spelled like diesel, but with an N instead of an L, in case you're wondering.
So Glenn Deeson, and then you also have a YouTube channel, and that's easy to find just by searching for Glenn Deesson.
And I'm a fan of your of your work on YouTube.
I I really appreciate your channel and the guests that you have on.
Now, uh despite the fact that you saw this coming and you warned about it, as you just described, are you shocked by how severely the West miscalculated in its ability to attempt to cripple Russia's economy?
When in fact the opposite has occurred.
The economies of Western European nations have been crippled, and Russia's economy appears to be stronger than ever before.
And the US itself is in a lot of economic trouble and resorting to tariffs, punitive tariffs on allies, in order to try to address trade imbalances through strangulation.
But what are you surprised at the miscalculation of the West?
Well, not really.
Well, the miscalculations were quite profound.
Again, when back in 2022, when the Russians went in, the argument was that Russia could be defeated on the battlefield if we just supplied the weapons.
We thought that Russia would uh collapse uh by the end of the weekend.
And of course, we're going to isolate Russia in the international system.
Now, of well, for many reasons, I think this was a lot of wishful thinking.
And we've kind of been talking about Russia as if it's this tiny economy smaller than Spain.
We've been saying that it's a gas station masquerading as a country, as John McCain labeled it.
So we kind of bought in, I think, to our own propaganda.
But in reality, Russia has an immense military power.
It's the largest nuclear power in the world.
They have an immense industrial capability to build up a war machine.
They always had as Obama one back in 2016.
They they would likely win such a war because they have the benefit of the proximity.
That is, they have the logistics in place.
And uh very importantly, they want this more as well, because for them this is an existential threat.
So they will go all the way and have the capabilities to go all the way.
And economically, again, this is what I was working on.
I even worked as a professor in Moscow, looking at this economic shift from uh the West to the East, that they wanted to decouple to be less dependent on Western technologies and industries and the maritime corridors and the Swiss payment system and the dollar and the euro and uh the banks.
So they've been working on this for quite some time to make their economy bulletproof or sanction-proof.
And lastly, the idea that they could isolate Russia in the world, this was also a fantasy, in my opinion, because the rest of the world isn't like NATO.
85% of the world's population live in countries which hasn't put sanctions on Russia.
And if you and even countries who oppose Russia's invasion of Ukraine, they don't want to see Russia defeated because that would mean uh a reverted an effort by the West to revert to uh the unipolar moment and uh they want to live in a multipolar world.
So uh so it's very difficult outside of NATO to get any countries to join on to this uh uh proxy war against the Russians.
So again, I tried to warn about this, but um we haven't had much um acceptance towards dissent here.
Uh when I warned that Russia would win the war, my the argument I heard back was I was trying to undermine the war effort.
Uh when I warned warned from day one that the sanction would have failed and it would hurt Europe instead of Russia.
I was told that this was an effort to undermine the sanctions.
So it's all commitment to to narratives.
So we have some phrases we have to say, we have to and yeah, and uh all dissent kind of gets just uh brushed off as uh uh you know picking the Russian side or you know, talking Kremlin talking points, all this nonsense.
So no, I think it was predictable.
That's insane.
I mean, we were living in a time of incredible irrational censorship.
And uh anyone who dares to think rationally and ask questions rooted in uh history and patterns or economics is is labeled, you know, a Russian sympathizer.
But let me let me let me ask you about energy, because Western Europe has suffered a catastrophic loss of access to uh affordable abundant energy from Russia.
Um, the Nord Stream pipeline's destruction, which I believe was carried out by the United States, uh, but I know opinions differ.
Uh, nevertheless, that that really cut off a critical uh artery of energy to Germany and and other countries.
And then now uh Russia and China announcing the new pipeline, the power of Siberia too, which will pipe uh, I think 50 uh million cubic meters of gas from the Yamal fields uh in northwestern Russia, the fields that used to supply gas to Western Europe will now be piped through Mongolia into northern China to power China's AI data centers and industrial robot factories and everything else.
What does this indicate to you in the big picture the complete reshifting of affordable energy supplies for Western Europe?
No, I think you're completely correct.
And this is why I also argue that it would hurt the Europeans more because Europe's economic partnership with the Russians uh was in great advantage to Europe.
That is uh they had seemingly unlimited uh amount of cheap energy which they could uh send to Europe.
And given that their main objective used to be creating a greater Europe, that means uh Europe where which includes Russia, they tend to prefer often uh Europe and the United States as partners in developing energy fields, all of this.
So they sent us energy, we exported the product um and different uh manufactured goods, and uh so this was good for our economies.
Uh especially for the German economy, as you mentioned.
This is the this was the economic powerhouse of Europe, and a lot of their industries are quite energy intensive, that is their heavy industries.
Uh now with cutting themselves off deliberately from Russian energy means that they can't compete anymore.
They mean they have a lot of problems, but one of them, one of the bigger ones is obviously the uh uh lack of access to cheap energy.
Uh so you're seeing now massive uh deindustrialization in Germany, and you had some uh offers from the United States under this inflation reduction act to this failing industries, they can move across the Atlantic.
So and some are going to China.
So overall, um Europe is not well, it's going out of business.
And uh and how are the Russians going to react to this?
And many people think that they're just gonna try to wait out the sanctions and then try to kiss and make up with the West.
But again, as I wrote a decade ago, the main objective for the Russians is to uh now reorient their economy towards the East, and any sanctions will just be used as an opportunity to intensify this process.
