Transcript of interview with Professor Glenn Diesen, 10 April

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxPFg8uatqs

Prof. Glenn Diesen: 0:00
Hi everyone and welcome. I am joined today by Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, an international affairs analyst and historian. And I wanted to speak with you today about what is happening to the political West, that is the United States and Europe, which has been more or less joined by the HIP since the Second World War. And I guess much of the world now is looking towards Europe with some bewilderment.

That is, Europe doesn’t want to negotiate a war that has effectively already been lost. Europe doesn’t want to reconsider sanctions that don’t work. They’re happy to steal sovereign funds. They want to spend money now on weapons they can’t afford. We see the US leaving Europe, yet there’s no real outreach to the rest of the world.

0:47
Indeed, I just saw Kaja Kallas, the foreign policy chief of the EU, blaming China for being the main enabler of Russia in Ukraine. So it’s again, not clear to me what scolding China is meant to achieve, especially in public. The media is still all about the warmongering, war with Russia, the world’s largest nuclear power. Well, again, one could go on, but how do you explain this posture? I’ve attempted to challenge some of these lack of ideas, but usually the main knee-jerk reaction is some Hitler analogy and reference to Russian propaganda.

So how do you explain what is happening in Europe at the moment? Because we’re not really discussing course correction, which should be the main issue, I guess.

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 1:41
Well, just how bizarre, or simply speaking stupid, these developments in Europe are, hit home to me yesterday, or the day before yesterday, when I saw on Russian television the visiting delegation from Belgium, led by the Prime Minister, Bart De Wever, and his Minister of Defense, Minister of Commerce and Foreign Affairs. They had in their group the leaders of some of Belgium’s most important arms manufacturers.

And although Belgium is very well known for its superb chocolates. It also has a pretty good arms industry, always did. These were light arms for the most part, but nonetheless, the technologies were there. And there was Mr. De Wever shaking the hand warmly of Wilensky, and of his whole crew, and they all looked very satisfied with themselves.

2:36
And this brought to mind my own experiences going back to the 1970s when detente had its moment of bloom and detente had its moment of wilt. And I entered the field more or less in the wilting period when some very conservative American companies decided to go into the Soviet Union and to show that they also were highly competent in international affairs.

Well, they went in, of course, in the waning days. What I’m seeing now strikes me [as] the utter stupidity of coming into Kiev when the regime is on its last legs, and everybody knows that, and coming in and offering a billion euros in military assistance this year and every year, at the very moment when the Prime Minister is in very tough conflict with the labor unions in Belgium and with the broader public for the measures of austerity he’s introduced domestically. We’ve had rail strikes, we’ll have many more of them, because he just raised the retirement age for tram drivers and bus drivers from 55 to 67.

3:46
Now that’s a hell of an increase in one year. And of course the people are indignant. And of course they’re afraid of cuts in social welfare, healthcare, and so forth. And here this guy is speaking of giving away a billion euros to a regime that’s about to collapse. Where are their brains? I have to wonder.

But I don’t want to suggest that the problem of Europe is a lack of brains, not at all. The problem of Europe has been very heated brains. The notion that Europe has borrowed ideology and followed in the footsteps of Washington is rubbish. Europe has had– they have a lot of thinkers here; there are a lot of well-educated people. And whether they’re using their education properly or not is a separate question.

4:39
But it’s not for lack of training and will to enter into political dialogue that Europeans have suffered. On the contrary, here in Europe we’ve had thinkers of neocon principles. They didn’t all have to read Robert Kagan. They didn’t all have to read Fukuyama. We had our own here in Europe. You are living very close to the home of one of the biggest thinkers in Europe and actors, Carl Bildt. Carl Bildt was never at a loss for words in spreading the theories of the neocon movement.

So there has been an indigenous neoconservatism in Europe of considerable proportions. There also has been the co-optation of many of Europe’s leaders going back to when they were still relatively young and formative by American agencies. These future leader programs that they had been brought into, whether it was the absolute nitwit Baerbock or Kaja Kallas. Well, you can go to a whole list– or Leo or Macron– a whole list of personalities who in one way or another, at various early stages in their career, were co-opted by American propaganda organizations. And so they were instilled. They had their hotdogs on the White House lawn. They saw the glory of being part of the rulers of the human race.

