My latest interview with Nima Alkhorshid on ‘Dialogue Works’ has generated many negative comments which I enjoyed reading because their words vindicated what I have been saying for a good long time: that the Opposition to mainstream news purveyors and to the Washington narrative of the Biden administration has within it too many America-haters, most of them living in the United States, who cannot abide the idea that anything good could happen in their homeland or that, in fact, they enjoy far greater freedom of speech than I do, living in Europe, or than their northern cousins in Canada enjoy living under the authoritarian regime of Justin Trudeau.

Let me wipe away the snide remarks of those who accused me of naiveté, of falling prey to lying politicians which they believe Donald Trump and JD Vance to be.  My friends, I firmly believe the old truism that America will always do the right thing….after it has tried everything else. In the speech of J.D. Vance which I praised so highly, I saw that the long awaited moment has come.

The issues surrounding the Trump candidacy are the same as back in 2016: can we focus our minds on what immediately threatens our lives and put to a side our possible disagreement with policies advocated by the candidate that do not meet our personal preferences but are not life threatening NOW, not in 30 years time, like global warming, or women’s right to control their bodies (abortion).

I say out loud that the number one threat to America’s and the world’s continued existence beyond the immediate months before us is the war in Ukraine which can blow up into a nuclear WWIII at any moment if the current U.S. policy of seeking regime change in Russia and the break-up of the Russian Federation through inflicting a humiliating military defeat on the country appears to be materializing.

Gaza is a very nasty case, an openly perpetrated genocide that needs to be stopped. The American animus towards Iran, North Korea and China are all land mines which may explode but are unlikely to explode if the first and existential threat in Ukraine is resolved shortly. This resolution at the negotiating table is what I see happening if Trump wins in November.  And as I said in the interview, given the way that people and their leaders flock to the winning side, a Trump victory in November can also reverse the power balance here in Europe and drain away the power from the newly installed European Commission under Ursula von der Leyen, redirecting power to Viktor Orban and his fellow thinkers who want to restore sovereignty to the member states and whittle away at the authoritarian neo-Cons presently in control of Europe’s supranational government structures sitting in Brussels. Yes, Europe has its own home-grown neo-Cons and is not merely marching under instructions from Washington. Let us call them by their proper name – modern day Quislings, or for those whose memory does not go so far back as WWII, the Fifth Column.

Comments on my latest interview cite, with deprecation, what they call my optimism, which they believe to be misplaced. They are not listening closely: I explained in the interview why my hopes for Trump in 2016 were dashed because of his lack of proper supports within the political establishment to put together a team capable of implementing rather than frustrating his policies.. And I am convinced that he has now mastered Washington while the Democrats are presently stumbling, so that he will be able to deliver on his promises today whereas he could not in 2016.  In any case, I am unapologetic about being an optimist. I spent 25 years in corporate business in the marketing departments, where optimism comes with the territory and where fools do not last long.

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Donald Trump is presented by his political detractors in the mainstream media as a braggart and liar. During his presidency, The Washington Post issued daily lists of the factual errors of his Tweets and public statements over the preceding 24 hours.  CNN has done a “fact check” of his every word these past several days.

However unattractive boastfulness may be, outright lies fall into a different category when they are made by people in power or by those who would be in power.

The fact is that the U.S. Government lies to the people every day about the way the war in Ukraine is going, about the intentions of the Israeli government to protect civilians and about all types of issues that are very important and which are evolving under the control of Washington. These are factual errors and propaganda that could be better called ‘disinformation’ to use the lexicon of the day.

I do not wish to imply that I expect absolute transparency and truthfulness from any government. However, there are often mitigating circumstances which favor lying. I believe that Trump and Vance are using falsehoods as tactical weapons in their fight with retrograde members of their own party, not to mention the Democrats, whom they cannot fight openly. As I say in the interview, the notion that we should turn the Ukraine war over to Europe so that the USA can concentrate its forces to wage war on China is just such an example of deception for a worthy purpose. Turning support for Ukraine over to the Europeans means throwing Ukraine under the bus, as we say in modern American English. Everyone knows that without the U.S. component, Europe’s possible military aid to Ukraine is worthless. And as for China, this is just a red flag to entice the war-mongers in both parties to believe that Trump is their boy, when in fact he is not.

I look forward to continuing this discussion with any and all. I remain ‘optimistic’ that there is light at the end of the tunnel of never ending U.S-incited wars around the globe.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Lügner, Kriegstreiber und die Politik an der Spitze der Macht

Mein jüngstes Interview mit Nima Alkhorshid auf ‘Dialogue Works’ hat viele negative Kommentare hervorgerufen, die ich mit Freude gelesen habe, weil sie das bestätigen, was ich schon seit langem sage: dass es in der Opposition zu den Mainstream-Nachrichtensendern und zum Washingtoner Narrativ der Biden-Administration zu viele Amerika-Hasser gibt, von denen die meisten in den Vereinigten Staaten leben und die den Gedanken nicht ertragen können, dass in ihrem Heimatland etwas Gutes geschehen könnte oder dass sie in Wirklichkeit eine weitaus größere Redefreiheit genießen als ich, der ich in Europa lebe, oder als ihre nördlichen Cousins in Kanada, die unter dem autoritären Regime von Justin Trudeau leben.

Lassen Sie mich die abfälligen Bemerkungen derjenigen wegwischen, die mich der Naivität beschuldigten, den verlogenen Politikern auf den Leim zu gehen, für die sie Donald Trump und JD Vance halten. Meine Freunde, ich glaube fest an die alte Binsenweisheit, dass Amerika immer das Richtige tun wird… nachdem es alles andere versucht hat. In der Rede von J.D. Vance, die ich so hoch gelobt habe, habe ich gesehen, dass der lang erwartete Moment gekommen ist.

Die Fragen im Zusammenhang mit der Kandidatur von Trump sind dieselben wie 2016: Können wir uns auf das konzentrieren, was unser Leben unmittelbar bedroht, und unsere mögliche Ablehnung von politischen Maßnahmen, die der Kandidat vertritt und die nicht unseren persönlichen Präferenzen entsprechen, aber nicht JETZT und nicht in 30 Jahren lebensbedrohlich sind, wie die globale Erwärmung oder das Recht der Frauen, über ihren Körper zu bestimmen (Abtreibung), beiseite schieben?

Ich sage laut, dass die größte Bedrohung für den Fortbestand Amerikas und der Welt über die nächsten Monate hinaus der Krieg in der Ukraine ist, der sich jederzeit zu einem nuklearen Dritten Weltkrieg ausweiten kann, wenn die derzeitige US-Politik, die einen Regimewechsel in Russland und die Auflösung der Russischen Föderation anstrebt, indem sie dem Land eine demütigende militärische Niederlage zufügen will, umgesetzt wird.

Gaza ist ein sehr unangenehmer Fall, ein offen verübter Völkermord, der gestoppt werden muss. Die amerikanischen Animositäten gegenüber dem Iran, Nordkorea und China sind allesamt Landminen, die explodieren können, aber wahrscheinlich nicht explodieren werden, wenn die erste und existenzielle Bedrohung in der Ukraine in Kürze gelöst wird. Diese Lösung am Verhandlungstisch ist das, was ich sehe, wenn Trump im November gewinnt. Und wie ich in dem Interview sagte, kann ein Sieg von Trump im November auch das Machtgleichgewicht hier in Europa umkehren und der neu installierten Europäischen Kommission unter Ursula von der Leyen die Macht entziehen und sie an Viktor Orban und seine Mitdenker zurückgeben, die die Souveränität der Mitgliedstaaten wiederherstellen und die autoritären Neokonservativen, die derzeit die supranationalen Regierungsstrukturen Europas in Brüssel kontrollieren, zurückdrängen wollen. Ja, Europa hat seine eigenen einheimischen Neocons und marschiert nicht nur auf Anweisung aus Washington. Nennen wir sie bei ihrem richtigen Namen – moderne Quislinge oder für diejenigen, deren Gedächtnis nicht so weit zurückreicht wie der Zweite Weltkrieg, die Fünfte Kolonne.

In den Kommentaren zu meinem letzten Interview wird abwertend auf meinen Optimismus verwiesen, den sie für unangebracht halten. Sie hören nicht genau zu: Ich habe in dem Interview erklärt, warum meine Hoffnungen auf Trump im Jahr 2016 enttäuscht wurden, weil es ihm an der richtigen Unterstützung innerhalb des politischen Establishments fehlte, um ein Team zusammenzustellen, das in der Lage ist, seine Politik umzusetzen, anstatt sie zu vereiteln… Und ich bin davon überzeugt, dass er Washington jetzt beherrscht, während die Demokraten derzeit straucheln, so dass er heute in der Lage sein wird, seine Versprechen einzulösen, während er das 2016 nicht konnte. Auf jeden Fall bin ich unumwunden ein Optimist. Ich habe 25 Jahre in der Wirtschaft in den Marketingabteilungen verbracht, wo Optimismus zum Alltag gehört und wo Dummköpfe nicht lange überleben.

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Donald Trump wird von seinen politischen Gegnern in den Mainstream-Medien als Angeber und Lügner dargestellt. Während seiner Präsidentschaft veröffentlichte die Washington Post täglich Listen mit den sachlichen Fehlern seiner Tweets und öffentlichen Erklärungen der vorangegangenen 24 Stunden. CNN hat in den letzten Tagen jedes seiner Worte einem „Faktencheck“ unterzogen.

So unattraktiv Prahlerei auch sein mag, offene Lügen fallen in eine andere Kategorie, wenn sie von Leuten gemacht werden, die an der Macht sind oder die an der Macht sein wollen.

Tatsache ist, dass die US-Regierung die Menschen jeden Tag über den Verlauf des Krieges in der Ukraine, über die Absichten der israelischen Regierung, die Zivilbevölkerung zu schützen, und über alle möglichen Themen, die sehr wichtig sind und die sich unter der Kontrolle Washingtons entwickeln, belügt. Es handelt sich dabei um sachliche Fehler und Propaganda, die man besser als „Desinformation“ bezeichnen könnte, um den heutigen Sprachgebrauch zu verwenden.

Ich möchte damit nicht sagen, dass ich von jeder Regierung absolute Transparenz und Wahrhaftigkeit erwarte. Allerdings gibt es oft mildernde Umstände, die das Lügen begünstigen. Ich glaube, dass Trump und Vance Unwahrheiten als taktische Waffen in ihrem Kampf mit rückschrittlichen Mitgliedern ihrer eigenen Partei einsetzen, ganz zu schweigen von den Demokraten, die sie nicht offen bekämpfen können. Wie ich in dem Interview sage, ist die Vorstellung, dass wir den Krieg in der Ukraine Europa überlassen sollten, damit die USA ihre Kräfte konzentrieren können, um einen Krieg gegen China zu führen, genau so ein Beispiel für eine Täuschung zu einem lohnenden Zweck. Die Unterstützung für die Ukraine den Europäern zu überlassen, bedeutet, die Ukraine vor den Bus zu werfen, wie wir im modernen amerikanischen Englisch sagen. Jeder weiß, dass die mögliche Militärhilfe Europas für die Ukraine ohne die US-Komponente wertlos ist. Und was China betrifft, so ist dies nur eine rote Fahne, um die Kriegstreiber in beiden Parteien in dem Glauben zu lassen, dass Trump auf ihrer Seite ist, obwohl er das in Wirklichkeit nicht ist.

Ich freue mich darauf, diese Diskussion mit allen fortzusetzen. Ich bleibe „optimistisch“, dass es Licht am Ende des Tunnels der nicht enden wollenden, von den USA angezettelten Kriege rund um den Globus gibt.

’

An hour long interview may be challenging for you, the viewer, but it is still more challenging for the interviewee. It moves across the waterfront from the more obvious salient issues of the day for which you have concise answers formulated in advance, whether or not a list of questions was provided in by the host, and moves into unforeseeable areas about which you respond extemporaneously.  So it was with this interview taken by Nima Alkhorshid.

https://youtu.be/m1UGx5Ay6J0

I was delighted that from the very start I was asked about the significance of Trump’s naming J.D. Vance to be his running mate. My own spontaneous look into Vance’s record ahead of this show turned up a speech he made in the U.S. Senate in the debate ahead of the vote on the bill providing $60 billion in further aid to Ukraine. This speech put flesh on the scarecrow Vance presented in major media, where attention is paid only to his ‘nyet,’ which puts him in the enemy camp, and no mention is made of the reasoning he applied to the issue, which, in my view demonstrates superior intelligence, independence of thinking and an appreciation of how history is used and mostly abused by his colleagues on Capitol Hill to serve their war-mongering.

He attacked the logic of the defenders of our Ukraine policy who oppose peace negotiations, saying this is just appeasement akin to Chamberlain in the lead-up to WWII.   But the film of WWII has been played and replayed endlessly in the Senate and this supposed lesson from history does not fit.  Putin is not Hitler, he does not have the power of Hitler.  No, there are far more apt likenesses in the past.   Look better at WWI in which the major powers stumbled into a horrific catastrophe because they overlooked diplomacy.   But then look also at the lessons of the Iraq war. Then as now those who were opposed to the attack on Iraq were subjected to abuse by the pro-war majority, just as today those who oppose the Ukraine war narrative are derided as stooges of Putin. There was no free discussion and this is what we need most to arrive at good policies.

Vance then points out the very same politicians who led us into the war in Iraq on false pretenses of defending democracy are doing that today in calling to arm Ukraine

And war, says Vance, has unintended consequences.  That is how America, the biggest Christain countryon earth, by its interventions in Syria wiped out one of the oldest Christian communities in the world dating from the time of the Apostles, 1.5 million strong at the start of hostilities and nil today.     This is how the same is playing out in Ukraine where the government is striking hard against the Christian community that it says is aligned with Moscow. The result is an assault on freedom of religion.

I highly recommend this speech to my readers:  Live: Republican VP Candidate JD Vance Called for Reevaluation of US Foreign Aid During House Debate (youtube.com)

In my interview, I explained at length something else I have been ruminating over these past several day, namely how the appointment of Vance and the speeches delivered in the Republican National Convention by several powerful representatives of civil society, most particularly the president of the Teamsters union, show that Donald Trump now appears to have the support he needs to do what he was unable to do in his first term: to attract a high quality team to his cabinet and to other high federal positions consisting of people who are dedicated to implementing  his policies.. It is likely that he will gain control of both houses of Congress so that the Senate approval of his nominees may be foreseen. Moreover, this time around, a divided Democratic party, such as we now see before us, will be unable to frustrate Trump’s plans, foreign as well as domestic.

I was less successful in this interview setting out my thinking on how the new catchword of the day in international relations, ‘sovereignty,’ relates to the bigger and very traditional dialectic between Realism and Idealism in international relations, with the former standing for the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) based vision of nation states that protect the interests of their citizens in general and most specifically against interference by foreign powers that so often causes civil unrest and wars. The latter, Idealism, as we know, focuses on values and finds its latest expression in globalism, which is promoted by supranational, unelected institutions that suck power away from nation states, and in non-state actors such as multinational corporations.  All of this I will come back to in writing another day, because it is of decisive importance to understand who is really who on the world stage today and why today’s catchy and novel jargon is often just a rebranding of distinctions that go back centuries.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Transcription below by a reader

Nima R. Alkhorshid: 00:04
Let’s start with Trump. He has chosen to have Senator Vance as his vice president. What does it mean when it comes to the foreign policy of the United States?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Well, I can tell you that my view of Trump’s candidacy has changed 180 degrees. I won’t say like Annalena 360 degrees. It’s changed 180 degrees since this weekend. Of course, it was a dramatic event, this near miss, which almost left him dead. But the– and it’s happily something that I had predicted long ago would be the main factor bringing this war in Europe to an end. I said it would be a result of divine intervention. I think we witnessed divine intervention this past Saturday. Friends, other analysts who say that they are not believers, I think they got religion over the weekend.

01:17
But that’s not really what changed my mind about whom I would back in this in the November elections and why. It was precisely what you just mentioned, his decision on who his vice president will be, that changed my mind at once. I had not been following the career of J.D. Vance, but I did a little bit of brushing up to see why my first instinct was to be elated that this man was chosen. My first instinct was as a result of reading what mainstream had to say, the New York Times or the Financial Times, who spoke about him and made mention of his stand on the Ukraine war. Of course, they did it in the most negative way possible.

I put aside the editorial opinion that they were applying, and I looked at the facts. And then just a few minutes before we come on air, I was listening to J.D. Vance’s speech. Well, first I listened to his speech at the convention last night, and that wouldn’t be much of a reason to change your views on anything, because it was very much baby-kissing type of American politics and my wife comes on and my kids and how I deal with my four-year-old and where I come from and what kind of a hillbilly I am and so forth.

02:52
All of that is very nice, traditional American politics, which they all engage in, whatever other views they have on the world, and whether they call themselves Democrats or Republicans. However, when I dug a little bit further back and looked at his speech, and I was just been following his speech in the Senate, just prior to the vote on the aid to Ukraine, that 60-billion-dollar appropriation, I was utterly amazed. I was left speechless. Frankly, his speech was more cogent, was more patriotic in a way that will appeal to all American voters, but not cheap patriotism. You can see very deep patriotism, aware of the interests of the people who put him into office, and also with a moral, very distinct moral overlay, coming out of his Christian background.

03:51
This was unexpected. The kind of Christian overlay in American politics often can be difficult to take, because we have so many extremists, various sects, who would be quite happy to see the end of the world come because the Messiah will follow. These crackpots give religion a bad name. The religion that I saw in J.D. Vance was quite different. It was very traditional and very easy to appreciate in a positive way when he’s speaking about the loss of innocence in this war, about the unintended consequences of war. In his case, and I say religion came up, when he mentioned the loss of the Christian communities in Iraq, an unintended consequence of the war in Iraq, which sent 1.5 million Iraqi Christians from the, as he described correctly, from the community that goes back to the apostles. And they were sent fleeing for their lives because of what America did, the havoc that it created by overturning the existing regime and replacing it with chaos and ultimately with a move of the whole country into the arms of Iran.

05:22
This discussion was one example of what I did not expect in this man, but the whole speech from start to finish demonstrated, as I said, a very collected mind with a firm understanding of how history can be used and not abused, with a firm understanding and blending, what I would call academic intelligence with life experience intelligence, as a man who signed up for the Marines shortly after the start of the Iraq war, in the mistaken belief that this was a just war, and that America was coming in to do something useful for democracy. And what he saw on the ground was what we, the opposition, saw in the war, and have seen throughout American foreign policy in this millennium, and certainly going back to the 1990s, when America was given a free hand to do what it wanted with the world as it had become a single superpower.

06:36
The use of history and abuse of history was embedded in his speech. His insistence that all of the talk about Chamberlain appeasement is rerunning World War II, and it has been running on the theater of the American Senate nonstop for decades. And he said, it’s not the only historical analogy that we can bring up. It is a poor analogy, since Mr. Putin is not Hitler, and doesn’t have the capabilities of, the power over his people that Hitler had. And then he went on to inform us that this real analogy has to go back early in time. You have to take it back to World War I. and his understanding of World War I and how the powers stumbled into a disastrous conflict, which could have been avoided had they used diplomacy properly.

07:44
And this was his point, that history has many analogies, many lessons, and that very incredibly, his colleagues in the Senate seemed to have learned none of them. He reminded them how they had voted on that Iraq War when he was still a high school sophomore, and how they had silenced discussion and how everyone who disagreed was denounced in a kind of McCarthyite way, the very same denunciation that he sees around him today, where anyone questioning the Biden policy on Ukraine is denounced instantly as a stooge of Putin.

So, the man’s ability to navigate the arguments that you see in academic discussions, and to wed them with his own personal life experience, and with the behavior of the people around him, who he calls his colleagues and friends in the Senate — this is unusual. You know, I, we have a few very big names in the, in the academic community. There are very few. John Mearsheimer is the outstanding case. But I’ve never seen him produce the reasoning and the 360-degree view that came out in that speech by J.D. Vance. I’m really wondering who his advisors are, because I have little doubt that in many respects he’s his own advisor, because drawing on his life experience, well somebody else isn’t going to do that for you. And he’s done it himself when he did his memoirs, which were a bestseller. So I was enormously impressed.

09:37
But let me move on from that to what it means for where we’re going. Mr. Trump told us with the appointment of Vance where he’s headed, and it’s where I like to see him go. That is, I firmly believe that his remarks, that even before inauguration, he would, acting as a go-between and a broker, would find a way to end the war. I believe that. It sounded like a typical Trump exaggeration when he first said it. But seeing him in the company of Vance, I think he knows what he’s doing.

10:19
Now, I was, going back to 2016, a Trump supporter. And I made the rounds of Russian television, the talk shows, because I happened to either be in Moscow or St. Petersburg for large parts of 2016. And I was introduced by Yevgeny Popov on his then talk show, “Our Special Correspondent”. And once I was there, I made it to the other shows, all because I was viewed as somebody who could talk about, explain to a Russian audience what was going on in the States and what was the Trump phenomenon all about.

11:01
And I was a Trump supporter. I was– for only one reason. Not his domestic policy, but, where he stood on abortion or on lowering taxes and whatever. I don’t follow, as I don’t live in the United States, so his domestic policy would not concern me directly. But America’s foreign policy concerns the whole world. And therefore, I was very attentive to what he said about his foreign policy plans. These are all denounced then, they’re denounced today as isolationism, but that is rubbish. He’s not an isolationist. He simply wants to scale back the outrageous policeman’s role the United States has assumed at enormous cost and with only devastating results to show for it.

11:49
So, Trump seemed very attractive, and I was supportive in 2016. But regrettably, It very quickly became apparent that he didn’t have the– he was not a man of politics– and he didn’t have the contacts, and he didn’t have the savoir-faire, and he didn’t have the judge of people and he didn’t have the Senate. He didn’t have an ability to field a real team that could implement his policies in foreign policy and otherwise. I knew for a fact, because I knew something as an insider about the Trump organization, that yes, it’s a multi-billion dollar company, but he only had a dozen people who ran the whole show. And they were all around him. And he had them for 25 years or more, a very small circle. He never had– you think, oh yes, the company had billions. But it was not a corporation in a manufacturing sense. It was a closely held company. And yes, he managed a secretary, but he didn’t have broad experience managing tens of thousands of federal employees.

12:59
He was very ill prepared for that role, and he had nobody to help him, which is why he appointed so many of his relatives, his son-in-law was given assignments. All of this was criticized strongly at the time, but it was understandable, because he had no one else to rely on; he had family. And the result of that, all of that, is they appointed people, he got through the Senate, people who were disastrous, whether it was Tillerson as his first Secretary of State, who on paper should have been okay, coming as the head of a U.S. multinational. And then he had Pompeo. Then he had advisor Pompeo as a kind of anti-diplomat, setting us well on the course to the current administration, which is anti-diplomacy. And his other security advisors were all objectionable characters who were not sympathetic, who did not believe in his foreign policy ambitions and who undermined his policies.

14:07
So the result of the first administration of Donald Trump was in the area that interests me and I think interests the audience for this particular interview most, the policies on Russia were disaster. He was set up, of course, before he even came into the Oval Office by the actions, the outgoing actions of the Obama administration, taking away Russian consular properties and doing things which are a red flag in global diplomacy. So he had a bad start and it went downhill from there.

The whole of Trump’s time in office, relations with Russia, only went a downward spiral. The end result is even before the election of 2020, I was calling for him to be removed. I was calling for him to be impeached, not for the rubbish reasons that were given, but for the real crimes that he was committing in bombing this place and that place. And so I became an anti-Trump. In light of what I’ve seen so far in the Republican National Convention, I go back to my start position of enthusiasm for this man, for some very good reasons.

15:35
The Trump today is not the Trump of 2016, 2017. He has formed real contacts in Washington among people whom we have to respect. His choice of Vance is brilliant in this respect. All of his key appointments have to get through the Senate, and he has taken a senator to be his vice president. I understand that to mean that he will have considerable confidence that he can bring into government the people who support his policies, and not just bring into government people who can get through the Senate, which was what happened in the first Trump administration.

So for this respect, Vance is a great asset and from the speech that he made, which I found remarkable, a speech in which he objected to the funding of Ukraine– for a number of very good reasons; I won’t repeat them– I think that he is the right man to help Trump put through the foreign policy that I would like to see implemented, returning the United States to a position of engagement with the world, but one among peers, and not as the global hegemon and global policeman.

Alkhorshid: 17:09
One of the most important thing that has happened during his first term was how they could manipulate him and concentrating his attention on internal affairs, marginal affairs, just Russiagate, everything coming. Do you think he has learned something from his first term, not getting involved with these little things and just focusing on what matters the most in terms of the foreign policy of the United States?

Doctorow:
Look, Donald Trump is not a genius. He’s not a fool either, but he’s not a genius. He’s a man with definite virtues for a politician, for a statesman. I should better to call him a statesman. And that he was involved in minutiae, as you said, as minor issues. I think he was forced into that situation. The Democrats did everything possible to discredit him and to remove him with their impeachment efforts. And he was fighting for his life the whole time, his political life. And his ability to put– first of all, to find serious candidates for high positions in his cabinet was restricted. He didn’t have enough people on the ground supporting him to help him get the right people through.

18:44
And once he got the wrong people in, then he was being marginalized by the people who report to him. So, as I say, it was not a lack of intelligence. It was working against the detractors of the Democratic Party, and in the media, who did everything possible to keep him away from the levers of power. Now, the situation today, if we anticipate that he will beat Biden, it is very reasonable to assume that the Republicans will take both houses of Congress. In which case, Mr. Trump will have his every possibility to recruit and to install people of quality who will implement the policies that he has defined.

The excellent beginning is JD Vance. I think that this will attract a lot of quality people to the Trump camp. I’m very interested to see whether or not Trump will succeed in getting an endorsement from Robert Kennedy Jr. That will, of course, be very helpful. It would also not be bad if part of that endorsement came at the expense of appointing Robert Kennedy to some influential and serious post in the new administration. As I think was clear from our first talk, I was supporting Robert Kennedy, because he was the only voice against the establishment that had credibility. I did not believe Trump to be credible until this weekend.

20:38
And I have to also say that I was listening not just to one or two speeches, but to several speeches at the convention, and I was most impressed by, for example, the president of the Teamsters, who delivered an outstanding speech, very pro-labor. Obviously, the Trump wing of the Republican Party is trying very hard to position itself as pro-labor and pro-common man against the elites that have run Washington. And when you get the president of the Teamsters to come forward and deliver this magnificent speech that I heard, then I’m satisfied that Mr. Trump will get high-quality people in his new administration that he could not get in his first administration.

Alkhorshid: 21:34
Do you think that his decision to have Senator Vance as his vice president has been made before that assassination attempt or he decided after that?

Doctorow:
I would assume it was before. I don’t think– I think that there’s talk that the new Trump is not the old Trump, that this was a life-changing event. I’m sure it was a life-changing event. When you’ve been that close to death, of course. But I don’t believe that he made an appointment as important as who will be his running mate on the strength of that one event. Besides, as we know, Elon Musk had strongly recommended that he choose Vance and had backed up his recommendation with a commitment to $45 million, which isn’t bad as electoral contributions go. So, I think there were a number of factors that pointed to the naming of this particular senator as his running mate.

Alkhorshid: 22:41
When you look at Trump at the convention, you see a picture of a man that is totally different from what we’ve seen before the assassination attempt.

Doctorow:
No, I wasn’t particularly impressed that he had changed his demeanor. There were still the little nods to this end of the room, to that end of the room, and his waving here and there. This was all very much Trump style. But I do believe that once he sits in the Oval Office, he is going to be more unifying and to let his vice president be the barking dog. I think Vance– we’ve had many barking dogs as vice president, going back to Agnew, people who were doing the dirty work of their president. In the case of Vance, I don’t see him as doing dirty work. The man is much too dignified, and so I believe he’ll be a very effective debater. And I want to– just thinking about what we’ve talked about in the past few minutes– I didn’t bring out this element of Vance’s speech, which complements, fits in perfectly, with what I’ve been saying about Trump all along, though I was speaking in the desert.

24:14
What I was saying about Trump is that all of us have freedom of speech in the States that was made possible precisely by Donald Trump, by his saying things during his campaign of 2016, which we all feared, if we had said them, would invite a knock on the door from the FBI. Now, I’m very pleased to see in the speech of J.D. Vance that he made in the Senate that he is– and this also came up briefly, very briefly, in a rather fluff-like speech that he made in the convention– how he stands for debate, and how it is essential that we have a thorough discussion of issues, if we are going to arrive at a good policy.

