Peace through strength and other American illusions
Once again, I am grateful to an Indian broadcaster, for inviting me to participate in a round table discussion of Donald Trump’s latest remarks on settling the Russia-Ukraine war by calling for an ‘immediate’ meeting with Vladimir Putin at which he expects to negotiate from a position of strength.
I expect that the link to the video of this broadcast will be passed along to me in a day or two by News X and I will post it then. But what I came up with as I prepared for my moments before the microphone merit sharing without delay.
The touchstone of this interview was the quote from Trump that justified his enthusiasm for meeting with Putin NOW. I paraphrase: ‘We have real power over Putin.” The logic is that in the prospective meeting the Russian leader will come to heel and agree to a cease fire without preconditions, placing Trump on his path to nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.
By curious coincidence, earlier today I started the culling of my lengthy manuscript for my about to be published ‘War Diaries’ which open with essays I wrote in the early spring of 2021, when Washington expressed great concern over the 80,000 troops that the Russians had amassed at the Ukrainian border as a warning against a savage Ukrainian attack on the rebellious Donbas regions that seemed to be approaching. The Biden team called for a meeting with Putin to defuse the tension and this led to their summit in Geneva in June 2021. But at the start of the initiative for this summit, the United States rolled out new harsh sanctions on Russia which were intended to show beyond all doubt who had the upper hand. It was to be ‘negotiations from a position of strength.’ Sound familiar?
Sad to say, it would appear that Donald Trump and his advisers have not bothered to open the State Department files for the period before and during the Biden-Putin summit. And if they did, they learned nothing.
From the day after the inauguration, Trump’s remarks about ending the war have shown utter ignorance not only about facts but about the culture and mindset of those with whom he proposes to negotiate. What he said about the Russians having been helpful in America’s winning WWII was taken as sacrilegious in Moscow. May 9th is the most important day in the calendar of most Russians today as they celebrate THEIR victory over Nazi Germany. They know that three-quarters of the Wehrmacht forces were engaged on the Eastern Front against Russia. Each and every Russian adult knows how many of their soldiers and civilians died in the war, and to hear Trump’s careless and ignorant statement on the subject could only undermine respect for him in advance of his planned meeting with the Russian leadership.
The notion implicit in Trump’s remarks today on how he will do a deal with Saudi Arabia to ensure that OPEC steps up oil exports to bring down the price and so force Russia to the negotiating table reveals his complete ignorance of economic realities, not to mention political realities. We are not living in 1985 when Reagan did such a deal with the Saudis, when the price of a barrel fell to $12 and the USSR economy was devastated. No, in today’s Russia, gas and oil revenues to the state are lower than the taxes it collects from the industrial economy, which are surging. Russia’s economy is far more diverse and healthier than it has been in more than 100 years. The balance of payments of Russia in 2024 was positive to the tune of $50 billion and there is little that Mr. Trump can do to change that fact.
Now, as for political realities, they are presently dictated by the military realities. When the United States and its friends in the EU declared in the spring of 2023 that the conflict would be settled on the field of battle, they little knew how right they were. IT IS BEING SETTLED THERE, definitively and in Russia’s favor. Don’t take my word for it. Just pick up the daily editions of the Russia-hating Financial Times and you see the fulsome reports of how the Ukrainian forces are being pushed back along the whole line of confrontation in disarray and at great cost in casualties. These are not debating points; they are incontrovertible facts that for some reason Mr. Donald Trump ignores.
Yes, there will likely be a summit between Trump and Putin. But the Russians are sure to insist that ‘sherpas’ from both sides prepare the way to ensure that something substantive will be achieved. And that something substantive will likely have nothing to do with Ukraine, which the Russians are solving without any help from Washington, thank you. It will be about some Yalta 2.0 and the spheres of influence of the world’s three super powers: the USA, Russia and China.
This panel discussion on the Indian global broadcaster News X (ITV India) was taped two days ago, when Presidents Xi and Putin spent one and a half hours in a video conference that covered a variety of topics, chief among them the new record for bilateral trade achieved in 2024 and common positions with respect to the Trump administration following the Trump-Xi telephone call that had taken place hours before.
I call attention to the statements by my fellow panelist Professor AK Pasha in New Delhi, who clearly is a BRICS supporter, who has a correct reading on Russia’s victorious position in the Ukraine war, and who does not project the anti-Chinese bias that you find so often in Indian broadcasting.
Putin and Xi Strengthen Ties Amid Trump’s Tough Stance on Russia and China | NewsX
This panel discussion on the Indian global broadcaster News X (ITV India) was taped two days ago, when Presidents Xi and Putin spent one and a half hours in a video conference that covered a variety of topics, chief among them the new record for bilateral trade achieved in 2024 and common positions with respect to the Trump administration following the Trump-Xi telephone call that had taken place hours before.
I call attention to the statements by my fellow panelist Professor AK Pasha in New Delhi, who clearly is a BRICS supporter, who has a correct reading on Russia’s victorious position in the Ukraine war, and who does not project the anti-Chinese bias that you find so often in Indian broadcasting.
Nima R. Alkhorshid: 0:05 Hi everybody, today is Thursday, January 23rd, 2025. Our friend Dr. Gilbert Doctorow is back with us. Welcome back, Gilbert.
Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: Thanks for having me.
Alkhorshid: Let’s get started with what Donald Trump said about the conflict in Ukraine. And it seems that he’s trying to picture Russia as being weak politically, economically, militarily. What is the main reason behind this sort of mindset or this sort of rhetoric on his part in your opinion?
Doctorow: 0:43 Well, when he’s saying this, he’s playing up to the predominant view of the American public. The American public, thanks to the misdirection, the propaganda that’s been disseminated incessantly by a succession of administrations, believes that Russia is today what it was in 1995, that it’s still flat on its back and unable to look after its interests and has a weak economy which is based on oil and gas exports, which if interrupted, will bring the country to its knees.
All of this is the common property of the American political establishment. So Mr. Trump is not saying anything that would not go down well with his audience. But America– and most of his audience is intended to be United States. So he can say all kinds of inanities, which he has done in the last few days, without fear of being called out as a fool.
1:52 Americans believe those stupidities and ignorant statements that he’s made, and so he goes risk-free. There are a few of us, of course, who know better, and we appear on shows like yours. And we try to spread some light in the darkness, but darkness it is around us. And Mr. Trump is part of the darkness in many of the statements he makes and has made since his, let’s call it a coronation, inauguration, because when you look at the pomp and circumstance of the events in the rotunda with all of the official greeters taking one after another of these eminences to their seats.
When you look at the oligarchs who were set up in front of senators and foreign dignitaries, and you look at the costumes of the military escorts, you wonder, are you in Moscow or are you in Washington? Because the things that Europeans and Russians in particular love pomp and circumstance, It turns out that Washingtonians love the same thing. So we saw a lot. We saw invocations of God by various reverends and one rabbi, which disturbed, put noses out of joint of some people in the West in general because God is out of fashion, but is still very much in fashion in the circle around Trump and the presence of the eminent, most famous and most successful pastor in American history, Billy Graham, his son delivering one of those invocations at the start of the ceremony.
3:47 This was a very special event. And this is the atmosphere in which Trump lives. And he believes he can say most anything he wants and get away with it. And for the most part, he’s successful. And when he says that Spain is in BRICS, so what? And Spain, Schmain — for Americans, Spain is a nice resort on a vacation trip to Europe from one of those things in their list, their boxes to be ticked.