6:07
And these people have been very deeply embedded in the American unipolar ideology. And it is shocking to them and dismaying to them and unacceptable to them that one Donald Trump, who was known to be a rather shallow thinker, would disrupt the game, would overturn the chessboard, and would make everything that they had believed in since they were wearing short trousers … history. That’s where we are today. That’s why they dig in. And that’s why they refuse to follow what their eyes tell them: that the United States will in response to, well, I’ve got this book, the United States is ready to drop its support of Europe. So Europe goes in and runs against the American policy of concluding a peace.

7:05
Well, the ideology you refer to is best, I guess, described as liberal hegemony, the idea that the great power rival of the past can be overcome if the West sustains its collective hegemony, because this would allow us to elevate the role of liberal democratic values. Because there seems to be– well again, the whole political class over the past few decades have been raised to a large extent on this idea that we, as you mentioned Fukuyama, we can transcend that history now, that as long as the West dominates, has its hegemony, then this is a victory for liberalism and again perpetual peace to delve into Kant. Is this where the–

7:52
Well, I guess if you want to move away from this, you have to then argue that, well, perhaps we did something wrong the past 30 years when instead of mitigating the security competition with great powers, we would just make sure that we would transcend history by simply having perpetual liberal hegemony. Is this the main problem or do you see the ideologies differently?

Doctorow:
The ideology is very deep. It runs very deep. And it starts with things, little simple notions, which seem self-evident, but are absolutely based on nothing: the notion that democratic countries are peace-loving because they are strongly supported by the populations, and therefore they do not have to go and solve their political problems by fighting wars abroad.

8:45
Whereas autocratic, authoritarian countries are necessarily warlike. And since Europe is a project of peace, we have to be against those countries. They are warlike because they are fragile, because they do not enjoy the support of the population, and so they tend to look for foreign wars to to maintain their hold over their populations.

That’s a very simple notion, dead wrong of course, but try to find people in the European political classes who would disagree with that. This is the whole European-values story that is the whole of the institutions that are three kilometers away from me, the European institutions, they are all infected with these ideas. And to shake their heads and to bring them back to common sense is a vast task.

Diesen:
Well, we keep still referring to Europe often as some kind of a cohesive, united entity; but we kind of bet everything on this alliance with the United States. We even agreed in the 90s to redivide the continent by expanding NATO, even though we knew from the 90s that this would likely cause conflicts with the Russians, and many pushed back against this and warned. But nonetheless, the American pacifier in Europe was seen as a central component of the collective hegemony or liberal hegemony.

10:20
But what happens now that Americans will most likely depart, at least to some extent, as it’s shifting its priorities around the world? Do you see already cracks in the European unity or what direction do you predict?

Doctorow:
The cracks are there, but they’re not running deep enough to provide you and me with much satisfaction. There are two countries that stand out where the leaders have been remarkably bold, in the same way that Trump was bold, to run up against the united opposition of everybody around. I’m speaking of course of Hungary and Slovakia.

11:02
The others are whispering among themselves. We know that there are some unreported approaches to Putin that one or another leader has made. But from my experience in politics, people who tell you that, “Oh, well, when they speak among themselves, off the record, they understand, European leaders understand that Ukraine has lost the war” and so on and so forth. But in politics, what people say among themselves behind closed doors is irrelevant. The only thing that counts is what they say when they’re given a microphone in public space.

And in public space, they’re all nominally united. How long that will go on when the moment of truth comes and Donald Trump says, “Are you with me or are you against me on accommodating the Russian requirements for entering into a ceasefire?” And that will be the moment of truth, which will likely end in the United States pulling the plug on Ukraine and it’s going down in flames. There Europe will have to scramble, the European leaders will have to scramble, to find an explanation that does not take them down with Ukrainian flames.

Diesen: 12:20
That moment of truth might come sooner rather than later. Indeed, Trump has always made the point that either the conflict has to be solved soon or it might not be solved at all. Why do you see him as being in such a rush to finish this war off now, or either negotiating now or just walking away? What is the time pressure here?

Doctorow:
Well, we had a good reminder of why he’s moving fast in the last week when we saw very big opposition, widespread opposition to his chaotically introduced new tariffs and attempt to extricate the United States from its unsustainable annual trade imbalance or trading deficits that are no longer able to be financed.

13:20
There were widespread demonstrations. I think Russian television put up on screen some of these which they said spread to 1,400 cities and towns across the United States. I’d like to stop for a moment and say something that I don’t see, I think I’ve seen anywhere else but was on Russian television. They had their interviews, they had their journalists go into the crowd. Probably was in Washington. And they interviewed a few kids, I mean, guys in their young twenties, early twenties, who were carrying these signs about how horrible the tariffs are and so forth.