25:00
And that, how he denounced the Democrats, rightly so, for trying to snuff out discussion and debate. And by using– he didn’t say this, call it this– but ad hominem arguments, not answering their opponents with pointing out what was wrong in what they were saying, where they were factually wrong or whatever, but denouncing them for being stooges of this and that. And as he said, this had been going on for a long time. And he went back to his own personal experience in the Iraq War period, when those who disagreed with Bush Jr. were denounced in a kind of witch hunt, in a kind of McCarthyite way. So I’m delighted to see that freedom of speech is a conscious interest and concern of Mr. Vance. And I believe that his being chosen and what he said confirms my, what I can say: that Trump gave us all freedom of speech that we do not have here in Europe.

Alkhorshid: 26:12
How– if you were to mention the Trump’s position before the attempted the assassination, and right now– how would Trump benefit from this failed assassination in 2024?

Doctorow:
You are alluding to these conspiracy theories–

Alkhorshid:
No, no, no. I’m talking about politically, how this is going to change the mind of the people who saw this happening to Trump? Right now, they’re deciding that “Let’s vote for Trump.”

Doctorow: 26:46
Well, I don’t think it’s an intellectual change as such. I think it’s an emotional change. And of course, emotions are very important in deciding how people vote. I think what it highlighted to the broad public is something that those of us who were Trumpites or who were supporters of Trump going back to 2016 understood perfectly. The man is remarkably brave. One could say in the past, if you really were being disagreeable and unkindly, that he was not brave, but he was stupid. I never believed that he was stupid. I believed from the start that he would, by saying what he said, knowing full well how the intelligence agencies, the CIA and FBI have intimidated past candidates and past presidents to watch their words. And Mr. Trump certainly must have gotten intimations of this from the heads of these agencies, that they would walk him out to the woodshed and tell him what’s what, and what he can do and what he shouldn’t do.

28:04
And he obviously didn’t listen. And he didn’t listen, again, not because he was stupid, but because he was unbelievably brave. Now, what happened there in this political, in this address, at which the assassination attempt occurred, is that the whole of America and the world saw Mr. Trump get up and raise his fist and say, fight on, when by doing that very thing, he exposed himself to a possible second sniper. He resisted, and he showed unbelievable bravery, which I think penetrated the emotional appreciation of the broad public, whether they like his policies don’t like her policies.

29:05
The contrast with the feeble and senile Biden and with the hysterical and unsupportable Kamala, this is dramatic. And yes, people vote by their minds and they also vote by their emotions. And I think the emotional capital that he stored away — unintentionally, he was just being Donald Trump and it was instinctive. It was not something that was planned. It could not be planned. This is seconds after he’s nearly killed. I think that will draw a great number of voters to him and it will shame and send home a lot of the Democrats who have slandered him.

Alkhorshid: 29:53
And when it comes to Europe, and right now we know that Orban is totally isolated because of his policies toward Russia. How Trump can help Orban and these people, these people who are not happy with the policy in Ukraine?

Doctorow;
I’m not sure that he can actively help them, but the whole of Europe understands the sympathy between Orban and Trump. And as I’ve said on other issues, everyone wants to rally around a winner. And if Orban now will be the main conduit to the incoming administration in the United States, assuming Mr. Trump wins, then without raising a finger, he will have leaders of one or another country come to his side, to be on the winning side. Ursula– I don’t know what the result is of the election that should have taken place several hours ago in the European Parliament for her re-election as the head of the commission–but whether she wins or doesn’t win will not make a great deal of difference, because I think all power will be drained away from her and from the duopoly of the Social Democrats and the European People’s Party if Trump wins.

31:28
And there will be a big movement towards Orban and his movement within the European Parliament that will take power away from the losing side, which is the present majority. So, I’m not terribly concerned about whether or not Kallas gets the final approval as the Foreign and Defence Minister, Commissioner of the European Union. I think that these people will be stripped of power, effective power. Mr. Orban will be effectively empowered and become much more attractive to his peers, to some of his peers, those who are open to realism, if there is a Trump victory.

Alkhorshid: 32:23
Orbán’s position is so important right now because not only in Ukraine, when it comes to China as well, he’s just favoring having some sort of conversation between the United States and China. And we know that Trump recently in his interview, he said that he’s not willing to do anything militarily in Taiwan. But he wants to have a economic fight with China. But that doesn’t– that’s good, that’s good if– as long as you’re interested in any sort of negotiations, that’s positive. And Orban right now in the European Union is playing a very crucial and important role.

Doctorow: 33:08
Again, he is, there’s a reason why he and Trump are soul buddies. I’ve described now my feeling that Trump is remarkably brave, and the same has to be said about Orbán. It is not easy to go up against all of your peers in the European Union who are making a fetish out of unity in pursuit of utterly disastrous policies. He is a voice of reason. I think a day will come when everyone recognizes that saying, as the Financial Times does, that he’s the biggest fan of Putin in the European Union, this kind of slander will fade away and everyone will forget who said it. And Mr. Orbán will be recognized for the realist and defender of the interests of his own people, that he is.

34:02
So his standing will rise, and their standing will fall. As I said, I’m not particularly concerned about who will be in which slot in the incoming European Commission. I firmly believe that power will ebb away from those people and will move towards those who are on the winning side over the Ukraine war and over globalism. There’s a lot, there are a lot of fragments of thinking in public space today. And I try to consolidate them and make some reason out of them, and if you allow me, I’ll do that now in a very compact way.

We hear about the Russians particularly, Mr. Putin is using every opportunity, he speaks about sovereignty. “We have intellectual sovereignty, we have cultural sovereignty, we have economic sovereignty, and of course, we are militarily secure.” That’s fine. The word sovereignty has spread out from Russia. It’s become a kind of catch word now in what used to be called the third world, and otherwise is the global south now. And the former colonies of France, in Central Africa, are also speaking about sovereignty and taking back their mineral resources and the rest of it.

35:26
Sovereignty is very good. It Is a catchword, and it makes a lot of sense, but it isn’t in a void. It comes in– it’s part and parcel of a whole understanding of of global politics. And what we’re talking about in code language is Westphalia, 1648. We’re talking about restoring nation-states to sovereignty, to a position where they are seen as defending the interests of their residents, of their citizens, and they’re protecting them against the interference of foreign powers. The interference then was the religious wars. So, the interference in countries to overturn dictators, to install Democrats, all of this is a violation of the 1648 understanding of the world, that ended the 30 Years War of religious wars, where one prince would be fighting another prince over what religion we practiced in the given territories.

36:50
That’s where we are today. So these bits and pieces in the speeches that come out today, whether they’re identifying themselves as pro-sovereignty or anti-globalism, they’re talking about the realist understanding of the world, which stands in contrast to globalism, which otherwise can be called a utopian, Wilsonian democracy, something which never really existed on earth, but existed as a battering ram for one group of politicians to smash other groups of politicians.

37:38
There are very few– realism is part of American foreign policy, but is the hidden part. The– realism is part of Russian policy, it’s not hidden at all, but is not used extensively with the general public, because the general public doesn’t like realism. It isn’t– you’re not going to sacrifice your son for realism. You’re not going to be emotionally engaged when you hear arguments made on the basis of national interest. You will sacrifice your son when you’re speaking about defending our people, defending our culture, our language. These are emotive things that people relate to. And that’s why they have been used by President Putin to explain many actions that have taken place since 2014, which really had a basis in military considerations and national interest considerations, which are another way of describing realism.

38:45
They were described instead in these different types of idealism. In America, as I said, the hidden part of foreign policy is realism, there’s some understanding of national interests, but the big public side of foreign policy is ideological, voting democracy, even if most of the people advocating it wouldn’t know democracy if they tripped on it. They really are authoritarians, particularly the authoritarian left, which has no tolerance for other people’s views since they are the unique readers of the truth.

39:33
So, as I said, the many little elements that you see in the public domain as people describe their foreign policies, they all go back to 1648, and which ended the religious wars with the general acknowledgement that princes, kings, whatever, the rulers of territories forming nation-states were the best defenders of their people, and that one state should not interfere with another state. In this world, the biggest promoters of realism with a big R are Russia and China. And the biggest promoters of ideology, fighting for democracy, and other not fine-sounding principles which are impossible to implement without causing enormous numbers of deaths and damage, they are the United States, United Kingdom and the European Union, incredibly.

Alkhorshid: 40:50
Do you feel that the rhetoric in the West, specifically in the United Kingdom right now, they’re talking about that China is the biggest threat to the United Kingdom. And nobody knows why China, what does it have to do with China? And do you understand why they’re changing the rhetoric? They’re feeling that Donald Trump is winning. Let’s go that way. Let’s put pressure on Donald Trump to go aggressive on China, maybe militarily?

Doctorow:
Well, I think it’s good that we’re getting into this discussion of Trump on China. People have also commented on Vance on China. Vance is, “Well, we can go easy on Russia. because we really have to concentrate all of our resources against China.” My take on this is: don’t believe a word of it. If considering how many warmongers there are within the Republican Party [on] Capitol Hill, it would be suicidal for Trump or anyone else to advocate a foreign policy that doesn’t have war somewhere in it.

41:57
So, we have to concentrate our resources so we can really beat the hell out of China. Everyone– and therefore we’re going to cut, we’re going to throw Ukraine under the bus. Okay. That will be fine. Throw them under the bus and let’s move on and finish off China. I don’t believe he’s going to finish off China. I believe it is a tactical maneuver now to shut up the warmongers in his own party and to let them understand that we’re going to throw Ukraine under the bus.

Alkhorshid: 42:30
And the other thing that was, if you remember during the Obama administration, they were trying, the neocons or whoever is the bloc, was trying to force Obama to go after Syria, the government in Syria. We know that how Putin’s role in just bringing some sort of peace to this conflict in Syria was so important in those days. Right now, CNN was trying to put out that Iran is behind this failed assassination of Donald Trump. It seems to me that they’re trying to make a new Iraq war in the Middle East against Iran. But how do you find Trump’s policy when it comes to Iran?

Doctorow:
Well, he didn’t bomb them. There was a real dilemma in his presidency. Would he enable Israel to deliver a deathly blow against Iran? Would the United States itself intervene and attack Iran with conventional weapons, with nuclear weapons, whatever? And he was advised not to. I believe it was Elon Musk who had a role in that. I’m not sure who was the last to have the ear of Trump before he took a decision not to bomb Iran and not to back Israel in an attack on Iran. That was of great consequence. I don’t see Trump bombing or attacking anybody. That is counter to what he said. And if he really has had a life-changing experience from this near death, I would expect it to even further strengthen this moral side of his decision-making and sensible decision-making, not to cause havoc and chaos anywhere if it can be avoided.

44:48
So, I don’t see him attacking Iran. I don’t see him attacking China. I see him doing a lot of making efforts to distract his enemies from his mission by holding a flag for his toro to run past him, and not in his administration, by agreeing verbally. Look, he backed down on the vote for funding Ukraine and Israel, finally at the last minute he backed down. So he was able to conduct himself in a tactical way for the sake of remaining on course strategically. And I believe that will occur again in the future. But I see his position on China, or certainly the position of Vance, as being just that. It is a red flag for his enemies, while [Alejandro de Herrera] stands and the bull runs past.

Alikhorshid: 46:05
Just to wrap up this session, when it comes to Israel and the conflict in Gaza, Trump, in his latest interview with, it was an Israeli media, if I’m not mistaken, he said to them that what you’re doing right now is not helping you. Everybody is just turning against you around the world. How do you see the policy of Trump and his vice president when it comes to Israel? And how they can manage the situation in Gaza?

Doctorow: 46:43
Well, I can’t give an answer to that directly in specifics. But I come back to the primary point. Trump, and particularly J.D. Vance, because he’s far more intellectual. After all, he’s a Yale Law graduate. And I’ve listened to his speech. He has a very fine working mind. So I expect that the realism that gives structure to Vance’s foreign policy statements will prevail. And it’s not a question of being pro-Israel, anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian, but simply realism. What can be achieved by the sides? If that enters into the present chaotic and disgraceful situation in Israel and Gaza, that will work wonders.

47:40
And I think that both of them are clever enough to find a way to explain what they’re doing to the broader public without appearing to be compromising Israel’s interests.

The title above is the one that my interviewer, Martin Karbowski, gave it. I assume this was to set out bait for his core audience, which is in Bulgaria. And, indeed, we do discuss here what a small member state like Bulgaria can do to change the direction of the European Union from its becoming Soviet Union 2.0, what it can do to protect itself from a Maidan-like take-over by globalists engineered by US-funded NGOs.

However, the subjects we discuss here are numerous and varied.

Some appear to be very, very relevant to today, the 18^th of July: I speak in the interview of the possible re-election of Ursula von der Leyen as head of the European Commission taking place on this day, which is true, though the interview was video recorded a couple of weeks ago.

Other issues are more abstract and undated, though hopefully, they will also be seen to be important by viewers. I have in mind what I say in the interview about the Russian Federation as an “empire” and whether anything short of a military defeat can bring about the break-up of this empire that is so desired by Washington, London and Berlin.

Finally, I call attention to my extensive remarks about Joe Biden and about Donald Trump.  What I say about Trump is what the Germans would call vorbei, meaning it is outdated and has been superseded by my own substantial reconsideration of the merits of The Donald following his near assassination last weekend and particularly his naming J.D. Vance as his running mate.

I will be writing and speaking about this change in my electoral calculus in the coming days. What I say here is that these latest developments provide hope that a Trump victory will spell the end of U.S. support for the demagogue in power in Kiev and his neo-Nazi entourage, hence an early end to the war even before this year is out.

Considering Vance’s position as Senator, and the fact that his power base is within the legislative house most critical to all future appointments of any incoming Trump administration, considering the speeches I have heard delivered at the Republican National Convention, and most particularly by the president of the Teamsters Union, I believe that this second Trump administration will be far better manned than the first, when Trump arrived in Washington with too few contacts and supporters to put together a capable team. That deficiency was most pronounced in the field of foreign affairs, where his advisers and successive appointees as Secretary of State were disasters from the standpoint of implementing the policies he had announced as a candidate to office.  And, yes, under Trump 1.0 relations with Russia spiraled downward to a new nadir rather than rise upwards to normality as he had pledged.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Transcript, followed by translation into German

Transcript below by a reader

Karbowski: 00:06
I know you speak very good Russian. Can we speak Russian?

[briefly translated from spoken Russian]

Doctorow:
Please, it is possible.

Karbowski:
How good.


Karbowski:
What kind of people do you say live in America now? Scared people or what?

Doctorow: 00:27
They live their private lives. In general, they are all friends of mine. Even my relatives are there. They live well, they are happy with life, they absolutely do not feel, do not understand and do not want to understand what is going on in the world. They don’t feel, absolutely don’t feel, what chaos America is creating in the world.

Karbowski: 00:57
And they don’t know.

Doctorow:
And they don’t want to know. There are no stupid people here. But people are ignorant because they don’t want to, they don’t want to find out.

Karbowski: 01:12
Let’s speak English, because in Bulgaria everyone who speaks Russian tells us that we are Russian spies, you know?

[remainder of interview spoken in English]

Doctorow: 1:24
Okay, back to English.

Karbowski:
You live in Brussels. What do you think about the European Union and its policies?

Doctorow:
Everyone talks about, “Yes, the problem with Brussels is the bureaucracy.” I don’t agree. The problem is in the parliament. There is no democracy. The parliamentarians are not free people. And the way voting is held– you know, here in Brussels, there is the debating and the drafting of laws. But the voting takes place in Strasbourg, on the brief stays in Strasbourg. And on a given day, when the deputies are in Strasbourg, they have to vote on maybe a hundred different bills, on one day.

Is that feasible? Of course it isn’t. And that’s intentional. They are given instructions by their party leaders, at the level of the parliament, on how they should vote on every bill. So the degree to which they are really representing their electors is nil. Therefore, I say the European Parliament is no more democratic than the European Commission. And the absolute violation of principles of democracy, where the people count for something, we are all going to witness later today, when the Parliament takes its decision on who will be the commissioners, the key commissioners. That is, whether von der Leyen will continue as the head of the Commission, whether Kallas, the Prime Minister of Estonia, will indeed become the replacement for Borrell at Foreign Affairs and Military Affairs.

3:21
And we have no role in that, just as no one had a role in the selection of von der Leyen, going back to her first placement in office, which was, as we all understood, a backroom deal that was pushed by Macron. And since I have always believed that Macron was a CIA plant, you can say– well, I can explain that, how he was elected. It was the same kind of manipulation that brought Hollande to power when the most viable and most intellectual and most popular candidates were disposed of, either in the case of Strauss-Kahn, by this scandal in New York where he was framed by the US authorities and led to the courtroom handcuffed to destroy his political career. Well, who did that? The CIA.

The same sort of thing happened in next electoral cycle, which brought Mr. Macron to power. His most serious competitor [Fillon] was removed when charged with manipulating funds, manipulating the funds available to him for assistance, by giving jobs to his wife. Well, yes, of course it was true, but you could throw out the whole of the French Parliament for the same reason. It was not an isolated case. It was a problem of financing elections in France.

05:05
Anyway, my point is that the United States is manipulating what’s happening today in the European Commission. We, the people who voted on June 6th for a new Parliament have been deceived because the clear mandate of the people for change is being ignored by the centrist right and centrist left, the European People’s Party and the Socialists and Democrats, at the expense of everyone else. And that’s very sad.

Karbowski: 05:38
Do you know what is this thing, Euro-Atlantism?

Doctorow:
It’s a very catchy term, and it suggests a kind of equality between the European side and the other side of the Atlantic, the other side of the pond. The reality, of course, is somewhat different. Euro-Atlanticism is American dominance. It is the creation and the consolidation of the colonial hold that America has over Europe, And, regrettably, this Ukrainian war has been used [to] great advantage by the United States. People speak of NATO’s being stronger than ever and more consolidated than ever. Well, yes, the American grip on Europe through NATO is greater than ever, and it’s not to the benefit of Europe.

06:37
The Europeans have suffered financially, economically. You see it in the streets of Brussels. You see it by the empty storefronts. You see it by the inflation. Officially here we have 2% inflation. You go to a restaurant, and you know there’s a 40% inflation over where it was a year ago. And all of that is a consequence of Euro-Atlanticism and the forcible introduction of sanctions against Russia that we have seen for the last two years.

Karbowski: 07:15
What is Europe’s mistake regarding Russia? Can we define the feeling of superiority over the Russians that is a new racism?

Doctorow:
Superiority over the Russians, of course. However, let’s put this in a broader context. As Americans like to say, don’t take this personally. It isn’t just directed against Russia. I think Josep Borrell said it all when he made his famous remark that Europe is the garden and outside is the jungle. So, the jungle inhabitants are not just living in Moscow, it’s the rest of the world.

Karbowski: 08:03
The United States did not take the risk of going to war with small nuclear states like Iran or North Korea. My theory is that with these small nuclear states, the risk is not worth it. But a war that aims at the collapse of Russia will immensely enrich the American imperialists. Am I right?

Doctorow:
Well, that really depends on what your estimate is of the consequences of a nuclear war. I have written in the last month that Russia actually has a first-strike capability. By that I meant not merely that it can unleash vast destructive power, but that it might even overwhelm the ability of the United States to respond, so that it would be a victory, yes. But that’s very risky. Like what happened in Sevastopol last Sunday. Five of these American missiles, ATACMs, were fired at the Crimean Peninsula. Four of them were shot down rather close to the point of launch, quite some distance from Crimea. The fifth one, however, overwhelmed the defense system and got through and was only destroyed over the beach in Sevastopol.

09:37
Well, you don’t want to take that risk with nuclear weapons. If 50 are coming and 49 are shot down, one getting through is quite enough, quite enough to cause unbelievable destruction. So the Russians, like the Americans, have a full triad. It is inconceivable that one side or the other will completely destroy the retaliatory possibilities of the other. And so anyone sitting in Washington would have to be out of his mind– well, there are quite a few of them that are out of their minds, but not all of them sitting, and certainly not in the Pentagon who do these calculations much better than you or I do– they would have to be suicidal to stage a strike against Russia. And the Russians also would have to be very, very immune to risk if they were to proceed and enjoy the use of their first-strike capability. They would have a heavy price to pay.

Karbowski: 10:48
It’s very dangerous. This is a very dangerous game. Is it a game for Russians, because for us this is not a game. We have no army, we are a member of NATO, but you understand us. We stay here and wait for the big guys to be peaceful. We hope for the big guys to be peaceful.

Doctorow:
Well, when I’m not doing geopolitics, I like to relax a little bit, and I go to opera. And of course Tosca is one of my favorite operas. And in answer to what you’re saying, I will tell you what the Russian view of the present confrontation with America is. They think of Scarpia, who is stabbed by Tosca, and he’s lying on the ground, lying on the floor of this fortress dying, and he says, “Me, Scarpia, killed by a woman.”

The Russians on the talk shows are saying, “We, Russians, killed by this dimwit in Washington and by the fools around him?” It is, they find it, very distasteful, very ugly to consider that these totally reckless people in Washington, with their Yale degrees, are the ones who may cause the end of the world.

Karbowski: 12:16
You are a specialist of Russia, I think so. All the old empires collapsed. Why does Russia survive? And if the sequel of the Russian empire is the USSR, Soviet Union, then the sequel of Russia, what kind of empire will be, Is it?

Doctorow:
It’s a very, very good question. Of course, in the United States now, among specialists in Russian, there is a slogan, to “decolonize Russia”. And by that they mean that everyone should be studying the Buryats or studying any of the hundred or more different major ethnic groups on the territory of Russia. However, it is the Russian people that have been the glue of this whole territory and remain so, as is the Russian language, which is the lingua franca for that whole vast territory that’s 13% of the globe. And it is not an empire,\– it’s a land empire, not a sea empire. That’s a very big distinction. The Russian empire already collapsed. It collapsed as a result of World War I. So did the Austrian Empire, and so did the Ottoman Empire. These were enormous economic disruptions and political disruptions that caused the end of these empires. Russia– the moral of that story is: don’t lose a war.

13:58
So, to answer your question, until Russia loses a war, it will not collapse. Call it an empire, call it what you will, the name is not important here. It is a highly integrated society, which is very mixed up, very mixed up, very intermarried, and there’s no reason for it naturally, on its own, to break up. There are not units, territorial, economic units, in the present Russian Federation comparable to those that were in the Soviet Union and which had been encouraged by Soviet policies on nationalities. They actually prepared the way for their own dissolution without thinking in those terms. And Russia is not preparing the way for its own dissolution. So it’s a– barring an unsuccessful war, It is unthinkable that that territory will break up.

Karbowski: 15:03
Some people wish this thing. Ukrainians and Russians were brothers. I believe in this. But now Ukraine hates the Russians after 10 years of work of American NGOs in Kyiv. Do you agree with me and do you suspect that this could also happen in Bulgaria?

Doctorow:
That’s a very good point. NGOs and then what you were saying is, of course, Madame Nuland admitted that. She said about five or six billion dollars were spent precisely to undermine the political consensus in Ukraine and to prepare it for what happened in 2014 with Maidan. Can this happen elsewhere? Well, of course it can. That’s why Mr. Orban has done what he has done to dismantle NGOs. And that’s why there’s such a fierce fight against it in– the university that was chased out, why there was such a fierce fight in Budapest over his policies. It’s why there’s such a fierce fight in Georgia over its foreign agent law, which is intended also to tame the NGOs, or at least to expose who’s paying for what. And it’s quite natural the country should do that. Everyone speaks about Putin’s law, but it wasn’t Putin’s law. Putin was simply taking up a law that was– in the United States, it goes back to the 1920s, which is essentially a foreign agent law. You have to declare foreign payments if you’re going to take a public stance.

16:45
So, that is all logical. Can it happen in Bulgaria? It can happen anywhere. The question of American influence over Bulgaria was most prominent, not at the popular ground level, but at the top. Let’s face it, Bulgaria was steamrolled by the United States to withdraw its agreement with Russia over South Stream. So Bulgaria has paid a very big price, both in terms of reputational price and economic price, sacrificing its interests under a threat from the United States. What will happen in the future, I can’t say.

Karbowski: 17:32
But if you are a Bulgarian political leader, tsar maybe, and you have whole power, what you will do and what you will say to Bulgarians?

Doctorow:
Well, I think that small countries can do a lot. And if anybody doubts that, look at Estonia. They have one million population and Kallas is about to be crowned as the second most important person in the European Commission.

Karbowski: 18:07
But with help, with a little help from my friends, with a little help from Americans.

Doctorow:
Of course. But the point is that without any help from America, Hungary, which I think has a population not too much different from Bulgaria, has put a pole in the mechanism. It has, it had an enormous impact on the European Union. If a few more small countries were to do the same, we would have a new European Union. So the possibility of changing life for the better exists, but someone has to find the courage in each country. In Slovakia they did. And the one who did it was almost murdered. So I understand there’s great personal risk for leaders of any country to stand up to 27 other countries and say enough is enough. But you do have that possibility. They want to remove the veto right. You have the voice that says don’t do it. You know, if you already do that, it will be a great help in preventing the further progression of Europe to a new Soviet Union-like organization.

Karbowski: 19:31
OK. Tell me something. What’s happened with American media? We believe this freedom of speech. When I was young, I wrote the article, Freedom of Speech, the most important thing in my life. What’s happened with American media?

Doctorow:
Well, a lot has happened to American media, and not just one thing. The point is, economic change, consolidation in the press goes back 30, 40 years, where many independent, smaller newspapers disappeared or were swallowed up by larger groups. And then since the internet age, at the end of the 90s, there has been a vast economic transformation of the whole business, so that newspapers have been struggling to survive. Say the same with independent television stations, even CNN. They still say that they are the most watched news organization globally, but that is doubtful, when you have independent broadcasters who get millions of viewers and CNN has tens of thousands of viewers.

This corporate media have been taking a beating in this digital internet age. So just to speak about the outcome without speaking about the inputs that made this possible is not entirely fair. But let’s look at the outcome. The outcome is complete servility to the state powers. They are not a check on abuse of power. They are not whistleblowers. They are looking to– not to rock the boat. And they become– the New York Times going back to the 1970s, had a bigger cooking section and restaurant section than it had international news. They are entertainment disseminators, more than they are news disseminators.

21:41
That is very sad. I have a colleague, a classmate from Harvard, Mr. Schmeman, who was for a long time the Bureau Chief of New York Times, International Herald Tribune in Paris. He’s in semi-retirement, but is still a member of the editorial board of the New York Times. And he is viciously anti-Russian. But then so is everybody else on the board. He has a lot of company. And of course, there’s the Washington Post, which is an egregious case of servility to Washington, to the State Department, to the Pentagon. And the fact that Mr. Bezos, a wonderful entrepreneur from Amazon, is the owner of the Washington Post has changed nothing. It has not given it a breath of fresh air as one might’ve hoped when he took it over. It is simply repeating what it receives in the morning as a handout from the press department of State.

22:57
But then the whole profession, I want to emphasize this, the whole profession of journalism has come down in quality, not just the international reporting, because there are fewer bureaus abroad and the rest of it. My wife is a journalist, does cultural journalism, and she sees what happens when we go to, she goes to an opera and then is meeting with the other journalists. And what they do and what is printed, and mostly it’s not even printed any more, because most of them have lost their jobs, and they’re now on online news portals, not receiving regular salaries. They simply are taking the handouts, the press releases, and putting their names on them. So, the best thing that anybody studying journalism can do in the West is become a public relations officer.

Karbowski: 23:56
Are you afraid [of] Biden next year, if he will be elected?

Doctorow:
Well, it’ll be amazing if he’s alive, if he’s elected. I think the assumption is that he’ll be elected and then be forced to step down and hand it over to Kamala Harris, who was a disaster. But it makes no difference, because he is manipulated. He is controlled by his handlers, and she certainly would also be controlled by her handlers. She’s utterly incompetent for the job and has virtually no popularity as a communicator. She has zero, and most of the job is communications, as Reagan correctly identified. So am I afraid for Biden winning? Biden’s winning would only be continuation of the rule by the deep state that we have now.

