Judging Freedom:  Has war transformed Russia?

JAfter the two fallow weeks when Judge Andrew Napolitano was away on vacation, it was very good earlier today to resume our weekly online chat about developments in global politics as seen from the Russian perspective.

Our discussion topics included how the war in and about Ukraine has transformed the Russian nation as its military successes against the whole of NATO and the growing prosperity of its working and middle classes in the face of the ‘sanctions from hell’ imposed by the United States and its allies overcame a decades-long inferiority complex that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Among other topics was the current official Russian position with respect to the American presidential election in November now that Joe Biden, Putin’s originally preferred candidate has bowed out and Kamala Harris has become the presumed candidate of the Democrats.

We talked about Putin’s ‘mirror image’ plans for countering American installation of Tomahawk cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles in Germany in 2026.

I am hopeful that viewers will find value in these various information points and come back for more next week.

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus) followed by full transcript in English

Judging Freedom: Hat der Krieg Russland verändert?

Nach den zwei ruhigen Wochen, in denen Judge Andrew Napolitano im Urlaub war, war es heute sehr gut, unseren wöchentlichen Online-Chat über die Entwicklungen in der Weltpolitik aus russischer Sicht wieder aufzunehmen.

Zu unseren Diskussionsthemen gehörte, wie der Krieg in der und um die Ukraine die russische Nation verändert hat, da ihre militärischen Erfolge gegen die gesamte NATO und der wachsende Wohlstand ihrer Arbeiter- und Mittelschicht angesichts der von den Vereinigten Staaten und ihren Verbündeten verhängten “Sanktionen aus der Hölle” einen jahrzehntelangen Minderwertigkeitskomplex überwunden haben, der auf den Zusammenbruch der Sowjetunion folgte.

Ein weiteres Thema war die derzeitige offizielle russische Position in Bezug auf die amerikanischen Präsidentschaftswahlen im November, nachdem Joe Biden, Putins ursprünglich bevorzugter Kandidat, nicht mehr antritt und Kamala Harris die mutmaßliche Kandidatin der Demokraten geworden ist.

Wir sprachen über Putins “spiegelbildliche” Pläne zur Abwehr der amerikanischen Aufstellung von Tomahawk-Marschflugkörpern und Hyperschallraketen in Deutschland im Jahr 2026.

Ich hoffe, dass die Zuschauer einen Nutzen aus diesen verschiedenen Informationen ziehen und nächste Woche wiederkommen, um mehr zu erfahren.

Transcription by a reader

Judge Andrew Napolitano: 00:32
Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for ‘Judging Freedom”. Today is Thursday, August 1st — August 1st, where’s the summer going? 2024. Professor Gilbert Doctorow will be with us in just a moment on: is the war in Ukraine transforming Russia?

[Omitted commercial message.]

02:05
Professor Doctorow, good day to you, my friend, and thank you so much for joining us. We have many things to discuss. I’d like to start with Russia. Do you think that the war in Ukraine is transforming Russia, either the government or the people or their relationship to the government?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 02:24
Well, I’ve started to get my mind around this question because I received an invitation by an academic in Florida to contribute to a book he’s publishing in the UK, and I was given the chapter precisely on this question of Russian self-conception and how wars make nations. In Western media, there has been occasional mention of the new Ukraine, of the Ukrainian national concept that has taken hold as a result of the pressures of the war and the patriotism that war necessarily stirs up. But they have given no attention to the other side of the equation. What has the war done to Russia? And that’s something that I have noted in a variety of ways by visiting Russia and by following their media.

03:15
The biggest change has been a realization of the power and importance of their own country, something about which Russians were skeptical. They had been running an inferiority complex from the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, and it took a long time to recover from that. Just this particular war and the understanding of the military achievements of their country up against not just Ukraine, although that is a formidable enough power as the war started, but against the whole of NATO. They follow the news. The news in Russia is understated, underplayed. They do not behave in a boastful way on Russian news stations or commentary. But there’s enough information in following the daily action on the front for the Russian viewer to understand that his country is achieving something quite remarkable and unexpected.

