‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 3 December 2025: Are US/Russian Negotiations a Waste of Time?

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‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 3 December 2025: Are US/Russian Negotiations a Waste of Time?

I gladly present this chat with Judge Napolitano because we departed from the strict and often dry terms of foreign policy analysis to other methods which Andrew Napolitano cultivated during his time on the bench but which political scientists, for reasons best known to them, do not deal in:  body language.

We both viewed segments from the most recent public statements by Vladimir Putin, most likely made after the conclusion of his talks with Witkoff and Kushner over peace in Ukraine. My reading of Putin’s body language was that he was supremely confident of the superiority of Russian arms over anything in the European arsenals when he said that Russia is ready to go to war with Europe if that is what they want, and can do so right now. He went on to say that the war will not be very long.

This brought to mind the lyrics of Tom Lehrer’s song to his mother that he would be back from the war in a half hour or so.  For those not clued in:  Putin was saying in veiled language what Russian nationalists have been saying for some time, namely that Russia will not pussy foot with the Europeans in war conditions as it has done with Ukraine because of the residual brotherly feelings towards Ukraine which are absent with regard to Europe. Russia will not fight in the trenches, but will use its tactical nuclear weapons to annihilate any European forces sent against it.

I do hope that in the chancelleries of Europe, and especially in Germany, they have paid close attention to these remarks of Putin, because they make a mockery of the European rearmament efforts at present. No amount of new tanks or artillery, no new fighter jets, no additional recruits to their armed forces, whether volunteer or by a draft, will provide any defense whatsoever for Europe if they go head to head against Russia today.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

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Published by gilbertdoctorow

Gilbert Doctorow's latest book, "War Diaries. The Russia-Ukraine War, 2022-2023" is a unique contribution to literature on the war thanks to the author's reports on the Russian home front written during his periodic visits to St Petersburg at a time when Russia no longer issued visas and nearly all Western journalists had left the country. Doctorow's two-volume "Memoirs of a Russianist" published in 2020 also constitutes a category of its own, consisting largely of diary entries rather than reminiscences written decades later.. Volume 2 focuses on the community of 50,000 expatriate managers working and living in Moscow during the 1990s, about which none of his peers has yet to write. Gilbert Doctorow is a professional Russia watcher and actor in Russian affairs going back to 1965. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College (1967), a past Fulbright scholar, and holder of a Ph.D. with honors in history from Columbia University (1975). After completing his studies, Mr. Doctorow pursued a business career focused on the USSR and Eastern Europe. For twenty-five years he worked for US and European multinationals in marketing and general management with regional responsibility. From 1998-2002, Doctorow served as the Chairman of the Russian Booker Literary Prize in Moscow. During the 2010-2011 academic year, he was a Visiting scholar of the Harriman Institute, Columbia University. Mr. Doctorow is a long-time resident of Brussels.

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