I heartily recommend today’s discussion with host Nima Alkhorshid because of the variety of the subject matter. This included my critical view of what is being said by fellow alternative media experts in recent days and why our various differences in interpretation of current events must be aired without unnecessary deference to one another if you, the public, are to come to a sensible and well-founded understanding of what is going on in the world.
I have in mind in particular my remarks on what was missing from the otherwise excellent discussion of the Deep State in a chat between professors John Mearsheimer and Jeffrey Sachs on the All-in podcast that was put on line yesterday. To my mind it is essential to mention that the Deep State, which, as these gentlemen say, is normally a force for continuity in the government of any of the Great Powers as they deal with the complexities of the world, lost all balance of skills and judgment back in 2002 when it was gutted by Vice President Dick Cheney. At that time, in the wake of 9/11 and in the midst of the War on Terror, Cheney carried out a purge of the State Department and of the intelligence services with a view to making them highly partisan, which is to say, bastions of Neocon thinking.
At this same time, whatever objectivity in the CIA and similar that one might expect from lifelong bureaucrats, was destroyed when whole swathes of that bureaucracy were forcibly retired, ostensibly to replace now superfluous expertise (Sovietologists, Russianists) with much needed expertise on current threats (Middle East experts). The situation was made still worse by the decision of Cheney and his colleagues to hasten the process of acquiring expert advice by outsourcing a large proportion of all intelligence work to commercial suppliers working from Open Sources and therefore needing no high- level security clearances. It is not that the new contractors lacked skills, because many of them actually had been Government employees before being made redundant. What matters is that the experts hired within the context of short-term contracts necessarily tailor their reports to the known desires of those signing their contracts in order to get extensions and new contracts. Net net: what they provide in their reports is what they know the Bosses want to hear, whether or not it is objectively correct.
As you will find viewing this interview, we talked about a great many topics of the day such as the latest assassination attempt on Donald Trump. I stand by my remark that would-be assassin Ryan Routh is probably not long for this world. I fully expect him to meet the fate of JFK’s assassin Oswald.
We also talked about the recent interest in Washington in negotiating a cease-fire and possibly a settlement for the Ukraine war. Then we moved on to the differences in approach to the way forward between the United States, which is now split 50-50 between Trump and Harras supporters, and the European Union where the split is 95-5, with only a couple of states, Hungary and Slovakia, voting against the overwhelming majority in favor of the war’s prosecution to a successful conclusion for Ukraine. I am especially satisfied with my likening the EU member states to the Бурлаки на Волге (Volga Boat Men) painting by Ilya Repin that hangs in the Russian Museum, St Petersburg. They are bound together by rope as they pull the barge. Only their barge is headed downstream, not upstream, and they are walking on the banks of the Niagara river just before it hits the Falls.
I took pleasure in explaining my professional historian’s skepticism of the scientific nature of the discipline studied by most of the foreign policy experts in our media who were not students of some Journalism School. To my way of thinking, “political science” is a contradiction in terms. Why I think so will be clear to any reader of my 2010 collection of essays in which I tried to get my mind around the writings of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger, Francis Fukuyama, Samuel Huntington, Noam Chomsky and two others: Great Post-Cold War American Thinkers on International Relations. Call it the revenge of an historian against those in the parallel profession who tend to raid history for “lessons” to support their latest theories. Notwithstanding the shortcomings of that book owing to its being my first self-published opus, I think it may still be the best I have written.
But for now, enjoy today’s show!
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024
Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus) followed by complete English transcript of the interview
„Dialogue Works“: Ausgabe vom 18. September 2024
Ich empfehle die heutige Diskussion mit Gastgeber Nima Alkhorshid aufgrund der Vielfalt der Themen von ganzem Herzen. Dazu gehörte auch meine kritische Sicht auf das, was von anderen Experten für alternative Medien in den letzten Tagen gesagt wurde, und warum unsere unterschiedlichen Interpretationen der aktuellen Ereignisse ohne unnötige Rücksichtnahme aufeinander geäußert werden müssen, wenn Sie, die Öffentlichkeit, zu einem vernünftigen und fundierten Verständnis dessen gelangen sollen, was in der Welt vor sich geht.
Ich denke dabei insbesondere an meine Bemerkungen darüber, was in der ansonsten ausgezeichneten Diskussion über den „Deep State“ in einem Chat zwischen den Professoren John Mearsheimer und Jeffrey Sachs im All-in-Podcast, der gestern online gestellt wurde, gefehlt hat. Meiner Meinung nach ist es wichtig zu erwähnen, dass der Deep State, der, wie diese Herren sagen, normalerweise eine Kraft für Kontinuität in der Regierung einer der Großmächte ist, wenn sie sich mit den Komplexitäten der Welt auseinandersetzen, bereits 2002 jegliches Gleichgewicht an Fähigkeiten und Urteilsvermögen verloren hat, als er von Vizepräsident Dick Cheney ausgeschaltet wurde. Zu dieser Zeit, nach dem 11. September und mitten im Krieg gegen den Terror, führte Cheney eine Säuberung des Außenministeriums und der Geheimdienste durch, um sie stark parteiisch zu machen, das heißt, zu Bastionen des Neokonservatismus.