24:59
On the other hand, I’m not interested in Mr. Trump winning. Mr. Trump is volatile. He didn’t– in foreign affairs, and particularly with respect to Russia and international global management, he was a disaster. The relations with Russia worsened terribly under Trump. His appointments from the very beginning were terrible appointments. He was not established in Washington. He was relying on his family members to fill posts or to advise him, because he had no network in Washington to use to fill posts with competent people, he didn’t. So it’s a hopeless cause, it is like Don Quixote tilting at a windmill. I put my money on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

25:57
The Democrats are fractured now over Gaza and the Israeli war, with young people going against Biden and the older folks listening to Biden. Biden had a certain hold on older Americans. I remember very much my mother saying, “Ah, Joseph Biden, what a gentleman.” He also has a good head of hair, but what’s beneath the hair is what worries me. Not only has he lost what brains he had, but the worst of his instincts as a Cold Warrior have been decisive at his every move. He is mentally in an age of 40 and 50 years ago. And the world has changed a lot, but Joe Biden hasn’t. And that’s part of the problem.

Karbowski: 27:02
Is this for the first time in American history?

Doctorow:
That we have someone that old? Someone that old and senile?

Karbowski:
Yes.

Doctorow:
Yes, I’d say the Russians are the best people to appreciate this, because that’s what they were living under with with Brezhnev and Chernenko and Andropov. So they’ve been through that. They don’t want to ever see that again. Whereas the United States is experiencing it for the first time.

Karbowski: 27:32
Okay, the last question is, explain to us what is this deep state? Who is the deep state?

Doctorow:
Well, the deep state is the contingent of federal employees who stay there, administration to administration. They’re not political appointees as such. And that’s in a sense, that’s a good thing. It gives some consistency. The problem is who they are. And there were, going back again, I’ve spoken about 9-11 and the dramatic changes in society in America when the country was traumatized and people traded their freedom for what they thought was security. In that exchange and in the period of Bush Jr., Dick Cheney, the vice president, exerted enormous influence over the whole US government. He was responsible for directing the purge of the CIA to replace the Russia- experienced people with those he thought would have more relevant experience inside the government as Arabists and still more to outsource a lot of the intelligence work done by the United States to private contractors. These changes are still with us. The deep state has been remade by Cheney. There were political purges going back to that period, which brought in the worst people, the neocons. And so– the concept of a deep state isn’t by itself so difficult to deal with. There should be some permanence to government policy. The problem is when the people have been installed by a master like Dick Cheney, all to be politically chosen and chosen as neocons. That is the problem of the American deep state.

Karbowski: 29:55
Thank you for the interview.
Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Bulgarien hat einen sehr hohen Preis gezahlt, indem es seine Interessen unter der Bedrohung durch die USA geopfert hat: Karbowski-Interview, Teil 2

Der obige Titel ist der, den mein Gesprächspartner, Martin Karbowski, ihm gegeben hat. Ich nehme an, dass er damit einen Köder für sein bulgarisches Stammpublikum auslegen wollte. Und in der Tat diskutieren wir hier darüber, was ein kleines Mitgliedsland wie Bulgarien tun kann, um die Richtung der Europäischen Union zu ändern, damit sie nicht zur Sowjetunion 2.0 wird, und was es tun kann, um sich vor einer Maidan-ähnlichen Machtübernahme durch Globalisten zu schützen, die von US-finanzierten NGOs eingefädelt wird.

Die Themen, die wir hier diskut)eren, sind jedoch zahlreich und vielfältig.

Einige davon scheinen für den heutigen 18. Juli sehr, sehr relevant zu sein: Ich spreche in dem Interview über die mögliche Wiederwahl von Ursula von der Leyen als Chefin der Europäischen Kommission, die an diesem Tag stattfindet, was auch stimmt, obwohl das Interview vor einigen Wochen aufgezeichnet wurde.

Andere Themen sind eher abstrakt und undatiert, werden aber hoffentlich auch von den Zuschauern als wichtig empfunden. Ich denke dabei an das, was ich in dem Interview über die Russische Föderation als „Imperium“ sage und ob irgendetwas außer einer militärischen Niederlage den von Washington, London und Berlin so sehr gewünschten Zusammenbruch dieses Imperiums herbeiführen kann.

Abschließend möchte ich auf meine ausführlichen Bemerkungen über Joe Biden und Donald Trump hinweisen. Was ich über Trump sage, ist das, was die Deutschen „vorbei“ (sic!) nennen würden, was bedeutet, dass es überholt ist und durch meine eigene gründliche Neubewertung der Vorzüge von The Donald nach seiner Beinahe-Ermordung am vergangenen Wochenende und insbesondere der Ernennung von J.D. Vance zu seinem Vize-Präsidenten-Kandidaten überholt wurde.

Ich werde in den kommenden Tagen über diese Änderung in meinem Wahlkalkül schreiben und sprechen. Was ich hier sagen will, ist, dass diese jüngsten Entwicklungen die Hoffnung nähren, dass ein Sieg von Trump das Ende der US-Unterstützung für den Demagogen an der Macht in Kiew und sein neonazistisches Gefolge bedeuten wird, und damit ein frühzeitiges Ende des Krieges, noch bevor dieses Jahr zu Ende ist.

In Anbetracht der Position von Vance als Senator und der Tatsache, dass seine Machtbasis in der Legislative liegt, die für alle künftigen Ernennungen einer künftigen Trump-Regierung am wichtigsten ist, sowie in Anbetracht der Reden, die ich auf dem Nationalkongress der Republikaner und insbesondere vom Präsidenten der Teamsters Union gehört habe, glaube ich, dass diese zweite Trump-Regierung weitaus besser besetzt sein wird als die erste, als Trump mit zu wenigen Kontakten und Unterstützern in Washington ankam, um ein fähiges Team zusammenzustellen. Dieser Mangel war im Bereich der Außenpolitik am stärksten ausgeprägt, wo seine Berater und die nacheinander ernannten Außenminister eine Katastrophe waren, wenn es um die Umsetzung der Politik ging, die er als Kandidat für das Amt angekündigt hatte. Und ja, unter Trump 1.0 erreichten die Beziehungen zu Russland einen neuen Tiefpunkt, anstatt sich, wie er versprochen hatte, zu normalisieren.

I have today received and share with readers the link to the first installment of a lengthy two part  interview that I gave to Bulgaria’s most widely viewed journalist blogger, Martin Karbowski. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTnOsDsC5x0&t=508s  The second part will be put on the internet tomorrow.

The interview covers a broad range of subjects, mostly relating to the current state of international relations.

The title which Mr. Karbowski has given to this interview makes reference to my collection of essays of the same name published in 2016.  The subtitle, or alternative title, he shows is “Does the United States have a future?” which was the title of a follow-on collection that came out a year later.  These questions were closely interrelated because I argued that the two countries were engaged (already back then) in a titanic struggle from which one would emerge victorious and the other would be shattered.  These questions are, of course, very timely and helped to shape our discussion in the interview.

As one might well imagine, a large percentage of Karbowski’s audience is Bulgarian and, accordingly, the subtitles and the comments are in that language.  Having served for 5 years as ITT Country Manager in Bulgaria during the 1980s, I muddle through this language while readers may get help from Google Translate.  What I see is a good number of supporters of what I was saying, which is interesting in itself given that for a good long time the Bulgarian government has been Russophobe and pressured by Washington to conform to its economic warfare against Moscow. It was precisely U.S. bullying that underlay the decision of Sofia to cancel arrangements for a South Stream gas pipeline that would have made land in Bulgaria. As we know, this project then was redirected by the Russians to become Turkstream, and the Turks became Russia’s gas hub in the Black Sea region.  Bulgaria is also viewed by Washington today as a potential regional base for its war on Russia over Ukraine, and in particular as a possible base for F16s that will nominally be called Ukrainian when de facto they are ‘commuting’ between safe airports in Bulgaria, Romania or Moldova and Ukrainian airspace from which they will launch missiles against Russia. So far, Bulgaria has been reluctant to commit itself to this highly risky helpmate position, which might lead to Russian air strikes on its territory.

I mention in this interview the start of the Information War on Russia as following immediately upon Putin’s address to the Munich Security Conference. That took place, of course, in February 2007.

I am pleased to have been given the opportunity to explain why I believe that the USA has taken over the ugly features of the old Soviet Union, by which I mean the propaganda and outrageous lies that pass for official policy statements on international relations. The newspaper that I had in mind when speaking of “Pravda on the Potomac” was and is The Washington Post, though The New York Times comes in a close second in the race to the bottom of journalistic professionalism and integrity.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Transcript follwed by translation into German

Transcript below by a reader

Martin Karbowski: 00:16
Hello, Professor Doctorow. How are you?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
I’m very well, thanks. Good to talk to you.

Karbowski:
Let’s start. First question is, do you have anything in common with the American writer Edgar Lawrence Doctorow?

Doctorow:
Well, you’re speaking about a family member–

Karbowski:
Yes.

Doctorow:
–but not a close one. He was a second cousin. I never met him, but the family certainly knew about him. I only knew him as a reader of his novels.

Karbowski: 00:51
Okay, the first question, who can save the world? Please explain your point that Putin saved the world.

Doctorow:
Well, when I said that, it was the consequence of the visit of Vladimir Putin to Pyongyang, his stay in North Korea and the conclusion of the mutual defense pact that was the outcome of that meeting. And I thought it was really world-changing, because this is Russia’s first genuine full military alliance with another country. And North Korea is not just any country, with very substantial military assets and having in common with Russia nothing to lose.

01:40
That’s to say, they both have been severely challenged by the United States-led West. And unlike China, which has a lot to lose by confrontation with the United States, North Korea has nothing. and Russia now, to its great regret, has nothing to lose. So, these two countries presented, it seemed to me at the time, an obstacle to further escalation by the United States, in particular to its sending F-16s into the war zone in Ukraine, because the ability of the Russians together with North Koreans to strike at American military assets would normally be such that they would dissuade any rational aggressor from proceeding against them.

02:41
However, I underestimated, I’m afraid, the irrationality of decision makers in Washington. And I must say that the expectations I had that the world was saved and our necks are saved was premature. We’ll see how this develops, whether or not cooler heads will prevail in Washington than the heads of Mr. Biden, Mr. Blinken, and Mr. Sullivan. But at present, Sullivan seems to be particularly insouciant, particularly scathing in his view of Russia, and believing in the invincibility and impunity of American actions with respect to Russia.

Karbowski: 03:28
What is happening on the chessboard globally? Ukraine, Israel, China, Taiwan?

Doctorow:
The United States’ global hegemony is unraveling. The ability of the United States in the Middle East to dictate relations has taken a hit in March of this year when the Chinese brokered a restoration of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. It took a hit several days ago when Bahrain announced that it is in diplomatic discussions to restore relations with Iran, Bahrain being one of the signatories to the Abraham Accords, and so was assumed by the United States to be safely in hand and to be forming part of the wall of the Arab states against Iran.

04:29
So America’s ability to dictate the arrangements, diplomatic, financial, and other arrangements between states in the Middle East has been diminished. America’s ability to ensure the propaganda, success of the propaganda efforts of the Zelensky regime took a deep hit two weeks ago when the peace conference was held in Switzerland, and when 70 out of the 90 members attending agreed on only three of the points in Mr. Zelensky’s ten-point peace plan, which was really a plan for capitulation by Russia. That was a big diplomatic defeat for the United States, which had of course applied all of its typical blackmail and extortion methods against the African countries, the Latin American countries, and so forth, to ensure that they would vote the way it wanted the vote, which was to find a global consensus condemning Russia for the war. And it didn’t happen.

05:44
So the American rule in the world has come under severe challenge, and the American footprint in the world is being diminished — at the same time that an active de-dollarization program was launched by China and Russia and is being taken up by other countries. BRICS is still a work in progress. BRICS has no real administration, has no real institutional presence, but BRICS is showing the way to the new world order that Mr. Putin and others, Xi, have announced. That new world order, I have to emphasize, will exist on two levels. The global level, where there will be a renewed “board of directors” of global affairs, in which the major powers will have a seat and will not be following the commands of the one biggest dog, which is the United States at the table. That is at the global level.

06:55
But I think we also see an important regionalization of international affairs, where local disputes and local problems are more likely to be negotiated and discussed between countries at their own regional level, without the intervention of great powers that have their own interests at stake. This is the way I think things are headed, but it is a work in progress. It isn’t something that will come fully clothed into being, tomorrow or even the day after tomorrow. But we are witnesses to dramatic change.

Karbowski: 07:39
We are a little bit afraid [of] dramatic change. It’s scary. You wrote the book, “Is There a Future for Russia?” What is this future?

Doctorow:
Well, I’d like to mention a companion volume that came out two years later, “Does the United States Have a Future?” Because these two questions were one question. It was– I detected back in 2014, that there was a global confrontation between Russia and the United States. And it was an existential struggle going back to 2014, it didn’t just happen in the last couple of years. In the late days of the Obama administration, in the early years of the Trump administration, it was clear that there was a fight for control, a fight for the major position in the world between Russia and the United States.

08:48
This was imposed on Russia by the United States, but the Russians responded. And one of the reasons why Russia could and did respond is that it had very few trade relations with the United States. There was, unlike most other countries, the– I think back, going back to the 1990s, the halcyon days, the great optimism of some kind of a accommodation being reached between the United States and Russia. And some friends were speaking about how wonderful it will be that these countries will get along, will be friends, and will do constructive things in the world.

09:33
But back then I thought this was a pipe dream, because the United States and Russia have very few common interests. And I think this has been borne out by events. Most other countries have been and remain very fearful of alienating the United States, because it is still the biggest economy in the world. It is by any measure the holder of the biggest military in the world. With 900 military bases around the world, it can intimidate countries. Of course, Russia was a special case. It had a long, cold war with the United States. It had been used to standing up to the United States, whereas smaller countries didn’t have that experience.

10:29
But when I wrote this, “Does Russia Have a Future?”, I had in mind precisely its ability to withstand the very big pressure that came to bear after 2008, after Mr. Putin made his famous speech denouncing the United States for its abuse of power in the world at the Munich Security Conference. That was the beginning of the informational war against Russia, which quickly developed into economic pressure. We speak about sanctions today, and the sanctions are draconian. They were meant to be, as Nuland said, the Undersecretary of State at the time, said that they would be the sanctions from hell.

But there were sanctions imposed in 2012. The– thinking now of the Browder Magnitsky Act. These were already an indication of what’s coming. And what’s coming was great American pressure– abuse of its position as financial arbiter around the world, abuse of its position as the holder of the world’s biggest reserve currency– to pound on anyone that objected. Russia objected, and they got pounded on.

Karbowski: 11:55
Did the Americans lie to us in 90s when they promised freedom of speech, freedom of free market? Did they lie?

Doctorow:
Yes, of course they lied. By itself, that is not surprising. States lie. President’s lie. This comes with the profession. The problem is that the lies of that time have been magnified as there’s been a gradual change in the United States. As you may be aware, I was born in the United States, and I left the United States in 1980 to pursue to employment in Europe. And people ask me occasionally, do I go back to the States? What do I think about the States? The United States today is not the United States of 1980, not by any means. And I think the single biggest change in the United States came with 9-11, which brought with it a mass hysteria.

Karbowski: 13:06
Mass hysteria.

Doctorow:
Hysteria, completely. People went crazy. They were so frightened, so– you would think the whole country had been attacked. No, it was one city, and it was one business complex, Towers. But Americans as a whole were traumatized. Their country, which had not been attacked in world wars, had experienced no bombing like Europe has been bombed to hell. They didn’t have that in the States. And this experience created irrational response in which the average Americans were ready to sacrifice their liberties for the sake of security. And the nature of the country has changed for the worse ever since that time.

14:00
So lies… I don’t think they were all lies, there may have been exaggerated expectations from their own country, but they have become lies, as the United States has become the Soviet Union. I traveled to Russia, the Soviet Union. My earliest trip was in 1966 as a member of a language school tour– that was Indiana University– arranged every year with financing from the US government to take undergraduates on a four-week visit to the Soviet Union to improve our language skills. And I went back to the Soviet Union in the 1970s on business as a consultant to some very big US corporations, in their hoped-for big business deals in Russia. And I went back later.

14:56
The Soviet Union was for me… a very difficult place to visit. And I understood fully that it was built on lies. I understood the joke among businessmen that the first time you visited the Soviet Union, you were surprised at how little they had, and the 10th time, you were surprised they had anything. Because you needed very– I dealt with ministers, with factory managers, particularly in the food processing area, on behalf of the major companies that I was serving as a consultant. And I saw that the only way that Russian managers could succeed was embracing the law. If they followed the rules, their factories would never meet a plan.

15:53
So this understanding of Russia, of the Soviet Union, how regrettably it was built on lies, was my single biggest impression. Unfortunately, that all has been transferred now to the United States. And among those of us in the know, we speak to “Pravda on the Potomac”. It has come back, and it’s very unfortunate, but it’s also undeniable, that the United States today has many of the features that were so objectionable in the Soviet Union.

Karbowski: 16:32
I know you speak very good Russian. Can we speak Russian?

[remainder translated from spoken Russian]

Doctorow:
Please, it is possible.

Karbowski:
How good.

Doctorow:
What about analysis like a blogger?

Karbowski: 16:45
You took it apart like a blogger. What kind of people do you say live in America now? Scared people or what?

Doctorow:
They give up privacy. They live their private lives. In general, they are all friends of mine. Even my relatives are there. They live well, they are happy with life, they absolutely do not feel, do not understand and do not want to understand what is going on in the world.
17:16

Translation (Andreas Mylaeus)

„Hat Russland eine Zukunft?“: Interview mit dem bulgarischen Journalisten Martin Karbowski

Ich habe heute den Link zum ersten Teil eines langen zweiteiligen Interviews erhalten, das ich dem meistbeachteten bulgarischen Journalisten und Blogger, Martin Karbowski, gegeben habe, und gebe ihn an meine Leser weiter. Siehe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTnOsDsC5x0&t=508s . Der zweite Teil wird morgen ins Internet gestellt.

Das Interview deckt eine breite Palette von Themen ab, die sich hauptsächlich auf den aktuellen Stand der internationalen Beziehungen beziehen.

Der Titel, den Herr Karbowski dem Interview gegeben hat, bezieht sich auf meine gleichnamige, 2016 veröffentlichte Aufsatzsammlung. Der Untertitel oder Alternativtitel, den er angibt, lautet „Haben die Vereinigten Staaten eine Zukunft?“, was der Titel einer Folgesammlung war, die ein Jahr später herauskam. Diese Fragen waren eng miteinander verknüpft, denn ich vertrat die Ansicht, dass die beiden Länder (schon damals) in einen titanischen Kampf verwickelt waren, aus dem eines als Sieger hervorgehen und das andere zerschlagen werden würde. Diese Fragen sind natürlich sehr aktuell und haben dazu beigetragen, unsere Diskussion in dem Interview zu gestalten.

Wie man sich vorstellen kann, ist ein großer Prozentsatz von Karbowskis Publikum bulgarisch, und dementsprechend sind die Untertitel und die Kommentare in dieser Sprache gehalten. Da ich in den 1980er Jahren fünf Jahre lang als ITT-Landesleiter in Bulgarien tätig war, kann ich mich in dieser Sprache zurechtfinden, und die Leser können sich von Google Translate helfen lassen. Was ich sehe, ist eine große Anzahl von Befürwortern meiner Aussage, was an sich schon interessant ist, wenn man bedenkt, dass die bulgarische Regierung lange Zeit russophob war und von Washington unter Druck gesetzt wurde, sich der wirtschaftlichen Kriegsführung gegen Moskau anzupassen. Es war genau das Mobbing der USA, das der Entscheidung Sofias zugrunde lag, die Vorbereitungen für eine South-Stream-Gaspipeline zu stornieren, die in Bulgarien verlaufen sollte. Wie wir wissen, wurde dieses Projekt dann von den Russen in Turkstream umgewandelt, und die Türken wurden zu Russlands Gasdrehscheibe in der Schwarzmeerregion. Bulgarien wird heute von Washington auch als potenzieller regionaler Stützpunkt für seinen Krieg gegen Russland wegen der Ukraine angesehen, insbesondere als möglicher Stützpunkt für F16, die nominell als ukrainisch bezeichnet werden, de facto aber zwischen sicheren Flughäfen in Bulgarien, Rumänien oder Moldawien und dem ukrainischen Luftraum „pendeln“, von dem aus sie Raketen gegen Russland abschießen werden. Bislang hat Bulgarien gezögert, sich auf diese höchst riskante Helferposition einzulassen, die zu russischen Luftangriffen auf sein Territorium führen könnte.

In diesem Interview erwähne ich den Beginn des Informationskriegs gegen Russland, der unmittelbar auf Putins Rede auf der Münchner Sicherheitskonferenz folgte. Diese fand natürlich im Februar 2007 statt.

Ich freue mich, dass man mir die Gelegenheit gegeben hat, zu erklären, warum ich glaube, dass die USA die hässlichen Züge der alten Sowjetunion übernommen haben, womit ich die Propaganda und die unverschämten Lügen meine, die als offizielle politische Erklärungen zu den internationalen Beziehungen gelten. Die Zeitung, die ich im Sinn hatte, als ich von der „Pravda am Potomac“ sprach, war und ist die Washington Post, obwohl die New York Times in Bezug auf journalistische Professionalität und Integrität knapp dahinter liegt.

As we all know, Iran has been targeted by the United States in an Information war that goes back well over a decade. The country has been vilified, called out for every imaginable human rights abuse, subjected to vicious economic sanctions including exclusion from the global financial payments system (SWIFT).  I ask you to bear this in mind when you view this morning’s discussion I had on air with one of the leading news presenters on Press TV, the Iranian global broadcaster, with regard to the shooting of Donald Trump. Is this responsible and professional journalism? Is it worse, …or is it better than what you saw today on CNN, on the BBC or on Euronews? I leave the verdict to you.

https://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/130106

                                                                     *****

I freely acknowledge that the most relevant point which I raised when I spoke of gross negligence of the authorities responsible for Former President Trump’s security, namely the failure to deploy drones for overhead supervision of the event, came from the remarks of a security expert on CNN that I listened to over breakfast.

As the day has progressed, CNN coverage seemed to move in another direction, towards discussion of the overall political tensions and polarization in the U.S. which made such an attack possible.  However, to my knowledge no one in Western mainstream media is going beyond generalities and pinning down the specifics calls for Trump to be ‘stopped’ and even to ‘be shot’ because he is a threat to American democracy, as Biden has said repeatedly and thoughtlessly on the campaign trail.  Tonight’s edition of News of the Week hosted by Yevgeny Popov on Russian state television did name the names of several public figures who had directly called for Trump to be killed.  It is utterly remarkable that those who made such threats were never brought to justice for inciting violence.

In closing, I was pleased to be given the microphone by Press TV to call attention to one other sign that something is seriously amiss in the security being provided to our most important politicians.  The question of whether Trump had previously requested more from the Secret Service was raised by our media during the day and then dismissed.  However, no one mentioned the repeated refusal of Biden to name a security team to candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  This is utterly outrageous given the murder of his father in the midst of campaigning decades ago.

A country that has thrown away 175 billion dollars to keep the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev in power seems to fret over the few million it would take to keep its own elections safe.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Transcription below by a reader, followed by full translation into German

PressTV: 0:00
Former US President Donald Trump has been injured after a gunman opened fire during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

Trump:
If you want to really see something that’s sad, take a look at what happened–

PressTV: 0:25
The Secret Service said a gunman fired multiple shots from an elevated position outside of the rally venue. Trump was speaking to supporters in Butler, Pennsylvania. His team and the Secret Service confirmed that he was fine. In a social media post following the attack, Trump said that he was hit by a bullet that pierced the upper part of his right ear. One spectator was killed, and at least two were critically injured. The Secret Service said the shooter was also killed. US law enforcement officials say the incident is investigated as an attempted assassination.

Kevin Rojek, FBI: 1:09
This evening we had what we’re calling an assassination attempt against our former president Donald Trump. It’s still an active crime scene. As I mentioned, we have a number of agents on scene. We also are working closely with other federal agencies, our state partners, and our local police partners as well. Again, at this time, we are not prepared–

PressTV:
The FBI has identified the shooter as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. However, there is still not any mention of a potential motive or whether anyone else was involved. Reacting to the shooting, President Joe Biden described it as sick and denounced political violence. Biden said that he was grateful that Trump was safe and doing well.

2:00
Let’s bring in Gilbert Doctorow. He is an independent international affairs analyst who joins us from Brussels. Welcome. When you take a look at what has happened here, obviously an assassination attempt on a potential future president of the US is something that should be condemned. But the causes behind what drives a person to do that seems to be what the US is now– not now, but has called political violence. And based on a recent poll, 10 percent of Americans actually think that political violence is justified. Are we looking at this, not phenomenon, but this type of thinking and the justification that Americans feel to be the cause of what we have seen unfold today?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 2:49
I’m [not] particularly surprised that there was an attempt on the life of Donald Trump. The question was only for me, when in the campaign would it occur? And is it the only attempt that will be made, and how thorough and open the investigation into this will be. It’s very convenient that the would-be assassin has himself been killed, because that spares us all the interrogation which would reveal who else was involved. Any police or other law and order officials would be investigating precisely that question. Where has he traveled previous to this event in Pennsylvania to find access to Mr. Trump? Who assisted him? Because it is most improbable this was a lone wolf attack.

3:44
Also, the question has been raised by serious experts in terrorism: why was there no drone over that event? We have drones monitoring all kinds of public events. I go to open-air opera concerts, and there are drones overhead to watch whether there is some possible source of violence in the area. Nothing of the sort occurred in Pennsylvania. That is, by itself, quite extraordinary.

Mr. Biden’s remarks were pitiful. They were showing absolute, willing ignorance of the atmosphere that has made this possible, an atmosphere in which he is about to lose the election, and the deep state is troubled, is frightened, and will do anything to eliminate Mr. Trump. That’s clear. It also raises another question, which goes directly back to Mr. Biden. Why has he refused to provide Secret Service protection to the other candidate in this race, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has repeatedly requested such protection and who has a right to such protection under U.S. law?

4:58
So the Biden administration is guilty of negligence, willful negligence, in its protection of those who would campaign against it.

PressTV:
I’m curious as to gains out of this. I mean obviously if it’s something that getting rid of a candidate would potentially mean that Biden is going to maybe come out on top. I guess that’s one of the gains here. But what does this show about the I guess divisions that exist in the US when it comes to the way that people are polarized based on the politics? I mean, we know that when Trump set foot on the political stage, he did bring about divisiveness based on a whole host of issues and topics and ideas that he has had on a variety of topics, I guess. Do you think that this is an outcome of that in any shape or form?

Doctorow: 5:50
Mr. Trump has been highly divisive. That has been held against him by status-quo politicians. They would like us all to be singing from the same chorus book, from the same set of notes. And they resent and denounce his raising fundamental concerns with where America’s headed. The potential for violence is, of course, there. There are those who speak about America on the edge of a civil war. I think that’s an exaggeration. But there could be widespread outbreaks of violence if Mr. Trump were eliminated in such an assassination. That’s beyond question.

If there were to be measures to prevent his being on the ballot in November, there would be a high potential for violence in the United States. The United States is divided close to 50-50 among political activists. I don’t mean the general population, but among those who are following and active in politics, the country is evenly divided. On the one hand, that presents a background, a context for the kind of event that we saw yesterday. On the other hand, that is the greatest protection of the freedoms of speech and assembly and the other freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, which America enjoys today in contrast to parts of the world, such as Europe, where I live today, where all emphasis is on unity and where any naysaying voice is immediately denounced.

7:25
So the United States benefits. Americans benefit from this division. Politics, in essence, is all about division. And those who tell us it’s about solidarity are themselves authoritarians who do not wish to face a fair election.

PressTV:
And the undertones of what you initially stated, I get the feeling perhaps that they’re– again, my interpretation, I could be wrong– is that there’s a deep state that could be involved here in one form or another. We know the animosity that Trump feels about, for example, the FBI and the CIA. Are we looking at that to be a possibility in this case?

Doctorow: 8:07
Oh, I think definitely. There’s also an interesting question about the role of the Secret Service. We will remember– and the facts about the Kennedy assassination have never been fully revealed, but there is enough information in public space for some excellent investigative journalists to have looked at the role of these security organizations particularly as you mentioned the CIA, and also the Secret Service for their complicity, if not their active participation, in the murder of John F. Kennedy. I think, thus, if there is to be an open and fair investigation of what happened yesterday in the case of Mr. Trump, these are the two main areas that should be investigated: what did they know, and why didn’t they act?

PressTV: 8:57
Why do you think the fact that there were no drones there could be a cause of concern, or a factor that stands out here? What other factors do you think stand out in addition to that?