And this is why you led uh ended up now with this uh well, first in 2000 uh after the coup in 2014, you had the power of Siberia, and now you have this uh signing of the power of Siberia too.
Uh recently now in China for the Shanghai Corporation Organization meeting.
Now, this is quite dramatic, and as you said, this is not from the Asians part, Asian part of Russia, this is from the Arctic, from the Yamal region with gas, which was supposed to fuel the European economies for decades.
Instead, the Russians have now signed agreements and they will send them this all this gas, all this energy to China for the next decades.
And as you also correctly said, uh, this will fuel Chinese data centers.
Now, if you want to compare it, it's very critical.
If you want to be prepared for the new industrial revolution, consisting of uh artificial intelligence and you know, you need all this data centers, and this is gonna be very energy intensive.
So if you want to compete in this high-tech era, you need access to cheap energy, as you did in all industrial revolutions.
The problem for many countries uh across Europe, but also the United States, is that energy costs tends to be increasing, and this affects the way people vote.
And overall, uh it's gonna be difficult to stay in the AI race with this.
I mean, one place the energy costs are dropping, and this is China, they're building out in all areas, and now of course the Russians are giving them this massive injection.
So uh this was just stupid on every level.
And it was predictably stupid.
And if we had had free speech in Europe still, we had the ability to dissent and talk, we could have maybe prepared ourselves and uh avoided some of this worst consequences.
But uh yeah, but uh I don't think we do.
Well, well well said, and of course, all of us in America were always rooting for free speech for Europeans, but we're always disappointed uh by what actually happens, especially in in the UK, which I'll get to in in uh in a moment.
But about the electricity, you know, the the number one input into data centers is electricity.
And the cost of that input largely determines you know the efficiency of your operation.
You put electricity in and microchips, you get out intelligence.
Okay, you get you get cognition and you get superintelligence at some point here, many experts believe in the next few years.
Well, in the United States, especially in on the Eastern power grid, the cost of electricity in some areas is now 35 cents a kilowatt hour.
It's headed to 50 cents a kilowatt hour.
In China, they will be able to provide that to from five to 10 cents per kilowatt hour.
So we're talking one fifth or less of the cost of just power alone compared to the United States.
So a very strong competitive advantage in China, meaning they can build AI models for a fraction of the cost of the US, even in terms of comparable output in terms of cognitive uh capabilities.
What's your take on that?
Oh, I I couldn't agree more.
That's just the two things you need.
You need powerful data processing, which is uh the race for the you know, the computer chips, all of this, which the Chinese are not just catching up, but uh uh being able to pursue technological sovereignty in this area.
And the second is uh yeah, uh access to data, of course, but also energy.
You need energy, and this is why the the Chinese will uh uh I think it uh take leadership in this, and this is this uh will encompass all parts of the economy, because uh often one argues that the current industri uh industrial revolution is essentially everything plus AI.
And I think this is to uh a large extent correct, because in this what they call the fourth industrial revolution, it largely organizes around uh when digital technologies can be used to manipulate the physical world.
So um you see all industries, all aspects of societies will be influenced by this.
So to take the lead here is gonna be uh quite important.
And this is why it's very this is why the Chinese and the Russians are laser focused, because if you fall behind in industrial revolutions, this is what can crush uh country and a civilization.
And in the first industrial revolution, the Chinese and the Russians they did fall behind.
And this allowed them to be crushed in the mid-19th century, that is in uh 1853, the British and French went in and defeated the Russians in Crimea.
This was a huge humiliating defeat, which you know had many consequences.
And in China, they they defeated the Chinese and the opium wars, and they had their century of humiliation, which they've now recovered from.
But uh, this was linked to falling behind in the industrial revolution.
This industrial revolution, both the Russians and Chinese are focusing on technological sovereignty, avoiding excessive dependence.
And uh so they're they're doing quite well.
I think the the Americans uh despite the energy problems and many other issues, I think they will also come on top.
I mean, they but the Europeans, I think it's no I don't see any any good indicators at the moment.
Let me share something uh with you personally.
Uh you may not know this about me, but I lived in Taiwan.
I I speak some amount of Chinese, and my company is very Chinese language capable.
And uh we also build, we built our own AI engine uh uh called Enoch, and it's it's specifically trained on nutrition and phytochemistry and uh disease prevention through nutrition, et cetera.
Well, we found that the largest repository of information in this area was actually in uh simplified Chinese language uh uh in China.
And so we were able to acquire a massive amount of scientific research from uh from out of China in the Chinese language.
We use AI to translate it into English.
We use the English to train the model.
So our model is now the number one model in the world in our testing on uh nutrition and phytonutrients and so on.
That's due to Chinese research, because Chinese researchers are you know 500% more numerous than American researchers, especially on these topics, and the Chinese researchers are less biased because they don't have the big pharma overlay where pharmaceutical giants determine the science funding of you know whether you get a grant is whether you're promoting a drug or not.
China actually does real core botanical research.
Maybe that's some of the history Of traditional Chinese medicine.
But we found a gold mine of knowledge out of China for our AI model.
Does that surprise you?
Or is that in line with what you already know?
No, that sounds very much correct.
I mean the China that exists today is not the same China as 10 years ago.
China's developing very fast.
And this is also why I argue that this new distribution of power, this rise of new centers, the problem often, not just in Europe but the United States is also a tendency to always look at us look at it as a threat.
And I think a lot of the problems with the way we address China and the business opportunities which you suggest is I think we have been the past 500 years been kind of based on the West has based itself on uh with a dominance.