04:16
I go back to the last presidential election when the the Democratic-Liberal groups, Yabloko is the best known among them, who were opposing President Putin’s re-election and who were saying that what he was trying to do was unrealistic, given that Russia accounts for only 3% of global GNP, and how could it possibly on that basis be, consider itself, a peer of the United States with its vastly greater national wealth. Nonetheless, the reality on the ground in the daily reports proved to the Russian public that their country has possibly the most effective army in the world for the type of fight that’s going on, a land war against Ukraine.

05:05
I don’t say in every sense, of course. Everyone knows, that a country like Russia, I mean every Russian knows, cannot be placed on the same status as the United States with its 900 or whatever military bases around the world. But for the sake of preserving its own sovereignty, I think Russians are persuaded that their country is quite extraordinary, and they are revising their feelings about their homeland. And that comes up in all aspects. Russian culture is changing in many ways before our eyes due to the modernization of transportation, the upgrading of retailing, and other developments that affect everyone every day. I see this, even my last experience a month ago, two months ago, in St. Petersburg, taking taxis.

06:08
Whereas going back, all of my experience for the last two decades was the taxi drivers, I called them the voice of the people, and one of my sources of information about the country, but most of the taxi drivers I took were listening to, shall we call them opposition, if not seditious radio stations. This was a matter of course, when you got into a taxi, you understood that they were probably listening to the equivalent of dozhd’, of rain. These were strictly anti-Putin. Now, the Russian taxis, in line with many other changes in Russian commercial life, are being driven by young ambitious men who don’t talk politics and who certainly don’t listen to seditious radio stations. They instead have their minds fixated on where they’re going to get spare parts for their Chinese imported cars, and they will very happily engage you in discussion of that.

07:11
The negative feeling, the black humor that was so customary in my period when I lived in Russia, which is the 1995-2002, and in the decades since which I visited, that has dried up. Friends and acquaintances whom I would consider an intellectual community– and these were among the majority of our acquaintances, but by no means all– they were always, by nature, very skeptical of their government and very enamored of travel to Western Europe and the world at large. They have changed their mindsets, and the war has been the greatest determinant of that. They understand fully that the West, the United States-led West, is looking for the destruction of their country. And necessarily, they have had to accept somewhat reluctantly that the West that they adored is no longer a friend and was unlikely to be a friend in the generation to come.

Napolitano: 08:14
About a year ago, I interviewed a Russian businessman who himself was a retired FSB agent, and I asked him, what do the Russian people think of Joe Biden? And as soon as the question was translated, I saw a smile on his face from ear to ear, and the answer came back. Judge, when we often walk down the street with each other, we high five and say, thank you, Joe Biden. He has unified the country. He has caused us to become economically independent, and we’re actually more prosperous than we were before the sanctions were imposed. Do you agree with those observations? And again, this is about a year ago.

Doctorow: 09:00
Let me comment on the last sentence you made about more prosperous. I’m asked occasionally when I speak publicly by people in the audience, what do you recommend that we read or listen to in order to be better informed about what is going on in the world and in particular in the East-West confrontation that we see in our newspapers, but which is always colored by the Washington narrative. What do I recommend? Well, some, I usually say, just read what you read, but be more attentive to what’s in front of your eyes. Or watch the BBC, but look for the discrepancy between what the presenter is saying to you and the images that you find in the background.

09:42
This discrepancy tells you that there is a false overlay, an editorial overlay, which is in contradiction with the realities. And so it is– the “Financial Times” three or four days ago had a feature article, must be five or six tight pages, on the prosperity of today’s Russia, which they described in great detail, how incomes of rust-belt towns, in one- industry towns, which had fallen into absolute poverty in the 1990s, these had been revived, and people are now earning 10 times what they did just a couple of years ago. Our truck drivers in Russia are now earning the equivalent of 2,000 euros a month. This is– a great deal of wealth has come into the pockets of working-class and middle- class Russian citizens. And that, of course affects their feelings of patriotism and enthusiasm for the powers that be. Now, this was in the “Financial Times”, and I make that point.