And so he thinks it’s in BRICS, so what? These little mistakes, which are not so little, which regrettably put him in a category of utter uneducation and ignorance that I thought we only saw in the German cabinet and personified by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Baerbock, unfortunately we’re seeing them now reproduced in the Oval Office. But you and I and your guests have an obligation to the audience to clarify what is real and what is nonsense. And there’s a lot of nonsense in what he’s been saying. As you remarked, speaking about Russia as having a weak economy or dependent on oil and gas to pay the bills for the war, this is to misunderstand the country entirely.
4:59 It’s to be blind to what they have achieved, particularly in the last three years, when they have gone all-in on national sovereignty, all-in on reindustrialization, and on developing their military strength to the level where it is out-producing, out-fighting all of NATO with the United States combined. So they have achieved a great deal, and if he’s blind to that, he’ll be awakened when the Russians proceed to trample Ukraine into the dirt. They’re well on their way. The latest news from Russian reporting and the images they show of the destruction they are wreaking across the Ukraine and specific parts of the line of confrontation, they indicate that they really have the upper hand, that Ukrainian soldiers really are surrendering or being slaughtered, and that they are surrounding urban areas which they must take possession of, but they’re doing it by cutting off all lines of supply to these areas to ensure that the defenders, Ukrainian defenders, will flee by night and not stand and fight. The city of Pokrovsk is in that situation.
6:34 I can say that they’re now doing it. It’s very quiet. And our newspapers are not giving the full picture, but they’re doing the same thing around Kharkov in the northeast of Ukraine. They are cutting it off from the west, they’re surrounding from the west, cutting it off from supplies, so the city will not be able to resist. They will not have to go in and fight building by building.
The Russians are advancing with great speed and also with brilliant generalship. The case of Pokrovsk is most notable and it’s pointed out by none other than the Russia-hating “Financial Times”. I have some readers of my blogs who say, oh, why would you follow the “Financial Times”? Well, why wouldn’t you, knowing their disposition to praise Ukraine and to curse Russia at every turn, when they put on front page their description of how the Russian generals have unexpectedly moved north, northwest, past Pokrovsk towards Dnepropetrovsk, cutting off all lines of supply to that city and avoiding urban warfare.
7:53 That’s the “Financial Times” saying that. So that’s it. game, set, match. It is quite remarkable what Mr. Putin is doing, and for Trump to say, to repeat this foolishness of his advisors who’ve been saying this in the last couple of weeks, but now we’re hearing it from the horse’s mouth, from Trump himself, that the war is at a stalemate. It is not at all a stalemate.
Alkhorshid: 8:28 The other thing that he said that was so amazing to me, It was Russia wanted to capture or subsume all of Ukraine in one week, which wasn’t the case during the xxxx. Never, we’ve never heard about that from Russians. And many people are arguing, there are some people arguing that he wants to force Russians into negotiations. But it’s if that’s the case — Russia was talking about negotiations all along this conflict.
Since before this conflict started, when they went into Ukraine with a hundred thousand forces, they started negotiating in Istanbul. And right now, with the Biden administration, they were trying, they’re open to negotiate with the United States any time. But here comes this attitude on the part of Donald Trump, and it seems that these people are trying to convince us that they’re trying to force Russia into negotiation. What is that all about, in your opinion?
Doctorow: 9:46 Self-delusion. They don’t get it. They simply don’t get it. They cannot imagine that Russia has the strength that it has, the political strength, the unity that it is showing in the face of an enormous challenge, existential challenge. They cannot take it in.
They are bamboozled by their own ideological points. And this takes in not just the Bidenites, but also the Trumpets. They don’t get it that Russia’s political system is not the same as theirs, but in its own way is democratic. In its own way, it has massive popular support. It plays the same political games that they do, by feeding the public to ensure that they are sated, satisfied, and not restive.
10:47 Even last night, Putin went on television to update the information about the inflation that the country experienced in 2024. It had been estimated to be eight and a half percent, and when the Russian legislature and the federal officials put up their cost of living adjustments for pensions and salaries, which took effect on January 1st, they used that one. Now the final number has come in from the Bank of Russia, and Mr. Putin went on air to say that indeed it was 10 percent, and accordingly he has promised that in the next payment of pensions and salaries that are covered by these cost-of-living adjustments, they will make good for the difference in real inflation suffered last year in the payments that will be adjusted as from the 1st of January. So this attention to the things that concern the public and that make you either popular or a villain among your citizens, they are very attentive to them.
12:06 So Mr. Putin is doing very well on the popularity ratings, far, vastly better than anybody in the so-called democratic countries of the West. I’m speaking to you from Belgium. You know that from June of 2024, when they had the federal elections, the legislative elections in Belgium– as all across Europe, most countries of Europe had their legislative elections together with the elections for the European Parliament in June– since June, up to a week ago, there was no government here.
Well, it was a government, a caretaker government. They were negotiating all that time how to put together an alliance, a coalition that could maintain majority in the parliament. These types of negotiations go on in most all of European states, with exceptions. France is one outstanding exception to this rule. But in general, Europe is ruled by coalitions, which is not a formula for democracy.
13:14 Well, that’s a separate discussion. But they believe that– that is in the States particularly and in Western Europe also– that they are democratic and Russia is not democratic, that democratic states are strong and that non-democratic states, or autocracies, are fragile and therefore are aggressive. This is a whole ideology which has no basis in fact whatsoever. But this is the way they approach Mr. Putin and believe that his regime, not government, but regime is fragile.
Well, it isn’t, it’s quite strong, more resilient than any of the Western European countries is today. They’re all very fragile. As we saw in the collapse of the German government and its elections coming up on February 23rd. And as we know from the French, these are two leading states in the EU, and they both are very fragile. So the misunderstanding of Mr. Putin’s situation comes from these deep-seated misunderstandings about Russia in general, about democracy in general, where it is and where it isn’t.
Alkhorshid: 14:26 What do we know about the arms supply to the regime in Kiev? Is that increasing, reducing?
Doctorow: Well, when I said I’d like to emphasize that none of us has perfect vision, none of us has perfect information. And I am very happy to be in good company with some very outstanding military and political analysts who appear on your show and on one or two other leading talk shows and interview programs. And they are at odds. And nobody points that out. I may be a difficult personality because I do point out differences. I don’t believe that we in the alternative news media should be repeating exactly what we find so objectionable in mainstream, that is they’re all saying the same thing.
15:20 You don’t arrive at truth by looking over your shoulder and aligning yourself with what other people are saying. These two experts who I highly admire, I’m speaking about Scott Ritter and Larry Johnson, they were yesterday at odds in interpreting just the question you’re asking. Larry Johnson had produced information that so many people who were responsible, including the Deputy Secretary of Defense, who was responsible [for] oversight of all the military assistance to Ukraine, and has reportedly resigned, that she is joined by many dozens of officials who were fired by Trump’s orders. This, all of this suggesting that there’s going to be some tipping point in American aid to Ukraine. That is, Larry Johnson didn’t take that on fully as his own, but he was pointing in that direction.