Gleichzeitig wurde jegliche Objektivität in der CIA und ähnlichen Organisationen, die man von lebenslangen Bürokraten erwarten könnte, zunichte gemacht, als ganze Teile dieser Bürokratie zwangsweise in den Ruhestand versetzt wurden, angeblich um nun überflüssiges Fachwissen (Sowjetologen, Russisten) durch dringend benötigtes Fachwissen über aktuelle Bedrohungen (Nahostexperten) zu ersetzen. Die Situation wurde noch verschlimmert durch die Entscheidung Cheneys und seiner Kollegen, den Prozess der Einholung von Expertenrat zu beschleunigen, indem ein großer Teil der gesamten Geheimdienstarbeit an kommerzielle Anbieter ausgelagert wurde, die mit öffentlich zugänglichen Quellen arbeiteten und daher keine hohen Sicherheitsfreigaben benötigten. Es ist nicht so, dass es den neuen Auftragnehmern an Fähigkeiten mangelte, denn viele von ihnen waren zuvor Regierungsangestellte gewesen, bevor sie entlassen wurden. Entscheidend ist, dass die im Rahmen von Kurzzeitverträgen eingestellten Experten ihre Berichte notwendigerweise auf die bekannten Wünsche derjenigen zuschneiden, die ihre Verträge unterzeichnen, um Verlängerungen und neue Verträge zu erhalten. Unterm Strich: Was sie in ihren Berichten liefern, ist das, von dem sie wissen, dass die Chefs dies hören wollen, unabhängig davon, ob es objektiv korrekt ist oder nicht.
Wie Sie in diesem Interview sehen werden, haben wir über eine Vielzahl von aktuellen Themen gesprochen, wie z.B. über das jüngste Attentat auf Donald Trump. Ich bleibe bei meiner Bemerkung, dass der Möchtegern-Attentäter Ryan Routh wahrscheinlich nicht mehr lange auf dieser Welt sein wird. Ich gehe fest davon aus, dass ihm das gleiche Schicksal wie Oswald, dem Attentäter auf JFK, widerfahren wird.
Wir sprachen auch über das jüngste Interesse in Washington, einen Waffenstillstand und möglicherweise eine Einigung im Ukraine-Krieg auszuhandeln. Dann sprachen wir über die unterschiedlichen Herangehensweisen der Vereinigten Staaten, die nun zu 50 % aus Trump- und zu 50 % aus Harras-Anhängern bestehen, und der Europäischen Union, in der die Spaltung bei 95 % zu 5 % liegt, wobei nur ein paar Staaten, Ungarn und die Slowakei, gegen die überwältigende Mehrheit stimmten, die sich für die erfolgreiche Beendigung des Krieges zugunsten der Ukraine aussprach. Besonders zufrieden bin ich mit meinem Vergleich der EU-Mitgliedstaaten mit dem Gemälde „Бурлаки на Волге (Wolgaschlepper)“ von Ilja Repin, das im Russischen Museum in Sankt Petersburg hängt. Sie sind durch ein Seil miteinander verbunden, während sie den Lastkahn ziehen. Nur fährt ihr Lastkahn flussabwärts, nicht flussaufwärts, und sie gehen am Ufer des Niagara-Flusses spazieren, kurz bevor dieser in die Wasserfälle mündet.
Ich erklärte mit Vergnügen meine Skepsis als professioneller Historiker gegenüber der Wissenschaftlichkeit der Disziplin, die von den meisten außenpolitischen Experten in unseren Medien studiert wird, die keine Studenten einer Journalistenschule sind. Meiner Meinung nach ist „Politikwissenschaft“ ein Widerspruch in sich. Warum ich so denke, wird jedem Leser meiner Aufsatzsammlung aus dem Jahr 2010 klar werden, in der ich versucht habe, mich mit den Schriften von Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger, Francis Fukuyama, Samuel Huntington, Noam Chomsky und zwei weiteren auseinanderzusetzen: Great Post-Cold War American Thinkers on International Relations. Nennen wir es die Rache eines Historikers an denjenigen seines Berufsstands, die dazu neigen, die Geschichte nach „Lehren“ zu durchforsten, die ihre neuesten Theorien stützen. Ungeachtet der Mängel dieses Buches, die darauf zurückzuführen sind, dass es mein erstes im Selbstverlag veröffentlichtes Werk ist, denke ich, dass es immer noch das Beste ist, was ich geschrieben habe.
Aber jetzt genießen Sie erst einmal die heutige Sendung!
Transcript submitted by a reader
Nima R. Alkhorshid: 0:03
So nice to have you back, Gilbert.
Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
It’s a pleasure to be with you.