Napolitano: 10:46
Right, right. And the “Financial Times” is not particularly pro-Russian, and not at all, in the war in Ukraine. If anything, it’s one of Kyiv’s cheerleaders, is it not?

Doctorow:
Definitely. They like the New York Times. They try to put a spin– that is, the editorial. I don’t distinguish between the journalists, many of whom are excellent professionals, and the people who publish what they write, and the copywriters who put the titles, the headings on their articles, titles which often contradict the content, particularly if you go down three or four pages.

Napolitano: 11:29
I agree, I agree. I read the “Financial Times” every day. I agree with you fully on your analysis of it. I want you to listen to a retired British colonel by the name of Philip Ingram. I really never heard of him before, but this is a contrary view. And I’d be happy to hear your thoughts on a cut number 11.

Ingram: 11:48
It’s costing them over a thousand troops a day. In the past 24 hours, the Russians have lost over 1300 troops. They’ve lost over 28 artillery systems. They’ve lost over 12 tanks. And they’re losing those sorts of numbers on a daily basis. And that is, frankly, unsustainable. No matter how big your military force is, no matter how capable it is.

Napolitano:
Is he talking about some other war, or is he talking about Ukraine?

Doctorow:
Well, for a liar, he’s being very modest. Generally speaking, if you follow the news over the last two years, whenever the Russians put out some statement about what they have done, what they have achieved, a day or two later, you find the mirror image of this statement made by the Ukrainians who were saying that’s the Russians who have suffered these losses. Now he said the Russians are losing 1,000– my good says the man has no imagination The Russians have been saying daily that the Ukrainians are losing 2,000. So I would take it in that spirit: that he is a disseminator of false news and of propaganda.

Napolitano: 12:55
Here’s President Putin who’s not very happy on July 28, just three or four days ago, commenting on the Western placement or plans to place offensive weaponry in Germany aimed, obviously, eastwar. Cut number one.

Putin: [English voice over Russian]
The situation recalls the events of the Cold War era. If the US implements such plans, we will consider ourselves free from the previously imposed one-sided moratorium on the deployment of medium- and shorter-range strike systems. We will take mirror measures for their deployment.

Napolitano: 13:40
There’s that phrase again, “mirror measures”. How do you read this?

Doctorow:
I think he’s preparing the public for the Russian rollout of what they already have developed. There’s been discussion in the media, what missiles Russians have. From the rather authoritative commentators that I’ve heard on the program of Vyacheslav Nikonov, “The Great Game”, I take it to understand that these are Kinzhal rockets, which have, which are almost unstoppable. And they, the plans are to extend their range so that they will cover the whole of Western Europe. And that is the Russian response. There is some discussion still about exactly what the Americans are going to put in. The announcement made from Germany that these will be the Tomahawks and also hypersonic missiles, but the United States to date has no hypersonic missiles. So, that is a bit confusing. And also there was mentioned, or so it seemed to be mentioned, the missiles going in being long-range, not just, not short- to medium-range.

14:50
So these discrepancies still have to be clarified. But the notion is that the United States would be putting in place missiles capable of destroying the early-warning systems and the military infrastructure for a effective Russian response to a first strike by the United States.

Napolitano: 15:14
Does the Kremlin perceive this, Professor Doctorow, talking about missiles in Germany, as just a provocation or as a serious threat that must be neutralized?

Doctorow:
Oh, it’s both. It is a provocation. The United States is offering what it still doesn’t have. But as a threat, as a real threat, of course, the Tomahawks, as they presently exist, could introduced and would be a serious problem for Russia, depending again on who presses the button first. And that is a subject for discussion. What is Russian predisposition to make preventive attack or to only respond to incoming missiles? Of course, responding to incoming missiles, if there’s a five minute path time between launch and hitting target is a problematic all by itself.

Napolitano: 16:11
Going to the other side of Russia, here is a view of Russian and Chinese fighter jets off the coast of Alaska. Now for what purpose was this done?