Doctorow:
Well, the reason why the drones comes up an issue is that there were anti-snipers present at that event. This is how and why the assailant was killed very quickly and did not complete his task. There was lateral vision and slightly elevated vision of the possible points from which an attack could be made on the president, or former president. However, there was no vertical observation of what was going on in that territory. And this is itself a case of gross negligence, if not part of a plan to eliminate Mr. Trump.

PressTV: 10:00
All right. Thank you very much for that. We do appreciate it. Gilbert Doctorow, independent international affairs analyst there from Brussels. Thank you.

Iranische Fernsehberichterstattung über die Schüsse auf Donald Trump

Wie wir alle wissen, haben die Vereinigten Staaten den Iran in einem Informationskrieg ins Visier genommen, der weit über ein Jahrzehnt zurückreicht. Das Land wurde verunglimpft, jeder nur denkbaren Menschenrechtsverletzung beschuldigt und mit brutalen Wirtschaftssanktionen belegt, einschließlich des Ausschlusses aus dem globalen Finanzzahlungssystem (SWIFT). Ich bitte Sie, dies zu bedenken, wenn Sie die Diskussion von heute Morgen sehen, die ich mit einem der führenden Nachrichtensprecher von Press TV, dem iranischen Weltsender, über die Schüsse auf Donald Trump geführt habe. Ist das verantwortungsvoller und professioneller Journalismus? Ist es schlechter oder besser als das, was Sie heute auf CNN, BBC oder Euronews gesehen haben? Ich überlasse Ihnen das Urteil.

https://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/130106

                                                                     *****

Ich gebe gerne zu, dass der wichtigste Punkt, den ich angesprochen habe, als ich von der groben Fahrlässigkeit der für die Sicherheit des ehemaligen Präsidenten Trump verantwortlichen Behörden sprach, nämlich das Versäumnis, Drohnen zur Überwachung der Veranstaltung einzusetzen, aus den Bemerkungen eines Sicherheitsexperten auf CNN stammte, denen ich beim Frühstück zugehört habe.

Im Laufe des Tages schien sich die CNN-Berichterstattung in eine andere Richtung zu bewegen, nämlich in Richtung einer Diskussion über die allgemeinen politischen Spannungen und die Polarisierung in den USA, die einen solchen Anschlag möglich machten. Meines Wissens geht jedoch niemand in den westlichen Mainstream-Medien über Allgemeinplätze hinaus und konkretisiert die Forderungen, Trump zu “stoppen” und sogar zu “erschießen”, weil er eine Bedrohung für die amerikanische Demokratie sei, wie Biden wiederholt und gedankenlos auf der Wahlkampftour gesagt hat. In der heutigen Ausgabe von Nachrichten der Woche, moderiert von Jewgeni Popow im russischen Staatsfernsehen, wurden die Namen mehrerer Persönlichkeiten des öffentlichen Lebens genannt, die direkt zur Ermordung von Trump aufgerufen hatten. Es ist äußerst bemerkenswert, dass diejenigen, die solche Drohungen ausgesprochen haben, nie wegen Anstiftung zur Gewalt vor Gericht gestellt wurden.

Abschließend: Ich habe mich gefreut, von Press TV das Mikrofon erhalten zu haben, um auf ein weiteres Anzeichen dafür aufmerksam zu machen, dass mit der Sicherheit unserer wichtigsten Politiker etwas nicht stimmt. Die Frage, ob Trump zuvor mehr vom Secret Service gefordert hatte, wurde von unseren Medien im Laufe des Tages aufgeworfen und dann abgetan. Niemand erwähnte jedoch die wiederholte Weigerung Bidens, ein Sicherheitsteam für den Kandidaten Robert F. Kennedy Jr. zu benennen. Dies ist angesichts der Ermordung seines Vaters mitten im Wahlkampf vor Jahrzehnten völlig unverschämt.

Ein Land, das 175 Milliarden Dollar verpulvert hat, um das Neonazi-Regime in Kiew an der Macht zu halten, scheint sich über die paar Millionen zu ärgern, die nötig wären, um seine eigenen Wahlen zu sichern.

Transkript eines Lesers

PressTV: 0:00
Der ehemalige US-Präsident Donald Trump ist verletzt worden, nachdem ein Schütze während einer Wahlkampfveranstaltung in Pennsylvania das Feuer eröffnet hatte.

Trump:
Wenn Sie etwas wirklich Trauriges sehen wollen, schauen Sie sich an, was passiert ist.

PressTV: 0:25
Nach Angaben des Secret Service feuerte ein Bewaffneter mehrere Schüsse aus einer erhöhten Position außerhalb des Kundgebungsortes ab. Trump sprach zu Anhängern in Butler, Pennsylvania. Sein Team und der Secret Service bestätigten, dass es ihm gut geht. In einem Social-Media-Beitrag nach dem Angriff sagte Trump, dass er von einer Kugel getroffen wurde, die den oberen Teil seines rechten Ohrs durchschlug. Ein Zuschauer wurde getötet, mindestens zwei weitere wurden schwer verletzt. Nach Angaben des Secret Service wurde auch der Schütze getötet. Nach Angaben der US-Strafverfolgungsbehörden wird der Vorfall als versuchtes Attentat untersucht.

Kevin Rojek, FBI: 1:09
Heute Abend wurde ein Attentat auf unseren ehemaligen Präsidenten Donald Trump verübt, wie wir es nennen. Es ist immer noch ein aktiver Tatort. Wie ich bereits erwähnt habe, haben wir eine Reihe von Agenten vor Ort. Wir arbeiten auch eng mit anderen Bundesbehörden, unseren staatlichen Partnern und unseren lokalen Polizeipartnern zusammen. Auch hier gilt, dass wir derzeit nicht bereit sind…

PressTV:
Das FBI hat den Schützen als den 20-jährigen Thomas Matthew Crooks identifiziert. Es gibt jedoch noch keine Hinweise auf ein mögliches Motiv oder darauf, ob weitere Personen beteiligt waren. In einer Reaktion auf die Schießerei bezeichnete Präsident Joe Biden diese als krank und verurteilte politische Gewalt. Biden sagte, er sei dankbar, dass Trump in Sicherheit sei und es ihm gut gehe.

2:00
Wir schalten nun zu Gilbert Doctorow. Er ist ein unabhängiger Analyst für internationale Angelegenheiten und kommt aus Brüssel zu uns. Herzlich willkommen. Wenn man sich ansieht, was hier passiert ist, ist ein Attentatsversuch auf einen potenziellen künftigen US-Präsidenten natürlich zu verurteilen. Aber die Gründe, die einen Menschen zu so etwas treiben, scheinen das zu sein, was die USA jetzt – nicht jetzt, aber früher – als politische Gewalt bezeichnet haben. Und laut einer kürzlich durchgeführten Umfrage halten 10 Prozent der Amerikaner politische Gewalt für gerechtfertigt. Sehen wir hier nicht ein Phänomen, sondern diese Art des Denkens und der Rechtfertigung, die die Amerikaner für die Ursache dessen halten, was wir heute erlebt haben?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 2:49
Ich bin [nicht] besonders überrascht, dass es einen Anschlag auf Donald Trump gegeben hat. Die Frage war für mich nur, wann im Wahlkampf dies geschehen würde. Und ob ist es der einzige Versuch sein wird, und wie gründlich und offen die Ermittlungen in dieser Sache sein werden. Es ist sehr praktisch, dass der Möchtegern-Attentäter selbst getötet wurde, denn das erspart uns allen die Verhöre, die aufdecken würden, wer noch beteiligt war. Jede Polizei oder andere Ordnungshüter würden genau dieser Frage nachgehen. Wohin ist er vor dieser Veranstaltung in Pennsylvania gereist, um Zugang zu Mr. Trump zu finden? Wer hat ihm dabei geholfen? Denn es ist höchst unwahrscheinlich, dass es sich um einen Angriff eines einsamen Wolfs handelt.

3:44
Außerdem wurde von seriösen Terrorismusexperten die Frage aufgeworfen, warum keine Drohne über dieser Veranstaltung war. Wir haben Drohnen, die alle Arten von öffentlichen Veranstaltungen überwachen. Ich besuche Opernkonzerte unter freiem Himmel, und es werden Drohnen eingesetzt, um zu beobachten, ob es in der Nähe eine mögliche Quelle der Gewalt gibt. In Pennsylvania ist nichts dergleichen geschehen. Das ist an sich schon ziemlich außergewöhnlich.

Bidens Äußerungen waren erbärmlich. Sie zeugen von absoluter, willentlicher Ignoranz gegenüber der Atmosphäre, die dies möglich gemacht hat, einer Atmosphäre, in der er dabei ist, die Wahl zu verlieren, und der tiefe Staat ist beunruhigt, hat Angst und wird alles tun, um Herrn Trump zu beseitigen. Das ist klar. Es wirft auch eine weitere Frage auf, die direkt auf Herrn Biden zurückgeht. Warum hat er sich geweigert, dem anderen Kandidaten in diesem Rennen, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Schutz durch den Secret Service zu gewähren, der wiederholt um einen solchen Schutz gebeten hat und der nach US-Recht ein Recht auf einen solchen Schutz hat?

4:58
Die Biden-Administration macht sich also der Fahrlässigkeit, der bewussten Fahrlässigkeit schuldig, wenn es um den Schutz derjenigen geht, die sich gegen sie wenden.

PressTV:
Ich bin gespannt, was dabei herauskommt. Ich meine natürlich, wenn es etwas ist, das das Loswerden eines Kandidaten möglicherweise bedeutet, dass Biden vielleicht an die Spitze kommt. Ich schätze, das ist einer der Gewinne hier. Aber was sagt das über die Spaltung in den USA aus, wenn es um die Art und Weise geht, wie die Menschen aufgrund der Politik polarisiert sind? Ich meine, wir wissen, dass Trump, als er die politische Bühne betrat, zu einer Spaltung führte, die auf einer ganzen Reihe von Fragen, Themen und Ideen beruhte, die er zu einer Vielzahl von Themen hatte, denke ich. Glauben Sie, dass dies in irgendeiner Form ein Ergebnis davon ist?

Doctorow: 5:50
Herr Trump war sehr spaltend. Das haben ihm die Status-quo-Politiker zum Vorwurf gemacht. Sie möchten, dass wir alle im gleichen Chor singen, aus dem gleichen Satz von Noten. Und sie nehmen es ihm übel und prangern an, dass er grundlegende Bedenken darüber äußert, wohin sich Amerika entwickelt. Das Potenzial für Gewalt ist natürlich vorhanden. Manche sprechen davon, dass Amerika am Rande eines Bürgerkriegs steht. Ich halte das für eine Übertreibung. Aber es könnte zu weit verbreiteten Ausbrüchen von Gewalt kommen, wenn Mr. Trump durch ein solches Attentat beseitigt würde. Das steht außer Frage.

Sollten Maßnahmen ergriffen werden, um zu verhindern, dass er im November auf dem Wahlzettel steht, wäre das Gewaltpotenzial in den Vereinigten Staaten hoch. Die Vereinigten Staaten sind unter den politischen Aktivisten fast 50:50 geteilt. Ich meine damit nicht die allgemeine Bevölkerung, sondern diejenigen, die die Politik verfolgen und aktiv sind, das Land ist gleichmäßig geteilt. Das ist zum einen der Hintergrund, der Kontext für das, was wir gestern erlebt haben. Andererseits ist das der größte Schutz der Rede- und Versammlungsfreiheit und der anderen durch die Bill of Rights garantierten Freiheiten, den Amerika heute genießt, im Gegensatz zu Teilen der Welt, wie Europa, wo ich heute lebe, wo alle Betonung auf Einheit liegt und wo jede ablehnende Stimme sofort angeprangert wird.

7:25
Aber davon profitieren die Vereinigten Staaten. Die Amerikaner profitieren von dieser Spaltung. In der Politik geht es im Grunde nur um Spaltung. Und diejenigen, die uns erzählen, es ginge um Solidarität, sind selbst autoritär und wollen sich keiner fairen Wahl stellen.

PressTV:
Und die Untertöne dessen, was Sie anfangs sagten, vermitteln mir das Gefühl, dass es vielleicht – wiederum meine Interpretation, ich könnte falsch liegen – einen tiefen Staat gibt, der hier in der einen oder anderen Form involviert sein könnte. Wir kennen die Feindseligkeit, die Trump zum Beispiel gegenüber dem FBI und der CIA hegt. Halten wir das in diesem Fall für möglich?

Doctorow: 8:07
Oh, ich denke schon. Es stellt sich auch die interessante Frage nach der Rolle des Secret Service. Wir werden uns erinnern – und die Fakten über das Kennedy-Attentat wurden nie vollständig aufgedeckt, aber es gibt genügend Informationen im öffentlichen Raum für einige ausgezeichnete investigative Journalisten, die sich mit der Rolle dieser Sicherheitsorganisationen befasst haben, insbesondere, wie Sie erwähnten, mit der CIA und auch mit dem Secret Service wegen ihrer Komplizenschaft, wenn nicht gar ihrer aktiven Beteiligung am Mord an John F. Kennedy. Ich denke also, wenn es eine offene und faire Untersuchung der gestrigen Ereignisse im Fall von Herrn Trump geben soll, sind dies die beiden Hauptbereiche, die untersucht werden sollten: Was wussten sie, und warum haben sie nicht gehandelt?

PressTV: 8:57
Warum glauben Sie, dass die Tatsache, dass es dort keine Drohnen gab, ein Grund zur Besorgnis sein könnte, oder ein Faktor, der hier hervorsticht? Welche anderen Faktoren sind Ihrer Meinung nach darüber hinaus von Bedeutung?

Doctorow:
Nun, der Grund, warum die Drohnen ein Thema sind, ist, dass bei dieser Veranstaltung Anti-Scharfschützen anwesend waren. Aus diesem Grund wurde der Angreifer sehr schnell getötet und konnte seine Aufgabe nicht erfüllen. Es gab eine seitliche Sicht und eine leicht erhöhte Sicht auf die möglichen Punkte, von denen aus ein Angriff auf den Präsidenten bzw. den ehemaligen Präsidenten erfolgen könnte. Es gab jedoch keine vertikale Beobachtung des Geschehens in diesem Gebiet. Und das ist an sich schon ein Fall von grober Fahrlässigkeit, wenn nicht sogar Teil eines Plans zur Beseitigung von Herrn Trump.

PressTV: 10:00
Na gut. Vielen Dank dafür. Wir wissen das sehr zu schätzen. Gilbert Doctorow, unabhängiger Analyst für internationale Angelegenheiten aus Brüssel. Ich danke Ihnen.

In addition to the Moscow visit by India’s prime minister Modi, the past week was also notable for another international event in Russia which has received scant attention in the West, though it also demonstrates convincingly that Moscow remains a major center of global politics in spite of America’s wishes. I have in mind the Parliamentary Forum of BRICS member states, whose 10^th iteration was held in St Petersburg over the course of two days.

Vladimir Putin delivered the keynote speech and Russia’s top legislators, Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, and Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the lower house, the State Duma, took active part in receiving and meeting with the visiting national delegations.

An invitation late last night by Iran’s Press TV to comment on their country’s participation in the Parliamentary Forum prompted me to organize my thoughts on this major event to share with a global audience.

My interview lasted approximately 10 minutes and you can watch it here: https://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/130093

We talked about BRICS and de-dollarization, among other topics. I was given the opportunity to share some observations on the symbolic nature of the venue for this year’s Forum, the ‘Tauride Palace’ in central Petersburg.

There are two salient points to make about the venue.  Firstly, it is the cradle of Russian parliamentarism. The Tauride Palace housed Russia’s very first State Duma, created following the Revolution of 1905. That Duma put constitutional limits on the autocratic rule of the Russian emperor Nicholas II.  Moreover, the building has great symbolism for the apple of contention between Russia and the West today, the Crimea. The palace was built in the 1780s for Prince Potemkin, dit ‘Tavrichesky,’ who took possession of the Crimea on behalf of Empress Catherine the Great by vanquishing the Crimean Tatars and their Ottoman Turk overlords. The very name “Tauride” is borrowed from the Greek word for the Crimean peninsula as we know from Herodotus.

Transcript below by a reader, followed by full translation into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

PressTV: 0:00
Welcome back. Iran’s parliament speaker is back home after a visit to Russia for the 10th BRICS parliamentary forum in St. Petersburg. Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf described the trip as successful. Qalibaf said the group of major developing countries can provide Iran with a range of opportunities including through an existing independent payment system which allows members to trade freely. The speaker said he also followed up on the implementation of the agreements already reached with BRICS. He added that besides commerce, he discussed such issues as terrorism, regional conflicts and countering US unilateralism with his counterparts. Qalibaf also held bilateral meetings with Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, whose country holds the BRICS rotating presidency.

Now to talk more on this we are joined by Mr. Gilbert Doctorow independent international affairs analyst from Brussels. Mr. Doctorow, welcome to Press TV. Now, initial thoughts on the significance of the recent visit by Iran’s parliament speaker to Russia for the 10th BRICS Parliamentary Forum, the BRICS itself as a major emerging bloc, and also Iran’s role in the alliance.

Gilbert octorow, PhD: 1:24
The meeting received very little coverage in global news, in Western news in particular. But in Russia, it was featured news yesterday on the primetime news programs, and with good reason. This was, as the organizers mentioned, another example of the way that BRICS is constructing an institutional framework for a multilateral, multipolar world. This world is being created without destroying the existing international structures, but in parallel to [them], and is in the expectation that this new order will provide an equal opportunity for the participating members and ultimately for the whole global south, respecting the sovereignty of each country, respecting the interests of each participating country.

As you mentioned, the clearing facilities to make possible interbank exchanges across borders is one of the major facilities that BRICS is devising to help trade and to end the dollar domination of foreign trade. In parallel, they are also working on a BRICS currency, which will take a bit longer to develop.

But coming back to the core feature of this meeting in Petersburg, it is a parliamentary gathering and it is significant that it was held in Petersburg in precisely the building where the first Russian Parliament, the State Duma, opened in 1905-1906. It has a great historical tradition and I might add to that, the Russians pay attention to these symbolic elements. The building is called the Tauride Palace, Tauride of course is the Greek name for Crimea, and the building was constructed at the direction of Prince Potemkin, who served Catherine the Great as the conqueror of Crimea. So, the delegates to this meeting, which was supervised by Mr. Putin, in which the key Russian participants were the speaker of the lower house, Mr. Volodin, the Duma, and the speaker of the upper house, the Federation Council, Madame Matviyenko.

PressTV: 4:04
That’s right. Mr. Doctorow, one of the major talking points with BRICS is de-dollarization and using alternative means of payment. Could you talk more on the reason and the importance of this move, and what are your ideas or suggestions as an alternative?

Doctorow:
As you know one of the first and most vicious sanctions that the United States imposed on Iran, and imposed eventually on Russia, was to throw these countries out of SWIFT. SWIFT is a Brussels-based global clearing office for communications between banks in different countries in which they advise one another about incoming transfers. It is an essential building block in international trade, and it was abused by the United States, who pressured the independent managers of SWIFT to conform to the illegal sanctions that the United States imposes on countries which are not in favor at a given moment.

5:13
So the de-dollarization is a consequence of American abuse of the power of the dollar as the global reserve currency. It is the abuse of the global financial system which is dominated by the dollar and the United States. De-dollarization is the process of freeing countries from use of the dollar to denominate the values of goods and services exchanged. The use of the dollar means that all of the transactions pass through the American banking system, which means that the United States has a monopoly information flow of who is selling what to whom. This American domination and an exclusive commercial advantage is removed when you trade in national currencies and do not go through the United States banking system.

6:17
Many people have talked about this as an objective for decades to come. However, in light of the international situation surrounding the Crimean conflict and the Ukrainian conflict, the de-dollarization is proceeding apace. Russia is a very big factor in global trade, and attempting to isolate and remove it from the financial facilities, has been a– set off alarm bells in many countries. The freezing of Russian state assets under US instructions, they’re being done today in Belgium, and some $250 billion in assets are frozen in the European community at American instructions.

This set off alarm bells to other, among other major global trading countries which have large currency flows in their favor in their national trade, that their reserves are also subject to confiscation, misappropriation by what they thought to be neutral banks serving all. It’s in this connection, it’s important to note that the process of de-dollarization is being accelerated by your very region, the Middle East. The announcement two or three days ago by Saudi Arabia that it will dump euro and dollar assets in case the Western countries proceed to confiscate the frozen assets of Russia — this was an incredible development in de-dollarization.

8:09
Hydrocarbons are the single biggest trading commodity in the globe and if they are taken out of the dollar and are denominated in other currencies, that also is a big factor in the process of de-dollarization. The BRICs are providing comfort to the global south in the understanding that it is possible to survive and to prosper in spite of the sanctions imposed unfairly and illegally by the holder of the global reserve currencies the United States and the euro.

PressTV: 8:51
That’s right, Mr. Doctorow. There you have it, Mr. Gilbert Doctorow, independent international affairs analyst from Brussels. Thank you for your time sir, stay safe.

Translation into German

Press TV Iran über das parlamentarische BRICS-Forum in Petersburg in der vergangenen Woche

Neben dem Moskau-Besuch des indischen Premierministers Modi war die vergangene Woche auch durch ein anderes internationales Ereignis in Russland gekennzeichnet, das im Westen kaum Beachtung fand, das aber auch überzeugend zeigt, dass Moskau trotz der Wünsche der USA ein wichtiges Zentrum der Weltpolitik bleibt. Ich denke dabei an das Parlamentarische Forum der BRICS-Mitgliedstaaten, das in St. Petersburg zum 10. Mal zwei Tage lang stattfand.

Wladimir Putin hielt die Hauptrede, und Russlands führende Parlamentarier, Walentina Matwijenko, Sprecherin des Oberhauses des Parlaments, des Föderationsrates, und Wjatscheslaw Wolodin, Sprecher des Unterhauses, der Staatsduma, nahmen aktiv am Empfang und an den Treffen mit den nationalen Delegationen teil.

Eine Einladung des iranischen Fernsehsenders Press TV, die Teilnahme des Landes am Parlamentarischen Forum zu kommentieren, hat mich gestern Abend dazu veranlasst, meine Gedanken zu diesem wichtigen Ereignis zu formulieren und mit einem weltweiten Publikum zu teilen.

Mein Interview dauerte etwa 10 Minuten und Sie können es sich hier ansehen:

https://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/130093

Wir sprachen unter anderem über BRICS und die Entdollarisierung. Ich hatte die Gelegenheit, einige Beobachtungen über den symbolischen Charakter des Veranstaltungsortes des diesjährigen Forums, den “Tauridenpalast” im Zentrum von Petersburg, zu machen.

Es gibt zwei wichtige Punkte, die man über den Veranstaltungsort sagen kann. Erstens ist er die Wiege des russischen Parlamentarismus. Der Tauridenpalast beherbergte die allererste russische Staatsduma, die nach der Revolution von 1905 gegründet wurde. Diese Duma setzte der autokratischen Herrschaft des russischen Zaren Nikolaus II. verfassungsmäßige Grenzen. Außerdem hat das Gebäude eine große Symbolkraft für den heutigen Zankapfel zwischen Russland und dem Westen, die Krim. Der Palast wurde in den 1780er Jahren für Fürst Potemkin, sprich “Tawritscheski”, erbaut, der im Auftrag der Zarin Katharina der Großen die Krim in Besitz nahm, indem er die Krimtataren und ihre osmanisch-türkischen Oberherren besiegte. Der Name “Tauride” selbst ist dem griechischen Wort für die Halbinsel Krim entlehnt, wie wir von Herodot wissen.

Transkript eines Lesers

PressTV: 0:00

Willkommen zurück. Der iranische Parlamentspräsident ist nach einem Besuch in Russland anlässlich des 10. parlamentarischen BRICS-Forums in St. Petersburg wieder zu Hause. Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf bezeichnete die Reise als erfolgreich. Qalibaf sagte, die Gruppe der großen Entwicklungsländer könne dem Iran eine Reihe von Möglichkeiten bieten, u.a. durch ein bestehendes unabhängiges Zahlungssystem, das den Mitgliedern einen freien Handel ermöglicht. Der Sprecher sagte, er habe auch die Umsetzung der bereits mit den BRICS getroffenen Vereinbarungen weiterverfolgt. Er fügte hinzu, dass er mit seinen Gesprächspartnern neben dem Handel auch Themen wie Terrorismus, regionale Konflikte und die Bekämpfung des US-Unilateralismus erörtert habe. Qalibaf führte auch bilaterale Gespräche mit russischen Vertretern, darunter mit Präsident Wladimir Putin, dessen Land den rotierenden BRICS-Vorsitz innehat.

Um mehr darüber zu erfahren, haben wir jetzt Gilbert Doctorow, einen unabhängigen Analysten für internationale Angelegenheiten aus Brüssel, zu Gast. Herr Doctorow, herzlich willkommen bei Press TV. Erste Gedanken zur Bedeutung des jüngsten Besuchs des iranischen Parlamentspräsidenten in Russland anlässlich des 10. parlamentarischen BRICS-Forums, zu den BRICS selbst als einem wichtigen aufstrebenden Block und auch zur Rolle des Iran in diesem Bündnis.

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 1:24
Über das Treffen wurde in den weltweiten Nachrichten, insbesondere in den westlichen Nachrichten, nur sehr wenig berichtet. Aber in Russland war es gestern in den Hauptnachrichtensendungen zu sehen, und das aus gutem Grund. Dies war, wie die Organisatoren erwähnten, ein weiteres Beispiel dafür, wie die BRICS einen institutionellen Rahmen für eine multilaterale, multipolare Welt schaffen. Diese Welt wird geschaffen, ohne die bestehenden internationalen Strukturen zu zerstören, sondern parallel zu ihnen, und in der Erwartung, dass diese neue Ordnung den teilnehmenden Mitgliedern und letztlich dem gesamten globalen Süden gleiche Chancen bietet, wobei die Souveränität jedes Landes und die Interessen jedes teilnehmenden Landes respektiert werden.

Wie Sie bereits erwähnten, sind die Clearing-Einrichtungen, die den grenzüberschreitenden Austausch zwischen den Banken ermöglichen sollen, eine der wichtigsten Einrichtungen, die die BRICS zur Förderung des Handels und zur Beendigung der Dollar-Dominanz im Außenhandel entwickeln. Parallel dazu arbeiten sie auch an einer BRICS-Währung, deren Entwicklung etwas länger dauern wird.

Doch zurück zum Kern dieses Treffens in Petersburg: Es handelt sich um eine parlamentarische Versammlung, und es ist bezeichnend, dass sie in Petersburg in genau dem Gebäude stattfand, in dem das erste russische Parlament, die Staatsduma, 1905-1906 eröffnet wurde. Es hat eine große historische Tradition, und ich möchte hinzufügen, dass die Russen diesen symbolischen Elementen große Aufmerksamkeit schenken. Das Gebäude heißt Tauridenpalast, Tauride ist natürlich der griechische Name für die Krim, und das Gebäude wurde unter der Leitung von Fürst Potemkin errichtet, der Katharina der Großen als Eroberer der Krim diente. Die Delegierten dieses Treffens, das unter der Leitung von Herrn Putin stattfand und an dem die wichtigsten russischen Teilnehmer der Sprecher des Unterhauses, Herr Wolodin, der Duma, und die Sprecherin des Oberhauses, des Föderationsrates, Frau Matwijenko, teilnahmen.

PressTV: 4:04
Ja, das ist richtig. Herr Doctorow, eines der Hauptthemen der BRICS ist die Entdollarisierung und die Verwendung alternativer Zahlungsmittel. Könnten Sie mehr über die Gründe und die Bedeutung dieses Schrittes sagen und was sind Ihre Ideen oder Vorschläge für eine Alternative?

Doctorow:
Wie Sie wissen, war eine der ersten und schärfsten Sanktionen, die die Vereinigten Staaten gegen den Iran und schließlich auch gegen Russland verhängt haben, der Ausschluss dieser Länder aus SWIFT. SWIFT ist eine in Brüssel ansässige globale Clearingstelle für die Kommunikation zwischen Banken in verschiedenen Ländern, in der sie sich gegenseitig über eingehende Überweisungen informieren. Es ist ein wesentlicher Baustein im internationalen Handel und wurde von den Vereinigten Staaten missbraucht, die die unabhängigen SWIFT-Manager unter Druck gesetzt haben, sich den illegalen Sanktionen anzupassen, die die Vereinigten Staaten gegen Länder verhängen, die zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt nicht in ihrer Gunst stehen.