15:20 At the same time, also yesterday, Scott Ritter was saying he doesn’t believe these numbers, but it’s improbable that dozens of people, 50 people or more, would be fired because very few of them actually had decision-making powers. They were simply executing orders and you don’t fire people for that. So he was undercutting those expectations and also undercut expectation coming from another widely listened to and read source, “Simplicius”, who was saying yesterday that contracts with logistics suppliers in Varnau, in Romania, who have been involved– in Poland, of course, Yeshov– who have been involved in transferring arms from the States and from Europe to Ukraine, that they have received no new requests for quotations or applications from the United States for continued services. The implication being that the United States is cutting off its arms deliveries to Ukraine.
17:24 Well, these were very welcome things to hear. When I first read it, I was quite impressed. But then Scott Ritter argued, and I think he was right, that this is disinformation, or it is misinterpreted, that this does not mean that the United States is cutting off arms. And indeed, if that were the case, what would we have heard from Zelensky yesterday in Davos? He wouldn’t have been talking about the need for 200,000 European soldiers to come and save the situation in Ukraine. He would have been screaming to the skies that he’s just been stabbed in the back by the United States.
And he’s not a fellow to mince words. He didn’t say anything about it. So we can assume fairly safely it did not happen. Or if it happened, It does not have the meaning that some people attribute to it, that this is the end of supplies to Ukraine. What is really going on? We don’t know. The only thing that we do know for sure is what we were talking about a few minutes ago, the foolish things that Mr. Trump was saying yesterday.
Alkhorshid: 18:36 And since you mentioned Zelensky in Davos, he went from Ukraine defending the West and to drawing a line between Europeans and the United States. It seems that right now he thinks that the United States is deciding about its policies separately from Europe. Why is he changing his rhetoric? Do you understand what he’s talking about?
Doctorow: He’s a schemer. He will do anything to bully his talking partners in the West into doing his bidding in supplying arms and now requesting, supplying boots on the ground in Ukraine. And there are people like Macron who will say anything in front of a microphone to be sure that they’re on the day’s headline news, who will support this notion that we have to put boots on the ground, whether you call it peacekeepers or whatever.
19:46 The real fact is, and I think there may be a few people in Europe who still have their brains connected, their minds and their heads connected to their backbone and who understand that that is World War III. I don’t think Mr. Putin has to explicitly restate this to them. It’s pretty clear. If they put boots on the ground, then they will be attacked with Oreshniki and whatever else the Russians want to throw at them, because then they are co-belligerents in the full sense of the word, and they will deserve what they get.
20:19 Now, I don’t think anybody in Europe wants to deserve that. Certainly that is an invitation for them to be thrown out of office at the soonest opportunity, and then that becomes clear to the broad public. There is nobody around me here in Belgium who wants to put one toe on the ground in Ukraine and to enter into a war against Russia. That is nonsense. And therefore, I don’t think that will last very long.
When it becomes clear that Mr. Trump also doesn’t want to put boots on the ground, also is inclined to stop the supply of arms to Ukraine, then I think the European defense of Ukraine will disintegrate in a matter of days. The only thing that holds it together is the mistaken belief that Trump is on their side.
Alkhorshid: 21:14 Sersky pointed out that there is no air defense system in Ukraine to intercept or actually missiles. And two other points in his talk was that the mobilization is not going to solve the situation of the army, that the Ukrainian army is in right now. And they’re not going to go on offensive, because they don’t have the capabilities, the manpower and all of that. Do you think this sort of information on the part of Serski’s getting, are they finding their way to Washington and to Donald Trump?
Doctorow: 21:55 I’m sure they are, because I would guess that he is positioning himself as the next president. The question is whether or not Trump can or should permit a transition without elections in Ukraine. I think it would be very stupid to do that, because he has an opportunity now of an off-ramp by saying, “Go to elections, or we’ll stop supporting you, because we’re supporting a democratic country which you no longer can claim to be.” If he loses that opportunity, if he wastes that opportunity, then he will be making a vast mistake.
22:38 It’s one thing to say transfer power to Sierski, and I can do that. I think that what Siersky is saying, and other generals are saying, is preparing the stage for a coup d’etat and liquidation of Zelensky, either his physical liquidation or the liquidation of his power and his imprisonment. I think this has been prepared by statements like the ones you just gave.
But it would be a terrible mistake if the United States let things stand there just by replacing one villain by a hero who will be a hero for a couple of days and no further. Nobody in Ukraine can implement the mobilization down to 18. It is unworkable, and it will lead to some kind of disaster, civic disorder. It is so vastly unpopular.
Alkhorshid: 23:39 Finally, we had the comprehensive deal between Iran and Russia signed on January 17th. What are they talking about in the Russian media, and what is the importance of this deal in your opinion?
Doctorow: Well, I have to say that my own comments about this are my own comments. I am not taking this from Russian media. Russian media have intentionally overlooked the aspects of this that I have written about and for obvious reasons. So I am being … I’m saying more than they dare say. But I say it anyway because nobody around me is saying it, which is very surprising. This plays very well into what Scott Ritter was saying yesterday when he was presented with the latest video of Lindsey Graham ranting, as usual, for trying to foment a war with Iran in the favor of Israel, with American support, which is essential, otherwise the Israelis can’t do the job. Well, what Scott Ritter was saying is that Trump is heading in absolutely the opposite direction and that he does not want to start a war with Iran.
25:01 That is precisely contradictory with what he said both before, during, and after his inauguration: that he is not looking to get into new wars. And I believe there have been some signals from the administration, from the incoming administration, certainly not from Biden, but from the incoming administration, from people around Trump to Tehran, that “Let’s talk.” This is not public, but it had to be private, and it certainly influenced the document which the Russians and the Iranians signed off last Friday. That is a very strange document, and it amazes me that no commentators here in the West have said anything about the strangeness that the Russians wouldn’t say. It is obvious because it is almost embarrassing what has happened.
26:07 It is contrary to the expectations of many people that these two countries, under pressure from the United States, would form a mutual defense pact similar to what Russia concluded with North Korea. This was supposed to be signed back in October at the BRICS summit in Kazan. It was not. It was delayed because of technical reasons, it was said at the time.
26:34 Well, the technical reasons certainly were there, and they still are there, by the way. That is to say, not everything has been resolved at the technical level, and I’ll explain in a minute why. But the technical issues were not what held up the agreement. It was the whole nature of the agreement, what they could agree upon. The Russians were obviously uncertain about the loyalty to the spirit of any cooperation agreement that they could expect from Iran, because of the flirtation with the West that was evident in the new president’s– the President of Iran– his opening statements when he took office were that he was looking for an accommodation with the West.
And that was destroyed. His policy was wrecked when Israel proceeded with killing of, it was Hamas I believe, an officer attending his, the President’s inauguration in Tehran. That made it impossible to proceed right then with any negotiations with the States, as the backers of Israel. However, I don’t think that in Moscow, they were satisfied that that was the end of the story.
28:08 They’ve had Mr. Putin’s team has had its own struggle with similarly-minded liberals with a capital “L” within the Russian elites who never were trustworthy and who were always looking for some kind of accommodation with the West for their own benefit, at the expense of the nation. Therefore there were Russian doubts. That’s the background. Now what immediately preceded this, I think that Tehran came clean and they said, “Yes, indeed, we are likely going to seek an accommodation with the United States, which puts an end to the sanctions which are so destructive in our economy.”