And they had some brochures, leaflets to hand out. And the Russian reporters went up to them and they asked, can you tell me why you’re opposing this? Well, it was a sputter. The fellow couldn’t say a word. He didn’t understand what the tariff business was all about. He had been handed this very nicely produced sign, and he was handed the printed leaflets denouncing Trump.

And the conclusion of the journalists was, “Hey, this was a color-revolution operation. This was just like Maidan. These guys have been paid to party on the street against Trump. And for them, it’s a big party and they don’t really know what it’s about.”

Well, USAID obviously didn’t finance this. That question is: who did? The Russians didn’t ask it. I’ll ask it. Now I give the answer: certainly the likes of George Soros.

This would be– his fingerprints have to be all over this type of operation. So somebody is paying for that, and they were paid demonstrations. They weren’t just enthusiasts for the Democratic Party coming out on the streets. No, no. So that will have to be investigated.

15:13
But the main point I wanted to make is: the Russians saw a surprising weakness in Trump’s domestic situation. And they were right, as we know, because he reversed path yesterday. And he’s postponed for 90 days implementation of the really serious tariffs that are supposed to be directed against offenders, big offenders, except for China, which is singled out for continuing very heavy tariffs [that] amount to a blockade. Well, the Russians are concerned about Mr. Trump and his standing domestically, because they understand that he is the best hope they’ve had for detente since Richard Nixon.

16:00
And they don’t want to see his policies eviscerated, they don’t want to see him lose his present standing. But even before this crisis arose, everyone was looking at the dates. April 20th is when he wants to have a final solution to the dispute with Iran over its nuclear program and its general military capabilities. April 20th was the final date that he said he wants to have for conclusion of a ceasefire at least between Russia and Ukraine. And why [this date]?

16:39
Well, it’s the hundred days. It’s the period in the start of a new administration when they get a free pass, when the opposition, and particularly it was true in this case, when the opposition is still in a state of licking its wounds and disorganized, and he wanted to rush through as much of his domestic and foreign policy as he could, while he has absolute control on Capitol Hill.

So that’s what the rush was all about. The question is, of course, what is the relevance of his personal needs to solving the Ukraine war? That is a really American perspective that the whole world will dance around the tune that Donald Trump is playing on his flute. The conclusion of the war is a very complex issue and cannot be resolved just because Donald Trump says, “Hey, this is my deadline.”

Diesen: 17:36
Well, when the deadline is reached and there’s still no peace, where does it go from here? Because there’s different pathways. He can escalate pressure on the Russians, more weapons effectively getting pulled into owning the Ukraine war. He can put pressure on the Europeans [by] various means. He can again challenge the legitimacy of Zelensky and cut weapons supplies, intelligence, the logistics to pressure the Ukrainians. But … or he can just wash his hands of it and walk away. What do you see as the most likely path forward for Trump, just to abandon this?

Doctorow: 18:21
Well, a lot will depend on the depth of the political damage he has done to himself by this whole affair with the tariffs. If he has solved the problem for the coming 90 days by giving this pause so that all 70 countries can come and as he said in a remarkably foolish statement last today to the Republicans, “come and kiss my ass”.

Trump:
Because I’m telling you, these countries are calling us up, kissing my ass. They are dying to make a deal. Please, please, sir, make a deal. I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything, sir.

Doctorow: 19:05
If that goes as he hopes and he does strike separate deals, then he will remain strong politically, domestically, and he can pursue what is essentially an unpopular policy of reconciliation with Russia, unpopular in the States, I mean. So the Russians are watching this very attentively because, as I said, it really is for them of decisive importance. Do they have a talking partner who can take to conclusion his proposals for detente or don’t they have such a partner?

19:44
Well, obviously the Europeans are attempting to sabotage his peace agreement, which is a reason for contempt, but there seems to be a wider contempt for Europe. And Indeed, this has been shown in the different messages which have been released, for example, the Signal messages, but very openly the way JD Vance has spoken. But I don’t think it’s only with the Trump administration. You can go back to 2014 with Victoria Nuland’s “F the EU” comments. It’s something when you speak to American leaders or diplomats and all, they confirm that there is some contempt for Europe, but also that this has been increasing. How do you explain this given that this was the main partnership of the United States for decades? Where does this contempt come from?