5:13
Die Entdollarisierung ist also eine Folge des amerikanischen Missbrauchs der Macht des Dollars als Weltreservewährung. Es ist der Missbrauch des globalen Finanzsystems, das vom Dollar und den Vereinigten Staaten dominiert wird. Entdollarisierung ist der Prozess der Befreiung der Länder von der Verwendung des Dollars zur Denominierung des Wertes der ausgetauschten Waren und Dienstleistungen. Die Verwendung des Dollars bedeutet, dass alle Transaktionen über das amerikanische Bankensystem laufen, was bedeutet, dass die Vereinigten Staaten ein Informationsmonopol darüber haben, wer was an wen verkauft. Diese amerikanische Vorherrschaft und der exklusive Handelsvorteil fallen weg, wenn Sie in nationalen Währungen handeln und nicht über das amerikanische Bankensystem gehen.

6:17
Viele Menschen haben dies als ein Ziel für die nächsten Jahrzehnte bezeichnet. Angesichts der internationalen Lage rund um den Krim-Konflikt und den Ukraine-Konflikt schreitet die Entdollarisierung jedoch zügig voran. Russland ist ein sehr wichtiger Faktor im Welthandel, und der Versuch, es zu isolieren und von den finanziellen Einrichtungen zu entfernen, hat in vielen Ländern die Alarmglocken schrillen lassen. Das Einfrieren des russischen Staatsvermögens auf Anweisung der USA wird heute in Belgien durchgeführt, und in der europäischen Gemeinschaft werden auf amerikanische Anweisung Vermögenswerte in Höhe von 250 Milliarden Dollar eingefroren.

Das hat bei anderen großen Welthandelsländern, die in ihrem nationalen Handel große Währungsströme zu ihren Gunsten haben, die Alarmglocken schrillen lassen, dass ihre Reserven ebenfalls der Beschlagnahme, der Veruntreuung durch vermeintlich neutrale Banken, die allen dienen, ausgesetzt sind. In diesem Zusammenhang ist es wichtig festzustellen, dass der Prozess der Entdollarisierung gerade in Ihrer Region, dem Nahen Osten, beschleunigt wird. Die Ankündigung Saudi-Arabiens vor zwei oder drei Tagen, Euro- und Dollar-Guthaben zu veräußern, falls die westlichen Länder die eingefrorenen Guthaben Russlands beschlagnahmen sollten, war eine unglaubliche Entwicklung bei der Entdollarisierung.

8:09
Kohlenwasserstoffe sind das wichtigste Handelsgut der Welt, und wenn sie aus dem Dollar herausgenommen und in anderen Währungen bewertet werden, ist auch das ein wichtiger Faktor im Prozess der Entdollarisierung. Die BRIC-Staaten trösten den globalen Süden mit der Einsicht, dass es möglich ist, trotz der Sanktionen, die von den Inhabern der Weltreservewährungen USA und Euro ungerechtfertigt und unrechtmäßig verhängt wurden, zu überleben und zu gedeihen.

PressTV: 8:51
Das stimmt, Herr Doctorow. Da haben Sie es, Mr. Gilbert Doctorow, unabhängiger Analyst für internationale Angelegenheiten aus Brüssel. Vielen Dank für Ihre Zeit, Sir, bleiben Sie sicher.

In the past week, the visit to Moscow of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his first trip abroad since winning reelection and his first trip to Russia in five years, aroused the close interest and then the consternation of official Washington.

Modi’s presence in Moscow, his warm embrace with President Vladimir Putin, which was captured on video by major international broadcasters and disseminated globally, were a defiant response to American efforts at isolating Russia diplomatically as well as economically since the onset of the Ukraine war. Moreover, the agreements reached during the talks between the leaders on Russia’s participation in the Indian program to build further nuclear power generating stations ensure close economic ties between the countries for decades to come in a new vector.

My ten-minute interview with India’s premier English language global television company WION can be seen here:

Transcription below by a reader, followed by full translation into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 0:07
If so, we are just moments away from World War III. And they’re delusional. The diplomacy is of very poor professional quality, and the understanding of history is nil.

Shivan Chanana, WION:
Has US failed to break India-Russia’s friendship?

Doctorow:
And India at that time very, very capably pursued a policy between the two.

WION:
How helpless do you feel U.S. would be, seeing that hug between Mr. Putin and Mr. Modi?

Doctorow:
It is not going to change the way the war is conducted. India is not presenting itself as a point of leverage for the United States against Russia. On the contrary, it has already turned into a Russia-NATO war.
Putting lipstick on a pig.

WION: 0:52
Indian Prime Minister Modi visited Russia recently and visuals of Putin and Modi sharing a warm hug were seen across the world, especially in the US. The US immediately raised concerns with India over its Russia ties, but India-Russia ties go back several decades. And they actually started at a time when the US refused to even interact with India. Russia was always [there still]. Both nations have faced mounting pressure from the US. Russia faced sanctions, while India received repeated warnings against buying Russian oil. Have Russia-India ties broken American hegemony? I’m Shivan Chanana. Welcome to this special episode of “Game Plan”, as I’ll be discussing this with Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, an international affairs analyst, author and historian joining us from Brussels. Dr. Doctorow, thank you so much for joining in, right here on “Game Plan”.

Doctorow:
A pleasure.

WION: 1:42
Has US failed to break India-Russia’s friendship? And has Washington been attempting this all this while? Do you feel so?

Doctorow:
I think that the Washington policy towards Mr. Modi and towards this visit to Moscow is illustrative of a much broader issue in Washington. And that is the bubble in which the policymakers live, their immunity to the real world outside, and their delusional understanding of what can be done on the world stage. The diplomacy is of very poor professional quality, and the understanding of history is nil. You’ve said that Russian-Indian ties go back several decades. Well, if we take it to Soviet-Indian relations, it goes back– with respect to what is going on now, there’s a perfect continuity from the 1950s up to present, considering that Mr. Nehru and his followers were the leaders, along with Yugoslavia, in what was called the non-aligned bloc. And India at that time very capably pursued a policy between the two military and political blocs of East and West, of the Soviet Union and of the Washington-led West.

3:15
That remains the case. The Indians always tread a very delicate line to avoid antagonizing either of the parties. And they were always, going back to this period in the 1950s, looking to the Soviet Union and then later to Russia for military supplies and other critical supplies for their economy, while at the same time trying to maintain good relations with the United States. This takes a very fine sense of diplomacy and walking a narrow line.

WION:
Dr. Doctoorow, in his first visit overseas after coming to power again, Prime Minister Modi chose to visit Russia. Now initially US raised concerns with India over this. But soon after, I think within a day, the White House press secretary clarified that India is a strategic partner “with whom we engage in full and frank dialogue”, quote-unquote.

Press secretary:
With whom we engage in full and frank dialogue, including their relationship with Russia. And we’ve talked about this before.

WION: 4:13
How helpless do you feel U.S. would be, seeing that hug between Mr. Putin and Mr. Modi?

Doctorow:
…insane voices in Washington. I didn’t mean to leave the impression that the whole of Washington is living in a bubble. There are some people who understand what can be done and to try to keep American policy within the feasible. And, as you just mentioned, the day-after change of tack by the State Department is demonstrating that there are people in Washington to understand that they cannot separate Russia and India, that this goes back a long way and is a deliberate policy of India that is unchangeable.

Now, so they decided to put a pretty face on this fact and to try to extract some kind of advantage for the United States by saying that, “Ah, yes, we can– since India has such privileged relations with Russia, we can use India as an influence on Russia to stop the war.” Well, that is, as I said, putting lipstick on a pig. It is not going to change the way the war is conducted. India is not presenting itself as a point of leverage for the United States against Russia. On the contrary, I think it was outstanding that during the visit, early in the visit, Mr. Modi was taken to the exhibition grounds, the Veydenkha, in downtown Moscow and visited the pavilion on atomic power and atomic energy and said– when he heard the history of how the United States in the 1990s tried to reduce Russia’s nuclear programs to nil and how that has been reversed and how Russia is now the leading supplier of enriched uranium to power stations across the world, including the United States– Mr. Modi said very clearly, and this was shown on Russian television, “We support you.”

6:15
That is the present state of relations. India is deeply understanding the travails that Russia is experiencing as it is sanctioned by the United States. And Mr. Modi personally has an experience of this. Before he came to power, he was sanctioned by the United States, who denounced various policies and preferences of Mr. Modi. So this is not an abstract consideration for India’s leadership. They know very well what the back of the hand dealt by the United States can mean. They felt it personally on their own skin.

WION:
Dr. Doctorow, seeing the way Russia has risen in the face of US sanctions and most of it has happened in the last two years and no one expected Russia to come up the way it did in spite of all the sanctions that were imposed against it. India of course defied US at every step as well to go ahead for its own personal interests when it came to Russian oil. Do you feel the way Russia has come up and the way India has defied it, the two nations have a broken US hegemony?

7:19
It takes more than two nations to break that hegemony. And I think India is aware not only of the specific advantages it has from buying Russian oil at very advantageous prices. This is not transactional. This is a deep commitment to maintaining Russia as a counterforce to the United States and thereby breaking hegemony. But I think there’s something additional to mention here. And that is that within the relations with Russia, Russia’s rapprochement with Iran is particularly useful to India. Iran is potentially a major transit country for hydrocarbons to India, a safe delivery to India and at advantageous prices and conditions. So, in this respect, it is not just Russia, but Russia’s allied countries that are bringing and will bring considerable economic as well as political benefit to India in its own region.

Zelensky: 8:27
I don’t know very well him, you know? I don’t know, I had meetings with him.

WION:
Zelensky, of course, the Ukrainian president, has been extremely jittery over the upcoming US elections. And, of course, that is going to be having a major bearing on him, because there is a major chance that Donald Trump comes to power again. If that happens, what will that mean for Zelensky and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war? It’s just, we’re just months away from it now.

Doctorow:
The problem with the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war is that has already turned into a Russia-NATO war, in which Ukraine just happens to be the battlefield. The possibility of its escalating further in a very dangerous way, is now being discussed by the NATO allies in their meeting in Washington. We have heard conflicting reports about US intentions of stationing its Tomahawk medium-range missiles in Europe. The Russians are saying on their television that the intention is to give these to Ukraine. If so, we are just moments away from World War III. So, this situation is difficult, the situation is fraught with dangers all around. India’s attempts to maintain a balanced foreign policy and to assist Russia, within its possibilities, to maintain its balance and to offset American hegemony is a major contributing factor to stability, and to our not slipping into a fatal war.

WION: 10:01
All right, Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, thank you so much for joining in and sharing all your insights with me right here on “Game Plan”. That was Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, international affairs analyst, author and historian, joining us from Brussels. Always a pleasure speaking with you.

Russland-Indien: Die Partnerschaft, die die US-Hegemonie bricht? | WION Game Plan | Live-Diskussion

In der vergangenen Woche erregte der Besuch des indischen Premierministers Narendra Modi in Moskau, seine erste Auslandsreise seit seiner Wiederwahl und seine erste Reise nach Russland seit fünf Jahren, das große Interesse und dann die Bestürzung des offiziellen Washington.

Modis Anwesenheit in Moskau, seine herzliche Umarmung mit Präsident Wladimir Putin, die von großen internationalen Sendern auf Video aufgezeichnet und weltweit verbreitet wurde, waren eine trotzige Antwort auf die amerikanischen Bemühungen, Russland seit dem Ausbruch des Ukraine-Krieges diplomatisch und wirtschaftlich zu isolieren. Darüber hinaus sichern die bei den Gesprächen zwischen den beiden Führern getroffenen Vereinbarungen über die Beteiligung Russlands am indischen Programm zum Bau weiterer Kernkraftwerke die engen wirtschaftlichen Beziehungen zwischen den beiden Ländern für die nächsten Jahrzehnte in einem neuen Vektor.

Mein zehnminütiges Interview mit Indiens führendem englischsprachigen Fernsehsender WION können Sie hier sehen:

Transkript eines Lesers

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 0:07
Wenn dem so ist, stehen wir kurz vor dem Dritten Weltkrieg. Und sie haben Wahnvorstellungen. Die Diplomatie ist von sehr schlechter professioneller Qualität, und das Geschichtsverständnis ist gleich null.

Shivan Chanana, WION:
Ist es den USA nicht gelungen, die indisch-russische Freundschaft zu zerstören?

Doctorow:
Und Indien verfolgte damals sehr, sehr gekonnt eine Politik zwischen diesen beiden.

WION:
Wie hilflos müssen sich die USA fühlen, wenn sie die Umarmung zwischen Putin und Modi sehen?

Doctorow:
Es wird die Art und Weise, wie der Krieg geführt wird, nicht ändern. Indien bietet sich nicht als Druckmittel für die Vereinigten Staaten gegen Russland an. Im Gegenteil, es hat sich bereits zu einem Krieg zwischen Russland und der NATO entwickelt.

Ein Schwein mit Lippenstift verschönern.

WION: 0:52
Der indische Premierminister Modi besuchte kürzlich Russland, und Bilder von einer herzlichen Umarmung zwischen Putin und Modi gingen um die Welt, insbesondere in den USA. Die USA äußerten sofort Bedenken gegenüber Indien wegen seiner Beziehungen zu Russland, aber die Beziehungen zwischen Indien und Russland reichen mehrere Jahrzehnte zurück. Und sie begannen zu einer Zeit, als die USA sich weigerten, mit Indien zu verkehren. Russland war immer [noch] da. Beide Länder sahen sich zunehmendem Druck seitens der USA ausgesetzt. Russland sah sich mit Sanktionen konfrontiert, und Indien wurde wiederholt davor gewarnt, russisches Öl zu kaufen. Haben die Beziehungen zwischen Russland und Indien die amerikanische Hegemonie gebrochen? Ich bin Shivan Chanana. Willkommen zu dieser Sondersendung von “Game Plan”, in der ich mit Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, einem Analysten für internationale Angelegenheiten, Autor und Historiker, der aus Brüssel zugeschaltet ist, über dieses Thema sprechen werde. Dr. Doctorow, vielen Dank, dass Sie hier bei “Game Plan” mitmachen.

Doctorow:
Ein Vergnügen.

WION: 1:42
Ist es den USA nicht gelungen, die indisch-russische Freundschaft zu zerstören? Und hat Washington dies die ganze Zeit über versucht? Haben Sie das Gefühl?

Doctorow:
Ich denke, dass die Politik Washingtons gegenüber Herrn Modi und gegenüber diesem Besuch in Moskau ein viel breiteres Problem in Washington veranschaulicht. Und das ist die Blase, in der die politischen Entscheidungsträger leben, ihre Immunität gegenüber der realen Welt da draußen und ihr wahnhaftes Verständnis dessen, was auf der Weltbühne getan werden kann. Die Diplomatie ist von sehr geringer professioneller Qualität, und das Verständnis für die Geschichte ist gleich null. Sie haben gesagt, dass die russisch-indischen Beziehungen mehrere Jahrzehnte zurückreichen. Nun, wenn wir es mit den sowjetisch-indischen Beziehungen vergleichen, dann gibt es eine perfekte Kontinuität von den 1950er Jahren bis heute, wenn man bedenkt, dass Herr Nehru und seine Anhänger zusammen mit Jugoslawien den so genannten Block der Blockfreien anführten. Und Indien verfolgte damals sehr gekonnt eine Politik zwischen den beiden militärischen und politischen Blöcken von Ost und West, der Sowjetunion und dem von Washington geführten Westen.

3:15
Das ist nach wie vor der Fall. Die Inder bewegen sich immer auf einem sehr schmalen Grat, um keine der beiden Parteien zu verärgern. Schon in den 1950er Jahren suchten sie in der Sowjetunion und später in Russland nach Militärgütern und anderen wichtigen Gütern für ihre Wirtschaft, während sie gleichzeitig versuchten, gute Beziehungen zu den Vereinigten Staaten zu unterhalten. Das erfordert ein sehr feines Gespür für Diplomatie und dafür, sich auf einem schmalen Grat zu bewegen.

WION:
Herr Dr. Doctorow, bei seinem ersten Auslandsbesuch nach seiner erneuten Machtübernahme entschied sich Premierminister Modi für einen Besuch in Russland. Die USA äußerten zunächst Bedenken gegenüber Indien. Doch kurz darauf, ich glaube innerhalb eines Tages, stellte der Pressesprecher des Weißen Hauses klar, dass Indien ein strategischer Partner ist, “mit dem wir einen umfassenden und offenen Dialog führen”, Zitat Ende.

Pressesprecher:
Mit dem wir einen umfassenden und offenen Dialog führen, auch über ihre Beziehungen zu Russland. Und wir haben bereits darüber gesprochen.

WION: 4:13
Wie hilflos fühlen sich die USA, wenn sie die Umarmung zwischen Putin und Modi sehen?

Doctorow:
…verrückte Stimmen in Washington. Ich wollte nicht den Eindruck erwecken, dass ganz Washington in einer Seifenblase lebt. Es gibt einige Leute, die verstehen, was getan werden kann und die versuchen, die amerikanische Politik im Rahmen des Machbaren zu halten. Und wie Sie gerade erwähnten, zeigt der Kurswechsel des Außenministeriums am Tag danach, dass es Leute in Washington gibt, die verstehen, dass sie Russland und Indien nicht trennen können, dass dies eine lange Tradition hat und eine bewusste Politik Indiens ist, die nicht zu ändern ist.

Nun hat man sich entschlossen, diese Tatsache schön zu reden und zu versuchen, den Vereinigten Staaten einen Vorteil zu verschaffen, indem man sagt: “Ah, ja, wir können – da Indien so privilegierte Beziehungen zu Russland unterhält – Indien als Einfluss auf Russland nutzen, um den Krieg zu beenden.” Nun, das ist, wie ich schon sagte, Lippenstift auf ein Schwein zu schmieren. Es wird die Art und Weise, wie der Krieg geführt wird, nicht ändern. Indien bietet sich nicht als Druckmittel für die Vereinigten Staaten gegenüber Russland an. Im Gegenteil, ich finde es hervorragend, dass Herr Modi zu Beginn seines Besuchs auf das Messegelände, die Veydenkha, in der Moskauer Innenstadt geführt wurde und den Pavillon über Atomkraft und Atomenergie besucht und gesagt hat – als er die Geschichte darüber hörte, wie die Vereinigten Staaten in den 1990er Jahren versuchten, Russlands Atomprogramme auf Null zu reduzieren und wie dies rückgängig gemacht wurde und wie Russland jetzt der führende Lieferant von angereichertem Uran an Kraftwerke in der ganzen Welt, einschließlich der Vereinigten Staaten, ist – sagte Herr Modi sehr deutlich, und dies wurde im russischen Fernsehen gezeigt: “Wir unterstützen Sie.”

6:15
Das ist der gegenwärtige Stand der Beziehungen. Indien hat großes Verständnis für die Schwierigkeiten, die Russland aufgrund der Sanktionen der Vereinigten Staaten durchmacht. Und Herr Modi hat diese Erfahrung selbst gemacht. Bevor er an die Macht kam, wurde er von den Vereinigten Staaten sanktioniert, die verschiedene Politiken und Vorlieben von Herrn Modi anprangerten. Dies ist also keine abstrakte Überlegung für Indiens Führung. Sie wissen sehr wohl, was die Rückhand der Vereinigten Staaten bedeuten kann. Sie haben es persönlich am eigenen Leib zu spüren bekommen.

WION:
Dr. Doctorow, wenn man sieht, wie Russland trotz der US-Sanktionen aufgestiegen ist, und das meiste davon in den letzten zwei Jahren, dann hat niemand erwartet, dass Russland trotz aller Sanktionen, die gegen das Land verhängt wurden, so aufsteigen würde. Indien hat sich natürlich auch den USA bei jedem Schritt widersetzt, um seine eigenen Interessen zu verfolgen, wenn es um russisches Öl geht. Sind Sie der Meinung, dass die Hegemonie der USA durch die Art und Weise, wie sich Russland entwickelt hat und wie sich Indien ihr widersetzt hat, gebrochen wurde?

7:19
Es braucht mehr als zwei Nationen, um diese Hegemonie zu brechen. Und ich denke, Indien ist sich nicht nur der spezifischen Vorteile bewusst, die es durch den Kauf von russischem Öl zu sehr günstigen Preisen hat. Es geht hier nicht um eine Transaktion. Es handelt sich um ein tiefes Engagement für die Aufrechterhaltung Russlands als Gegenkraft zu den Vereinigten Staaten und damit für das Brechen der Hegemonie. Aber ich denke, es gibt hier noch etwas zu erwähnen. Im Rahmen der Beziehungen zu Russland ist die Annäherung Russlands an den Iran für Indien besonders nützlich. Der Iran ist potenziell ein wichtiges Transitland für Kohlenwasserstoffe nach Indien, eine sichere Lieferung nach Indien und zu günstigen Preisen und Bedingungen. In dieser Hinsicht sind es also nicht nur Russland, sondern auch die mit Russland verbündeten Länder, die Indien in seiner eigenen Region beträchtlichen wirtschaftlichen und politischen Nutzen bringen und bringen werden.

Zelensky: 8:27
Ich kenne ihn nicht sehr gut, wissen Sie? Ich weiß nicht, ich habe mich mit ihm getroffen.

WION:
Zelensky, der ukrainische Präsident, ist natürlich extrem nervös wegen der bevorstehenden US-Wahlen. Und das wird natürlich einen großen Einfluss auf ihn haben, denn es besteht eine große Chance, dass Donald Trump wieder an die Macht kommt. Wenn das passiert, was bedeutet das für Zelensky und den laufenden Russland-Ukraine-Krieg? Wir sind jetzt nur noch wenige Monate davon entfernt.

Doctorow:
Das Problem mit dem laufenden Krieg zwischen der Ukraine und Russland ist, dass er sich bereits in einen Krieg zwischen Russland und der NATO verwandelt hat, in dem die Ukraine nur zufällig das Schlachtfeld ist. Die Möglichkeit einer weiteren, sehr gefährlichen Eskalation wird nun von den NATO-Verbündeten bei ihrem Treffen in Washington erörtert. Wir haben widersprüchliche Berichte über die Absichten der USA gehört, ihre Tomahawk-Mittelstreckenraketen in Europa zu stationieren. Die Russen sagen in ihrem Fernsehen, dass die Absicht besteht, diese Raketen an die Ukraine zu liefern. Wenn dies der Fall ist, stehen wir kurz vor dem Dritten Weltkrieg. Die Lage ist also schwierig, die Situation ist rundherum voller Gefahren. Indiens Versuche, eine ausgewogene Außenpolitik zu betreiben und Russland im Rahmen seiner Möglichkeiten dabei zu unterstützen, sein Gleichgewicht zu wahren und die amerikanische Hegemonie auszugleichen, sind ein wichtiger Beitrag zur Stabilität und dazu, dass wir nicht in einen tödlichen Krieg abgleiten.

WION: 10:01
Alles klar, Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, vielen Dank, dass Sie hier bei “Game Plan” dabei sind und Ihre Erkenntnisse mit mir teilen. Das war Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, Analyst für internationale Angelegenheiten, Autor und Historiker, der uns aus Brüssel zugeschaltet ist. Es ist immer ein Vergnügen, mit Ihnen zu sprechen.

Readers of these essays and viewers of my recent interviews on the internet will be aware that, under circumstances of reduced travel to Russia, I rely heavily on the leading Russian political talk shows to get insights into the thoughts and concerns of Russia’s chattering classes, including some Kremlin insiders.

The show that I have used most extensively and have cited most frequently in my writings and interviews is Evening with Vladimir Solovyov. The presenter is highly regarded within his profession, and has been the elected president of the Moscow Journalists’ Club. He has conducted exclusive lengthy interviews with Vladimir Putin, though he invites guests who often are highly critical of government policies, especially with regard to the Central Bank’s high interest rates and failure to bankroll industry sufficiently.

Until his death from Covid a couple of years ago, the arch nationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, founder and head of the Liberal Democratic party, was a frequent guest on the show and was allowed to take aim at the country’s foreign policy for being too polite and insufficiently muscular. Chairmen of committees in the State Duma from various parties including the Communists are regular visitors to the show today, as are a short list of academics, retired military officers who provide expert analysis of the war situation and other valuable informants on political life.

As I have said elsewhere, living outside Russia as I do, the Solovyov show is attractive because it is broadcast ‘live’ six nights a week on the widely accessible smotrim.ru internet platform. I put ‘live’ in quotation marks because all such shows with national distribution are necessarily taped, usually in mid-afternoon Moscow time, and shown locally at prime-time hours all across Russia’s nine time zones.  I receive it in Brussels at about 11pm. However, it must be explicitly said that there are no cuts, no editing of the taped shows, unlike post-production practices at CNN and other Western news providers. If you say something objectionable to the producers, you won’t be invited back, but what you said will be heard across the country. I know this for a fact, because I appeared on the Solovyov show back in 2016 and saw how it works from the inside, starting with the coffee and sandwiches shared with other panelists before show time, when the host will drop in for an informal chat, till the end of taping, when the panelists disappear into the Moscow metro to go home.

But the Solovyov show has its drawbacks. Far too much time is taken up with empty philosophical musings about the West’s civilizational decline or Russia’s place in the world. Then there is the host’s arrogance and tendency to dominate the conversation. He interrupts panelists incessantly, and picks fights with some, whom he then unceremoniously dismisses from his guest lists.

Allow me to explain that this objectionable side of the Solovyov show was not invented by the presenter. Russian talk shows became popular with television audiences decades ago for their entertainment value as much as or more than for their information value. They were considered a blood sport, in which the panelists vied to get and keep the live microphone, shouting one another down. For this purpose, the program managers typically invited to each show one or more ‘enemies’ on whom the presenter and other panelists could vent their sense of outrage.  To be sure, the enemies were allowed to accurately and fairly present the thinking of the other side, antagonistic to the Kremlin narratives. Russian talk show producers were confident that the audience could orient itself without being led by the hand. The enemies were demolished by true patriots on air, presumably taking comfort in the generous payments they were being given for their time and trouble. These shows were to Oxford Union debates as the 1960s televised American wrestling matches starring characters with outlandish names like ‘Haystack Calhoun’ and with overweight physiques matching their names were to Olympics wrestling.

Back in 2016, when I made my debut on all nationally broadcast talk shows and saw their mechanics from inside, the villain invited to liven the talks shows was the American journalist Michael Bohm. Before he became a star on Russian television, Bohm had spent some years living and working in the Russian capital as an editor at The Moscow Times. He positioned himself on air as the voice of the CIA on any given issue under discussion. He won the reluctant affection of the Russian audience because he had an excellent command of the Russian language and a rich store of Russian folk wisdom which he produced extemporaneously to spice up his talks.  For some time, Bohm spent his weekdays traveling from one talk show to another. It was rumored that he made a very handsome income, whereas the Russian panelists who sat next to him got sandwiches and a handshake.

With the start of the Special Military Operation in 2022, the role of villain on the talk shows was assumed by Ukrainian politicians and political scientists who defended the Kiev narrative.  Now that the war has become deadly serious, the Russian tolerance of Ukrainian buffoons has also dried up. The talk shows have dispensed with that kind of light entertainment and only present normal Russian experts and statesmen to take part today. For these reasons, Solovyov himself has to pick fights if he wants the temperature to rise during his show.

In passing, I have mentioned in my writings that from time to time I consult the other premier talk show presented on prime time in Russia, Большая игра, which translates as The Great Game, making reference to the 19^th century rivalry between the Russian and British empires for influence in Central Asia. It is aired in three segments. The key presenter is Vyacheslav Nikonov, member of the State Duma, long time director of Russia’s agency to support culture abroad among the Russian diaspora, and thanks to his family tree as grandson of the Bolshevik leader Molotov, a hereditary member of the Kremlin elite. The other main presenter who holds forth in a different segment is Dmitry Simes, former adviser and travel companion of Richard Nixon in his final years, director of the Nixon Center think tank in Washington following Nixon’s death, later renamed the Center for the National Interest. For several years, Simes worked with Nikonov in Moscow as the show’s anchor in Washington in what were ‘tele-bridge’ broadcasts. However, as the political atmosphere in the States became acrimonious and openly anti-Russian, Simes pulled up his tent at the outset of the SMO and moved back to Moscow, from where he operates today.