And it's very difficult to imagine a world where we're gonna have equals outside the Western world.
And uh but again, there are uh there are uh great opportunities if we work together.
And this is why, as well at this Shanghai corporation organization meeting.
I would have loved to see, if not at the meeting, then after the meetings, uh have the United States there as well, because three of the fourth, four largest economies in the world in terms of purchasing power or parity was present there the Chinese, the Indians, and the Russians.
Uh, who was missing from the top four tier was uh the United States.
And I think uh if they if they learn to harmonize interest, uh try to mitigate with the interest compete and uh try to shift from this unipolar order we had over the past 30 years, which is already over, and uh organized around a common uh multipolar system, which can benefit all, I think it would be uh yeah, everyone would gain.
And uh, as you said, that there's a lot of ways that the US could prosper if they would cooperate as well uh closer with uh with China.
So I think seeing the rise of all these other powers merely as a threat uh is uh resulting in missing out on a lot of uh opportunities.
And instead, uh one can't prevent a multipolar world from emerging, no matter how hard one tries, but the threat I see now is that a multipolar world is uh emerging in opposition to the United States instead.
The US could be like first among equals almost.
But instead, it's now the Chinese, the Indians, the Russians, they're all now carrying more and more grudge towards the United States.
And this is very, very unfortunate.
It's it didn't doesn't have to be this way.
It's a critical point that you make, Professor Deason, and uh I think I'll use that opportunity to state that both you and I, we we want, like I want America to do well.
You want Europe, you want Norway to do well.
We are not against our own countries, but we see that unless our countries are able to participate as equals in a multipolar world where trade is encouraged rather than war rather than even economic warfare.
If trade is encouraged, then we can all enjoy increased abundance.
But if we end up in these wars, the punitive tariffs, Trump is making enemies out of our friends, and both Trump and Western Europe are in are going to end up in an economic isolation situation where nobody wants to use the euro, nobody wants to use the dollar, nobody wants to use the yen, nobody wants to buy the treasury debt of the UK or Germany for that matter.
That will harm our people, your people and my people.
They will be harmed by these policies.
So we're actually fighting for our people by trying to help our leaders understand that we need to work in a multipolar world.
Does that sound correct to you?
I mean, I don't mean to put words in your mouth.
What would you say about that?
No, I I agree.
And uh I think this is why it's important to recognize the world as it is.
Uh I always make this point that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, I understand why many countries uh and many people saw an opportunity with the unipolar moment, that is, with only one center of power, uh because the argument could be organized around two principles.
One, with only one center of power, the United States, well, organizing the collective West, uh, it would uh end great power rivalry because uh there wouldn't anymore be any competition between the great powers because there would only be one.
Uh second, uh, because the US is a liberal democracy, it would seek to elevate these values in the international System and make it more benign.
So I understand all the uh optimism and the idealism around it.
However, uh it's also worth looking at what the critics said.
And they expected two things.
That is, over time, the United States as well as his partners would uh exhaust themselves.
That is, all the resources would be spent on uh maintaining this unipolar moment.
Uh so domestically would expect uh economic uh decline, uh yeah, more poverty, economic inequality, social problems, political polarization, and at the same time, uh, because uh one central power can only uh persist if the rising powers are kept down, so you would expect other rising powers, be it Russia, China, India, Brazil, uh, all of this would then seek to collectively balance the United States.
So this was the expectation.
Now I think it's uh you know, 30 years plus later we can conclude that this is what has happened.
Uh our economies aren't doing well, society isn't doing well, uh, our political systems are uh well obviously not well either.
And uh we see now a multipolar, prosperous part of the world uh building up, and we're not part of it.
And indeed, um some of it is becoming aimed against us simply because uh we're seen as attempting to go after them and break it.
So I my my argument is a very pro-Western one.
That is how should the West adjust to the current realities?
What is uh West, what would does the West look like which is not hegemonic, which doesn't dominate the world anymore?
Because it feels good and pretend to be patriotic if one just pretends that you know we can get it back, but this will only uh accelerate our decline and destruction.
Instead, we can realign, adjust to the multipolar realities, and there's a lot of opportunities there.
There's a lot of countries like Russia.
There's no reason we need to have a conflict.
This is not the Soviet Union, there's no communists there.
Uh, you know, they're a uh traditional European country.
Uh they're their main goal is uh, you know, it's has nothing to do with communism or empire.
Uh we can make peace.
We will have a lot of disagreements, but we should focus on where we can align our interests and where we can mitigate the competing interest.
And uh, you know, this idea that we have the only way you can solve a conflict with Russia, again, the world's largest nuclear power is war.
It's uh well, it's kind of insane.
And uh I just and I heard that this was an anti-American argument by some colleagues in Norway.
But you know, does do anyone think that this is really sustainable if one think we were in the 90s, all the Chinese Russians, their main foreign policy goal was to align closer with the US.
Now the United States is 37 trillion dollars in the hole, having growing social problems, uh political uh instability, it's uh its partnerships, uh alliances are beginning to fall a bit apart.
Uh you know, that there's no that there's no going back here.
I think this has been exhausted.
Uh you know, you one has to adjust to reality.
The cost of not doing it will be immense.
So I consider this a very pro-American and pro-Western argument to say recognize reality and see the opportunities instead of uh trying to fight it.
Well, I like your phrase that we we need to adjust to reality.
And yet uh I believe, um I I'm saying this as an American, I believe that our our Trump administration here is is not operating in economic reality.
And and I want to be clear, I I mean, I have a lot of ties to the people around Trump.