And the Russians cannot be unsympathetic to that reasoning, which is entirely logical. Mr. Putin and his team are realists. They don’t sit sore-minded, licking their wounds or dropping tears into their beer mug. They proceed with the facts as they are and try to make the best of it.
29:17 And that was what happened in the document that the two presidents signed in Moscow last Friday. It is the most peculiar strategic cooperation agreement I’ve ever seen. And even the Russian Sunday news wrap-up that is on Russian state television and it is directed by the chief manager of all Russian news — his program was opened with his reading Article 3 of this document, which he didn’t comment on, but it all speaks for itself. It states, I’m speaking by Dmitry Kusulaev, this article states that the two parties will not join forces with anyone who attacks the other one.
30:25 That is a very strange kind of mutual defense. “We will not join your enemy.” Okay. Then it goes on in similar vein than the next part of that same article, that they are not going to support subversive elements seeking to overthrow their fellow contracting party. Again, you never see such statements. This is in a cooperation agreement.
Then you go further down in this document, and you find articles which could have been written by Freedom House. They’re establishing both contracting parties as real upholders of the world order. They will both work to oppose international terrorism, international criminality, narcotics trafficking, human trafficking, all these worthy causes that America all pronounces, they both adopted it. Oh yes, and they both stand against the spread of nuclear weapons.
31:39 Now, “against the spread of…”, that’s as much as saying that both Russia and Iran stand against Iran’s obtaining nuclear weapons. These conditions were there only with one intent, from my view, and that is to assure Washington that Iran is ready for final peace negotiations, to end, to bury the hatchet.
And then there’s another clause, which is very important to the Russians. And I think this is the main reason why they signed this agreement. Assuming that it is likely, well possible, even likely that Iran and Washington will come to terms, that Washington will say that it is satisfied that Iran is not building nuclear weapons, and that it will duly raise the sanctions that have been crippling the Iranian economy for decades.
32:49 Under those conditions, Iran has a clause in its 20-year agreement with Russia, which is that neither side will sign up to sanctions of a third party against the other contracting party. That is saying, that’s telling Washington that if you think that you’re going to get Iran to sign up against Russia, the way that Russia was once induced to sign to sanctions against Iran, you’re mistaken. It won’t happen. So we will go into a friendship with the United States that is not directed against Russia.
So these are the terms, and they all, as I see it, this enforces the notion that there has been some background conversation between Tehran and Washington, which encourages Tehran– and the Russians with them– to believe that there will finally be a settlement, a peaceful settlement, to the differences between Iran and Washington and the United States that have existed since the Ayatollahs took over the country from the from the Shah in 1979.
Alkhorshid: 34:09 And I talked with Paul Craig Roberts the other day. He mentioned a very important point: that he believes that Iran is much more important than Ukraine for Russia, because of the extremism of these Wahhabis and these Islamists in the region. And it’s so important for the security of Russia. If there is a threat to Russia, that would be extremism coming from these sort of movements within the Islamic movements, extremism. Which is, by the way, it makes sense to me, because we know that Iran has the same sort of concern when it comes to these people.
If something happens– for Iran, the other important point is having some sort of balance between the East and the West. And Russia is the most important country in that view. Russia sees the same. Do you think that there are still the nature of the changes that are happening or is bringing these two countries together? Since the conflict in Ukraine started and the conflict in the Middle East.
But do you think the leadership in these two countries are not still getting to the point that they find, as you’ve mentioned, they have to be together, they have to work together in, I would say, a hundred percent, because the future would be brighter for them.
Doctorow: 35:52 Well, I don’t agree with Paul Craig Roberts on many things in geopolitics. He is an economist by his education and his professional life. I am a historian by my education. I come at these things with different analytical tools, and I arrive at different conclusions.
And most importantly, we are listening to different sources. I’m listening to first-hand sources, and he’s listening to second-hand sources. And that is, I think, his weakest point. He doesn’t have his own determination of things. He’s repeating what he gets from others.
So with all due respect, and he’s certainly has had an outstanding career, and I take nothing against that, he’s operating in an area that’s outside his competence. Let’s put that aside.
36:43 The issue that he raised is a real issue. I agree with that. But we are comparing apples and oranges. These are two threats to Russia that are very different. There is no question that the Russian Orientalists and political generalists will say that Russia has a great vulnerability in its southern borders, meaning the trans caucuses. In this respect, Paul Craig Roberts is right. But is it greater than the threat of the United States and NATO? No, I don’t believe so.
It is a hypothetical threat. It is not a real and present threat. What’s going on in the Ukraine war is a real and present threat. Moreover, the end result of this war, which we didn’t get to in our discussion, if it plays out as the Russians would like, is vastly more important to them than anything that can happen in relations with Iran. What am I talking about? Yes, the Russians have, the last two days, been having a good belly laugh at the follies of Donald Trump. They have been saying that reaching an agreement with this man on Ukraine is out of discussion.
38:05 However, they’re also saying, “Who needs him for Ukraine? We will solve Ukraine very nicely by ourselves, thank you. We still want to speak to Donald, but about something very different, about the other source of the present war, the NATO-Russia war, and that is security architecture of Europe.”
And that is Yalta 2. What they’re saying on Russian television, which your audience should appreciate, is that they see the limitations of American power, which they believe Donald Trump understands. He understands he wants to be a global hegemon, but he knows the United States does not have the wherewithal to keep its arms around the whole world. It doesn’t have the money, it doesn’t have the industrial base or whatever. It’s not 1945, when America counted 50% of global production. Those days are long, long past.
39:09 So what does Donald want to do? He wants to reassert Monroe Doctrine and establish the United States’ unrivaled, unquestioned hegemony over the Western hemisphere. That’s what the moves against Canada, Greenland, and Panama are all about. That’s what the Panama question, the angle of leveraging the Chinese out of the area is all about.
So what about the rest of the world? He is ready to do business with China and with Russia, who are the other– and MAYBE throw a bone to India– these are the other global powers, particularly China and Russia. India may be populous, but its military is not worth discussing, other than its nuclear bombs. China is, of course, the economic engine of the world and has a vast military of unknown capability.
40:17 Donald Trump is, in the view of these Russian analysts, ready for Yalta 2. That means we’d let Russia have buffers in Europe and elsewhere, and we’d let China have buffers, meaning South China Sea and all of this contested business about Taiwan would be set to one side. It’s entirely possible. I wouldn’t say probable or necessary, but these Russian analysts do have a point. It could come to that.
Alkhorshid: 40:55 Do you think that if Donald Trump decides to go and negotiate, go after some sort of negotiations with Russia, the European countries– it’s necessary to have European countries along with the United States doing that, or Donald Trump doesn’t care what the European countries want and he’s going to do whatever he wants, what is in his mind and for the benefit of the United States. Because as you know, the security architecture that Putin was talking about, it was between Russia and European countries. It’s not talking about, the United States is part of that politically, But it’s mainly about Russia and European countries.
Doctorow: 41:51 Well, in what I just was discussing, it’s more or less assumed that the United States would withdraw from NATO. But let me get to the bigger issue, because I omitted saying what else positive the Russians, let’s take Vladimir Solovyov, for example, have been saying about what is positive.