Doctorow:
The purpose of both the Russians and the Chinese is to counter the notion of an Asian NATO. This has been rolled out by Washington, it has been spoken for by Ian Stoltenberg, and it is– the Russians are concerned, not without reason, that the United States wants to build on AUKUS, that is on the American, Australian, and British alliance that now exists for cooperation in the Asian theater, and to bring in other countries to prepare for a common military force against the Chinese, first by containment, and then for an eventual war in which they would all participate and try to snuff out China.

17:26
The Chinese, for their part, are emphasizing that Eurasia has two ends to it. And if NATO can move east, then China can move west. We saw this three weeks ago, when the Chinese appeared at the Polish and Ukrainian borders within Belarus for what were called anti-terrorist common exercises. We saw this when the Chinese sent two of their naval vessels to St. Petersburg last Sunday to participate in Navy Day, the first time anything like that has happened before. So, the Chinese are making the point, and the Russians are very happy to help them make the point, that if NATO goes global, then the Russian-Chinese alliance, well, it’s not an alliance formally, but cooperation in in mutual defense goes global.

Napolitano: 18:27
Do the Russians have nuclear submarines off the coast of the United States, whether it’s down by Florida or up by the mid-Atlantic?

Doctorow:
Yes, they do. But that is not the only threat that they are posing to the United States. We don’t know the status of the Poseidon, a submarine drone or torpedo, which can blow up a city like the size of Washington with a tidal wave. We don’t know the status of that, whether it’s been implemented, where they actually have stationed these invisible because the radar, because they’re such a depth that I say radar– to sonar that you cannot follow them. They exist or not. We do know that the Russians threatened going back to 2018, to station frigates off the US coast, just in international waters.

19:24
Frigates carrying these hypersonic missiles and having a five-minute or 10-minute flight time to Washington, D.C. and to other major United States cities and military installations. This has been dismissed by some people, saying that the frigates are visible, they can easily be tracked, then they are not effective. But there’s more to it than that. The missiles that we’re talking about are also capable of being carried by ordinary 40-foot commercial containers. And so theoretically, they could be positioned in third country vessels, which would not necessarily be followed by US reconnaissance. Therefore, the possibility of the two seas, the Atlantic and the Pacific, being not safeguards for America, but being the launch space for deadly threats against America, that remains alive.

Napolitano: 20:26
Wow. Fascinating observations. Since last you and I spoke, there was, of course, the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, and there was, of course, the withdrawal of Joe Biden from the American presidential race. What is the Kremlin’s view of the attempt to kill Trump, the withdrawal of Biden, and the ascendancy of Kamala Harris?

Doctorow: 20:54
Well, as I follow these talk shows, and Viesti, the official state news, I see a distinct picture emerging. One is not the least bit surprised that there would have been an attempt on Trump’s life. Two, simply that is given the way that the deep state and the intelligence agencies, the three-letter agencies in the states operate according to Russian understanding. As for the dropping out of Biden and the ascendancy of Kamala Harris, that has created significant change in Russian official positions with respect to the U.S. elections. We know that Vladimir Putin said months and months ago that his preferred candidate between the two, Trump and Biden was Biden because Biden is more predictable, whereas Trump is really a wild card. They were saying that in 2020 as well, I might say, I might mention, notwithstanding all the Russiagate talk in the States.

22:06
The fact now is that the Russians are trashing Kamala Harris. The most piquant remarks about how she started her career on her back, that Megyn Kelly has been broadcasting recently, they have been picked up by Russian state television and they are fed to the Russian audience. Kamala Harris is not the favorite flavor of the Kremlin, and that leads them to be involuntarily backing Trump.

Napolitano: 22:40
Very interesting. What is the Russian view of what appears to be coming conflagration in the Middle East, particularly the theory that if Israel engages in a full-bore invasion of Lebanon, iran will engage in a full-bore invasion of israel. And if iran is seriously threatened it will look to the Kremlin for assistance. What is your take on that?