I was invited to attend Trump's inauguration.
I was recently invited to the White House.
Uh, not to meet with Trump, by the way, but just to meet with some other lawmakers there.
And I I said, no, yeah, I'm I'm busy.
I'm I'm trying to save America.
Uh I I'm not gonna go to DC.
I need to be in Texas doing what I'm doing here.
But my point is that Trump and the people around him, Bessent, Lutnik, uh Rubio, etc.
And this is not a personal attack on them, but I believe their economic theories are rooted in a bygone era.
Their economic theories are uh hegemonic Western dominance, which is we go around the world with our aircraft carriers and our bombs and our CIA and our assassins or whatever, and we just threaten everybody into compliance.
And they're still trying that, Professor Deason.
There's they still think that's going to work, and it just doesn't like that's over.
That is no longer the operating system of the world's economy, but they don't get it yet.
I'm frustrated.
Yeah, that's I think the what happened with India should have proven this because uh the main idea there was uh let's just put the pressure on India, threaten it with sanctions unless it cut its ties with Russia.
And uh again, they did they did the opposite.
And uh they said, well, we're not gonna abide by any of these secondary sanctions, we'll continue to trade with the Russians, and uh and then they went off to the SEO.
Well, uh Prime Minister Modi went off to the SEO meeting in China and you know, first time in seven years trying to improve relations there.
So uh and Trump's reaction was, oh, he has chosen China and Russia over us.
Well, I hope they'll be happy.
So this wasn't the point.
It's not that they chose China and Russia over the United States, it's just the United States was the only one who was demanding that they pick, because the the in a unipolar world, either like the United States would be the only game in town, and but in the multipolar world, you can preserve a lot of political autonomy if you uh diversify your economic ties.
Again, India doesn't want to only try trade with uh Russia and China, that would make them excessively dependent.
They would like to trade with everyone.
Right indeed, the Russians as well.
They're not the one to cut the economic ties with the Europeans and Americans.
They also want to diversify, they don't want excessive dependence on China.
But it was the United States that said us or them.
The Chinese and Russians never asked the Indians to choose.
And the Indians do not want to choose.
If they choose, they would have to be less prosperous because they would only have well less than half of the trading partners, and also they would no longer be able to have proper political autonomy because if you're only dependent on one actor which is more powerful than you, that asymmetrical economic interdependence can be converted into political influence.
And they're looking at Europe because we took that deal.
The Americans said, cut yourself off from Russia, China, Iran.
We did all of this.
And now America was the only trade partner we have.
And when Trump, you know, called over the Europeans to come to his golf course and sign whatever put in front of them, they signed it.
All the EU officials said this was a horrible deal to sign, but you know, we have to sign it.
So this is not what India wants.
They don't want to become a vassal.
And this is the main attractiveness of small, medium-sized countries as well as large ones like India.
They can have uh more independence if they diversify their economic ties, but they can't get trapped then.
It makes me wonder how Taiwan and Japan feel right now, also with you know, sort of choosing the United States as their military and economic and political partners, and then getting hit with uh tariffs or uh sometimes currency manipulations or or you know, the uh the Trump administration is trying to push Taiwan into it uh manipulating its own currency uh to favor the United States.
But I you mentioned the the secondary tariffs.
I was really shocked recently when Trump attempted what I would call tertiary tariffs when he said to the UK, we want you to sanction India because India buys energy from Russia.
And I'm like, now wait a second.
This is this, you know, three three orders of magnitude.
I mean, that that could involve any country on the planet.
What gives the US the right to tell uh country A to sanction country B for buying product C from country D?
It just seems completely insane.
Yeah, no, it doesn't uh work indeed.
And this is only something that will trigger more countries to seek to reduce their dependence on the United States.
So it's very counterproductive.
But a lot of this, and I mean it wouldn't be unique to the United States.
There's a lot of theories in political economy where they uh speculated that something like this would likely happen.
I remember reading articles uh well written early early 1980s, some late 70s, where they made a point that uh the US ability to act as a benign hegemon, that is in the economic uh sphere, uh to you know, give if uh have a liberal international economic system where everyone has access to the technologies and industries, they can sail the seas, no one will uh you know seize their ships, uh, they can use any banks, currencies, like this is a very liberal international economic system.
It was under the benign hegemon of the United States, but this is when there was a lot of economic power concentrated in the United States, and uh the US had an incentive to encourage trust in the US.
Now, what many people predicted then uh yeah, 45-50 years ago was well, what happens when the US is in relative decline and you have new centers of power emerging?
Because in such a situation, the US would be in an uh have an incentive to preserve its dominant position.
It would have an incentive to uh prevent the rise of others, so it would weaponize and uh essentially abuse its uh administrative control over the international economy.
So it would begin, for example, to seize oil tankers from Iran on the seas.
It would uh exist uh yeah, like this uh piracy on the high seas.
We're just stealing ships, stealing gold, stealing the sovereign funds of the Russian central bank, uh cutting off uh China's access to semiconductors and key technologies.
I mean uh shutting down Swift for countries uh who doesn't the US doesn't like, I mean, uh and but my point is when this happens, what happens?
Will will countries just fall in line and bow to the United States?
Well, some did, like Japan in the 80s because they were had high security dependence, but for other countries, they're saying they're saying no, and indeed the pressure is only incentivizing them to decouple faster.
And that's from my perspective, this is what happened with uh India.
And um, and uh yeah, the the one exception is is the Europeans, and that's partly because of the war in Ukraine, that it terrified the Europeans, and they the Americans are the main security providers, so the US can convert this security dependence into both political and economic loyalties.