When you read the tea leaves or the coffee grounds, what is positive in an otherwise rather negative situation around Trump. What is positive is that he is looking not at the European Union. He always had a dim view of supranational organizations. Well, he’s pulling out of them wherever possible. His latest withdrawal from the Paris Accords and from the World Health Organization.
42:43 They believe that he has no respect for the EU. Of course, he never invited Ursula von der Leyen. That’s another proof of the esteem in which he holds the Brussels organization. He is interested in dealing with separate, sovereign European nations. And of course, the most sovereign of the nations are the leading economies in the EU.
And Germany may not be sovereign, really, as an occupied country, but he places a lot of emphasis on Germany. This suits the Russians fine. They’re very happy to see Mr. Trump approach Europe with a sledgehammer, break the conformity in the anti-Russian position that’s been dictated by these little Lilliputs, the Baltic states, pulling the big countries around by the nose to engage in anti-Russian– and finally into a war with Russia. So, for the Russian analysts who are saying this, they are delighted to see what the opportunity is to break up the common front in Europe, thanks to the sledgehammer of Donald Trump. That’s a positive thing.
44:05 Now as to these people like Solovyov, whose name I throw around and may not be so familiar to viewers of this program. I’d like to tell them to watch CNN. Watch CNN because they will see on the recent CNN, you know what they’re doing? They’re doing to Russia what Russia’s been doing to CNN and to Sky News and to Fox News for the last several years.
They’re putting up on the screen video spots from Solovyov’s program, from “60 Minutes”. Now, they’re unrepresentative and they’re very short. The Russians have very long excerpts from major news and they do it every day of the year, not just once or twice following the inauguration. But the CNN was, well, had a program which you can probably see today as well. What are the Russians saying about the inauguration? And they’re showing these programs. So they accept my basic premise that these particular, several leading talk shows are very good surrogates for what the Kremlin is thinking.
Alkhorshid: 45:15 Thank you so much, Gilbert, for being with us today. Great pleasure, as always.
Doctorow: My pleasure as well. Thanks so much.
Alkhorshid: 45:22 Thank you.
P.S. – A very good Russian voice over video of this interview has just been posted on the Russian internet.
It was a pleasure as always to have a discussion with Judge Andrew Napolitano that focused on how the Kremlin sees the latest statements from Donald Trump on how the Ukraine war will be settled. Indeed, while the Russian talk shows may mock Trump’s ignorant remarks and ultimatum to Putin in his Truth Social message yesterday, Vladimir Putin held back and remained silent. His last message to Trump was one of congratulations over his inauguration.
Putin is biding his time, ready to meet with Trump at an opportune time, most likely following the decimation of the Ukrainian armed forces that may well occur in the coming several weeks.
As readers of these pages know, I make extensive use of Russia’s leading news programs and political talk shows directed at their domestic audience for my presentations of what the country’s political elites are thinking.
At times I have received reader comments asking me to provide links to given programs that I found especially worthwhile, and usually there was disappointment from those same readers that these programs were available on line only in the original Russian language.
Well, my friends, I am pleased to inform you that one of the best news and analysis shows, Russia’s own Шестьдесять минутor Sixty Minutes is now available on youtube in an English voice over edition. Here is what I just found. It appears to be the original’s morning broadcast from today.
I expect viewers to confirm my own conclusion that these programs are vastly more professional and valuable to those seeking out Russian positions on world events than is RT, where foreign guest journalists and producers always had an unduly large influence on programming.
A word about the co-hosts: Yevgeny Popov has had a high-profile career in the Russian news group. He spent several years in New York as their bureau chief. Aside from his show time work, he is a member of the State Duma from the ruling party, United Russia. His wife, Olga Skabeyeva, is also a top-notch journalist though she can be fairly aggressive with panelists.
It is worth noting that in CNN’s latest news segment dedicated to ‘what Russian television is saying about the inauguration’ they have put up on the screen video spots taken from Sixty Minutes and also from the talk show Evening with Vladimir Solovyov. But whereas CNN has produced this montage exceptionally, the Russian television program show lengthy video excerpts from Fox News, Sky News, Deutsche Welle and other American and European broadcasters.
In this wide-ranging discussion of developments in international politics over the past week, we devoted particular attention to Donald Trump’s ultimatum to Vladimir Putin to sit down for peace talks with Ukraine OR ELSE expect sanctions and more sanctions. We also talked about the Comprehensive Strategic Cooperation Agreement signed between Iran and Russia: specifically what was so peculiar about the document and how it must be viewed as a preparation for the talks over normalization of relations that surely will come soon between Washington and Teheran.
I do my best to demonstrate how all commentators, myself included, are at their wits end to make sense out of the contradictory signals coming out of Trump and his nominees for the power positions in his administration with respect to foreign policy.
Ignorant and delusional: Trump proposes to continue the Biden policy of ramping up sanctions on Russia
In the past 24 hours, several leading voices in the Alternative Media have published information suggesting that Biden’s awful policy towards Russia over the Ukraine war is being overturned by the new President alongside the rest of the Biden ‘legacy.’
In his 21 January article on Sonar 21, Larry Johnson explains how the Pentagon ‘has reportedly fired or suspended all personnel directly responsible for managing military assistance to Ukraine.” Meanwhile the Pentagon’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, is said to have already resigned. But does this mark ‘the beginning of what some see as a strategic pivot’ as Johnson tells us?
On his substack platform, Simplicius76 makes the same point about firings and suspensions. To this he adds the following interesting news: “The US this morning in Washington, withdrew all applications to contractors for logistics through Rzeszow, Constanta and Varna. At NATO bases in Europe, all shipments to Ukraine have been suspended and closed.”
On the face of it, these dispatches are important and suggest light at the end of the tunnel of the Biden years. But then I wonder why the Russian news and analysis television programs have not said a word about all of this. Instead, they focused on Donald Trump’s remarks this morning on his Truth Social platform, which tells a very different story about the President’s intentions. And the Russians are not alone in ignoring the seemingly good news and directing all attention to the bad news that we find in Trump’s written statement. The Financial Times this evening has just published a lengthy article on this very subject.
Per the FT, Trump said he wants the Russians to enter into talks with the Ukrainians to end the war NOW, and if they do not agree he will punish them severely. He intends to impose still tougher sanctions on the Russian oil and gas industry and he will put very high tariffs ‘on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries.’
Russia’s Sixty Minutes program this afternoon discussed all of the points of possible punishment that Trump put into his Truth Social text. They laughed aloud at the idea of raising tariffs on Russian goods sold in the United States, since the total volume of Russian exports to the USA in 2024 was 350 million dollars, and much of that was for uranium which US power stations badly needed to stay operating. Th also ridiculed Trump for some foolish and ignorant statements that he made to journalists this morning: that he didn’t want to hurt the Russian people, since ‘Russia had helped us to win WWII,’ and that Russia had lost 60 million of its citizens in that war. For Russians, the question of who helped whom to win WWII is precisely the inverse, and their war dead, bad as they were, amounted to 26 million.
As for coming to the negotiating table with Zelensky, whom they do not recognize as the legitimate president of Ukraine given that his term expired 9 months ago, that is a nonstarter. Vladimir Putin has said repeatedly that the war will end on Russia’s terms with or without a negotiated document.
Accordingly, what we see here is not the ignorant and delusional notions about how the U.S. will dictate the end to the war given to the public by General Kellogg or Michael Waltz or Marco Rubio, but ignorant and delusional notions from President Trump himself. As of today, Trump is the laughing stock of Russian elites.