Both Nikonov and Simes have a high regard for decorum and run a very dignified program that gives all due respect to panelists. They also maintain a high intellectual level of discussion of the day’s main political and international events that is well researched by the production team. It is available online the morning after live broadcast on a web platform whose name illustrates the Russian sense of humor even in these bleak times:  rutube.  You can find the first segment of yesterday’s show here:

https://rutube.ru/video/f15066055e18ef26d63ca9f287198406/

In the weeks and months to come, I expect to rely more heavily on The Great Game for my insights into Russian political thinking of the day.

Finally, I call attention to two other talk shows worthy of note that I have experienced personally as a panelist back in my glory days of 2016. They were glory days because of the presidential electoral campaign in America and the keen interest of Russian audiences and show producers to put on air American political scientists living in or frequently visiting Moscow who could make some sense of Donald Trump’s campaign, which I tried to do.

The first of these is Время покажет, which translates as ‘Time will tell.’ Now, just as back in 2016, the show has several moderators, of whom the main one was and is Artyom Sheinin.  Like The Great Game, it can be watched on rutube. Yesterday’s program can be viewed here:

https://rutube.ru/video/21b76c838c9d472f88d8247d113125ab/

It opens with a retrospective look at the prehistory to today’s major conflict over Ukraine’s joining NATO. Sheinin puts up on screen an excerpt from the transcript of talks between Al Gore and Boris Yeltsin in 1994 on NATO expansion and an extract from the talks between Bill Clinton and Yeltsin on the same subject in 1997.  He discusses the internationalization of NATO as a major aspect of the meetings in Washington that is reflected in the Communique, particularly the first-time identification of China as a major support to Russia’s war economy.  Sheinin and his political scientist guests discuss the step by step escalation of the war that is anticipated when Blinken’s announcement that F16s will be flying in Ukrainian air space later this summer comes to pass. The issue is how Russia should respond to the provocation.

Finally, I wish to mention the Sixty Minutes program that goes out live on smotrim.ru in mornings and late afternoons. Brussels time. It is co-hosted by Duma member Yevgeny Popov and his wife Olga Skabeyeva. They show and comment upon a lot of video footage from Western mainstream broadcasters. Much of this is high value content, though, regrettably, they fill the entertainment niche with too much trivia reporting on LGBTQ excesses in the West or on the foibles of Biden in his senility.

Skabeyeva may be abrasive, but Popov is a gentleman with a drole sense of humor. Before becoming a presenter in Moscow, he had been the New York bureau chief of Russian state television. I have a kindly memory of him, since in 2016 he was the one who brought me to the Moscow talk show circuit following a fortuitous meeting we had in Brussels.  We were both present in an auditorium of the European Parliament building to attend the screening of a film expose of William Browder, campaigner for the first anti-Russian sanctions promulgated as the Magnitsky Act. When the bosses in the Parliament cancelled the screening at the very last moment following protests by an outraged Browder, Popov invited me to join his show, then called Special Correspondent on my next visit to Russia.

Popov and Skabeyeva invite onto their show many of the same military experts and political scientists who appear on the Solovyov show. However, they do not have the same drawing power as Solovyov to attract powerful Russian legislators.

For those of you interested in reading the NATO communique or declaration issued at the closing of the Summit in Brussels that was being dissected on the Time Will Tell show, here is the link:  https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_227678.htm

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

“Das große Spiel” versus “Abend mit Wladimir Solowjow”: Russische Talkshows heute

Die Leser dieser Aufsätze und die Zuschauer meiner jüngsten Interviews im Internet werden wissen, dass ich aufgrund der eingeschränkten Reisemöglichkeiten nach Russland stark auf die führenden russischen politischen Talkshows angewiesen bin, um Einblicke in die Gedanken und Sorgen der russischen „chattering classes“, einschließlich einiger Kreml-Insider, zu erhalten.

Die Sendung, die ich am ausführlichsten genutzt und in meinen Schriften und Interviews am häufigsten zitiert habe, ist Der Abend mit Vladimir Solovyov. Der Moderator ist in seiner Branche hoch angesehen und wurde zum Präsidenten des Moskauer Journalistenclubs gewählt. Er hat exklusiv lange Interviews mit Wladimir Putin geführt, lädt aber auch Gäste ein, die der Politik der Regierung oft sehr kritisch gegenüberstehen, insbesondere im Hinblick auf die hohen Zinssätze der Zentralbank und das Versäumnis, die Industrie ausreichend zu finanzieren.

Der erznationalistische Politiker Wladimir Schirinowski, Gründer und Vorsitzender der Liberaldemokratischen Partei, war bis zu seinem Tod an Covid vor einigen Jahren ein häufiger Gast in der Sendung und durfte die Außenpolitik des Landes als zu höflich und zu wenig muskulös aufs Korn nehmen. Die Vorsitzenden der Ausschüsse der Staatsduma aus verschiedenen Parteien, einschließlich der Kommunisten, sind heute regelmäßige Gäste in der Sendung, ebenso wie eine kurze Liste von Akademikern, pensionierten Militärs, die die Kriegssituation fachkundig analysieren, und andere wertvolle Informanten des politischen Lebens.

Wie ich bereits an anderer Stelle gesagt habe, ist die Solovyov-Show für mich, der ich außerhalb Russlands lebe, attraktiv, weil sie sechs Abende pro Woche “live” auf der weithin zugänglichen Internetplattform smotrim.ru ausgestrahlt wird. Ich setze ‘live’ in Anführungszeichen, weil alle Sendungen dieser Art, die landesweit ausgestrahlt werden, notwendigerweise aufgezeichnet werden, in der Regel am Nachmittag Moskauer Zeit, und lokal zur Hauptsendezeit in allen neun Zeitzonen Russlands gezeigt werden. Ich empfange die Sendung in Brüssel um etwa 23 Uhr. Es muss jedoch ausdrücklich darauf hingewiesen werden, dass die aufgezeichneten Sendungen im Gegensatz zu den Nachbearbeitungspraktiken bei CNN und anderen westlichen Nachrichtenanbietern weder geschnitten noch bearbeitet werden. Wenn Sie den Produzenten etwas Unangenehmes sagen, werden Sie nicht wieder eingeladen, aber das, was Sie gesagt haben, wird im ganzen Land zu hören sein. Ich weiß das mit Sicherheit, denn ich war 2016 in der Solowjow-Sendung und habe gesehen, wie sie von innen heraus funktioniert, angefangen bei Kaffee und Sandwiches, die vor der Sendung mit anderen Diskussionsteilnehmern geteilt werden, wenn der Moderator zu einem informellen Gespräch vorbeischaut, bis hin zum Ende der Aufzeichnung, wenn die Diskussionsteilnehmer in der Moskauer Metro verschwinden, um nach Hause zu fahren.

Doch die Solovyov-Show hat auch ihre Schattenseiten. Viel zu viel Zeit wird mit leeren philosophischen Betrachtungen über den zivilisatorischen Niedergang des Westens oder den Platz Russlands in der Welt vergeudet. Hinzu kommen die Arroganz des Gastgebers und seine Tendenz, das Gespräch zu dominieren. Er unterbricht die Diskussionsteilnehmer ununterbrochen und legt sich mit einigen an, die er dann kurzerhand von der Gästeliste streicht.

Erlauben Sie mir zu erklären, dass diese anstößige Seite der Solovyov-Show nicht von dem Moderator erfunden wurde. Russische Talkshows wurden vor Jahrzehnten beim Fernsehpublikum wegen ihres Unterhaltungswerts ebenso beliebt wie oder sogar noch mehr als wegen ihres Informationswerts. Sie galten als ein blutiger Sport, bei dem die Diskussionsteilnehmer darum wetteiferten, das Live-Mikrofon zu bekommen und zu behalten, indem sie sich gegenseitig niederschrieen. Zu diesem Zweck luden die Programmverantwortlichen in der Regel zu jeder Sendung einen oder mehrere “Gegner” ein, an denen der Moderator und die anderen Diskussionsteilnehmer ihre Empörung auslassen konnten. Dabei durften die “Gegner” aber ihre Denkweise, die im Gegensatz zu den Kreml-Narrativen stand, der anderen Seite genau und fair darstellen. Die russischen Talkshow-Produzenten waren zuversichtlich, dass sich das Publikum selbst ein Bild machen konnte, ohne an der Hand geführt zu werden. Die “Gegner” wurden von echten Patrioten in der Sendung demontiert, die sich vermutlich damit trösteten, dass sie für ihre Zeit und Mühe großzügig bezahlt wurden. Diese Sendungen waren für die Debatten der Oxford Union wie die in den 1960er Jahren im Fernsehen übertragenen amerikanischen Ringkämpfe mit Charakteren mit ausgefallenen Namen wie “Haystack Calhoun” und einer übergewichtigen Statur, die zu ihren Namen passte, so etwas wie olympisches Ringen.

Als ich 2016 mein Debüt in allen landesweit ausgestrahlten Talkshows gab und ihre Mechanismen von innen sah, war der amerikanische Journalist Michael Bohm der Bösewicht, der die Talkshows beleben sollte. Bevor er ein Star im russischen Fernsehen wurde, hatte Bohm einige Jahre in der russischen Hauptstadt gelebt und als Redakteur bei der Moscow Times gearbeitet . Er positionierte sich in der Sendung als die Stimme der CIA zu einem bestimmten Thema, das gerade diskutiert wurde. Er gewann die widerstrebende Zuneigung des russischen Publikums, weil er die russische Sprache hervorragend beherrschte und über einen reichen Fundus an russischen Volksweisheiten verfügte, die er aus dem Stegreif vortrug, um seine Vorträge aufzupeppen. Eine Zeit lang verbrachte Bohm seine Wochentage damit, von einer Talkshow zur nächsten zu reisen. Man munkelte, er verdiene sehr gut, während die russischen Diskussionsteilnehmer, die neben ihm saßen, Sandwiches und einen Händedruck bekamen.

Mit dem Beginn der militärischen Sonderoperation im Jahr 2022 wurde die Rolle des Bösewichts in den Talkshows von ukrainischen Politikern und Politologen übernommen, die das Kiewer Narrativ verteidigten. Jetzt, da der Krieg todernst geworden ist, ist auch die russische Toleranz gegenüber ukrainischen Possenreißern versiegt. Die Talkshows haben auf diese Art der leichten Unterhaltung verzichtet und lassen heute nur noch normale russische Experten und Staatsmänner zu Wort kommen. Aus diesen Gründen muss Solowjow selbst Kämpfe austragen, wenn er will, dass die Temperatur in seiner Sendung steigt.

Ich habe in meinen Essays bereits erwähnt, dass ich von Zeit zu Zeit die andere führende Talkshow zur besten Sendezeit in Russland konsultiere, Большая игра, was übersetzt ” Das große Spiel” heißt und sich auf die Rivalität zwischen dem russischen und dem britischen Imperium um Einfluss in Zentralasien im 19. Jahrhundert bezieht. Sie wird in drei Teilen ausgestrahlt. Der Hauptmoderator ist Wjatscheslaw Nikonow, Mitglied der Staatsduma, langjähriger Leiter der russischen Agentur zur Förderung der Kultur im Ausland in der russischen Diaspora und dank seines Stammbaums als Enkel des bolschewistischen Führers Molotow ein erbliches Mitglied der Kreml-Elite. Der andere Hauptredner, der in einem anderen Segment zu Wort kommt, ist Dmitry Simes, ehemaliger Berater und Reisebegleiter von Richard Nixon in seinen letzten Lebensjahren und nach Nixons Tod Direktor der Denkfabrik Nixon Center in Washington, die später in Center for the National Interest umbenannt wurde. Mehrere Jahre lang arbeitete Simes mit Nikonov in Moskau zusammen und moderierte die Sendung in Washington im Rahmen von so genannten “Telebridge”-Sendungen. Als sich jedoch die politische Atmosphäre in den USA zuspitzte und offen antirussisch wurde, brach Simes seine Zelte zu Beginn der Militärischen Sonderoperation ab und zog zurück nach Moskau, von wo aus er heute tätig ist.

Sowohl Nikonov als auch Simes legen großen Wert auf Anstand und führen ein sehr würdevolles Programm durch, das den Diskussionsteilnehmern den gebührenden Respekt zollt. Sie halten auch ein hohes intellektuelles Niveau bei der Diskussion der wichtigsten politischen und internationalen Ereignisse des Tages aufrecht, das vom Produktionsteam gut recherchiert wird. Die Sendung ist am Morgen nach der Live-Übertragung online auf einer Webplattform verfügbar, deren Name den russischen Sinn für Humor selbst in diesen düsteren Zeiten illustriert: rutube. Das erste Segment der gestrigen Sendung finden Sie hier:

https://rutube.ru/video/f15066055e18ef26d63ca9f287198406/

Ich gehe davon aus, dass ich mich in den kommenden Wochen und Monaten verstärkt auf Das große Spiel stützen werde, um meine Einblicke in das aktuelle politische Denken in Russland zu erhalten.

Abschließend möchte ich noch auf zwei weitere Talkshows hinweisen, die ich in meinen glorreichen Tagen im Jahr 2016 persönlich als Diskussionsteilnehmer erlebt habe. Es waren glorreiche Zeiten, weil der Präsidentschaftswahlkampf in Amerika stattfand und das russische Publikum und die Produzenten der Sendungen großes Interesse daran hatten, amerikanische Politikwissenschaftler, die in Moskau leben oder dort häufig zu Besuch sind, auf Sendung zu schicken, die Donald Trumps Wahlkampf einordnen konnten, was ich auch versucht habe zu tun.

Die erste dieser Sendungen ist Время покажет, was übersetzt so viel heißt wie “Die Zeit wird es zeigen”. Jetzt, wie auch schon 2016, hat die Sendung mehrere Moderatoren, von denen der wichtigste Artyom Sheinin war und ist. Wie The Great Game kann auch diese Sendung auf rutube angesehen werden. Die gestrige Sendung kann hier angesehen werden:

https://rutube.ru/video/21b76c838c9d472f88d8247d113125ab/

Sie beginnt mit einem Rückblick auf die Vorgeschichte des heutigen großen Konflikts um den NATO-Beitritt der Ukraine. Sheinin zeigt auf dem Bildschirm einen Auszug aus der Niederschrift der Gespräche zwischen Al Gore und Boris Jelzin im Jahr 1994 über die NATO-Erweiterung sowie einen Auszug aus den Gesprächen zwischen Bill Clinton und Jelzin zum selben Thema im Jahr 1997. Er erörtert die Internationalisierung der NATO als einen wichtigen Aspekt der Treffen in Washington, der sich im Kommuniqué widerspiegelt, insbesondere die erstmalige Benennung Chinas als wichtige Stütze der russischen Kriegswirtschaft. Sheinin und seine politikwissenschaftlichen Gäste erörtern die schrittweise Eskalation des Krieges, die zu erwarten ist, wenn Blinkens Ankündigung, dass F16 im Laufe des Sommers in den ukrainischen Luftraum einfliegen werden, in die Tat umgesetzt wird. Es geht um die Frage, wie Russland auf die Provokation reagieren soll.

Abschließend möchte ich noch auf die Sendung Sechzig Minuten hinweisen, die morgens und am späten Nachmittag live auf smotrim.ru ausgestrahlt wird. Brüsseler Zeit. Sie wird gemeinsam von dem Duma-Mitglied Jewgeni Popow und seiner Frau Olga Skabejewa moderiert. Sie zeigen und kommentieren eine Menge Videomaterial von westlichen Mainstream-Sendern. Vieles davon ist von hohem Wert, doch leider füllen sie die Unterhaltungsnische mit zu vielen belanglosen Berichten über LGBTQ-Exzesse im Westen oder über die Marotten des senilen Biden.

Skabejewa mag ruppig sein, aber Popow ist ein Gentleman mit einem feinen Sinn für Humor. Bevor er Moderator in Moskau wurde, war er der New Yorker Büroleiter des russischen Staatsfernsehens. Ich habe ihn in guter Erinnerung, denn 2016 war er derjenige, der mich nach einer zufälligen Begegnung in Brüssel in die Moskauer Talkshow-Runde brachte. Wir waren beide in einem Saal des Europäischen Parlaments anwesend, um der Vorführung eines Enthüllungsfilms über William Browder beizuwohnen, der sich für die ersten antirussischen Sanktionen eingesetzt hatte, die als Magnitsky-Gesetz verkündet wurden. Als die Chefs des Parlaments die Vorführung im letzten Moment absagten, nachdem ein empörter Browder protestiert hatte, lud mich Popov ein, an seiner Sendung teilzunehmen, die dann bei meinem nächsten Besuch in Russland als Sonderkorrespondent bezeichnet wurde.

Popow und Skabejewa laden in ihre Sendung viele der gleichen Militärexperten und Politologen ein, die auch in der Solowjow-Sendung auftreten. Allerdings haben sie nicht die gleiche Anziehungskraft wie Solowjow, um einflussreiche russische Parlamentarier anzuziehen.

Für diejenigen unter Ihnen, die das NATO-Kommuniqué oder die Erklärung zum Abschluss des Gipfels in Brüssel lesen möchten, das in der Sendung “Die Zeit wird es zeigen” analysiert wurde, hier der Link:

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_227678.htm

Some two years ago, I was interviewed by The Hampton Institute for its “Different Lens” program to talk about the Russia-Ukraine war.   A few days ago, they invited me back for an update. That interview has just been posted on the internet. 

See  https://adifferentlens.libsyn.com/episode-187-destruction-and-diplomacy-with-dr-gilbert-doctorow

For those who may never have heard of this think tank dedicated to the memory of a Black Panther member, I refer you to their website: https://www.hamptonthink.org/our-organization-1

Full transcript submitted by a reader followed by a translation into German (Andreas Mylaeus) 

Transcript below by a reader

Hampton: 0:24
It is July 11th, 2024. You’re listening to “A Different Lens”, a podcast produced by the Hampton Institute. Today, we are chatting with international affairs specialist Dr. Gilbert Doctorow to discuss the recent battlefield events in the Ukraine-Russia war, the possibility of a diplomatic completion to that war and current delving into Russia-China and Russia-Korean relations.

There are going to be a number of links in the show notes. I would encourage everyone to look into. And there’s also going to be a link to a previous interview he did about two years ago now on the Russia-Ukraine war on this podcast. Listen in.

All right, Dr. Doctorow, it’s good to have you back on the show. I hope you’ve been doing well.

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 1:23
Well, thanks for the invitation.

Hampton:
Of course. So as you know, we’re here xxxxx want to discuss the Russia-Ukraine situation and the surrounding issues of that. And so I want to ask first and foremost, right, what does the current battlefield situation look like?

Doctorow:
The situation in the field, the situation in politics, which do you want to start with?

Hampton:
The situation in the field.

Doctorow:
In the field, the Ukrainians are being pushed back. They’re losing, oh, one or two kilometers a day at each of the various points in the line of confrontation that the Russians are engaging them in. It’s not a very fast or strategic change in positions by the choice of the Russians, because when you are on the offense, you have casualties of a higher rate than when you’re on the defense. And the Russian general staff, in agreement with their president, is trying to reduce the losses of Russian soldiers to the bare minimum. In general, according to Russian figures, their rate of loss is one to five. That is, they lose one man, either seriously wounded or killed, to every five Ukrainians that are seriously wounded or killed.

2:49
Nonetheless, if you have several hundred thousand Ukrainians who are killed, then you have [a hundred thousand] Russians who are killed. The latest figures are said to be 60,000 Russians and probably 300,000 Ukrainians killed in the war so far. That is a very large number of people, and you can take pleasure in having a favorable kill ratio, but it doesn’t give much comfort to the widows and the orphans. So the Russians are going slow in their offensive to reduce to the greatest extent possible their loss of men as they proceed in pushing the Ukrainians out of the Donbas, because that is what’s going on.

Also as they proceed in eliminating the threat of attack on their residential areas just across the border from Ukraine in the area surrounding Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkov, in the Northeast. So the Russians have been operating a cleanup operation to make it impossible for the Ukrainians to use artillery or short missiles to reach into the cities of the Belgorod province that is on the Russian side of the border. There were many such attacks. There were losses of civilians, and the Russians had enough of it.

So that is the basic situation. There’s nothing dramatic. And there’s nothing dramatic because that’s the way the Russians want it. They are slowly decimating the Ukrainian military in a way that Ukraine cannot fill its ranks. And yet there are several elite battalions left in reserve, and the Russians are hoping that Mr. Zelensky, in his appeal to President Biden and to his American backers, will stage some kind of a counteroffensive, which the Russians would use to finish off what elite reserves Ukraine has. That’s the overall situation.

Hampton: 5:03
It’s interesting how this whole thing has shifted, because for the longest, we were hearing Ukraine is winning, Ukraine is winning, and then we hear about this offensive they’re going on. “Oh, this big counter-offensive, it’s happening”, this, that and the other, and then it amounts to not seemingly much. And so, yeah, now it seems that, as you said, the Russians are effectively, in many ways, in control of the battlefield.

Doctorow:
Yes, but there has been a lot of cheerleading on all sides. All the American media were simply repeating, without any, exercising any critical faculty, what they were receiving from the State Department, which was receiving the propaganda from Kiev. That means that there was a lot of hubris, a lot of overconfidence on the American side that the war was going well for Ukraine. And, of course, the loss of several major positions in the fall of 2022 due to the Russians not having enough men in the field to hold onto territory they quickly captured, that was interpreted as showing the Ukrainians were winning. It was nothing of the sort.

6:30
The Russians gave up territory, they retreated in an orderly fashion, which was not the easiest thing to do, and they had minimal losses when ceding territory to which they did not have the men to hold. That interpretation of a Ukrainian victory held on for a good long time. But, of course, the reality is that the Russians always were stronger. The Russians had a 10-to-1 advantage in artillery shells from the very start of the war. It’s not something that just happened in the last few months because the United States Congress withheld funding. It’s simply Russia has the world’s biggest production of artillery shells, period. It has more than all the United States and all of its allies put together. And this, you know, what has become very quickly a war of attrition, is a decisive factor in Russia’s favor and working against Ukraine and its Western backers. The possibility has always existed for Russia to stage a strategic attack and knock out the Ukrainian army. But, as I said, that would come at enormous cost in lost men, and for that reason, and also might be considered extremely provocative and a factor in an escalation by the U.S. side towards a nuclear war.

8:00
So the Russians have decided to go slow, to get what they need done with minimal losses and with minimal provocation to the enemy, meaning not just Ukraine, but its American and West European backers.

Hampton:
This is the second question I wanted to ask. Last month, [Putin] stated that in order to end the war, Ukraine would have to not join NATO and give up the four regions that have been taken by Russia. So why is this kind of, these positions being dismissed by Zelensky, being dismissed by the West? It seems that Russia’s, correct me if I’m wrong, but it doesn’t seem that Russia’s terms for ending the war have changed even when you compare it to two years ago.

Doctorow: 8:45
Well, the terms have changed, and they changed because of the way the West imposed a battle on the Russians. When Mr. Josep Borrell, the foreign policy and military spokesman for, or commissioner, for the European Union, said that this war would be resolved on the battlefield, it was said at a time when Europe and the United States felt confident that they could have the upper hand against the Russians. That was mistaken. They underestimated the Russians badly. They judged the Russians strictly by American military doctrine, assuming that the whole world works from the same rulebook.

Well, the Russians have their own rulebook, how to conduct wars, very different from the United States. And the way they conducted the war was misinterpreted by American analysts as being weakness and inability to deliver. That wasn’t the case at all. It was dictated on the Russian side by various assumptions about their future dealings with what would remain of Ukraine, whom they considered to be brothers of a sort. But from the Russian view, this was a kind of civil war between themselves and Kiev. And they did not want this to be so devastating that they would be unable for generations to come to have any kind of good neighborly relations with Ukraine.

10:17
So the war was being fought by the Russians in a different way. It was misjudged by the Americans and the West, and so they thought that they had the upper hand, and they very glibly said it will be solved on the battlefield. Well, it is being solved on the battlefield. And the Russians, considering their losses and considering the determination and the patriotic upsurge throughout the country, the Russians have no intention of ceding at the negotiating table what they have won at the cost of blood and treasure on the battlefield.

10:52
So, the idea of going back to the offers of March in 2022, when an agreement was signed, yes, that is put up again by Mr. Putin, but not in exactly the same specifics, because the additional note is: take into account the situation on the ground. Meaning that the resolution of this is no longer to be decided only by Ukraine being neutral and not joining NATO. It will lose most, if not all, of the ground that it has lost on the battlefield to Russian forces. And the Russians are intent on taking control of the entirety of the Donetsk province, oblast, which they even today only control part of and not all of, and of the Luhansk oblast.

12:00
These are the core provinces that are called Donbass, where the majority population is Russian-speaking, and where the Russian state felt that it had been betrayed by the Soviets, by Lenin, who gave this Russian-speaking industrial territory to what was the Ukrainian republic within the Soviet Union, or became the Soviet Union. So, what I’m saying is that the terms, the specifics of the terms of an agreement that Mr. Putin is laying out today are different from what they were in March of 2022, even if the fundamental notion of a neutral Ukraine and a Ukraine that enjoys certain security guarantees remains the same.

Hampton: 12:53
So in fact, it seems that Ukraine does want a diplomatic end to this war as was reported late last month. So would they not most likely end up agreeing at least to some major concessions? And it seems that both sides do at least want some concessions, like how realistic is this in terms of like both sides getting?

Doctorow: 13:18
The latest terms coming out of Kiev which were repeated to journalists by Viktor Orban following his meeting with Zelensky yesterday, indicate that the Kiev regime– because it’s not a government, it doesn’t enjoy legitimacy, since Mr. Zelensky’s mandate ended more than a month ago– that the Kiev regime is not ready for genuine peace negotiations, and is still working on a propaganda peace plan called the Ten Points of Zelensky, which is essentially imposing on the victor the terms of the loser.

That is to say, they’re looking for a Russian surrender when it has the upper hand on the battlefield and every other measure of military standing. That won’t fly. So, the only thing that will fly is Prime Minister Zelensky and his team. They will fly out of Kiev. And then there can be some peace.

Hampton: 14:27
So, it seems that the majority of European nations think the war is going to end in a negotiated settlement. And so, how does this view contradict what some European leaders, such as Macron, who wants to, and may even possibly send military trainers to Ukraine, and even said that sending Western troops wasn’t off the table. He didn’t discuss in what capacity. What do you make of this disconnect between some European leaders with the majority of the European populace?

Doctorow: 15:08
But Mr. Macron, who was running to the front of the band, as usual, to present himself as a leader of European foreign policy and some of the most important voices in Europe, he has just been trampled by his own marching band within France. First it was the June 6th Europe-wide elections to the European Parliament, in which his party, or it’s a movement, was defeated by the other contenders. The first and foremost, his most vicious enemy in French politics, Marine Le Pen and her RN, Rassemblement National, so-called extreme right.

15:58
But it really is, “extreme right” is a pejorative that’s applied by mainstream press. What it is, is a national sovereignty party. That is, they want to assert France’s identity and its control over its own future, as opposed to its future being determined by unelected people sitting in the European Commission in Brussels.

Well, anyway, she trampled him two to one, and he then called a snap election, which– the first of two procedures took place less than a week ago, and again he was trampled. So that his movement of the parliamentarians who are allied with Macron will be less than 15 percent, maybe less than 10 percent, of the new lower house following the electoral procedure. This is a man who has zero political power going forward for the rest of his presidency. And his remarks about the tough position for Ukraine, now you can discount 100 percent.

17:10
What that means is a big breach has been opened within Europe, because France is the second biggest economy in Europe and one of the biggest arms manufacturers in Europe. And France, I think I can say, will no longer be a big factor in the Ukraine war. In the meantime, other winners in the European elections are the Netherlands, where an extreme right coalition also has taken power, and we can expect the Netherlands to be less supportive of Europe, Europe’s assistance to Ukraine, than it was under the government of the outgoing Mr. Rutte, who is now the new head of NATO.

18:00
So within Europe there have been very big breaches of this conformist position that’s held sway over the last couple of years. And Europe’s ability to support Ukraine will of course be completely undermined if Mr. Trump is elected in November.

Hampton: 18:26
Indeed. I think there are going to be some major changes if he gets elected this November. So there’s a lot of talk being made of the deal that Russia and North Korea made regarding standing up to aggression, right?, aggression from the West. But how big of a deal is this really? Like, even if North Korea does supply munitions to Russia, how much of a deal is this relationship?