So the Europeans will do as they're told.
But earlier on you mentioned uh the energy aspect and the destruction of Nord Stream, which you think the United States was behind, and I share that uh conviction, by the way.
But keep in mind what what actually happened, because it's quite remarkable when the rest of the world looks at Europe, we we can't talk about it, so we don't realize it.
But when Nord Stream was destroyed, uh we all had to say, oh, all the signs are pointing towards Russia, that they destroyed their own gas pipelines.
And uh we had talk about this being an attack on NATO, whether or not this will be war.
Uh the most dramatic things.
We used this to escalate uh the war in Ukraine, we used it to militarize the Baltic Sea and anger the Russians further.
And then later on, we find out that well, uh we knew all along it wasn't the Russians that uh, but you know, we have a new story that the Ukrainians did it, we tried to stop them, but it was too late.
Uh and that's where the story ends, and now nobody wants to talk about it because there's no good narrative.
Right.
But what what they now saying, then what is the only thing you can conclude from this is that uh they they knew that it wasn't the Russians, but they lied anyways, so they could uh escalate to one Ukraine, so they could get um more of the uh militarization of the Baltic and get more loyalty from the Europeans.
And in Germany, they don't talk about it.
The politicians, the media, they don't want to talk about the Nord Stream because they now they're asked, you know, who destroyed it?
Uh was it Ukrainians or the Americans?
Well, either way, it's our friends.
And uh so if there's no good narrative, what do you do in Europe?
Don't talk about it anymore.
Because uh you know, here in the States, we we view Germany's uh current leaders as I mean, frankly, we just call them a suicide cult or economic suicide cult.
And you know, we we prefer the AFD uh party members who are also apparently being hunted or removed or killed or whatever's happening there, we don't know exactly.
But it it it strikes me that you know Western Europe had, especially uh in out of the UK and also Macron in in France, they they are not living in reality.
They they they talk very aggressively and fiercely about how they're going to militarily defeat Russia, but they have no means to achieve that.
They talk about how they're going to uh rebuild their economies, but they've lost their affordable energy supply.
Uh they talk about how they're gonna make their nations great, but in effect, they are at war with their own cultures and their own people in so many cases.
Um is there some kind of bizarre now?
I I'm not trying to get you in trouble.
Obviously, you're already under enough attack uh uh from Europeans, but from my perspective as uh as an American and a very independent, you know, Texan.
Um is there an affliction among like the Western European leaders?
Do you have to be insane to to run for office in the UK or something?
what is going on?
Why can't they why can't they protect their own nation's interests?
Well it's hard to say, but uh but but when you talk about you know Europe losing its mind, it's it's worth noting that uh it's it could just be the leaders because the the leaders uh are not uh they are not that popular indeed.
I would argue, yes.
There's a massive legitimacy crisis among the political leadership.
So you have uh you mentioned Germany, you have Chancellor BlackRock Merz, who who is uh immensely unpopular in the UK, you have Starmer also uh just very widely despised, and of course Macron.
But uh so how do they hold on to power?
Well, the most popular party now in Germany is uh IFD, which is uh was only established in 2013, and uh so how do they deal with this?
This new opposition which is against the wars and wants to make friends with Russia and try to re-industrialize.
Well, they they they labeled it an extremist organization, so now the intelligence agencies go after it, and the media politicians are openly talking about uh whether or not to ban it.
This is the largest, most popular party in Germany.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And in France they arrested the opposition leader, the Le Pen.
That's right.
And so in Romania, they reversed the election results because someone claimed it was Russian interference.
It wasn't, but nonetheless, he has to go.
And uh it's just uh they they lie over and over, and uh same as Makron, because the all all narratives kind of have to serve the same objective, especially in Ukraine, they have to keep the war going.
So you have these speeches by Macron where they say, Oh, listen, the Russians they're not winning.
Look how little territory they have taken.
But you know, everyone knows that this is a war of attrition.
They're the Russians aren't prioritizing territory, they're prioritizing the destruction of the Ukrainian army and uh yeah, armed to the teeth by NATO, and they're doing this.
And once the army is destroyed, uh and the f the front lines aren't that well defended, the Russians don't have to send a lot of manpower and equipment to take well fortified uh defensive line.
They will just walk in, and that's what that's what's uh beginning to happen now.
So they're deceiving all along, the economic state, the military, uh the world, every the whole world is against Russia, then it's not.
This is just for domestic consumption.
It's and people are starting to see through this.
Yeah, yeah, and uh I agree with you, and and I have nothing against the the citizens of Germany or France or Poland or the UK, and and uh we saw the a massive outpouring protest in London uh just in the last few days, potentially millions of people protesting uh against uh uh Kirst Armer and censorship and government corruption.
But if if I'm a citizen of of Germany today, let's say if I if I own a business that needs to use energy to manufacture something, I'm not thinking that Russia is at war with me.
I'm thinking that my own government is at war against me.
Like why why is my own government blocking our ability to have access to affordable energy to create jobs and to build products and to export products out of Germany?
I like the the impediments to my success as a German business owner are not overseas, they're right there in Berlin.
At least that's what I'm thinking, if I'm a German citizen.
Well, I think more people are thinking like this because uh they have enough um uh mismanagement by their own governments.
I mean, nobody really thinks uh who thinks that Russia's planning to invade Poland.
I mean, is no, it's absurd.
It is absurd, but uh and again the the the there's so much data as well, so much it's uh obvious that they they they invaded because uh NATO tried to pull Ukraine into the orbit.