Unwissend und wahnhaft: Trump schlägt vor, die Biden-Politik der Verschärfung der Sanktionen gegen Russland fortzusetzen
In den letzten 24 Stunden haben mehrere führende Stimmen in den alternativen Medien Informationen veröffentlicht, die darauf hindeuten, dass Bidens schreckliche Politik gegenüber Russland im Zusammenhang mit dem Ukraine-Krieg vom neuen Präsidenten ebenso wie der Rest des „Erbes“ Bidens aufgegeben werde.
In seinem Artikel vom 21. Januar auf Sonar 21 erklärt Larry Johnson, wie das Pentagon „Berichten zufolge alle Mitarbeiter entlassen oder suspendiert hat, die direkt für die Verwaltung der Militärhilfe für die Ukraine verantwortlich sind“. Die stellvertretende Staatssekretärin des Pentagons für Russland, die Ukraine und Eurasien soll inzwischen bereits zurückgetreten sein. Aber markiert dies den „Beginn dessen, was manche als strategischen Wendepunkt betrachten“, wie Johnson uns sagt?
Auf seiner Substack-Plattform äußert sich Simplicius76 zum selben Thema, nämlich Entlassungen und Suspendierungen. Er fügt außerdem folgende interessante Neuigkeiten hinzu: „Die USA haben heute Morgen in Washington alle Anträge an Auftragnehmer für Logistik über Rzeszow, Constanta und Varna zurückgezogen. Auf NATO-Stützpunkten in Europa wurden alle Lieferungen in die Ukraine ausgesetzt und eingestellt.“
Auf den ersten Blick sind diese Meldungen wichtig und lassen Licht am Ende des Tunnels der Biden-Jahre erkennen. Aber dann frage ich mich, warum die russischen Nachrichten- und Analysefernsehprogramme kein Wort über all das gesagt haben. Stattdessen konzentrierten sie sich auf Donald Trumps Äußerungen heute Morgen auf seiner Plattform Truth Social, die eine ganz andere Geschichte über die Absichten des Präsidenten erzählen. Und die Russen sind nicht die Einzigen, die die scheinbar guten Nachrichten ignorieren und ihre ganze Aufmerksamkeit auf die schlechten Nachrichten richten, die wir in Trumps schriftlicher Erklärung finden. Die Financial Times hat heute Abend einen langen Artikel zu diesem Thema veröffentlicht.
Laut FT sagte Trump, er wolle, dass die Russen JETZT mit den Ukrainern in Gespräche treten, um den Krieg zu beenden, und wenn sie nicht zustimmen, werde er sie streng bestrafen. Er beabsichtigt, noch härtere Sanktionen gegen die russische Öl- und Gasindustrie zu verhängen, und er wird sehr hohe Zölle auf alles erheben, was Russland an die Vereinigten Staaten und verschiedene andere teilnehmende Länder verkauft.
In der Sendung „Sechzig Minuten“ des russischen Fernsehsenders wurden heute Nachmittag alle möglichen Strafmaßnahmen diskutiert, die Trump in seinem Text auf Truth Social angedeutet hatte. Sie lachten laut über die Idee, die Zölle auf in den Vereinigten Staaten verkaufte russische Waren zu erhöhen, da das Gesamtvolumen der russischen Exporte in die USA im Jahr 2024 350 Millionen Dollar betrug und ein Großteil davon auf Uran entfiel, das die US-amerikanischen Kraftwerke dringend benötigten, um in Betrieb zu bleiben. Er machte sich auch über Trump lustig, der heute Morgen gegenüber Journalisten einige dumme und ignorante Aussagen gemacht hatte: dass er dem russischen Volk nicht schaden wolle, da „Russland uns geholfen habe, den Zweiten Weltkrieg zu gewinnen“, und dass Russland in diesem Krieg 60 Millionen seiner Bürger verloren habe. Für die Russen ist die Frage, wer wem geholfen hat, den Zweiten Weltkrieg zu gewinnen, genau umgekehrt, und ihre Kriegstoten, so schlimm sie auch waren, beliefen sich auf 26 Millionen.
Was die Aufnahme von Verhandlungen mit Selensky betrifft, den sie nicht als legitimen Präsidenten der Ukraine anerkennen, da seine Amtszeit vor neun Monaten abgelaufen ist, so ist dies eine Nullnummer. Wladimir Putin hat wiederholt erklärt, dass der Krieg zu Russlands Bedingungen enden wird, mit oder ohne ein ausgehandeltes Dokument.
Dementsprechend sehen wir hier nicht die ignoranten und wahnhaften Vorstellungen darüber, wie die USA das Ende des Krieges diktieren werden, die General Kellogg, Michael Waltz oder Marco Rubio der Öffentlichkeit vermitteln, sondern ignorante und wahnhafte Vorstellungen von Präsident Trump selbst. Seit heute ist Trump das Gespött der russischen Eliten.
NewsX, Rishab Gulati: 20:29 Ending birthright citizenship is talked about during the campaign and post the election. He has not mentioned it today. It might happen. We don’t know. So now let me get Gilbert Doctorow in.
Gilbert Doctorow, what is the carrot and stick that can be applied for the countries of origin of these illegal immigrants for them to take them back?
Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: Well, you’re asking a foreign-policy question, and that, foreign policy, is my forte, but this question is particular, it’s not something that I have studied or want to comment on. I just would like to use this moment to say that there was surprisingly little in the way of foreign policy indications in this speech. Just a few hints here and there. Yes, he wants to take back the Panama Canal. And a little hint at perhaps Greenland, by mentioning that it’s an American tradition of territorial expansionism and praising McKinley and that golden age of American expansionism, which reached its peak, I suppose, under Teddy Roosevelt, who he also mentioned in passing.
21:34 But I would like to take a step back to the comments of the previous speaker on how the Americans across the board are in favor of expelling the illegal migrants and of closing the borders. Yes, Americans across the Republican board. The country is split 50-50. There’s no two ways about it — this is two countries we’re talking about. All of the values that Mr. Trump was celebrating are not shared by half the country. Expelling the foreigners, the illegal immigrants, protecting the borders, this is precisely what Biden did not do, not by accident but by intent.
And let’s be frank about it: the Democrats are globalists. Globalists believe in free movement of people. This is not an accident, it is an ideology and Mr. Trump stands against that ideology.
NewsX: 22:31 Okay, now regardless of ideology or not, now we are in it. Now let’s take an example, Mr. Doctorow, of who all has attended the inaugural ceremony, because the issue of illegal immigration, immigration, migrants is an issue wherever we are sitting in the world. It is an issue for me in politics here in this country, in India, because we have immigration coming in from our neighboring states. So, by roping in a Nigel Farage, the only British politician invited and invited to all the inaugural balls. The German Chancellor, not there; the UK Prime Minister who has been in Ukraine sending a different note just a few days ago. not there.
23:10 The recent comments of Elon, Elon will have some sort of a cabinet rank position now in government, we suspect, on what he said about Germany and other places. What is it setting the trend, even though it is not a foreign-policy-specific issue, but certainly it is an administration indicating of what they feel are their friends globally and who they’re not.