Alkhorshid:
Yeah. And let’s get started with what’s going on with Russia and NATO. And Putin was warning NATO not to send long-range missiles to Ukraine using them, because in his mind Ukraine is not capable of using these missiles without NATO getting involved and just running the show behind the scenes, or not behind the scenes. But how– on the other hand, we had Stoltenberg talking about that sending these long-range missiles to Ukraine would not escalate the situation. Because Putin, every time Putin is putting out a red line and we’re going to cross that nothing is going to happen. In an interview with the “Times”, he said that. And how serious was Putin’s warning?
Doctorow: 1:06
Well, Putin’s remarks were said in an offhand way, in a factual way, in an unemotional way, and he didn’t deliver this on a television address to the Russian nation, or address it specifically to the Americans and the Brits. It was– let’s remember the context. This was made between two meetings that he had at the, just on Palace Square in downtown Petersburg. He was preparing to speak or coming from the cultural forum and he was interviewed by a man who interviews him regularly, he’s always following two steps behind him. And this is the guy from Russia’s state news, Pavel Zarubin.
And he asked him, and Putin gave the answer that you just mentioned, that has been repeated, repeated, and repeated on all media, both mainstream and alternative, forever, since last Thursday, Friday. Now, this was not a specific threat. It was a statement of fact. And going from that statement of fact to the next stage in escalation is a big step. And I think that those of us who believe that you go directly from that to exchanging missiles carrying nuclear warheads, I think they’re exaggerating very greatly the timing of the threat. Not that we can’t reach that stage. Of course we can. But it’s not going to happen in one step. The means at the disposal of Russia to respond, to, shall we say, to retaliate for the United States, Britain, or others, giving the right to use their long-range missiles to attack the heartland of Russia– the distance traveled from that permission to a Russian retaliation of one kind to or another is all by itself a step.
3:16
The Russians have many, many things they can do. Then in the case of Britain, they don’t have to bomb London. They just have to cut the cables attaching Britain to the world and the British financial district will fold. There are a great many things, infrastructure damage, that Russia can do without anybody hardly noticing. So let’s look at what happened with Iran. Iran and retaliating for the murder in Tehran of an important ally, one of the leaders of Hamas. Did they expire next day? Did they set off a missile barrage or do anything really earth-shaking in the days that followed? Notwithstanding all the warnings coming out of the United States, nothing happened. But … but two days ago, the Houthis suddenly had hypersonic missiles. And the Houthis suddenly and inexplicably got through the Iron Dome, got through the American air defense systems on board or that whole flotilla of the Southeastern Mediterranean precisely to to prevent attacks on Israel, it got through it all.
4:33
And it hit target, which hasn’t been identified by the Israelis, I assume, because it would be too embarrassing. Was that pure Houthi development? It’s unthinkable. It had to have been Iranian missiles. I would add something that nobody’s talking about, but I’d like to hear it discussed. And how were those, how was that missile programmed? To my knowledge, the Iranians and the Houthis do not have satellites that are providing reconnaissance to program the missile. So I, as a guess, and I will say explicitly, this is my guess, the Russians did it. The Russians gave them the, again, a direct response to the use of American and West European satellites to program any missile that would be fired from Ukraine into Russia.
5:28
So two can play the game, two can play proxy war. And I don’t see the necessity for an instant move from proxy war to exchange of nuclear missiles. Fortunately for all of us, I think there’ll be a few steps along the way before we get, if we ever get to that stage. So these are issues I’d like to raise with respect to how the events of– how Putin’s warning has been interpreted here among the mainstream and among alternative. If I just take a second just to point out mainstream. Yesterday morning, yesterday morning, I listened to BBC morning news and they had a talking head, a university professor, Bristol, I don’t know where he was, somewhere in the UK, who astonishingly was saying, “Oh, there’s no reason to take these red lines seriously. Mr. Putin is just a bully, and bullies bluff.”
6:32
My goodness, this is, this is, this nonsense, this very dangerous, ignorant nonsense was yesterday morning being promoted from the state-controlled BBC. I emphasize this. Anyone who thinks that the BBC is an independent news source has not been applying their mind to the issue.
Alkhorshid: 6:57
The other thing that Stoltenberg raised in this article in the “Times” was that he supports the position of France together with the United Kingdom in using these long-range missiles. And do you understand the position of the United Kingdom right now, with the Labour Party? Because it seems that they’re the same as Sunak was. And there is nothing changed in the United Kingdom. Even it’s getting worse. How do you find it right now, considering that?
Doctorow:
Being worse than Boris is difficult. The Tory government was, and still, the man is still appearing before cameras. He was at this Yalta conference in Ukraine and he was saying the same old things. So the Tory government isn’t exactly a point of departure into new areas for Mr. Stormer’s government. He’s only continuing in an even slightly worse way under present conditions what Boris Johnson was doing in his time in office. But I think the reference has to be, speaking about labor, it has to be to the inventor of new labor. This goes back, well, two governments, three governments ago, to the period before the Iraq war, when Tony Blair was the lapdog, as he was, that’s what he was called in the States and elsewhere, the lapdog to Bush.