I mean uh this was predicted by many people, even the in Germany, the former Chancellor uh Angela uh Markel, she even warned that if we try to bring Ukraine into NATO, the Russians would interpret this as a declaration of war.
This is why they were cautious back in 2008, and now we're pretending as if no, no, no, this is completely unprovoked, they're not worried about NATO expansion.
I mean in the United States you have uh well many leading ambassadors, uh uh diplomats, you have a former CIA director, William Burns, who also argued then back in 2008, if we try to pull Ukraine into the NATO orbit, uh then uh likely there would be a civil war, which there was, and the Russians would then intervene, likely on the side of uh the Ukrainians in the East, uh for f and which they did.
So it's uh like this was predictable, and and but but also people start to see through some of the stories they're being told, because uh when we escalate this proxy war against uh uh the world's largest nuclear power, uh it's always out of altruism.
It's always we really just want to be good to Ukraine, we want to help them.
Meanwhile, in reality, we see that uh the polls show that the vast majority of Ukrainians, the last one I saw from Gullup was 69% of Ukrainians want immediate negotiations to put an end to the war.
And uh, but our leaders in Europe, they don't even want to sit down and talk to Russia.
They say that it this is dangerous, it might embolden Putin.
So we're not gonna sit down and talk to him.
Instead, we're backing Zelensky, which is hunting Ukrainians to send to the front line.
So it's just this idea that we're here to help Ukraine.
I mean, it's the people who actually look into the data, and you can go to BBC or any Western media, which I always also cite mostly my book.
Uh they did the Ukrainians didn't, majority of Ukrainians didn't support the coup in 2014.
Uh they didn't uh want uh the the intelligence services and all to be hijacked by Western powers.
The 73% voted for Zelensky in 2019 uh to implement uh uh the peace mandate, and he was uh bullied into reversing this.
I mean, time and time again we see that the will of the Ukrainians is ignored uh because we in NATO label it uh capitulation and being weak on Russia.
So it's easy to be tough on Russia when we're using Ukrainians and throwing them into the grave.
Let me mention uh some of your books available on Amazon and uh booksellers everywhere.
One is called the Ukraine War and the Eurasian World Order.
I think is that the most recent one, Professor?
Uh yes, that's the most recent one.
Okay.
And then there's the think tank racket managing the information war with Russia, uh, Europe as the Western Peninsula of Greater Eurasia.
Um I'm curious, do you do you speak Russian?
Poorly, yes.
Poorly, yeah.
Okay.
I I hear you.
Yeah.
I uh you know, I I speak some Chinese, but I I can't read it.
So whenever I'm in Taiwan, uh I have to ask people what the road signs say.
So yeah.
Oh no, I can read road signs, I've just met when I used to work there, but when I was teaching, they didn't want me to teach in Russian, they wanted me to teach in English, so their students would be more proficient in English as well.
So I I um I didn't learn proper.
Uh and uh but uh understandable.
Yeah, but uh but I lived uh a few times like I lived in Russia in 2006 and then 20 uh 11 and 12 and then 2018, 19 and 20.
So I I did catch on some of it, but uh but I I couldn't teach a class uh even if I would read it off a sheet, unfortunately.
Well, and and I find that people like you and I and most of our audience they're they're also very sophisticated and well-traveled people.
Uh but those who have ventured outside their home country, uh they tend to have the the most accurate reality-based perspective on what's happening with our world.
Uh whereas you know, those who have never left home, uh you know, it's it's a very distorted view.
But I'd like to ask your view on where this goes with Ukraine.
Given that uh Trump is essentially saying he's trying to extricate, I think, the United States from the conflict.
He's trying to essentially dump it on European leaders.
Uh he hasn't yet been able to fully achieve that.
But you recently said Zelensky's gonna have to make a deal.
Yeah, that's kind of obvious at some point.
Um where do you think this is going?
Well, if we can just briefly um uh say something related to what you said about uh yeah, travel abroad, it helps to take a more critical view.
I think it's it's important because this is one of the problems I think in uh international security affairs, but that is in human nature, it's in our instinct to organize in groups, uh that's in-group us versus the outgroup the other.
And whenever there's uh external threats, we fear feel a strong impulse to fall in line and support the home team, which is uh good human instinct.
You want to you know come around a group and seek a common defense and security if you see external threats.
The problem is in international security, uh we have something called security competition.
All countries are competing for security.
And if you want to have peace, you have to manage and reduce the security competition.
So this is why the first thing you want to do is put yourself in the shoes of the opponents.
That is, you know, what are the Russians worried about?
What are the Chinese worried about?
Not everything has to end in a war if you can reduce their security concerns as well.
Because we're all threatening each other's security.
If America builds missiles, the Chinese will be worried.
Chinese build missiles, America would be worried.
So but the problem is we we don't do this at all.
We never ever, I mean, uh in Europe ever talk about Russian security concerns, Iranian Chinese, this is near treason.
So but if you can't mitigate the security concern of your opponent, then security can only be achieved through victory on the battlefield.
And that's why war is the only approach we have to conflict.
The wolf of it Wolfowitz doctrine and you know the point of view of America has been that Russia doesn't have a right to have its own interests.
Yeah, but that's the default position.
Yeah, and and and this is part of the problem with the the ideology because liberal democracy was supposed to elevate some benign values and make this international system better, but instead we see it fueled ideological fundamentalism, because now we say, well, we're democracies, we're good, the other side is bad.