Doctorow: 18:56
Well, there are several dimensions to this that are– Yes, they’ve been supplying maybe three million artillery rounds to Russia in the war so far, which is quite a considerable amount. Let’s keep in mind that Europe made pledges in this year to deliver one million rounds to Ukraine, and they can’t fulfill that. So the fact that North Korea would supply three million, rumored three, maybe as much as five million, artillery shells is one of the 155 millimeter caliber artillery, that is important. But that existed before this agreement.

19:36
What this agreement brings in is the readiness of North Korea to provide all kinds of assistance. Now, what does that mean, all kinds? On the civilian side, North Korea is prepared to send workers to Russia to fill in positions that are otherwise vacant because men are off fighting in the war. So, having guest workers from North Korea, which existed before sanctions were imposed on Korea, that could be helpful to the war effort in Russia.

However, the North Koreans also stand ready to send maybe 50,000 soldiers to fight in the war if Europe sends in its soldiers. And North Korea will probably be invited by Russia to match those numbers so that Russia will be at no disadvantage if there are increased numbers of soldiers coming to Ukraine from the West. That’s a very important factor.

20:43
These are two dimensions. Let’s look at another dimension. Let’s look at what Mr. Putin said about asymmetrical response to Western U.S. and West European escalation in the war in Ukraine. Well, there’s a pressure point on the United States in Korea. North Korea can make trouble. They can make trouble. North Korea can receive missiles from Russia to sink any aircraft carriers that the United States may be stupid enough to send its way, as Mr. Trump did in his presidency, to send lots of gunboat diplomacy to intimidate the North Koreans.

So the North Koreans can make trouble in their neighborhood to distract attention of the United States from the Ukraine war. This is the– these dimensions are worth mentioning when we consider the value of that comprehensive partnership that Mr. Putin concluded with his opposite number in North Korea.

Hampton: 21:57
Definitely a lot of factors that you brought in that people probably, myself included, not particularly privy to. So just a couple days ago actually, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, he did an interview with Bloomberg, and he argues that due to Russian dependence on China, and this is a direct quote for him, I’m about to say: “One phone call from President Xi Jinping would solve this crisis.” Like, how accurate is that? Like, how close really are Russia and China?

Doctorow: 22:31
Well, this text statement shows complete ignorance or willful ignorance of reality. It is precisely the kind of delusional thinking that is so much dominating Washington and the European allies of Washington. The Russians and the Chinese have been both under threat from the United States and from Europe, first of all, militarily, as regards the United States, by its readiness to threaten the Chinese control of Taiwan and to make and provide arms to Taiwan that would make a forced merger between the People’s Republic and Taiwan, very, very costly in men and in weaponry.

23:22
There’s a military threat to China from the United States. That’s undeniable and is growing. There is the economic threat to China, which has been going on since Mr. Trump’s administration, and has been accelerated by Biden in these various prohibitions on providing chip-making equipment or advanced chips that are so essential in all kinds of manufacturing, and sanctioning China in this way.

So China, they see the handwriting on the wall, that the United States is intending to do to it what it has been doing to Russia. So the United States, by every action, has driven these two countries into an ever-deeper and ever-more-significant cooperation. Alliance is the wrong word, because China, by its own doctrine, does not make alliances. But deep cooperation is there. And it’s military cooperation, it is financial cooperation, it is cooperation in every domain. So, to think that you can drive a wedge between China and Russia today is foolhardy.

24:39
To look at the relationship as big brother, small brother is also absolutely ignorant. The Chinese are at least as dependent on Russia as Russia is dependent on China. If the United States uses its navy and its alliances with various countries in the Pacific to squeeze the supply lines to China of much-needed raw materials, starting with hydrocarbons coming from Arabia, then Russia is the most reliable supplier of those needed materials. It already has that capacity in terms of existing and planned pipelines, and also in the case of gas, of liquefied natural gas deliveries to China.

25:38
This dependency, which is only partly realized now, but would be essential if the hostility between China and the United States were to continue, which is highly likely. It means that China has to have good relations with Russia. So the quotation you gave, I said, is by a totally, willfully ignorant person.

Hampton: 26:04
So just before we end, where can people find you and support your work, and where can people find more information about Russia, Ukraine, China, like what are some of the news sources that you utilize personally?

Doctorow:
Well, I have the pleasure and the honor to have become a regular visitor to a program called “Judging Freedom” by Judge Andrew Napolitano. It now has 400,000 subscribers. I would– subscription is just a formality. To view that, you just go to YouTube and type in “Judge Napolitano”, and you will be taken straight to any of his programs, including– these are 20-minute, 25-minute interviews. The man spends the whole day having interviews and discussions with some outstanding, non-mainstream, but highly professional and well-regarded experts.

I say, I’m delighted to be among those whom he interviews each week, but at any given day you find many such interviews, and I would– which go over the facts. He has a very good research team obviously. He’s up to the minute. His questions are highly topical, and you can get a very good understanding that you can juxtapose with what you read in the New York Times or any other mainstream newspaper to see how little they are giving you and how much there is to know if you want to understand the world that surrounds us. So that’s a good place to start.

27:55
As for me personally, I have a web platform on Substack. There’s gilbertdoctorow.substack.com and as you would find I publish maybe five, six essays per week, either essays or links to interviews that I give, because I’m also on India’s biggest English-language global broadcaster, WION, The World Is One [News]. Also, it’s unlikely that your listeners would be aware of it, but the world is changing, and we speak about the global South and how important they’re becoming and how sophisticated they’re becoming, because I’m also interviewed fairly regularly by Press TV, which is, again, an English-language international broadcaster of Iran. And you can find links to that on my Substack platform, and I think you’ll find it quite surprising at the sophistication and moderate positions of their professional journalists.

29:21
So the world is becoming more interesting. There are relatively few lunatics who are on the world stage happily, and there’s a lot you can learn from countries that you could never have imagined would have this level of sophistication and would be as informative as they are.

Hampton:
Thank you so much for coming on the show, Doctor. I really appreciate it.

Doctorow:
Thanks again. Thanks for having me. Good luck to you.

Hampton: 29:51
Thank you.

“Eine andere Sichtweise” vom Hampton Institute: Ein Audio-Podcast, der der Arbeiterklasse die Wahrheit bringt

Vor etwa zwei Jahren wurde ich vom Hampton Institute für sein Programm “Different Lens” interviewt, um über den Krieg zwischen Russland und der Ukraine zu sprechen. Vor ein paar Tagen luden sie mich erneut ein, um ein Update zu geben. Dieses Interview wurde soeben ins Internet gestellt.

Siehe https://adifferentlens.libsyn.com/episode-187-destruction-and-diplomacy-with-dr-gilbert-doctorow

Für diejenigen, die vielleicht noch nie von dieser Denkfabrik gehört haben, die dem Andenken eines Black-Panther-Mitglieds gewidmet ist, verweise ich auf ihre Website: https://www.hamptonthink.org/our-organization-1

In today’s edition of Judging Freedom with Judge Andrew Napolitano, we had a far-reaching discussion of the contradictory signals in and around the ongoing NATO summit in Washington.

On the one hand, a couple of days ago the alternative media were reporting President Zelensky’s latest statements suggesting that the end of the war is nigh based on a negotiated settlement in line with Russian demands. He was said to be ready to invite Russia to the next Peace Conference he is promoting. He was said to accept the need to recognize Russian rule over the territories they captured in the war.

On the other hand, in the proceedings in Washington Joe Biden and his Secretary of State Tony Blinken have spoken publicly in the most belligerent manner about delivery of F16s and of a variety of air defense systems for the sake of Ukraine’s continuing the fight and preventing Putin’s march on Europe which, they say, would follow should Ukraine lose the war.

Meanwhile, there is confusion over the intention of the United States to send ground-to-ground versions of the nuclear capable medium range (1800 km) Tomahawk missiles to Europe. Is the timetable for such deliveries 2026 or is it in the immediate weeks ahead? Are they to be shipped only to Germany or are they going to Ukraine, as Russian talk shows last night discussed? If the latter is the case, then they could reach to Moscow and well beyond, posing the kind of threat that Mr. Putin has said would prompt a preemptive nuclear attack from Russia.

Finally, we discussed the latest news posted on the Zero Hedge portal a day ago that China’s People’s Liberation Army is presently conducting 11 days of military exercises near Brest in Belarus, close to both the Ukrainian and the Polish borders.  If true, this would be a very quick implementation of the mutual security provisions of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization which Belarus formally joined at the SCO Summit in Astana, Kazakhstan two weeks ago. It would also give Poland, in particular, and NATO more generally good reason to reflect on the wisdom of NATO’s becoming a global alliance by building a presence in East Asia, which is the subject of today’s deliberations of the Alliance members in Washington, D.C.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puIOb1wyZF0

Full transcript below, followed by a translation into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Transcript by a reader

Judge Andrew Napolitano: 0:32
Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for “Judging Freedom”. Today is Thursday, July 11th, 2024. Professor Gilbert Doctorow joins us now. Professor Doctorow, a pleasure, of course, my friend. Thank you for all the time that you spend with us. As we speak– maybe it’s a little early in Washington, D.C., but certainly yesterday and probably later on today– we have heard a lot of saber rattling from NATO. I’m going to play you one or two of the more extreme rattlers, and that happens to be the President of the United States. So here is President Biden on Tuesday saying that, did you know there are 100,000 U.S. troops in Europe and they’re ready to go? Cut number six.

President Joe Biden: 1:29
Even before Russian bombs were falling in Ukraine, the alliance acted. I ordered the U.S. reinforcements at NATO’s eastern flank, more troops, more aircraft, more capabilities. And now the United States has more than 100,000 troops on the continent of Europe.

Napolitano: 1:50
For what purpose do you think the United States have 100,000 troops on the continent of Europe, given what’s happening in Ukraine? Is this a tripwire?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
I think it’s to intimidate the Russians. And the Russians are looking at these numbers with increased frequency on their television broadcasts, exactly going over what they see in American academic papers and government releases regarding NATO’s full capabilities in number of tanks and number of servicemen and so forth. So this particular American number will be followed very closely by them. What– is it a tripwire? Well, it’s a rather big tripwire, you can stumble on that all right. How prepared these people are, these servicemen are to engage in combat, that is an interesting subject to investigate, but I don’t have any data in front of me.

Napolitano: 2:56
Surely, the Russians know exactly where these troops are, Poland, Romania, Germany, I don’t know where else they would be, but I would imagine the Russians know exactly where they are. And the Russians know exactly what offensive weaponry is available to them.

Doctorow: 3:15
Yes, that’s probably true. The real issue– and this is something that’s debated within Russia, it’s been discussed in the States on programs like your own– that is, the readiness of the Russians to respond in a forceful way to these mounting pressures and threats from the United States and others. And this is a critical issue. Is Mr. Putin the right man? Is the horses for courses at this particular moment of existential threat? Is his diplomatic, civilized, religiously motivated conduct of Russian military and foreign policy appropriate to the threat? That’s an open question.

Napolitano: 4:17
Is he under pressure from those on the right of him, and I don’t even know if “right and left” means what it used to mean when you and I first began studying this, but you know what I’m talking about, from hardliners, from hawks, to [be] more aggressive? You heard what Dmitry Medvedev said yesterday. I think Medvedev is sometimes the bad guy to Putin’s good guy. I don’t know. What is your analysis?

Doctorow:
There’s more than one bad guy to Putin’s good guy. And to put in proper context your remarks about what is right and what is left, certainly among the most forthright spokespeople for a hard line on the West is the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. You want to call them the right or the left, that’s optional. But the point is: there are nationalists who are very dissatisfied with Mr. Putin’s conduct and who are genuinely fearful that it is being misread and can lead to tragedy, misread in the West that is, as weakness and indecisiveness and inability to act in a proactive way to prevent escalation.

5:31
We hear– on American television, we hear from the State Department that the Russians are escalating, but what you have just described in all of the presentations at the NATO summit here in Washington, indicates that the real escalation is coming out of Washington. The discussion of the F-16s, it sounds like this summer. We are in the summer. So it means that Holland and Denmark have already dispatched F-16s somewhere. It also is clear that there are not enough Ukrainian- trained pilots to fly those planes, which means they will be NATO pilots wearing Ukrainian uniforms. So we are headed into a very dangerous conflict between Russia and NATO.

Napolitano: 6:26
Would any of those NATO pilots wearing Ukrainian uniforms be Americans?

Doctorow:
It’s reasonable to assume so, but not necessarily.

Napolitano:
American Air Force officers trained to fly and use F-16s– and that training is very expensive and it takes at least a year beyond their regular training– would don the uniform of a foreign country?

Doctorow:
Well, I am not prepared to confirm that. Who exactly will be in those cockpits, we don’t know. But that they will be reporting to NATO in one way or another, and if they are not Ukrainians, that is a high probability. However, the F-16 issue is not the only very troublesome point to have come out of the discussions going on in Washington. I understand that either yesterday or today, there will be discussion of America’s dispatch of Tomahawk medium-range cruise missiles. Now, these missiles have an 1800- kilometer range. That is on the– I can tell you that Russian television, the Solovyov program that’s widely watched, that’s a panel show, a talk show, last night was suggesting that the United States is shipping these Tomahawks to Ukraine.

7:56
They put up on the screen maps showing the range of Tomahawks, assuming they were launched from Ukraine and going well past Moscow. That’s to say, the whole of European Russia would be subject to attack and potentially to nuclear attack in these missiles. I don’t know how correct the information that reached Solovyov was. I have my doubts about it. The United States– the reports that I’ve seen coming out of Western news suggest that the delivery of Tomahawks is scheduled for 2026, not for the immediate days. And one of the factors is the adaptation of the Tomahawks to land-based use since they are, normally they are ship-based.

8:44
It is also an issue that’s closely related to another topic that has been in the Russian news for several years now. And that is the convertibility of the supposedly defensive anti-ballistic missile bases that the United States has built in Poland and Romania, that they are convertible to use by exactly by Tomahawks. So these questions are interrelated, but they are very, very troubling. And I can tell you, I put it on the table as an unresolved issue. Was Mr. Solovyov well informed last night? Is this really something to worry about? Because it’s just a hair’s breadth away from World War III.

Napolitano: 9:25
Refresh my memory, please, on who Solovyov is.

Doctorow:
Solovyov? He is the dean of Russian journalists, at least of the Moscow Journalist Society. I’m not sure if it’s a national society. He is in the very close circle at the top of news presenters at Russian state television, very close to the head of news, Mr. Kiselyov. and he has interviewed Putin. He’s close to the Kremlin inside.

Napolitano: 10:04
So he’s a credible source.

Doctorow:
He’s a credible source, and he has been a promoter of strong nationalist positions within Russia, going back more than a decade. He frequently invited Mr. Zhirinovsky onto his program. He shared many of Zhirinovsky’s positions in their anti-Western nature. And so, his position on this — are they pushing Mr. Putin from the right? — he is one of those people who is pushing from the right.

Napolitano: 10:44
Here’s President Biden also on Tuesday, not mentioning Tomahawks, not mentioning F-16s, but saying, probably to the dismay of Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, Ukraine goes to the head of the line. Cut number eight.

Biden:
In the coming months, the United States and our partners intend to provide Ukraine with dozens of additional tactical air defense systems. The United States will make sure that when we export critical air defense interceptors, Ukraine goes to the front of the line. So [they’ll] get this assistance before anyone else gets it.

Napolitano: 11:24
This was at the opening session of NATO’s 75th birthday celebration, which, as you mentioned a few minutes ago, is going on in Washington, D.C., even as we speak. How do you assess the Kremlin’s assessment of the saber-rattling going on in Washington? And we’ll play, before you even answer that, we’ll play an example of one of them. He doesn’t use the word “irreversible” or “inevitable”, but those two words are in draft documents that have been leaked to the press, referring to Ukraine joining NATO, but he does say that it will happen. Here’s the Secretary of State of the United States, whom we haven’t heard in two weeks, but here he is yesterday at the summit in NATO. Cut number 18.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken: 12:22
We have an incredibly robust package that will be unveiled over the next couple of days at NATO that builds a very clear, strong, robust, well-lit bridge to NATO membership for Ukraine, including, as you mentioned, the first time NATO’s dedicated a command to helping an aspiring country join the alliance. This in and of itself is extraordinary.

Napolitano: 12:44
He didn’t actually use the word “irreversible”, but as I indicated, it appears in one of those drafts that his people leaked. How does the Kremlin react to all that?

Doctorow:
Well, not being a Kremlin insider, I have a hard time answering it in their name. The best that I do is I deal with very responsible people who are from Kremlin inside, and Mr. Solovyov is one of them. Vyacheslav Nikonov, the grandson of Molotov, who has a program of his own, “The Great Game”, together with Dmitri Simes, formerly head of the Nixon Center and now well established in Moscow.

These people are the ones whom I listen to. And still in all, let’s be open about it, the signals that Moscow is receiving must be as confusing to them as they are to us. My good friend Ray McGovern was saying, just a few days ago, how things are looking better, because we have received news that Zelensky is ready to have the Russians present at the next round of his peace summit. We’ve heard that he is ready to accept the inevitability that Ukraine will have to acknowledge the loss of territories that Russia has already captured.

14:17
All of this sounds like Mr. Zelensky was listening to realist, sane advice among his advisors, to make peace with Russia. Now, it may well be that this stepping up, this very energetic speech-making by the administration in Washington is to overturn a decision that Zelensky has made in the realization that the game is up and he’s losing too many of his people. That could be an explanation. But certainly, the signals between what Zelensky has said to have acknowledged as reality a few days ago and what we see now in Washington, that is they are in sharp contradiction. Which is the real way that things are going, it’s very hard to say. And if we have a hard time, I think the Kremlin also has a hard time.

Napolitano: 1513
I’d like your thoughts on what you think the Kremlin’s reaction will be to this kind of a message also from President Biden on Tuesday. Cut number seven.

President Biden: 15:30
In Europe, Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine continues. And Putin wants nothing less, nothing less than Ukraine’s total subjugation, to end Ukraine’s democracy, destroy Ukraine’s culture and to wipe Ukraine off the map. And we know Putin won’t stop at Ukraine. But make no mistake: Ukraine can and will stop Putin.

Napolitano: 16:02
How bitterly ironic and harshly inappropriate is his language that suggests that Putin, President Putin, wants to destroy democracy in Ukraine, when Joe Biden and his buddies in 2014 did exactly that.

Doctorow: 16:20
I completely agree with you, and they’ve been on that same path ever since. If there’s any shred of democracy left in Ukraine, it’s only dumb luck; because the United States has done its best to serve those elements in and around the presidency, mainly neo-Nazi elements that have been controlling the presidency ever since 2014 and leading it as far away from democracy and all freedoms. There’s no freedom of the press, there’s no freedom of politics in Ukraine. To speak about today’s Ukraine as a democracy is an insult to anybody’s intelligence.

Napolitano: 17:06
Is there any evidence of which you’re aware, of Putin’s desire to attack Europe or to reassemble the old Soviet Union? Or is Joe Biden’s mentality– now I know you’re a doctor, but you’re not a shrink– stuck in the Cold-War era?

Doctorow: 17:29
Well, he never left the Cold-War era, and this was patently clear from articles in the “Foreign Affairs” magazine that were issued early in his 2020 campaign. These were all based on premises of a Cold War. So, he didn’t move very far from where he’d been during his whole political life. It’s just that he lost touch with and had no interest in objective reality. These are wonderful political speeches to make to rally the troops, but they have little to do with objective reality. So, he hasn’t changed. The circumstances of Mr. Putin — you have to look at what Russians have been saying about the Soviet past, among themselves, without any attempt to influence thinking outside the country.

18:35
Mr. Zhirinovsky was one of the biggest realists and the one who said on Russian state television repeatedly, that the Soviet Empire had been parasitical, and had drained the Russian core of assets. Since the allegiance of these allies was being bought at every turn.

The Russian foreign policy that Russian nationalists have been trying– these are the people you assume would be the ones pressing for empire– they’re exactly the opposite. They don’t want an empire, because they know Russia can’t afford it. They would like to look after their own people, and not look after subservient people who are subservient only because they’re being bought off at Russia’s expense.

Napolitano: 19:29
One last question about NATO before we move on to another subject. President Zelensky is apparently fearful, I guess he thinks he’ll still be in office, that Donald Trump may be elected president and may try to remove the United States from NATO. I was quite surprised to hear him say this, but here he is in Washington on Tuesday, cut number 16.

Zelensky: 20:00
I hope that the United States will never seriously think to go out from NATO. I think so. But it’s not my decision, I’m just sharing with you my thoughts. And I hope that if people of America will vote for President Trump I hope that his policy with Ukraine will not change.

Napolitano:
Very interesting, I thought, that he said that. And of course, as we speak, literally, at their breakfast meeting this morning, the NATO leaders are trying to– have you heard this phrase before?– Trump-proof NATO. What they can do, something that will commit the United States and NATO to something in a way that couldn’t be undone if Donald Trump becomes president. But Professor, it must be of concern to them, the potential that Trump would re-enter the picture and his attitude about NATO is hardly that of Joe Biden.

Doctorow: 21:15
I don’t think that Mr. Trump would try to dismantle NATO. That would embroil him in enormous fights on Capitol Hill that would deplete his political capital without any notable gain in his position with respect to the war in Ukraine and American foreign policy generally.

All he has to do is not support. That is, not provide additional funds, not go begging Congress to raise monies for Ukraine and to ship military hardware from our stock or to back orders, to place orders with American arms manufacturers for shipment to Ukraine. He would– by doing nothing, he would be doing everything. And that they cannot proof, proof, proof, Trump proof.

Napolitano 22:12
And that number, the last count of what, Joe Biden’s administration with congressional, overwhelming congressional support has sent to Ukraine thus far, 175 billion dollars worth. It’s extraordinary. And what kind of shape is the Ukraine military in? On its last legs, don’t you agree?

Doctorow: 22:38
Not entirely. It’s a big country, even though it’s been reduced from 40 million population to maybe 25 million population. But when you look at the day-to-day fighting, even if, as some of my peers have said correctly, the daily kill ratio or maiming ratio of the Ukrainian forces suggests 2,000 men are taken out of action a day. Still there are bodies to fill those slots.

The Russians, when you look at what is happening– you have to remember this war has changed all of our thinking. This war has introduced technologies and tactics on the ground that influence greatly how you measure the strength of one side or the other. I have in mind particularly the drones. The Russian forces, artillery, and these glider bombs, they are wonderful against massed troops. Those of my colleagues who remark that there is no room for training Ukrainian recruits because you can’t find barracks for them, you can’t find fields for them to practice in without their being bombed by the Russians. That’s fine and I’m sure it’s true.

24:06
But it’s ignoring the fact that just a few people who are well trained in the use of drones are creating havoc in the battlefield and also that influences Russia. Russia is also subject to Ukrainian drone attack, everywhere in the battlefield. So, the situation is more complicated than it looks. It’s not just numbers of men.

Napolitano:
Surely, Professor, you don’t agree with Joe Biden when he said, “Make no mistake, Ukraine can and will stop Putin.”

Doctorow:
Oh, it’s not going to stop Putin. That is clear. The Russians are determined. The Russians have vast numbers of volunteers. Go back in history a little bit. This is not the first war that Russia’s been engaged in. They have been in enormous engagements of a military nature for several hundred years. I have compared Mr. Putin to Peter the Great, also about 24, 25 years in power. Also in the Great Northern War, he waged battles enormously costly in every way that placed Russia among the foremost European powers.

25:25
Mr. Putin is doing something similar. But the nature of warfare, as I say, has changed. And vast numbers of men are no longer a decisive factor when you have these technical devices. Now, can you stop the Russians? No, you can’t. And they are advancing in 1, 2, 3 kilometers a day, almost all across the front, but not 5 kilometers and not 10 kilometers. And they’re doing it slow, precisely to avoid catastrophic losses that can accompany the offensive side, as opposed to the defensive side.

Napolitano: 26:08
Switching gears: as we speak, Professor Doctorow, are there Chinese troops in Belarus engaged in war games?

Doctorow:
This has been reported in the alternate media, and it may well be true. But let’s put this in a context. It would be entirely logical, considering what happened in Astana two weeks ago. Remember that Belarus became– Astana was the host, Astana is the capital of Kazakhstan, it was the host to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit at which Belarus was made the 10th member. Now this is an extraordinary change in the composition of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which going back to its founding around 2001, was to shore up security in Central Asia that was under threat from the extremist Islamists in Afghanistan.

27:20
And that shoring up was done by their neighbors, on one side China, the other side Russia, and also as a means of steadying the ambitions of both those two big powers for control of this territory between them. From that, it has moved on, expanded. It has India, has Pakistan, it has Iran in it. And now they added Belarus. So the Chinese would be going to Belarus, has to be put in that context: that they are going to a country that is now a member of the security arrangements that are enshrined in the founding documents of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

It, of course, is remarkable for sending a message to Europe– and of course to the immediate neighbors, Poland and Ukraine– that if you think that you are going to overrun the Belarus borders– and this is entirely thinkable, since the Poles have have drawn a lot of troops close to the Ukrainian border, and they are supporting the failed alternative to Lukashenko as head of state in Belarus.

28:37
So they would try to carry this pretender across the border, that they would try to stage attacks, which the Russians would call terrorist attacks, across the border as the Ukrainians have done in the Belgorod province near Kharkov — this is entirely thinkable. The presence of these Chinese troops suggests, “Gentlemen, you don’t have to wait for the North Koreans to come. We’re here.”

Napolitano:
Well, you never fail to give us a thought-provoking analysis, Professor Doctorow. Very, very much appreciated. I’m going to be away for two weeks, but I hope you can come back and resume your regular weekly time with us at the end of July. Thank you so much, my dear friend.

Doctorow:
It’s a great pleasure.

Napolitano:
Thank you. Just to go over who’s coming up the rest of today, which is a very interesting day for all of us. At 3 o’clock this afternoon, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson. At four o’clock this afternoon, Professor John Mearsheimer. And at the end of the day at five o’clock, the always worth waiting for, Max Blumenthal,

29:53
Judge Napolitano for “Judging Freedom”.

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Judging Freedom, 11. Juli 2024:  “Putin’s nächste Züge”

In der heutigen Ausgabe von ” Judging Freedom ” mit Judge Andrew Napolitano haben wir die widersprüchlichen Signale rund um den laufenden NATO-Gipfel in Washington eingehend diskutiert.

Einerseits berichteten die alternativen Medien vor ein paar Tagen über die jüngsten Äußerungen von Präsident Zelensky, wonach das Ende des Krieges auf der Grundlage einer Verhandlungslösung im Einklang mit den russischen Forderungen nahe sei. Es hieß, er sei bereit, Russland zur nächsten Friedenskonferenz einzuladen, für die er wirbt. Er akzeptiere die Notwendigkeit, die russische Herrschaft über die von Russland im Krieg eroberten Gebiete anzuerkennen.

Andererseits haben Joe Biden und sein Außenminister Tony Blinken bei den Beratungen in Washington öffentlich in äußerst kämpferischer Weise über die Lieferung von F16 und einer Reihe von Luftabwehrsystemen gesprochen, damit die Ukraine den Kampf fortsetzen und Putins Marsch auf Europa verhindern kann, der ihrer Meinung nach folgen würde, wenn die Ukraine den Krieg verliert.

Inzwischen herrscht Verwirrung über die Absicht der Vereinigten Staaten, Boden-Boden-Versionen der atomwaffenfähigen Tomahawk-Raketen mittlerer Reichweite (1.800 km) nach Europa zu schicken. Ist der Zeitplan für solche Lieferungen 2026 oder in den nächsten Wochen? Sollen sie nur nach Deutschland geliefert werden oder auch in die Ukraine, wie gestern Abend in russischen Talkshows diskutiert wurde? Wenn Letzteres der Fall ist, könnten sie bis nach Moskau und weit darüber hinaus reichen und die Art von Bedrohung darstellen, von der Herr Putin sagte, dass sie einen präventiven Atomangriff Russlands auslösen würde.

Schließlich wurde vor einem Tag auf dem Portal Zero Hedge die jüngste Nachricht erörtert, dass die chinesische Volksbefreiungsarmee derzeit 11 Tage lang Militärübungen in der Nähe von Brest in Weißrussland durchführt, das sowohl an der ukrainischen als auch an der polnischen Grenze liegt. Sollte dies zutreffen, wäre dies eine sehr schnelle Umsetzung der gegenseitigen Sicherheitsbestimmungen der Shanghai Organisation für Zusammenarbeit, der Weißrussland vor zwei Wochen auf dem SCO-Gipfel in Astana (Kasachstan) offiziell beigetreten ist. Es würde auch Polen im Besonderen und der NATO im Allgemeinen einen guten Grund geben, darüber nachzudenken, ob es klug ist, die NATO durch den Aufbau einer Präsenz in Ostasien zu einem globalen Bündnis zu machen, was Gegenstand der heutigen Beratungen der Bündnismitglieder in Washington, D.C., ist.