8:43
And he provided what Europe, in the person of France, Belgium, and Germany refused to provide, which was cover for the illegitimate, illegal war on Iraq, invasion, which killed maybe a million people. So Tony Blair was the enabler. He provided the bit of European sophistication to back up the rather crude and rude Mr. Bush Jr. and to give some oomph to this “alliance of the willing”.
Mr. Starmer, at New Labour today, is continuing the dog routine of Britain, but he’s not a lap dog. He’s a hunting dog. And he’s out two meters ahead of his boss in the White House. And he is really a dangerous personality. I haven’t studied his background; I’ve seen some brief information about his close tie-ins with American intelligence in the past. Let that be. I don’t want to look into his biography. I want to look into his present. And he’s getting terrible advice and he himself is pursuing a terrible policy. That can, that where Britain will be the, is the first country on this continent to have the Russian bullseye painted on it.
Alkhorshid: 10:15
Yeah, and there is an article in Politico talking about Zaluzhny was not in line with Zelensky, because earlier they had this thinking this type of thinking to attack the Kursk region. And Zaluzhny was not agreeing with them, and right now, with what has happened in the Kursk region, do you think, do you find it when you look at the whole conflict more than two years, do you think it was a very important turning point for the conflict, or it wasn’t that much important?
Doctorow;
No, it’s important. And those Western commentators who said it was a great embarrassment for Vladimir Putin are correct. Let’s not underestimate that. For Russians, for ordinary Russians, it is an enormous embarrassment and open question mark: how and why this could happen. Two and a half years into the war, and they’ve been invaded. Their borders were not adequately protected by this massive armed force that Russia has put in play against Ukraine. How could that have happened? I say the chips have not yet taken their proper place, fallen properly with respect to Gerasimov and the high command.
You can imagine well that Mr. Putin was furious, utterly furious over this humiliation and embarrassment. When they speak about humiliation in the West, they think it’s going to bring about regime change. That’s totally nonsense. The only humiliation that could bring about regime change is a total loss of the war. That would bring about regime change. In that sense, Washington is correct. What is wrong in Washington is they think that Russia can lose the war. That is dead wrong. There’s no way that Russia can, that you can defeat a nuclear power like Russia. It’s excluded. These are the, should be the most obvious things to any statesman, to any politician and decision maker in the West. You go back to basics about what nuclear powers are. You don’t, taunt you can taunt, but you don’t inflict a strategic defeat on them if you want to live to the next day.
Alkhorshid: 12:44
When you look at the behavior of the Americans right now, the Biden administration, and compare it to what’s going on in the European Union, do you think they’re totally in line? They’re thinking the same way, or there is a difference, or maybe significant difference between these two parties when it comes to the conflict in Ukraine right now?
Doctorow:
You know, this wonderful painting by Repin, that’s in the Russian Museum in Petersburg of the burlaki [boat men]. It’s the, those who are hauling barges up the Volga going against the current. And there they are, now 27 out of the 29 members of the EU out of 28 are those burlaki. They’re all pulling, they’re all tied to one another or chained to one another. And so, this operation in Europe is utterly bizarre. The 27 people, some of whom have a brain, I admit a few of them are brainless, but some do have a brain, they are as intelligent as all of us. And they’re going along with this in a mistaken belief that there is strength in unity, even if unity is pursuing a suicidal policy.
14:01
So, here in Europe, I think you can’t really compare it one-to-one with the States. The States might be split down the middle over these issues, as it is between Kamala and Trump in general. But here in Europe, it is 95 percent all pulling that cord towards the precipice. And this is not the Volga River; it’s Niagara Falls. And they’re not going against the stream, they’re going with the stream right off. So that is a situation here.
Alkhorshid: 14:41
Yeah, and did you watch these two Russian pranksters talking with Sikorski? Because I think the information coming out of this talk was so important in terms of how Poland feels about the conflict in Ukraine right now. He said that they’re not going to, NATO is not going to put troops on the ground in Ukraine officially, which I think, I found it so positive if that would be the official policy of NATO right now.
Doctorow:
Well I wouldn’t look to Mr. Sikorski for wisdom or for comfort. He has said in his long time in public service– I mean, this is not his first time at the national level government– he has said some outrageous things about the relationship with Poland and the United States. I won’t repeat them because as the Russians say in such instances, these are censored remarks. He said outrageous things about the relationship between Poland and the United States, and I don’t think he needed to have pranksters to say outrageous things in a microphone about the relationship between Poland and Ukraine.
16.02
And certainly he is on the side of those who say that Ukraine cannot be admitted into the EU, until it admits its guilt in the slaughter of Poles, of tens of thousands of Poles. And as in the pursuit of the Bandera nationalism, there are grievances on the Polish side, which Sikorski is now airing. That being said, at the same time as he may be making these remarks, which would seem to give us comfort over the restraint of Poland with respect to the Ukrainian cause, he’s the same as Sikorski who a week ago said that his country should be allowed to shoot down Russian missiles over Ukrainian territory because of the alleged threat that they posed to overreach and to hit Poland.