So for example, with the Russian uh invasion of Ukraine, I would say, well, I think the United States would do exactly the same.
If uh China or Russia tried to uh bring uh Mexico into military alliance, uh put its uh long-range missiles in Mexico, build up military bases there, take over its intelligence services, as uh we did in Ukraine.
What what what would the United States do?
Well, of course, it would react very much like Russia is.
Uh but if you put this uh hypothesis or premise to someone, they would say, Oh, well, you know, we we're a democracy, there's no reason to worry about us on the Russian border, but we have to rush worry about Russia because they're authoritarian.
So we're leaning into the ideology, instead of being a source for stability and peace, we're making it uh into this uncompromising struggle of good versus evil, where they yeah, the conclusion is that any diplomacy is treason while uh while defeating them on the battlefield is the path to peace.
And yeah, diplomacy is treason.
Right.
That's if you bel if your national lead leaders believe that diplomacy is treason, then you will never have peace.
Which is what you're saying.
Well, the former Norwegian Prime Minister, which was the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, he you know, he coined that term, uh, weapons are the path to peace, which is a horrible slogan for a defensive alliance, but you know, nothing seems to make much sense anymore.
Yeah.
Um back to my question, though.
How do you think this ends up?
A bit of a D detour there.
No, that's that's good.
Well, I think uh I do think that he would uh you know he still would like, I think, to contain the Russians, but uh I think he wants to outsource this whole thing to the Europeans because uh the main objective I think of the United States is it sees the multipolar world emerging, China is the main adversary.
So, you know, ever since Obama he said you know, we have to pivot to Asia.
If you pivot to somewhere, you have to pivot away from something.
And the main area they want to pivot away from is Europe.
I mean, it's not the center of the world anymore, it's not really relevant economically, politically, or well, anything.
So they would like to reduce their presence in Europe and shift their for uh their focus and resources towards the East.
So does this mean that the Americans uh have to give up on containing Russia?
Uh well, not necessarily.
I think it can mean two things.
Yes, one, it means try to make friends with Russia, but alternatively just uh outsource the hostility to the Europeans.
They uh they they still want to confront Russia.
So now the United States has diplomatic efforts with Russia, they want to improve bilateral relations.
Uh I think the Russians sees that uh Trump simply, you know, he wants to not give away weapons to Ukraine, but instead sell and make money.
So it's not as if they will become best of friends, but still, this is better than the Biden, so they will take this um at least as a step in the in in the right uh direction.
But uh yeah, I mean imagine if if well you see the Ukraine war failing, it's being lost, this is gonna be a horrible disaster, and then the United States can say, well, we don't want to focus on this anymore, and the Europeans step up and offer, well, we can take over, and they will then have to take the blame when the whole thing falls apart.
It's a pretty good deal.
And uh I think that's the direction the US is going.
There are there are some analysts who believe, and some I've interviewed, like uh Tom Luongo believes that that Trump is actually at war with the city of London, that uh Trump's policies are designed to weaken or even uh destroy the Great Britain uh power base there for a number of reasons, uh including the fact that MI6 ran the uh Russia hoax against Trump, by the way.
Um but there are other economic reasons, and perhaps this explains the repatriation of gold to to New York out of London and the LBMA, etc.
Uh do you give any credence to that theory that Trump is secretly at war with London?
Uh it could be.
He doesn't seem to be too happy about uh uh well, a lot of the Europeans he also said the same about the EU that you know it was developed to you know to screw us, he said, and uh you know they're worse than China.
So he uh so obviously he does have a problem with it.
But with with Britain, uh I I think he's also well aware that uh uh Starmer and them, they were campaigning essentially for Kamala, not uh you know against him and the Russia gate issue.
Uh, don't think it's forgotten either.
Um so no, it it is quite possible.
Again, uh it's hard to read Trump at times.
I mean he talks a lot and he shifts from the one day to the other, but uh uh but if you look at what he actually does, it's uh there seems to be a bit more consistency.
Uh and uh uh so it is it is possible.
And uh again, I think the whole way I mean it's just not just Trump.
If you look in the United States on the conservative side, I think uh um there's um shift in the attitude towards Russia because well, look at it like this, after the Cold War was over, we decided to re-divide Europe anyways, uh to keep the Russians on the outside, and we then reinvented the ideological divide to justify the re-division of Europe.
So we said, Oh, the world is divided between liberal democracies and authoritarian states.
And we said, well, Russia belongs to this camp.
This is why we have a divided Europe organized around EU and NATO.
Now uh so this is kind of how every conflict in the world has to be seen.
Uh we don't have to know where countries on the map, but we're told it's liberal democracy versus authoritarianism, so this is how you engineer consent and well public support.
But uh but uh you know Russia's not a communist state, it's becoming a Christian conservative country.
So when you see the Tucker Carlsons and other people on the political right, they're envisioning the divisions of the world differently.
They don't see liberal democracy versus authoritarianism, because let's be honest, we're becoming quite authoritarian now in the West as well.
Uh instead they're seeing it as um uh well uh almost liberal loons uh going a bit too far versus conservatives and uh I would I would categorize uh Russia now as a very conservative state.
They went through this revolutionary uh regime in the Soviet Union and they would like now to revive a lot of their traditional Christian values and um yeah, so this is and not that unlike Hungary or Poland or others who want to restore what was lost during the communist era.
So I think for many they don't see it as uh as many conservatives in US and Europe have noted.
They don't see the divide being liberal democracies versus authoritarian, but they see it as being um uh well uh patriots versus cosmopolitans or or um yeah, conservatives versus uh this uh woke liberals.