Doctorow: 23:35 It is too early to draw any conclusions or to make any projections on what the foreign policy of Mr. Trump will be. The only thing that resembled a foreign policy statement in the speech was his statement that he wants to make America still more exceptional.
Regrettably, that’s the one thing the country needs last. It is a rejection of a multipolar world. It is an assertion of American global hegemony in a different form, but it comes to the same thing as Mr. Biden’s globalism. This is the problem, and it’s a problem for you in India as well as the rest of the world. If America is going to dictate, which is what Mr. Trump is doing in his approach to the Panama Canal or in his approach to Greenland, then the whole world is going to have problems.
NewsX: 24:26 Well, I can tell you, Mr. Doctorow, that George Soros is a problem for us here in India, and Biden just gave him a US Presidential Medal of Freedom. Gosh knows why. So, you know, maybe our definition of problems is a bit different.
————
NewsX: 34:35 Now, on that note, let me now pick up another tangent because there are global affairs, and let me get Gilbert Doctorow into this. Gilbert Doctorow, you have just heard Donald Trump announce a few things. First, he calls January 20th to be declared, I am sure by supporters, as Liberation Day. He says, “I want to be remembered as a man of peace. We will build the greatest armed forces, but we will not judge ourselves by the battles we win, but the wars that we don’t fight and don’t get stuck in defending other people’s borders.” That’s pretty clear. What’s it indicating?
Doctorow: 35:12 Well, it’s not entirely clear what it’s indicating, because one of the, the problem with the American defense budget– and you’re speaking about what, 20 percent of the total US budget.
NewsX: 800 billion dollars, yes.
Doctorow: 800 billion dollars.
35:25 The problem with that is the bases around the world, all of which support the notion of America’s global policeman role. They also provide America with wars everywhere, because it puts its heavy thumb on the balance in every country where those bases are, and gets involved in local conflicts, in local struggles for power. So if you want to cut the budget, it’s very nice to speak about downsizing the bureaucracy. But that isn’t addressing the really big numbers. Five billion dollars here. These are … errors in bookkeeping.
36:09 When you look at the federal defense budget, the defense budget can be cut drastically if we stop paying for toilet paper for all those bases around the world and spend some money on developing advanced cutting-edge technologies to catch up with a country like Russia, which has done a great deal on a budget, defense budget, that was 10 times less than the United States. So there is a vast opportunity to save, and to become the– have a legacy of peace and unifier, which were also part of his address today.
NewsX: 36:43 Okay, 750 basis the Americans have. The next in line of memory serves me right is the UK, which still has a hundred plus. For reference to context, the Chinese have maybe two or three. So that puts it, power projection, in perspective [for] people watching. But okay, let’s come down. He doesn’t want to fight other people’s wars. What’s he saying? What does that tell us about Ukraine? Is that now done? Can Ukraine still expect monies to be coming in from the Americas?
Doctorow: 37:15 Very unlikely. Everything leading up to this day, the statements that he has made in the last two weeks in particular, indicate that he wants to stop the funding. There are two initiatives that I see going through the political establishment of the States right now. One is the question of continuing support. And the second is– which is made contingent on the Ukrainians taking the mobilization age down from 25 to 18. And the second issue is that they have elections. I think the way out, the off-ramp for Mr. Trump, is to insist on the elections, because the regime in Kiev will collapse. Mr. Zelensky has no chance of re-election. And that will end the American obligation to defend a country that is proving itself to be anything but a democracy.
NewsX: 38:08 Tough one. Scot Faulkner: on Ukraine.
Scot Faulkner: What’s unfortunate with Ukraine is that no matter what Biden said, he didn’t give them the right equipment at the right time. And of course the only reason that Russia invaded Ukraine was our weakness and incompetence in getting out of Afghanistan. There are ripple effects. When you start to look at the world, you have to think of it holistically, because our enemies think of it holistically.
38:35 They’re all interconnected. North Korea, Iran, China, Russia, and all the other Islamic terrorist organizations, they’re all interconnected. We need to start pulling the threads out on one of them, and all the rest will come to heel. So I’m looking forward to Saudi Arabia and Israel coming, expanding the Abraham Accords. I’m looking at us removing all of the supports that Biden put in place for Iran and bringing them to heel.
39:06 I’m looking forward to a robust American energy policy, pulling the revenue rug out from under Russia. I think all these pieces are going to all interconnect. And Ukraine in particular, I mean, that’s obviously at the front line, but they need better equipment than they have. They’ve been doing amazing things with drones and robots and we should be looking at that for modernizing our own military.
NewsX: 39:35 They’ve changed the way all of us perceive war, drone warfare, all the experiential lessons are being learned in the Ukraine fronts as we speak, and that applies for all of us. Daniel Wagner, quick thoughts on Ukraine. I know that our time is short.
Daniel Wagner: 39:55 My view also is that the funding is very unlikely to continue. The prevailing view in Washington these days, certainly from today, seems to be that the Europeans should take care of the funding. It’s on their doorstep. And that is what the Europeans are going to have to do if they want to continue this war, because I really don’t see the support in the US Congress.
Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus) Was sagen die russischen Eliten über Donald Trumps Antrittsrede? Bevor ich auf die Ansichten des russischen politischen Establishments zu Trumps Rede eingehe, möchte ich zunächst einige weitere Anmerkungen zu meinen gestrigen ersten Beobachtungen machen, die ich unmittelbar nach seiner Rede verfasst habe. Diese sind eine Reaktion auf mehrere Kommentare, die von Lesern eingesandt wurden. Im politischen Sprachgebrauch der USA gibt es eine weit verbreitete zynische Erklärung für Bündnisse mit dem Teufel: „Er mag ein Mistkerl sein, aber er ist unser Mistkerl.