17:00
This man, I think is a little bit, is an Eastern version of Mr. Macron of doing anything to steal limelight and his self-promotion. So, and the ambivalence, flip-flopping, one day you think he’s your friend, the next day you think he’s your enemy. So, I wouldn’t pay too much attention to Mr. Sikorski. And keep in mind that he’s an American asset. Keep in mind who his wife is. Applebaum, the contributor, I think, to the Washington Post, one of the most rabid Russophobes. And I will say at the same time, an extremely intelligent lady who works hard. You have to know your enemy. You know that I was a close associate of Professor Stephen Cohen. I’m sure many in your audience know his name, know what he stood for.
And Cohen made the mistake, it was about two years before his death, of going into a debate in Canada, at a university in Canada, with Applebaum. And he believed, “Well, me, Professor Cohen, of course I know everything, it’s all at my fingertips. and then we got this nitwit Applebaum, whom I’m going to debate with.” She wiped the floor with him. She was prepared. He looked like a dinosaur. So you have to know your enemies. There’s a reason why Sikorski is powerful. He’s got good, he’s got very good contacts in Washington, thanks to his wife, and his wife is no fool.
Alkhorshid: 18:35
When this conflict started, if I were to pick the most radical country in the European Union against, toward this conflict in Ukraine, that would be Poland in those days. And right now I would pick the United Kingdom. Do you feel the same way or do you find it differently? Because right now I don’t see Poland that aggressive toward the conflict, toward what’s going on in Ukraine. It seems that they’re just coming down. They’re not having that sort of excitement they had when this conflict started.
Doctorow: 19:10
Well, the Poles have got the Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus just across the border. So, that could sober up their minds a little bit, despite all the rhetoric and everybody wanting to get into the newspapers. I think that may hold them back a little bit. It’s a real competition. Who is the bigger maniac in Europe? The Brits are, as you say, totally unreal, delusional in their behavior towards Russia. They think this is the Crimean War of the 1850s. They’re missing a beat here, but there are competitors in insanity. I think it’s very relevant to mention that the Estonian federal government, national government has been among the foremost crackpots in xenophobic statements. And it is very relevant to where we’re going now and to the nature of the head of the European Commission, von der Leyen, that she has appointed and is now promoting to the European Parliament for approval the outgoing Prime Minister of Estonia, Kallas, very pretty lady, by the way.
20:27
And I think the reason– but the same lady who about three weeks or four weeks ago said, “We have to bring Russia to its knees.” Well, there you have it. That means a total defeat, and that means World War III, and that means there you’ve got a timeline of a few days before we’re all ashes. Now, this lady, totally irresponsible, representing one million out of hundreds of millions — their population is 350-400 million, population of the EU member countries. You’ve got 1.2 million in Estonia, which frankly speaking, a hell of a lot are really Russians. Because you go to Tallinn and downtown Tallinn, not in the hotels, restaurants, but anywhere except street vendors who are speaking very Estonian. But normal people in stores are all speaking Russian. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. The point is that Estonia is one million, or a little over a million population. And they are wagging 350 or 400 million, I don’t have at my disposal at this minute the actual population of the EU. They’re wagging that body, that dog. And this lady has been appointed to be the Supreme Representative, to replace Borrell, the Supreme Representative, the top diplomat, and also, since it hasn’t been hived off yet, she’s responsible essentially for defense.
21:57
This is the lady whom von der Leyen has appointed and who will be receiving approval shortly, next week, as the cabinet or commissioners go before the European Parliament. This is, why did she appoint her? I think that van der Leyen, considering what a power that she only plays power groups, appointed her because she thought this nitwit would be easy to control. I think von der Layen has misjudged. I think this nitwit will not be controllable. She is a very determined lady, a very ambitious lady, and it doesn’t do Europe any credit this will be its face to the world.
Alkhorshid: 22:42
A foreign minister of Ukraine recently said that Europeans should feel that Ukraine is already part of the European Union, that’s why they have any sort of decision, they have to consider that. But when it comes to the European Union, do they really feel that Ukraine would be part of the European Union in the future? Or maybe now? Or maybe in two years, five years?
Doctorow:
I can’t answer that question for the European Union. I can only speak for what I hear about around me. These are privileged people around me, a social club that I belong to. And I don’t think that is on the radar screen. I don’t think it’s a matter of any interest to them whether Ukraine will be in the EU, except when it comes to the question of how much money they’re going to have to cough up in taxes to pay for all that, because Ukraine is a black hole financially and will remain so for a few decades to come. But this is not a subject of discussion among the, I say, the privileged people whom I know, whom I know socially in reading a French-speaking royal club here in Belgium.
23:53
And I take that as my guideline, but otherwise, I don’t pretend to take a reading of what the man in the street here thinks. Certainly, the guy who runs the grocery store down on the corner is not concerned by that issue of Ukraine’s joining or not joining. Again, turning to those people who are well-educated, professionally very successful, and who should be interested in these things. Their interest in Ukraine is like America’s, ideological. They are defending freedom, they’re defending democracy, they don’t have a clue as to how democratic or undemocratic Ukraine is. It is going by the generalities that they see in newspapers and on their television sets. But it is that Ukraine, an unreal Ukraine, a non-existent Ukraine that never existed, that they are motivated by, interested in, and considering as the underdog in this war with Russia.