Siehe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puIOb1wyZF0

Transkript eines Lesers

Judge Andrew Napolitano: 0:32

Hallo, zusammen. Judge Andrew Napolitano hier für “Judging Freedom”. Heute ist Donnerstag, der 11. Juli 2024. Professor Gilbert Doctorow ist jetzt bei uns. Professor Doctorow, es ist mir natürlich ein Vergnügen, mein Freund. Ich danke Ihnen für die Zeit, die Sie mit uns verbringen. Während wir hier sprechen – vielleicht ist es in Washington, D.C., noch etwas früh, aber gestern und wahrscheinlich auch später am Tag – haben wir viel Säbelrasseln von der NATO gehört. Ich werde Ihnen ein oder zwei der extremsten Säbelrassler vorspielen, und das ist zufällig der Präsident der Vereinigten Staaten. Hier ist also Präsident Biden, der am Dienstag sagte: “Wussten Sie, dass 100.000 US-Soldaten in Europa stationiert sind und bereit sind loszuschlagen?” Schnitt Nummer sechs.

President Joe Biden: 1:29

Noch bevor russische Bomben auf die Ukraine fielen, hat das Bündnis gehandelt. Ich habe die Verstärkung der US-Streitkräfte an der Ostflanke der NATO angeordnet, mehr Truppen, mehr Flugzeuge, mehr Fähigkeiten. Und jetzt haben die Vereinigten Staaten mehr als 100.000 Soldaten auf dem europäischen Kontinent.

Napolitano: 1:50

Was glauben Sie, wozu die Vereinigten Staaten 100.000 Soldaten auf dem europäischen Kontinent haben, wenn man bedenkt, was in der Ukraine passiert? Ist das ein Stolperdraht?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:

Ich denke, es geht darum, die Russen einzuschüchtern. Und die Russen sehen sich diese Zahlen in ihren Fernsehsendungen immer häufiger an, indem sie sich genau ansehen, was sie in amerikanischen akademischen Abhandlungen und Regierungsveröffentlichungen über die vollen Fähigkeiten der NATO in Bezug auf die Anzahl der Panzer und die Anzahl der Soldaten und so weiter lesen. Diese spezielle amerikanische Zahl wird also von ihnen sehr genau verfolgt werden. Ist das ein Stolperdraht? Nun, es ist ein ziemlich großer Stolperdraht, über den man durchaus stolpern kann. Wie bereit diese Menschen, diese Soldaten sind, in den Kampf zu ziehen, das ist ein interessantes Thema, das man untersuchen könnte, aber ich habe keine Daten darüber.

Napolitano: 2:56

Sicherlich wissen die Russen genau, wo sich diese Truppen befinden, Polen, Rumänien, Deutschland, ich weiß nicht, wo sie sonst noch sein könnten, aber ich könnte mir vorstellen, dass die Russen genau wissen, wo sie sind. Und die Russen wissen genau, welche Angriffswaffen denen zur Verfügung stehen.

Doctorow: 3:15

Ja, das ist wahrscheinlich richtig. Die eigentliche Frage – und das ist etwas, das in Russland diskutiert wird und in den USA in Programmen wie dem Ihren erörtert wurde – ist die Bereitschaft der Russen, auf den zunehmenden Druck und die Drohungen der Vereinigten Staaten und anderer Länder energisch zu reagieren. Und das ist eine entscheidende Frage. Ist Mr. Putin der richtige Mann? Ist er in diesem besonderen Moment der existenziellen Bedrohung das richtige Pferd für den Kurs? Ist seine diplomatische, zivilisierte, religiös motivierte Führung der russischen Militär- und Außenpolitik der Bedrohung angemessen? Das ist eine offene Frage.

Napolitano: 4:17

Steht er unter dem Druck derer, die rechts von ihm stehen – und ich weiß nicht einmal, ob “rechts und links” noch die Bedeutung hat, die es hatte, als Sie und ich anfingen, uns damit zu beschäftigen, aber Sie wissen, wovon ich spreche –, von den Hardlinern, den Falken, aggressiver zu sein? Sie haben gehört, was Dmitri Medwedew gestern gesagt hat. Ich denke, Medwedew ist manchmal der Bösewicht im Vergleich zu Putins Gutem. Ich weiß es nicht. Wie lautet Ihre Analyse?

Doctorow:

Es gibt mehr als einen Bösewicht als Gegenstück zu Putin als Gutmensch. Und um Ihre Bemerkungen darüber, was rechts und was links ist, in den richtigen Kontext zu stellen: Zu den unverblümtesten Verfechtern einer harten Linie gegenüber dem Westen gehört sicherlich die Kommunistische Partei der Russischen Föderation. Ob Sie sie nun als rechts oder links bezeichnen wollen, ist Ihnen überlassen. Aber der Punkt ist: Es gibt Nationalisten, die mit dem Verhalten von Herrn Putin sehr unzufrieden sind und die wirklich Angst haben, dass es missverstanden wird und zu einer Tragödie führen kann, missverstanden im Westen nämlich als Schwäche und Unentschlossenheit und Unfähigkeit, proaktiv zu handeln, um eine Eskalation zu verhindern.

5:31

Im amerikanischen Fernsehen hören wir vom Außenministerium, dass die Russen eskalieren, aber das, was Sie gerade über alle Vorträge auf dem NATO-Gipfel hier in Washington beschrieben haben, deutet darauf hin, dass die wirkliche Eskalation von Washington ausgeht. Die Diskussion über die F-16, das klingt nach diesem Sommer. Wir befinden uns im Sommer. Das bedeutet also, dass Holland und Dänemark bereits F-16 irgendwo hingeschickt haben. Es ist auch klar, dass es nicht genügend ukrainisch ausgebildete Piloten gibt, um diese Flugzeuge zu fliegen, was bedeutet, dass es sich um NATO-Piloten in ukrainischen Uniformen handeln wird. Wir bewegen uns also auf einen sehr gefährlichen Konflikt zwischen Russland und der NATO zu.

Napolitano: 6:26

Wären einige von diesen NATO-Piloten in ukrainischen Uniformen Amerikaner?

Doctorow:

Das kann man annehmen, muss es aber nicht.

Napolitano:

Amerikanische Luftwaffenoffiziere, die für das Fliegen und den Einsatz von F-16 ausgebildet sind – und diese Ausbildung ist sehr teuer und dauert mindestens ein Jahr über ihre reguläre Ausbildung hinaus – würden die Uniform eines fremden Landes tragen?

Doctorow:

Nun, ich bin nicht in der Lage, das zu bestätigen. Wer genau in diesen Cockpits sitzen wird, wissen wir nicht. Aber dass sie auf die eine oder andere Weise der NATO Bericht erstatten werden, und wenn es keine Ukrainer sind, ist das sehr wahrscheinlich. Die F-16-Frage ist jedoch nicht der einzige sehr problematische Punkt, der sich aus den Diskussionen in Washington ergeben hat. Soweit ich weiß, wird entweder gestern oder heute über die Entsendung von Tomahawk-Mittelstreckenraketen durch die USA diskutiert werden. Diese Raketen haben eine Reichweite von 1.800 Kilometern. Ich kann Ihnen sagen, dass das russische Fernsehen, die Solovyov-Sendung, die weithin gesehen wird, eine Talkshow, gestern Abend andeutete, dass die Vereinigten Staaten diese Tomahawks in die Ukraine schicken.

7:56

Auf dem Bildschirm wurden Karten eingeblendet, die die Reichweite der Tomahawks zeigen, unter der Annahme, dass sie von der Ukraine aus gestartet werden und weit an Moskau vorbeifliegen. Das bedeutet, dass das gesamte europäische Russland mit diesen Raketen angegriffen und möglicherweise nuklear angegriffen würde. Ich weiß nicht, wie korrekt die Informationen waren, die Solowjow erreicht haben. Ich habe da meine Zweifel. Die Vereinigten Staaten – die Berichte, die ich in den westlichen Nachrichten gesehen habe, deuten darauf hin, dass die Lieferung der Tomahawks für 2026 geplant ist, nicht für die nächsten Tage. Und einer der Faktoren ist die Anpassung der Tomahawks an den landgestützten Einsatz, da sie normalerweise schiffsgestützt sind.

8:44

Es ist auch ein Thema, das eng mit einem anderen Thema zusammenhängt, das seit mehreren Jahren in den russischen Nachrichten auftaucht. Es geht um die Konvertierbarkeit der angeblich defensiven Basen zur Abwehr ballistischer Raketen, die die Vereinigten Staaten in Polen und Rumänien errichtet haben und die sie für den Einsatz von Tomahawks umrüsten können. Diese Fragen sind also miteinander verknüpft, aber sie sind sehr, sehr beunruhigend. Und ich kann Ihnen sagen, dass ich sie als ungelöstes Problem auf den Tisch gelegt habe. War Herr Solowjow gestern Abend gut informiert? Ist das wirklich etwas, worüber man sich Sorgen machen muss? Denn es ist nur eine Haaresbreite vom Dritten Weltkrieg entfernt.

Napolitano: 9:25

Helfen Sie mir bitte auf die Sprünge, wer Solovyov ist.

Doctorow:

Solowjow? Er ist der Dekan der russischen Journalisten, zumindest der Moskauer Journalistengesellschaft. Ich bin mir nicht sicher, ob es eine nationale Gesellschaft ist. Er gehört zum engsten Kreis der Nachrichtensprecher des russischen Staatsfernsehens, er steht dem Nachrichtenchef Kisseljow sehr nahe, und er hat Putin interviewt. Er steht dem Kreml intern sehr nahe.

Napolitano: 10:04

Er ist also eine glaubwürdige Quelle.

Doctorow:

Er ist eine glaubwürdige Quelle und seit mehr als einem Jahrzehnt ein Verfechter starker nationalistischer Positionen in Russland. Er hat Herrn Schirinowski häufig in sein Programm eingeladen. Er teilte viele von Schirinowskis Positionen in ihrer antiwestlichen Natur. Und so ist seine Position in dieser Sache – drängen sie Herrn Putin von rechts? – Er ist einer derjenigen, die ihn von rechts drängen.

Napolitano: 10:44

Hier ist Präsident Biden auch am Dienstag, ohne Tomahawks oder F-16 zu erwähnen, aber er sagt, wahrscheinlich zum Entsetzen des israelischen Premierministers Netanjahu, dass die Ukraine ganz oben auf der Liste steht. Schnitt Nummer acht.

Biden:

In den kommenden Monaten beabsichtigen die Vereinigten Staaten und unsere Partner, der Ukraine Dutzende weiterer taktischer Luftabwehrsysteme zu liefern. Die Vereinigten Staaten werden dafür sorgen, dass die Ukraine bei der Ausfuhr kritischer Luftabwehrsysteme ganz vorne mit dabei ist. Sie wird diese Unterstützung also vor allen anderen erhalten.

Napolitano: 11:24

Dies geschah auf der Eröffnungssitzung der Feierlichkeiten zum 75. Geburtstag der NATO, die, wie Sie vor ein paar Minuten erwähnten, in diesem Moment in Washington, D.C., stattfindet. Wie beurteilen Sie die Einschätzung des Kremls in Bezug auf das Säbelrasseln, das in Washington stattfindet? Und bevor Sie diese Frage beantworten, spielen wir Ihnen ein Beispiel aus einem der Kommentare vor. Er benutzt nicht das Wort “unumkehrbar” oder “unvermeidlich”, aber diese beiden Worte sind in Dokumentenentwürfen enthalten, die der Presse zugespielt wurden und sich auf den NATO-Beitritt der Ukraine beziehen, aber er sagt, dass dies geschehen wird. Hier ist der Außenminister der Vereinigten Staaten, den wir seit zwei Wochen nicht mehr gehört haben, aber hier ist er gestern auf dem NATO-Gipfel. Schnitt Nummer 18.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken: 12:22

Wir haben ein unglaublich solides Paket geschnürt, das in den nächsten Tagen auf der NATO-Tagung vorgestellt wird und das eine sehr klare, starke, solide und gut beleuchtete Brücke zur NATO-Mitgliedschaft für die Ukraine baut, einschließlich, wie Sie erwähnten, das erste Mal, dass die NATO einem aufstrebenden Land ein Kommando widmet, um es beim Beitritt zum Bündnis zu unterstützen. Das ist an und für sich schon außergewöhnlich.

Napolitano: 12:44

Er hat das Wort “unumkehrbar” wirklich nicht benutzt, aber wie ich schon sagte, taucht es in einem der Entwürfe auf, die seine Leute haben durchsickern lassen. Wie reagiert der Kreml auf all das?

Doctorow:

Nun, da ich kein Kreml-Insider bin, fällt es mir schwer, in deren Namen zu antworten. Das Beste, was ich tun kann, ist, dass ich mit sehr verantwortungsbewussten Leuten zu tun habe, die Kreml-Insider sind, und Herr Solovyov ist einer von ihnen. Wjatscheslaw Nikonow, der Enkel von Molotow, der ein eigenes Programm hat, “The Great Game”, zusammen mit Dmitri Simes Sr., ehemals Leiter des Nixon-Zentrums und jetzt in Moskau gut etabliert.

Das sind die Leute, denen ich zuhöre. Und alles in allem, seien wir ehrlich, müssen die Signale, die Moskau empfängt, für sie ebenso verwirrend sein wie für uns. Mein guter Freund Ray McGovern sagte vor ein paar Tagen, dass sich die Dinge zum Besseren wenden, denn wir haben die Nachricht erhalten, dass Zelensky bereit ist, die Russen bei der nächsten Runde seines Friedensgipfels dabei zu haben. Wir haben gehört, dass er bereit ist, die Unvermeidlichkeit zu akzeptieren, dass die Ukraine den Verlust von Gebieten, die Russland bereits erobert hat, anerkennen muss.

14:17

All dies klingt so, als ob Herr Zelensky auf den realistischen, vernünftigen Rat seiner Berater gehört hat, mit Russland Frieden zu schließen. Es kann gut sein, dass die Regierung in Washington mit ihren energischen Reden eine Entscheidung rückgängig machen will, die Zelensky getroffen hat, weil er erkannt hat, dass das Spiel vorbei ist und er zu viele seiner Leute verliert. Das könnte eine Erklärung sein. Auf jeden Fall stehen die Signale zwischen dem, was Zelensky vor ein paar Tagen als Realität anerkannt hat, und dem, was wir jetzt in Washington sehen, in krassem Widerspruch zueinander. Es ist sehr schwer zu sagen, wie die Dinge wirklich laufen. Und wenn es uns schwer fällt, dann fällt es, glaube ich, auch dem Kreml schwer.

Napolitano: 15:13

Ich würde gerne wissen, wie Sie die Reaktion des Kremls auf diese Art von Botschaft von Präsident Biden am Dienstag einschätzen. Schnitt Nummer sieben.

President Biden: 15:30

In Europa geht Putins Angriffskrieg gegen die Ukraine weiter. Und Putin will nichts Geringeres, nichts Geringeres als die totale Unterwerfung der Ukraine, die Beendigung der ukrainischen Demokratie, die Zerstörung der ukrainischen Kultur und die Auslöschung der Ukraine von der Landkarte. Und wir wissen, dass Putin auch nach der Ukraine nicht Halt machen wird. Aber täuschen Sie sich nicht: Die Ukraine kann und wird Putin aufhalten.

Napolitano: 16:02

Wie bitter ironisch und unangemessen seine Sprache ist, die suggeriert, dass Putin, Präsident Putin, die Demokratie in der Ukraine zerstören will, wo doch Joe Biden und seine Kumpels 2014 genau das getan haben.

Doctorow: 16:20

Ich stimme Ihnen voll und ganz zu, und seither sind sie auf demselben Weg. Wenn in der Ukraine auch nur ein Fünkchen Demokratie übrig ist, ist das nur Glück; denn die Vereinigten Staaten haben ihr Bestes getan, um den Elementen im und um den Präsidenten herum zu dienen, vor allem Neonazi-Elementen, die den Präsidenten seit 2014 kontrollieren und das Land so weit wie möglich von der Demokratie und allen Freiheiten wegführen. Es gibt keine Pressefreiheit und keine politische Freiheit in der Ukraine. Von der heutigen Ukraine als einer Demokratie zu sprechen, ist eine Beleidigung für jedermanns Intelligenz.

Napolitano: 17:06

Gibt es irgendwelche Ihnen bekannten Beweise für Putins Wunsch, Europa anzugreifen oder die alte Sowjetunion wiederaufzubauen? Oder ist die Mentalität von Joe Biden – ich weiß, Sie haben zwar einen Doktortitel, sind aber kein Psychiater – in der Zeit des Kalten Krieges stecken geblieben?

Doctorow: 17:29

Nun, er hat die Ära des Kalten Krieges nie hinter sich gelassen, was aus den Artikeln in der Zeitschrift “Foreign Affairs”, die zu Beginn seiner Kampagne für 2020 erschienen, deutlich hervorging. Sie basierten alle auf den Prämissen eines Kalten Krieges. Er hat sich also nicht sehr weit von dem entfernt, wo er sein ganzes politisches Leben lang gestanden hat. Er hat nur den Kontakt zur objektiven Realität verloren und kein Interesse an ihr gehabt. Das sind wunderbare politische Reden, um die Truppen zu versammeln, aber sie haben wenig mit der objektiven Realität zu tun. Er hat sich also nicht geändert. Die Umstände von Herrn Putin – man muss sich anschauen, was die Russen über die sowjetische Vergangenheit gesagt haben, unter sich, ohne jeden Versuch, das Denken außerhalb des Landes zu beeinflussen.

18:35

Herr Schirinowski war einer der größten Realisten und derjenige, der im russischen Staatsfernsehen wiederholt sagte, dass das Sowjetimperium parasitär gewesen sei und das russische Kernland ausgeplündert habe. Denn die Treue dieser Verbündeten wurde auf Schritt und Tritt erkauft.

Die russische Außenpolitik, die die russischen Nationalisten versuchen – das sind die Leute, von denen man annimmt, dass sie angeblich auf ein Imperium drängen – ist genau das Gegenteil. Sie wollen kein Imperium, weil sie wissen, dass Russland es sich nicht leisten kann. Sie möchten sich um ihr eigenes Volk kümmern und nicht um unterwürfige Völker, die nur deshalb unterwürfig sind, weil sie auf Russlands Kosten gekauft werden.

Napolitano: 19:29

Eine letzte Frage zur NATO, bevor wir zu einem anderen Thema übergehen. Präsident Zelensky hat offenbar Angst – ich nehme an, er glaubt, dass er noch im Amt sein wird –, dass Donald Trump zum Präsidenten gewählt werden und versuchen könnte, die Vereinigten Staaten aus der NATO zu entfernen. Ich war ziemlich überrascht, dass er das gesagt hat, aber hier ist er am Dienstag in Washington, Schnittnummer 16.

Zelensky: 20:00

Ich hoffe, dass die Vereinigten Staaten niemals ernsthaft daran denken werden, aus der NATO auszutreten. Ich denke schon. Aber das ist nicht meine Entscheidung, ich teile Ihnen nur meine Gedanken mit. Und ich hoffe, dass, wenn die Menschen in Amerika für Präsident Trump stimmen werden, ich hoffe, dass sich seine Politik gegenüber der Ukraine nicht ändern wird.

Napolitano:

Ich fand es sehr interessant, dass er das gesagt hat. Und natürlich versuchen die NATO-Staats- und Regierungschefs heute Morgen bei ihrem Frühstückstreffen – haben Sie diesen Ausdruck schon einmal gehört – die NATO Trump-sicher zu machen. Was sie tun können, um die Vereinigten Staaten und die NATO auf eine Weise zu verpflichten, die nicht rückgängig gemacht werden kann, wenn Donald Trump Präsident wird. Aber, Herr Professor, die Möglichkeit, dass Trump wieder ins Spiel kommt, muss sie beunruhigen, und seine Haltung zur NATO entspricht kaum der von Joe Biden.

Doctorow: 21:15

Ich glaube nicht, dass Mr. Trump versuchen würde, die NATO aufzulösen. Das würde ihn in enorme Kämpfe auf dem Capitol Hill verwickeln, die sein politisches Kapital aufzehren würden, ohne dass sich seine Position in Bezug auf den Krieg in der Ukraine und die amerikanische Außenpolitik im Allgemeinen nennenswert verbessern würde.

Alles, was er tun muss, ist, nicht zu unterstützen. Das heißt, keine zusätzlichen Mittel bereitzustellen, den Kongress nicht anzuflehen, Gelder für die Ukraine zu beschaffen und militärische Ausrüstung aus unseren Beständen zu liefern oder Aufträge an amerikanische Waffenhersteller für die Lieferung in die Ukraine zu erteilen. Er würde – indem er nichts tut – alles tun. Und das können sie nicht verhindern, Trump-sicher machen.

Napolitano 22:12

Und diese Zahl, die letzte Zählung dessen, was die Regierung von Joe Biden mit der überwältigenden Unterstützung des Kongresses bisher in die Ukraine geschickt hat, beläuft sich auf 175 Milliarden Dollar. Das ist außergewöhnlich. Und in welchem Zustand befindet sich das ukrainische Militär? In den letzten Zügen, meinen Sie nicht auch?

Doctorow: 22:38

Nicht ganz. Es ist ein großes Land, auch wenn es von früher 40 Millionen Einwohnern auf vielleicht 25 Millionen Einwohner geschrumpft ist. Aber wenn man sich die täglichen Kämpfe ansieht, selbst wenn, wie einige meiner Kollegen richtig sagten, die tägliche Tötungs- oder Verwundeten-Rate der ukrainischen Streitkräfte 2.000 Männer pro Tag aus dem Verkehr zieht. Es gibt immer noch genug Leute, die diese Lücken füllen.

Wenn man sich ansieht, was auf russischer Seite geschieht, muss man bedenken, dass dieser Krieg unser aller Denken verändert hat. Dieser Krieg hat vor Ort Technologien und Taktiken eingeführt, die einen großen Einfluss darauf haben, wie man die Stärke der einen oder anderen Seite misst. Ich denke da vor allem an die Drohnen. Die russischen Streitkräfte, die Artillerie und diese Gleitflugbomben sind wunderbar gegen massierte Truppen. Diejenigen meiner Kollegen, die anmerken, dass es keinen Platz für die Ausbildung ukrainischer Rekruten gibt, weil man keine Kasernen für sie finden kann, keine Felder, auf denen sie üben können, ohne von den Russen bombardiert zu werden. Das ist in Ordnung und ich bin sicher, dass es stimmt.

24:06

Dabei wird jedoch die Tatsache ignoriert, dass nur einige wenige Personen, die im Umgang mit Drohnen gut geschult sind, auf dem Schlachtfeld Chaos anrichten, was auch Russland beeinflusst. Auch Russland wird von ukrainischen Drohnen angegriffen, und zwar überall auf dem Schlachtfeld. Die Situation ist also komplizierter, als sie aussieht. Es geht nicht nur um die Anzahl der Männer.

Napolitano:

Sicherlich stimmen Sie, Herr Professor, nicht mit Joe Biden überein, wenn er sagt: “Machen Sie keinen Fehler, die Ukraine kann und wird Putin aufhalten.”

Doctorow:

Oh, das wird Putin nicht aufhalten. Das ist klar. Die Russen sind entschlossen. Die Russen haben eine große Zahl von Freiwilligen. Gehen Sie in der Geschichte ein wenig zurück. Dies ist nicht der erste Krieg, an dem Russland beteiligt ist. Seit mehreren hundert Jahren sind die Russen in gewaltige militärische Auseinandersetzungen verwickelt. Ich habe Herrn Putin mit Peter dem Großen verglichen, der ebenfalls 24, 25 Jahre an der Macht war. Auch er führte im Großen Nordischen Krieg Schlachten, die in jeder Hinsicht enorm kostspielig waren und Russland in die erste Reihe der europäischen Mächte stellten.

25:25

Herr Putin tut etwas Ähnliches. Aber die Art der Kriegsführung hat sich, wie ich sagte, geändert. Und eine große Anzahl von Männern ist nicht mehr entscheidend, wenn man diese technischen Geräte hat. Kann man die Russen aufhalten? Nein, das kann man nicht. Und sie rücken in 1, 2, 3 Kilometern pro Tag vor, fast auf der ganzen Front, aber nicht 5 Kilometer und nicht 10 Kilometer. Und sie tun es langsam, gerade um katastrophale Verluste zu vermeiden, die auf der offensiven Seite im Gegensatz zur defensiven Seite auftreten können.

Napolitano: 26:08

Wechseln wir das Thema: Professor Doctorow, befinden sich in diesem Moment chinesische Truppen in Weißrussland und führen Kriegsspiele durch?

Doctorow:

Dies wurde in den alternativen Medien berichtet, und es könnte durchaus wahr sein. Aber lassen Sie uns dies in einen Kontext stellen. Es wäre völlig logisch, wenn man bedenkt, was vor zwei Wochen in Astana geschehen ist. Erinnern Sie sich daran, dass Weißrussland Gastgeber des Gipfeltreffens der Shanghaier Organisation für Zusammenarbeit war, bei dem Weißrussland als zehntes Mitglied aufgenommen wurde. Dies ist eine außergewöhnliche Veränderung in der Zusammensetzung der Schanghai Organisation für Zusammenarbeit, die seit ihrer Gründung im Jahr 2001 die Sicherheit in Zentralasien stärken sollte, die durch die extremistischen Islamisten aus Afghanistan bedroht war.

27:20

Und diese Verstärkung wurde von ihren Nachbarn vorgenommen, auf der einen Seite China, auf der anderen Seite Russland, und auch als Mittel, um die Ambitionen dieser beiden Großmächte auf die Kontrolle dieses Gebiets zwischen ihnen zu stabilisieren. Davon ausgehend hat sie sich weiterentwickelt und ausgedehnt. Sie hat Indien, Pakistan und den Iran mit einbezogen. Und jetzt ist Weißrussland hinzugekommen. Wenn die Chinesen also nach Weißrussland fahren, muss man das in diesem Kontext sehen: Sie fahren in ein Land, das jetzt Mitglied der Sicherheitsvereinbarungen ist, die in den Gründungsdokumenten der Shanghai Organisation für Zusammenarbeit verankert sind.

Das ist natürlich bemerkenswert, weil es eine Botschaft an Europa – und natürlich an die unmittelbaren Nachbarn, Polen und die Ukraine – sendet: Wenn ihr glaubt, dass ihr die weißrussischen Grenzen überrennen werdet – und das ist durchaus denkbar, da die Polen viele Truppen in die Nähe der ukrainischen Grenze zusammengezogen haben und sie die gescheiterte Alternative zu Lukaschenko als Staatschef in Weißrussland unterstützen.

28:37

Wenn sie also versuchen würden, derartige Spielchen grenzübergreifend anzuzetteln, dass sie versuchen würden, Anschläge, die die Russen als Terroranschläge bezeichnen würden, jenseits der Grenze zu verüben, wie es die Ukrainer in der Provinz Belgorod bei Charkow getan haben – das ist durchaus denkbar. Die Anwesenheit dieser chinesischen Truppen suggeriert: “Meine Herren, ihr müsst nicht darauf warten, dass die Nordkoreaner kommen. Wir sind schon da.”

Napolitano:

Nun, Sie liefern uns immer wieder eine anregende Analyse, Professor Doctorow. Ich weiß das sehr zu schätzen. Ich werde zwei Wochen lang weg sein, aber ich hoffe, Sie können zurückkommen und Ihre regelmäßige wöchentliche Zeit mit uns Ende Juli fortsetzen. Vielen Dank, mein lieber Freund.

Doctorow:

Es ist mir eine große Freude.

Napolitano:

Ich danke Ihnen. Nur kurz, wer den Rest des heutigen Tages, der für uns alle sehr interessant ist, noch kommen wird. Heute Nachmittag um 15 Uhr: Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson. Um vier Uhr heute Nachmittag, Professor John Mearsheimer. Und zum Abschluss des Tages, um fünf Uhr, der immer sehenswerte Max Blumenthal,

29:53

Judge Napolitano für “Judging Freedom”.