So I think uh the whole way that they're looking at uh the world has shifted.
So if the when they look towards Germany and the UK, how they're running their country, seeing that they're kind of uprooting their uh traditional heritage and uh you know fighting this uh forever liberal wars which is uh ruining their economies, I think they they they don't see this as necessarily playing for our team anymore.
And uh I I wouldn't dismiss that Trump C sees it in this way as well.
Okay, last question for you, Professor, and and again, thank you for your time today.
Uh it's a real honor to be able to speak with you.
Um I want to ask you about BRICS settlement systems and currencies.
And of course, we have the SCO meeting recently, but the BRICS nations who are increasingly moving away from using the dollar as a settlement currency.
Most trade between India and Russia, for example, is carried out in their own domestic currencies.
And trade imbalances between many of these nations, including China, may be settled with gold, it seems, or gold uh sort of gold claims, you know, claims to the gold that's in the vault in whatever country.
Um the fact that the the West has uh effectively stolen 300 billion dollars from Russia seems to be the worst economic mistake that in history in turn if you want to have uh uh if you want to run the infrastructure of international uh currency and settlement.
Uh uh how rapidly do you think non-dollar trade will uh eclipse uh the dollar trade that currently exists on our planet.
Well, I I I think you're correct that this is the main uh that we don't appreciate what a shock this is to the international economic system.
Uh we often just taper over it with this different moral argument saying, well, Russia's an aggressor, it's just reasonable they have to pay reparations to Ukraine, but this has never been done before.
This is uh this would upset everything.
You can argue the same with Iraq that oh, the United States should pay reparation to Iraq.
But if uh every country around the world starts seizing American assets and sovereign funds uh to hand it over to Iraq or give it to someone who's fighting against America.
I mean, it would be absurd.
The whole economic trust in international economic system would fall apart.
And that's exactly what's happening.
I mean, in Europe, they created some narratives that oh no, no, we're sort of stealing the actual, we're just stealing the proceeds from it.
So that's not theft.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So but it is theft.
They have stolen.
And uh not just freezing it, but stolen it.
And uh and this is a huge concern because the Chinese know they're holding a lot of dollars and they know that they're next.
Uh, but also uh countries like India would be worried because uh we can't we might go after them as well if they don't fall in line.
Uh so overall there's two main concerns.
Uh again, the Europe is uh basket case as well, but uh only to folks on the United States, I think uh they look towards the debt, which is unsustainable, but it's also being weaponized.
So you never know if this is actually still still your money.
So this is a huge uh motivation for why they would like to shift into different currencies, uh, either trade in national currencies, do something with a gold, uh possibly establish some uh common currency.
Uh but uh again, it's uh the world has been on the dollar for so long.
It's it's a bit of a learning curve, and even the Chinese, they they they do often like to use the dollar as well.
So they're not ready to ditch it uh just yet, but they are when this I mean we can see where this is heading.
Uh it's going towards a cliff.
So where when things go bad, they don't want to be in a position like in 2008 where there's no alternative.
So they want to be able to lean into some options.
And I think once you have this new economic architecture being built with new centers of technology, new uh supply chains, these transportation corridors, banks and currencies, and payment system alternatives to SWIFT, uh, you would like to facilitate it in some kind of an institutional arrangement.
And this is where institutions like BRICS comes in, but also the Shanghai Corporation Organization.
So they're developing uh development banks, and the main idea is to become um less developed, sorry, um uh less dependent on the political West.
Uh so this is uh when I'm arguing against putting uh more sanctions on the Russians, like warning against stealing their sovereign funds.
For me, this is uh, you know, often they say, oh, you're supporting the Russians then, but this is this is suicide.
Uh no one will trust us ever again, and they're not.
Uh so it's a massive mistake, I think.
It is.
Uh It's it's a reputation suicide of the Western financial infrastructure.
I mean, who what other country would not conclude that we have to have an alternative based on what the West and Europe is doing to Russia's uh you know holdings.
Anyway, uh, thank you so much, Professor.
It's been an honor to speak with you today.
I really appreciate your time.
Let me mention your website again or your your Twitter handle is Glenn underscore Deeson, D-I-E-S-E-N.
And I encourage people to follow you.
I'm going to click follow right here.
I'm gosh, I thought I did follow you.
Uh maybe X unfollowed you from me.
I I don't know.
I've had that happen before.
Anyway, I'm following you now.
And then also we've got your books here on uh Amazon and other booksellers, the Ukraine War and the Eurasian World Order.
Is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap this up?
No, uh well, please follow here.
My if you want to check out my uh YouTube channel as well.
Uh YouTube, yes.
I think mom mostly yeah, no.
I got new interviews every day.
So um yeah.
Uh and uh of course to you, thank you so much for uh yeah inviting me on your program.
It's a great privilege.
It's an honor to have you on.
You've been a great educator.
I've learned a lot from you over the years of listening to you, and I think that economics is the key area of knowledge that will help us understand the world.
Because what is economics but the study of human behavior involving value, right?
I mean, it's so thank you so much for all that you do.
Have a great rest of your day.
Thank you for joining us.
Thanks.
All right, folks, that was Professor Glenn Deeson, just uh an extraordinary brilliant mind and a courageous voice, who is uh I I believe his his convictions are rooted in reality.
So you would do well to follow his channel and read his books and learn from him.
And as always, feel free to repost this interview on other channels and platforms.
I'm Mike Adams, the founder of Brighton.com, and thank you for joining us today.
Uh take care, everybody.
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