Alkhorshid: 25:02
Yeah. And recently, we had two important talks with Stoltenberg and Lloyd Austin. Both of them were pointing out the way of getting out of this conflict would be a negotiating table, a political settlement. And if we assume that in any sort of political settlement, a new security treaty between the European Union and Russia, how do you see Ukraine in that type of talks? Because at the end of the day, we know how important Ukraine, whatever we call it Ukraine and after this conflict, is as a buffer zone. Because the whole situation that we’re witnessing right now is part of this concept of Ukraine being a buffer zone between NATO and Russia. And how do you find it right now? Do you think in that type of talks they’re going to consider Ukraine to be a buffer zone that Russia would help Ukraine to grow or help them to– help their economy, help their infrastructure, because they’re totally connected with the Russian type of life, the type of technology. And how do you see at the end of the day, they’re going to consider Ukraine, that Russia and European Union together with the United States would help to reconstruct its infrastructure, or are we going to see something different?
Doctorow: 25:41
That was not one question, it was about a dozen questions you posed. It’s a very complicated set of issues. You started out talking about Stoltenberg and Austin, and the notion that they are now turning towards the idea of a ceasefire or negotiated settlement to the conflict. I think that their notion, if they are indeed moving away from, settled on the battlefield to negotiated settlement, I think that what they’re really talking about is a frozen conflict and one which gives Ukraine, just like Minsk Two, a chance to recover and to be restored by NATO instructors and new mobilizations and so forth.
So that will be a formidable opponent to Russia that would prevent Russia’s ever touching it again. That of course is unworkable. The Russians in no way will accept that. Now I’ll go forward. I’ll bridge several questions to me and go straight to this question of, will the Russians support Ukraine should it become neutral? Will they give them assistance? I would say at this point, flatly no. I was listening to, to briefly to, to the Vladimir Solovyov show last night. They put up on screen a video clip of Zhirinovsky, the nationalist Russian leader of the, of the LDPR party, liberal, liberal party of Russia, who usually got between 5, 10, maybe 12% of popular vote in presidential elections, and who died very sadly for his many followers in Russia. He died of covid a couple of years ago.
28:36
Anyway, Zhirinovsky was saying that, hey, Ukraine is not a state, it’s a beggar, And they only, this is going back perhaps to 2016, 2017, and compare that with what the status of Ukraine is today, which is totally on life support from Western Europe and the United States to pay its pensions, to pay all these government expenses, not to mention to cover a war that it’s waging. So, he was saying back then, this was a beggar, and that this is, maybe it’s earlier that this took place, because– yes, it must have been in 2013-2014 that this centripetal thing took place, because he was discussing still, in the fall of 2013, Russia had offered $15 billion in aid to Ukraine, and that was mentioned by Zhirinovsky, to help weigh the decision that they had to make between the European Union’s offer of a comprehensive cooperation or partnership as the path to membership and Russia’s offer to continue the cooperation with Russia and and with ease.
30:05
So that was hanging the balance there. And he was saying, “Why in hell are we offering these beggars 15 billion dollars? It’s going to be money down the drain.” And I think that attitude would, is the answer to the question you said now, posed now. Russia will not put up money for Ukraine’s prosperity. And then what is left of Ukraine? The last figure I’ve heard, and this is on various YouTube interviews of the last week, is that the Ukrainian population– perhaps it was Larry Johnson, I don’t recall exactly who said it– that the Ukrainian population has dropped from 40 million before this to 20 million today. Well, I don’t know if that’s correct. It’s a bit lower than I understood. Nonetheless, population has diminished greatly, and even after peace is established, it is most improbable that those Ukrainians who have set themselves up in Germany or across the EU are going to rush back to their devastated country and to instant poverty, when it takes years to restore power, water, heat, everything.
31:19
So, let’s say that the Ukraine is a basket case, and it will remain a low population. Where its boundaries would be, well, that will depend on exactly when the Russians stop marching. I think the boundary would be at the Dnieper River, but I could be wrong. In any case, the notion of a prosperous Ukraine as a buffer zone, as you’re saying, that is not to be excluded. But before that can be negotiated and won, we need to have a change in the governments of most all of the European Union and of the United States. Before these governments change is inconceivable that Ukraine buffer state will be approved by the successors to Biden, the Democratic Party, Kamala and her curators if they come to power.
32:24
And it’s inconceivable. It would be acknowledging a vast defeat while standing behind the policy. So it means Trump could do that if he wins the enough of the Congress to be able to get through Congress what he wants to do. Here in Europe for this to happen, von der Leyen has to go or she has to have her powers trimmed by the European Parliament. There has to be a shift away from the European People’s party and the Social Democratic two-party domination of the parliament towards the group that Viktor Orban has put together within the parliament, which represents now about 30 percent of membership. There has to be a drift of power away from those who created this disastrous policy towards those who have criticized it. So that is not going to happen today and tomorrow, but it could happen within the foreseeable future. Yes.