Doctorow: 20:41
Well, Europeans in leadership positions today are contemptible. Objectively speaking, this is the weakest set of leaders of major European countries that we’ve seen since the beginning of the European Union. There were intellectuals, there were high-level, well-educated people who, for one reason or another, occupied positions of power. There were people who were of extraordinary personal quality and courage, who headed major European states, not minor European states like Slovakia and Hungary.

21:23
They’re gone. The leaders of the main European countries are one-by-one weak, inexperienced, they are cut off from the world at large, and they never were deeply engaged. Or they’re highly educated, enormously superficial people like Macron. Macron was the French equivalent of Sunak. Same background and same utter superficiality. They are– they were hyped. They were sold to the public by parties on the side, not least of them being the CIA.

22:06
And we’ve gotten– well, there’s a whole sequence of leaders in France who were installed essentially by the CIA by sidelining and destroying the political careers of the intelligent, effective, normal political candidates who otherwise should have won. And this is, France is the most egregious case, the most obvious case, but other countries as well.

The– Merz does not enjoy popularity as he’s about to assume the chancellorship. And how and why would he? The man is cold as can be. His program is built on war. And it’s– many Germans may want to revisit World War II out of the never-ending revanchism that has never been burned out of the country.

23:07
But nonetheless, the majority of Germans don’t want to revisit World War II and to go in a face-to-face with the Russians. So Germany has a serious problem. Now, it’s not– maybe we’ll be lucky and Baerbock will be sent off to the UN. But that such a person ever could occupy that position, tells you why Americans, particularly sophisticated Americans, whether they speak with hillbilly accent or not, would look upon Europe with contempt.

Diesen: 23:43
When you see the German military leaders, all the way up to generals, the way they spoke during the invasion of Kursk, where they almost celebrated, well, not almost, they did celebrate, saying that this is a humiliation of Russia.

They haven’t seen this since World War II. This is quite extraordinary. It’s hard to believe that it’s real that this kind of comments are still made. But on the topic of, I guess, political immaturity, what do you make of the European war plans at the moment? I don’t think people appreciate how dangerous the situation is.

Europe with its supply weapons, America as well, of course, has been contributing to the deaths of tens of thousands of Russians. We have the foreign policy chief openly threatening to destroy Russia, break it into smaller pieces. They casually speak about war against Russia, again, the world’s largest nuclear power. And all of this at a time when the Europeans do not have a proper army and they no longer have the clear backing of the United States any more. So Europe could face a very angry Russia soon, which it sees as an absolute necessity to restore its deterrent.

25:02
As we learn now from the “New York Times” article that this has been mostly a NATO war against Russia since the invasion. I mean, this is on black and white. So again, it’s very hard to believe that this is real, this rhetoric coming out. Do you see this as merely a bluff or do you see evidence of them effectively losing their minds here? There seems to be some collective irrationality here.

25:37
Not entirely. I think the Russians are partly to blame for this delusionary thinking in Western Europe. They have not struck back. Their red lines have been crossed repeatedly. They did not strike back. Having a lawyer as your head of state has advantages and disadvantages. Mr. Putin did not use the moments that were before him to punish Europe directly for its crossing red lines. And the result was the widespread thinking in the West that they didn’t respond because they’re weak.

26:24
That, unfortunately, has fed into this delusionary thinking that we see around us today. And I cannot say that the Russians did not contribute to that very unfortunate end result. The Chinese are playing a different game. I don’t– if anybody thinks that the Chinese will not use an attack on Iran to take over Taiwan within a matter of days or weeks, they really need to have their head examined. Because the Chinese by their very swift response to Trump’s tariffs, they have shown themselves to be militant. They have stated publicly, they made references publicly to the century of shame, to their having been colonized, and that they will not put up with this type of diktat coming from the likes of Donald Trump or from anybody else.

27:33
Unfortunately, the Russians did not behave in such a manner. And so they encouraged– this is not over one or two cases, but over the last three years– they encouraged a misunderstanding of why they were being reasonable and not hitting back. The Chinese will hit back, whatever the consequence. And that is a different game.