Doctorow:
Officially, the Russians are being very conservative in describing what’s going on presently in the Middle East. I was watching last night’s program of Nikonov on his talk show that I described as the most authoritative and the most calm and reasonable. There are others that are quite emotional. His is not. And in the sequence of items that they discussed, the number one item was Mr. Putin’s meeting with president of Indonesia, which was highly important, but you would think not more important than the threat of war in the Middle East. So it was number three, only number three item was the assassination of the Hezbollah leader in Tehran and the Iranian reaction. So right now, at the present moment, Russia is not preparing its public for any possible intervention in the Middle East.

24:24
Nonetheless, there are other developments. I’ve pointed out in the past two weeks the surprise visit, a very hasty visit that lasted two and a half hours of direct talks with Putin by Bashar Assad of Syria. They were talking business and they were talking clearly what the tango will be, who’s going to take which stance step as the situation develops in the neighborhood of Syria. Remember that the Russians are there, even without regard to what Israel may do to Lebanon or elsewhere. What they do in Syria brings them into very close proximity with the two Russian bases, one naval base and one air base. I imagine that one discussion point was providing assistance to Syria in defending its sovereignty against Israeli air incursions and bombing, which has gone on without interruption from the time of the Syrian civil war to today. That is now becoming unacceptable to the Russians, that Syria is so vulnerable and that Israel has a free hand, because Syria is an important transit point for Iranian military and other assistance to Hezbollah.

Napolitano: 25:57
Can you foresee Russian involvement either land, sea or air in an effort to repel the IDF from getting too close to Syria?

Doctorow:
I think that would be a decision forced on them. It’s certainly not in Russia’s plans. But as one of your recent guests, Colonel McGregor, was saying, and I followed his remarks very closely, Washington would be badly mistaken if it thinks that Russia is tied down by the Ukraine war It is unable or unwilling to intervene in the Middle East to defend its interests and the security of its close cooperation partners of which Iran is the single most important.

Napolitano: 26:51
I want to play for you a clip from the person that I often refer to as the adult in the room, you know immediately who it is, describing the Russian view of the American failures in foreign policy. Cut number three.

Sergey Lavrov: 27:12 [English voice over Russian]
When the United States entered the world stage in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, how did it end? What peaceful changes for the better occurred there? Now when they repeat like a mantra, we will support Ukraine for as long as it takes, I’m curious: how long will it take? Like in Afghanistan, where it took 20 years to realize that you lost, or in Iraq, where you also left, although now you are trying to stay despite the Iraqi Parliament’s decision that the US should withdraw its troops. Or like in Libya, where the state collapsed and now everyone is trying to piece it back together. A multipolar world is a reality. It’s not something someone invented.

Napolitano: 27:55
Your thoughts?

Doctorow:
Well, the language has changed in Russia. And senior spokesmen, of whom Mr. Lavrov is one of the key personalities, he is saying now, what he certainly knew years ago, but never dared to say. He is naming names, and he is naming specific US failures and their consequences, which mostly were very bloody consequences for the countries that they were going to assist on their way to democracy. So this– what he is saying, you will hear now from other Russian officials, whether they be legislators, as Duma or Federation Council members, who are given the microphone, or if there are other spokesmen from within the government. And of course, the most open and strongest critic of the United States is his own deputy, Mr. Epcof. It’s a new language from Russia, which is refreshing, because for so long, for more than a decade, they were speaking about their colleagues in the United States. And it took a while to progress to something close to calling them the enemies.

Napolitano: 29:15
Professor Doctorow, it’s a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for sharing the breadth of your knowledge. I hope you can come back with us again next week and continue with us on a regular basis. Those two vacation weeks of mine were an aberration. We’re we’re back in the saddle. Thank you so much.

Doctorow:
Well, thanks for the invitation.

Napolitano:
Of course, great conversation and I’m privileged to have a very, very intelligent person willing to share everything with us. Coming up later today at 9 o’clock Eastern, Tony Schaefer. At 3 o’clock this afternoon Eastern, Professor John Mearsheimer. At 4 o’clock this afternoon Eastern, Aaron Maté.

29:57
Judge Napolitano for “Judging Freedom”.