Alkhorshid: 33:33
And one of the points that Putin was talking about when Joe Biden was running against Donald Trump was that Biden is predictable. And the question here is, in my opinion, he wasn’t that much predictable during this conflict. He was saying many things during this conflict about tanks, F-16s, cluster bombs, and he sent all of them to Ukraine. And we couldn’t predict that Biden would do that. And at the end of the day right now, “Le Monde” is talking about that Zelensky is hoping to be part of NATO before Biden leaving office in the United States. This, do you think that these long-range missiles, and maybe something like that, as “Le Monde” pointed out about Zelensky’s vision, do you feel that Biden would do something that much different? Because we can understand some sort of escalations on the battlefield. Because when it comes to this type of activity on their part, doing something substantial in order to facilitate Ukraine being part of NATO. I’m talking about this. Do you think that the Biden administration would do that before leaving the office?
Doctorow: 34:57
Well, let’s take it straight back to the issue we had at the beginning. And that was the threat posed by these new superweapons to Russia, which would induce Mr. Putin to see that they are in a state of war with the United States and its allies. I’d like to just highlight something that, again, people are not talking much about. What is this? What is the real possibility of those Storm Shadow missiles being launched against Russia? Even if permission is given, these missiles could only be launched from aircraft. The Russians have already destroyed almost everything that flies in the Ukrainian air force from the Soviet days, and the assumption has been that these missiles will be carried by F-16s.
35:48
Now, wait a minute, they’re taking possession of six, maybe those five of them are still capable of flying, being held in Romania or wherever else they’ve been held. One has already been shot down by an American Patriot system by accident. If these planes enter Ukraine airspace to launch missiles against Russia, how many minutes will it take before they’re shot down by the Russian S-500 or other, or by Russian jet fighters who take off precisely to destroy them.
So, I have a hard time seeing how this wunderwaffe is going to really threaten Russia in any way. As I understand the talking point, Mr. Putin cannot allow this to pass unchallenged and cannot have credibility with his own people, if he doesn’t say what he said late last week. But the reality is, how’s it going to happen? ATACMs could be used. ATACMs are the American missiles, which are ground-based. They don’t require a jet to be fired. And they have a 500-kilometer radius of action, which is pretty good, certainly good enough to cause havoc in Russian-controlled Crimea. But Biden has not allowed that to be used. I think it’s most improbable that he will before he goes out of office, because his advisors have said this will be war. And brain dead as he may be, I think there’s a residual intelligence that that is not going to be good for his children and grandchildren.
37:46
Therefore, it’s not going to happen. So, the cycle of big talk, I don’t think that the West is capable right now of striking deep into Russia unless it’s done with Western pilots from a NATO country and at the expense of triggering a Russian nuclear response.
Alkhorshid: 38:18
Yeah, and we had this new attempt to assassinate Donald Trump in the United States. And CNN wrote that Ryan Routh’s support for Ukraine is a propaganda win for Moscow at a very tricky time for Kiev. And I wouldn’t be surprised– and the other day, the next day they come with a title that Putin was behind this type of attack, which is– they do these things unbelievably. And you wrote a very good article about the misinformation and disinformation. How do you find these type of wars on the part of the media? Because it doesn’t seem that they’re getting anything truthful out of this article, but they’re trying to inject some sort of excitement in the society in order to achieve something. And what’s your understanding on this type of rhetoric?
Doctorow: 39:27
Well, we’re just at the very beginning of the investigation into it, and unlike the first assassin, would-be assassin, he survived and was captured. Unlike the first would-be assassin who would have been, or the investigation around him has all been at the federal level, the event we can anticipate an investigation at the state level in Florida. And I will be surprised if Mr. Routh survives. I would not be a least bit surprised if his fate is that of of Oswald, murdered on his way from one prison cell to another, because if he starts talking, it will get quite ugly. What he was doing in Ukraine, he was meeting with Afghan killers, which in a manner that could only be understood if he was being directed by the CIA, which wouldn’t surprise me and many other people in the slightest.
40:34
This takes us back to the whole question of why the JFK killing was kept secret. I don’t think they can keep this secret because of the political commotion, and precisely because of the interest in the governor of Florida to expose whatever it is to be exposed about this plot. And let’s call it a plot, not a madman or an effort by some character to wage a repeat performance, the copycat phenomenon. It’s very doubtful this was a copycat phenomenon. It’s much more probable that this was another inside job. And if this is investigated properly, as may well happen, there it will be a great embarrassment to the intelligence services or some part of them. There have been, there’s been a lot of discussion now about the deep state. There was a very interesting chat, I wouldn’t call it a debate, but it’s a roundtable discussion between Jeffrey Sachs and John Mearsheimer on just this headache, the deep state.