Diesen: 28:01
I think this was always the dilemma for the Russians. If they would retaliate against NATO, on one hand they could risk escalating and triggering World War III. If they do not, then as you said, you will embolden NATO. And indeed it’s what we see in our newspapers as well, that “while Russia doesn’t defend its red lines, they’re weak; we can do what we want”. So this is the usual dilemma, I guess, in terms of response. But that’s what I meant if the United States is pulling a bit back, Russia’s calculations in terms of how hard it can hit back, I would assume that this would change.

28:38
I wanted to ask you also about this limited ceasefire, because I’m not sure what the purpose of it exactly was. If it was trust building or if they were going to add to it to move towards a more comprehensive peace agreement, but it consisted of not hitting energy infrastructure and also resuming the Black Sea grain corridor for commercial vessels. Well, it doesn’t seem like it’s been a great success. I think this would be an understatement. But what is it that went wrong with it? And what are the, why the ramifications of this failed, limited ceasefire?

29:24
It failed because the Europeans grabbed upon it as another means of continuing the war. Until Trump put out his ceasefire proposal and the first meetings were held with regard to it, the Europeans were saying, “No, no ceasefire, The Russians have to pull back, take their troops out of all of Ukraine and so forth, and have to pay reparations” and blah blah blah.

And then suddenly they saw, “Hmm, the Russians are not keen to conclude the ceasefire, and we can use that.” So the Europeans all seized on this ceasefire proposal that was under preliminary discussion between the Russians, United States and the Ukrainians as a means of continuing the war because you see, the Russians don’t want peace.

30:19
So it took on a life of its own. When from the Russian standpoint, the ceasefire agreement was an irrelevancy; it was only to be an appendage to an understanding between the United States and Russia about what the endgame would be. How would the war end? With who getting what? That apparently has been under discussion. I have no doubts that there is far-reaching agreement between the United States and Russia on what the end game looks like.

30:49
But obviously, nobody has signed on a dotted line. Therefore, the Russians cannot consider it as a given. And it has not been dictated by Washington to Kiev on a take it or leave it basis, yet. That may come as we come closer to the date, April 20th. But from the Russians standpoint, the ceasefire by itself had no value at all.

Trust building, yes, but other things had to happen in the same timeframe. And these were identified during the first meeting that Witkoff had with the Russians in Saudi Arabia. It was the reopening of diplomatic channels, the restoration of the rights and capabilities of the respective embassies and restoration of consulates in both countries. That was to go in the same timeframe.

31:52
Not much progress has been made by the way, on the latter point. The Americans have spoken about technical facilities for the proper functioning of the embassy. But they have not spoken about something that the Russians considered rightly very important: restoration of their property rights. The Russian embassy in San Francisco was confiscated. It was sealed. American intelligence agents went through it and sealed it all.

The Russian rest and recreation dachas in Long Island and somewhere around Washington were seized and the Russians say give it back. It’s a diplomatic property, it should be in their hands. So these issues are still under discussion and are quite important.

Diesen: 32:46
Well my last question is just what do you see happening on the battlefield? Because if diplomacy is not moving forward, one can assume that Russia would then lean more into the military option of resolving the war. Do you see any big trends worth noting?

Doctorow:
Well, it’s still unclear when or if the Russians will stage a major offensive to wipe out the Ukrainian army in Donbass. That isn’t clear. There is discussion of it. I believe that the appointment of one General Popov to head the storm operations is indicative that a major assault is being considered, if not planned.

33:41
But otherwise, the Russians are very busy, liberating the last 30, 40 square kilometres of Kursk. They’ve got two settlements on the border within Kursk that are partly held by Ukrainians, and they’re still flushing them out. These are heavily fortified. And then at the same time, to divert attention from that, the Ukrainians stage another border incursion in the next-over oblast. So the rest of that is in slow progress, progress but not with wild speed.

And of course, day by day, the Russians are moving on the Donbass frontline as advancing, but not with overwhelming speed or results. Pokrovsk still has not been taken. It is the single largest logistics hub supplying the front lines of Ukraine and Donbass, and it is still under challenge by the Russians, but being held essentially by the Ukrainians. So this moves, but not with blinding speed.

Diesen: 35:03
Well, I’ve seen some reports about huge movements of Russian equipment and troops. Again, the fog of war, it’s unclear how accurate some of the information is, but it appears to be the case. So as we’re approaching Trump’s deadline or losing his patience with this, I fear all hell could break loose in terms of a military option being intensified.

So anyways, Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, thank you again so much for your time. It’s always excellent to speak with you.

Doctorow: 35:42
It was a pleasure.