“ So ist es auch mit meinen Gefühlen gegenüber Trump, für den ich im November tatsächlich meine Stimme in der Briefwahl abgegeben habe. Er war damals nicht mein Held und ist es auch heute nicht. Aber er war die beste Option, die sich bot, und er hatte einige positive persönliche Eigenschaften, die ihn liebenswert machen, auch wenn seine schikanöse Art, seine Dreistigkeit und Unberechenbarkeit einem unter die Haut gehen können. Die erste seiner bewundernswerten Eigenschaften ist Mut. Die Welt wurde Zeuge, wie er nach einer Wahlveranstaltung in Pennsylvania, bei der ihm die Kugel eines Möchtegern-Attentäters fast das Leben gekostet hätte, die Faust in die Luft streckte und versprach, weiterzukämpfen. Wer von den Kandidaten für ein hohes Amt in Amerika oder anderswo hätte angesichts der bösartigen Verfolgung, die das US-Justizministerium gegen ihn entfesselt hat, und der täglichen Verleumdungen, die die liberalen Mainstream-Medien gegen ihn ausspucken, überleben, ja sogar aufblühen können? Der gefeierte russische Autor Bulgakow lässt Christus in seinem Roman „Der Meister und Margarita“ sagen, dass die schlimmste der Todsünden die Feigheit sei. Leider sind allzu viele der führenden Politiker der Welt Feiglinge. 25 der 27 Staats- und Regierungschefs der EU-Mitgliedstaaten sind genau das. Biden, Blinken und Sullivan sind allesamt nachweislich feige. Das erklärt, warum sie Kiew mit tödlichen Waffen versorgen, damit sie sich nicht in einem offenen Krieg mit Russland wiederfinden, von dem sie aus gutem Grund erwarten, dass er sie frühzeitig ins Grab bringen könnte. Eine weitere sehr positive persönliche Eigenschaft des neu eingesetzten 47. Präsidenten ist gesunder Menschenverstand und Pragmatismus, die einst die Markenzeichen der Nation waren, aber seit mindestens 30 Jahren auf dem Altar einer „progressiven“ Ideologie und politischer Korrektheit geopfert werden. Wie Trump gestern stolz verkündete, gibt es jetzt wieder zwei Geschlechter: männlich und weiblich. Die farbenblinde Beurteilung von Verdiensten soll nun wieder als Hauptkriterium für Einstellungen und Beförderungen gelten, während die Ideologie des „Woke“, die positive Diskriminierung, die sogenannte Inklusivität und die Vielfalt von Trump in seinen ersten Durchführungsverordnungen auf den Schrotthaufen gescheiterter sozialwissenschaftlicher Experimente geworfen werden. So weit, so gut. Was jedoch die Außenpolitik betrifft, die in diesem Moment einer beispiellosen Konfrontation und eines grenzwertigen Bewegungskrieges zwischen der von den USA geführten NATO und Russland für unser aller Überleben von entscheidender Bedeutung ist, haben wir keine klare Vorstellung davon, was Trump und seine Regierung tun werden, um einen gerechten und dauerhaften Frieden zu ermöglichen, der für den Gewinner, Russland, akzeptabel ist. Der gleiche Mangel an Klarheit betrifft den anderen globalen Krisenherd, den Nahen Osten, der ebenfalls leicht zu einem globalen Krieg eskalieren kann. Wird Trump die Waffenlieferungen der USA an Israel fortsetzen, wenn Netanjahu seinen Völkermord in Gaza am Ende der sechswöchigen Phase 1 wieder aufnimmt? Was meinte er gestern, als er auf die Fragen der Reporter zu diesem Thema mit den Worten „Es ist ihr Krieg, nicht unserer“ antwortete? Wir wissen es nicht und die Prognosen, die von meinen Kollegen in der Expertengemeinschaft abgegeben werden, sind nichts weiter als Spekulationen. Aus diesen Gründen ist es viel zu früh, um sich darüber zu freuen oder seine Bestürzung darüber auszudrücken, was „unser Hurensohn“ im Amt tun wird. ***** Eine Leserin meines gestrigen Essays fragte, was falsch daran sei, dass Trump sagt, er werde „Amerika noch außergewöhnlicher machen“. Schließlich, so argumentierte sie, sei es doch nichts Falsches daran, „außergewöhnlich“ zu sein. Geht man von der Wörterbuchbedeutung von „außergewöhnlich“ aus, ist daran nichts auszusetzen. Im amerikanischen politischen Lexikon hat das Wort jedoch eine sehr hässliche Färbung angenommen. Vielleicht ist Madeleine Albright, Außenministerin in der zweiten Amtszeit der Clinton-Regierung, dafür verantwortlich, als sie beschrieb, dass Amerika größer sei als andere, weiter blicke und natürlich berechtigt sei, für den Rest der Welt über den Weg nach vorne zu entscheiden. Diese Art von Exzeptionalismus war für jedes Land, das Washington zu reformieren und in eine ordnungsgemäße demokratische Regierungsform zu bringen beschloss, eine Katastrophe. Und da sich meine Essays in der Regel auf russische Themen konzentrieren, möchte ich an dieser Stelle hinzufügen, dass der Exzeptionalismus auch ein Konzept ist, das Wladimir Putin ausdrücklich ablehnt. Er tat dies sogar, als er sich Barack Obama angenähert und einer Lösung des Problems der syrischen Chemiewaffen zugestimmt hatte. Ihre Beziehungen seien gut, sagte er, aber er sei sehr kritisch gegenüber Obamas Beharren auf dem amerikanischen Exzeptionalismus. Nein, sagte Putin damals und sagt es heute wieder – alle Länder, ob groß oder klein, haben gleichermaßen Anspruch auf Respekt und Berücksichtigung ihrer Interessen. Ich habe noch keine Stellungnahme aus dem Kreml zu Trumps gestriger Anhebung des Exzeptionalismus-Standards gehört. Aber ich bin sicher, dass dies nicht gut angekommen ist. Was das politische Establishment Russlands betrifft, so halte ich die führenden politischen Talkshows wie üblich für repräsentativ für dessen Denkweise. Zu den regelmäßigen Diskussionsteilnehmern gehören Duma-Abgeordnete sowohl der Regierungs- als auch der Oppositionsparteien sowie führende Amerikanisten, Orientalisten und andere relevante Experten der wichtigsten Denkfabriken und Universitäten in Moskau. Gestern, nach der Amtseinführung, berichtete nur die Sendung „Abend mit with Vladimir Solovyov“, die spät am Tag Moskauer Zeit aufgezeichnet wird, über Trumps Rede. In meinem letzten Bericht über Solovyov hatte ich seine neu entdeckte Begeisterung für Trump erwähnt, die darauf zurückzuführen war, dass Trump die Erlaubnis für die Ukraine, in Amerika hergestellte Raketen tief nach Russland abzufeuern, als „dumm und sehr gefährlich“ bezeichnet hatte. Die Sendung von gestern Abend hat gezeigt, dass dieser Enthusiasmus nur von kurzer Dauer war. Nach Anhörung von Trumps Rede kamen der Moderator und seine Gäste zu dem Schluss, dass es unwahrscheinlich ist, dass mit dem „America First“-Trump irgendwelche Vereinbarungen getroffen werden können. Mit ihm reden, ja. Aber erwarten Sie nicht, dass man sich auf etwas Wesentliches einigen kann. Solovyov & Company waren sich jedoch einig, dass Trumps Amtszeit Russland zumindest einen Vorteil bringen wird: Er steht für souveräne Staaten und hat keine Sympathien für supranationale Konstrukte wie die EU; dieser Ansatz wird die derzeitige europäische Einheit in Bezug auf die antirussische Politik sprengen. Das heutige Große Spiel mit Vyacheslav Nikonov wurde durch den starken Unterton des persönlichen und nationalen Egoismus in Trumps Rede gekennzeichnet, der mit einem russischen Wort beschrieben wird, das sich am besten mit ‘I, me, me, I’ („Ich, ich, und wieder ich“) ins Englische übersetzen lässt. Positiv zu vermerken ist, dass sie in seiner Rede einen Beweis dafür sahen, dass Trump postglobalistisch ist, was ihn in eine Reihe mit Putin und Xi stellt. Die Diskussionsteilnehmer zeigten sich interessiert an Trumps Ankündigung, die Entwicklungshilfe der USA für Länder auf der ganzen Welt für 90 Tage einzufrieren. Sie hoffen, dass dies auch für die Ukraine gilt, so unwahrscheinlich das auch sein mag.
NewsX (India): Trump 2.0: What’s Donald Trump’s Plan for the Future?
The Indian global broadcaster NewsX yesterday evening put out a live panel discussion on the inaugurations addressing several key issues facing the new administration how to cut the unsupportable the 1.3 trillion dollar budgetary deficit of 2024.
On the right of the screen are images from the inauguration speeches On the left is the panel discussion
Gilbert Doctorow 