41:48
And deep states exist almost everywhere. They are the perpetual part of a government that serves, that’s supposed to serve the elected part of the government, the top bosses, but very often doesn’t serve them at all. And quite the contrary, pulls in the opposite direction. Deep states everywhere have a certain– their value is they continue state policy regardless of elections, to give some permits to policies. The negative is something I didn’t hear these two gentlemen talk about. The Americans, the deep state was cut to pieces by the Bush Jr. period and by none other than Dick Cheney. And this astonishes me that nobody mentioned it. Cheney purged the Deep State. Cheney purged the intelligence services.
We, I did an essay on this going back at 10, 12 years, based on some very interesting information that I found on the web pages of a French intelligence analyst. And the essence of it was that the American intelligence, after 2001, when it was clear that the only thing of interest to American security was the Muslims and the religious extremists in the Middle East, so the Russian assets that the CIA and other intelligence organizations the United States had were deemed to be irrelevant and expendable. And they were expended, they were fired. And a lot of the information that has informed, has advised the policy decisions of the State Department and elsewhere in the U.S. government have been done on a outsourced basis by commercial organizations using largely open sources.
44:03
Whether this is good or bad is something we can talk about for a long time. The point is, the United States deep state is not today what it was 30 years ago. It has been given a political direction precisely by Dick Cheney. And that is undeniable and it has made it very, especially difficult to uproot the neocons all around government. because the neocons are the deep state. So that is where we are today and I would hope that this enters into a bigger discourse that was partly raised by two very worthy gentlemen, by Jeffrey Sachs and John Mearsheimer, but I believe is missing an important dimension to what the deep state that is driving things like the assassination attempts on Trump is all about.
Alkhorshid: 45:03
And since you brought up this discussion between, this talk of Jeffrey Sachs and John Mearsheimer, one point that was so crucial in this talk, which they were not totally in line with each other, was what’s going on with China? And how do you find John Mearsheimer’s view toward China? Because it seems that the same kind of view that neocons have toward Russia and the main reason behind this disaster in Ukraine was this type of idea that we have to contain Russia. And it seems that John Mearsheimer is suggesting the same kind of policy when it comes to China. On the other hand, we had Jeffrey Sachs talking just vastly about how important the relationship between the United States, Russia, and China is for the future of the world, which I totally, I found it so much fascinating. It’s so much sane when you think how he’s putting out his mind and against what John Mearsheimer is suggesting.
Doctorow: 46:15
Well, let’s come back to basics. I have the highest respect for John Mearsheimer. I think he’s a real national hero in that he is saying what he’s saying, and saying things that are not conformist for a long time, at great jeopardy to his professional career, that he was co-author of the book exposing the Israeli lobbying effort, which almost cost him his professional reputation. It was remarkable. And so he has taken, since 2014, when he published his outstanding essay on who’s to blame for the conflict between Russia and the West in “Foreign Affairs” magazine, of all places, and did a video of that lecture, which I don’t know how many millions, 10 million people have seen it, more, I’ve lost track. So I have the highest respect for Mearsheimer.
47:14
But saying that, let’s come back to basics. I’m an historian, he’s a political scientist. Political scientists raid history to find lessons, and I don’t think John Mayersheim is any different. We historians have a professional bias, and I would say my bias is that political science is a misnomer. There is no science. It is, what they are doing is systematic, a great intellectual exercise to explain their own personal positions. And to say that this is an objective science is very often an exaggeration. John Mearsheimer has a lot of experience with China. He was invited as an honored guest there many times. But that does not mean that he is objective about China.
And I think when Jeffrey Sachs threw him a bouquet, this was an exchange they had a week ago, or maybe it was just Sachs speaking alone without Mearsheimer present. He was saying that he understood the sagacity of Mearsheimer because back in 2002 Mearsheimer said that inevitably there’s going to be a big conflict between the United States and China. and Jeffrey Sachs said, “I didn’t see that at all.” So he has the highest respect for Mearsheimer, given that Mearsheimer foresaw that this is the nature of nations and empires, that they they fight to the death to maintain their supremacy when they think it is threatened, or when they’re about to lose their top position.
48:59
Okay, good, I won’t take anything away from that operating assumption. Maybe it’s right, maybe it’s wrong. Maybe we’re condemned, and maybe we’re not. But without criticizing any individual, we all have our own perspectives based on our own experience and specific knowledge, and there’s no reason to expect they will all be saying the same thing. We can be aligned on the big issues of who are the angels and who are the devils. I think pretty much, we’re all pretty much aligned on that. We’re all in the– so many of us in the alternative media are so-called “fighters for peace”, just to enjoy that little contradiction. But having said that, there’s no reason for us to be totally aligned on every interpretation, including whether a conflict with China is inevitable or can be avoided, whether the destruction of Russia is necessary for the United States to sit at the Board of Directors’ table of world governance or not. So that is where we are. I don’t throw bouquets nor do I throw brickbats of any of these worthy experts.
Alkhorshid: 50:22
Thank you so much for being with us today. Great pleasure as always.
Doctorow:
Well, thanks for allowing me this non-conformist exposition.
Alkhorshid: 50:33
It’s my pleasure.
Gilbert Doctorow 